MY HOUR OF EXERCISE
Leaving my house in the shortest denim shorts I own; the sun kisses my legs. This is perhaps the first time they have seen the sun in a few months, certainly the first time any part of my body has been kissed in the last 6 months.
In the distance, I hear a small bell ring, and I know that my hour of exercise is going to be well spent. Strolling up Dare Street is a small tiger-striped tabby. She crosses the road effortlessly and immediately dashes to me and begins to affectionately rub her head along my legs. Before leaping up onto a dilapidated bar stool that sits in front of a brown brick single-story house. This is a friendship that I have spent weeks cultivating. Back in March, she would scamper away as I approached arms full of groceries on my way home from my local. She stares at me with her big eyes. She arches her back as I continue to scratch her. I begin to make a sound I first heard in the bazaars of Konya, phsss phsss phsss, the sound old Turkish women would make to let cats know they are friends. It was the same noise I mimicked back in Istanbul at my university, much to the glee of my Turkish friends who told me I talk to cats like a Turk.
Before stage 4 lockdown I would walk past this tabby’s house to the plague filled tram and she would stare out the window at me, sitting atop her pillow thrown – curtains ajar enough for her to scope out her kingdom.
We part as a teenager cycles past without a mask or helmet. I continue on my Dan Andrews approved walk, heading past the small community garden that adds diversity to my weekly diet with perennial spinach, kale and string beans. Turning left at the large white mansion two young children are yelling from their portico at passes by, waving to see if someone will gather the courage and wave back; their mother dressed all in Melbourne uniform of black watching on. I wave and smile, remembering I’m wearing a mask and try to smile with my eyes, an impossible task usually touted at women by older male managers in a sexist rebuff. Turning past their house I head to my next date. Halfway up Walsh street, an energetic friend of mine hears my footsteps and at once leaps into action. Her meows are getting stronger by the day and I’m reminded of when I first met her this year when she was tiny and youthful. My bushy ginger companion jumps up on the wooden fence, to show off her dexterity and balance. I can see the fence wabbling under her weight, another victim to isolation overeating and I pick her up. She nestles into my arms for a time allowing me to take a few quick photos of the two of us, and perhaps more importantly she gives me a chance to pat her thoroughly. I can feel her patience coming to an end, so I place her back on the fence, this time on the neighbour’s sturdy brick, which has spent the morning warming up just for this occasion. I break off our engagement and start to walk back the way I came, making sure to cross the road so as not to attract attention from the family still innocently insisting strangers wave at them.
Soon enough I find what I am looking for, a white miner’s cottage with two red velvet armchairs and a washing machine, ring marked with coffee stains under its veranda. Luckily, today their blinds are down and there is no chance of some awkward eye contact with its inhabitants. Sitting plump in the middle of a chair is a perfect ring of red fur. Some days when I make it this far into Coburg, she is awake and wants a short pat, a scratch under the chin and maybe a short belly rub. Today she looks too majestic for me to wake her, albeit harmlessly for some love. She looks as comfortable as I felt when Jobkeeper was first introduced. I am a product of the neoliberal economy and have always been on zero-hour casual contracts; this is the first wage I have known and probably the most money I will periodically receive in the coming months as the corporate UBI is wound back.
Knowing that my hour is coming to an end, and not wanting to be brutally arrested by police, let alone have my head stomped on by an officer; who will be investigated by the same bureaucracy that gives him a mandate to be violent, I head home.
Letting myself into my back gate I prepare for the ritual I have gotten down to as few surfaces as possible. I open my back door with my keys, not touching the handle and head straight to the bathroom, washing my hands while singing to myself “We are never ever, ever getting back together”, Taylor Swift’s 2012 classic. I throw my keys into the sink for a good clean and place my mask in a cleverly label purgatory bucket. On my way through the house, I hear a faint yet defiant meow. As I settle into one of Melbourne’s inner north famous outside share house-couches, my favourite neighbour makes herself known for the third day this week. Dianna, who wears no collar and took my household months to agree on a name strolls up our garden path, knowing this is her domain. She passes her favourite sleeping spot, the upturned wheelbarrow that gets baking hot in the sun, next to a small water dish that was added with the desire to be a good host. Dianna jumps up onto my lap, something I have spent months wishing she’d do, especially while my housemates are watching and wanting attention from her. She begins to headbutt my hands out of the way so she can settle down on my lap for some sun. She hasn’t learnt to retract her claws yet, but I don’t mind. With Dianna settling down I hear a police helicopter pass overhead and I think to myself, how on earth are they supposed to see someone not wearing a mask from up there.
Ross Dennis
Proud Coburg resident and definitely not a cop.
The Coburg Meddler 