This is a short story from our upcoming anthology From the Edge. Enjoy.
THE OUTLIER
Bernie Dowling
In memory of
more than 2000 people who suicided, after receiving computer-generated ‘robo
debt’ demands – many erroneous – from the Federal Government Centrelink social
security organization.
South-east Queensland, September 1998
IT WAS
BARBIE THE BARITONE who recommended me.
‘Barbie the baritone suggested you
might talk to him, Steele,’ the Gooroo said.
We were sharing tea and scones on a
bright spring morning in Con’s Tweed Heads unit. The Gooroo had just turned 68
and he had decided to retire from his somewhat illegal SP bookmaking business.
It was fun while it lasted but legal corporate bookmakers had begun to compete
with the previous trilogy of government totalisators, on-course bookies, and
the dwindling numbers of illegal SPs like the Gooroo.
I had given my best mate, Con Vitalis,
35 years my senior, the nickname the Gooroo after the Local Aboriginal word for
deep place or something like that.
‘I've created a spreadsheet to map all
the punters who owe me money,’ the Gooroo said. ‘I’ve worked out probabilities
of people paying me back and also the percentage they are likely to pay if they
refuse to fork out the full amount.’ He smiled. ‘I was pleasantly surprised at
the results and I have only one outlier.’
I took a sip of tea before I inquired
if the Gooroo was talking to me. ‘Are you talking to me or to yourself? Because
I don't know what a spreadsheet is and I don't know what an outlier is. I
pretty much understand the stuff in the middle and it's good that it looks like
you’ve got a pleasing result coming your way.’
‘You know what a spreadsheet is, Steele.
It's got information and maths calculations on it. A bookmaker’s ledger is a
spreadsheet. You’ve been working with spreadsheets for 10 years. Just not as
sophisticated as the modern computer ones. An outlier is a result far different
to the average.’
‘Like an outsider in a horse race,’ I
said.
‘Yair, something like that and Charlie
Barra has come up as an outlier with me having next to no hope of collecting
what he owes me.’
‘How much does this Charlie Barra owe?’
‘Three grand.’
‘Write it off,’ I advised.
‘This may surprise you, Steele, but
writing off bad debts without trying earnestly to collect is frowned upon in
the business world.’
‘Then talk to him,’ I said
‘I was going to, but Barbie the
Baritone was concerned he was emotionally fragile.’
I saw what the problem was. ‘Charlie’s
dropped three grand betting on the ponies. Of course he is emotionally fragile.
Once he’s wiped the slate clean, he will feel much better.’
The Gooroo was not convinced. ‘I don’t
know so much. Barbie is concerned.’
‘Did Barbie offer to clear his slate?’
‘She isn't that concerned. She suggested
you talk to Charlie Barra.’
I might be 6-foot tall but I wasn't
coming at this. ‘I’m not heavying a bloke about a gambling debt. No way.’
The Gooroo was offended. ‘Who said
anything about heavying anyone? I’m just asking you to talk to him so I know
what the score is. I'll give you a couple of hundred even if we have to write
off the whole 3-gees.’
I was embarrassed after being
reprimanded for my dark thoughts. ‘Awlright, I'll give it a go but I don't need
any money for it. I’ve had a good week on the punt. Maybe Charlie Barra has
too. Where does he live?’
‘Dunno,’ the Gooroo said, reaching into
his wallet for $40, what he called ‘petrol money’. ‘We did business on the
telephone and settled debts in cafes.’
‘I thought it was frowned upon in
business not to know the address of customers.’
Barbie’s mum called her Barbara and I
called her Barbie the Baritone because it always made me laugh or, at the very
least, smile to hear the moniker. She was the lead singer of an all-girl pub
band which moved up financially to do cabaret and play corporate gigs for the
big money. As a novelty, the blue-eyed blonde sang a set of songs usually
performed by baritone or bass vocalists. She would do The Superman Song by Crash Test Dummies, Better Get a Lawyer by the Cruel Sea, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Fight Like a Brave, It's Midnight by Elvis, Light
My Fire by The Doors, 16 Tons by
almost everybody, and even way back to Old
Man River by Paul Robeson.
The punters loved Barbie’s baritone/
bass set and why wouldn’t they? It was way cool.
She opened the door to her unit beside
the Brisbane River and I admired the views outside, through the patio window,
and in. ‘So, this is your new place. Wow, you done all right for a girl.’
Barbie drummed her fingers on the back
of the open door to an old Melanie tune, and invited me in. ‘You know you're
not supposed to quote song lyrics without permission,’ she said. ‘How's
Natalie?’
‘We’re kind of taking a break at the moment,’
I said.
‘Why does that not surprise me? You
know, Steele, you'd be a good catch for any woman. If you were not such a
hopeless arsehole.’ On cue, Barbie's CD player gave us the satirical Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) from
pop-punkers the Offspring’s new album Americana. ‘And what brings you to my humble abode?’
I scoffed. ‘Humble abode, that new
group of yours, Barbie and the Beetroots, must be going sensationally.’
‘It's Kirsty and the Kalettes. We were
going to call ourselves the Scalettes but that was taken. So, we went with the
vegetable.’
‘Like in that prickly stalky cabbage
stuff. That tastes yuk. That kale will never take off. Kirsty and the Kalettes
is cool for a band name, but.’
‘Way cooler than what you called us. As
a name, Barbie and the Beetroots wouldn’t work, not even in those pub dives you
frequent.’
‘You mean those pub dives where you
learned your trade, Barbie.’
‘Fair point but I’ve told you not to
call me Barbie.’
‘I always call you Barbie.’
‘And I always tell you not to.’
We bantered about this for a minute and
it led to good band names and great song titles and killer lyrics. We had to
stop so the whole morning was not done before we talked about a more serious
matter.
Barbie was still playing the pubs for
peanuts when she first noticed Charlie Barra at one gig. He was at others and
he always sat in the same spot to her right, three tables back. He never tapped
his knee in time with a song or mouthed the words. At the end of a number he
would only clap politely. It was quite disconcerting.’
I nodded. ‘I bet it was. For Charlie.
Sounds like you were stalking him.’
‘That's not funny, Steele. You can get
some creepy guys at gigs. That's how I met you, remember.’
She got me there. I raised my hands in
surrender, and sat mute as she continued her tale.
‘He surprised me one night when he came
over during the break between sets to buy one of our EPs. He said he really
liked the sad song I had just done.’
Barbie appreciated the compliment
because the song was an original she had performed in public for the first
time. It normally takes quite a few listens before a punter catches onto a song
and decides they really like it.
Charlie seemed safe enough and Barbie
talked to him at gigs and occasionally they met over a coffee. Small world and
all that, it turns out Charlie bets on horse races with Con Vitalis who is
Barbara’s grandmother’s second cousin.
When I ask, Barbie does not know what
Charlie does for a living. She suspects he may be on a pension as his complexion
is pale and he is prone to bouts of coughing. She does not pry into any medical
issues. At one time, he mentioned working in an air-force base, maybe as a
civilian, Barbie thought.
‘Do you have his address?’ I ask.
She sat silent for a while. ‘What do
you want with him?’
‘I thought you said to the Gooroo I
should talk to Charlie.’
‘No, that’s not what I said. What I
said was you and Charlie probably spoke the same language.’
I had some idea what Barbie was driving
at and was not really offended but it was only fair to embarrass the successful
performer. ‘What's that supposed to mean?’
Barbie’s face tinged reddish but she
was saved from attempting an awkward response. Dexter Holland, vocalist of the
Offspring, burst into the song Why Don’t
You Get a Job? Barbie laughed.
I laughed. ‘Don't like that song much,’
I said. ‘I suppose it's about the band inheriting a bunch of hangers-on since
their success. It just comes across as judgemental. Nice tune, but.’
‘It’s a hit with a lot of people,’
Barbie said.
She got up and walked towards a coffee
table with one CD and a sheet of note paper on it.
‘Sure is,’ I said to her back.
Barbie handed me the CD and the paper
with an address on it. The CD was Dream’s
Up, Kirsty and the Kalettes’ new album. ‘I was supposed to post this to
Charlie. You can take it to him if you like. I’ve got a copy for you, too. Just
promise me you won’t ask Charlie for money until you come back to see me. Maybe
we can work something out. I’ve a bit of cash at the moment but you know what
the music biz is like, Steele. One day you’re a bird of paradise, the next day
you’re compost.’
Brendale is an industrial suburb north
of Brisbane in the shire known as Pine Rivers named after the north and south
Pine Rivers. The north and south branches merge into just the plain old Pine
River before it empties into the sea. Everything's pine, up that way.
Brendale has lots of industrial
buildings, mostly small. But also modest houses and flats for some of its
thousands of workers to live in. I was visiting an octet of brick flats, one of
which might contain Charlie Barra. The flats looked like they were built on the
cheap with bricks of varied colour. Some bricks were cracked and a few jutted
at dangerous angles to the horizontal. Moss stained the base of the two-storey
building. Some brick buildings lasted hundreds of years. This one would be
lucky to see fifty.
I knocked on the thin wooden door of
ground floor flat n0. 4 and a tall man, maybe 6 foot 3, stooped over me, and I
was looking at his forehead and the receding grey hair above it.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I'm Steele Hill and I
was driving out this way so Barbie asked me to deliver this CD.’
The man straightened his head but his
shoulders still appeared hunched. ‘Who’s Barbie?’ he asked warily.
‘I mean Barbara,’ I corrected. ‘Barbara
Truscott, Kirsty.’
‘But I already paid for the CD.’
‘I know, Charlie. I'm a friend of
Barbara’s and I’m delivering it for her. There’s no charge.’
He was trusting enough to invite me in.
It was a one-bedroom flat which despite its small size looked larger because of
the lack of furniture. A television set and a CD player sat on a round cane
table. One lounge chair faced the entertainment devices. Another cane table had
two cane chairs underneath. In the kitchen was a thin stove, a noisy old
refrigerator, a single washbasin, and a bench running along one wall with a
single set of drawers underneath. On the bench were an electric jug and a
toaster.
‘Would you like a cup of tea, Mr. Hill?
I only got tea. Coffee is very expensive except for the cheap stuff which
doesn’t taste nice and I would rather go without.’
‘Tea’s fine, thanks. No milk, no
sugar.’
He indicated one of the cane chairs for
me to sit in and retrieved tea bags and cups from one of the drawers beneath
the kitchen bench.
As we sat drinking bland tea and
munching plain biscuits, I realised I would need to lead the conversation as
the man had exhausted his dialogue with his observations on cheap coffee. Looking at him, I would say he was about 50, which made him 15 or so years my
senior.
I decided not to mention the Gooroo.
‘You go to a lot of Barbara’s shows?’ I asked.
‘A few. What about you, Steele? Did you
ever go to the Storey Bridge Hotel when Barbara was in her other band? You look
familiar to me.’
‘In ’94, ’95?’
He nodded.
‘Probably. Yair, for sure,’ I said
He seemed satisfied at his memory. ‘At
first I thought you were from the Air Force. Undercover. But you don't look
like you're Air Force.’
‘No I'm not in the Air Force. Are you
in the Air Force Charlie?’
‘No. I'm in dispute with them.’
‘Over what?’
‘I used to work for them. As a civvy in
the F-111 Deseal/Reseal section.’
‘Sounds heavy,’ I said. ‘What's that?’
‘Cleaning and patching up the fighter
jets’ fuel tanks. That’s what I did for 12 years, the 12 years from 1981 to
1993. For 12 years.
‘I’ve always been a big bloke but I
would crawl into those F-111 jet fuel tanks. I would scrape off all sorts of
toxic shit and patch up holes with other sorts of toxic shit and seal the whole
thing with different toxic shit.’
Charlie sounded more regretful than angry. ‘Do
you ever get depressed, Mr Hill.’
‘Call me, Steele. I guess we all do
sometimes.’
A wave of sadness crossed Charlie’s
face. ‘People who say that, who say everyone gets depressed at some time, are
usually the lucky ones. They don’t get real depression. They don't get so
anxious they can't open the door to collect the mail. How old do you think I
am, Steele?’
I replied truthfully I was no good at
ages but he insisted. I decided to be kind and shave a couple of years off what
I thought his age was. ‘47-48,’ I said.
It turned out he was 38-years-old. ‘I
have grey hair. I have emphysema and I've never smoked in my life. I have
depression, migraines, and anxiety attacks. I take seven types of medications
every day. Some of my medicines are not subsidized on the pharmaceutical
benefits scheme. After I started to get depressed, Amy took the kids and left.’
This was not going well. I could not
see any lead-in to questions about Charlie’s debt to the Gooroo. ‘Doesn’t the Air Force pay for your
medication?’
‘I've been battling them for
compensation for three years. They keep saying it is under assessment but my
condition could have been caused by something else. I never had a day's
sickness in my life before this. I thought that would work in my favor but
they say they haven't got my medical records to eliminate other possibilities.
‘They have their own medical records on
me. The Air Force won't give them to a journalist following my story. They say
they're protecting my privacy. Even my specialists are having trouble getting
information from the Air Force. I'm just about at the end of my tether. If I
can put enough money together, I’m going to Vietnam. It's cheaper to live over
there and I’m hoping I get to keep my invalid pension. I don't think I've got
that long anyway.’
Not knowing what to say, I sat silent
for a while. ‘I probably can't do much, Charlie. But if there's anything,
here’s my phone number. There is one thing, though.’
‘Yes.’
‘If I leave you 20 bucks, will you
promise to buy yourself two giant jars of expensive coffee?’
He smiled ruefully and the deal was
done.
I knew the Gooroo would anonymously
send Charlie the money for the airfare to Vietnam and some more to set himself
up there. Who knew what tall tale Con concocted to explain why Charlie was
receiving the windfall?
I did drop back into Barbara’s place. I
stopped calling her Barbie because she probably didn’t like it. I told her the
Gooroo had written off Charlie’s debt and she was pleased.
Charlie and I corresponded for a while
– neither of us owned a computer for those new emails thingos – and I was most
pleased when he wrote he was seeing a young woman.
His last letter to me told how he had
lost his latest review for compensation and he was not sure if there were many
anymore appeal avenues to travel down.
My last letter to Charlie was returned
to me along with a note from the Vietnamese police. Charlie Barra had hung
himself.
The anthology From the Edge will be launched at Pine Rivers Art Gallery at 1pm on Saturday October 26. All are welcome. Here is our song:
