Roy is in my ear. He’s like a little kid, excited to be seeing new things and places. He’s got this irrepressible joie de vivre. And that’s exactly how I would describe Roy’s outlook on being a refugee-prison guard.
“This is what you do, mate. You get a taser and give it to him, tell him it’s a phone.” He puts it up to his ear. “‘Hello?’ Then zzzzt!”
This is mental, but funny, and Roy is on a tear.
“‘Excuse me, officer, can I have some milk?’ Zzzzt! Zzzzt! Twenty thousand volts. That’ll sort ’im. ‘Oh, hello,’ knee him in the head. Nah, shouldn’t say it, should I? Whack! Zzzzt! Nah, seriously mate, they should give us all tasers. Could just come at you, couldn’t they? Need fuck’n guns. Bang, in the knee caps. That’ll fix ’em.”
We’re at the back of the group, but I tell Roy to pipe down. It’s probably not the sort of thing you want to be yelling out within hearing of managers and refugees. Roy doesn’t get it.
“These bastards, could be anyone, couldn’t they? The Sri Lankans — Tamils, eh? Never know, do you? Should have shotguns.”
“For fuck’s sake, Roy.” I shake my head, though there’s a smile on my face.
Roy looks at me with a sweet, innocent, curiously blank gaze, before going on to elaborate his thoughts about cavity searches vis-à-vis a pneumatic cock-on-a-drill. There’s no doubt Roy is fucked in the head, completely deluded and will probably get himself fired, but I can’t help but think that he’s a good guy and needs a break.
We complete our walk-through and induction, then it’s back on the bus and to our accommodation. Half of us are being billeted at a spot called Spinifex City, the other half at a motel in the Derby township where some dongas have been dropped in a car park and now they’re charging taxpayers a small fortune to house Curtin staff there.
I’m staying at Spinifex City, and I’m glad. I’d rather be surrounded by bush — even Derby bush — than by bitumen. Spinifex City is little more than a block of red dirt carved from the tussock grass and scrub, sporting about sixty transportables and a few communal buildings. I get my own room, a little cubical with air conditioning, a TV, bed, tiny desk and tiny fridge.
The bus driver takes us the three or four kilometres into town to get some supplies, as we’ll be providing our own meals. I buy bread, cream, coffee, cold meat, spam, a roast chicken, cheese. I go halves in a carton of beer with Roy. I think he’s a bit skint, and it’s better value for him to buy in bulk.
We crack one that evening and sit around with a bunch of the other recruits from Northam. We’re still not entirely sure what being a guard means, though we’ve an inkling it involves a glorified form of babysitting. We’ll find out for real tomorrow.