The Grégoires (published mid-July23 NWWQ as part of a trio, titled “These I Commend To Thee”)

For Big Issue Greg pretty much the most that could be done was note the particulars the man had somehow been prompted to divulge in the entrance of the café, standing a few feet away from the table. Two of his uncles had been murdered. One, if it was gotten right, after raping and possibly killing an eighty year old woman. (Certainly a near family member had perpetrated the rape.) Greg himself was adopted and beaten by his step-father. There had been some other horror too touching the father that had slipped. Edged in somehow afterward, Greg suggested he had been lucky. It was a kind of correction that was inserted in order not to give the listener a false impression. Greg had played lead in a number of bands and was no slouch on the drums either. An encounter once with Ross Wilson of Daddy Cool had been memorable. To a shout-out of Greg’s at a sighting somewhere, Ross had given warm thumbs-up—imitated for us by the keen fan, Big Issue Greg. Yesterday the man had taken a seat after initially only intending to stop in order to ask the other Greg whether he had got it right some days before, that the latter had once roadied for Skyhooks. Indeed, ‘twas the case, confirmed by the other, the plumber Greg. Skyhooks was a bigger band than even Daddy Cool. The pair of Gregs was the same age and shared the musical heritage of the era. Over the café speakers some kind of tune had come on, by Heat or Heat Something. (It wasn’t Canned Heat.) A number that was favoured more by roadie/plumber Greg than the other. Tall, lanky Big Issue Greg was left a trifle cool there. Listen to the backing, the enthusiastic Greg suggested. Something like soothing ocean waves for chillin, seemed to be the point. Skyhooks Roadie Greg the plumber hailed from Mordie; the other Greg Altona. Opposite sides of the bay and the lads finding themselves at the geographic midpoint in St Kilda, joined by music. So far as riding the ocean and those particular musical waves went, that had been plumber Greg; not the other. Like one or two other street people, lanky Big Issue Greg with the horrors in the family usually only came into Truffles for the conveniences. Pan Jarik the host was a good sort, raising no objection. It was one of the reasons the cafe was so congenial. Tall, lanky Greg sold the Big Issue mags in the passage by the pharmacy, where plumber Greg mornings picked up his done. They were both local fixtures, adopted pretty nicely by many of the denizens. The former had come from a settled, orderly home environment; horror came later for that Greg with his gal Gaye’s kidney failure. Big Issue Greg maintained he had never done anything more than weed, and just then the other didn’t have a mind to divulge anything further his side. 

 

 

         St. Kilda, Melbourne 

 

Publication news: “Land of Brothers” (Jakarta)

 

Hello all

Another piece of mine has just been published by Frederick Barthelme at New World Writing in the States again.

This one delivers the introduction to my neighbourhood in Jakarta, Tanah Abang, – Land of Brothers in English. The first trip took place in 2013 and included a venture into one of the so-called slums. I hope to get back there by mid-year.

5.4k words. Hope you like it. 

Free access—

https://newworldwriting.net/pavle-radonic-land-of-brothers/

Zdravo i veseli bili / Healthy & merry may you all be

Pavle

P. S. Primary email: pavlelazarev@hotmail.com

Let There Be Sound update Oct23

A hidden magpie on arrival at Faisal’s. The foliage overhead on Nicholson Street was dense now; in another few years the strip would draw the crowds. Over the last 4-5 years, identifying that particular warbler had been more or less instantaneous after Robbie Bell’s memorable imitation back in ‘17. With eight years on the equator the earlier calling from the top of the Norfolk Pine in Bab’s front yard had been more or less forgotten, certainly the distinct timbre and melody. There had been one or two masterful mimics of birdcalls in Singapore; and many more no doubt who had hidden their talent. Only a few weeks before Deng the Sudanese had drifted off from the Nicholson table to his teen cowherd years by the marshes and waterways back home, quietly reprising the song of some unnameable bird hidden in that past life. What was so striking about Robbie’s performance in that first Spring meeting was his revelation that as a schoolboy he had spent two years mute. There had been some bullying in the early years of secondary school, something clearly devastating for the lad. Robbie still had an occasional stutter, yet on the phone the voice was radio announcer smooth. During the mute period you would bet Robbie had been listening hard, to birds and all other aural information.