Brett had been out of work for a couple of years-apart from two months pulling carrots in market gardens and a few days here and there doing jobs. It was the beginning of the '90s and work wasn't in abundance. And he'd been battling drug and alcohol problems and when Social Security and CES forced him go on a training course he did so because (a) he had no choice and (b) he had do something . . . something else.He lived with his partner of four years and their two-year-old at the foot of the Perth Hills near Armadale. It was the suburbs but bordering on the rural-the odd orchard and market garden hanging on as the housing estates blossomed more than fruit trees. Though he helped an old orchardist bring his mandarin crop in, he was paid in mandarins, and the government didn't accept that as pay or a true effort to find a job. But receiving the call attend the in the city, he wandered down through his old friend's orchard give himself the strength get through the bullshit-furthermore, it was a shortcut down the highway and the railway line, where he'd catch the train into the city.The orchard was twelve acres, split by a side road and nudging up the Canning River, which was really more of a stream this close the hills. The orchardist lived in a lean-to made of corrugated iron that branched off his sorting shed. He had an old cabinless Massey Ferguson Tractor, which he drove down the local shops. Well into his seventies, he suffered from many ailments, which he attributed the pesticides he'd been using for decades, including DDT, an old drum of which he still possessed. Though he complained about the effect of the toxins, he kept using them. Brett, his out-of-work friend, begged him stop using them for the sake of the suburb's children, but the old man persisted. The younger man had decanted some of the plastic drums of poison and diluted them down, taking the decanted poison the disposal place up in the hills when he managed borrow a car from a friend. This had happened a number of times.Cutting through the orchard Brett felt grim. He detested sales work. He was not designed for it. His degree in politics was useless, he accepted that, but he'd rather pick fruit or pull carrots or mow lawns than sell . . . things. He saw the orchardist and waved, and felt better for it, but kept walking despite the old man trying get him come over. The old man yelled out, The world is not that bad! Drop by this evening. Brett thought over his partner's words, You two look ridiculous together . . . he's so small and round and you are so tall and gangly. But she'd said that him just after discovering he'd pawned her earrings and silver bracelets buy a couple of sticks of mull. Things were a bit tense.The train made its slow uneven way into the city and Brett stared out of the windows at nothing in particular. He had a yellowing paperback edition of Suetonius in his jacket pocket; he didn't read it. He just went on and on and let the time vanish.The was being held in what had been an empty suite of offices in one of the city's half-filled skyscrapers. And these offices were empty a fortnight ago. But they were bustling now, like a Scientology interview center. A regular hive. Show your letter, said the zealot at the front desk. Brett was stamped in and told go room 1. There were two seminar rooms with numbers 1 and 2 in red text on ill-cut card pasted the doorframes. He went in and took a seat. A few other bedraggleds, dressed out of type and struggling make a go of it, were mixed with a handful of zealot-parodies at the front of the room. Two of the zealots were engaged in eager conversation-a young man and a young woman, white shirt and white blouse, black trousers and black knee-length skirt, each waving whiteboard markers around as if they were wands. As one, they turned their audience and said, I think we will begin. …
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May 20, 2019
Jiří Svoboda + 6
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