The old bloke just kept right on going with his sign until he got to ‘S’ and it was then that my prediction was roundly confirmed. He got around it by doing a ‘T’ apostrophe ‘R’ - that is MANCHEST’R. He looked at me through his plastic paint-specked sunglasses.
‘Don’t have a bad eye, kid. You should put that to something useful.’
I didn’t think there was anything in it at all.
‘I didn’t use my eye,’ I said, ‘I just calculated it.’
‘How’s that work?’
‘Letters are 9 inches wide plus the gap between averages out to 9 inches because some letters are a bit narrower, which equals 90 inches or 7‘6” long. Two windows four feet each, allow a bit each side and also allow for the frame in the middle equals less than 7 actual running feet for the wording.’
He just stared at me though I couldn’t see his eyes.
‘Help me put this stuff in the truck,’ he said.
We put his plank and ladders on the roof rack and then he gave me a lift back to Cronulla. His name was Jeff Burgess and in that truck he gave me a smoke. Up until then I’d only had about three in my life; couldn’t afford it. He told me he was going to see the year out and then he’d retire. At the lights he put the truck out of gear and looked at me. ‘Want a job?’
‘I’m in the market,’ I said.
‘Dirty work, this signing business. Not all flicking paint on shiny windows.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘What if I asked you to sand down five real estate boards and prime ‘em up again, three coats, wash out all the brushes, rollers, trays, clean out the shed, then sand down another five boards before knockoff ?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Can’t say what I think until I give it a go. Painted my Aunty’s picket fence, though, two coats.’
In a month he had me signed up to do a ticket-writing course and a painters’ night class. Without even realising it I’d been conscripted to signwriting - which was a whole lot better than being conscripted to the National Service, which started right about then. I managed to miss it on account of the day on which I was born. Random. Chance. Two key factors in my theory of the universe.
Yet I never made a great signwriter, nothing like Jeff. But there’s more to working on signs than just the writing. Quoting was one of my specialties. Jeff would send me down to some new supermarket or other and I’d measure up, calculate the gear needed and the time it would take, work out our hourly charge. Then all Jeff had to do was show up with gear. I’d help set it up, organise the prep work, strike the chalk-lines, do the fill-ins, the second coating, buy the smokes, vanilla slices and coffee and pack up at the end. Do it standing on my ear.
And those were the days when signwriting was really something. Everyone needed it. No inkjet printing or mass production stuff back then. Jeff didn’t quit at the end of the year like he said. And our very good rock ‘n roll Aunty Deb kept us both on at Reed Street. I’d never seen Kitty so happy and her troubled toss-and-turn nights seemed to fade as her confidence grew. Things were going so well we even sent a postcard home to our mother.
Random: Done haphazardly, without aim, purpose or principle. Oxford p. 677.
Chance: Absence of design or discoverable cause. Oxford p. 128.
This morning the new inmate I saw at our ‘praise the Lord’ meeting was being moved in right across the corridor from me. Jim Southall. Dell Williams said he is an ex-parliamentarian. Very old and decrepit. When they were getting him out of the chair I saw the horrible scabs on his neck and cheek. Odd smell about him too. The smell of death? Hope he’s not going to be another zombie sleep walker.
Two nights ago I’m lying in bed when I open my eyes to see what I thought was an apparition in my room. I snap to a sitting position, my heart knocking buttons off my pyjamas. And lo and behold, it’s one of the old ducks out for a walk in her nightie! I had to get up and ease her back into the passageway. I closed the door and put my foot against it. It might sound harsh but it’s not my responsibility to take care of these poor old souls.
I have no intention of ‘engaging with others’, as Nurse Lohman puts it. I have nothing in common with these destitute people left helpless by old age. Most would have died if it wasn’t for the drugs. ‘Socialising’ in here is a little like life at the office - even though you have dozens of co-workers it doesn’t mean you have to like them. Anyway, I do not intend staying any longer than necessary.
At dinner tonight I was put next to Jim the ex-parliamentarian, or at least that’s where I parked myself as it was the only spot left by the time I got there. As it is customary, I said hello to him and would have been pleased to leave it at that.
‘Neighbours,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘Neighbours, we live across the road.’ He meant he now has a room opposite mine.
‘Traffic’s bad up our street, don’t you think?’ he says.
‘Traffic?’
‘Yes, as thick as Bourke Street. Horns blasting, bumps and clatters and clangs. The thump of Jean’s footfalls enough to shake you out of your bed.’
‘Who’s Jean?’
‘Jean Stinson.’ He looks around the room. ‘The big one,’ he whispers. ‘The two-ton truck.’
Then big bumbling Dooley on my left leans in. ‘You goin’ t’ eat that chop?’
‘Course I am and if I wasn’t I’d leave it on my plate.’
‘A waste. When I had the pub, anything come back to the kitchen would end up in someone’s guts. We knew the value of things in those days. A chop is a prize for some.’
‘Well, why don’t I let it go back to the kitchen then, eh?’
‘What’s your name?’ he says.
‘I told you last night,’ I say patiently. I can be very patient when needed.
‘What is it then?’ says Dooley.
‘You’ll think of it,’ I tell him. ‘It’ll come to you.’
Sad old Clem looks over at Dooley, his serviette tucked into his collar. ‘What’s the thing you lift up your car with?’
Dooley looks at him. ‘Never had no need for a car. Had a Triumph Trident once but when I got the pub I sold that as well. What’s wrong with public transport? Buses, trains, taxis …’
‘He’s trying to tell you that my name’s Jack, Mack. Got it? J. A. C. K.’
‘Jack Black from down the track, had a whip that he could crack,’ he booms with the look of a buffoon. Fucking idiot.
Then Ivan on the end takes out his top teeth and licks the food off them. I’m ready to throw up. I look at Jim Southall and he gives an odd grin. The poor old bugger must have resigned to accept all this. He’s given in to the indignities and unnatural assaults on the sensibilities. He no longer expects normality. I do. I’m not eighty-five, I’m sixty-two! I’ve got quarter of a century before I end up like decrepit old MP Jim Southall with scabs on his face and water leaking out of his red, saggy eyelids.
Then comes the ultimate insult. Big booming Dooley is going on about the day counter meals were 2/6 and pies were a shilling, waving his