The Captain (June25)

50, 60 or 70 cars streaming below in the time it took to cross the old footbridge. Four lanes either direction, 80kms per hour with perhaps 25m in length. The foundations for the new footbridge had been prepared one side, which would no doubt be a handsomer form than the old that linked with the Federation Trail stretching to Werribee, 25kms out. Various memories of the old bridge during schooldays. Poor young George Golic, couple years below in the junior forms, had been rescued once when he was set upon by a bigger boy. In fact it may have been all playfulness there at the entryway, but nevertheless, whimpy little George was spared  anything further that day and the perpetrator given a fright. You didn’t mess with compatriots when the school football captain was passing, fella! A spiky-haired Pole or Ukrainian, getting too big for his boots. George’s father was a Serb, an older man who had married a younger German woman once the labour camps had been liberated. For the German fray after the war there had been a shortage of men. In Australia after that wave of post-war immigration the reverse was found, which resulted in chaps circling blonde, mismatched Mrs Golic. In that same year near where George had been rescued the football captain had once been ambushed by a group of lads from an opposing team, an inferior outfit which had been well beaten some weeks previously. At the head of this party lying in wait was the tough nut Joe Sacco, who had already left school and had a job at one of the meatworks, At Smorgans and the others there boning & slicing knives were employed. There were three or four of the Seddon lads, with Joe at their head, awaiting their chance. Returning from lunch at home and coming upon the party, wisest course was to get your ass well outta there, pronto. Speedily down Fogarty Avenue to the creek and around back home, the long way round. A stumpy Maltese stood little chance against a thoroughbred with a head start. Fisticuffs might have been another matter. With the cars hurtling beneath there was often a jet risen in the big Northern sky, winging from the airport. After the best part of a decade sequestered in the concrete canyons of Singapore, the wide vista dropped like a screen over your eyeballs. Following the low winter skies further expanse was offered early autumn, an encouraging, calming field of limitless scope. Up on the sides of the village shepherding, up at the high summer pastures, all the ancestors across the generations had entered the great skies above and travelled between the clouds with their herds. One old prorok, prophet from Village Uble was famously said to have anticipated the advent of the aeroplane, claiming at some point early in the previous century that a day would arrive when donkeys, if not pigs, would fly. Back at the house two possums had been caught in the hire cage and taken down to the gum-lined rail-line at the bottom of the street. Despite this, the quiet mocking screech behind the plaster at the foot of the stairs continued mornings going down for breakfast. What kind of animal was that? How did it get in and out of the roof? The thinking now was that perhaps a shrill may have been involved. A couple evenings ago checking the seal on a presumed access point up on the ridge of the roof, a dark shadow had suddenly flitted below from the direction of the neighbour behind. Wha! Whoooo!… All uncanny quick-time. Wings had beat under the alcove of the house, glossy and darkly black. At that speed the sudden rise that would have been needed to avoid crashing into the closed gate around the corner of the Studio would have been quite something to behold. Hard down on the joystick and eyes shut tight, Birdie! What was most striking was that the bird had passed hard-by the lounge-room windows in front, between them and the thick posts holding the room above. Hard by the near post, left at the corner in order to avoid the entry porch and ninety degrees! An eye of an needle threaded around that corner, at such reckless speed.