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Indian lady, that I had no home but Australia, and that I’d gone straight, though I swear he glanced at me watch for a second when he said that. After, he told me he thought the hearing went well. He figured I’d be outta there in a week, ten days max. Just in time for Christmas.

Thirteen
    Fucken Tribunal had to take their fucken holidays at Christmas before they made their fucken decision, didn’t they? Pardon me fucken French.
    I didn’t even get to complain about it proper to Gubba cuz he was going on his hols as well. He phoned to tell me on the twenty-third a December. ‘Sorry, Zeki. It’s not the ideal outcome.’
    ‘Mate, ya gotta get me outta here—’
    ‘Sorry, Zeki, can’t chat. Have to catch a plane. I’m off for two weeks myself. Noosa. I’ll speak to you when I get back.’
    ‘Slip, slop, slap,’ I said.

Fourteen
    On Christmas morning, She Who called to say she was coming to visit later that arvo, after the lunch with her folks, and that we had to talk. This is not a sentence what a man wants to hear coming from the mouth a his beloved at the best a times. And this sure wasn’t the best a times.
    Eleven ay-em Muster came round. I dragged meself over to the office. I noticed on the way over that some a the blues was wearing Santa hats. I swear they was doing it mostly for themselves. I never knew any prisoner what be cheered up by the sight of a screw in a dumb red hat. In the office there was a blue with a Santa hat on what I didn’t recognise from the back. When he turned round me heart skipped a beat.
    Remember what I said about the evil crim in Silverwater, Hadeon, the one what was mates with a screw what be just as evil as him? The screw’s name was Clarence, and that was him.
    I swear, Clarence’s mum musta pushed him out at the top a the Ugly Tree—and he hit every branch on the way down. Ugly with a capital E, I swear. Me and the other greens—what be the name for prisoners, what wore green uniforms, not people what hug trees—we used to call him Meat and Two Veg. He had a head like a side a beef, a nose like a potato and hair the colour a carrots what he cut like he thought he was a US Marine. His lips were thin. He had a scar on his cheek where someone once went him with a knife. Someone told me it was from a girlfriend what caught him porking her thirteen-year-old daughter in her bed. His eyes was the creepiest thing about him cuz they was big and pretty like girls’ eyes, with thick lashes. And now, them eyes what I never wanted to see again, they was staring straight at me.
    ‘If it ain’t Zeki Togan,’ he goes, in a voice greasier than a Kings Cross pizza at three in the morning. ‘How nice to see you again.’ He showed his teeth, what were neat and white, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a smile what he gave me.
    ‘Likewise, I’m sure,’ I said. ‘What’re you doing here?’
    ‘Working for the Shit House now. Got assigned here.’ The Shit House was what they called Whacking Co, the private prison management company what ran this place on the half a the government and what had the initials WC. ‘I thought it was just gonna be reffoville. I didn’t think I’d be seeing loser crims like your good self. I guess I was wrong.’
    ‘You wanna see losers, mate, just look in the mirror a few times a day,’ I advised, holding me fingers against me forehead in the shape of an ‘L’, what spells out ‘loser’ even though it only be one letter.
    ‘Sign language for “I’m a dickhead”, is it? Anyway, a change is as good as a holiday, eh?’
    I didn’t say nuffin.
    He smirked, like he just thought a something. ‘I’m assuming that if you’re in here, you’re going back to the Old Country.’
    ‘After you, mate,’ I went.
    ‘This is my Old Country.’
    ‘You Aboriginal, mate?’
    He snorted. ‘Yeah, well, they never did much with the place, did they?’
    I knew I was gonna get meself into trouble if I kept talking to the muvvafucker. ‘You tick me name