Oh sometimes I go so fast
Like a rocket rushing to the sun
Evading the moon
And burning out too soon
Oh this is the fast life, fast life
Fast life, fast life blues
Let the missiles rain on down
And the wars increase too soon
No fuss, this is the fast life, fast life
Oh yeah the fast life, fast life blues.
Balga’s new place may have been small and bleak; but he could spruce it up later. He had moved out immediately from Hawthorn lugging his case and now he pushed it under the bed then rushed off to Fitzroy Street to check out the coat, but it was Sunday and the shop was closed. At least, the hot food shop wasn’t and he got a couple of long rolls to fill his belly as well as a bottle of coke. He didn’t take these back to the bungalow but went to the patch of park outside the Home of the Saints and sat on a bench staring at the sign and wondering how Fast Eddy could have been so mean to him.
Balga couldn’t stay in the park for ever and a night and it was getting chilly. He really needed that coat and with that thought he got up and went to The Prince of Wales to see how Tommy Cooper was. He was busy at his desk and Balga told him that he had a room in Dalgety then left as the bar was closed. He came through the front door of the rooming house and from Bonny’s flat at the top of the stairs rock music came pulsing out. He stopped trying to identify the tune and the woman opened the door of her flat, and invited him in for a drink. She and her husband were there with a half dozen bottles of beer and the television blaring. He had seen television before in shop windows but never in a private house. He stared at the small screen and didn’t find the bluish black and white appealing. ‘Maybe, it’ll be in colour one day,’ he remarked.
‘What’s that,’ Bonny asked.
Balga repeated his words and her husband a nondescript sort of bloke who obviously didn’t wear the pants in that flat smiled and said: ‘It is, in the States.’
The lad stared at the screen watching jiving couples that were replaced by a short fair bloke who seemed cool. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked.
‘Johnny O’Keefe,’ the husband replied.
‘Why haven’t you seen Six O’Clock Rock before? I thought you were a rocker and everything,’ Bonny said, thrusting a full glass into his hand.
‘I am and you know my dad was from New Orleans and was friends with Fats Domino,’ he almost bragged and then tensing as the one and only Jerry Lee Lewis appeared on the screen thumping his piano with everything including his fists and boots and giving such a great rocking version of Whole Lotta Shaking Goin’ On that it made him almost fart.
‘Noisy isn’t it,’ the husband whose name was William Tell or something like that commented and clicked channels only to arrive back at the same one with Johnny singing his new song, She’s My Baby.
The evening continued on and Bonny gave him a plate of stew almost as bad as that of Clontarf. He was hungry and polished it off as on the telly flickered The Jack Davy Show. Balga had heard him on the radio when he compered a quiz show, but this was the first time he had seen him. He was a ruddy white haired old gentleman who didn’t turn him on. ‘I expect that Bob Dyer will be on next,’ he commented. Bob Dyer was the friendly competition to Jack Davy and Balga used to listen to him in prison as the convict in charge of the radio system preferred him to Davy.
‘Naw,’ he’s on Friday night and on Seven,’ Bonny commented just as there came a knock at the door and a red haired woman pranced in.
‘Hey, hey,’ she exclaimed, ‘hubby’s on the night shift and Jeannie’s on the town.’
She poured herself a beer, gulped it and refilled her glass. ‘Ah, that’s hit the spot,’ she commented with a vivid lipstick smile.
‘Hey go easy,’ Bonny said, ‘there’s only another bottle after that.’
‘No problema, hey, we’ll have a whip around and I’ll ring for some, but only when we’re opened that last bottle.’
‘But the pubs are closed on Sunday,’ Balga commented.
‘So what, Darkie’ she answered, ‘and who are you anyway? Haven’t seen you here before or even after a few beers, so what’s your moniker?’
Balga explained himself a little and by the time he had finished, she had that last bottle open and half finished.
‘Got any cash on you,’ she asked.
‘I think I’ve got a bit in my bungalow,’ Balga answered reluctant to squander any of his coat money.
‘Right let’s go and see how much you’re got,’ she exclaimed, jumping to her feet.
Perforce he had to follow.
They carried their glasses with them. Balga opened the door to his dismal pad. But Jeannie didn’t comment. She sat on the bed and said: ‘Let’s see if it’s green, orange or blue, the notes I mean.’
‘What,’ he said, not quite getting it.
‘The colour of your dough,’ she replied with a low laugh.
‘I have to find it first,’ he replied.
‘Well, finish your beer and then get it out.’
Balga sat beside the woman and feeling a bit uneasy with her drained his glass. He put it down on the floor and turned to watch her finish her glass then place it beside his. ‘Yes, let’s see what you’ve got.’ Jeannie said. He thought she meant the money, but before he could move, she flung herself down on the bed and dragged him up on top. She thrust up and he thrust down and he came just as she flung him off. ‘Now we’ll just get the note,’ she said coolly pulling down her skirt.
Balga pulled out his suitcase. ‘It must be in a pocket,’ he lied as he pawed through his messy clothes.
‘It may be in your pant’s pocket, Sweetie,’ Jeannie giggled she pressed herself against him so that he could feel that she had on a hard corset just as women did in the movies. Her green eyes held his as she went through his pockets. He saw that there were a few lines about those eyes.
‘Nope,’ she said tugging at him so that he had to turn to the business in hand. She held him as her other hand went into his other pocket, She gave a grunt as it emerged clutching his fold of notes.
‘Ah, here it is,’ she said following her comment with a giggle.
‘It’s all that I have,’ Balga protested not wanting to lose all his dough. He really wanted that coat and he had to eat too!
‘I’ll just take a fiver and with what I get from Bonny, we’ll be good for a dozen,’ she exclaimed, flinging the rest of his dough back on the bed. She scooped up the glasses and went.
When Balga got back upstairs Jeannie was on the phone to the sly groggers as they were called. She urged them to drop off a dozen in a flat ten minutes. ‘They’re just up the way in Middle Park,’ she told him, ‘and they’ll be here in ten for sure. They know their business.’
‘While they were waiting Balga told her that he was from Perth and asked her if she was a born and bred Melbournian.
For some reason, this flustered her and she gave a nervous giggle before explaining her origins: ‘Yes, well, as good as any, I expect. Been here, well, just about all my life. My Grandmum she came from Whitechapel, London and it was there that that Jack the Ripper got cutting up the girls so no one could earn a few bob. Grandmum got scared and decided to get as far away as she could when he cut up a woman she knew, and that far away was Australia, Sydney to be exact. She stayed there then came down to Melbourne where the money was flowing from all the gold they were dredging up. She went to Bendigo, moved on to Ballarat where she had Mum and Mum came to Melbourne during the Great Depression where she had me. So that’s my story and I know yours, well as much as I want to. You’re a West Aussie and just got here and haven’t got a girl friend or anything,’ and she gave that giggle again just as a knock came at the door and a bloke came in carrying a carton of beer. He set it down on the table, declined a drink, hugged Jeannie and then went off.
It was getting towards eleven when Jeannie gave a giggle then explained that her hubby would be home by twelve and she had better get back. ‘Hey, how would you like to escort a gal home,’ she said looking at Balga.
‘As long as it isn’t too far,’ he replied feeling the need to go to his bungalow for a sleep as he had to go to work in the morning..
‘You’ll never get a gal if you won’t even go a little way to sit on her porch,’ Jeannie retorted. It sounded so rural that he doubted that she was as city bred as she claimed. “Still, what did it matter,” he thought as he got up having let her goad him into accompanying her.
They left the house and in the street she placed her hand on his upper arm which she explained was the proper way for ladies to walk with their beaus. Balga nodded to this as they reached Grey Street and turned left. A car slowed to check them out and Jeannie giggled and called: ‘Hey, can’t you see I’m with a fella. Maybe tomorrow, huh!’
In answer the car sped up and away. Jeannie told the lad: ‘A lot of those pavement crawlers are such scaredy cats, though they are good for a couple of quid when a gal needs it,’ and she gave that giggle again as she went on to order: ‘Now wrap your arm about me and keep me warm, sweetie pie. That’s nice. Make believe we are a couple.’
She snuggled against Balga and he looked down at her red hair. She only came up to his shoulder and he had thought her much taller. ‘You’re only a little thing,’ the lad exclaimed.
‘And you’re got a big thing, like Harry Belafonte’ she retorted, flashing her face up at the lad so that he had to kiss it, his lips hitting her nose before they found her mouth. ‘Clumsy, clumsy,’ she said as he wondered if his breath smelt as much of beer as hers did.
‘Bonny’s a good friend,’ the woman told him, ‘and I meet up with her whenever I get the chance to have a drink and a laugh together, but never along with hubby though. He’s stingy, not a good sport at all. I’ve just about had enough of him and his ways. Anyway, when he’s on late shift I duck down this way and then back again. Now after Grey we do a right into Barkly here and down we go to that big picture palace on the corner. Oh, From Here to Eternity is on, but hubby never takes me anywhere. Maybe you will,’ and she flashed her face up at him again. They stopped for a kiss outside the quiescent cinema which meant that it still was a little early with the people inside getting an eyeful of Deborah Kerr.
‘When I got the time and when hubby’s not around,’ Balga replied carefully.
‘You’re not much for giving a gal a good time are you?’ she retorted sharply.
Balga might have replied that he had to go to work in the morning as well as that she had a husband and was a little too old for him. Instead, he merely kissed her again.
‘Oh you must be a Mick,’ she exclaimed.
‘Why,’ he asked.
‘I know what you’re thinking.’
‘Naw, I’m nothing like that. Indeed we are two of a kind.’
‘Don’t even joke like that,’ she said. ‘Now we go along Carlisle and here we are.’
It was a duplex block of flats and she fumbled in her bag, got out her key and opened the door. ‘We’ve still got a little while so come in and have a cup of tea.’
Balga followed her inside into the kitchen where she put the kettle on the gas then excused herself. He supposed that she had gone to the bath room to get rid of the beer smell and was thinking of following after when she returned having exchanged the costume she had been wearing for a dressing gown. She made the tea then said that they would be more comfortable in the lounge room. They were.
Seated next to each other on the couch, they sipped their tea and suddenly she jumped up and said that she would put on the radio. She did and some middle of the road station droned out the Jim Reeves song, He’ll Have to Go.
‘And you have to go,’ she said brightly, finishing her tea and standing ready to take his cup.
Balga left and as he reached the picture palace a bloke plodded past. Balga turned and watched as he went on to go into Jeannie’s flat. He must be the husband; and the lad pitied him, then yawned and hurried home.