Darlinghurst Road Read online

  “I'm stuck, if I don't work tonight then he doesn't eat tomorrow, I'm broke, there's no fucking maternity leave on the street you know, help me out will you.”

  I did. The baby was a little boy called Daniel and that child intimidated me more than any man that I had ever met. I was an only child so my experience of babies was zero, a bottle was what beer came in and a diaper was a foreign concept that I was not all that eager to become acquainted with. Daniel cried as babies do and when he did, the only way to shut him up was to hold him. I slept when he did and I don't mind saying that by the morning, the little fella had kind of grown on me.

  Samantha rolled up later in the morning with coffee, food and stories about her clients that made me laugh. Don't judge her, the first chance she had to straighten out her life, Samantha took it and ran. Daniel had a rough start in life but he had a mother who loved him and who was determined to see that her son grew up in a different world, far away from the exploitive streets of Kings Cross.

  Anne

  The guitar that she played was covered in stickers; a colorful, overlapping mixture of humor, politics and save the whales. Anne sang and strummed her heart out as the passers-by threw coins in her case. She became a regular around The Cross, mostly playing around the entrance to the Subway until she started to get tired of being hassled by every guy who walked past her. At my suggestion, she carried her guitar to Oxford Street and set up shop a few doors down from The Palace.

  Anne was the eternal hippie; intelligent yet vague, a belief that life was for living yet somehow feeling restricted by it. The combined product of a strict small town upbringing and the teenage rebellion that followed, Anne drifted around for a few years before discovering the bohemian's haven of Kings Cross.

  Drugs were the passport to another world for Anne, a chemical world that she could escape to when her mind began to take her to other places she didn't want it to go. Anne was running from something in her past that seemed unidentified even to her and there were times when she appeared to be almost frightened of her own mind. She had an expression to describe the feeling that she would sometimes have: “it's like goose bumps on my brain.”

  I heard her guitar just about every night for nearly six months and then she just vanished. The streets of Kings Cross are like a revolving door: they come... and they go.

  Jason’s Mother

  She came in looking for her son. The photo that she showed me was of a teenage boy in a sports uniform of some type “it was taken in March, he's fourteen, his name is Jason. The Police said that runaways sometimes come to this area, please, have you seen him?”

  I hadn't. I made a point of looking at the photo a second time so that she wouldn't think that I was brushing her off because it seemed to me that she deserved that. We talked a little and Jason's mother was a nervous wreck just running on adrenalin. I suggested that she try looking around The Wall area after the sun went down and perhaps a few other places further down. She promised to let me know if she found him and then wrote down her number and left to continue her quest.

  I don't know the sequel to the story, if Jason was hanging around The Cross and working as a prostitute, then in all probability, I would have eventually seen him but I don't recall that I did. Jason's Mother never did come back but other mothers were there to replace her. Jason's photo was not the first one I had seen under those circumstances and it certainly wasn't the last. There's a sadness to seeing the picture of a missing child and your heart can't help but go out to the parent showing it to you. I hope Jason found his way home.

  The Girl

  A couple came in looking for their daughter, the conversation was an old one for me, a photo, a story and broken hearted mother looking for her child. The father was quiet, consoling his wife as she spoke.

  Around a week later, I saw the girl walking down Roslyn Street. I'm not a Social Worker and I've never pretended to be but still, there's no excuse for not being decent in this life so I went over and spoke to her. I told her where I worked and about the visit from her parents. The girl broke down, sobbing uncontrollably and I was kind of at a loss as to what to do next. As fortune would have it, Samantha was working the corner on Darlinghurst Road, saw me and came across. We took the girl to a cafe close by and calmed her down with a hamburger and some friendship.

  When she recovered, the story came out. She ran away because her father was sexually abusing her. The problem was, that in her mind it was a clean break and that she was determined not to go back home but she also wanted desperately to see her mother. I left her in Samantha's capable hands and she took the girl to a Social Worker that she knew.

  The moral is that you just never know and had those parents found that girl first, it might have meant more abuse. I don’t envy the Social Workers and the people who have to make those decisions because it must be so difficult to remain objective; to know when to interfere and when to not.

  Katie

  Like the woman herself, her dress was always casual, feminine but modest and with the exception of a small gold cross, there was nothing to indicate that she was in any way religious. The only habit that I could see was the way that she played with her right earring when she was distracted or lost in thought but there was no doubt about it: Katie was a nun, the real McCoy.

  Sister Mary Kathleen had never known privilege but she had certainly known hardship. Katie's mother was a prostitute who worked the streets of St. Kilda in Melbourne, her father was presumably a client; name and details, unknown. At the age of fourteen, her mother sent her out on the street to follow in her footsteps and for a year, Katie's body bought the drugs that her mother so desperately craved.

  She calls it her miracle and perhaps it was, a man walked towards her, she made her approach and he picked her up. Instead of taking her to his bed like she expected, he took her to his church; his name was Father John and he was a Catholic Priest.

  Something clicked, they sat and talked for hours until Katie found the courage to examine her life and see it from her own perspective instead of her mothers. Father John arranged for her to stay with an elderly parishioner and between them, they gently weaned Katie away from the life. The years that followed bought peace and belonging to a life that had never known it.

  It was a decision made deep within her, a calling so strongly felt that she found it impossible to ignore. Katie applied to a religious order, holding nothing back about her past and submitting herself to the rigorous process of assessment that preceded her acceptance. When she took her final vows, Katie described a peace, a sense of purpose; Katie knew what she needed to do and where her God wanted her to be.

  Katie worked out of a small house in a side street of Surry Hills that I believe belonged to the church and served as some sort of halfway house for prostitutes that had been released from prison. I'm not sure what the organization was or what she actually did there but I do know that Katie was probably not the most orthodox Nun in the world. The first time that I met her, she walked into the Pleasure Palace and without any introductions started to describe a woman in her twenties.

  “Have you seen her?”

  “Doesn't ring any bells, why do you want to know?”

  “Do you care?”

  “I like to know who I'm talking to.”

  “It doesn't matter, either you've seen her or you haven't, this job's just a pay check isn't it?” She added with a taunt.

  “Okay, we're done here, time to go.”

  “Suits me, why talk to someone who doesn't care.” She said with a shrug.

  “Care about what?”

  She said in a softer tone, “Another human being, the girl I'm asking you about is another human being. Her name is Vicky and I'm trying to find her before the police do.”

  That conversation began my friendship with a very special lady by the name of Sister Mary Kathleen. There are people who care, some that care deeply I'm sure but occasionally, rarely, there is someone who really does believe in the equality of all people and w
ho truly lives that old saying: “Do unto others, as you would have done unto to you.” Katie, it was a pleasure.

  Paul

  The first time I met Paul, he was in the back of his taxi with a rag and an industrial size bottle of Armor-All. I asked him why he was spending so much time polishing his vinyl seats “won't that just make them slippery?” Paul smiled a cunning smile and explained that not only did he coat the seat with Armor-All but he had also adjusted the bolts to create a sizable gap between the two sections of the seat. On weekends, the drunks would get in his car, not able to sit still on the slippery seat, change would fall from their pockets and slide down the highly polished gap in his back seat. On Monday he would pop out the seat and collect his dividend. Australia no longer has dollar bills opting instead for small one and two dollar coins so I'm sure you can imagine that his haul from his own personal slot machine was quite significant.

  Another one of his favorite tricks was to keep his change in an old style calico bank bag, conveniently stored in his trunk. When he dropped a fare at the airport, a guy would hand over a twenty for say, a nine dollar fare. Paul would apologize profusely, “I've just changed out some big bills, I'm so sorry, let me get my other change bag.” Moving slowly in his best imitation of an old man, he would go to the trunk, come back and start counting out small change feigning poor eyesight, “let me see, I have a bunch of change in here, I'm so sorry about the silver, let me see, there's ten cents...” As Paul fished around in his bag of small denomination coins he would move like a snail round a glass, the guy would get nervous, think about his flight, start checking his watch, look at the old guy who had just taken five minutes to count out less than a dollar in small change and say “look, don't worry about it, just keep the change, I have to go.” Paul assured me that he made thousands of dollars a year out of those trick and judging from the gleam in his eye, I believed him.

  Michael

  Michael was a victim of the System if ever I've seen one. Abandoned by his mother when he was only a few months old, Michael was kicked from foster home to foster home; each one worse than the last. It was the nineteen sixties and there was not the same level of scrutiny as there might be today. Michael was severely beaten on many occasions: a cupped hand slapped into his ear resulted in a deafness on one side that made communication difficult for him, another head blow at another time gave him a form of epilepsy.

  When he came of age, Michael left the foster system and entered the prison system on charges of petty theft. Prisons are made for murderers and armed robbers, not people like Michael and he was beaten, raped and used on a regular basis. The man they released was a different man to the one that they incarcerated; Michael now suffered from a mental illness and aimlessly walked the streets of Sydney until was he was locked up again.

  This time was different, the prison doctor signed off on his release to a psychiatric hospital and Michael was sent to yet another institution. The hospital was Michael's home for nearly sixteen years until the State Government decided that the real estate was of more value than the hospital. A new policy of community something or the other translated to more or less opening the doors and sending people like Michael out onto the streets to fend for themselves. After a lifetime of living in institutions, Michael was on his own and he found it impossible to cope. The police found him dead one morning, a homeless derelict, slumped over on a bench in Green Park and covered with newspaper. Michael died the same way that he had lived all his life: alone.

  Sean, Wendy And One Very Naked Girl

  Sean was a comedian. I don't mean that he was just a funny guy but that he was a stand up comic, a minor celebrity who had a show on TV. Somewhere in his ancestry there was Irish blood and although he was probably a few generations removed, Sean used it as a prop for his comedy with great effect. We were neighbors for a short time, it was before his TV show, Sean was separated from his wife, doing a comedy act on the Sydney club circuit and waiting for his big break.

  It was Saint Patrick’s Day and a very drunk Sean knocked on my door. He was holding two glasses of beer, he invited himself in and handed one to me. I held the glass up to the light and my initial impression was confirmed, I looked at him dubiously and said “It's green!”

  “Yeah, it's Saint Paddy's Day, green beer, it's what you do.”

  “Not sure about green beer mate, something not right about that, did you make it?”

  ”It's just a bit of food coloring you idiot, it won't kill you, drink the bloody thing down and let's go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Back to my place, I need your help.”

  We went back to his apartment, Sean took me into his bedroom stepping over clothes and ladies underwear on the floor. On the bed was a naked woman, asleep, dead or passed out I wasn't sure which. “Sean, I give in, what's going on?”

  “THERE!” He pointed.

  “Is she okay?”

  “I think so, she's drunk but I can't get her up.”

  “Then let her sleep it off, she'll go when she wakes up.”

  “Got to get her out of here, I'm trying to patch it up with my wife and she's on her way over.”

  I've dealt with a lot of semi-conscious people at The Palace but I couldn't wake this one, she was out to the world. It was like a slapstick comedy, we heard the knock and both froze.

  Shit, it's Wendy!”

  “Get rid of her.”

  “Christ, how?”

  Sean went to the door, I stayed hidden in the bedroom with naked Jane Doe. I heard the voices outside, Sean was trying desperately to convince Wendy to go for a drink but she wasn't biting. At first I thought it was outside then realized it was closer, Jane was in her own twilight world and her hand had moved dreamily to her crotch.

  The noise was unmistakable, Jane was pleasuring herself and starting to get loud. Sound carries through a small apartment and Wendy pushed her way into the bedroom to investigate. It must have looked a real scene, I was sitting on the bed trying to wake her up, Jane is almost finished what she is doing, at that moment she spread her legs wide, moaned and said to no one in particular “Come and fuck me!”

  Wendy gave Sean the filthiest of looks and stormed out of the apartment. Sean shrugged his shoulders, put his arm around me and said “fuck her, she only wants the money, I got a bloody TV show did you hear, that's the only reason she came around?” I had another green beer with Sean then left him to deal with Jane; my guess is that he was in less of a rush to get rid of her this time.

  Billy

  Billy liked guns, women, fast cars and the money that bought them. There was a touch of Hollywood about old Billy, he liked to project the image of a tough guy and was well suited to the small security business that he owned.

  A sideline of his business was a discreet inventory service that he called a “Sunday Stock-take.” After regular business hours, a break-in would occur, the owner would be at a restaurant somewhere with his family, surrounded by people while Billy, as security officer, would respond to the alarm and deal with the police, making sure to get a nice report for the insurance company.

  We were both regulars at the same pub and struck up a friendship. Billy was a big talker around the girls and liked nothing better than to flash his money around in a fat wallet. One night, after his unsuccessful approach to a brunette, we were walking out to the parking lot and two guys jumped us. I was on the ground seeing stars when I saw Billy, clearly shaken but still on his feet, pull his gun and shoot them both. They lived and Billy was well known to the police so he wasn't charged but it certainly was one hell of a night.

  In my later travels, I remembered hearing that Billy had married and moved to Brisbane. I was close by at the time so I looked him up to see if marriage had tamed him. Instead of having a beer with Billy, I had a cup of coffee with his widow. She told me was that Billy had recently committed suicide. The police told her that he had been found in his parked car in the Brisbane red light district of Fortitude Valley.

  Billy h
ad been shot in the head with his own gun and the coroner concluded that it was suicide. She didn't know why because she thought that he was happy. They always seemed to have money and Billy bragged to her about the big bucks that he was making from his little one-man security business and she never thought to question it. It was obvious that she was heartbroken and confused. When she started asking questions about his previous life, I politely made my exit; Billy was Billy, he told her what he told her and it was not my place to rewrite the history of her husband.

  A year later in Kings Cross, I heard a reliable rumor that Billy had been involved in the Brisbane drug trade at the time of his death. To me, it didn't matter if he pulled the trigger or if someone else did; dead was dead and I felt so sorry for the woman that he left behind who probably had no idea why her life was destroyed.

  I can still see her crying her eyes out in that small apartment and wondering why it had happened. There were questions in her mind after his death that she perhaps, with hindsight, should have asked him in life. It would have been a waste of time though because he would never have told her the truth. Billy was a big talker around the girls that's for sure; but it was always bullshit.

  Roger, The Tourist Trap

  Roger was a real interesting type of drug dealer in that he never actually sold any drugs. Don't get me wrong, Roger looked the part, talked a really good game and even had the cops fooled to the point that they arrested him. After the local police analyzed his product, they discovered his game, went about their business and basically ignored him.

  Roger spent his time hanging around the big Interstate railway terminal in Sydney looking for young, gullible overseas tourists. The product he sold was some sort of dried plant that looked apparently like pretty convincing marijuana. A good salesman, Roger would give them the lecture about aggressive Australian police always on the lookout for foreign tourists buying dope. With his silver tongue, Roger would convince them not to even think about smoking the weed until after their train pulled out.