King’s Cross, oh the vibes, the witchy blues
Hanging loose with a chick knowing the scene
Oh, yeah, the strange vibes of, oh another Roz
With the witchy blues, ripe and black
Asking for more making me sore
Oh no, the witchy blues is not for me
No, a brother with a guitar singing
Away those witchy blues, yeah oh yeah
Lay it down, boy lay it down (play, play).
Sydney! Balga gawked as only a yokel can at the Sydney Harbour Bridge .Well, he had never seen the thing before and it was an icon of modern Australia after all. Next, it was Bondi Beach, and Balga left off all thoughts as he plunged into the surf and kissed his girl on that fabulous beach. Exhausted after the long drive of the night, the couple slept a couple of hours lying on the sand. And after it was just roaming about digging the streets, even the big central railway station and China Town and as the day descended into the evening Ross parked her Holden on a street called Wylde which she told him was part of the fabled Kings Cross.
She shrugged as only a true Sydney-sider could leading him along to the intersection of Victoria and Darlinghurst roads. ‘The Cross,’ she said with a dramatic gesture.
And there it was, just like Fitzroy Street in St. Kilda. Yeah, and with the same sort of street vibes that he knew. He rued wearing only a pair of simple working men’s jeans and rough checked shirt. The Bodgie still within him wanted to revert back to his street crawling gear. Yeah, he needed to be bouncing along on high crepe soles, feeling his tapered pants clinging to his ankles; shrugging at the weight of his padded finger tip length draped coat with patch pockets and hearing the clink of the long key chain dangling from his hip to his pocket that could serve as a weapon and swaying, yeah swaying and sounding out a tiny message of watch out, watch out here comes a walking dagger seeking out a fleshy sheaf to be plunged into. Balga shook his self to rid his mind of his old image. He was acting out the part and had even moved a few feet away from Ross so that everyone could get a good look at him as a solitary object ‘Hey, what’s wrong with you?’ Ross demanded and he wrapped an arm about her waist and entered into his Bohemian self. He wished that he was carrying a guitar to show that he was into the folk scene.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Just reliving old times, old spaces and — this place brought back memories that’s all.’
He smiled at her frown and then to avoid any further conversation about old lives and old memories, he exclaimed. ‘Hey, the fabulous Cross; the fabulous Cross and look at this fabulous place. Let’s go in and get a coffee and cool it for a bit.
‘Yeah, I know that place, old memories, eh? It’s the Devil’s Lair, one of the hangouts of my friendly witch, Roseleen Norton, model and artist. Maybe you’ll get to meet her. She gets off on your type.’
Balga hesitated to enter the coffee shop as he had decided it wasn’t so fabulous at all. Indeed it looked dark and, well, sinister. There wouldn’t even be a juke box there. He wanted a brighter place with rock sounds, but Ross had already entered.
He followed her into flickering candle lit darkness with a brooding atmosphere as if the whole place was waiting for something to happen or it had happened and it was getting over it. Whatever, it wasn’t a fighting feeling or even dangerous. He perked up and began to check out the place. It wasn’t all that dark either, just reddish. Perhaps too red as small flood lights illuminated murals that he saw, and recoiled from as only a lad that had been raised as Catholic could. The pictures were all about ugly devils and half naked women and one which his eyes hesitated to examine. There was an almost caricature of a black man engaged in caressing a white woman with horns. “The occasion of sin, avoid the occasion of sin,” he thought he heard a voice intone. He shrugged as these days he never went near a church and this was the first place in ages that made him think of one and of his old Christian Brothers’ school.
Ross was already sitting at a table with the yellow flame of a black wax candle casting shadows on her face. He found it downright spooky, very churchy and suddenly there was a shout from a familiar voice, “Bodgie.” Oh my God, it was his old mate and he whooped back, “Tommy Cooper”. And they were exchanging a bodgie handshake even though Tommy really had never been one of the Saints; but what did that matter. He was an old mate that he had missed.
‘Hey, Tommy I’m with a chick, just call me by my real name, Balga, I’m a bit of a blues singer now and no longer the Bodgie rocker you once knew,’ he warned him.
‘Yeah okay Bodg-, I mean Balga what are you doing in Sydney?’
‘And I might ask what are you doing in a place like this? Not even a juke box. Hey, man, you’ve come down or what? Oh put on the lights and let’s rock.’
‘I manage this joint, man and let me tell you it takes in a fair bit of money over the weekends from the visitors, naw squares that want to catch a glimpse of real life, or what they think is real life in the Cross.’
‘But what’s with the devils, not very Catholic eh? What would the Brothers think of you?’
‘Well, let me tell you man, you not being from Sydney and all it’s like this. The squares or at least some of them have a thing for witches and such like creatures that go bump in the night. The newspaper did a story on this woman, not your sort by the way, and they dubbed her The Witch of the Cross. Now cats (and chicks of course) come looking for her and where can they find her on most nights? In The Devil’s Lair of course, sitting at that back table nicely lit by the flood on that mural, it’s not the devil by the way, but something she calls the god, Pan. So how are things down south?’
‘Same old job in Melbourne. That chick there, Ross was coming to Sydney in a car and so I came with her to get the wheel in my hands again. Did the trip in a day and a night in a Holden, underpowered, that’s good going, mate.’
‘You haven’t been knocking any off anymore, have you?’
‘Me, no, never again, not after that D Kingston put the fear of, well, of that hairy devil there into me. Hey, he most likely would like this place. That demon would be right at home and with that woman of his, Jeannie. Christ, the people I got mixed up with in St. Kilda. This Kings Cross brings it all back. Yeah it does.’
‘Hey it’s where the action is and even this Coffee Shop isn’t all that bad. Man, we have live music, or should have,’ Tommy replied, then frowned ‘That bloke should be right here now singing for his supper, but no show. Oh he showed then and went. You know in keeping, well, with the black theme, I have this Abo folk singer. And black is slack. There is his guitar. Say, did you say that you are now a blues singer?’
And with that Tommy Cooper went behind the counter and switched on a spot light which fell on the stool with a guitar on it.
‘No, no, no,’ Balga protested, but he had been caught by his own bragging or rather had said that he had been a blues singer to explain away his square clothes when he saw that his old mate was dressed in a neat dark suit and looked, well, a part of Kings Cross which the bastard was of course.
‘Just a couple of numbers until he turns up — know any witchy songs?’
So Balga found himself going to the stool and picking up the guitar. Well, he knew a few chords and could strum them and whine a note every now and again. He struck the strings, pretended to tune them and then well launched into ‘Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground’ and found he didn’t know the words. No problems he began playing with rhymes, hoping that the few people in the joint didn’t know the song. ‘Night so cold, no light, the blighted ground, rising from the grave, they give him a rave, how brave, the devil struts and takes their souls, On no, witchy woman.’ Balga whined a few blues notes and left that fragmented song to shift into ‘Goodnight Irene’ which he knew. A few claps and this got him going. He did a better job on another song by Huddy Leadbetter. As he was repeating the hook verse with his mind searching for another song, a voice startled him: ‘My guitar and my gig, cuz. What the heck, trying to take my place and my bread.’
‘Hey, hey,’ Balga protested, ‘the boss just got me to fill in for you. I’m out of songs anyway so take over and do your job.’
‘You did Irene, okay, but you need more feeling,’ the singer said as he took the guitar, tuned it up and began a lively song:
Hey Black Fella what sort of blues you got for me to day play,
Singing and a crying, like the morning rain what a pain same
No way to make my guitar sigh my-my-my way play
No sway to let it slay swinging sounds so glad, so gay say
Like Liberace and his piano, laughing all so high oh my oh my
Old Blackfella Blues why you got me singing this tune
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, why when I should be shouting the blues.
Balga stood just out of the spot and listened. The bloke had a rough tough voice and he actually sounded like a real old time blues singer. Balga felt humbled and crept back away to Ross who had shifted to a back table lit by the only white light that reflected down from a mural where a black man (what white people called a “negro”) was snarling at a thin white woman — similar to the dark haired woman to whom Ross was chatting to and thus ignoring the music. The woman looked attractive but when the lad reached the table he found the white face with carmine lips and arched eyebrows had extremely ugly teeth that made him look away. When Balga sat down the woman stared so intently at him that he felt a short of shiver pass over his body. He glanced at her as she took a long draw from a cigarette in a long holder and then stated: ‘You’re a negro, aren’t you?’
Ross began explaining him and Balga every now and again flashed a glance at the face of the woman, caught sight of the ugly teeth and flashed away to where the folk singer was pounding on his guitar. He was extremely uncomfortable and too aware of the woman that Ross had introduced and with a laugh added: The Witch of Kings Cross.
‘Bewitching too,’ Roie (her nickname) murmured leaning forward until her face was only inches from the face of the lad. She sought to catch the lad’s eyes, but he pretended he was interested in the folk singer. Her hand came out and cool fingers clasped his right hand and the grazed knuckles he had gotten when he had hit the country lout. ‘Does it hurt,’ she asked. ‘Would you like me to suck them well,’ she said and Balga actually shuddered. His eyes were on the mural on the wall.
‘Her art is really spectacular,’ Ross said.
‘And daring, darling,’ Roie added.
Balga’s eyes darted away.
‘Roie wants to use you as a model. She says that she needs a negro to give an added strength to her, well, her artwork. In fact she’s invited us to her flat tonight. She’s having a get together. It is always interesting and people actually vie for an invitation.’
‘I need you; you must come and I must paint you. We can even start tonight. I shall unveil my inner self and reveal to your true strength of panic fury,’ exclaimed Roseleen. The lad darted a glance at her and then at Ross. He wanted to be saved. The last thing he wanted was to be with this evil witch.
Balga was thinking desperately about how to escape the invitation especially as his eyes kept reaching out to the ‘negro’ a figure which he found more and more frightening. Indeed he could imagine himself being the subject of such a scene in real life. He shuddered and turned his attention to where the Aboriginal singer sat on the high stool under the spotlight. He watched him press and pulled at the e-string whining out a note, then strike a chord to end his song, and set. He got off his stool. Balga watched him go to a table where he began chatting to a girl. ‘Hey, I want to catch the singer,’ the lad exclaimed and rushed off to the Koori singer who lifted his head and exclaimed: “Hey, man, you catch my sounds. I was blowing mellow for you. I even did one of those black American songs that have a different guitar tuning. Hey, you heard this one. New one” and he began singing to a thumping beat on the body of his guitar:
You get a fine for walking
And a fine for talking,
But the best damn fine is that fine for walking
So walk on Alabama, sure you’re a friend of mine.
‘Never heard anything like that before, is it a Sydney song?’
‘Cuz you got a lot to learn, and play too. Civil rights, man, civil rights! You mean you don’t know ‘bout civil rights?’
Balga shrugged to hide his ignorance.
‘’Bout voting rights, equal rights for Blackfellas in America, we are just like them here, no rights at all.’
‘How is it for us in Sydney,’ Balga asked. ‘Seems okay, you here ain’t you!’
‘This is Sydney, cuz, big city and unless you hang out in Redfern, the cops they turn a blind eye. Can’t see you in the dark anyway, too black for them,’ and he gave a great whooping laugh that made the coffee house go silent. ‘Ah, come on,’ he exclaimed and gave them a song about a Cinerama mamma that bounced her way to stardom.
‘Hey, that’s darn good,’ the lad exclaimed. ‘I’m Balga and I’m a Noongar from the West.’
‘Yeah and I’m Allan from New Sucking Wales. Anyway I’m cutting out of here now, did my singing and when I get my dough, I’m off. Come with me to Redfern, lots of cats there that can sing and play. Good place, cuz, guitar there too. I’ll teach you a few licks as well as a song or two. Not hillbilly eh, but the real blues, man. I’ll teach you how to sing and play the real Koorie blues.
‘Hey be here tomorrow on time, or I give Bodgie, I mean Balga your spot. He’s just as good. He’ll get half the money tonight,’ Tommy Cooper said coming to them.
‘Naw let him have it all, eh Tommy. He needs it more than I do and he’s a professional singer.’
‘Whatever you say, but tomorrow night, I want you on with him. A fiver more okay? That witch at the back table digs you, see, and what she likes she gets.’
Balga shuddered, but agreed: ‘Yeah, I’ll be here, but Alan wants me to listen to another singer, I’ll be back later, maybe. Hey handle that chick for me will you. Tell her, she can link up with me tomorrow night, eh?’
Balga thus managed to escape the witch and even Ross by going off with Alan. He spent a few days with him in a house in Redfern so unlike the Cross and spent his time just trying out all sorts of music with a lot of Blackfellows, Koories that wandered in and out. Playing with Alan he began to think of himself as a Folk Singer or rather a Blues man. A week passed and he knew that it was time to go back to Melbourne or he wouldn’t have a job. He thought of hitching but his experience in Albury put him off. A problem was that he didn’t have enough money for the bus fare; but Alan got him a job singing in a folk club introducing him as a Blues Man from New Orleans and gave him the name of Balga Boy Jackson. With Alan as backup he got through a whole set and had the money to split from Sydney. As he sat on the bus going south he felt sad about not seeing Tommy again or Ross but that witch had really scared him. Throughout the long journey he practiced to get down some songs that Alan had taught him. His favourite was A Refugee of the Road. ‘The road is long, so long, so narrow, but don’t get off the track, brother. Oh no. don’t get off the track. We is refugees of the road in our own country.’