The Roaring of the Bulls

By Dr D. Bruno Starrs

Second class citizens in their own land, four Aboriginal Australians take a booze and yarndi-fueled road trip from Sydney to Canberra in 1972. Their seemingly hopeless goal? To establish an Aboriginal Tent Embassy directly opposite Australia’s Parliament House. Meanwhile, the two local Fairbairn brothers are mired in a battle over their indigenous identity - a battle that eventually turns deadly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr D. Bruno Starrs
• Release date: Apr 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463283691

Dr D. Bruno Starrs

Dr D. Bruno Starrs was born in Adelaide, South Australia, in a hospital. It was a year he cannot remember very well. He is a mongrel of a human: his ancestry is a mix of Irish, Maltese and Indigenous Australian.Bruno's qualifications include two Masters degrees and a PhD from highly reputable Australian universities. Despite such a thorough education his verbal diarrhea has yet to be cured.

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The Roaring of the Bulls

By D. Bruno Starrs. Copyright 2017.

Copyright Notes.

Written and published by Starrs Above Productions via smashwords.com.

Copyright Dr D. Bruno Starrs 2017.

Chapter 1. Downhill with Mrs Poulter.

At least there’s no drugs up our end of The Ridgeway View, Mrs Poulter declared, as micro-globules of her vehement spittle filled the air around her sloping shoulders. Smugly, she wore no mask and held a Christian head high: that oft-seen superior look tightening her pale, powdered, withered and weathered face.

But she had no idea at all about what illicit substances actually interested her dreaded neighbours. Drugs? The elderly woman’s fears were drip fed by nightly viewings of TV’s A Current Unfair and its frequently authoritarian, always sensational pronouncements on the subject. Hence, she simply knew that ALL DRUGS ARE BAD. Furthermore, as a long time viewer, Mrs Poulter knew the combination of DRUGS and ABORIGINES was doubly BAD, and that the substance dealing neighbours in question were nothing but dirty, dirty blacks. She shook her blue-rinsed feathers of self-righteousness with chickenly indignation.

Yeah-us, agreed Mrs Orpington, smoothing down her own slithery cape of grey hair and trying to maintain an erect posture in the lurching bus. Mrs Orpington longed for equivalence, if not relevance. And because she also longed to be known as an accomplished conversationalist, she further contributed:

Yeah-us, luv.

"Bloody Abos. I dunno why they ever came ter our … Estate."

Mrs Poulter took great pride in the not-so-well-known fact that The Ridgeway View was indeed listed in the local street directory as an estate. It was no ordinary suburb of Queanbeyan, that quietly industrious country town just across the border from the Australian national capital, that monumentally sterile and well-pruned garden city of Canberra.

Canberra, the home of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy since 1972, where protesting activists daily remind the invading British that even their own High Court has ruled against Terra nullius, thanks to the Indigenous hero Eddie Mabo. It reminded the populace that the first peoples of this land have never surrendered, a treaty has never been signed and Aboriginal sovereignty has never been ceded.

Mrs Poulter admitted: I wish they’d just bugger orf.

She was a monumentally shallow woman.

Mrs Orpington tried for solidarity:

"Why The Ridgeway View? Why our, ah ... Estate? Ya gotta wonder? Still, at least they’re not actually in our street, are they? Not in our own lovely Boomerang Crescent."

Mrs Poulter grimaced disparagingly at her companion’s easy-going, near-benevolent attitude. And the silly old cow probably didn’t even know about the Fairbairn twins, she thought. A suspicious silence began to grow between the two women, only threatened by the Quibbling’s Bus Lines heaving jolts as the driver negotiated yet another pothole, while pockets of noxious intolerance and pullet parasites eddied in their wake. Each heave and each jolt risked the loosing of a new sentence, but the two ladies were not yet well acquainted. Spontaneously voiced eruptions could be damning amongst the newly initiated and it was a potentially dangerous downhill run still ahead of them.

Thus, they each preened feathers and stretched claws, silently.

After an uncomfortable but perfectly acceptable two minutes of non-talking, and with the steepest part of the hill now behind them, the Lazy Daze Plaza shopping complex hove into sight, further down there in the valley of the NSW town-ship proper, on busy Holden Monaro Street. It quelled all feminine doubt or anxiety with its formidably solid, drenched-white massiveness and surrounding moat slash grey asphalt car park. A moat to keep the predatory foxes and slathering dingoes out of the henhouse?

The centre shimmered in the January heat like a living, breathing organism. It fairly pulsed with caged life.

Ah, the shoppin’. Nothin’ like a bit of retail therapy, stated Mrs Poulter, thereby permitting another bout of conversation.

Mrs Orpington suspected a joke, so risked a smile in her reply:

Therapy, yeah-us, that’s what it is!

But the bus stopped two long blocks away from their objective.

An obstacle.

Its bonnet up, like a half-naked sunbather sprawled across the hot bitumen, an enthusiast-restored EH Holden (circa 1963) was preventing all but the narrowest of vehicular passage.

The bus driver, who was a neatly white-bearded man of not easily determined ethnicity, smiled ivory piano keys over his shoulder to the passengers, the frustrated passengers, the impatient passengers as he climbed out to investigate.

A young female driver.

He felt roosterish.

And so the bus driver was immediately offering assistance, smiling even wider. He wished he had flung himself out of his bus more youthfully, but a part of him had snagged on something. A guilty memory, perhaps. An obligation to kith and kin, mob and marriage.

Mrs Poulter sighed at the inconvenience and drew upon her dwindling stores of patience so as to continue the conference:

"I don’t know how we ever managed before the Lazy Daze came. No air-con, no comfy rest rooms."

No-ah!

"No automatic slidin’ doors. You can spend the whole day in the centre. The food court and the Pay Much Less. Better with a friend, but ... fished Mrs Poulter, Or an acquaintance."

An acquaintance. Yeah-us, acknowledged Mrs Orpington, who recognized an angler when she saw one, but didn’t mind the attention. In fact, welcomed the attention.

Ter think, we live in the same street but only met the first time on the bus, said Mrs Poulter, offering her yellowing fangs in a friendly, wrinkled sneer. She was referring to the morning just three days ago.

Mrs Orpington knew as much but avoided critical analysis by directing her eyes askance, as she tried to identify the driver of the EH, who had eased herself out of the car’s cabin. While the bus driver bent his formidable yet functional frame into the heatwave of GMH engine and hissing radiator, she stood there, in full view of Mrs Orpington, the would-be censor or gossip columnist. Although a newcomer to the Queanbeyan region it was Mrs Orpington’s happy duty to catalogue all surroundings and their occupants, so as to keep her husband reliably informed over the lamb roast at seven o’clock.

Why’d yer come ter The View, anyways? Mrs Poulter tried to make her question come across as less an interrogation than a neighbourly query. For a second she actually did sound like TV’s Barbara Walters.

"Well, yer see, Mr Orpington was quite taken by the weepin’ willows ‘round the lower dam," explained Mrs Orpington, who had safely surmised the EH driver was probably not even a local. The girl attached to the broken-down car shook her long, bleached-orange with black roots hair in a similar fashion to absolutely no-one Mrs Orpington had ever met or even seen before. She glanced about ineffectually, damsel-in-distress mode fully engaged, before losing her 21st Century Chinese Australian self in a 21st Century Korean Australian mobile phone. She had cut-off denims so short her cheeks were showing and her long, slightly bowed legs were tanned but mottled by angry hives and cheap, salaciously inked tattoos. She could have been a dancer or a gymnast in the briefest of leotards with her puffy, braless nipples protruding quite appealingly and the boys seated at the back of the bus could almost see the black tufts where her thighs forked.

At the rear of the EH was secured a fixed gear, puce-coloured bicycle. The girl was clearly a hipster, although Mrs Orpington didn’t know the term, and she simply thought the pushbike looked a bit odd, in a 1970s way. As both ladies tried not to show what might be mistaken for spinsterly outrage over the girl’s excessively exposed skin, Hipster Girl thankfully returned to her seat, as if conscious of the stir she was causing (yes, the young male bus passengers had formed a wall of unblinking eyes and one pierced and pimpled lad groaned theatrically - under the weight of his oppressive, bodily testosterone - as the closing of the EH’s door closed down the free display).

Hipster Girl began pressing the starter button in response to the bus driver’s expert promptings and the boys pressed against the bus windows thought she made it sound like the rhythms of sex. She was a rebellious and experienced youth, a hot-for-it fuck-hungry chick, they fantasised, who nevertheless apparently trusted middle-aged bus drivers with hairy legs holding up blue shorts (and matching shirt with gold-stitched epaulettes) and well, who wouldn’t, anyway?

Mrs Poulter, however, did not wish to think at length about today’s young people, some of the nicer examples of whom she could see sitting outside the nearby Cafe de Bench, dressed for business (or white collar crime, perhaps). They were fearlessly smoking Internet-bought herbal incense in between designer café lattés. Mrs Poulter liked the fact they were Aussies with nice haircuts and no visible tattoos: she hadn’t yet made the connection between what they were ingesting and what A Current Unfair called SYNTHETIC DRUGS (!). Instead she returned to the previous line of discourse:

You’ve got an impressive lot of water, alright. Most prob’ly the deepest at The Ridgeway View. But the frogs!

Yeah-us, they make a racket, they do. Come a night-time.

Another pause, but it was more comfortable now, and then the bus driver beamed with authentic satisfaction as the EH’s engine spluttered and ejaculated into life.

And you?

Me what? Mrs Poulter couldn’t help herself: a tone of defensiveness crept into her words.

How’d ya happen ter find yerselves at The Ridgeway View?

"O-oh! When me and Father came up from Puckapunyal army base, all those years ago, well, we missed the space. So these blocks were just right. A few acres and only thirty odd minutes to Canberra. When we wanted ter visit our Roxy. She works at the Department of Families and Community Whatsit and Abo Affairs and that. Like I toldja."

Father?

Oh, I means Mr Poulter! Just got in the habit of callin’ him that after Roderick came along. Good lad, our Roderick. He’s still in Pucka, of course. Somethin’ high up in the army.

The Quibbling’s bus, with blue uniformed, virtually post-coital driver ensconced safely back where he belonged, roared into timetabled action as Hipster Girl drove off. She waved gratefully through the side window of her EH and had not the slightest understanding of what had caused her car’s inconvenient breakdown. Nor of the ribald fantasy she had nearly planted in the bus driver’s mind.

The stagger of the bus into second gear shook the next sentence from Mrs Poulter’s lips before she had time to fully appraise it:

The space, yes - despite those Fairbairn brothers ‘cross the way.

Mrs Orpington was quick:

Who’s that, then?

The two retired old … gents. Ya musta seen them. Twins.

Twins? Mrs Orpington sounded overly incredulous, as though Mrs Poulter had mentioned Lesbians. Or Rastafarians. Or Vampires (she had a long list of potential triggers for her well-practiced incredulity).

Youda seen their house. That old colonial style. With the veranda all around. Dump of a place.

O-oh, yeah-us. Opposite your place, I s’pose.

‘S what I said. Impatience, which Mrs Poulter often struggled with when it came to other women, wrestled with her vocal delivery.

Mrs Orpington felt it and became nervous:

The F-Fairbairns, yer say?

Yes, you’ll see them of an arvo or an evenin’, walkin’ down ter the town in their worn-out coats and dirty caps.

A sudden measure of comprehension from Mrs Poulter’s interlocutor:

O-oh, the two middle-aged fellas. But they’re not twins.

Not identical, no, as if she were explaining to a child, But twins all the same.

Well, whaderya know? And the veranda, that’s different!

Mr Fairbairn senior had the idea. His notion of a homestead. Like the well ter do squatters of, ah, well ... of days gone by. The old colonial days.

Mrs Poulter distrusted Australian history. She couldn’t reconcile it with her own white ancestry or her own impending doom.

He had a library built into the entire back wall under that veranda, yer know. All enclosed and off limits, I’m told.

Oh, yeah-us, I’ve certainly noticed that veranda. It has a peak in the centre. Quite fancy. But why did ...

Mrs Poulter interrupted. Stubbornly, she wouldn’t let the subject subside or even slide:

Yes, the peak at the front and the library along the back. All nice an’ symmetrical, like. Her eyes narrowed with unneighbourly suspicion: He was very educated, ya know, was Mr Fairbairn senior.

Is that so?

Yes, the university.

"What, in Canberra? The national one?"

"No, no, Sydney University, I think they said. Not at all like the missus, now she was a lovely person. Down to earth. They died within two years of each other."

What, here at The Ridgeway View?

Yes, well they were the original inhabitants. Before it was subdivided into the lower part of Boomerang Crescent and the other streets. And before the Abos came in.

O-oh.

"Kenny - that’s the big one, well, he wasn’t the brightest chappie whereas Eugene, he was always saying he’d go to the university like his Dad - but never did. Worked at the War Memorial."

What, the national one?

Uh-huh. Always reckoned he had a thesis in ‘im. Still will tell ya there’s time enough, though he must be seventy-five by now. Huh, thee-suss, whatta fuss!

Mrs Orpington should have laughed then. But didn’t.

And the other one, what’s-his-name, Kenny?

Ah, Kenny. Poor, stupid, big, dumb, old Kenny. Sweet boy. But a great lump, compared to that dried up, little Eugene. Kenny worked his whole life there at the Van Sebille’s abattoirs down at Oak Tree Estate. Neither of ‘em ever left the area for more than a month, if I’m not mistaken.

But Mrs Orpington had momentarily drifted off. She would not allow the picture to dominate her vision for she had a lovely floral frock on lay-by to collect, and she didn’t find the Fairbairn twins that interesting really and it was only a peaked veranda after all. Her daydreams were always brief, however, and the atonal overtures of reality could be relied on to soon smack one’s face. The bus braked suddenly and her sweet reverie was thus also broken. And although she knew she must resume the conversation with Mrs Poulter, she was temporarily lost, so Mrs Orpington stalled while she sucked air through the wetness of her false teeth, before finally sighting a promising tangent:

Not married gents, then? she queried, with relief.

Mrs Poulter raised her pencilled eyebrows in the manner of a political conspirator and hushed herself as the bus driver indicated his intention to turn right into the parking lot of the Lazy Daze Plaza. The next bit was no longer fit for the ears of eavesdroppers:

No, well, they’re both a bit … well, you know … free range.

With an explanatory upwards vocal inflection, Mrs Poulter didn’t feel she really needed to elaborate on what was a plethora of local innuendo and Mrs Orpington felt too bullied to query further.

Mrs Poulter had one more (less-reserved) revelation, however:

"Oh, and the bigun’s part boong, only he doesn’t like the word."

Is he? Then his brother must be too? Boong, I mean.

Yes, you’d think so, being twins and all. But no. And I wouldn’t mention it ter the little-un if I was you: he’ll bite yer bloody head off!

Mrs Poulter felt reassured in her ever-so-subtle bullying and laughed to herself at the thought of the smaller Fairbairn man, who insisted he was not an Aborigine even if his twin brother was. Grabbing her battered shopping cart, she set about accomplishing the tricky dismount from the bus. The steps were steep and she had to watch her hip. Mrs Poulter was suddenly impatient again, not regarding her new friend this time (who evidently knew her place after all), but for the cool, air-conditioned relief and the comforting muzak of the shopping centre.

Clucky old boilers, thought the somewhat dark-skinned bus driver, whom few people realised was a descendant of the First Peoples of Australia and a distant cousin to the Fairbairn twins. He had not, of course, overheard Mrs Poulter and Mrs Orpington whining about The Ridgeway View’s resident Aboriginal Australians whose Indigenous ancestors their own white European ancestors had so casually invaded, murdered and colonised, hence he grinned benignly as the flock exited his chook pen on wheels. Obediently, the passengers filed into Queanbeyan’s biggest chicken coop of all, leaving in their wake an insidious, dancing cloud of dander.

As usual, no-one noticed the Fairbairn twins, who were sitting quietly in the shadows of the Lazy Daze Plaza bus shelter as the vehicle disgorged its contents, like a dog vomiting hot refuse onto the footpath. Patiently, the brothers waited for it to empty. They often took the bus back up the hill but rarely bothered catching it into town. It was a downhill run all the way. Not that difficult, really. The effort required was rather paltry, in fact.

Chapter 2. Old Dogs.

Growing old is never easy, but especially not when it’s nearing the end of a stinking hot day with a broken air con at Boomerang Crescent, on The Ridgeway View, in the bushfire-prone hills overlooking Queanbeyan, just across the border from Canberra.

Chickens were panting, open-beaked in the heat and dry white dust, patiently waiting for the inevitable, the incomprehensible, the terminable backyard chopping block. These fowl had very little growing old left to do, and stupidly, they gasped at the hot air, and vainly wished they were dogs.

As the searing afternoon hours wore on, one could witness the much envied, much wiser, much longer-lived dogs happily snoring and scratching in the land claims they’d successfully staked in the rare slants of shadow. But these dogs had only a year or two of growing older left themselves and vainly wished they were people.

Inside the old house, the two old people drank iced tap water and sat in the cool churning air tunnel of an electric fan. The Fairbairn brothers simply wanted to be free of the useless desire for youthful wish fulfilment. They were already grown old: what was the point in wishing?

It had been broiling hot all that long summer’s Thursday at Boomerang Crescent and the raw red sun sawed mercilessly at any chicken, dog or human who stepped outside to brave it. Therefore, sensibly, the old Fairbairn twins stayed inside. They had been putting off their daily walk until, as Eugene liked to put it:

The blessed cool of early evening has at last arrived, brother Kenny!

Then could the two grey-pelted elderly men brave the hurtful light and the harsh sounds of the walk down the hill to Queanbeyan for the convenience of Thursday late night shopping. The fact that at 6.30 pm it was still 28 degrees Celsius - according to the National Nine TV News it had climbed to a sweltering maximum of 38 degrees that day – failed to discourage Eugene from donning his faded purple, turtle-necked jumper. Its bulky, wide meshed woollen purls served as a lanolin-rich coat of armour against the unforeseen, and he felt less vulnerable within its folds.

Reluctantly, but faithfully, Kenny succumbed to his smaller twin’s brotherly bark:

"You should put on your jumper, too, Kenny. There might be a cold wind from the Brindabellas later on and you don’t want to catch your death!"

The moment these words were uttered, however, Eugene mightily regretted them. Not for the admonishing tone of their delivery, but for the stinging memory of a rare academic mistake. Years ago, in a seemingly insignificant argument with his brother, Eugene had rashly insisted that the high peaks of the mountain range