Danielle Writing Extract

Parole officer Perkins skidded to a halt. The only major road in the whole of the Central Australian desert and he’d nearly knocked someone down. Then he saw who that someone was and felt a surge of rage. He leaned heavily on the horn.

‘Jarrah, you flaming idiot, I could have killed you.’

You would have thought that he, of all people, would be vigilant about road safety. But the boy was standing in the middle of the highway, utterly transfixed by something in the sky. Perkins counted three breaths, like the anxiety management course had taught him, smoothed the front of his plaid shirt, and got out of the car.

‘What is that?’ the boy asked, without turning around.

Perkins was perplexed, he looked up at where Jarrah was pointing but could see nothing.

‘Will you get out of the road!’

He grabbed Jarrah by the sleeve of his T-shirt and dragged him to the roadside. He felt a presence behind him and turned to see a group of old-timers standing, arms crossed, at the boundary of Red Creek Community. He was suddenly aware of what this looked like, another white officer of the law pushing around a vulnerable youth. But Indigenous or not, Jarrah had had his last chance. He’d taken into account the boy’s tragic history; made all the allowances he could.

‘I’m here to take you into custody,’ Perkins said, with more emotion in his voice than he had expected to be there.

At last, Jarrah turned to him, his face registering confusion, then recognition and fear.

‘Wait, no, see I was coming … I was just on my way …’ the sentence died in mid-air and Jarrah turned back.

Perkins followed his gaze but there was nothing but endless blue sky, not even a cloud, all the long way to the horizon.

‘Jarrah, now I want you to answer me truthfully. Are you on drugs?’

No reply.

‘Jarrah, I don’t think you realise the magnitude of the trouble you’re in.’

But the boy didn’t even turn around. Perkins was wasting his time, trying to be the good guy.

‘Come on, you’re under arrest. Come quietly and I won’t have to cuff you.’

Perkins thought about his visit last year to Jarrah’s home. He knew his Aunt Clara, they’d been at college together, and would have enjoyed catching up had Ryan, her volatile, on-off boyfriend, not been glaring at him the whole time. The smell of marijuana had filled the house, though musky perfume had been sprayed to cover it.

‘No, please!’ Jarrah waved his arms in the air, ‘I can’t go to prison.’

Perkins felt his stomach flip over. He’d thought this one would end differently. He remembered the news coming through that day at college, the tutor telling them to put away their phones, then, catching the sombre atmosphere. He’d looking around the classroom for Clara but of course she hadn’t been there. He knew now that the police would have told her first thing, before the press got hold it of it. It had been national news: soccer star Dural Sawkins and Tamara’s very own local success story: lands-rights lawyer Mia, killed by a drunk driver on their way home from hospital. The miraculous survival of their baby boy, born just hours earlier, who, legend went, didn’t have a scratch on him. Red Creek community had rallied and had Clara scrambled best she could, but she and Jarrah’s grandpa were his only surviving relatives, and her attendance became more and more erratic until eventually she’d had to drop out.

 ‘Come on,’ he put his hand gently on the boy’s shoulder and guided him towards the car, aware of the growing audience behind him.

He was opening the passenger door when he noticed someone shouldering their way through the gathering crowd.

‘Hey,’ a familiar voice, ‘where you taking our boy?’

Perkins counted another three breaths.

‘May,’ he mustered a smile. ‘Always a pleasure.’

‘What’s this boy done? Where’s your warrant?’

May, at 6 foot 4, towered over Perkins and with the sun where it was, her shadow stretched across the car and over to the other side of the highway.

‘Don’t need a warrant for this one, May. Jarrah has broken the terms of his suspended sentence. He only got a suspended in the first place because I argued for him. The school May!’ he shook his head, ‘he vandalised his own high school!’

‘That’s just one side of the story,’ she said.

‘He pleaded guilty! He had to; the whole thing was caught on CCTV! Jarrah signed an agreement to attend parole, and he has broken it. He’ll be transferred to the youth justice centre in Darwin when the bus comes in tomorrow. In the meantime, we’ll hold him in town. You can apply to visit him there.’

May crossed her arms. She stood, breasts loose inside her sleeveless faded sundress, bare feet firmly planted on the ground.

‘Why not pick him up tomorrow?’

‘Because I’m here now.’ Perkins licked his lips. He could almost taste the beer he was going to buy himself when this business and the attendant paperwork was done.

‘Where’ll you be keeping him tonight?’

‘At the station.’

‘The police station in Tamara?’

‘That’s right.’ He knew she was stalling now, buying time, Tamara had the only police station in a hundred miles. He tried to meet her gaze, assert his authority, but the sun was in his eyes and all he could make out was May’s expressive eyes, the deep earthy tone of her skin, and the halo of wild, white hair that glowed like a second sun.

‘You want to keep him in a cell overnight with the drunks shouting all night and scaring him, a child, a young boy. You feel right about that? You be going home tonight feeling right after leaving this young boy at the mercy of … Jarrah, what are you looking at?’

‘Can’t you see it?’ Jarrah asked.

‘He’s high,’ Perkins said. ‘What is it Jarrah? Glue? Petrol? Are you stoned? Did Ryan give you something?’

He thought of Clara, working two jobs to make ends meet. Everyone said there must be money, but the drunk driver hadn’t been insured and Jarrah’s inheritance was tied up in a complicated education trust for when he turned eighteen. Mia and Dural had imagined a very different future for their son. No, he did not feel good about this.

May pulled Jarrah towards her, tilted his chin upwards and studied his eyes.

‘He’s not high,’ she said, definitive.

‘Nevertheless…’

May silenced Perkins with a slicing motion of her arm.

‘What is it, Jarrah?’

‘That black thing floating in the sky,’ Jarrah said. ‘It’s not a bird, it’s not moving.’

May’s eyes widened. ‘Where?’

Jarrah turned and pointed at the crayon-blue sky across the other side of the highway. ‘That way, out towards Warri’s camp.’

‘This is all very interesting, but I’ve got a ton of paperwork, so if you wouldn’t mind.’

Perkins directed Jarrah to the back of the car and guided him in. There was a murmur of disapproval from the mob behind them.

‘I’ll come too,’ May said.

‘That’s not the…’

‘Make room, Jarrah.’

‘Wait,’ Perkins held up his hands. ‘That’s not what’s going to happen here.’

‘I’ll come and speak with your boss and if they won’t speak with me, I’ll wait in your office, and if that bothers you then you can go ahead and arrest me. That way you can arrest a young First Nations child and an eighty-three-year-old elder all on the same day. Come on, Jarrah, make room.’

‘You’re a teenager, Jarrah, a young man,’ Perkins said. ‘May won’t always be there to rescue you. You can’t just go around defacing public property.’

‘It’s street-art!’ Jarrah said.

‘It’s vandalism! And more importantly it’s against the law! You need to start taking responsibility. One day you’ll be standing at a crossroads, and you’ll have to decide, am I going to take the easy path or am I going to do what’s right? Now, the easy path, that can be…’

‘Or,’ May interrupted him, ‘you can forget about throwing him into a stinking police cell, terrified and alone, and let him have a last night at home with his family.’

She glared at Perkins, hands on hips. Not for the first time that week, he decided that he wasn’t cut out for this job. He was beaten, they all knew it and now he had to find a dignified way to draw a line under the whole affair.

May gestured at Jarrah with her head, ‘Go wait in my store.’

‘You bring him to my office tomorrow morning,’ Perkins barked. ‘Nine am sharp or I’ll be back here and I’ll …’ The sentence died mid-air. Just what would he do? Oh, he wasn’t cut out for this job.