Late Afternoon on Pitt Street

by Alex Rieneck

It is late afternoon in Sydney. I am walking up the south end of Pitt Street towards the Town Hall. I am in the crappy downtown tourist area packed with cheap hotels, backpacker accommodation and the odd shops that specialise in selling cheap bargain crap to the backpackers who stay in the cheap hotels. It is a typical Sydney day. It had been warm and since morning, and once everyone has been lulled into a state of calm the weather has changed. It is now starting to rain big in freezing drops and a nasty icy wind is blasting down the canyon-like streets into the city from the East. Some of the backpackers have been tricked. They run down the street with their heads down. They are wearing cheesecloth and sandals. The rest of us put our heads into the wind and walk. It is getting dark and the day is over. Nobody seems to think it had been a great one and the overwhelming sense is of relief. Mondays are never great and this one will be vastly improved by sitting somewhere warm and watching television.

The streets are oddly filled with homeless men. Perhaps they have been ejected from some warm hole that they have been staying in.I see three. Then two. They seem to have been caught unawares by the weather and head in small groups down the hill towards Central Station.

I approach the door of one of the cheaper hotels. An old man, his pale beard yellowed by cigarette smoke heads toward me. He is obviously homeless. He drags a wheely bag behind him. His clothes are almost rags. Suddenly he darts across my path and bends down in front of me. He picks up a cigarette butt. It is a good one, almost half a filter tip cigarette, and better than that, it is uncrushed. He snatches it up and stuffs it into one of his pockets. I look at him. Under the many layers of dirt he is perhaps fifty.

Standing on the footpath in the door of the hotel next to him stands a businessman. He also has a wheely bag. But this guy is clean shaven, and looks clean in his cheap, grey suit. He looks at the homeless guy. I catch his eye. I see pity, disgust and a fair amount of fear. I can tell that the guy is thinking, “there, but for the grace of God go I.”
I look at the pair of them. I have smoked butts off the street. I have been a businessman, but I have never owned a cheap suit. Somehow, I cannot tell the difference between the two of them. The bum snatches up unwanted butts. The business guy snatches up small deals. Both of them eat. Between the two of them, who has the most self respect?

It isn’t a riddle. I don’t know the answer.

I keep walking up the street. I get to the big opening that leads into World Square shopping arcade. It is big. It is loud. It pretends to be more upmarket than it is. In the doorway are two homeless guys. Both are filthy, encrusted with yellowed dirt. One has all his belongings in a wheely bag. The other has his stuff in a big gym bag. The one with the gym bag throws it onto the steps. He screams some words that are barely words. All I can hear is the word “fucken” and the rage and hopelessness pouring out of him.

His mate screams back. “Cheer up, Marty. I’ve got thirteen bucks.” His mate is happy. Thirteen bucks is a lot. The crowd parts around the two of them. The Asians are embarrassed. The tourists are disgusted and roll their eyes at each other as if they have visited Australia and found a family skeleton in a closet.

I walk on. The guy with the gym bag has picked up his bag and gotten ahead of me. He heads up Pitt Street. He is crazy angry. He screams wordlessly. The crowds heading South part to give him a wide berth. His words change. I can determine “fucken”. And “no right” and the fact that he is angry with a woman. I slow down. I have no desire to pass him. He is perhaps twenty feet in front of me. He veers to the left hand side of the pavement and heads towards a woman standing outside the doors of one of the beauty parlours. I catch a glimpse of her. She is wearing white and is perhaps five feet tall. He towers over her and rams his face directly into hers. I speed up. I think that in a second or two I will be in a fight. His face is less than six inches from hers. He screams so loud that it seems the glass in the shop windows rattles.
“What are you looking at you fucken yellow cunt?”

He drags his head back into his neck and keeps walking. I catch her eye. She is perhaps fifty. She has spectacles hanging around her neck on a plastic chain. She is Indian. She is as brown as rich, black coffee. She is shaking.

I turn left into the mall.

It isn’t a riddle, and I don’t know the answer. In fact, I don’t even know if there is a question.

Alex Rieneck

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