New Carpet

The carpet layers arrived at 9.30am. Ralf and Jamie. Ralf the master carpet layer with the fucked back the carpet laying has obviously given him. Jamie the baby-faced blond apprentice in loose tracky pants, that looked good on him, on his curves, read his thighs and his arse, who had a penchant for smoking cigarettes.

“We’ve got a problem with parking?” said Ralf, straight up at the front door, the first words out of his mouth.

I don’t know what he thought I was going to do about it, if I had been one of those inner city dwellers who didn’t have a back yard and off street parking, as Fitzroy is Fitzroy. What was he thinking? Surely he has worked in the inner suburbs before?

But, I guess I did fix it. I moved my car out the front, which gave him two car parks for his car and trailer. He struggled to get the two of them in there, but he did, with Jamie helping, and I felt by giving him the carpark I had, in fact, done my bit, I felt no compunction to help him. I made myself coffee and signed into the internet on the kitchen.

Sam and I swept and the carpet layers worked all day. It all went smoothly.

They were finished around 3pm. The car, the trailer and the old carpet, the boy filling out his track suit pants and the old man were gone and it was quiet. The new carpet looked good and felt soft under our feet. I gazed at it from different angles.

Sam sang, “I feel good.” And suddenly danced around the lounge room like a go go boy.  He’s cute, adorable really. I love it when he gets that cheeky look on his face. “I knew that I would.” Tah da da, dah da dah da dah.

I started to put the desk back together again, but before I put the draws back in I decided that I should vacuum out the dust. With everything removed from the desk, I could see the debris of marijuana… from days of old. Just at the moment I was going to suck it all up I thought I could scrape it up and roll a joint. The next moment I was scavenging pot and I managed to roll two joints… possessed? I wouldn’t say that. Sam was having a shower. I shared the joints with him when he came down stairs.

We walked to Sunny and bought pork rolls. The sun was shining.

Jill came over with her failing father Lachlan, who kept telling me the carpet was a very neutral colour. She was very pleased and wanted me to tell her that I was pleased too. She had been encouraging me, in fact, she would say if it wasn’t for her it wouldn’t have been done now.

“Aren’t you pleased now it is down?”

“Oh… yeah.”

“Oh come on, you must be pleased.”

“I’d be pleased if it was an Alfa Romeo,” I said. “Not just replacement goods. These are just repairs.”

“The carpet is a very neutral colour, I think.”

I bought sultana cake and made tea. We sat around the ottoman with plates of cake on our laps. Lachlan had a tray and a good eye kept on him. He’s looking very frail.

Jill was all smiles.


We continued putting things back, things were everywhere, the rooms were full of stuff. As we were putting all the furniture back into the top floor bedroom, we found Shane’s change buckets. Two plastic containers of silver and two black tie bags of gold coins. The bags were heavy to hold. I never understand why people do that? It is why Shane will never have any money, he doesn’t look after the cents…


We ate dinner at Masak Masak (cook cook) in Smith Street. It was nice. Beef Rendang. Pork Spareribs. Nice. I drank chinotto. Sam drank longan.

It was a gentle night, not too many tourists in Smith Street. Who knows what it will be like when that terrible Banco development is finished. The Banco development will inescapably change Smith Street for the worse for the benefit of the developer and absolutely nobody else. Nobody wanted this development other than the developers. It is sad to watch Smith Street destroyed.

We went to the supermarket. It was quiet, not many people are out shopping on a Saturday night. The isles were almost empty, the fruit and veg was empty. It was nice, easy and quiet and it was nice to be together. We bought $50 worth of groceries with Shane’s collected change. I fed $20 worth of 50c pieces into the Woolies Self Service machine, without a care.

“Thanks Shane,” we both said.