His Illegal Self

28

The pussycat was drunk with heat, passed out in his malodorous cardigan pocket, paying no attention to the ten people, just a few feet away, who were trying to agree on the correct way to hold hands and make a circle. That number included two of America’s most wanted and eight Australian hippies. The hippies wore khaki shorts, Kmart shirts at $2.95 or $4.25, Kuta Beach sarongs, overalls, Indian pajamas from a head shop in Caloundra. They all sat cross-legged in what was called the Crystal Community Hall although it was no more than a warped and buckled floor, held up on ten-foot-high bloodwood stumps, both a folly and a sacrifice offered to the Queensland rain and sun.

The knotted bundle of cardigan lay inside the circle, just in front of Dial. The boy sat beside her, leaning forward, listening intently, as their neighbors continued to discuss which arm should be uppermost, which palm up, which palm down, in order that a golden ball of energy would pass around the circle.

Dial was generating sufficient irritation to power a golden ball all by herself.

This is all about Buck, she whispered to the boy. Trust me.

He did not turn.

Did you hear me?

He was deaf to her, completely entranced by the mumbo jumbo.

Hold my hand, she demanded. I’ll show you.

Instead he copied Trevor and she had to switch her palm around. The defeat felt way bigger than it was.

To the boy she whispered, Don’t worry. This is nothing.

Shush, he said.

And he straightened his back in unconscious imitation of the dreadful Rabbitoh who was directly opposite.

Shush? she thought.

Rebecca engaged her, smiling, and Dial noted the teeth and the stressed-out vein in the dark pool of shadow beneath her eye.

Next to Rebecca sat a short-haired woman whose overalls showed the starved bones of her chest, probably not Dial’s enemy but who could tell? Next was a wispy-bearded long-nosed man who appeared to be named Chook. Then Trevor whose eyes had become lidded and evasive. She thought, Trevor sleeps with Rebecca. Next to Trevor lay his machete. Next to the machete was pretty Roger who was gay or a dancer or maybe just a superhippie. He had white teeth and beads around his neck. There were also two boys, Sam and Rufus, running around so wildly that Dial was sure they would fall and die. Who would be a mother?

By the time the om was judged complete, Dial was so tense, she had to speak, to get it over.

So, she said, the cat. Buck.

They just looked at her, smiling.

I met with Phil Warriner. He’s your lawyer, right?

Fair enough, said Roger. Phil Warriner, sure.

So he says I can have a cat.

She saw Rebecca about to speak and cut her off. Look, she said, do any of you want to buy me out of this? I’ll sell right now.

The Crystal Community had no money. Its members stared at her, away from her. A bare-bottomed blond-haired child pissed out from the edge of the floor. The pee went into the wild lantana, a long clean arc of crystal.

The woman with the starving chest said her sister was into cats. The sister was not yet at a stage of development where she could get by without her cat. She said everybody couldn’t grow at the same rate. She thought Dial would in time. Then she said, Yes, a fading away kind of sound. Then she said, So.

Roger had cheekbones like ax heads. He said the problem was they couldn’t get their shit together. If they just looked at the community hall they would see that was the problem. The cat was just a symptom, Roger said. He thought they should get the people to come up from Nimbin and lay a rave on them about how to start a bakery and a newspaper. If there was indecision about the cat, it was the community, not the cat.

The real problem, said Rebecca, is that we have a rule that there are no cats. Are we going to enforce it or not?

Roger said that was exactly what he meant. Exactly.

The girl with the starving chest said no one wanted to lay a power trip on anyone else. A lot of people were here because they were through with rules.

The conversation continued like water dribbling from a hose.

Listen, Dial said at last.

Roger had been speaking, but he stopped.

The boy felt the silence, as heavy and dusty as the heat.

I’m sorry about the cat, said Dial. I really am. But you know while we’re sitting here arguing about this, Nixon is bombing Cambodia and Laos. Do you want to think what that is doing to the birds? I mean, I just came from a country where my friends are dying trying to end this war. So you will forgive me if I say.

Say what, Dial?

Dial shook her head and sighed.

You’re really nice people, she said at last. This is a really beautiful place. I’m pleased you’re not planning to blow yourselves up, or anyone else. She stroked the boy’s back. Not thinking what she was doing.

Do you know where you are, Dial?

Oh please.

Do you know you’re living in a police state?

Yeah, yeah, she said. It did not occur to her for a second that this might be, in many ways, quite true. Certainly the name Bjelke-Petersen meant nothing to her. She had never heard of Cedar Bay, helicopter raids and arson committed by Queensland police. She did not know there was a Queensland Health Act which permitted police to search her house without a warrant.

Fine, she said.

She slipped her hand into one pocket and produced Buck, sleek and soft and supple in his sleep, and from the other pocket she took a small silver bell and a piece of string and while they all watched she tied the bell around the kitten’s neck and placed him on the floor.

Buck set off around the circle, rubbing himself against feet and knees.

Only Trevor reached to touch him, to rub his head. When Buck saw how he was received by the others he put his tail high in the air and walked down the broad steps and disappeared into the lantana, his bell ringing softly among the twittering birds.

Dial stood, and her long shadow stretched across the buckled floor.

Well, she said, we’ll see you guys around.

And then she and the boy walked hand in hand down the stairs and up the rough clay road, through the hot and heavy air, to their property.

Why is it bad to be American, Dial?

They’ll get used to us, she said. And fuck them anyway.