Next morning, the youth followed the rest of the convicts. They went down the stairs and out into a yard to empty their buckets and wash them out. Bodgie stood in line yawning and waiting. He stopped in mid yawn as he sensed someone close behind him. A hand touched him on the shoulder and fake gruff voice intoned: ‘Well, well, well, who do we have here? Audrey said that you had been picked up by the demons. What did you do? Don’t tell me. It must’ve have been something awful for you to get the jug and not probation at seventeen. Well, welcome to the big house, man. Real gone, though not so hep, eh?’
‘Hey, hey’, Bodgie exclaimed turning and grinning. It was Fast no Steady Eddy and greeting him as an equal rather than a Johnny come lately. He reached the trough, quickly washed out his bucket, copying what the others had done and scooping up a bit of phenyl, then got out of the line and with that wide big grin still on his dial yodeled: ‘Hey man, give me some skin?’
Steady Eddy gave him the short version saying that there wasn’t much time for Mrs. Palmer and her five sisters. ‘No matter man, no big or small deal about this, you’re a Saint now and I’ll stand with you,’ he told Bodgie and proceed to fill him in. ‘You can work this place. Suckers suffer and do it hard while hepcats like us learn the ropes and which ones to pull. Still, no time now for gassing, the screw is looking our way. Get to the school and we’ll meet there. Hansen the school master is one of those blokes who believe in reforming us, you know making us over into squares, that means he’s a softy. ‘You’re a juvee and his heart’ll be bleeding for you,’ Eddy told him in a rush of words as the screw was already shouting for them to shut up and get to their cells.
As they rushed the gate, Bodgie couldn’t be cool and blurted out: ‘Gee, it’s great to see you, Eddy!’
The screw standing at the gate pushed him and grated: ‘One more word outa you and you’re on report.’
Bodgie snarled and got back to his cell to wait in the doorway to receive his loaf of bread and mug of tea. Behind the cons dishing out the refreshments came the trim little Major screw accompanied by a bigger one who slammed the door behind the boy and wrenched the key around so that it grated as if someone was grinding his teeth. Bodgie drank his tea and ate half the bread and then just lay on the bed thinking about his good luck in having Eddy in the same division. He dozed off.
The door was flung back. He came out and followed the rest of the men down to the ground floor. They lined up except the group of new chums who just huddled together and waited until the screws turned their attention to them. It was the big screw again that ordered the men to line up to go to the main division where they would be assigned workshops. Bodgie joined them, but was called out. The major gestured towards a half dozen men—no, lads who waited on one side as the men marched out. He joined them and oh boy was it his lucky day. First Steady Eddy and now there was the flash of a familiar grin followed by a familiar voice. It was his mate from the orphanage, Tommy Cooper. There was no mistaking that freckled face and lopsided grin.
‘Was looking for you all over Perth,’ he said. They must’ve got you as soon as you left Clonny. Is that why I couldn’t find you? Don’t call me Skinny anymore, the name’s Bodgie.’ He stuck out his hand for a square handshake. Boy was he glad to see him. He clutched his hand for a full minute before dropping it.
‘I’ve been in a few months,’ Tommy replied. ‘I got nine months for nothing.’
‘Yeah and I got a year for not believing in God.’
‘Say you don’t say t’at and t’ere anymore. What happened, you meet the right teacher or somethin’?’
‘No, just a living doll! How about you, not dropping your aitches anymore?’
‘Grew out of it.’
While they gassed, Bodgie was flinging glances at the other five kids. ‘Hey,’ he yelled, making his move, ‘they call me “Bodgie” and you all can call me that. Who are you lot anyway?’
His attempt at friendliness was received with scowls.
‘Yeah,’ a brown skinned kid retorted, ‘I can see by the shoulders. All coat,’ and he sniggered.
‘That’s Kevin Holliway and next to him his brother, Keith,’ Tommy informed him. The other Abo is something Yarram. Then we have Dennis the Menace a little perve who loves telling you all about his smelly escapades and lastly Phil the Double Dealer who stole my loaf of bread the first day I was in. He still owes me one, don’t you Double Dealer,’ he called out.’
‘You’ll never get it for I’m on the way out this week,’ sniggered Phil.
‘You better pass it over or else you’re going to be thumped. We’ll both go up on a charge and you’ll be getting a little something extra to add on.’
‘Eh, you little blighters are you going to pass wind all morning. Get to work or you’re all on report’ grumbled the screw coming out of his office, though the blame didn’t lie with the kids. He had been swilling down a mug of tea and had forgotten to unlock the door next to his office where the cleaning things were stored. They got out mops and buckets. The screw unlocked the yard door so they could fill the buckets with water. The juvees were assigned two to a landing. The ground floor was left for all of them to do when upstairs had been finished, though Phil as the odd lad out began cleaning there. Bodgie managed to be coupled with Tommy who told him that they had to drag out the work as the ground floor was afternoon work
‘You better watch out for the Abo kids, mate,’ Tommy advised him. ‘The older ones have a special yard to themselves and get to work out doors gardening; but the juvees stay with us. They are sort of in between and when they reach eighteen they have the choice to either join everybody or go off to their yard. And you better watch out for that Yarram kid! He’s a Tiger snake bad tempered and quick to strike. I think he’s doing it hard. I heard that he got a girl pregnant and when she was having a miscarriage he stole a car to get her to a hospital. Well, he may be saved her life, but they put him in here for it. Just goes to show, you don’t sow what you reap; but reap what others have sown.’
For sure,’ Bodgie agreed.
‘Come on, enough yacking for a while. Let’s get cleaning up. No sweat though, the major doesn’t get out of his office that much, never gets off the ground floor so we’re free of him. He doesn’t care as long as the work is done and there isn’t any dirt or stuff laying about. The Chief Warder hates the screws as much as he does the cons. Watch out for him! Don’t get on his bad side, or he’ll have you on report and into solitary before you can say, “yes, sir”.’
They set to work. There was very little dirt on the landing boards. They didn’t need sweeping only swabbing. Tommy (he had dropped the insistence on having Cooper tagged on) told Bodgie that every Monday the screw had them scrubbing the boards until they were almost white. ‘I think they were originally Jarrah red,’ Tommy said, ‘but with all the rubbing, well, over the years us poor buggers have got them as white as mothers’ milk.’
They took opposite sides of the landing mopping from the walls where the division ended at a doubled locked and ironed barred door. Bodgie used to such work in Clontarf did it without any fuss and bother. When a bucket of water was dirty he went down to disturb the little Major who flung open the gate to the yard, glared at him as he emptied and refilled the bucket, then yelled at him to get a move on as he cleaned the mop. Bodgie could feel his hard stare on his back as he hurried past. The little bastard scared him. He raced up the stairs and out of his glare.
‘Gee,’ he exclaimed to Tommy, ‘that little screw is a nasty little---’
‘Prick,’ finished his mate who just as in Clontarf in his first days was checking over his work to see that it would pass inspection.
‘Yeah, that’s what he is,’ Bodgie exclaimed. ‘Hey, I want to get into the school. Do I have to ask him if I can go and see the school master?’
‘Aw,’ replied Tommy, ‘he’ll let you go. No skin off his nose. The school room is just off the first landing so he doesn’t have to put himself out or phone up for an escort for you.’
‘Will it be easy to get in?’ Bodgie asked.
‘Why not, if you want to, though I don’t ‘cause I haven’t got all that time to go, what with my remission. School room is three days a week, today, Wednesday and Thursday so you can go and see the master this afternoon and hang out there for a couple of hours until it closes. There’s lots of dull books and you can thumb through them.’
‘How do you know all this,’ Bodgie asked his mate although knowing that he had always been a bit of a wheeler and dealer, a type that Bodgie liked his mates to be. Just like Steady Eddie who could put him straight on just about everything whether he knew it or not.
’‘Cause I too thought about doing a course at first. I checked it out; but there was a bloke hanging about there that began bothering me. Christ, he was a nasty piece of work and he was the last bloke I wanted for a mate.’
‘Is he still there now,’ Bodgie asked.
‘Naw, he was such a vicious prick that they had to put him in segregation.’
Segregation,’ Bodgie queried.
‘Yeah, they have these petas, that’s cells with their own exercise yards for blokes like him.’
‘Oh,’ Bodgie replied only half understanding what he meant. He was an innocent just months out of Clontarf and just a day in boob as Tommy called prison. It would take months before he knew as much as his mate did.
Morning work ended at ten thirty. They were locked up in the juvenile yard which was just to the right inside the second division doors. It was a narrow space with an open shed in the middle and two open toilets at the ends where the exercise yard ended with a wall which was scalable up to an open stretch of ground extending to the outside wall.
Tommy Cooper saw his mate staring there and said: ‘A bloke tried to escape and was climbing the wall when the screw took a shot and took off his balls. He had orders to shoot low and he did. I don’t know if it’s true or not as I heard it from an old con that might have been having a kid on. He also told me about the last hanging when the Chief Warder had to swing on the legs of the bloke to break his neck as the drop wasn’t far enough. That bastard would do that too.’
‘My God, but don’t they have one of those gallows you see in the pictures?’ Bodgie asked with a shudder.
Before he could answer Kevin Holliway came up to him, stared and then said: ‘You ain’t no white fella. You one of us, or what?’
‘My dad was an American,’ Bodgie told him.
‘Yeah,’ he said examining his face. ‘Your nose ain’t a Noongar nose.’
This seemed to satisfy him, but not Bodgie. He stared at the boy’s nose and it was flat as was that of his brother, but Yarram had a nose which was similar to his own. He pointed this out to Kev, who merely shrugged and said that it didn’t matter to him at all.
They had an hour or less to kill and Dennis the Menace was latching onto Bodgie to regale him with an account of his perverse acts when Kev began picking at the back wall. Parts of the sandstone blocks crumbled into fragments. He collected a pile of these and started flinging them at the other kids scattered about the yard. They dodged them or stung by a hit picked a piece up and flung it back. A hard game similar to brandy which they had played in Clontarf with soft tennis balls! Not rocks that hurt and bruised when they hit. The boys dodged and ducked. A rattling at the gate made them put an end to it. Dinnertime was on hand. The screw flung open the gate and the juvees walked to the First Division door which he opened and locked behind them. They lined up to receive a dixie straight from the kitchen and piping hot as they were first in line. Carrying their dinner they went to their peta door and had to wait while the rest of the blokes from the division yard were served. Finally the little Major with another screw in attendance went around locking the prisoners in. By that time their food was cold.
The round aluminium dixie was in two sections. The bottom part held a soup which by this time had lumps of fat floating around on top. Bodgie gulped it down. It was awful, like Clontarf grub, but he was hungry. The second section under the lid was the main meal, meat and a couple of veggies. Stone cold! The meat had congealed gravy on it. All he had to eat his tucker with was a spoon. He used his fingers. With the grub done, he was stuck for something to do. The next work time was one o’clock whenever that was. There was no way of telling the time, though when the wind was off the sea the striking of the Fremantle town hall clock reached the prison. Last night he had heard it as a lonely sound; but now nothing. He slept.