Bricks

I was only two bites into a corned beef and pickle sandwich and surrounded by unmarked exam papers when one of my students, Nod Clay, walked up and asked me to write him a reference. ‘You got a job interview Nod?’ ‘No it’s for court, for assault.’ ‘What sort of assault?’ ‘With a brick.’ ‘Jesus Nod…’ I pushed my chair away from the desk and folded my arms. ‘The swelling was all here…’ Nod ran his big hand over his neck and across his jungle chest sprouting through his sleeveless unbuttoned overalls. ‘Yellow and purple, with big bits of dark red in it’.’ He twisted the hat he always wore, a black corduroy cap with thick gold lettering, and pulled it down over his eyes. ‘What can I say… I’m stunned.’ ‘So was she.’ ‘A girl, you bashed a girl?’ ‘No. Me mum’s not a girl.’ ‘You hit your mum with a brick?’ ‘No. The woman up the road bashed me mum with a brick. Then she reported her and said mum bashed her kid. Mum just got out of hospital and now she’s got to go to court.’ Nod was looking straight into my face. Unblinking. He had led me on and he wanted to see if I was pissed off. ‘What do you want the reference for?’ ‘Me mum’s read the one you wrote for me, the one you wrote when I went to court. Student clocked at 230kph the headline had said, and the photo of Nod, cigarette dangling out of his mouth, standing before his impounded car. He carried the crumpled clipping in his wallet. ‘Let me get this right. Your mum read a reference I wrote for you and she wants me to write one for her? But I don’t know your mum.’ I looked hard at Nod’s stubbled face for a hint of a grin, but there was nothing. ‘That’s ok. I know her. I’ll tell you about her and you can write it.’ I had learned with Nod it was easier to just say yes. Argument was wasted. He nodded and smiled but if he wasn’t interested he just turned off. And the image of Nod in court in a suit and tie with his black cap made me smile. He sat down in the chair on the ·other side of the desk and locked his huge hands behind his head. ‘Me mum’s named June.’ As he stretched his hands slid along the loose flesh on the back of his neck and forced his cap to slide forward onto his face. I wrote JUNE on the top of a blank page. I looked at the paper and the blue lines running across the page and wondered about the penalties for false statements. ‘What happened Nod?’ He pulled a match from his mouth, looked at the soggy end, shifted about in the plastic chair and waited for the noise from a truck driving past to go away. Then he began speaking. ‘Me mum came home and found this kid from up the street bashing me sister around with a garbage tin lid. This kid is like fourteen or fifteen and me sister’s only eight. Mum tells this girl to stop it quick and grabs the lid. The girl spat at her and ran away.’ Nod was moving his head so much that his ponytail, wrapped at the end in black electrical tape, wagged like a dog’s tail through the hole in the back of his cap. He had shifted forward in his chair and the blue plastic seat bent slightly under his weight. ‘About ten minutes later there was this noise out front. Mum said it sounded like wood being chopped. When she went out onto the verandah there’s this woman standing at the front gate with a wheelbarrow full of bricks chucking them at our house. This woman’s the mother of the girl who was bashing me sister. The bricks are flying all over the place and splitting the weatherboards. There’s still big splinters all over the path and the front lawn.’ I nodded encouragement. ‘Mum went rushing down the steps to stop the crazy bitch… then the woman starts throwin’ bricks at mum. Mum sidestepped the first couple… she’s pretty good on her feet the old lady… then one hit her right here.’ Nod’s finger was pressing into his neck just below his ear. ‘Was anyone else there? Witnesses or anyone?’ He thought for a moment then stood up. Again he fiddled with his cap. The FORD lettering wrinkled, disappeared then reappeared as he moved the cap around on his head. ‘There wasn’t anyone really there… except old man Crane. He saw it all because he sits all day on his verandah… but he hates me mum because she knocked him back. The old juicer starts drinking cans at nine in the morning. Mum said he was hanging over his verandah rail watching the whole thing.’ ‘What did the police do when they came?’ ‘They didn’t come. They never come into our street. Not unless something’s really bad.’ Nod put the soggy match back in his mouth. Nod looked at his watch. ‘Could ya do the reference now because court’s on soon. I got to leave early. That ok?’ While I wrote, Nod wandered off and when he came back he had two hot dogs oozing cheese, a can of Coke and a finger bun wrapped in grease-proof paper. He thanked me as I handed him the reference. As the tail of the second hot dog disappeared into Nod’s mouth the front end of a big orange car; with Nod’s girlfriend at the wheel, came into view through the classroom window. He put the reference into his pocket, grabbed his bag and left. When I looked up again, the car had gone. I finished marking but not eating because the bread had gone hard and the corned beef had dried and curled. Students drifted back into class. While we waited for the rest I told them some of what Nod had told me. They all sat quietly and listened until one of them, a skinny petrol head called Brian, told us that Nod didn’t have a mum or a sister and that he lived with his dad.

Chris Hanley

From the New Issue

‘Portrait of a friendship: In memoriam Katerina Clark (20 June 1941–1 February 2024)’ by Sheila Fitzpatrick

No Church in the Wild by Murray Middleton

‘Calm Voice’, a new poem by Anders Villani

Pursuit of the New: Louise Hanson-Dyer, publisher and collector edited by Kerry Murphy and Jennifer Hill

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