Stan Yarramunua - A Man Called Yarra

CHAPTER 1

MY OLD MAN

T he dirty old heap called Staffer House up in Nicholson Street, Fitzroy, was an important place in my life when I was a kid. Its not there anymore. I know, because I went around to Nicholson Street a year ago to take a peep and found it had become something much fancier than the broken-down rooming house I once knew. Back then poor people stayed there, mostly whacked out on booze or smack. Staffer was the place my dad, Frankie, and I stayed whenever we reached Melbourne after knocking about the state together.

This was between 1974 and 1977, when I nine and ten and eleven. Of all the ages you can be, ten is one of the best. Maybe the best of all. Strength was coming into my skinny body, and lots of fresh ideas for making strife filled my mind. Id wake up in the morning to the rackety trams rolling down Nicholson, eat God knows what for breakfast, then mosey out to see what mischief I could find.

I can picture myself down at the Champion, a pub in Gertrude Street just around the corner from Staffer House, a place I knew as well as other kids knew the school they attended. As a matter of fact, the Champ was my school; also the Rob Roy, down there in Fitzroy, and the Builders Arms. All three working mens pubs. My dad and my uncle Darryl used to hustle at the three pubs, particularly the Champ, lords of the pool table, me watching on, knowing the script my dad was following down to the pauses and gestures and nods and shakes of the head.

So, what, you want to play for stakes? Two bucks a frame, three bucks a margin of twenty points? Something like that?

And the ning-nong my old man was hustling would say: Five bucks a frame, ten bucks a margin of twenty.

Woo! A flash bloke like yerself, dont know if I can risk it.

And the ning-nong: No guts?

Okay, then. Expect youll take me shirt and hat, but what the hell.

I had a quiet little smile to myself as Dad let the punter win two frames by a margin of thirty. My quiet smile was still there as Dad got this bozo to up the stakes to fifty a frame, a hundred bucks for a margin of sixty. And cleared the table on the one break, pop, pop, pop. This might seem what would you say? an unwholesome environment for a kid. Well, yeah. But you learn a great deal about your fellow man by studying an expert hustler like my dad in a pub. He played them, my dad; he played the bozos. Never went too far with his Im just a pitiful amateur thing. He worked out what it was that the punter wanted to hear, and he gave it to him. Made lots of dough. My dad at the Champ, he was an artist of the con. Handy with his dukes, capable of knocking back a dozen glasses of the frothy stuff without losing his wits. But there was more to him than scamming. Never had employment of the skilled sort, but he could roll up his sleeves and take on a hundred different jobs that required muscle and stamina. People looked up to him; not just other whitefellas, but Aborigines too. I can say with a full heart that my dad was a role model for me; a role model of a fairly dodgy sort, yeah, but someone to look up to, someone to admire. He was always trying to educate me, in his way, to pass on his wisdom.

My dad and his brother Darryl were in the Champ this one time, and there was something going on between Darryl and Dad, some bone of contention. I wasnt at the pub at this point, but Dad told me the full story later. As it happened, Darryl did his block and smacked Dad in the face whack. Darryl knew what a punch was and when he smacked my dad, he meant it to sting. Which it did. Now, my dad didnt respond immediately, just rubbed his jaw, had a bit of a think. And what he thought was that he could teach me something about the right way to reply when someone your brother, your buddy, your worst enemy, anyone gives you a smack on the kisser. So he headed off back to Staffer House to get me and took me to the Champ, where Darryl was still propping up the bar. He whispered in my ear: Watch this, Stannie. He paid at the bar for a couple of pots, carried them over to where Darryl was yarning with a mate next to the jukebox. One of the pots was for Darryl all is forgiven, that sort of thing. He said to Darryl and I was watching closely Here, mate, hold these and Ill put a tune on for you. Meaning on the jukebox. He handed over the two pots, and while Darryls hands were full, reached behind him, clamped a mitt on his neck and slammed his face into the jukebox. Not hard enough to kill him of course not, this was his brother but hard enough to let Darryl know who was boss. I was watching and thinking: Woo! Darryl recovered, washed away the blood, muttered a few words of admiration for my dads ruse, sank another pot of beer. What I was meant to learn from this little scene was not that every problem can be solved by flattening a blokes face on the surface of a jukebox, but instead that I shouldnt put up with rubbish from anyone; dont turn the other cheek.

As for me, if Id been charged and found guilty of all the mischief my ten years had spanned I wouldve had a record as long as Ned Kellys. Theft was against the law, sure, but not in my dads scheme of things he was what the law would call a petty criminal. He might take possession of a few items in a clandestine way; might be seen driving around in a car that, technically speaking, belonged to someone else. For him, the unforgivable thing about theft was getting caught. Not that he sent me out to steal and scam; I wasnt Oliver Twist, and my dad wasnt Fagin. He just let me know that I should use my wits and my ingenuity. Im in a shop, nobodys looking, I slip a block of Cadburys down my jumper that sort of thing. I wasnt above a bit of purse snatching, either; in fact, I was pretty good at it. The thing about purse snatching, you need some luck a clear path of escape. You dont want to be snatching a handbag in an elevator, do you?

I was mooching down by the Champ one fine day when a woman appeared on the footpath with a big juicy handbag hanging loose on her shoulder. I thought: Stan, my friend, you and that handbag have got to become better acquainted. I shuffled up behind the lady, made my move, dashed away without any witnesses. Well, except for two detectives whod just stepped out of a car about ten feet away. They heard the lady scream, looked at me, gave chase. I ran in through the front door of the Champ intending to exit through the side door and almost barged into my uncle Darryl. It took him a split second to size up the situation, and when the detectives came through the door he clobbered one with his left fist, one with his right. I raced out the side door and up Gertrude Street.

I came to know damned near everything about street life. I could dodge and weave; I could run like the wind; I could get in one window and out of another so fast all youd see was a blur. I knew what to do with my fists when I needed to, and I could give cheek like you wouldnt believe. But there was always a big problem with the sort of knowledge I picked up, and it was this: I couldnt build anything with it. I could survive, but that was it. A life that uses nothing but street savvy, sure, its exciting in its way, even thrilling on certain days, but if I look at it in another way its like I was shuffling down a path between huge heaps of mullock, the washed-out left-behinds of miners, like the ones up at Ballarat where I lived for a bit. Shuffling along, no idea of my destination.

Ive had a better life than that. Ive had a terrific life. Im glad every day for the sun and the sky. But it took me time to get here. Ten years old that was a great age, but you cant be ten years old at twenty and thirty. My old man was pretty much a kid until the day he died, and that was the life he passed on to me. He even said it sometimes: Never grow up, Stannie, never. But I did, eventually, and Im glad of it.