Free Manhattan Dreaming by Anita Heiss Page A

before she placed our orders and we settled into a night of keno and catching up with friends who were also at the club.
    It was karaoke night at the Workers, or what we liked to call Koori-oke night. Mum had a great voice so we both got up and sang New York New York , laughing at Dad’s reaction to our singing and the song. But everyone cheered us as we did the high kicks and I could see the pride on his face for his two Koori roses. I’d miss the fun we had at the Workers if I went to New York. I was starting to feel homesick even though I hadn’t decided to go yet.

    When Mum and Dad went to bed that night, Max and I sat in the lounge room watching telly. I had a favourite chunky olive green velvet chair I would just mould myself into.
    â€˜Mum and Dad haven’t asked me any personal questions,’ I said to Max as he flicked through a car magazine.
    â€˜They saw that jerk in the papers,’ is all he said, without looking up.
    â€˜But they don’t get the Canberra Times ,’ I said, confused.
    â€˜It was in the Goulburn Post. ’
    I gasped with shame.
    â€˜And not that it’s any of my business,’ Max said, looking straight at me, ‘but I’d prefer it if you stayed away from the Canberra Cocksuckers altogether.’ And that was the end of the conversation. Max rarely got involved in my personal business, but when he did, he was serious.

    I didn’t sleep at all, confusion only adding to my usual insomnia. I got up early and had breakfast with Dad.
    â€˜Come on, Dad, let’s go to see Rambo.’ That’s what the locals had always called the Big Merino. We hadn’t been much since it was moved closer to the highway. I had loved climbing up into Rambo’s eyes when I was a kid, and did it nearly every weekend if I nagged Dad enough to swing by there. When I was little I didn’t have a problem with small spaces. Now, as a grown woman, I felt much more enclosed, but it was a familiar space, a safe space. I wanted to climb into the eyes once more as Dad waited for me in the car park. He couldn’t take the metal stairs any longer – he got puffed a lot easier these days. His days of climbing Rambo had ended years ago. This was the first time I’d climbed into the eyeballs for a long while, because they had closed them down for a month when they moved him closer to the highway in 2007 in an attempt to get more visitors.
    There wasn’t a lot of room in there, it was ‘cosy’, as Adam had said when we pulled up at the massive structure one Sunday afternoon. He had wanted to shag in Rambo’s eyeballs, but as they were shut to the public he was happy for a grope at the barrier to the stairs. I didn’t feel comfortable at the thought of either and started feeling claustrophobic just thinking about being in Rambo’s cosy eyeballs.
    On the way back home in the car, Dad said, ‘What about Nick? How are we going to tell him his sister is leaving the country?’ He was worried about my older brother, who was serving time in Goulburn Correctional Facility for driving unlicensed and unregistered and then running into the back of a police vehicle at a set of traffic lights. Nick worked on a farm out of town and they never worried about a licence for the tractor. He’d never had lessons and shouldn’t have been behind the wheel. I visited him once a month, wrote to him once a week and he always seemed okay. He promised Mum he was never going to drive again when he got out. Nick never mentioned that he couldn’t get a licence now anyway. He was the tough one in the family. I was the spoilt girl and Max was the baby.
    â€˜Nick lives for your visits, even though they’re not that often,’ Dad said.
    I felt a pang of guilt; he wasn’t due for release until next year, and all I could do was hope that he would understand if I chose to go to New York.
    â€˜I’ll make a special visit if I decide to