This day, I’m needing to be with somebody so I’m out looking for Shadi. It’s kind of like looking for someone in one of those Where’s Wally books. He could be out just pissin’ around on a street corner with one of his ninety cousins so you’ve got to look all around the north-side, the south-side and the east-side where Parramatta borders with Harris Park and then out to Granville. This whole place is marked off in so many different territories and I know them all so well sometimes it feels like the place isn’t big enough, like you just can’t get beyond it. I get on my bike and start riding.
I ride down to the sports grounds around Parramatta Leagues where the stadium and the swimming pool is; where the local kids have turned the parking lot into an unofficial skate-park. I scan the crowds of guys trying to sag their too-tight jeans and the girls watching them skate.
Down the road I ride through Prince Alfred Park where the homeless guys are getting their afternoon tea from the food van that comes and pulls up there...But Shadi’s not around, hanging in the rotunda with the other kids, trying to get the homeless men to buy them beer. So I ride on through, down Church Street, not stopping because I know I shouldn’t be riding my bike between all the customers spilling out onto the street, having their afternoon glass of wine and their plates of mixed stuff.
When I ride up towards Westfield he’s not there either in the open mall where everyone comes from everywhere just to hang out, so I ride on up to Little China Town and stare at the skinned ducks hanging upside-down in the shop windows.
Everything in my body still hurts but I don’t really care. Everyone’s out today, so I have to try not to knock anyone over as I ride past. They’re out with their shopping bags and their boxes full of Asian greens and their sets of magnum hubcaps from Auto Alley. I want to push through them all until I find Shadi somewhere standing on a street corner behind them.