Episode One: the Sydney ferry disaster.
We were riding the Sydney ferry. Shortly before our arrival at Darling Harbour, Adrienne noticed that someone had left on a seat the case for a digital camera. Feeling like the out-of-town do-gooders we were, we decided to hand it in to anyone we could find who looked like they were at least to some degree in charge. A woman had told us we had invalid tickets when we boarded. We charmed her, and kept ourselves out of prison, by doing a closely observed impersonation of hickdom. But she had vanished. Then, Carl managed to cross the yellow line, notwithstanding our repeated requests for him not to do so, as the boat was coming in to the jetty. “Excuse me”, I said to the man who was tying up the rope, as we were being swept off the boat with the rest of the crowd. “We found this on the boat. What should we do with it?” No response. “Excuse me?” No response. “Sir? We found ...” Then came the response: “Look, just shut up, all right? Don’t talk to me.” Not quite what I expected. There had been nobody else around whom I could give the thing to, and I didn’t particularly want to take it off the boat. So, taken somewhat aback, I said “Oh, okay, I’ll throw it back on the boat, then.” Which I did, into the path of the oncoming passengers, whose eyes I felt burning up my back.
Episode Two: the JB Hi-Fi security guy run-in.
There I was, one afternoon after work, coming up the steps out of the late, lamented Impact Records store, now JB Hi Fi, in Civic. Carl used to like it when it was Impact, because it was a basement space and he had a thing about the underground (as does his mother, although that is not this story). Now it is just another JB Hi-Fi store, nobody likes it. At least, nobody that I know; and one goes there now out of the lack of any sizeable alternative. I had spent 15 unfruitful minutes in there trying to convince two uneducated staff members that “The World of Arthur Russell” was not “World of Echo” by Arthur Russell. I was looking for the latter. I had already bought the former from them, filed inexplicably under “jazz”, some months earlier, and yet they didn’t seem to know anything about either.
Anyway, as I made my way up the steps, the shop’s security apparatus went off. I hate these things at the best of times. I always feel guilty when I walk through one, as if they have been lying in wait for a likely victim and are going to go off just because they can sense that I feel uncomfortable. (I hasten to add that I have never given, and would never give, one of these things any legitimate cause to sound the alarm. I am always setting off the ones at the Canberra libraries, but the staff there wave you on as a matter of course, which makes you wonder why they bothered going to the expense of setting them up in the first place.) “Excuse me”, said the gruff voice of the man who was standing there, motionless, at the JB Hi-Fi exit. (Go to any store, at any time, and he will be there. They must have a nice cloning operation happening somewhere.) This, I could tell, was the moment he had been waiting for. “Empty your pockets.” I had, what, work keys, home keys, work lift pass, wallet. No watch: the battery died some time before and I had got used to operating watchless, quite enjoying the simulated freedom actually (pathetic isn’t it?). And a bit of change. I tried to hand my keys, wallet and change to him to hold, but he indicated, mutely, that he didn’t want to handle my soiled personal belongings and that I should sit them on the box of 3-for-$20 CDs just in front of the entrance. People were coming in and out, looking at me like I was guilty as charged. I was concerned someone would nick my wallet or keys. I didn’t think Mr Security Man would be too concerned to protect them. I was the quarry, as Morrissey almost said.
“Walk through.” I did as I was told. There didn’t seem much choice. The beeper went off again. I walked back into the store. It went off. “Why didn’t it go off when I came in?”, I meekly, and perhaps stupidly, given the assumed reason, asked. “That’s what we’re going to find out”, he said. (Which was the longest sentence he used in my presence. I believe he paused briefly afterwards, admiring his verbal handiwork or maybe just having a little rest after all that mental exertion.) He was by now practically rubbing his hands together with glee. It crossed my mind that he might be paid on commission, based on the value of goods recovered. Or that something had been planted on me, Schapelle Corby style.
“Again.” It went off when I walked out but this time it didn’t go off when I came back in. This gave me some small flicker of hope. A-ha!, I thought. An inconsistency in the evidence! Then came the fun part: the body search. In full public view, no less. “Lift up your trouser legs.” There were holes in my socks, but at least they were a matching pair. “Lift up your shirt.” “Turn around.” A line from a long-forgotten movie came into my head - “I didn’t ask for the anal probe” - but I wisely kept quiet. “Turn around again.” He could find nothing. (Obviously; there was nothing to find.) He got me to walk through again. The beeper went off on my way out and on my way back in. “Wait there”, he said. He called for “the manager”. “The manager” came out. Neanderthal Man explained the situation and wanted to know what to do next. Clearly he was hoping that he would get to take me out the back for a bit of rough stuff. But he was to be disappointed. “The manager” simply said, “They’ve been playing up lately. Let him go.” He didn’t look at me. Cro-Magnon, with an expression lodged somewhere between hatred and disappointment, pointed to my things, said something that might have been “okay”, or “get out”, or maybe even “you cunt”, and off I went. As fate would have it, as I headed out this time, the beeper went off again. In another life I might have taken the opportunity to turn around, smile and wave back at my new friend. I didn’t look around. I didn’t smile. At least, not on the outside. It crossed my mind that if I had been shoplifting I would at least have had something to show for my pain and suffering.
Joe Strummer said it first. Know your rights.
