Calypso Summer (4 page)

‘What are you laughing at?' Gary asked as I stood there pissing myself.

‘What you reckon?' I said, pointing at his pants.

‘Got to look the part mate. That's why I bought you these,' he said pulling a pair of red yoga pants from behind the counter.

Shame job. I felt my jaw drop.

‘And I want you to buy some trendy thongs too and some good t-shirts. That'll be your uniform.'

When I first had to wear the pants I packed them in my bag and got changed in the Henley Beach public toilets. I hoped no one would see me wearing them. But then during the week some customers, women and that, said they looked good, they liked
them. And they were comfy too, like karate pants. When I started wearing them around all the time, Run absolutely pissed himself laughing. ‘I don't give a fuck,' I said, ‘I'm getting paid five hundred and thirty bucks a week to wear 'em.' And I didn't either. The money was deadly, it helped move out of Mum's and get my flat. It was deadly telling Centrelink that I finally had a job. I felt like a different person, true, as I walked out of the Centrelink office and the afternoon sun hit my face. They could stick their dole diary and interviews up their arses.

I remember Gary whispering to me on one perfect afternoon last spring as he brushed past. ‘Calypso, we've got a customer,' he said. I placed one more container of fish oil capsules on the shelf and got up from the crate I was sitting on to approach the customer, a woman, probably in her forties, wearing a colourful summer dress, a wide-brimmed hat, big sunglasses and sandals. I took a deep breath and set myself in the frame of mind to speak with my best Jamaican accent, as Gary encouraged.

‘Anyting I cyan help you wid today, miss?' I asked in a relaxed voice with just the right dose of enthusiasm.

The lady continued checking out small containers of powders.

‘I have hayfever, perhaps from drinking dry white wine … very distracting.'

‘Hayfever is nuh good fa I?'

‘Well, is there anything you recommend?'

The lady peered through her teary eyes at me and took a tissue from her bag, holding it against her snivelling nose. I thought about what Gary had told me and the things he made me read. I noticed Gary sitting behind the counter, peering over the top of his newspaper and pointing to a packet of grated orange rind.

‘I has just the right remidy for ya miss.'

I walked toward the packets of ground orange rind and the woman followed. I grabbed a packet of the pale mixture and handed it to her.

‘What is this?' she asked with interest.

‘It is the extract of the finest orange, orange so big and juicy it fill carton wid jus one squeeze.'

‘And how will it help?'

I crossed my arms and looked down at the ground, thinking. I started to feel the woman growing impatient so I told her, ‘Mi mother have hayfever so bad that she couldn't sit still in church for so much sneezing. The congregation grew tired of her so! She added the powder to water and take the orange for three day straight, and she rid dat fever for good.' Of course Mum had never been to church in her life!

Without hesitation the lady said, ‘I will try it, thank you. How many packets are required?' she asked before sneezing.

I could see Gary standing behind the woman, holding up three fingers.

‘Three packets miss, one fa each day.'

The lady took two more packets of the mixture from the rack and followed me to the counter. I took her money.

‘Have a good day young man,' she said as she left the store.

‘Good day ta you mi lady,' I said, turning to smile at Gary as I flicked the twenty-dollar note between my fingers.

‘You're good,' he said, ‘You're very good!'

‘I just hope the stuff works mahn, what if that stuff makes that woman worse?'

‘It won't.'

‘How do you know? Those orange skins come from a tree in your own garden.'

‘Like I've told you a million times, mate, it's not what you put in our clients' system, it's the idea that you plant in their mind. Believing is half the remedy,' Gary said as he tapped his index finger on his forehead.

‘Yes, I know, like you keep saying, Gary.'

‘That's right, and don't you ever forget it, son. The things you told that woman were brilliant. She has every reason to think it will work, and because she thinks it will work, it bloody well will. Anyway, even without the orange rind, hayfever will be gone in a few days and she'll think the rind worked wonders.'

‘I just worry that one of these days we will poison someone.'

‘Don't worry about that ever happening Calypso.'

‘Well how do you know it won't happen?'

‘Well, for a start, everything we sell in this store is natural. Secondly, you and I both read up on things don't we?'

‘Yes,' I answered. How could I not? Gary always gave me these articles to read about health food and products. He said it was my professional development and that as long as I was working I'd have to keep learning. Good thing it was interesting. In one magazine there was even an article about Usain Bolt's diet … that really got me thinking about what I was doing. Maybe the food he eats does make him faster.

‘The other day I read that the Aztec Indians would run for miles and miles each day, and they still had plenty of energy to build their temples, attend ritual sacrifices of virgins and that type of thing. Do you know why, Calypso?'

‘You tell me, mahn.'

‘Because they ate lots of maize.'

‘Maize?'

‘Yes, maize, like corn, Calypso,' he said taking a cob of corn from beneath the counter. ‘It gave those buggers energy all year round. All the amino acids in it, is what it is.'

‘You're not going to start selling corn in here when you can just buy it in any old shop mahn?'

‘Well, why the hell not Calypso? I'm onto something.'

‘What does it do then?'

‘Energy deficiency, any type of energy deficiency, it fixes it, that's what it does.'

‘Maybe the Aztecs were just fit, mahn?'

‘Look, I tell you what we're going to do. We're going to get some corn and we're going to have it dried out and made into a powder. People can mix it in their drinks or with their food like a concentrate. We'll put the packets right here,' said Gary pointing to a shelf in the centre of the store. ‘We're going to fill it with corn concentrate, and do you know what, Calypso?'

‘What Gary?'

‘We're going to tell people, women especially,' he said with a wink, ‘that if a man drinks a pint of liquefied raw corn at midday, he will be raring to go, if you know what I mean, come sundown.'

‘Do you reckon people will really believe that?'

‘Of course they will, as long as you work your Jamaican charm.'

‘I'm not bloody Jamaican,' I felt like saying to Gary, I was sick of playing the game.

‘You really have a way with people Calypso, you can be very convincing,' he went on.

And then the words came out, ‘I'm not Jamaican, Gary, I'm Aboriginal,' and once they passed my lips, I regretted saying them. I looked at Gary worried about how he might react. He simply looked at me with a weird expression before smiling and saying, ‘I know that! But you do the Jamaican thing well. And all young blokes want to be something else these days don't they?'

‘Well, you can cop a fair amount of shit for being Aboriginal you know.'

‘Well you didn't say anything about it so I didn't say anything.'

‘It was hard enough getting a job as it is.'

‘Why do you think I put those reconciliation posters on the wall?' Gary said before we both looked up at the images.

I guess he wanted to make me feel comfortable. And it kind of helped too. Always in the back of my mind was the thought that someone I went to school with, or Run even, might come in the shop and hassle me. If that did happen, I felt more confident that Gary wouldn't just take the customer's side but stick up for me.

6

For a little while, Gary didn't seem to treat me any differently after I yarned with him about being Aboriginal. He even layed off trying to get me to speak with a Rasta accent to customers. One afternoon though, he came back from Estia's Café but instead of just having a takeaway coffee in his hand like usual, he was also carrying a few sheets of paper. I was just kicking back behind the counter, listening to the Bob Marley CD I'd put on and taking it easy after serving a few customers.

‘Calypso, mate, how's it going?' he said all charged up.

‘Alright,' I said. It wasn't like I'd been sitting in a café while someone else was doing my work.

‘How would you like to be paid a bit more?'

‘Yeah, course.'

‘Well I reckon we can work something out,' he said waving the papers he held in front me and then handing them to me to check out.

I couldn't understand why Gary was smiling as I read the cover of one of the brochures. They were about some employment scheme for Aboriginal people. ‘I don't want more money if it means working somewhere else.'

‘What makes you think I'd let my secret weapon go anywhere else? I was just thinking about getting you signed up to this program as a retail trainee. The government will provide us some additional income if you do. It's a good deal if you ask me.'

All I could hear were the words government and income and I was reminded of Centrelink and signing lots of forms. ‘How long is it for?'

‘A year.'

‘And then I have to work somewhere else when it's finished?'

‘No mate, of course not. I'm actually hoping you can become more of a key player … A partner!'

How could I become a partner? I only had the money that he was paying me and it was hard enough making ends meet as it was. I couldn't invest in products and things to keep business growing.

‘You see, us talking about how you're Aboriginal got me thinking … surely there are some foods and medicine plants your tribe have that we can use.'

‘What?'

‘We could package and market some medicines and things that your tribe use.'

Oh man, tribe, medicine plants? I felt all shame. Asking me about these things was worse than that relief teacher asking me about my dreams.

‘We could make some products and split the profits.'

What was I supposed to say? Gary's idea was a bit different to growing dope and selling it to local stoners.

‘I went to Tandanya, the National Aboriginal Arts and Cultural Institute, on the weekend to investigate their products.'

I knew Tandanya, I'd been there on a school excursion. In the gallery there were all of these surfboards that an artist had put his designs on, patterns from his mob. I could tell that even some of the white kids thought they were deadly. And then this fella taught us things about Aboriginal Australia, pointing to a map of the continent and explaining how there are hundreds of different language groups with different cultures. Then he explained how
the didgeridoo comes from just one small part of the country in Arnhem Land. Then he played the didg. He was deadly and I felt good to be a Nunga that day until we were riding back to school on the bus and Kelly Simkin said, ‘Well that was different, I was expecting to just see drunk Aborigines.' Everyone laughed. Some of them looked straight at me when they laughed too and I was so angry I felt like flogging 'em.

‘I was surprised Tandanya didn't sell food, massage oils, or medicines. All I found was soap and emu oil. It was chocka block with didgeridoos, t-shirts and boomerangs though. Does your tribe make emu oil, Calypso?' Gary said as he lit an incense stick.

Tribe? My tribe is just my mum, sister, her kids, Run and me. I just shrugged my shoulders.

‘It would be great if you could help us put a whole new product on the market … something really unique. You could call it some Aboriginal word.'

Some Aboriginal word? I only knew a few and most of them were swearwords.

‘I'm sure your tribe knows about something that could help people sleep better, maybe fix aches and pains, help you dream … dreaming potion – can you say that in Aboriginal?'

The more that Gary spoke the more excited he got. It just made me feel crook in the guts.

‘I reckon some type of oil that you put in the tub would be perfect. Something that helps people relax.'

I started to zone out with Gary laying all of this on me and wished I was still working in Gary's Showtime DVD Store.

‘We will need approval from an industry regulator but let me work out all of that stuff. So what do you reckon, Calypso?'

‘What?'

‘Do you reckon you could talk to your tribe about creating some of these products?'

I thought about what Gary was asking me for a second. The only person that I thought may be able to help me out was Mum. Over the years she'd told me bits and pieces about how she'd grown up. A whitefella had never asked me what it was like to be black before, let alone something about my mob.

‘I could start asking around,' was all I said. There was nothing more that I could promise.

‘I'll make it worth your while mate.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well for a start, I could throw a bit of cash to some of your tribesmen if they need to collect … I mean gather things and if we have something special, I could give you a bonus.'

I didn't know how to get out of this mess. And I knew that Gary wouldn't let up. ‘What type of bonus?'

‘At least a few thousand dollars upfront. I don't want to rip you off, mate.'

A thought flashed through my mind. What if Run helped me track down some of the stuff Gary was after, plants and things to put in bath oil or whatever? I guessed they existed and it would give Run something to do. Run was one
tribesman
that needed to get paid. Then he could help me pay the bills.