i-DENT-i-TIE

A memoir..... Memory is a mask, a pastiche of time and place glued together with nostalgia. We are what we remember and how we clothe ourselves in memories to combat the world and to filter reality. Jasmine stands before the mirror, naked from the waist up, slowly guiding the razor down his face. The soap and bristles peel away like shingles being sliced from a tree trunk. He shaves with more care today, careful not to impatiently blunder into those delicate spots, like under the bottom lip where he usually draws blood. The soap peels away revealing glowing red skin, hiding small black bristles waiting to burst forth like mould should he go a day without shaving. He luxuriates in the feel of a new shave after going without for a few days. His face feels strangely alive and he stares at himself in the mirror. He doesn't smile or pout or do anything, he stares as if at a stranger he thinks he knows. He bends down to the tray balancing precariously on the edge of the bath, flips open the lid of the foundation and lightly runs the face sponge over it. With light strokes he brushes it down his face, running with the lines of his bone structure. He dips back into the foundation and runs it down the other side, then heavily plasters under his neck where dark facial hairs always lie, ready to sabotage his efforts. He studies himself quizzically dabs foundation between his nose and eyes and slowly moves over the rest of his face. His face takes on a different form, the cheek bones brought out, nose slightly sunk in, thin jaw highlighted. There's a knock on the door. Rhea, his housemate, walks in wearing a silver sequin shirt dotted with green and blue peacock eye designs and black vinyl pants, her hair is short and bougainvillean red. "Got any lippy?" She asks smiling at Jasmine, who looks uneasily back at her. "What colour ? I've got purple, black, green and red." "Ah, the colour queen. Well I don't know, they say red if you want a conventional fuck, black if you want cunnilingus, green if you're not fussy and purple if you want the heavens to move. What colour are you wearing today?" "You know me, I can't play that game. I just want to dance and escape for awhile." "You're no fun." Jasmine remains silent, hoping she'll go away. He doesn't like being disturbed halfway through his work, he feels like he's in between his old self and new self, therefore nothing. " I'll take the black one." " Feeling hungry ?" Blurts Jasmine, as his new self makes an incursion into his old self. "Oh, you are perky today. I'm sure you could turn on the juice if you wanted to." Rhea swipes the black lipstick from the tray and haughtily struts out of the bathroom, leaving the door open. Jasmine swings it shut and stares back into the mirror, trying to recapture his previous. He picks up the green lipstick, conscious now of Rhea's her words resonating inside his head like a grandfather clock. He'd never heard of colour- coded lipstick denoting types of sexual desire, suddenly his relatively asexual drag persona is loaded with sexual meaning he never meant to have. The lipstick hovers over his frozen smile with new found phallic meaning. Throwing caution to the wind he draws it over his lips, painting them emerald green. *************************** An ethereal memory of a past beyond knowing, a reality as weak and formless as my prematurely born baby's bones, too delicate to be picked up or to leave the plastic bubble. Those memories took shape after other memories, like building blocks provided the foundations. Fragments of phone conversations, bitter angry words spat out at my grandmother by my mother. " They said he'd never live and if he did he'd have the intelligence of a three- year old!" while I was reading in my room, unknown to my mother who wept anger and cursed the world that killed her children. Other conversations, overheard and alluded to gave structure to those memories, like time made my bones strong. A gym in Carlton huddled under the concrete towers of the commission flats so foreign to me, fresh from developing suburbia where the country and the boom time of the sixties formed an uneasy alliance. Walking on balance beams, climbing wall racks, and swinging from ropes. I made the footy team at sixteen and won a trophy, my parents were so proud, the Doctors had said 'He'll never kick a football' and here I was at sixteen, kicking goals. The memories, thirty years on and fading like a book left in the rain tell me I always knew I had an older sister, one that died when she was weeks old and that my mother had others before that. Of those, the memories are vague, but of the sister above me, something remains. If I'd died, and I was born dead, my mother would've stopped trying. Miscarriages and still births had sucked the vitality from her, turning her into a perpetual worrier, there would've been no more children, my brothers wouldn't exist. I was their gateway into this life. A memory appeared at a time when my beliefs and faith had been beaten out of me by comrades of ten years. Knowledge was a lie and while contemplating the death of my past, a film, uninvited, ran through my mind, and images like breaking waves crashed into my consciousness. Me in the plastic house, weak, unformed and dying, the last hope for my parents rapidly turning into the final nail in the suburban coffin. Babies born two months early rarely survived in 1965 but that memory, the ethereal one came to me. My sister, not quite passed on to wherever dead babies go, hanging around and her spirit coming down into me, tipping the balance from death to life, giving me her substance to nourish me and in doing so dragging my parents back from the precipice of despair, allowing my brothers to be born. She became part of me. Does her memory come alive when I'm in drag, or establishing a rapid rapport with children ? How many of my relationships are in fact her relationships ? Is my social estrangement just a factor of my symbiotic relationship to a ghost ? Am I, my memories, and her desires converged into one ? I remember nothing but those nothings; the plastic house where I lived for those months with putty soft bones, picked up only to be breast fed; the tubes and monitors and that battle with death. They are the only memories which make sense. Death and insanity are the shadows which give life form, scant memories intrude like half-forgotten dreams of a person I once knew. *************************** A six year old boy sits in front of the TV Rows and rows of names scroll down the screen, tension pervades the somnambulant suburban air. "What do all those names mean ?" "Names of people going to the war"replies his father, a reserved man who appears like a spectre each evening carrying a scuffed leather briefcase and a rolled up newspaper. A sliver of fear jars the boy into wakefulness. "I hope you don't go" "I'm too old, but your uncle Ray might get called up." They sit together watching the screen, sharing a rare moment of togetherness, the boy can't read so waits for his father to say if Ray is called up. His father shows no reaction so the boy knows everything is okay although the names appear sadly alive and he weeps for his future which must be to play a similar lottery. My head is a sea of memories but those that wash to the shore of my consciousness are the ones that match who I think I am. Memories have an agenda too, they provide reasons and justifications, they are the salve to nihilism, the reason of existence. I wonder which came first; the memories or the agenda. Memories too often subvert the idea of free will. " Happy twenty-first birthday," said the young constable, placing weak tea, soggy cornflakes and cold buttered toast on the butt- ridden floor as if it was the best present Hanz would ever get. Twenty-one and locked up for breaking two contradictory bail conditions, Hanz lit a butt and marvelled at the beauty of his predicament. It was one of those rare occasions when life collapses into a network of symbolic moments. The cops were stupid, which was no more apparent than the fact that he was on two different bail conditions, each one stipulating that he live at a different address. To be alive was a crime because no matter what he did he would be arrested. One stipulated that he live in Diamond Creek with his parents, a smallish town on the outer fringes of suburbia. Parochial enough to have a small-town mentality but close enough to the city to be consumed by the lesions of red roofed houses swarming over the paddocks. Attached to Diamond Creek were friends from his past, a collection of small-time criminals with a predilection for violence and bad tattoos, who had followed him to Heidelberg then Richmond. The second one stipulated that he live in Richmond in the house they had squatted next to three other empties. The others were soon squatted by some punks. Diamond Valley was his yobbo past, Richmond his punk future. Metaphysics claims two objects can't exist in the same space, the punks and the yobbos adhered to the same principle and, like a house in an Ionesco play, the squat manifested the psychic battle waged between the two groups. Hanz and the yobbos took over a flat in Heidelberg as a refuge from the street. Time dissolved into a spoon, granules of speed stretched time until it snapped like an elastic band, flicking Leonie into a psychiatric hospital, never to be the same again. Hanz returned home one night, twenty blokes in blue jeans and singlets with bad tattoos were shouting at each other in the small lounge room, pot-smoke like thick mist hung over their heads and cases of beer spilled their brown glass innards over the floor. Sitting amongst the slurring booming sea of blue singlets and quasi-rape stories Hanz felt vulnerable and ridiculous in his sarong. He didn't want to be there, that much he knew. Owning a car meant Hanz never went anywhere alone. He fled the flat accompanied by a few friends, Paris, Stoffy, Major Tim and Paddy and they squatted a house in North Richmond. An Edwardian terrace, long thin corridor like a brain stem finishing at the lounge room with small rooms branching off it. The cars and trucks of Hoddle street and the trains rattling above the house shook the rooms like miniature earthquakes. There were four houses, all identical and empty, waiting for life. Summer evening, the moon fox-trotted with the stars, Friday night sirens punctuated the rhythmic roar of the city. A knock on the door, Hanz got up from the bong circle where Rodreiguez sung words which were anthems of the past and future. 'Your queen of hearts weighs six stone and likes to laugh alone / Madness passed me by, she smiled hi, I nodded. Looked up as the sky began to cry, she shot it.' A two-foot red mohawk, wavered in the wind; under it a clean white punk dressed in a leather jacket and pants, next to him, short and thin, a woman with a black twin fin mohawk and googly blue eyes. (Ten years later she would get pregnant and Hanz would be reminded of a bloated tadpole). Seduced by their outrageousness and friendly charm, Hanz invited them in. They wanted to move into the other houses, fifteen of them, Hanz gave them a bong; Paris grimaced like a wounded dog. The next day they moved in, a multi-coloured tribe of refugees from Canberra with dogs, cats and attitude. Paris was a larrikin, built like a bull-terrier with curly red hair. His voice boomed like thunder and he was prone to manic bouts of violence. He'd done time like most of the yobbos and accepted doing more like most people accept lunch precedes dinner. " Hey punk! pass a light" His voice snarled through the small room which had once been someone's bedroom. A naked globe hung from the cracked plaster ceiling, shards of glass from the only window lay on the spongy floor. 'Paris, he's got a name - Nick. It's insulting to call him "punk." ' Paris's blue- green eyes, pupils like flying saucers and soaked in speed, glared at Hanz with serial killer intent. " That's all they are, fuck'n' punks, I'm not call'n' 'em by any name." 'They're my friends, Paris. They don't call you "yobbo" so why call them "punk?" ' Paris grabbed a steel bar and speared it towards Nick's head. Nick ducked and the pole gouged a hole in the wall in an explosion of plaster. " Fuck that, I've known you longer than this fuck'n fag and I'll call him what the hell I want." He threw the pole at Nick, who ducked, it bounced off the wall and knocked over a bong, Nick and Hanz ran from the room while Paris continued smashing the pole into the walls in a fit of insane rage. Between the punks moving in and Hanz turning twenty one was only a matter of months but he had struck up a firm friendship with them. He'd pulled the back fence down and given them drugs. In return the yobbos had burnt someone's car, smashed every window in the house and blown up a toilet. Hanz had been waiting his whole life to meet the punks and with them he felt he'd met his soul family. Not that the yobbos were bad, nothing is so simplistic. There was love in a tattooed boy sort of way. Stoffy with his pale Dutch skin, oceanic blue eyes, ski jump nose and fifteen paper joynts. Major Tim with his cheeky 'fuck you all' smile who was so close to defecting but never did, dying instead. Paddy, curly haired car thief who loved the 'fuck the world' side of punk but not the politics. Eighteen months it took for the houses to implode, fire-places sold for smack, floorboards ripped up for firewood, windows smashed, people bashed and ambulances called. The Richmond cop shop had a map of the area on the station wall, the houses, circled in red were sometimes raided four times a day, the doors smashed in so many times they became large splinters hanging off skewed hinges. Sometimes a small action can win a war and so it was with the punk / yobbo battle. Stoffy, Hanz's closest friend who'd been there when Leonie was committed, and came to him on clearlight acid nights with words of wisdom. Together they had broken in their virgin veins, shooting speed in the early morning. Then smoked joynts and watched the trains jammed with suited commuters rushing to work. They toasted the good life where only fools went to work while the sun shone. Standing in the backyard with Hanz sharing a bong, Stoffy smiled and spoke, " You know Hanz, if you were gay I couldn't be your friend." The words hit Hanz harder than any fist. The question of his sexuality was not one he was interested in. Sexuality was about desire and he desired drugs (smack and pot mainly ), books, music and a few months diving every year. People, maybe one day, but he was in no hurry. As the words ran a skewer through him he knew his friendship with Stoffy was over. There, amongst the debris- the burnt out shell of the car, broken glass, beer bottles, blood encrusted syringes and rotting food, Hanz knew he belonged to the punks. Three days later they squatted a warehouse in the city, hanging banners from the windows and giving impromptu interviews to the media. One hundred feds turned up; dark suits and walkie-talkies, surrounding the warehouse and demanding everyone leave. Hanz and the punks stayed, the yobbos left, he saw them occasionally when he ventured back to suburbia. Those that remained alive married, had kids, had divorces and kept their lawns cut. Jasmine closed one eye and tried to stick the false eyelash over the real one. It hung limply so he delicately bumped it up until it curved around his real eyelash. Slowly he squeezed the real and false lashes together until they become one. She stands before the mirror, blond wig tickling the back of her neck, face sculpted into a vague reflection of Ziggy Stardust, long green and blue body-hugging sequined dress and black lace stockings. She wonders if he would pick her up if he saw her. Not that he thinks that by becoming Jasmine he is a woman but he is someone else. Jasmine is the avatar of sociability, she is who he becomes when he wants to be sociable, chitchat is Jasmine's forte. He feels incapable of social relationships, defeated by the psychological shallowness of human interaction. Jasmine runs her fingers lightly down her dress, smiles at her reflection and walks out of the bathroom, ready to go to the party. It's spring, flowers are blooming and the smell of sweet nectar soaks the air. Jasmine likes sexual ambiguity, it's the ninties and no-one wants to encroach or insult another's sexual identity. The girls think he likes boys, the boys think he likes girls so everyone leaves him alone. Boys in loud cars cruise past hurling insults, she walks in the shadows, hiding from the prying eyes of drunk boys. Lighting a cigarette, Jasmine curses herself for forgetting about Lismore's doppel-ganger identity. A sweet smiling in ya face garish queen by day, night falls and it becomes a rampaging hormonal boy stomping on the face of difference. Melbourne a People for Nuclear Disarmament march, the sun shines, rainbow flags and fading sixties radicals relive the Vietnam moratorium marches. Benny Zable is doing the same black costume gasmask mime he will do ten years on. A spectacle of colour and family fun, saccharine-sweet for the media, another party political broadcast. Dissent legitimised, institutionalised and powerless. Hanz with Sime, Billy, Sara, Hervae and others march, coloured hair, studded jackets and head-kicking docs. 'Give peace a chance' blasts out of a PA like an extended scratchy fart. Dewy eyed radicals weep with nostalgia and hold hands, marshals in uniforms dart around like sheepdogs keeping every one in order. The squatters feel nauseous, caught in the middle of a baby boomer reunion. Marching down Swanston Street where skeletal elms drop leaves in golden-brown piles, clogging the gutters. Somewhere in the distance is the Botanical gardens, the destination; where foodstalls and Marxist paper sellers gather like leaches. The stage is set up, waiting for members of parliament to speak about the evils of nuclear war while getting kickbacks from the arms industry. They come to Princess Bridge, the squatters look up and see CARP., a C.I.A. front waving banners and shouting slogans from the platform above the station. Eastern European refugees convinced antinuclear marches are communist plots, yell out " communist stooges" and hold placards saying ' Peace through nuclear deterrence'. The marchers ignore them, the smell of sausages and sound of 'The times they are a changing' hold too much appeal. The march ripples, the squatters break off and run towards CARP Hanz joins them, body alive, adrenalin surging like a new drug. They run up the station steps followed by the cops who are caught unawares. The CARP people swing their banners at the squatters' heads, the cops join in, punching into the squatters, Billy goes down surrounded by cops, his hands are pinioned behind his back. Three cops and fifteen squatters. The cops are surrounded. Thrown to the ground, they let Billy go and run down the steps, yelling into their radios for reinforcements. Hanz feels human for the first time in his life, the cops are pushed against a wall, fear fills their young eyes. The reinforcements can't get through the march; sirens wail like rutting cats, Hanz kicks a cop in the face, Hervae rips the radio from a cops hands and smashes it on the ground. The cops finally get through, a stream of blue heads towards the fray. The squatters disappear into the crowd, old sixties radicals try to grab them for the cops, they brush their clawing hands off and someone tears down a rainbow flag. Hanz slows to a walk, sees Sime, tall blond punk with intense blue eyes from next door, he's wiping blood from his fist and smiling like a Cheshire cat, they talk and laugh like old friends and share a cigarette. Although unspoken they know there is no turning back, Hanz wonders if his sister, if she'd lived would've been here too, smashing the past to make a future. Hanz