Pieta

The studied pieta working for the chap against the Myers’ window today close to the old GPO. Head bowed, dark black hair falling loose and hanging on his forehead. Averted, hidden eyes was taking on now, becoming common among the fraternity. Even many of the harder lads from the tough school had picked it up. This chap though has in addition his head turned to the side, skewed and twisted as if caught in a death throe. 

Bowed downcast and contorted. With the sparse black beard the posture highly suggestive. Rather striking. 

And so it quickly proves, drawing a  young girl with an ALPHAVILLE bag, who drops a full to overflowing fistful of coin into the receptacle. Could not have been less than $10 in the clattering, for all the predominance of silver. 

Nothing on the other side. Not a flicker. That would break the spell totally. 

More than likely the girl adopts them like the rest of us. A fellow this good more than likely to score one of them one of these days—like the hobos in Central Park the Hippies.

            Sure enough, thirty metres on, the Gippslander just turned from a seated shopper who had denied him. The winter coat made it a hard foot-slog in that weather, and it shows. (The other sported a royal blue shirt. The less scruffy the better in the middle of town.)

            — That’s Wayne, Gippslander informs when the news was conveyed.

            One of his usual chin nods accompanying. 

It’s been a few weeks now. Gippslander relieved to find one of his regulars. 

Scored nothing all day and needs $8 for the train fare to Taralgon to see the kids. 

On earlier meetings the Gippslander said he hadn’t seen the kids for nearly a year. Today he’s more vague. 

Sunburnt. Light coloured jacket dirty. An awkward gait after these months of living rough and sleeping in the tram shelter up near the Zoo. 

Not much to recommend the Gippslander. Looks a drunk at a glance.

            In fact Wayne is the one further along the Mall with the pictures spread around him. The pics were a new development for Wayne, his artistic talent unapparent in years past. 

It had been Wayne who had been one of the first to adopt that crestfallen, pained bow. In those early days he had used a cowl-like hood summer and winter. Not a standard hoodie; something more ecclesiastical. 

Bowed at the pavement, penitent par excellence. Passers-by couldn't help themselves back then. Wayne did well. Sometimes late in the afternoon you saw him up near the market, making off for one of the half-way houses up that way presumably.

            The other, the blue shirt, Gippslander doesn’t know. New on the scene. 

Nothing of  peevishness noticeable; the Gippslander doesn't begrudge the takings. 

Chin wagging a number of times. No glass jaw that. Nothing brittle about the Gippslander. 

The tilt of head, straight gaze, the leading with the chin from his corner—the Gippslander's petition stops you in your tracks and stays with you days after.

                                                                                    Bourke Street Mall, October 2010