The Grégoires (published July23 NWWQ)

published by New World Writing Quarterly 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. 

https://newworldwriting.net/pavle-radonic-these-i-commend-to-thee/

 

 

                          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 (July25)

A hidden magpie on arrival at Faisal’s. The foliage overhead on Nicholson was dense now, the branches stretching wide; in another few years the strip would draw better custom. Over the last 4-5 years identifying that particular warbler had been more or less immediate 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 & melody. There had been one or two masterful mimics of birdcalls in Singapore; and many more no doubt who had failed to reveal their talent. Only a few weeks before Deng the Sudanese had drifted off from the cafe table to his 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 completely mute. There had been some bad bullying in secondary school, something clearly devastating for the lad. Robbie still had an occasional stutter, yet on the phone the voice was invariably radio-announcer smooth. During the mute period you would bet Robbie had been listening hard, to birds and all other aural information.

Apollo (and Aphrodite) Mar26

 

Noon at the Viet by the market the pale old guard with Vans Off the Wall tees for their teens rather out of place. Spot the Aussie indeed thereabout lately, as the displaced oldies complained. Opposite a squatting Viet and erect Ethiopian shared one foot of noonday shade hard against the wall of the shop, the lady also needing to keep her shopping bags behind the line. Meats & even veg would quickly spoil in that heat, especially within the plastic. Record breaking Perth had just clocked five consecutive days above 40, with another scorcher expected a touch below. Further North in the Pilbara a national record was reached of 50.7. Yesterday in Dudley Street wheeling back from the market the old Singaporean trick was shared with a young, flushed Asian guy, holding to the shadow of the traffic pole. Mecca might exceed low 50s at its peaks. Would the record in the West here be broken by the end of summer? We were only just past the halfway mark. And the aircon hold out in Perth & the Pilbara? (Greatest of human inventions, according to Mr LKY in the late-60s, when he was struggling with the bleeding hearts over the Vietnam War in the Harvard Club House.) Nothing but mid-30s thus far in Melbourne, the ceiling fan and open roof windows making sleep still possible. (We were in the midst of a second consecutive La Nina.) In Nicholson Street the Africans protested it was a different heat back home, something to do no doubt with the absorption and radiation of tar & concrete. In the conditions sleek thighs & calves of young women failed to allure, the pandemic no doubt partly responsible too. In Perth where there was as little virus as anywhere on the planet, the torch alone might have done for the distraction of sex. 

Camel & Straw

The Khartoum uncle from the place a few doors up taken away again by ambulance, the fifth or sixth time according to Faisal, who never exaggerated. A second vehicle needed to be called when the trolley couldn't be fitted in the back of the first, for some reason. When the second arrived and the job was sized up again it was eventually managed in the rear of the first, perhaps because of the added manpower. Faisal remarked on the size of the old uncle and the man's son who was following the same form. Look just neck, said Faisal, as the later stood by his father on the trolley. While waiting for the second ambulance the uncle had been rolled over to the shade of a tree, something like the treatment patients would receive back in Sudan. The duty of seeing them off was continuing. You needed to remind yourself sometimes you were no longer the young, junior observer now. Even folk like the Greek Jasna lookalike across at the Oromo place was in fact 10-15 years younger, and possibly even 20. You had begun in this role in earliest years, in another era altogether. Dear me! the crucial matters in Jasna’s case herself  fetched back to the early 50s; then the subsequent mid ‘70s for the final break with Miso. (What had been Kum’s christened name actually, Milorad, Miodrag, Milan? From the root Dear.) No doubt the chain-smoking, foul-mouthed Greek had suffered something similar to her forerunner, disaster in love, fair chance. Little was required to end up on the skids like that. The busker with the dog, wheeling a bike today, who had been king hit a few weeks before on Paisley Street, may actually have been the father of at least one of the young kids he had attempted to shoo away from here the other day. The kids had congregated at the entry to the hub and kept hanging, one boyish girl, a leaner long-haired brother possibly and a stick-thin African boy, probably Sudanese. Go home. Go home. How old are you? Fourteen, the lass answered. So go home. From where it escalated to unpleasantries and eventually the finger. Every chance his kids, the girl at least. At one point through the course she may have said, Come to see you.

Chomsky & Herta Mueller (Viewing & Reading)

 

Beggars Belief (Linda)

Lads in the bank confirmed it was three casualties on the weekend, two others with Linda. No details were known to them, not even that of Linda. The tall chap with the guitar and dog who was king hit a few weeks ago and often busked in Yarraville (not Footscray) immediately bowed his head at the mention and improvised a gesture on his chest. Rest her soul. Chap knew of the African pair, but not their identity. Ken Betts hadn't heard, instead he told of another Sudanese opposite there inside the hub a couple months before who had not been able to be revived. Predictably, the soft-hearted accountant Adib with plenty to mourn currently on the Horn, felt the hurt. Like all the regular Africans, Adib always spoke respectfully to Linda. (One immediately relayed such happenings precisely like others in like circs, seeking communion.) It was news to big Barak the Sudanese too. After he had been told initially, he came up twenty minutes later to reconfirm both Linda and the two Africans. Between times, and not for the first time on that Nicholson street, there came an example of that strangest of beggary one encountered thereabouts. Barak again was the case in point. In this instance the scale of the ask was noteworthy. Barak, or Brek, as some called the man, always carried a leather briefcase. There had been a year or two of studies at Deakin, which may have been responsible for his tortuous lockjaw verbalisation of formal English. Barak commonly spoke of Balkan history and remarked on differences among the various component peoples. Judging by his references, there was regular BBC listening at home. Mid last year he had been confined for a couple of months, during which time he had been missed by many. Once or twice a week at most Barak approached asking for coin, almost invariably a particular denomination. This morning for his purchase at the bottle shop adjacent Faisal’s cafe it had been ten cents needed. Only ten cents, Barak repeated as the coin was being fished out of the bag. Twenty and fifty had been requested earlier by various people, recently departed Linda among them, along with of course the usual dollar or two. It was a measured, honourable matter here amongst the various street guys, who always thought in terms of the immediate fix and nothing beyond.

NB. Later revised and developed into a longer piece published by NWW, Aug 2024 –

https://newworldwriting.net/pavle-radonic-on-the-street-linda/