I am abroad thinking of my home town of Sydney, to see you again at Bar Milazzo and to take a macchiato together made by that other expat paysano Claudio. I miss you my dear Italian friend. I miss you like I miss my city made up of all my old haunts, my family, my dear friends, and all those much loved and renowned of Sydney's inner city street urchins.
The day before departing I came across a man that I have seen about town from time to time for many years. He calls himself Harry Morgan however I have never been certain if this is his real name as he may have appropriated it from the longest serving WWII veteran of the same name. He roams the inner city much like the man on his maroon moped on high speed, on all the footpaths who blasts Elvis songs from speakers secured firmly to the back for everyone’s pleasure.
I met Harry all those years ago on the corner of Oxford and Brisbane Streets when Surry Hills had not yet been completely annihilated and unravelled by gentrifiers. The White Horse Hotel lay as a vacant shell, rumours of Mafioso biker gangs letting it decay and lay to waste away—I believe they call it demolition by neglect. It was still adorned and crowning with the original crumbling statue horse—hooves proud in the air—wild and unbridled—the building boarded up.
Harry is known to most shop keepers around Oxford Street and the art school students that tramp up and down that street, too impoverished to catch the bus to the train station. He is a darling of the inner city, one of Sydney’s much loved sons. I believe it is because Harry is tuned into life in such a way he doesn't miss a moment of it.
By day he wanders the inner city perhaps unknowingly in search of dérive—an unconscious-altruistic-flâneur-par-hasard-by-chance. To me Harry is a reassuring face in the endless hoards of faceless insincere crowds that march in one direction or the other. What is his story? I have often wondered what was the sudden change or the moment of impact that let voices speak aloud inside his mind. He has his ways I am sure, his idiosyncrasies-a-plenty, less able to disguise them as the rest of us who attempt to present ourselves as normal-well-adjusted-beings. A friend of mine told me once that the world is just one big open asylum. He looks better these days, less distressed than those days of my younger self walking up and down Oxford Street, on my way to-ing and fro-ing from art school, saving the bus fare to buy a cup of coffee. He seems more self assured these days as we all get with age.
I always took a deep breath when exiting at Town Hall Station. The cool air always a stark contrast from the stale-stuffy –putrid-bowels below hot with human-humidity. I felt then and now still how the train delivered me into the mouth of the monster of the world, for me to go into battle with the big bad city. Then making my way to or from art school, I would usually catch Harry standing on Oxford Street wearing his fatigues. He was clean shaven then, but he had the wild look of disturbed thoughts that marched through his head. He would carry on and rant, lost in his schizophrenic scatting, angry at the world. I felt the same, raging against it and yet trying to find my place in it.
There is one day in particular in 2001 all those years ago that I still recall to this day. I must have had bus fare that day as I saw Harry from the bus on the corner of Oxford and Pelican Streets. He was in his full army regalia with his matching metal army helmet, waving the front page of the newspaper, overwhelmingly distressed and distraught. Harry was screaming and the front page he was brandishing read ‘WAR!’
I felt Harry's distress and he was right all along. Why nobody else was screaming along with him I do not know. I wanted to wrap my arms around Harry and tell him the dismal truth. That it would be alright, that there in that far flung outpost we would be left untouched, and the world’s indifference would let life continue as normal there in that city of ours.
I then think to a bicycle courier, one of the many that race about town and gather at Martin Place and drink directly from their brown bottled long necks on Friday afternoons, on the steps to the GPO Building. However, this one bicycle courier is special to me and possibly many silent others I suspect whom traipse the State Street line. In between errands he plays his trumpet for the people of his city, his siren song to the city of the South. Yet his presence and his playing are only for the uptown-Hunter-State-Street-elite where he rides. His sounds catch me and the music resonating, hanging in the air, opening up my unknowing heart.
When he plays he speaks to all the tears that have filled up my paper heart—he echoes all the great sadness’s I have felt in my life in that city. He plays it all out on the streets of Market, King, Hunter and Elizabeth, killing me with his playing. He plays out all the darkest secrets of my woodwork heart and my metallic soul which cannot help but trip up on that trumpet of his, echoing all the solemn cries of the past, as I listen intently before having to break away. As I always do—I toss a coin—offer a polite smile and walk on— letting him and his song fade into the crowd—fade into the background—fade into the past—his songbook still ringing out to all the people of the southern skies.
On that last day before departure, seeing Harry on the steps of the Energy Australia Building, on the corner of Bathurst and George Streets, I shared my umbrella with him as it was raining. He told me that he lived in a house now, by himself in Redfern, and he was happy with that. He explained to me that he did not have any money until pay day. I gave him all of my coins—they mean nothing much to me but yet another cup of coffee. In return he gave me a kiss on the cheek, his razor sharp stubble prickling the side of my face as he moved his face away. As we stood under my umbrella I noticed that he was dressed warmly and he started smoking a cigarette, I smoked one with him.
I always thought of Harry as Sydney’s enfant terrible and me some sort of tortured ingénue. He is as much a part of the city in the way we all are, swallowed whole into the mouth of the monster, making the machine turn as we all do, and he is unable to escape.
Now I find myself here displaced, lost amongst the buildings in search of my own dérive, I am here in Paris to be exact and like that last day in Sydney there is the same sadness that surrounds me yet compounded by the crisis here. It is evident all around this city. I am staying haphazardly apart, yet removed in la belle quartier but I know there is always a homeless person somewhere just out of sight.
I was walking along the spiralling intersection on Avenue de Saint-Ouen across the street from the brasserie La Chope nearing the Periferique, late night—last night. I thought I saw a man slowly tumble out of a moving car. I rushed towards him not knowing if he had been thrown from a taxi and was crawling—weaving a path in between the traffic. As he worked his way up to the curb, he made himself comfortable as if he were sunbaking in the gutter, reclining, or daydreaming on a gravely-bitumen-beach at midnight. Strange? A drunken madman I thought being dismissive.
The man rested in my thoughts turning the corner making my way up Rue Marcadet to my apartment building after midnight. Something occurred to me, that the unknown man lying on the curb side, one arm bent holding up his head, gazing wild-eyed at the oncoming traffic was perhaps in effect watching as if the whole world, modern life itself was some sort of curiosity, a spectacle or slow-motion car crash. I felt as if he was lying there literally at the crossroads of living in the moment and eternity near the last exit ramp at Empires end. To reach this conclusion the transformation of my ideas often takes hold in the small hours of the morning—the perfect time when the moon shines, the squares are asleep, and dreamers share while wide awake and me walking underneath the darkened sky going nowhere.
What can any of us do against the failure of Capitalism, sit au café and take our café crème to just wash over the thoughts of today and tomorrow and think dearly of those who we care for, to think of you my dear friend Andréa.
Now looking out over the tin rooftops, terracotta chimneys and arrow-headed-pointed antennas, that stretch out seemingly endlessly to form a distinctive Parisian skyline, a thought overcomes me of how much these grey-topped beige buildings have seen—how many sunsets and bitter winters—the seemingly endless persistence of time and the passing days of old and new—of life here in this city. Like the geraniums that still flower in autumn from the balconies.
What to make of a world gone mad in this grand open asylum waking up from the hangover of Capitalisms glut. Or sit roadside letting it all unravel before us, as if it were some great spectacle made up of flashing lights and moving metal. Or stand road side on an inner city street corner screaming—calling out—imploring for others to take note!
And so I am writing from here, to be by your side and to see you once again Andréa, from your friend thinking of all of you back home,
Fayroze.
