Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, April 7, 2004


SILVER TONGED CHARMER


LITTLE Bay detention, er, conference centre is just down the road from Long Bay Jail in Sydney, an austere choice for a two-day brainstorming session with your interstate colleagues. The centre used to be a leper colony, as if lepers did not have enough problems. Now it was the final word in spartan chic: cobwebs, cockroaches and cracks, leaking taps, a single bed, no window views and no TV. Security guards patrolled the grounds. Even so, someone's car was broken into and his Led Zeppelin CDs were stolen. These gatherings always start well: fresh-faced, attentive, sitting straight-backed, enthusiastically nodding and laughing at the pearls of wisdom dropped by the presenter. This one used such terms as immersion, incubation, germination and birth to encourage ideas. He had just one rule - DO NOT CRITICISE - which left me with nothing to say. It was a long day. At day's end, before dinner, I returned to my cell, sat on the end of the bed and watched the blank wall. One woman told me she had chased a cockroach around her room trying to hammer it with the heel of a shoe. She was lucky - at least it was something to do. At dinner, I sat next to a young woman named Jill, who I had not noticed during the day. She said she was 24, a fine age for a woman, and then spoiled the effect by frequently ducking out for a smoke. I gave her a lecture about cancerous death and how she smelled like horse manure. She poked out her tongue at me, to her immediate regret. In the centre of the tongue sat a silver ball. I could think of no good reason to have a silver ball inserted in your tongue except, perhaps, for blowing a two-toned whistle and complicated smoke-rings at the same time. Why she had done it to herself? “Because I like it,” she answered moodily. She explained how her tongue had been clamped steady and then pierced at a point back where the ball would not click against her teeth when she talked. She had developed a slight lisp, however. The other difference was she could no longer touch the tip of her tongue to her nose, which, if you ask me, was no great loss. Then, after taking a private moment to check for lint, Jill lifted her top to reveal two silver balls in her belly button. I retired to my cubicle. Next morning, everyone gathered again in the conference room and it was hard to believe it was the same bright-eyed, bushy-tailed group from yesterday. After a night's revelry, people were squinting in the early sun, puffy, glazed, waxen faces, hair tied back, chins resting heavily on hands, croaking voices and the clearing of smokers' throats. I looked around for Jill but she was nowhere to be seen, possibly abducted in the night for her silverware. Or recaptured. The stolen Led Zeppelin CDs had been returned.