A Man Called Yarra by Stan Yarramunua

Author:Stan Yarramunua
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Schwartz Publishing Pty. Ltd

CHAPTER 13

GRAIN OF SAND

Far from getting myself up to scratch, after a few months of cooking and cleaning in Galiamble, I had the brilliant idea of taking the minibus out on Friday nights to meet up with the boys for a monster piss-up, returning Sunday afternoon. Had to leave the place locked up while I was away, so I climbed out a window each Friday night. I left food for the guys, and was pretty sure they weren’t about to dob me in. Not a good example for blokes who were being encouraged to accept responsibility for their lives, but that was something I put to one side.

After one of these highway to hell weekends, Richard caught up with me, sat me down in the office.

“Now, Stan, the bus was seen out on Hoddle Street the other night. Know anything about that?” The bus had the Galiamble name plastered all over it.

“Yeah? Out on Hoddle Street? No, don’t know anything about it, mate.”

“I was told a bloke who looked like you was behind the wheel.”

“Nah, couldn’t be me. I was here. I tell you what, must have been one of the clients got hold of the keys.”

“Don’t think so, Stan. Reckon it was you.”

I didn’t admit anything, but the game was up. Richard sacked me. Didn’t want to do it, but he did. Real sorrow in his eyes. He was so used to hearing the sort of bullshit he was getting from me – heard it all the time from the clients. But that didn’t make any difference to his disappointment.

Richard didn’t throw me out with nothing. He could see that I had something to offer, and he introduced me to Andy Walsh, who worked at the Turana youth detention centre over in Parkville. There was a job going at Turana as a liaison officer with the Indigenous kids in custody, and Richard had told Andy that I had a knack for communicating with bad boys. The job title, ‘liaison officer’, worried me. It made me think that book work was involved. At the interview with Andy, I said: “Mate, I have to tell you up front that my reading and writing’s not that flash.” And Andy said: “So what? I don’t need you for your reading and writing, I need you for talking. You get yourself into the heads of these kids, okay? See what you can do to keep them from graduating from dabbling in crime to a full-time life of crime.”

And Richard was right about me – I did have a knack for talking to those kids. I’d say: “Listen, brother, there’s such a thing as the future. And the future is made up of one day following another. If you want to spend all those days of the future in a place like this, or worse, keep to the track you’re on. But if you want freedom, buy your ticket by keeping off the junk.” Now, I knew that my own life pretty much made a

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