Read Online Calypso Summer by Jared Thomas - Free Book Online

sat around two large wooden trestle tables or stood around the BBQ. People were getting things ready for the feed and just about everyone seemed to be helping out. The kids gathered firewood and piled it next to a pit that Will dug into the earth. Once the fire was lit, Uncle Ray got a few kangaroo tails and began singeing the fur off them. When it was time to place the tails in the ground, Mel was ready with a damper to place in the ground with them. ‘Can I have some roo tail Uncle Ray?’ one of the kids asked. ‘No,’ said Ray pretending to be angry. ‘How many times do you need to be told only old fellas can eat this stuff. It makes your hair turn grey you know.’ He took a scull of beer and then winked at me.
    Uncle Ray checked on the BBQ. The hotplate was covered with sausages, chicken and steak that spat fat. The dogs took care of the fatty bits of meat that Uncle Ray threw to the ground and any sausages that rolled off the hotplate. The women boiled things in pots and made salads in Aunty Janet’s kitchen.
    When people started loading up their plates, Bruce’s wife Shanti placed the final dish on the table, a huge pot of curry crab. She served some of the curry crab to Bruce and when she went to put some on my plate Bruce stopped her. ‘Calypso doesn’t eat crabs, Shanti,’ Bruce told her.
    â€˜Why don’t he eat them?’ Aunty Janet asked, ‘They’re straight out of the sea. Will only just caught ’em.’
    â€˜Because he’s a Rastafarian, Mum,’ Vic answered.
    â€˜A rasta what?’ asked Aunty Janet.
    â€˜A Rastafarian, a Rasta man, it’s like a religion like Buddhism or Christianity. There’s a fella who’s like Jesus, they grow dreadlocks and they believe in certain things.’
    â€˜Well I can see they grow funny hair but what type of things they believing in then?’
    â€˜Well for starters,’ said Vic, ‘they don’t believe in eating crabs and crayfish, or pork, because they reckon these animals are scavengers.’
    â€˜Is that what you is?’ Aunty Janet asked as if I was crazy. ‘A fella that don’t eat crab or pig?’
    Aunty Janet’s question was a tricky one to answer. I only had a couple of friends from the Caribbean that I met at the cricket. I wasn’t smoking but reggae music was still my thing. And there I was sitting with my mob eating kangaroo tail and curried crab. ‘I’m just too lazy to comb my hair,’ I said. Everyone laughed.
    â€˜Proper blackfella, hey,’ Mel squealed.
    â€˜Our old fellas used to have hair like that way back and I reckon it looks pretty neat, Calypso.’
    â€˜Thanks, Aunty Janet.’
    â€˜There’s certain food they didn’t eat too – us mob still don’t eat them things.’
    â€˜But I eat crab though,’ I told everyone, the smell and sight of the crab making my mouth water.
    â€˜Thank you,’ I said when Shanti finally dished me up some.
    â€˜Don’t thank me, thank Will, he’s the one that caught them.’
    I gave Will the thumbs up. I couldn’t believe how good it tasted with all the spice and things mixed together. I’d never thought of eating hot crabs, especially not in a curry. Hot crabs give you the shits.
    I always feel a bit shame meeting new people and meeting my family that day was no different. Although I was eating deadly food and Mel, Aunty Janet and other relies were being cool, it seemed like some of the mob, Vic particularly, just wanted me to fuck off. And I don’t think it was just because I’d rocked up when everyone was talking business. Vic watched me closely, like he didn’t trust me or he was trying to work out what to make of me. It was like he thought I’d steal the ground from beneath his feet … kind of like how some whitefellas look at me. And I didn’t have a clue how to start asking Aunty Janet about Aboriginal