Brown Skin Blue Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  1

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  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Copyright

  Belinda Jeffrey lives in Brisbane with her husband and two boys. Her short story, The Hallelujah Roof, was published in One Book Many Brisbanes and she had a poem published in What is Mother Love? Belinda wrote Brown Skin Blue after she went on a croc jumping tour in the Northern Territory.

  For my boys,

  Caleb and Luke.

  1

  When McNabm Blue did the bad thing to me, I was eight. I told Mum and she said there was so much to be sad about in life she should cry the Adelaide River twice over. But she was dry like the winds that whip you in the face with red dirt around the town and just swallowed against the feel of it rough in her throat. She looked at me, though, her eyes round and black, then pulled me in close. I heard her sighing and breathing hard. When I stood up I had to stretch my legs against the pain from what just happened to my bum. She stood up, leaning on the tree behind her for support. She was a big woman – top heavy – and the dirt flew up around her feet. All these things stuck in my mind because ever since McNabm Blue rolled me over, time slowed down and every little movement grabbed me.

  Mum told me to take off my clothes at the hose post and she squirted me all over with the water. She said I was as clean as she could make me. We walked all the way to the police station where Mum made me tell Sergeant Jones what happened. They were some of the last words that came out of my mouth for a long time.

  ‘Go on young Barry Mundy, tell me what happened.’

  So I did.

  Sergeant Jones wiped the snot from his nose with the back of his hand and stuck his fingers in the tops of his pants. I remember that, too. Then he looked at Mum, but she wouldn’t look in his eyes.

  ‘You let the law take care of this, Dolly,’ he said to her and she nodded sideways. Mum had a reputation of laying into anyone with her fists when she went on the grog. But she listened to the Sergeant and never put a foot near Blue. She left me in the caravan that night, with Mrs Dickers from the van next door lookin’ after me, and she went off drinking. She never spoke of it again.

  A few weeks later, Sergeant Jones took McNabm Blue to the lock-up for doing the bad thing to boys around the town. I was with some of the other caravan kids and we saw him being handcuffed and pushed into the back of the police car. After a while, we heard he was taken to the big jail. That’s where he tied the sheets together, threw them over the beam across the roof of his cell, and hung himself.

  This might sound harsh to you, I reckon, and that’s a good thing. But it’s the kind of story that goes round and round in some places – places where I come from – that most people don’t talk about. It scuttles in under the floorboards of our houses and shanties and vans, like cockroaches. It sits thick and heavy around everything like the dirt. Sometimes, when the heavens open up and the rain comes, I think it’s almost washed away, but water dries fast around here and the ground cracks and bleeds again in the heat.

  I’m seventeen now and I don’t say much. At least that’s what people tell me. I got a whole lot of names. Darkie, Brownie, Dirt. Barry-bloody-Mundy. Some white people in Landcruiser trucks called me an Indigenous Australian, once. But I’m not. Well, not that I know of. My mother’s white, but my skin is dark, and she’s never exactly told me why.

  The people I work with on the Top End Croc Jumping Cruises call me Barramundy. They reckon that when I’m asked something my mouth opens and closes like a fish and nothing comes out. They make jokes about it saying I’m so busy trying to breathe I can’t think. That I’m like a fish out of water. But the truth is there’s too much to say to any one question and nothing’s simple.

  It’s true that sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe. That my lungs can’t get enough air. I’ve seen fish lying on the banks of rivers, their gills flapping open and closed in time with their mouths, working hard at living but dying fast. I’m lookin’ at myself in those moments, because it’s like McNabm Blue caught me with the end of his noose by doing what he did to me. And sometimes I can feel it tightening round my own throat. Sometimes I feel like grabbing a bloke around the throat, squeezing hard, and telling him to try talking. But just because words don’t come easy from my mouth doesn’t mean they don’t go round in my head.

  2

  The first time you see a croc jump out of the water, your heart lurches, your stomach rolls heavy and your breathing stops. There’s something fierce and unnatural about a gigantic reptile launching out of the water to snap its jaws around an offering of raw pig meat. The second time you see it, your heart pounds and your stomach settles. Your breathing speeds up. Most tourists ready their camera.

  One thing I’ve learnt is that everyone has a fascination for violence of one kind or another. Fear is like a magnet. Brings you in nice and close.

  Top End Croc Jumping Cruises is a small operation. Just two boats running up to twelve trips a day between them. The permit to run the business restricts us to a section of river a few kilometres long. The crocs don’t understand government permits, but they do understand territory, and they don’t stray far beyond their boundaries. That way we know each croc along our stretch by name and temperament because they’re always at the same places.

  Crocs make life easy for us because there are things they do and things they don’t do. They don’t stray into a neighbouring croc’s territory. They do eat anything that falls into their own space. They’re stealthy, silent and patient. They’re the most ancient living creature still around. They know how to survive.

  I don’t know what it was that made me get off the bus and ask for a job here that first day. It wasn’t that I liked crocs or anything like that. I just got out, walked on up and said, ‘You got any work?’.

  It was Boof I talked to that first day. Skinny white bloke with knobbly knees and a brown felt hat. One tooth missing in the middle of his smile. He looked back at Cassie, who was behind the reception counter, and she shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘Might be we do. We just been talkin’ about needing a fella.’

  Cassie is five times the size of Boof, at least. Hips like a buffalo’s rump. She plaits her blonde hair and it hangs long down her back like a tail. Swishes it for the flies, too. Some blokes around the place call Boof ‘Sticks’ behind his back, but Cassie is as protective of Boof as she is of her crocs. She’s been known to lay a man flat with her fists. They’re a couple, of sorts, I figured out after a while. And ‘Boof’ (if it’s said right) puts air in the chest. What he lacks for in bone, his name can inflate with air.

  They’ve got a mangy old Aussie Terrier called Bait, which is a bloody rough thing to call a dog – especially around here. Mind you it made me smile the first time I heard it. Boof and Bait are always together. One on each other’s heels.

  The first cruise of the day starts at nine o’clock in the morning. Cassie’s boat, The Darling, takes up to fifty people. It’s
a two-storey vessel and Cassie steers her down the river talking to the passengers on the microphone through the loudspeaker. Boof and Bait are up top with the meat hook. Boof straps the pig meat onto the hook and lowers it over the side towards the water. Inside the boat, on the bottom floor, are rows of seats enclosed with glass windows from floor to ceiling. Up top there’s no glass, just a tall rail running around the edge.

  Being the first boat out of a morning, The Darling gets the closest crocs: Albert, Mavis, Bluster, Elvis, Robot and Scoop. I don’t know who named them or when, but each croc is recorded in a logbook at the wheel of each boat and notes are made each time they’re fed. Each croc is only fed once a day. Cassie talks about the crocs like they were her own children. You should have seen Scoop today. Right cranky bugger. You could see it in his eyes. Mavis must be hatchin’, I reckon. I’ve got friends who went the same way when they were pregnant. Ate like horses and never wanted to go too far to get it.

  When Cassie spots the first croc, Albert – to the left of the boat – she bangs on the roof for Boof to get the hook ready. She then warns all the passengers not to rush to the side to see the first croc, or else the boat’ll tip and Albert will have his pick of brightly coloured meat and more than a few metallic camera appetisers. That’s when she tells everyone about how crocs are predatory geniuses. They’re attracted by colour and movement so if you fall in the river with lilywhite skin and a hot pink T-shirt, your chances of survival are less than zero. You can usually hear the tourists gasp and click their tongues at this point, and Albert can be seen sliding his way through the water to the boat. Cassie goes on to say that if you do have the misfortune to fall in the river, your only chance of surviving is to get your gear off, fold your arms over your chest, lie on your back and not move a muscle. Though the movement from getting your gear off is as likely to see you death-rolling with an estuarine croc before you have the chance to think about floating. That’s what these crocs are. Estuarine or saltwater crocs. Or salties, as we call them. And no matter how many times she tells the tourists, there’s always a few who ignore her and cross the midway line of the boat so she tilts slightly.

  The sight of a croc snaking through the water from the bank towards the boat is a thrilling sight. Just the top plate of scales visible on its back and head. Its two eyes bobbing on the surface of the water. Sometimes you can tell the length of a croc this way, but there’s no way to tell how big it is till it’s out of the water, heaving the top half of its body to vertical with the power of enormous muscle.

  Just as Albert nears the meat, Boof jerks the hook up high to lure him further out of the water. The trick is to tease them just a little, make them work for their food, but not too much, or else they’ll get pissed off and head for the bank. They know we’ll be back the next day.

  Some crocs are easy. They like their food, don’t mind the people, and love to show off. Some are downright buggers. They want what you have but there’s no way they want to work for it. A lot like people. I’ve been here for a while and I reckon I know each croc like they were mates. I know their ins and outs, their particulars.

  But that’s it for the first run. Six crocs and an hour of Croc Jumping adrenalin. Each run after that has to motor past the last lot of fed crocs before they start their feeding. If you’re a passenger on the first run, you get the scenic boat ride after feeding the crocs. If you’re on the last run, you get the scenic ride first and the croc feeding last.

  The kite birds start circling the boat on the scenic part, gathering like a storm of black wings, chasing and circling till they’re a thick formation that won’t shove off until they’ve been fed. We throw meat to them and they dive down and catch it in their beaks. These birds are lethal. They’re the Top End’s falcon or hawk or buzzard. They’re strong, smart, and their beaks could rip your mouth open on a fly past. The talons on their legs could rip your finger clean off. Just like for the crocs, there are signs all around the picnic places up here telling tourists not to feed them. We’ve got a permit to feed them, like the crocs, but no one wants the birds encouraged to swoop down on a group of picnickers for a snag or a steak.

  It happened once, down on the beach, where a kite swooped down, screaming like a death-knell, grabbed the sausage right out of a woman’s hands and tore her mouth open with its talon. It’s not just the injury that could see you laid up in hospital for a month, but an infection could bloody kill you. Lucky for her, she survived. But things like that are a reminder that something seemingly harmless, and just part of nature, can seize you in a moment and rip you open like you’re nothing special.

  I suppose there were a lot of years between McNabm Blue and the crocs in the river, and the kites in the sky, but I seem to think of life before and after those two markers. Like I had no permit to swim the waters in between. I just got off the bus that day and found a patch of river I could call home.

  ‘Sure thing, mate,’ Boof said. ‘We’ll take you on.’

  3

  ‘You’re not much one for talking, are you, Barry?’ Boof says to me now the first day’s over.

  I shake my head.

  ‘Barry...?’

  ‘Mundy,’ I mumble.

  ‘Barrymundy?’ he says one long word.

  I shrug.

  ‘Barramundy. That’s who you are then, boy. Like the bloody fish. You got a ride home?’

  I wrinkle my nose. I haven’t got a ride. No home, neither.

  ‘Carn then,’ Boof hitches his strides up over his bony hips, but the pants just fall back to the widest part of his skeleton frame. ‘Get on in.’ He points to the Land Rover. He takes his hat off and smooths back his hair, which is greasy from the day’s work and wet from the humidity. He smells like oil and dirt. He needs a shower and a lather of soap, but he seems intent on giving me a lift. I don’t smell much better. Probably worse. And I’m a skinny runt, too. Boof leans back against the door of the car and crosses his ankles. He puts two fingers in the corners of his mouth and lets fly a loud whistle. ‘Carn Bait,’ he yells and his chest nearly pops out through his blue singlet as he forces his voice low enough to sound serious.

  Bait’s slow on his feet, and close to the ground. He doesn’t look like the kind of dog that should sit in the back of a four-wheel drive and when he gets to the car he wags his tail at Boof’s ankles. Boof picks him up and puts him in the back seat. Bait’s got sticky tan-and-black coloured hair that grows in different directions, like a checkerboard. I patted him this morning, after lunch, then just after closing time. Had to wipe my hands on my pants each time. It’s like running your hand over a bristly oil slick.

  ‘You comin’ love,’ Boof yells to Cassie who’s still in the office bent over the till.

  ‘Who do ya think’s gonna fix things up then, hey?’ she yells back. She has no trouble making her voice sound serious or low. She bustles around the counter and sticks her face out the door. ‘Oh,’ she says, softening her tone when she sees me with my arms folded, still standing where I was when Boof said to get in the car. ‘Oh. You need a ride?’

  I shrug again.

  ‘Righto,’ she says in Boof’s direction, waving her hand and turning back, her plait flicking around her. ‘Come back an’ get me.’

  Boof opens the passenger door. I can’t think of anything else to do, so I get in. The seat on the passenger side is pushed as far back as it can go on the frame and my legs – long as they are – have plenty of room to stretch out. Cassie must need all the leg room. Boof ’s seat is closer in to the steering wheel. He hops on in, shuts the door with a bang, straightens his legs out and turns the key in the ignition. His arms are dark in patches from dirt and smoke and any other muck from the day’s working and they stick out to the sides as he handles the wheel. He’s like a stick insect, limbs at angles as he jerks and turns. He grins at no one in particular out the window, checks the rear-view and winks at Bait (who’s up on the seat behind me slobbering aga
inst the sticky heat). Boof waves out the window – a flick of his fingers and an incline of his head – then leans his arm on the window frame, lights up a cigarette, and gets on to the get-to-know-me business.

  ‘You an Abo, Barramundy?’

  I swallow and scratch my head. Shrug. ‘Na.’

  ‘Ah,’ he says, his eyebrows raising and his lips curving down like he’s pleasantly surprised.

  We’re driving through the wetlands on a road that’s raised above the line of the land and there is an irregular chessboard of green grassy patches and mirror-like blue for as far as you can see. Birds are dropping in here and there, flying off and dancing in the sky. There could be crocs in there, too. Lying low, hiding in the shallows.

  ‘I don’t mind Abos,’ he says, ‘don’t get me wrong there. But you’ve got to admit they don’t do much to help themselves as a general rule. It’s just the bludgers I don’t tolerate. I’ve had a rough life and I still work for everything I have. No one has to give me a hand-out.’ Boof spits out the window and the muck hits the ground and he swerves over a ditch in the road.

  I’ve heard it all before. The blokes at the last place I worked weren’t quite so careful about how they put it. There’s always reports and stories about how screwed up the whole system is. How Aboriginals have wasted the government’s hard-earned money, trashed the houses they’ve been given. Flushed their money down whisky bottles.

  I had plenty of mates who were Aboriginal when I was a kid, their skin much the same as mine. We all wanted the same thing, too. A pocket full of marbles, a fist full of lollies and someone who cared enough to stay sober. From where we played in the dirt, it was the colour of money that could ruin your day, not the colour of skin. My mum was whiter than any other mum in the town and she drank more than most. But you don’t hear people going on about how white people, with no self-respect, bludge on the dole and drag their kids through the mud. It should make me feel better, I suppose. But it doesn’t. Just makes me feel like a fake.