Wild Cat Falling by Mudrooroo

into the grounds. I have passed it a few times but not for eighteen months, when I saw it briefly through the bars of the police van on my way to Fremantle jail. The building is O.K., I suppose — reflection pool and tower with a blue-faced clock. The girl said four o’clock and it is still only two. God, the hours go more slowly even than in jail.
    I stroll through a covered archway and across a park-like area towards the playing fields. Despite the heat of the day a number of youths and girls are vigorously hitting or kicking different shaped balls around. I try to avert my eyes and slope away towards the river, but even here the sporting spirit asserts itself in the shape of rowers exuding the team spirit from every pore as they dip and strain in their long boats. God, how it all brings me back to the Swanview Boys’ Home. . . .
    Spanish style buildings, cream walled with orange tiles and broad playing grounds sloping to the river’s edge. I see the skinny unattractive kid I was slouching on the cricket field, mooning about, homesick for a paddock patch in a country town, and the carefree Noongar kids who had no team spirit, only a sort of native loyalty.
    No clouds in the sky, no shade on the cricket field, but they must play this futile game in the beating heat. It will build up the boys’ physique and take the edge off their energy for other more natural pursuits.
    Bowler bowls, batter swipes, backstop catches, fielders sweat. Hell, how I detest team games of any sort and cricket in particular. Most of the other kids seem to take it seriously and yell at me when I miss a catch or fail to hit the ball when it’s my turn to bat. “Who cares who wins?” I once asked. “It’s only a game.” They thought I must be kidding, so I shut up after that and endured it alone.
    Blessed relief when the siren blares, startling the pigeons from the chapel roof. The brother gets up from his seat in the shade of a tree, the boys pull the wickets, collect the bats and balls, and run to the locker room.
    Four rows of lockers, each row a different colour — red, blue, yellow and green — belonging to the different teams. Each boy has a locker of his own and is supposed to “take a pride in it”. Off with our clothes, charge for the shower room with towels around middles and wait in line. “Sir”, bald-headed and stout in his flapping religious habit, supervises the floor show, manipulates the control valve and swipes alike the too slow and the too quick with well-used strap — his duty for God. “Hurry up there. Next. Back there and wash your face. Next. Next. . . .” Two minutes under the cold stream. Water off for the soap. On again to wash it off. A quick wipe over and out, dodging to escape the strap.
    Blues, greens, reds and yellows keep up the team spirit in four lines outside the dining-room. A mark against one boy is a mark against the team and the team will take it out on him. No talking. No fidgeting. “Stop that whispering there. Blues first today. March.”
    Blues file in, greens, yellows and reds in a single line along the wall. Each boy grabs a plate off the pile in the servery and holds it up for the soup, goes to his place and stands for Grace.
    â€œBless us O Lord and these thy gifts. . . .”
    â€œSit!”
    What was it we used to sing?
    Mummy, daddy, take me away
    From this awful place one day.
    No more eating stew like glue,
    No more eating bread like lead.
    Tea over, washing up is a team job too, then study time. The boys sit under the bright lights, heads bent over their books. A black-robed brother prowls up and down the rows of desks, strap at the ready for the shirker and the cheat.
    Eight o’clock, over to the chapel for prayers. Bed time. Long rows of beds in team dormitories.
    At last all is quiet except for the breathing of the sleeping boys. I slide out of bed and pull on my clothes, tiptoe on bare feet to a balcony