Read Online The Infernal Optimist by Linda Jaivin - Free Book Online

looking. I always thought that was cuz they was the only ones what had more facial hair than her. Looking at Hamid though, I could kinda see her point. Not that I’m a— gay —or nuffin.
    Hamid introduced Sue to Angel. Sue was already trying to figure out what to do for Hamid. She’d asked a barrister to look at taking his case to the full Federal or High Court. The appeal period had already passed, so it wasn’t looking too hopeful. Now Hamid made her promise to find a lawyer for Angel as well. ‘More important than helping me,’ he told her.
    Ramadan finished, and visitors from the community brought in food for the three-day feast of Eid . Me mum cooked up heaps a good stuff for me and me mates.
    Finally, it was the day before me AAT hearing. She Whocame to visit. She gave me her ring to hold for good luck, what I slipped onto the gold chain on me neck.
    ‘What else you got for me, darl?’
    She started to show me what was in the plastic bags she’d brung in—videos and ciggies and stuff. ‘Nah, nah,’ I said, motioning for her to come sit on me lap. ‘I’m talking about some a your sweet lovin’.’
    ‘Tsk—everyone can see, Zeki.’
    ‘Pretend they can’t.’
    ‘ Zeki .’
    In the end she sat down on me knee and gave a quick peck with tongue in. ‘You can collect the rest when you’re out.’
    Back in me room, me and me boy had a conversational with Mrs Palmer and her Five Daughters to relieve the tension, and then I checked out the goods. Scarface, Mr Bean, Total Recall and a couple a Jackie Chans. Phone cards and cigarettes and apple-flavoured tobacco for the hookah pipe what was owned by a Bedoon called Khalid. Instant pasta, instant noodles, instant soup. Instant everything for people what had time to burn. We woulda been better off with inconvenience food. What else…chocolate, juice, jelly bears and Tiny Teddies, what was for me. Marlena’s got a thing for bears. She calls me her Big Bear cuz I’m so hairy, got a furry back and everything.
    ‘Zek.’ Little Chinese guy stuck his head in the door. ‘You girlfriend come today?’
    I nodded and beaconed him inside. ‘Yeah, mate. Shop’s open.’
    ‘Noodles how much?’ He also wanted two packs a smokes and one international phone card. A coupla Pakis came by for phone cards as well. The teenage brothers Farshid and Reza, what are asylums from Iran, paid for individual ciggies what they smoked in my room, so their mum wouldn’t find out. Chaim, an Israeli visa overstayer what was claiming refugee status on a count a being a dissonant what supported the Palestinians, bought the apple-flavoured tobacco. He liked hanging with the Arabs what smoked the hookah, and they liked him cuz he supported the Palestinians and told good jokes. It didn’t hurt that he always bought the tobacco for the pipe, neither. Another Chinese bloke came in and rented the Jackie Chans. Even after counting out what I had to pay back to She Who Managed Supply, I made me a neat profit. It went straight into me sock, the one I hid in the video slot a me VCR. There was over one grand in there. I thought to meself, I’ll come outta here laughing.
    I stared out the window at the sky. A faint glow on the horizon, beyond the razor wire, reminded me that it was all still happening out there. The clubs, the pubs, the bars, the action. Life. Life and me, we’d been separated by a great big parallel fence with coils a razor wire top and bottom for more than two months. We was getting back together soon. I was stoked. And for the sake a She Who Has Suffered Enough, I wasn’t gonna fuck it up this time—pardon me French.
    The next day, two guards came to escort me to the AAT. They put me in cuffs and then in the van, and we went tosomeplace in Parramatta. It wasn’t much of an outing, but I could taste that Free World air like it be chocolate. Gubba, me lawyer, was looking more blond and tanned and blow-dried than ever. He was one smooth dude. He told the Member, what be an