Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
The first time I ever broke the law was at Woolworths. There were two of us. We were thirteen and in those days a Woolies’ department store had long counters with a sales assistant standing behind each one.
When you started high school in my town in the 1960s, the second year boys ran a protection racket: you had to bring a ruler or a compass. But my friend Jenny, a skinny girl with plaits and a home-cut fringe, didn’t get pocket money, didn’t know the rules and didn’t know what to do. She didn’t even live in a proper house.
So I asked Michael, my older brother, and his mate, Jimmy, for help. Jimmy knew everything. He had a gang. He didn’t have green teeth or holes in his socks, he had proper, polished, black lace-up boots and slicked his hair with Brylcream. Jimmy could bring down a pigeon with his shanghai and a single yonnie. I loved him. Jimmy said she just had to nick the stuff from the paper shop. But Jenny said she couldn’t do that because the owners knew her Dad. So Jimmy said she could bring along a lipstick. They were easier to nick. From Woolworths.
I knew what to do because I’d seen girls do it before. Jimmy’s sister mainly. The make-up or jewellery counter was best. One of you talked to the sales girl while the other pretended to look at something and then that something somehow just happened to end up in your pocket. The trick was not to hurry and to keep on smiling.
Jenny could only do it on a Saturday morning. That suited the boys so they came along as well. We had a practice run but Jenny couldn’t do it. So we swapped and I did it for her. Jimmy waited outside. ‘Wadja get?’ ‘Lipstick.’ ‘Givvus it.’ ‘Nah.’ I was too smart to hand it over straight away. ‘Bring it on Monday.’ ‘OK’. I took the bullet-shaped metal case, threw away its box, and handed it to Jenny. We were walking to my place, giggling, dawdling behind the boys, feeling pretty pleased with ourselves, but it was a really hot day and Jenny was gripping the lipstick in her hand, keeping it hidden. She started crying: the lipstick was melting. We stopped and so did the boys. ‘Shit,’ said Jimmy.
That was when God took a hand. A car went past. Thump, yowl, yowwwwwl…. a small animal rolled into the gutter at the boys’ feet. ‘What are we going to do?’ says Michael. ‘It’s not my dog,’ says Jimmy, but he’s already squatting down, having a look. ‘I think it’s dead’. Jimmy’s Dad runs an abattoir so Jimmy knows ‘dead’ when he sees it. ‘Go into that house,’ he says to Michael, ‘see if anyone can help.’ Two minutes later, a woman in a pink pinny and green rollers appears: ‘Oh my god, oh the poor thing, oh I’ll have to ring the RSPCA. It’s next door’s dog. Is it dead? Are you sure? Is it dead? Oh my god it’s dead. Oh my god.’
Jimmy takes charge. ‘Have you got a blanket? And a shovel?’ She goes back inside. Jimmy follows. They come back. She’s carrying a cardboard box and a blue baby’s blanket. Jimmy has a spade. ‘Hold the box,’ says Jimmy to the woman as he scrapes the body off the road and pours it gently into the blanket. She’s crying. ‘Did you see the car? Why didn’t you stop them? You stupid kids! Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god….’ Then, ‘I can’t hold it any longer.’ The box crumples and its contents drop to the ground. Jenny moves in to help. She puts out her hand, but it’s red. The woman screams. ‘It’s only lipstick,‘ says Jenny, but the woman doesn’t hear.
Then yelp – the dog’s alive!
Later, after a cool drink, the woman gave us a twenty cent piece each. Jimmy said: ‘If we pool the money, Jenny can go back and buy a new lipstick’. And she did. So reader, I married him.