FICTION (more or less)

  

 

    Steve unfolded one of the leaflets and began skimming over the words: 

   "There are vipers in your nest striking out at ordinary, innocent girls simply because they are Australian and not Muslim. You may already know this. The Muslim community is after all very tight-knit. If you have any knowledge at all of who is responsible for the series of gang-rapes on white women over a period of months and in all probability being committed by the same pack of vile criminals and have not come forward with this information, you are almost as morally deficient as the perpetrators themselves. If you in any way shield or protect these cowards, then you are not only in the wrong morally, but also guilty in the eyes of the law of being accomplices after the fact.

    We realise that the great majority of Muslims living in Australia are men and women of good faith who would not condone the horrendous crimes committed against these women – rapes of the most vile, brutal and savage kind intended to humiliate and degrade. We know that most in the Muslim community are grateful for the opportunity of a new life Australia has provided and would be aghast at the way some amongst you are repaying this kindness. We know how you would feel if those being attacked were your own sisters, daughters, wives and mothers. We know that you are capable of feeling some of that pain even though experienced by women not of your own and not of your faith.

     However, we are unfortunately  forced to surmise that those responsible for these crimes would have great difficulty in keeping such a terrible secret and that there must be those amongst you with whom it has been shared. For how long this knowledge can be hidden is difficult to know, but what is known is that the longer it is contained, the more it will fester, poison and sicken, and even more terrible is that as long as this information is withheld, more women will suffer these life-shattering outrages.

     We of course now all live in a multicultural society and Australian multiculturalism is a great success story admired and envied throughout the world. Therefore, there is hardly a single soul who would like to see it damaged in any way. This is the reason the police and the media have stepped very lightly in the investigation of these crimes. To not do so risks tearing the fabric of multiculturalism, besmirching the honour of an entire ethnic group and providing ammunition to those few amongst us who do not want to see Australian multiculturalism continue to succeed.

 The authorities are only too keenly aware of the delicacy of this situation. The police especially are in an almost impossible position. On one hand they are being told to solve these crimes as swiftly as possible. On the other hand, they know how easily they can bring down upon themselves accusations of ethnic profiling. Given past experiences, they are understandably scared of being labelled racists. They are under the strain of being pulled in diametrically opposite directions.

     Make no mistake, however, the monsters responsible for these crimes will eventually be caught, tried and imprisoned for many years. This is inevitable.

     Serious questions will though asked. People will want to know why the perpetrators were not apprehended sooner. Were they protected and if so, by whom? Why were the police so reluctant to act? Why was such critical information withheld from the public? Was the shielding of an entire ethnic group more important than protecting women from heinous attacks? Is one ethnic group considered more important and worthy of protection than others? Why did the members of the ethic group from which the criminals haled refuse to help?

     It is not difficult to see how the delicate balance of multiculturalism could be affected and harmony destroyed. Neither is it difficult to predict the anger that may build and eventually explode in a backlash that could end who knows where.

     If you are one of the decent, peaceful Muslims of which we know number in the hundreds of thousands now living in Australia and are grateful to be living in such a prosperous and wonderful land, and wish to continue to be accepted as valued citizens with valuable contributions to make to the greater good, we beseech you, if you have even a fragment of knowledge regarding who is responsible for these crimes, to please come forward.

"You want me to deliver these where?"

"Just around a few suburbs in the Bankstown area," Byron said. Being the self-appointed president and treasurer of the Eureka Rebels Nationalist Movement, it was only fitting that he would merely direct the troops while then remaining at HQ to answer phone calls and co-ordinate.

"So it'll be like a kind of a suicide mission?"

"Come on, there's no need to be so dramatic. The pamphlets you will be delivering have been toned down. The pamphlets going out in the other areas are much more hard hitting."

"Glad I won't be delivering those."

"You worry too much, when there's nothing to worry about. Kiwi and Boxhead will be going with you. You'll be going in Kiwi's car. He told me he's just got a new one. In the remote possibility of any trouble, they both know how to handle themselves. You should've seen Boxhead go before he went half blind."

"Well what good is he now?"

"Look, if you're going to be so negative about it ..."

"Forget it. Just give me the rest of the bloody leaflets."

The moon, an illuminated glob of blue-vein cheese, shone happily on the three men as they emerged from a side door of the of the hulking old house and walked the length of the lane beside it to where it met a narrow street at the back of the house. A lingering smell of  barbecue reached out from the the backyard on the other side of the fence. Kiwi led the other two to a jet-black Series 5 BMW wedged between a Volkswagen beetle and a grimy Holden ute.     

 

     Boxhead and Kiwi sat in the front seats that seemed to have been moulded to their bodies while Steve slid across the leather of the back seat. He wasn’t sure it had been such a good idea to put the two in the front into the same team. Not too much love seemed to be lost between the two big alpha males.

     "Nice set of wheels,’ Steve said. ‘Looks brand new."

     "Yeah, I think it is," Kiwi replied, turning the ignition key. The car made a sound like and English gentleman’s muffled cough and then settled down to silky smooth purring. "I only knocked it off the day before yesterday."

     "Jesus!"   

     "Don’t worry. I won’t have it long. I’ll probably be trading it in next week. Look how these pricks have boxed me in will you? Oh well, no worries." With that, he leaned around over the seat and reversed the BMW into the car behind with a crunching sound. He then put it into drive and nudged the car in front. He repeated this manouvre until he had created enough space to easily exit the parking spot.

     "Did you have to?" Boxhead asked.

     "It was their own fault, whoever was stupid enough to park that close."

 

     With the city’s peak hour long since expanded several hours on both sides, it took them almost forty five minutes to be inside of what they’d come to consider enemy territory. The first square Byron had marked on their map took in a large chunk of the suburb of Campsie which Steve knew had once been just another friendly patch of Australian suburbia almost indistinguishable from any other across a homogeneous nation. It saddened him now as he watched the complete alienness of it sliding by. They found a parking space in Beamish Street, the main drag, divied  up the leaflets and headed up the street to the northern most side street on the western side in the texta-marked box.

 

     Steve was beginning to get some idea of what a postman’s life was like. It wasn’t the enjoyable stroll he thought it would be, but then again the posties didn’t deliver letters in the dark. It was a struggle to find some letter boxes with the lack of light and overgrown foliage conspiring against him. A lot were so ridiculously low he already had premonitions of a crook back. On some of the fancy-arse letterboxes, just finding the slot was like solving a puzzle. However, houses greatly predominated so that they weren’t held up too much by the huge banks of letterboxes standing outside the fortress-like apartment blocks of some of the other areas. But even so, more of these blocks appeared on his and Boxhead's side of the street, resulting in their losing sight of Kiwi who was able to work more swiftly on the other side of the street.

 

One and a half hours had elapsed before Steve and Boxhead were back in sight of the car.

What kept yous?’ Kiwi was leaning on the BMW as rakishly as a gangster trying to get himself noticed.

     ‘OK, let’s get in the car,’ was Boxhead’s curt reply.

      With the engine running almost inaudibly, Kiwi continued in what he thought was a humourous vein. ‘You know, I’ve been watching some of these muzzy shielas walking by in their black curtains with the slots in them and every time I see one I start wondering if I’ve forgotten to post a letter.’ His laughter at his own lame joke grated on both his passengers.

 

The trio, now held together by the uniformity of housing on both sides of the streets, were completing the last box marked on the pages of the Gregory’s and the three of them were willing to admit they were pretty well knackered. ‘Takes it out of you more than you’d think,’ Kiwi observed as they were heading back toward the where the car was parked.

They were now in, Lakemba, the epicentre of the of the Muslim displacement of Australians and  resembled a neighbourhood somewhere in the Middle East. As they turned into the main street where the car was parked, they began slipping the last of the pamphlets under the doors of businesses. The light flooding the street was a welcome relief from the gloom they’d been working in. Many people were still out and about; it was late Thursday night shopping. The car was only about the length of a cricket pitch up ahead when Kiwi thrust the last pamphlet toward a Muslim woman walking by who reflexively accepted it. Her surprise, like any other emotion she may have felt, was concealed by her burka.

 

     Suddenly, loud yelling came from somewhere behind them accompanied by footfalls thumping as fast as a drum roll. Steve turned to see a group of men running toward them. A gold chain around the neck and nestled in the exposed black chest hair of the leader glinted in the streetlight. He was waving one of the pamphlets above him and gripped a baseball bat half way along the shaft in his other hand. It was difficult to see exactly how many were running behind him but one thing was obvious: the infidels were outnumbered. People were scattering. Steve wanted to run, but he couldn’t. Both Boxhead and Kiwi had turned to face them, Boxhead even taking a pace toward them. Adrenalin was coursing through Steve’s body but the switch had to be thrown from flight to fight.

 

The leader of the group flung the pamphlet in the air and it fluttered behind him as he took the bat in both hands at the skinny end and drew it into a back-swing, still running fast and about two metres from Boxhead. As he slowed and aimed the bat at Boxhead’s bald, shining head, Boxhead calmly thrust his left leg out in a straight front kick to the man’s testicles and tipped his full weight behind it, adroitly stepping to his right to avoid the bat that was  arcing toward him. The man groaned and doubled up. Skinhead then grabbed him by the hair and shirt and, aided by the man’s own momentum, flung him into the rear of a parked car. His head put a slight dent in the car beside a rear lamp and the bat rolled and clattered along the pavement. Another man who’d been close behind the one just fallen and incensed at the treatment of his comrade began waving a knife toward Boxhead’s guts. So intent was he on evening the score he’d lost awareness of Kiwi who crashed a right hand into the side of the man’s head.

 

 The stricken man looked comical as he staggered and held out both arms as if about to take a dance partner. Boxhead brought him down with a roundhouse kick to the side of his knee. He buckled and landed on his behind on the pavement. He was still insensible as Boxhead kicked the knife from his hand, sending it skidding under a parked car while Kiwi shielded him from two other attackers racing toward them. Steve joined the fray by running at one of them and driving a shoulder into his solar plexus. Kiwi wrestled with the other while Steve prepared to take on the man recovering from the shoulder charge. And then a blow came seemingly from nowhere pounding into the side of his head. It wasn’t exactly pain he felt; it was more a jarring shock that robbed him of his senses and had him seeing the stars he’d always thought were either mythical or the stuff of cartoons. It was like waking from a dream. He was half dreaming; half knowing urgently he had to wake up. He shook his head to try to urge the return to full consciousness. He was almost there when another blow smashed into the corner of his mouth sending him staggering backward. A knife was pointed toward him, coming at him with the certainty of a train on a track. It mesmerised him. And then a dull thud and a crack sounded, the man screamed and the knife rattled onto the concrete. Boxhead had retrieved the baseball bat and brought it down full force on the man’s knife arm. Nursing the arm and grimacing in pain, he retreated as Boxhead continued to threatened him.

 

Yelling ‘fucking Australian shit,’ was the best rearguard action he could produce. But he grinned on seeing a mate had gotten behind Boxead and now had him in a choke-hold causing him to writhe violently, desperately trying to break loose. Emboldened, Broken-arm now rushed forward, kicking at Boxhead who was using the bat toward him off as well as beating over his shoulders with it at his other tormentor. Steve in the meantime, with most of the cotton wool now out of his head, used his old rugby skills to tackle another knife wielder and knock the wind out of him. He pinned the hand holding the knife to the pavement and with a knee on his chest to restrict his movement he used his other hand to rain hammer-blows on his arm until he released his grip on the knife. But not finished yet, he managed to bring a knee up under Steve’s ribcage. He was smaller than Steve and scrawny but seemed to have the strength of a madman. He rolled Steve just enough to get him off him and with a death grip on each other they got to their feet and began trading blows. Steve was punching hard enough to drop most men but his adversary was absorbing the punishment, more intent on punching back than defending himself. A looping right hand caught Steve in the lower lip and blood began to gush.

  

On the other side of the pavement, Kiwi was withstanding an attack by an experienced knife fighter, exhibiting the skills he'd acquired before deserting from the NZ army. He had his forearms crossed in front of his face and was lashing out with his feet. The man though was deftly avoiding the kicks and was interspersing wild slashing with deadly thrusts. With each thrust, Kiwi either pulled his midsection back or moved sideways, allowing an escape from the needle-sharp tip. The slashing though was taking its toll. Blood was beginning to run down his arms from several gashes. He knew he was losing but the sight and smell of the blood maddened him. Even before the momentum of a thrust had been expended, he stepped to his left, placing himself almost side on at an angle to his attacker, drew his right leg back and exploded a smashing round-house kick into his abdomen. The man’s eye bulged and he doubled over. With both his hands gripping the back of the man’s neck he brought his knee up into his face.  With blood pouring from a broken nose, the stricken man reeled backwards and fell on his back, striking his head on the concrete. 

 

     Now with the knife in his own hand, Kiwi straddled the prone figure with his knees and with both hands lifted the knife high above his head to plunge it into the man’s heart. ‘No,’ Steve roared and sprung just in time to grab the knife hand just before it descended. Steve’s own opponent was rolling on the ground groaning. Still in fear of a murder being committed, Steve continued holding Kiwi’s wrist and twisting it until he let go of the knife. Undeterred, Kiwi began pounding the man’s face with his fists, the two men’s blood becoming mixed as the claret running from Kiwi’s arms sprayed onto the man’s bloodied face.

     ‘Stop it! You’ll fucking kill him,’ Steve shouted. It was only then that a measure of sanity began displacing Kiwi’s bloodlust. He got up off the man who rolled and began crawling on his hands and knees in a slow motion escape. The target he now presented was just too tempting for Kiwi who drove several full-force kicks into his ribcage before he made a strange sighing sound, rolled and fell on his side where he stayed still.

 

 Boxhead, with his wild swings behind him with the bat had backed a winner with a strike to the head of the man who was trying to choke him. Stunned, he released his grip, allowing Boxhead to concentrate on the man who was kicking him. The first unhindered swing broke the man’s other arm, but the satisfaction of this caused him to lose awareness of the man still behind him. Rubbing his head where the bat had caught him, this man stepped forward and drove the sole of his boot into the back of Boxhead’s knee, dropping him to the same knee. Then he drove the same boot-sole into the back of his neck. Boxhead’s coke-bottle-bottom glasses shot from his head. But before the man could deliver another kick, both Steve and Kiwi were on him. Steve had him in a full nelson while Kiwi drove a left into his stomach, a right uppercut to his chin that caused his eyes to roll back and then a vicious left hook to the side of his head. Steve flung him to the ground. Then Kiwi began putting his RM Williams boots to what he thought was good use by stomping on the man’s head.

‘No that’s enough,’ Steve said. ‘Christ, you’ve really got the killer instinct haven’t you?’ Kiwi took that as a compliment. Then, apart from some groaning and the sound of heavy breathing, all was quiet. The leader of the attackers, now with an egg-sized bump on his forehead was still snoozing between two parked cars. The man with the two broken arms had disappeared, the man who should have been dead was supporting himself by leaning his back against a shop window smearing blood against it, both his and Kiwi’s, and the fifth lay comatose on the footpath, blood running ominously from both ears.

  

The comparative silence was only a brief interlude though. From somewhere not far away came a strange, urgent female warbling, alternating rapidly between frequencies – high, low, high, low. ‘What in Christ’s name is that?’ Boxhead asked. Steve had heard the sound in India: ululating. He’d only heard it in a celebratory context but in this instance it was a  battle cry. Some sort of disturbance was happening on the other side of the street, further down. Men were running – many men. Tyres screeched as cars braked to avoid hitting some of them blindly attempting to cross the road in heavy traffic.

     ‘Let’s go,’ Steve cried. ‘Come on; we’ve got to get out of here.’ Kiwi was already running, digging in his pocket for the car keys. Steve wasn’t far behind him.

 

‘Steve, wait!’ It was Boxhead’s voice with a touch of desperation in it. ‘I can’t find my glasses. Help me.’ Steve understood instantly; he would be as blind as an eyeless spud. He turned to see him in a stance of abject helplessness, arms outstretched at his sides, palms turned upwards. Steve rushed back to look for the glasses. There they were in the gutter. One lens was cracked and an arm was missing but they would restore his sight. He picked them up and thrust put them into the hand of the blind man. Almost imperceptibly but becoming more perceptive by the second was the hee haw hee haw of sirens. 

 

‘Here!’ he said, handing them to Boxhead who held them on his head and both started running. The blood-lusting mob was now only metres behind them. Kiwi was already in the car with the engine running. Then the car rocked as the two desperadoes jumped in with him. ‘Lock the doors. Lock the fucking doors,’ Steve cried. Only a sliver of time passed between the clicking of the doors and the pounding on all side windows. A bearded crazed brute of a man lying across the bonnet, fierce eyes locked with Kiwi's, was trying to smash the windscreen with the side of his fist. The the car was being rocked violently by men on both sides. 

 

     ‘For fuck’s sake, go, get us out of here!’ Boxhead cried. Kiwi stamped on the accelerator and pulled the wheel wildly to the right at the same time. The man trying to smash the windscreen was thrown to the roadway. The bonnet of a taxi travelling in the same direction suddenly dropped like a giant had pressed down on it and its tyres shrieked and smoked with the acrid smell of burning rubber. The car’s momentum was almost spent but not enough. It crashed loudly, metallically into the rear door of the Beamer, pushing its opposite rear fender into the car that had been parked in front of it. The noise of plastic parts shattering into shrapnel added to the cacophony. The car containing the three fugitives lurched wildly into a lucky gap in oncoming traffic before Kiwi could wrestle it back onto the correct side of the road, still fish-tailing.

 

 Steve looked through the rear window to see the fast receding figure of the man who’d been flung onto the roadway getting to his feet just inches in front of the stalled taxi. I'll bet his his pants are full of shit, Steve thought. The Beamer leapt at the chance to do what it was made for. Before many seconds had ticked by it was doing ninety along a suburban main street. Luckily, several millimetres of space still existed between the belted in fenders and the rear tires.  A half  K ahead red and blue flashing lights were rushing toward them.

 

"Slow down for Christ’s sake," Boxhead yelled. "You don’t think they might get suspicious seeing a car heading away from a crime scene at this speed?" Kiwi glared at him but braked sharply down to legal speed just before a police car, an ambulance and another police car hurtled past them, with enough combined hee hawing to hurt eardrums. Kiwi then right-turned the car sedately into a side street, then after five minutes made another right, so that they were travelling in the opposite direction as they’d been on the main street but a good distance away from it. The tension, the adrenaline, the blood-lust was draining.

 

"Pull over," Boxhead commanded, his glasses at a comical angle across his face.

"Why?" Kiwi asked, immediate umbrage in his voice.

"Why? Take a look at yourself. You're bleeding like a stuck pig. If we don't stop it somehow, you're going to pass out and put us into a telegraph pole." Kiwi pulled pulled the car over on the wrong side of the road where cars were less densely parked and did as he'd been advised. For the first time he noticed the patterns formed by the scarlet riverlets running down his forearms from ugly, glistening gashes, soaking his shirt and pants and pooling on the seat between his legs.

 "Yeah, now that you mention it, I do feel a bit crook."

 

 Steve leaned over into the space between the front seats and said, "do you think it was our newsletters they took exception to?" 

 

A man walking his Jack Russel under a street light beside a high end sedan with both rear fenders stove in was baffled when, unable to resist looking in through the open front window, saw three men, one of them covered in blood, roaring with laughter. Kiwi, becoming aware of the man's eyes on him, stopped laughing for long enough to wipe a tear from his eye with a bloody finger and look at the man and then down at the dog.

"Them Jack Russell's are crazy," he said to the man.

 

"You're still bleeding," the man heard someone else in the car say, and as the raucous and seemingly uncontrollable laughter re-erupted inside the car, he resumed his walk. Slowly shaking his head, he thought, Jack Russel's are crazy?