8
One Saturday evening Forbes and I leave his monastic,
lino-paved North Carlton house, heading for Brunswick Street.
We know what to expect:
Bohemia as a free-market, tolerant-enough, rock’n‘roll
republic for the Kids in Black, though tonight
hosting the Templestowe hordes,
the Menai, MacGregor and Joondoolup hordes
who John observes, ‘Go for all this
with the same intensity they’d go for wowserism.’
Admirably correct of course, and I won’t forget it,
but does he feel as if some Leagues Club
propped by the four pillars of its demos ethos
Good beer, good tucker, good mates, good times
might somehow be wowser-free and purer?
I dare not ask him.
Meanwhile, one or two ks west
The Great Gangitano is doubtless shaking down,
or planning shaking down, or celebrating shaking down
the subjects of his lulu kingdom. Then later,
with Jason and whoever needs the thrill-enough,
find him in King Street, lots of heads in King Street,
some to get cracked, some to look away;
lots of tits too, sweet and getting sweeter;
and lots of space to be caught on camera just like that,
like that all-too-real-thing, a movie star, is meant to be.
What this man needs is a brother, to set his limits,
for if you must standover, please … with style?
Broadsheet, tabloid or talk, whatever gives a crew its name
they have to deserve their reputation and Alphonse
you just aren’t deserving it.
Is this what made them visit you
that mid-summer Friday night?
It might’ve been when the bro-talk started, it sure was where
and when it stopped: lots of shouting in a big house.
Know the it of You’re losing it?
Well you lose plenty but when the it occurs,
your mate Jason loses plenty more
and the Robert De Niro of Lygon Street
finishes as the Joe Pesci of Templestowe,
whacked from behind because he was a fucking lulu.
The following evening I visit John who leaves
for an hour, push-biking in the heat,
probably to Preston for his cough mixture
(whatever that mixture’s holding in reserve
spirits are resurrected, though little else could be).
All doors and windows of a stuffy house
opening onto a stuffy Melbourne,
we watched The Merchant of Venice,
a series of static tableaux perhaps, though
drenched in poetry, with John like some De La Salle brother
quizzing boys on certain passages, characters
and all its ambiguity.
I’ll speak to him once more,
we’ll talk about Bruce Dawe, how he writes ‘themes’,
how English teachers love their ‘themes’,
how because of ‘themes’ Bruce Dawe makes the syllabi,
how his books sell and how, if not rich
he’s far richer than we’re becoming,
though which one day could still be ours
like Shakespeare might be. Yes.
And then the wish-list ends.
And then the day they’re burying that other one
John dies.