Earlier that day they had all been there, in the mangroves between the main shops and the high tide mark. There were many people, a couple of flagons. Nearly always, it seems, there are some people there, drinking. Hiding away, trying to disappear from this world, make one where they fit better. That mangrove spot is not bad when the mozzies and midgies stay away. You can catch up with people, everyone will be there some time. Play cards, talk; not all people drink.
It is almost only Aboriginal people that go there. There must be some shame to it, then.
But on this day it was like a holiday for our mob. A time to see old friends and some family. For Franny it was his first time there as a nearly-man.
So. It was warm there, this day, in the dappled light and on the dry sand. It was pretty happy.
The time went quick. No one got drunk, some maybe just a bit sparked up. Franny had a drink and was tipsy, being young and not used to drinking. And he had a little puff of a joint that someone lit up.
People came and went. There was guitar music for a little time. Raphael, Milton, and Bruno wandered off for a while and you know something about what happened with them. They came back too late.
Then a bunch of people were moving off to the pub. Franny saw the world in such a different and new way. Never again would he see such a day. He would have been feeling good, then, like a hero and a warrior, walking the streets proud with the gardiya tourists and with his own people. A man of a tribe. The light was bright. Maybe this day had a special cruel light, but he wouldn’t have seen it, would’ve hidden the word and the thought away. It might have been a warning, if he’d listened.
There were too many at the pub. All different peoples. Chinese ones, Aborigine, gardiya; old, young; men, women. There were singlets, jeans, long socks, white ankles under tanned legs, cracked bare feet. There was music, and roaring and shouting. Sometimes, in some places Franny stood, the music was so loud he listened to it with his chest. It was like he was hollow inside, and his chest vibrated like a drum. He smelled sweat, soap, perfume sharply sweet, stale beer, urine, tobacco and clove cigarettes. The interior bar was gloomy. There were strips and slices of light scattered around and over pool tables, and the old carpet was soggy and sprouting cigarette butts. Voices everywhere: taking off, screeching, snarling, flapping through the curling smoke and thin trunks of light like bats and birds. They alighted on shoulders and repeated repeated themselves, pecked and stabbed, or stroked with soft downy wings. Sometimes in a relative quiet, you could hear the click of ball and cue. Stabbing sounds of glass and stainless steel. But then the music would start again, a great blanket of it, angry and smothering.
Outside, in the yard where the band is playing, it is bright sun and people must squint. Their faces wrinkle up, their eyebrows come down. Sometimes, with beer in the belly, and a little craziness in the head, you might not know if it’s noise hitting you or someone thumping bumping your back and chest. Out in the sun, the music noise is not like a great blanket, not even a bit soft. It is hard. The bass notes are maybe like bricks wrapped in hessian slamming into you. But it’s all right. It’s happy time. You shouting with the rest of them. Sing, dance, wriggle and stagger about. The white froth of the beer goes up into the hot and patient blue sky. The yellow liquid settles in scrawny guts and big hairy belly.
Franny is there. He too young, but he be there all right. Sitting hunched, then laughing and showing the cord of his throat as he lifts his head back. Others leave. Franny won’t go with them.
Franny getting tired. Head on his arms on the table.
The day goes on. Much drinking, much noise. Some people get cranky and argue. Maybe if the people in this hot and sunny place stopped shouting touching dancing drinking for even just a little time then they feel unhappy, sad, angry. Hollow maybe. Maybe that helps explain why such bad things can sometimes happen.
This day goes on. The dark time comes. The sun falls below the noise and the floodlights of the concrete and fibro courtyard.
Franny lifts his head from the table when some people sit at it. He feels sick. His mouth is furry and his head aches. The faces of the people around him are those of strangers. They are caked with powder. Many are pale, stubbled, and streams of blood run through their eyes.
Out in the car park, in the comforting darkness again, Franny leans on a car. He vomits. With tears in his eyes he stumbles to the next car. Somehow, he opens the back door, and sways there, gripping the handle. The poor silly boy. He knows nothing, alone and sick.
It doesn’t matter who the two men were that saw him. Their names don’t matter. One was a bouncer, come up from Perth to work here. The other one worked on station, lived up this way long time. They been all day in a motel room, drinking and complaining and making themselves heavy, and only now come out.
Franny is about to fall onto the soft seat of the car.
Those two men stood at the edge of the car park and saw. They didn’t shout. They ran over there, angry angry. Angry and wild. They pulled him out of the car, almost like he bounced up from the seat. Oh, he was black! Aborigine! They hit him, kicked him, punched him. He was like a bag, he didn’t fight back. Groaned. Maybe they enjoyed feeling their fists and feet striking his flesh. They held him up to hit him. He slid to the ground; maybe yelled, sobbed, whimpered. Pick him up, hit him more. He fell again. Bang! Hit head on the bitumen. One of them killers hit him with a big brick. Oh, yes, they told us later. Oh, they jumped up and down on him. His heart went away.
One of them, proper thinking like, not like crazy, got his knife. They held his head back and sawed through his throat. Fish scales still on the knife. Cut his throat like he was bullock kangaroo turtle. Oh he was dead dead dead. Blood bits of meat on the ground. His heart floating around. Him, him no more.
How can this be? And those men? Well. They bayed at the moon maybe, savage dogs. Mad as mad. Very bad things. What did they do, those killers? They drink some more beer? Tell their mates they just stuck a boy, killed him? Wipe the blood and skin from that knife on the beer mat in the bar? Who can know the truth or their minds? They cannot be real people, these ones.
We thought, when we knew, that the law would get them. We stopped some of our people that wanted to kill them. We thought, you know, justice. White man’s justice.