PROLOGUE
On their way to the far end of the Queen’s Domain parkland, the five Skinheads had met at the top of Elizabeth Street to ‘glue’ the neighbourhood with posters of OI!HOB, the best local approximation of a punk metal band.
Tall and rangy, number one buzz neatly parted above her left temple by the pale trail of a scar, Morgan feels big. Big inside the flight jacket made even bigger by the large black and white patch of a Trojan helmet sewn on the back. Big inside her oxblood DMs. Purple laces threaded the ‘trad’ way, in horizontal rows, jeans turned up a couple of inches above the ankles, at fifteen, she is the quintessential teen Skin on the prowl.
The tacit understanding being that shaking is never cool, not even from the frosty wind blowing across the park, hands tucked under their armpits for T-Rex and Bag, warmth inhaled from her incandescent cigarette for Morgan, the lads struggle to keep their breath steady. Finally they hear it—Kurt’s signal—the caw of a crow.
T-Rex and Jimmy hiss a satisfied ‘Yes!’
Sucking a cigarette butt too close to the filter, Morgan peels herself off the tree trunk against which she has been leaning. If the bonehead responsible for Fredo’s broken arm has just passed through the north entrance to the park, he’ll come into view any minute now.
Bag, as in ‘It’s-In-The-Bag’, the fresh cut shuffling next to her, is nervously snapping his braces. Snap. Snap. And again. The tight, popping sound is getting right up Morgan’s nose because she envies the lad’s ability to do it—to snap his braces against his chest—to have them make that clear, sharp, snapping sound. If she stretched and released her own braces, the non-snap would be a thud muffled, not only by the layered combo of T worn under shirt, but also by the binding wrapped tightly over her breasts.
Surreptitiously, she assesses the new recruit. The skin on the
youth’s skull is opaque-white under the moonlight. If his cut’s more
than a couple of days old, Morgan thinks, she’ll fucken start zig-zagging her bootlaces. Short and squat. Low centre of gravity. Convenient for ducking and rolling. Shit ass for running, she concludes, briefly pondering the whim of Nature. What if I’d had the choice, huh? Tall and dickless or short with a fat one? Mmmph, she groans silently.
“Hey, punk,” she growls, “ease up on the rubber bands, will ya?”
The lad looks up, lip curled, ready to snarl, but he changes his mind.
Kurt had already warned him: “You do as you’re told, buddy. Fresh cuts don’t flap back, no matter who, no matter what. Not till you’ve proven you’re one of the crew. So, Gumball … Did I hear you say you want to combat that downtown racial shit and all? Make Hobart City minority-friendly?” The boy had nodded eagerly. “I bet you also wanna strut around with Hobart S.H.A.R.P. stitched on that virgin bomber of yours. You do, don’t you?” The lad had nodded again, eyes even brighter. “Sweet! Little dude, sweet,” Kurt smiled benignly. “But no way none of that’s ever gonna happen if you don’t think clear, you hear? If you don’t think and if you don’t follow orders, you’re nothing more than a wannabe gutter punk with no place on this crew.”
On the off chance that generating a little aggro might get her warmed up from the inside, Morgan persists. “Hey, ice-cream boy!” Her eyebrows are screwed up in a convincing glare. “Why don’t you like, run your butt back to The Milkshake Hut, huh, if that’s getting all too scary for you.” The boy looks at her warily.
A movement in her peripheral vision makes her look twice. The mark’s just emerged from the shadows, alone as expected, and despite the distance that still separates him from the group, she can discern the cap worn backwards and the baggy crotch that reaches almost to his knees.
“OK, guys,” T-Rex cheers quietly, fist held out for a knuckle rap with everyone. “Boot-scootin’ time! So, Jimmy, what say you and me, we move into that two-men pincer thing and what with Kurt closing in from behin–”
“What the fuck!” Morgan points. “A chick. How come it’s only now she pops in the picture?” She zips up her flight jacket. Even the binding under her T doesn’t insulate her chest from the icy-cold night air.
“Squatting for a leak?” Bag’s suggestion.
“Phroar! Bet old Kurt got himself an eyeful, then. Lucky sod.”
Jimmy blows on his fingers to loosen them up and sticks them back under his pits. The knuckles will feel less brittle when the crunch comes. “That’s ‘bout the only moonin’ he wouldn’t boot back to the moon, I reckon.”
Hearing the girl’s running footfalls behind him, the young male in the rapper gear turns around and holds out his hand. As the girl grabs it, he spins her into a hug.
“Shit. That’s his bitch.” T-Rex nibbles the inside of his lip. The couple is still a good hundred metres away but getting closer. “Never mind, dudes. We fix two for the price of one. Let’s just not hit her in the jugs,” he says, always the gentleman.
Forehead tense, Morgan shifts uncomfortably. It’s one thing being a lookout for the good cause when, as has always been the case so far, the recipient of the ‘lesson in urban conscience’ is a male. It’s an entirely different gig, one she hadn’t previously thought about, if a chick’s gonna be involved. She briskly sniffs back the cold droplet that teases the tip of her nose.
“T … look. That’s like, not right, that … booting the girl and all. So seriously uncool, man.” Tall and straight, chin tilted for emphasis, she sniffs again. “I say we catch up with him some other time when he’s solo. We got no beef with her.”
The approaching couple is blissfully unaware of the group clumped among the tree trunks. Staccato-fast, T-Rex argues, “She’s probably got the same views as him, huh? If she hangs with him? Am I right or am I right?”
“No. Not fucken right at all, T. Guilty by association? That’s not one of our Four Points of Challenge.” Morgan moves out of the shadows. “Watch me spook ‘em out of here, T. I just gotta!”
There is one rule of engagement that Morgan knows T-Rex and Kurt will not contravene. ‘When the unexpected happens, desist immediately. Just pull back and disperse,’ Kurt always reminds the new boys. ‘None of that half-cocked, limp-dick action. Never. That’s a sure way to get you, and me, and everyone around, where nobody wants to go—hospital, morgue, or cop shop.’
Morgan lopes towards the couple. “Off you go, fuckwads!” she calls, shooing them away. “Off our fucken turf, you mongs!”
The vision of the Skinhead jumped out of nowhere propels the young male forwards—a flight on the wings of Queen Adrenal. Morgan chuckles quietly at the sight of him—the one hand hiking up the baggies that hang half-way down his butt, the other yanking the girl behind him.
T-Rex catches up with her. “Morg? You cunt!” Breath warm against her ear, he snarls, “What’s with the confusion, huh?” His hand is hard around her arm. “What’s up with you, dude?”
*****
