Friday arvo. I join Alex at the Livingstone. The Waratahs are already being beaten by the Hurricanes. Alex says the locals are being surprisingly tolerant tonight. They despise rugby union, and resent having it shown on the TV in the pub. (Union’s a toff’s game). Alex explains “ruck” and “maul”. The players put their heads down and mesh together in a ruck, the matrix of muscley men pawing the grass and lurching about like a great twenty-legged beetle. Actually, it’s not bad to watch. Alex knows the names of all the players, and calls out to them in familiar tones, as if they might hear him through the TV set. He asks if I want a drink. “Yeah, how about a shandy?” I ask. “Oh man, I hope none of the locals hear me ordering that!” he says. As soon as the game ends he puts down his red bull and rushes out the door. He’s got to get across to Wooloomooloo. The play he wrote, about AFL, is due to start any minute…
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Wednesday arvo:
I call up Neil, Mayhem’s friend who works for the railways. There’s a RailCorp training centre in Petersham, and I’d love to see what goes on there. But Neil says he’s not stationed in the ‘sham at the moment, and besides, he’s just a trainee. Best to contact the folks at HQ and get permission through the proper channels. Of course, I never get around to making that call.

But as I’m walking past the station, I spy a group of uniformed rail workers huddled around a fire in a metal box. One by one, they all have a go at putting out the fire. Big clouds of white steam drift into the air. Each worker hunkers down with arms extended, upwind of the flames. The trick is to get the extinguisher as close to the fire as possible, while keeping your body at a safe distance. Once the fire is out there’s a small ripple of applause from the rest of the group. Then the boss takes his gas applicator and starts the blaze up again for the next person’s turn. I stand and watch through the cyclone fencing, my fingers clinging onto the wire.

Thursday night:
The Petersham “radio talent committee” meets at the bowling club. I arrive late, accompanied by Mayhem. In fact, we’re too late for dinner, but Fiona serves up some hefty and delicious apple crumble. It’s a meal in itself. The latest news is that the broadcast is going to happen on evening of the 21st of June. It’s going to be a big affair, with music, bowling, food, drinks, with James O’Loughlin riding the airwaves from right inside the clubhouse.

Marie (who’s on the committee) tells me that one night, a few months back, she was flashed as she walked up Palace Street in the dark. The flasher stepped out of the bushes, presenting his naked body in a proud display. Marie sprung back and cried out, aghast. She hurried along home to call the police. She remembers only a few essential details. The man was naked, wearing only a headband (not a tennis sweatband, more of a printed bandana), gymshoes, and a beer gut. And yes, we had to ask…apparently, he wasn’t particularly well endowed…

I also meet Danni and Gary, who live just across the way from the Bowling Club. So close, in fact, that you can see their place from the window. The clubhouse is like their second living room. Tonight, for the first time, their experimenting with a hi-tech radio transmitter. They’ve left their baby fast asleep at home, and in theory, the transmitter will alert them at the first sign of crying. In the middle of his beer, Gary pops home just in case….

Things are piling up behind me, a wave of events and meetings and memories that seems to swell up, ready to crash. As I come towards the end of my period of self-imposed suburban lockdown, connections are leading to further connections, first-time meetings are rolling over into follow-ups, which slowly become…relationships? These second, third, fourth meetings develop a more easy casual flow. Perhaps some sort of rapport begins to build. Or maybe it’s trust. As I walk around the neighbourhood, it’s rare not to wave and say hi to somebody I’ve met through this project.

A little more than a year ago, in Kellerberrin, I wrote:

I feel like I am withdrawing, bit-by-bit, from this town. With only ten days to go, and an ever-mounting list of things to do, I’m finding it more difficult to pursue pointlessness with the same rigor as I did in April.

I guess it’s become apparent that the aims of these two projects are quite different. In Keller, I was interested to see how much I could succeed in drifting, in not setting fixed goals, in just living in the present moment, rather than working towards a deadline. The pursuit of pointlessness seemed to be an aim in itself. (And it’s surprisingly difficult!) Considered from one angle, the town of Kellerberrin was merely the backdrop for that personal project.

When I began the ‘sham, the question seemed to have changed. With the space to reflect, I realised that the relationships developed in Kellerberrin were one “outcome” of the residency- somewhat intangible, sure, but nevertheless real. Since then, pursuing pointlessness, for some reason, has dropped from my list of things to do. Why is that?
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In the evening, I had a “blind date” with Alex. He’s an avid ‘sham reader who happens to be a playwrite and a rugby journo, but we’d never met in the flesh before. We arranged to rendezvous at the Newington to watch the big fight between The Man and The Machine. But Alex arrived too late for the fight. He’s crazily busy, directing about three plays around town at the moment. Instead, I spied my friend Darrin from Marrickville in the crowd, sitting with his buddy Lobster. Lobster told me he lives right on the Petersham/Stanmore border. None of us could make head nor tail of the rules of boxing. However, I was interested in the fact that Danny Green had advertising drawn on his back with texta, and Anthony Mundine didn’t. And I liked Mundine’s teasing performance. Sometimes he would stick his tongue out at Green in mid-box.

As the pub was emptying out, Alex arrived. He told us about one of his plays: “The Prince of Brunswick East”. The play is a father-son Aussie Rules story. For some reason it’s been playing to smaller audiences than he would have expected. Alex’s theory is that people who are into sport are maybe just not into going to plays. Or, it could be the AFL/Sydney mismatch. Either theory sounded pretty feasible to me. But then again, I’m neither a big fan of watching sport, nor attending the theatre. But, you know…I’ll try anything once. So we arranged for a “rematch” – and set another date – this time at the Livingstone on Friday arvo to watch the big rugby union match. “I’ll teach you all about rugby,” Alex said…

A fragmented day.

I went in search of Anthony at the bottle shop. When I first met Anthony (weeks ago now) he recommended I visit this fellow who ran a real estate / immigration agency on New Canterbury Road back in the ’60s. I’m pretty sure, from what Anthony was saying, that this guy was responsible for finding houses for lots of Portuguese folks around Petersham. Hence the large Portuguese population here. But I couldn’t remember where Anthony said I could find him. So I stuck my head in the bottle shop to find out. But Anthony wasn’t in. He was off delivering booze somewhere.
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In lieu of spending time with our own mothers (who are in Perth and Milan) Luciana and I decide to take Lucy out to brunch at the Big Bowl. Lucy’s become our Petersham Auntie. On Thursday, I swing past her place to leave a note in her letterbox. On Friday she rings me back, very excited: “Are you SURE you want to do that? Because, you know… no pressure!” But of course we want to, we wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise…
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Rain starts to fall in heavy drops. The cats slink back inside, fur plastered down. I put aside my coffee and stand in the doorway, smiling benificently at my lettuce seedlings.