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Chapters (21)

Jack:	I’ve been thinking about your T-shirt.
	‘All Lives Matter’.
	Didn’t think you’d wear that around.
Sue:	Why?
Jack:	Well, you’re a blackfulla.
Sue:	Yeah! And?
Jack:	What about black lives?
	They matter too?
Sue:	Absolutely …
Jack:	So, you’re a coconut?
Sue:	Hello.
Jack:	You are!
Sue:	At least I’ve got some colour.
Jack:	You know what I mean?
	Brown on the outside and white on the inside. You might look black but you think like a whitefella.
Sue:	How does a whitefella think?
Jack:	You know … they don’t care about blacks.
Sue:	So, tell me …
	What colour are you?
Jack:	I told ya, I’m white.
Sue:	Well, do you care about blacks?
Jack:	That’s stupid, course I do.
Sue:	Well, what makes you think I don’t?
	Just because I’m wearing an ‘All Lives Matter’ T-shirt?
Jack:	I’m saying … if you’re one of the mob, you should be supporting ‘Black Lives Matter’.
Sue:	Mate, I may look black but I’ve also got Irish and Scottish blood running through these veins.
	And God only knows what else is mixed in there.
	I could be part Greek, Dutch, even German. The colour of your skin means little.
Jack:	You don’t care if someone calls you a coconut?
Sue:	When I was younger, absolutely.
	Not now … too old.
	Seen too much and been hurt too much because of it.
	I know me now. Saying someone is a coconut is hypocritical.
Jack:	I just thought you’d care about your own people more.
Sue:	I love people from all races.
Jack:	But how about our Elders? They’d want you to support and respect black lives.
Sue:	Elders or elderly?
Jack:	There’s no difference.
Sue:	In my world there is.
	The elderly live to an old age.
	Elders are wise, profound, spiritual, strong, humble and have bucketloads of love for everyone.
	I respect those who respect me.
Jack:	So, you think you’re an elder?
Sue:	Me? No way, people give me the shits.
Jack:	What people?
Sue:	Teenage boys whose names start with J.
Jack:	Well, who’s the comedian?

	Some elderly people are disrespectful?
Sue:	Yep.
Jack:	I know.

	Gut Face … our old next-door neighbour, she always had something not nice to say about my family. She was seventy-something.
	Her head was big and round. It was real unnatural, like it was big enough for two people.
	True.
	If she was nicer I’m sure she would’ve looked heaps better but she was sour about Mum and Dad and Gran adopting me, ya see. She was always in a big old shitty mood, always.
	Gut Face’s kids … hadn’t spoken to her in years. And she had seven of them. They didn’t go near her even though they all lived in the same town. But I didn’t blame ’em, cause I wouldn’t visit her either.
	I never called her Gut Face to her front, that wouldn’t be right.
	We were always respectful, even Mum, but I don’t know why.
	Funny thing was she cried on Mum’s and Gran’s shoulders when we left.
	No one dogs on my mob.
Sue:	Tell me about your family?
Jack:	Well … everything was perfect … until Dad’s heart broke.
	Dad was the type of guy who’d up ya for not looking after ya dog one minute and next he’d buy eighty dollars’ worth of dog tucker and leave it in the back of ya ute.
	His heart attack was huge, apparently.
	Gran said that Dad was yarnin’ up to Jesus long before his body hit the kitchen floor. And two hours later his blue heeler, George, keeled over dead on the front step as well.
	Dad left and George left and not long after hope pissed off and left us too.
	I can use pissed off, can’t I?
Sue:	Keep going.
Jack:	We were shattered, busted up, and we was lost,
	Sue.
	It’s the worst feeling ever. And after that, all we seemed to do was wait.
	Gran, Mum and me were dog-tired of drownin’ in poor-bugger-me shit. Normally, it’s not welcome in our house, but somehow the bugger found its way in.
	Anyways … we wanted happy. We wanted to listen to Billy Connolly and laugh till Mum snorted. Mum’s a big snorter.
	We wanted to cross our eyes at Gran’s funny ways and go to the cemetery without snotting up a bunch of Gran’s homemade hankies.
	It’s all fine to want but how do you get your shit together when hope does a runner?
	I’ll tell ya.
	You can’t and you don’t. You just sit in your own grey and darkness and wait for it to walk right back through the door.
	And that’s what happened, Sue. Two months ago we was living in our hometown, Tumbarumba, close to the Snowy in New South Wales.
Sue:	Tumba?
Jack:	You know it?
Sue:	I grew up not far from there.
Jack:	Small world, eh, Sue?
Sue:	Absolutely.
Jack:	Gran was on the toilet. She’d been there for a while. Gran sings.
	Aha, she sings up whenever she’s doin’ a coonie. A big number two.
	Apparently piddling has absolutely no in-spir-at-ional value. But a decent-sized coonie is a goer.
	Gran’s number twos always appear with a song. Always!
	Anyways, this day was different, Gran was singin’ up real loud. None of the usual slow and morbid drawl she’d been singing since Dad and George left us. No way, she was uppin’ Lady Gaga’s ‘The Edge of Glory’ like she was singin’ for the Pope or somethin’. She loves the Pope.
	Gran was back! Something happened, apart from the obvious, Sue. The toilet flushed and the door swung open and there stood Gran grinning real cheeky like. That’s when I knew hope was back and standin’ shoulder to shoulder with Gran at the toilet door.
	I don’t tell people I know many things, it’s not part of my nature, but for sure I knew right then … at that exact moment, I knew my family was going to be all right.
	And that was the night Gran was given a message. Move … Taralune.
	How bout that, Sue?
Sue:	Don’t know what to say, mate.
	Life’s a mystery, eh?
Jack:	Gran and Mum are great believers of talkin’ to dead people and angels and that, so that’s all we needed. Then and there, we made the decision. We rented out the house in Tumba, called the removalists. Had a party and a tidy-up. Picked up a couple of rocks from the garden then off we went to our new life.
Sue:	Tell me about the rocks?
Jack:	Gran and Mum have been doing the rock thing for years. Gran said her mum and her mum did it too.
	It keeps your people, your country, with you.
	See, and when you arrive at your new home, ya put the rocks near the front door or the front step, so there’s a piece of your old life now part of the new.
	Anyone can do it.
	Aunty Leena, Mum’s big sister, has moved so many times she pert near has her own pyramid sitting at her front steps. No wonder she doesn’t have a bloke.
	Why would you want to lug a heap of rocks around every time you moved? Movin’s a good pain in the bum if you ask me. I won’t be leaving here if I can help it. All that packin’ and unpackin’, I tell ya it’s got big, fat, chunky knobs on it.
	That’s what I reckon, anyway.
	Was that the bell?
Sue:	Yep.
Jack:	So, that’s me, Sue … Jack Trainer, adopted child of Coral and Keithy Trainer and twenty-first grandchild of Gran Trainer, now living on the Sunshine Coast in a sleepy beachy town called Taralune.