out and about

A pigeon walks into the gelato shop, trailing a broken wing. It bobs and potters, then recklessly turns side-on to reveal no broken wing at all, but a loose feather.

Compo scam.

A man uses his damaged arm to walk his little dog, the lead running up and disappearing into the depths of a complex, professional-looking sling. Awkward, but I guess he had no alternative: his other hand is holding the beer.

Two women pause in the doorway with an embarrassed dog. The younger woman, who’s not young but wears a perky little cap to show she is, but not old either, calls out ‘Do you mind?’ with a smile (see how nice I am?) ‘It’s just that we’ve got the dog and I’m not sure …’ pause … She tilts her head shop-side, frowning and touching her ear for emphasis. ‘I can’t hear you.’

The server commits. Long enquiries follow concerning iced mocha versus iced coffee and why is that one this price when that one’s oh it has gelato on top? which prompts a flurry of gelato-on-top related questions, and everything must then be relayed separately to the older woman who’s already heard it all but needs time to think.

The women sit outside. The dog pretends he’s with a bigger dog that’s friendly, but can’t get away because of the lead. There’s a brief hiatus.

Then the woman with the perky cap returns to the shop’s interior. She wants to ask about the cakes.

Near Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, a woman shouts on the phone and paces in front of a business. “F - - k!” she screams. “I mean she’s my friend. I told her I hurt …” Her hair is an explosion of green and yellow spikes, and her vicious old smoker’s voice cracks with anger and bitterness.

But she turns around and her face is young. She can’t be more than twenty years old. This is her moment, right now. Why wouldn’t she just enjoy it?

At the door of the gelato shop, a woman bent over a small fluffy dog deploys a paper napkin, plucking repeatedly at something stuck to its back leg. The dog pretends not to be humiliated.

A masked girl in a baseball cap races up the steps, but runs back moments later with a boost in speed. Half way along the carriage she turns and thunders back, up to the entrance then up again to the deck above ours.

She doesn’t return.

On the approach to Redfern Station, something appears to have gouged deep lines in the brick wall by the tracks. But it’s moss, exploiting some secret seam of water and nutrients where the sun doesn’t shine.

Across the road, a man pushes a two-wheeled trolley into the club. He wears a black cap, pink t-shirt, long black shorts and trainers. The trolley contains a drum and black cases.

On this side of the road, a man pushes a trolley to the lights. With his black cap and trainers, he wears a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt and skinny blue jeans. His trolley contains two amplifier cases.

Walking beside the second man is a woman with a folded chrome stand in her hand. She wears a long, floaty skirt, black tank top and trainers. A guitar-shaped instrument in a soft case is strapped to her back, but it’s too big to be a guitar and too thin to be a cello. The case has a strip of brown fuzz at the bottom and a white plastic, throwaway shopping bag hanging from a pocket.

They press the button and wait to cross the road.

The plot thickens.

Parking his mother by the work site fence, a small boy presses one eye to a hole and expertly assesses the demolition.

A car pulls up at the lights and two faces are visible through the driver’s open window. The jowly man at the wheel, and beside him in the passenger seat a chocolate Labrador, mouth open, tongue lolling. Both grinning. Couple of mates out for a drive.

A young woman across street waits with a smile and self-wrapping arms. I’m curious to see what happens next when a black car from nowhere slams to a halt and overlays the young woman’s face with the driver’s. Like photoshop.

The driver is gaunt, sour, glaring and impatient. I spit on her. Like, you know, figuratively.

There are glass doors on the corner that used to open into a bank. Now they just reflect what’s happening outside.

Two new people are in the cake fridge: a tall girl in school uniform and backpack, and a shorter girl in bare feet, wetsuit and bun. They’re on the other side of the street.

The tall girl stands with hands clasped beneath her chin and smiles. She may be twisting a strand of hair, or playing with her hat string. The girl in the wetsuit backs away. The tall girl moves towards her. Across the shop, the glass-front counter picks up the girl in the wetsuit backing slowly out onto the crossing, still talking, but she gives a wave at last and turns to run across the road.

The tall girl gazes after her. She trudges back up to the bus stop.

Hovering in the doorway, a black and white butterfly battles the urge to come in for a small gelato. It turns at last with a huge, regretful sigh, and flies away.

On a hot, humid afternoon, the woman outside appears to be sitting inside the refrigerated cakes cabinet.

The tips jar at the gelato shop says:

Tips
R
Sexy
♡

A big car stops at the lights outside. From the back seat a small blonde boy squeaks frantically at the shop, and blows a kiss to the woman inside. She laughs. She continues to work as if it’s nothing to do with her and the car pulls away. ‘Tomorrow,’ she says to herself. Smiling.

Young band-camper t-shirt: ‘I paused my game to be here.’

A band camp responsible adult relaxes while her students ransack the gelato shop. Her t-shirt says: Subtitléd.

I can’t un-see that word. It haunts me.

A thunder of hooves as a dozen young teens stampede down from the crossing and swerve, panic-stricken, into the gelato shop. A girl at the end stands awed:

‘Oh my god it’s the first time we’re actually in front out of all the band camp!’

In the hospital corridor, a woman wipes the doors with a floor mop.

A small girl screeches to a chaotic halt on her little blue scooter, one arm wrapped around the pole and her other hand fumbling for the pedestrian button, a foot holding the scooter in place. She has long blonde hair beneath a pale blue helmet, a sleeveless pink dress gathered with black at the waist, and trainers with neat white socks.

Her mother (daggy Sunday shorts and t-shirt) catches up and fusses but the girl has everything under control, the scooter safe behind with a hand thrown back to steady it, one knee bent and a heel in contact with the deck.

The lights change. The girl flings her scooter round and drives it forward, push after push to the middle of the road, then coasts down the other side with graceful little toe taps on the concrete.

Her mother scuttles after her.

Girl on a train (disgusted): ‘I was born a goody two shoes.’

A tall, tentative, long-haired boy in high school uniform: ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’

‘No,’ I answer, reeling from shock at such a display of manners.

He sits carefully, half in the aisle, and reverently opens a pristine copy of the script of Westside Story.

He reads.

On the train at Macdonaldtown, a girl stands suddenly and calls to a departing schoolfriend:

‘Hitoshi! You got my phone? Hitoshi … Oh my god.’ She sits with her group again. ‘Hitoshi’s got my phone.’