My unit was deployed on the gritty side of Campbell's Lane. We had arrived by the truckload, and once off the bone-rattling lorry we were rapidly assembled into a column, single file ready for processing. Each of us slightly different in size, shape and colour, but these subtle differences were hard to discern to the untrained eye. Camouflaged in khaki-yellow and brown fatigues, we were a solid bunch, honed to perfection, hardened and ready for battle. Our first orders were to stand dead still and face the searing yellow day.
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We must have looked a crack outfit on that first morning. Fresh, clean cut and keen as mustard. There was an immediate bond between us: a band of brothers. Nothing like being in the thick of it, alongside your mates, for life. We were stronger as a whole than as individuals. Together we formed an impenetrable shield, shoulder to shoulder, backs to the wall. Proud to be put to service. "Nothing a bit of spit and polish wouldn't fix", some old codger said as he shuffled by. Every step he flinched gingerly, from an old shrapnel wound to the knee.
Me, I was just a common foot soldier, the number on my back 077/1942. To my left was 78 and to my right 76. No names at first, just rank and serial number. It's an Aussie tradition, to have a nickname stuck on you when you least expect it. Mine eventually came after some joker graffitied it on my forehead after a big night. It read, 'for a good time call Earpy!' So 'Earpy' it has been ever since.
Last night was a typical Saturday night on the block. The punters and fillies turned up in droves to see 'The Barking Spiders' live. They attracted the best of the worst; a circus, and the guys were the animals loose on the streets.
"Don't just stand there, bro" shouted Aisake the Maori (ATM for short), waving his tattooed sleeve like a machete through the fetid air.
"Wattayathinkyalookinat?" he demanded, provoking the rubber-neckers, too cheap to dosh out the moolah for a ticket.
A barrage of insults erupted from a skinny coke-head before he was flung to the grubby gum-pocked footpath. He came up toothless and swinging, blood and drool splattering in all directions. Snowy lunged out of the front bar with a half full schooner and plunged it into his forehead and the guy was out cold.
Casually, Aisake dragged him to the end of the line and that was his night over before it began. Another ATM withdrawal. It was still only 10pm.
They say that the walls have ears; well, mate, I'm here to tell you we've heard and seen it all.
Sheltering under the dented pressed metal ceilings of the veranda awning, we had our own kerbside party. It was a regular Blue Light Disco. Strobing cadet blue and crimson ricocheted off the parked cars, highlighting the chunder streaks down the duco.
An orange HQ ute sat idling as the lead fumes choked even the darkest alcoves of the facade.
Perry the Publican came out for his hourly durry and struck his match along the thin white line beside graphite bullet size stains peppering the glossy glaze, where cheap cigarettes have been extinguished for decades.
Taxi calls started to ease by 5:30am. Stragglers were slumped randomly against the tessellated thresholds, praying to their God to stop the world from spinning any further out of control. The slippery looking dealers, pretending not to be seen, had long since called it a night.
A couple of stoners stopped for a tandem leak down one end of the wall before heading off to Hamburger Haven, sniggering like a pair of perverts as they stumbled past a newly acquainted couple going for it halfway up the other bloody wall.
The boys broke into chorus, "Six o clock I'm going down, the coffees hot and the toast is brown, hey! Streetsweeper clear my way, the Sweatheart's breakfast, the best in town".
"They're playing our song", I said to ol'mate 78 next to me.
The golden light in the Tooths KB lager sign crackled and went dim, just as the streetlights clocked off from their shift. Another long night gone.
The morning come down was like nothing had ever happened.
Two kids came dawdling by, as innocent as can be. Not in a hurry to go to school, they were trying to sneak a peek inside, like the place was a holy shrine and if they worshipped hard enough, one day they too might be allowed in. Or perhaps they were sent by their mother to find their old man who hadn't come home yet with the fortnight's wages.
"Garn off with ya then", came a Troll's nasally drawl rising up through the emerald floor vent from the keg dungeon below their feet.
We were moulded, from the ground up, into guardians of the ages. We've been smeared with blood, sweat, tears, alcohol and urine. Become weather-beaten, cracked and crazed. Yet we've stood up to the tests of time with honour and dignity. We've staunchly kept watch, the goings on around us, haven't judged nor condemned. Our sins were washed away by the stinging rain and the Sunday morning baptisms of sugar soap and Brillo pads. We've sung with the drunks, whistled with the tradies and hummed along with the hookers.
We are the body, the border, the subway, the mosaic, the mirror and the Yellow Freckle tile. They say that the walls have ears; well, mate, I'm here to tell you we've heard and seen it all.
This story originally appeared in the pages of the Newcastle Herald as part of its annual short story competition on January 6, 2020, under the title 'Another Long Night'
