Guide to Sydney Crime by Les Wicks - HTML preview

 Colleen Z Burke

Each way 

Minor crime was woven

into our lives just like

the salty tang of the sea

sifting through dreams   

nightmares.

Some of dad’s

rellies were SP bookies –

Illegal then and

Saturday arvos were

consumed by the fevered

sound of horse races

blaring from the wireless –

a sound I grew to hate.

When I was about 10

after Mum gave me money

and a piece of paper

with her bets listed

I walked around the corner

to a house in Grove Street.

Standing on tiptoe

at the window in the side passage

I recited to Mr Li – 1 or 2 shillings

each way on horses with Irish names –

‘Danny Boy’, ‘The Pride of Erin’,

or other ones that caught Mum’s eye.

If the house was locked up

I knew that he’d been warned

of a police raid and went

to the nearby backup house.

Mum occasionally picked a winner

but her biggest victory was Old Rowley

who she backed at 2 bob each way –

he won the Melbourne Cup at 100 to one.

The horse’s name was bestowed

on my brother born a few days later.

I went to St Patrick’s School

and for several years I was very devout –

in Confession I listed minor sins –

disobedience, omission, white lies

but never mentioned the SP Bookie –

gambling and drinking were

embedded in our community –

just a normal part of life

On Friday nights after work,

payday, Dad, a factory worker,

often lost his wages in card games.

Later he also worked

at the Greyhounds and the Races

And when he eventually became

an SP bookie we finally got a telephone

which I wasn’t allowed to use

                 My brother followed in

the family footsteps

betting on everything in sight

but I rarely did –

I was studious and from a

young age – a book worm –

my way of escaping

the discordant 

clamour of childhood –

the inhalation of air

blighted by well-meaning

unfulfilled lives