I’m back at Spinifex City, cracking one of the last beers in the slab, when Roy wanders over, shirtless, sporting a handful of meat.
“Just put grease all over me doorknob, mate. Ah well, fuck it.”
“Getting stuck in to some chook?”
“Yeah.”
Roy rips into the chicken leg like a starving stray.
“You’re a mad dog, Roy.”
“Too right, mate.”
I down my beer and Roy eats his chook, then I retire to check my internet connection and consult a site devoted to the appreciation of the womanly form.
Eight hours later I’m back at the centre, surrounded by dirt and tin. There’s no sign of Roy. He’s rostered on, but I didn’t see him on the bus.
I’m standing at the door of the detainees’ mess for the breakfast run. There are four other guards stationed in the hall. A detainee walks up to me.
“Officer, I am very sick, need Panadol,” he says.
He’s got a smile that reaches ear to ear. It doesn’t look like the face of a sick man. I figure he must be taking the piss.
“Mate, you’re taking the piss,” I say.
“Need Panadol, officer.”
“Well, mate, that woman up there, Grace, she’ll be with you in five minutes.”
“Five minutes?”
“Yep.”
“Need it now.”
“Yeah mate, in five minutes.”
I guess it has begun — their testing me out to see how soft a target I am.
Roy finally arrives, two hours late. He’s assigned to the same compound as me. I make him a cup of tea.
“Where’ve you been, mate?” I say.
“Had a shower, then laid back down on the bed. Just fuck’n nodded off, didn’t I?”
He takes an interest in the cut-down knife I’ve been issued. It’s a small blade shaped like a hook, the inner edge sharp, the outer edge and nub completely blunt. It is purpose-built for cutting nooses from necks. I show Roy the knob on the other end of the tool, used to break windows if ever trapped somewhere.
“What,” says Roy, “use it for breakin’ heads? Smack! Give ’em one in the back of the noggin. What’s that? Bleedin’ from the head? Where? Some bastard …”
Ah, Roy, you hateful old prick. Yet I’ve seen him talking to the detainees and he’s like a puppy around a new toy with them — I think he’s excited just to have new people to talk to. Yesterday, I saw Roy playing table tennis with a group of Afghanis. He couldn’t play for shit, but Roy still seemed to be having a great time, not a single broken head, severed limb or raped arsehole in sight. It’s odd. I suspect Roy is a frustrated humourist, mostly frustrated from a lack of humour. His delivery is what gets me. Roy says everything with such gusto and conviction that you think surely he’s a rapist with a sack of corpses in his backyard, yet the truth is, I don’t think he means a single thing he says and I don’t think he’s any more set in his ways and opinions than a toddler.
Outside, we hear sounds of revelry. A group of detainees are celebrating something to do with the coming of Christmas. Roy asks Grace if he can go watch.
“Of course you can. But go with someone else.”
That someone else is obviously going to be me, because I’m the only one who can tolerate Roy’s verbiage. We follow the sound till we spot a group of about forty Sri Lankans gathered outside an activity room. They form a circle around a couple of men who are dancing vigorously. There is clapping and the beat of a drum. Soon as they see us, the Sri Lankans beckon us to enter the circle and show them our moves. We politely decline.
Grace wanders down from the officers’ quarters. She watches for a while, then calls Roy over. There’s a look on her face. She grabs Roy’s hand and drags him into the circle. The Sri Lankans cheer “Dance! Dance!”
Roy is saying no, but his body and smile says yes. Then Grace abandons him, the sly bitch. Roy tries to retreat, but the circle closes and everyone is calling on him to dance. He pumps out a few hip thrusts, shuffles his feet and shakes his hands in the air.
I can’t tell if it’s how Roy dances, or how Roy thinks the Sri Lankans dance. I’m laughing and clapping from the back of the crowd. Roy then tries to flee the circle, but they won’t let him. Roy clearly loves an audience, so he swings back into what might pass as a Bollywood shake of his head, throws up some half-arsed spirit fingers and finishes with a quick bow and wave. The crowd cheer him out.
Roy and I watch the festivities for a while. Roy is beaming. No doubt the highlight of his week. We walk back, Roy spilling words like a dog drinking water.
“You get to talking to ’em; good blokes, eh? Yeah I’ve enjoyed mixin’ with ’em. Bloody good job, in’t? You know, I can’t blame ’em. If my family was bein’ persecuted and raped and all that shit, I’d be on a boat, too. I see ’em and talk to ’em, especially the little Afghan ones. You’re not meant to show sympathy are you, but you can feel it, can’t ya?”
We get back to the officers’ donga and make another cup of tea. I like tea but, really, it’s just something to do. I ask Grace what the worst thing she’s seen at the centre is. She tells me about the day sixteen Iranians protested over their lack of access to immigration officials. Opposite the administration compound, in the midday heat, they began cutting themselves with razors.
“That was probably the worst thing I’ve seen since being here. Blood everywhere. They were laid out on tarpaulins. I’ve had hangings and other things, but that was worse.”
“I’d come in with a machete,” says Roy. “Schwt! Schwt! You wanna slash-up? There ya go — get the machete into ’em, cut some limbs off. Just doin’ what they wanted.”
I stare, wide-eyed. What just happened to the man dancing with the detainees? What happened to the man who was sympathising with the detainees’ plight? Roy is utterly schizophrenic.
A detainee from another compound has wandered over to the office where we’re stationed. He knocks on the window. Grace slides it open.
“Yes?”
“Noodle?” he says.
Noodles are pretty much the only thing detainees can eat outside assigned meal times. Grace looks him up and down.
“You’re not from Brown Compound, are you?” she asks, shaking her head. “Green? Red? Blue? What compound?”
“Green,” the man says.
“You ask at own compound. Go away. Ask own compound.”
Grace shuts the window. The man stands there a moment then turns and walks away.
Grace addresses me and Roy. “There’s not enough noodles to be giving them out to clients from other compounds. They can fucking well get them where they’re meant to.”
“Up to me, I’d have ’em all locked down,” says Roy. “I’d get the machete out. Schwt! Schwt! Back in there, you bastards.”
Who is it that can tell me who I am? asked King Roy.