Sometimes, on Saturday mornings we work at Shadi’s parent’s petrol station in Granville. It’s the only place on the street that’s not selling food or God. It’s squashed into the space between the Ethiopian Jehovah’s Witnesses and one of the charcoal chicken places. Shadi likes to put on the radio in the shop and crank up the volume just so people know we’re there.
On these mornings Shadi always brings a bag of roasted pumpkin seeds. He passes me a handful and we practise splitting them perfectly between our front teeth and poking the seed out with our tongues. When Mohammed comes, he’ll show us how it’s done.
Most of the time I either end up eating the whole thing or spitting it out in a big mess on the pavement. Shadi places another seed in his mouth, chokes and spits out the sharp fragments of a shell. I just laugh and squint at the sun behind Shadi’s head.
When Mohammed comes he smiles and nods at us. He doesn’t need to make any demands; he just goes and people follow him. He’s like my brother, walking in his too-low jeans, walking like he owns the place. He looks ten-feet tall, even if he’s really only five-five. He runs his hand over his dark, shaved head and gets those heavy keys out, opens up the door and sits on his stool behind the counter. That’s where he’ll stay most of the time, while Shadi and I fuss around the place.
The morning goes like this: after all the lights are turned on, the shelves stacked, the fridges humming, the three of us go outside and lean against the front wall like we’re gangsters from The Fast and The Furious, then we pass around the packet of pumpkin seeds and get to practising while we wait for customers to appear.
Not many people are out this early on a Saturday morning. It’s too early for anyone except the nannas pushing trolleys loaded with fruit and digestive biscuits and young men looking hazy from the night before. Shadi keeps going on and on about that blond girl, Sal, he rescued at the pool. Mohammed nods and yells ‘Yalla!’ at his mate across the road who’s come out of his chicken shop to get the morning sun too.
I watch the sun tear over the Jesus Saves sign and listen to my stomach grumble. This close to Easter I’m always thinking of chocolate but Granville makes me think of chicken too. Chocolate. Chicken. Pumpkin seeds. Somewhere down the road, underneath the chimneys spilling the smell of roasting chicken there is the sound of some preacher’s low voice going on and on and on and a bunch of people yellin’ Amen!