Free Brown Skin Blue by Belinda Jeffrey Page A

even remember his shag with Dolly. Bloody hell, I don’t know how she even remembered who they were. How could she remember one bloke from another?
    I think about the crocs in the river and even though they all might look the same to a stranger, we can tell them apart, no worries. Maybe it’s like that with women and the men they sleep with. Maybe my mum made all the names up. Just to give me something before I left. Any name’ll do. I wonder if his eyes got her like they got Bessy.
    After I’d finished my breakfast, the smell of stale beer and cigarettes and frying bacon fat started my stomach turning. I had to get out of there. When I saw the bus coming down the road, I grabbed my bag and the napkin and hopped in.
    I don’t know where I’m going and I don’t care. But I’m still hungry. This time I want something sweet.
    The bus stops at the shopping centre. I think it’s as good a place as any and I get out.
    I’m walking though the shops and it’s almost overwhelming. So many colours, lights, sounds, people. It’s enough to do my head in. Everything for sale: vacuum cleaners, DVD players, fruit, socks, shampoo. There’s a display in the centre of the walkway with cardboard sheets of kids’ projects pinned onto display boards. Australian Pearling History. Legends of our Past. Divers of the Deep. There are ice-cream stick models of boats and larger constructions made out of empty cardboard boxes and string and they’re resting on a sea of blue crepe paper. I stop and read them for a while but I’m joined by strangers, and I don’t like the feeling. I don’t like crowded places. I like being on me own. I need space around me. That’s why I like the bush. That’s why I like working at the Crocs. The river and bush all around. The smell of eucalyptus and damp soil in the humidity. Knowing everything has roots and places. I don’t even mind the tourists. They only arrive in groups, see what they came to see, then leave. There’s a timetable for people there.
    Donut King stands like a beacon in the middle of the shopping centre. Bright-pink-neon, sugar-coated, gut-rotting sweet stuff. It’s just what I need.
    â€˜I’ll have a dozen cinnamon ones, thanks. And a coffee. Black. No sugar.’
    A smile looks right on a girl in a Donut King uniform. Lolly pink and gummy.
    I shove the first donut in my mouth. It goes down easy with the coffee to chase the sugar. I hold the next one in my hand. All of a sudden I can see the aniseed rings in my hand. The small, black, dirty rings. It’s no matter the donut is fat and white, they’re both round and covered in sugar. And for a minute, even though I know it’s nonsense, I feel the black aniseed racing through my blood. Turning my white skin to brown. And the sugar tastes so good, I don’t even know what’s happening. It’s McNabm Blue’s filth that turned me dark. My father had nothin’ to do with it.
    I should buy a bottle of water and wash it away. Throw the rest in the bin and dust my fingers on my strides. But I’m hating myself anyway, so I eat two more and lick my fingers clean. And when they’re clean, I lick them again. And it feels like Bait that’s licking me and it’s so awful I can’t stop. The rest of the donuts get squashed in my bag.
    I’m wearing my boots, even though it’s Saturday, and they are a comfort to me. I don’t know why. I could kick anything that comes my way to buggery. I could lay into someone and not stop and not even hurt my toes. I’m proud of my boots. I can walk tall. They make me feel like a man and sometimes the feeling of something is all that really matters anyway. I’m reminded of it each time I put one foot in front of the other.
    I’m back on the bus. It stops outside the Crocodile Zoo. I don’t want to stay on the bus any more, so I get off. For one day I want to be a