It was one of those days when I thought I would never get to my bed. Oh beds! Beds are not rated highly enough in my book. Not only are they the places where you recharge your reactor and pork your old lady, but they are a place where you can truly get away from yourself for a little while. And everyone needs to do that. What do you think drugs were invented for?? Anyway, back to the story.
It had been a long day and the week before I had foolishly left a notice on a notice board at a community college, where I was trying to expand my mind by studying something superfluous, offering my services to any foreign students who needed English tutoring. It's something I am good at - just ask any Japanese person. I was expecting a rush of calls the next day from nubile young females from exotic places but instead I was called by a young Sudanese man. My disappointment was palpable. I couldn't say no as he sounded desperate. His English was so bad that he couldn't even read the SMS messages I was sending him on his phone. I asked him for his e-mail address and he sent me his home address. I was exasperated and agreed to meet him at his house for his first lesson.
I could tell right away that it was going to be an interesting experience judging by all the fast cars that were parked in his driveway. From this I assumed he was from one of those large Sudanese families who liked to drive Nissan GTOs. Australians generally hold a certain disdain for immigrants because everyone thinks they hit the welfare as soon as they get here and that the government gives them a house. Well, I disagree. There is no way the government is giving them enough money to buy all these groovy flash cars parked in this driveway. These guys are getting them themselves through foul means or fair. So there I was parked behind a Nissan GTO in my red Hyundai Getz pondering how fast that GTO goes when I realised that I was driving a girls car. I needed to be a real man and get me one of those GTOs so I could do my whole Tokyo drift movie in my neighbourhood and scare the begezazz out of the retired people who lived there. I got out of my car and knocked on the door. Hajid answered and said “Come in my friend.” in that tone of voice that a priest uses when it wants one of the altar boys to bend over to pick up the candlestick holder. It wasn't a good start in my opinion but alas I was in and had to soldier on. I tried to sound professional and like I knew what I was doing so I asked him some pretty run of the mill questions about what his problems were. Suddenly he jumped on the table and yelled “Aboriginals!”. I had fallen to the floor with my hands over my head expecting to be be hit with a chair all the time thinking to myself, “My god man! You're Sudanese!”. Someone needed to correct him on his ethnicity. Hajid had only been in Perth about 18 months and had already had a few run ins with the aboriginals in his neighbourhood. He must be confused! He said he wasn't afraid of those fellows and knew exactly how to deal with them. I was intrigued. Here was a man from another country who had in a short space of time worked out how to deal with the local riff raff in his neighbourhood. It made me think I was living a sheltered experience and I made a mental note to get out more.
So Hajid said that he didn't have any problems with the locals. Once when he caught the bus home at night and was walking back to his house he was approached by a group of young aboriginals boys who behaved in a very uncool way to him. Hajid calmly told them that he knew where they all lived but they didn't belive him. He read off their house number and street name and their sphincter muscles twanged like old rubber lacky bands. They changed their tunes and told him that they were happy to meet their American brother. Problem was, was that Hajid was not American. They didn't even know where the Sudan was but they didn't care because now they were all cool with Hajid. Hajid walked home and told me that he had no problems with the aboriginals in his neighbourhood. If things had really come unglued he advised me that in a situation like that one should always clock the guy on the left and then run in the same direction. But what about your English I was thinking? Oh, he had many problems there he told me. Basically he couldn't understand the questionnaires he had to fill out for the course he was doing. He would pay me whatever it took for me to do them for him. I had a look at them. I was miffed. It was incomprehensible. I had never heard of some of those things and I spoke English fluently. It was one of those heavy duty health care/social worker courses that only desperate or altruistically minded fools would do. This man must have a heart of gold I thought. What kind of terrors had he seen over there in the Sudan and what had he had to do to his fellow man to survive so he could come to Australia to help people who would probably be better off dead? I got my chance because Hajid told me the story.
He had spent many months in a refugee camp. Most of the time naked. Well, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing because he would now be well prepared to take a naked hiking trip through the Swiss Alps. I couldn't imagine being naked for months on end around other people but then he told me that several thousand people were naked also, so it wasn't so bad. However they were not in the best physical shape as there was a terrible humanitarian crisis going on there in Sudan at that time. Poor devil I thought. The world is a cruel cruel sick place. He said he had prevailed and he suddenly kissed both his fists. I had seen this kind of behaviour before in a friend of mine who had spent too much time in boarding school and the military. I felt perturbed. Whilst in the camp and naked he had had to drink tea as there wasn't much else on offer. The tea was boiled in giant vats that looked like they belonged in a chocolate factory and everyone helped themselves from it. As they dipped their cups into the vats to get their tea they would also dip their hands in there also. Hajid was terrified of disease but he had no choice but to drink the tea. This was real! My life was ridiculous I thought. This guy had been to the edge of an abyss and looked over it and spat off it. I wouldn't dare go within 1000 kilometres. I was suddenly awestruck and saw Hajid bathed in a halo of light when I realised it was just the onset of a migraine. It was the aura. Something bad would happen later that night. Before the refugee camp he had been a child soldier. He killed from the treeline he said. They never left the cover of the trees. It wasn't safe. Hmmm, good point I thought. If you want to shoot at unarmed people best to do it from where they can't see you. What a bizarre life he had had. I wondered if he was suffering from PTSD and if he was taking anything for it and would he do something that I couldn't handle like lunge at me with a pen or pummel with the computer? My mind was racing. He seemed normal and beamed a Sammy Davis Jr grin at me and then told me that I should never have children. Why not? Is there something he knows that I don't? I have a low sperm count? He said children become violent. I guess he was speaking from experience. What about Australian women I asked? They're too fat he said and then showed me a photograph of his latest girlfriend. She was a bit on the large side for my liking. Hajid was tiny and must of only weighed 50kgs. He said he didn't need to eat lots of food and that one meal a day was enough for him. I predict that he will get with the program soon enough and start eating unnecessarily large amounts of food like the rest of us do and do his best to get some type of diabetes. But why the cars? Who needs them? Cars are cool Hajid told me and his brothers were into them. What kind of family was this? He had been a child soldier and naked in a refugee camp for months at a time and yet here he was in Australia in possession of a few cars and two jobs. Yes he had two jobs. He was a driving instructor as well as a health care worker. Where do they get the cash. I suspected gold was involved. Sometimes one of his relatives would call from the Sudan but he didn't seem too keen to talk to them.
It had been a night that raised more questions than it had answered but I was satisfied nevertheless. On the way out I asked for my money and he took me to one of his cars. This is strange I thought. He brought out of his car a wad of notes and handed me more than he owed me. I said I had no change but he wasn't bothered and told me to just take it off the next one. Why keep your money in the car? He didn't trust his family and he was the only one who had the keys to the car. What about a bank I thought? I didn't get that far on that one. Maybe next time? My bed was waiting and something bad was going to happen.
