sort of stopped talking to me I knew that it was time to piss off. So I moved to Darwin but I got mixed up with the wrong crowd and I became an alcho and things became pretty grim and I was homeless, just me and my dog Moe. I don’t want to go into details but one day when I was very pissed I did something that caused the death of my dog. Enough was enough so I made myself a new start. I stopped drinking and moved to Melbourne. I haven’t drunk any booze for two years now, the best decision I have ever made. Still, I don’t know how I managed to make the break except that I met this bloke called Bruce who was a major or something in the Salvation Army and he cared and he listened to me and slowly gave me advice and told me that God cared for all of us, not to let despair overcome me. Bruce probably puts my new life down to divine intervention, but I put it down to Bruce. Some people put shit on the Salvos but they do a lot of good things. At times I don’t know where I would be without them.
I was lucky when I returned to Melbourne, first because of the generosity of Thomas and Youixsie Lee who own the Laksa Queen restaurant. Plug Plug, delicious food. They gave me a roof over my head when I was walking the streets and then I met my best friend in the world Absimil and together we get through the challenges put in front of us day to day. I love Absimil. He came to Australia about four years ago from Sudan. We first met when we both chose the delivery doorway of Woolworths as our bedroom about six months ago and after that we would often arrange to doss down at the same place on many nights. Then I had my bit of luck with meeting Thomas and Youixsie so I asked them if Absimil would be able to move in with me. They are very generous and they said yes even though we can’t use much electricity in our two spaces. But it’s warm, it’s ours and Absimil and I have some privacy.
It was getting dark and quite cool when Special decided to call it quits. Six hours with plenty of chat and a lot to see but from the point of view of money it hadn’t been a great day. Seventeen sold and a measly $4 in tips, still he liked the interaction, it filled his day. Absimil came past about six o’clock. They had argued once because Special said, if you stand too close when I’m selling the mag you scare away the customers. Absimil was so black and so tall, and his suit trousers didn’t reach his socks and his socks were enclosed in old tourist sandals. His tight curls were wild on the side and then he was bald. Special thought that it was funny how many people were scared of other people who were a different colour. He loped up and said, lI’ve been watching cricket training and Special didn’t get it, how he liked cricket. Someone had once said that he looked like Curtly Ambrose. He and Curtly did have two things in common. How does he understand cricket Special wondered? Perhaps he didn’t understand it!
They walked down to the Salvos food kitchen and ordered their great vegetable soup with a bread roll that was a bit stale. Usually they kept to themselves. Most often the others were friendly and harmless but a couple of times some wierdos had been on ice and one never knew what they might do. Sometimes together they helped wash up and a couple of Salvo people might play a game of cards with them. Playing cards was a great way to pass the time, as Special liked to say, you can forget that dull ache of worries for a while when you are playing cards. Yesterday, Thomas and Youixsie asked them to help clean out the upstairs storeroom. They were looking forward to that.
Thanks for the game of cards fellows. Time we closed up.
When the Salvo packed up the cards and made for the office, they both stood up to go and Special raised himself up on his toes so that his mouth was as close to Absimil’s ears as he could get it.
I think it’s time for a cuddle Absimil, what do you say?
So they walked home, one tall, with a big head, upright and graceful, the other much shorter with a rolling limp of the painfully thin legs, goatee and a manbun. Different as you can get, except when it came to luck. Special unsnibbed their gate and they climbed their stairs and unlocked the padlock and felt around for the light switch just inside their back door. Special turned on their lamp and dropped his backpack on one mattress and then they lay down together on the other mattress.
How many did you sell Special?
Seventeen .
Tips?
Four dollars
Oh they were stingy. Aren’t we so lucky, we will be able to share one Kebab tomorrow.
Special smiled and tucked into Absimil’s curve and put his arm over his shoulder. And they stayed like that for quite a while.
Afterwards, they sat together with their backs against the wall a blanket over their shoulders joining them.
God says that two men shouldn’t have sex. I always feel guilty and know that he is watching.
You always talk that bullshit Absimil.
But I think that he must understand and forgive me. In Sudan, if they found out I would suffer a horrible death, you know that don’t you?
Neither said anything for a while.
I have a question to ask you Absimil.
Fire away.
Who is your biggest hero?
I haven’t really thought about it. Is there a point to this question? Does it having anything to do with us having making love?
Well a little bit, I just think it’s an interesting question. Mine is Copernicus.
Who?
Copernicus.
Never heard of him.
He was a Pole, you know someone from Poland who lived in the fifteen hundreds if I remember correctly, he was an astronomer who came up with the idea that the sun was the centre of the solar system, not the earth, what they call the heliocentric solar system. He realised that the earth was just a planet.
I suppose that was a bit of a discovery, especially way back then.
Spot on. It gave the Catholic Church the shits, old Pope Paul III was very angry and he quite liked Copernicus. But his theory said that a lot of what was in the bible was a load of bullshit and what kind of friend was that. Still friend enough so that Copernicus didn’t lose his head. He was the lucky one. There was this dude called Giardano Bruno who put forward the same theory about the same time but he wasn’t so lucky, they burn’t him at the stake.
What does that mean?
He was unlucky. They tied him to a pole and lit a fire at his feet until he was burnt to death.
That’s horrible. Why would they do that?
Because my dear friend as I said before what they were suggesting was that a lot of the claims in the bible were a crock of shit and then there was Darwin and soon there might be no god at all and we could make love in peace.
But everyone knows that God exists, you just have to look around Special, why are you always going on about God not existing. Of course he exists, otherwise how do we know the difference between right and wrong?
So all those people in South Sudan who persecuted your family, who would torture you for loving me, they would know that what they were doing was wrong?
Yes they would know that what they were doing was wrong. But most people are good people because they know God.
Absimil, Absimil what am I going to do with you? How can the unlucky believe in God?
8.
