Got to get up each and every morning
Got to rush to catch my bus or tram
Get up every morning rush to catch my tram
I’m just a working stiff with the working stiff blues
Yeah, just a working stiff with the working stiff blues
Needing a place to rest my bones
Needing a place to hide my sins
Got a pay cheque week by week
Just for the working stiff blues
Oh yeah hear me cry these working stiff blues.
The very next morning, after a breakfast of tea, toast and a boiled egg, Balga set out for the centre of the city following Stand the Man’s advice and reiterated information. He strolled to the main road and didn’t have long to wait until the tram rattled up, Kew 69. Balga hopped aboard, paid the fare to the conductor and soon was moving along Victoria Road through Richmond towards the city. The tram reached the top of Collins Street and a fellow passenger got up and pressed a button. A bell sounded and he hopped off as the tram stopped. Balga followed him off making a mental note on how to stop the vehicle. He dodged cars as he ran across Collins Street then crossed another to go down the lane alongside of the government building. This was blocked to regular traffic by a thick chain stretched between two iron posts. He came to the side entrance which Stand the Man had indicated yesterday as being the way in for him. He walked through into a foyer and stopped to get his bearings. It was a very brown place with the walls being in different shades from almost cream to deep chocolate and there were corridors that went north, south and west without any signs to give him his direction. Balga sighed and stared at himself in the inner glass doors through which he had come. He almost saw a stranger. There were the familiar spikes of his hair; but he wore the brogues which he now decided were as square as square could be although they did go with the suit so square. He sighed again just as a bloke that had hopped off the tram before him and also wearing a similar suit came out of a passageway. Balga suppressed a sigh and tentatively smiled. The bloke was an ordinary looking man without distinguishing marks and he was carrying a large canvas bag. Balga asked him where the employment office was.
‘You wanting to join us navvies,’ the bloke replied and jerked a thumb for the Noongar to follow him.
He stopped at a door, said: ‘that’s it,’ and then went on in.
Balga followed him and saw a counter and behind it a large room with about half dozen desks at which men sat studying papers. There were more of them behind a glass partition. He took all this in as he waited at the counter until one of the blokes looked up, saw him there and came to him. Balga asked him for Mr. Rogers and he exclaimed: ‘You must be the Western Australian boy. I’m Rogers and, well, we’ll set the wheels in motion, shall we?’
The Noongar nodded noting that Mr. Rodgers was another of these nondescript men neither short or tall, neither handsome nor ugly, that populated this building. Just a working stiff, he thought and hoped that he wouldn’t end up like them. He almost shuddered as he stared down at a mousy brown head of hair bending down to bring forth a form from beneath the counter. Balga ran a hand over his own distinct spikes as the man looked up, moved his lips in a slight smile and said: ‘Now we’ll just get your details, shall we?’
With Mr. Rodgers’ help, the form was quickly filled in and the man then took it behind the glass partition where Balga watched him pass it over to similar type of man. They discussed it for about ten minutes, then he returned to thrust out his hand; ‘Welcome aboard. You start tomorrow at the Motor Registration Branch in Exhibition Street in the Exhibition Buildings. Just go west along Exhibition Street to the gardens, continue through them and you can’t miss it. Report to the staff officer there and he’ll set you to rights. You’ll be a Temporary Clerical Assistant Grade Two, but you can sit for an examination to become permanent and work yourself up. These are held fairly regularly and are not all that difficult. Well best of luck.’
Balga thanked him and shook hands. He found himself without difficulty outside the building where now he had the time to dig the scene. The Noongar saw a wide garden across the lane and went walking there to get a grip on his emotions. He was more than a little dazed that everything had gone so smoothly. He wasn’t used to such breaks in his so far wretched life. Only his second day in Melbourne and already he had a job. Well, things certainly were different here and with this the slight traces of trepidation that still lurked within him fled out and away. How nice the day had become. Sunny, but not the harsh glare of Perth and the gardens were filled with English trees, neat lawns and pretty white girls.
Balga gazed about him at a Melbourne which was glowing with a subdued light that made everything soft and gentle. He relaxed even more and felt happy as he left the park and crossed over into what he later learnt was called the Paris end of Collins Street. All the shops strove to look posh and just about all of them were selling women’s things, conservatively fashionable, and expensive he supposed. Not a thing that his mum had ever worn and certainly not even a scarf she could afford. He sighed and went down past and then crossed Russell Street to regular shops a bit like Hay Street in Perth with stores bulging with goods. The shops were on a bigger scale as was the theatre, the Regent which he came to as were the ornately carved tall buildings after Swanston Street. Balga stared about him open mouthed like a yokel, though he didn’t feel overwhelmed by the city’s size. Indeed it felt good to be adrift in such a neutral sprawl that was neither friendly nor unfriendly and he even felt just one of these folk rushing along anxious to do whatever they had to do. Quickly, he withdrew from such absurd identification. He wasn’t one of them. He lacked their purposeful striding and their set stern faces. Not a smile to be seen and all of the faces were white and pinched unlike his brown dial which reflected the brown of his West Aussie heritage. Now he reached the corner where they had boarded a tram yesterday. He wondered how Revel was faring and turned back to go and see Stand the Man at the League to tell him the good news and also get news of his Noongar mate.
The building in which the Aboriginal Advancement league had its office under the sunlight looked scruffier than the front of a police station. Balga hesitated to enter as if he might never come out again; but shrugging aside the make-believe he went inside to the office, poked his head through the open door and brushed his bristles as if they were untidy before asking if he might come in.
Stand the Man was sitting at his desk which faced the door. He looked up with a sincere smile and replied: ‘Of course, of course, we were expecting you. Of course, it went well; of course it did, didn’t it?’
Balga heard the query in his voice and walked into the office. He glanced at the Rev’s wife sitting at the side desk smiling as if she knew that he had succeeded.
‘And I see you did take my advice and go there properly attired,’ Stand the Man exclaimed. ‘Public servants must wear a suit and this was just what was needed. Mr. Rogers has rang me already with the good news. Now it is up to you to make a go of it, it is isn’t it?’
Again Balga heard the query.
‘Congratulations,’ his wife, whose name Balga never learnt, said.
Balga nodded and looked at her carefully for the first time and saw a horse. He could see her galloping around a paddock or ripping up grass with those big teeth and masticating it.
‘Thank you, both of you,’ the Noongar intoned sincerely and then waited for what might come next. Stand the Man was a Minister of religion and surely there would be a Christian come on; but to his surprise there wasn’t any and so he asked him about Pastor Doug.
‘Oh, he’s out and about somewhere,’ Stan replied, ‘he’s our field officer and is always contacting people.’
‘And where’s Revel?’ Balga asked about the only person he knew in town.
‘Oh at the art school getting signed in and hasn’t got back yet.’
‘We’re putting him up for a while,’ the Rev’s wife replied.
‘Yes,’ added Stand the Man, ‘he’s settled in. Your accommodation okay? Best we could do, but it’s close to a tram route into the city and all that, it is isn’t it? You like it, don’t you?’
Again the query and Balga smiled and said: ‘Yeah, it’s fine,’ and couldn’t help adding, ‘for the time being.’
‘So everything else is as fit as can be, is it? You have enough cash to keep you buoyant until your first pay day,’ Stand the Man asked ignoring the lad’s last words.
‘I have a few pounds and if that doesn’t last I’ll cruise by and pull over to see ya,’ Balga said attempting a joke.
‘That’s what we’re here for,’ the Rev said convincingly.
Yes, he certainly was a good man, Balga thought and couldn’t help retorting: ‘That’s mighty Christian of you.’
‘We are here to help,’ Stand the man replied sincerely.
‘Building your mansion in heaven...’
‘You may put it that way. Yes, you may if you wish, but it is the Christian thing to do.’
‘Yes it is, isn’t it,’ Balga the Bodgie sneered.
Mrs Davies, the Rev’s wife suddenly jumped in and said with a laugh: ‘Everyone for tea.’ She set to work to make it.
Stand the Man smiled in acknowledgment then bent his head over his desk saying that he had letter to read and it wouldn’t take a minute. Balga stared at his head noticing that his black hair was graying at the roots, though he seemed only in his late thirties or early forties. Well, it didn’t concern him and he looked around for something to occupy his mind. There was a newspaper in the side desk and he picked it up. It was a broadsheet, The Age, and thicker than any newspaper he had seen before. This reminded him that except for these people and Revel he was alone in a city much larger than Perth and really needed them. Gee, he had to see Revel too and compare notes.
Stand the Man’s wife handed him a cup of tea with two bickies in the saucer and he left off the paper to sip and bite after a “thank you”.
Stan Davies left his letter to do what the lad was doing and engaged in conversation about their office and the street. ‘It may look a little down in the mouth,’ he said.
‘Seen worse.’
‘The rents are cheap and the locality convenient. We have another place in Northcote, but that is a bit far from the centre of the city.’
‘And what is this “Aboriginal advancement” you advocate,’ Balga asked.
‘Full citizenship rights of course,’ was the prompt reply.
‘Oh,’ Balga replied, wondering what that meant. He was after all just a kid in his teens and didn’t know much.
‘How long has the League been going?’ he asked, making conversation and hoping that soon Revel would put in an appearance.
‘Well,’ he began, ‘Victoria, I have to admit, has the same awful history in regard to the Aborigines as the rest of Australia, but things since the end of the war have started to change for the better here. Yes, it has. We may have a Liberal government but the premier Henry Bolte is a rather astute politician who has made Victoria the most progressive of all the Australian states. For example Aborigines have the same rights here as any other Australians to enter hotels as well as to vote in the state elections unlike Western Australia...’
‘Yeah, but that doesn’t matter if you don’t drink all that much,’ Balga stated, then continued: ‘Still, yeah, in W.A. if you’re an Aborigine, a Noongar or considered to be one you are not allowed into a pub unless you can show a special exemption certificate, what we Noongars call a “dog license” Anyway, I’ve never bothered about one of those, but perhaps Revel has. You can ask him, he’s more cluey about things than me.’
‘Well, there is nothing like that here now. Our government does give its support to the Federal policy of assimilating Aboriginal people into the general population as quickly as possible; but any harsh laws segregating them are of the past. I don’t think that you know that Pastor Doug and his family are not locals, but are originally of New South Wales where the laws were and still are quite strict in comparison to ours. They and others rebelled against the restrictions placed on them at the end of the Second World War staged what has come to be known as the Cumeragunga Walkout. Cumeragunga was an Aboriginal government mission just across the border and the folk there got fed up with the treatment they were receiving from the New South Wales government which more or less kept them confined to their mission as if they were prisoners. They had to take permission from the superintendent if they wanted to leave the station and he could refuse this for any purpose. The people there got to know about the better conditions here, the more enlightened attitudes and laws, so one day the entire population got up and walked across the border into Victoria, just like that, you know. They refused to return and it is from this act of defiance that the Aboriginal Advancement League sprung when we mobilized help for what can only be termed our internal refugees. Pastor Doug, he was quite a well known sportsman in his youth, was a natural leader and after everything became settled he came in as our main field worker and has done a sterling job. We have other Aborigines working in our Northcote centre. You’ll meet them when you come to our functions. This is only our city office, as I’ve already told you, and our main establishment is in Northcote where we have a hall and put on all sorts of functions. Come and attend them; at least until you find your feet in Melbourne. I know that you’ll enjoy them and get to know the local community. A big city can be a pretty lonely place and Melbourne, I know, is a much larger place than you are familiar with. Yes, it is. So, don’t feel that you’ll impose on us if you need help or even company. You are very much welcome to participate in our activities too. Workers are always needed, you know, especially Aboriginal ones to show a public face. We have a function a dance on at Northcote on Saturday. Come along and meet the local Koories.’
‘Koories?’
‘The name for the local Aboriginal people.’
‘Will Revel be there?’
‘Yes, he’ll accompany us.’
‘I’ll come, but I sure would like to see Revel before then.’
‘You might check the art school.’
‘Where is it?’ Balga asked Stand the Man.
‘At the Art Gallery, there’s a side door leading in.’
‘Maybe, yeah, I’ll go there and see if I can find him.’
‘He is a bit late,’ Mrs Davies put in.
‘Yeah, and after that I’ll get home and familiarize myself with it.
Revel wasn’t at the art school so Balga went and walked around the pictures in the gallery paying special attention to those featuring nude women. After this he went home and read a book. It was all that he could do until he found his way around.