It’s at a racecourse — of all places, we’re being taught how to be refugee-prison guards at a racecourse. I don’t know why, and nor do they. That also happens to be the first lesson of training: nobody in this system knows the answer to any “why” question. Shit just is.
The second lesson is that I am the only one who calls refugee prison “refugee prison”. And that’s a big lesson. That lesson is retaught every day. Words matter. Not words like wanker, slut, poofter, whore: to be used at will and without discretion. No, we’re talking the far more important words of bureaucrats. So a refugee prison is actually an “immigration detention centre”, and the refugees are actually “clients”.
I head around the back of the “training centre”, looking for Alfred. I don’t want to drive here drunk again. There are too many kangaroos on the roads between Northam and Perth. If I can be so drunk as to not know how to park my motorbike, I might not be up to dodging Skippy — who is, despite every TV series, documentary and tourism advertisement ever shown, a wilful idiot and inveterate cunt. And, while I appreciate this is verboten to say in Australia, I say it anyway because I know it for a plain and obvious truth.
Until a person has lived with roos they have no standing to speak on the topic. We took in a total of four joeys throughout my childhood in Manjimup, each orphaned after a car hit the mother. It’s common for the young ones to survive — the roo pouch is like a protective airbag. Mum couldn’t bring herself to drive past a fresh carcass and not check, digging her hand into the pouch to see if there was a scared sack of bone and fur hiding inside. She would put the young and unviable ones out of their misery, but if they were far enough along she brought them home.
Clem hated it. He’d rant and rave, but Mum was the boss when it came to those sorts of things. Shitter — so named for her habit of shitting all across the verandah every day of her life when there was a big yard and plenty of bush to crap in — was the best of them, and even she was a moody ingrate. She’d let you give her a quick scratch under the cheek or behind the ear, then she’d suddenly decide she’d had enough and lean back on her tail and take a swing. It wouldn’t be a mischievous swing, either, like a playful kitten. It was the sort of swing that said, “When I’m big enough I will rip your guts out with my massive mono-claw, human scum, but until then I will shit on your verandah and eat your cat food as I please.” Still, I was upset when a dog got her. Even Clem was, the unsentimental prick.
The point being, there are thousands of unreasonable roos to dodge on the roads. Of course, I could just resolve to not get drunk to the point where I’m still drunk in the morning. But it wouldn’t be worth a damn. Sober and rational promises are wonderful while sober and rational; they’re worth nothing in the heat of the moment. Like when your cock is hard, or you’re having a brew and that pesky incubus says screw it, Nick, have another, have another ten. I know he’ll get me, sooner or later — the incubus, Skippy, one of them.
I find Alfred out the back on the steeples, smoking a cigarette, looking at the only green grass for miles. He’s one of the few people who drives to Northam with an empty car. I arrange for him to give me a lift from Perth each day and I agree to give him some money for petrol.
I get a cup of tea and head inside just as training begins. I can barely follow what’s happening, even though it’s pitched at the lowest possible level of comprehension. After a few minutes I stop trying. It’s not like it matters. Skippy could take my place at training and I doubt I’d miss much.
The fact is, every one of us at the racecourse knows that being a refugee-prison guard is a crappy job demanding little more than our showing up. It has to be, or we wouldn’t be employed. Collectively, we have no relevant qualifications, no relevant experience and no passion for the task at hand. That said, we’re all glad to have the job, and what we lack in passion is more than made up for by the greatest motivator humanity has ever known.