Wildcat Screaming
Описание книги
'Well, I can dream can't I? Dream? – nightmares, more like it. All I have to do is dream, dream, dream, scream… I'm now walking through this posh suburb, walking? – more like slinking. Wildcat on the prowl. Naw, though maybe checking out the streets for a bust. Eyes dart this way, that way, all ways, focus, man, on the main chance. Take it and break it real good; but is there any chances left? Not with my luck!' Wildcat is out of prison, but not for long. In this sequel to Wild Cat Falling, Mudrooroo takes us inside the life of the urban Aboriginal. Set in the boom years of Perth bankers and entrepreneurs, we see the same wheeling and dealing from inside Fremantle prison. Wildcat has to survive, and understand the new order, set by the Chief Warder and an ex-Indian Army officer. Soon he too is part of their great creation, The Panopticon Prison Reform Society. A novel by one of Australia's most revolutionary stylists.
Отрывок из книги
To the men who did time in Fremantle Prison
The kid catches her distaste, she ain’t ever going to give me a saucer full, and picks up a pebble and with all the viciousness that kids are capable of, flings it at me. It hits me on the right leg, shin bone, and I look down at the instantly formed scar, still hurting like her glance, like her milky smell, and I stare at that kid with murder in my eyes, and snarl: ‘You rotten little brat, just wait till I get hold of you.’ I drag my leg towards him and the white lady, the mum becomes all hot and bothered, she flushes red. ‘Yo! I gotta have protection in this world,’ I begin; but she isn’t listening. Her milky smell turns sour; her eyes incandescent with morality turn, spitting fire and fury at me. ‘He’s only a child,’ she says.
.....
Wildcat’s eyes sparkle as he listens to Crow. Crow opens his beak and gives gleeful squawks which bode no good for the wild cat. He brings out his claws and lifts a pa w. ‘Now you don’t take on so,’ Crow caws, giving a little jump backwards. ‘No worries, you want to fly? Well, I’m telling you, giving you the proper info. Now, listen here. Dead secret this. Tonight the moon’ll be full. Well, you put your eyes on that moon. Fasten them there and keep on looking and looking. Maybe, better that you climb a high tree. Less distractions up there, and closer to the moon too. Just look at him, keep on looking and you’ll lift off, fly higher and higher towards that old moon.’
Wildcat nods trying to be wily. Crow gives that squawk again. He hops around the wild cat, seeming awful gleeful. ‘And what you want in return?’ Wildcat asks. ‘You know, scratch my back and I scratch yours’—and he extends his claws and Crow’s glee leaves him. He gets into a kind of panic, and his wings open and he flutters out of reach just above Wildcat on a low branch. Wildcat bears his fangs. Opens his mouth in a great big yawn, giving Crow a glimpse of his rippers and tearers. ‘You’re a tricky one,’ he says. ‘So just look at what you’re up against.’ So Wildcat snarls; but all the time in his mind is the image of Crow just lifting off the ground as if the sky belongs to him. He wants to do that, wants to fly far and free.
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