Portrait of a Fallen Angel: Apocalypse Generation

Chapter 1

Portrait of a Fallen Angel

God works in mysterious ways—this is just another way of saying things can get really weird, so weird that you have to blame God, because God is ultimately responsible.

I blame Frank.

I’d known Frank Walker for a long time. I still remember him as a lanky ten-year-old dominating the Saturday morning tennis school with his prowess on the court. A highly strung youngster with a well-proportioned face and brown eyes, he crackled with a combustible energy that strained to be ignited. He capitalized on this disposition with a determination to win that made him fiercely competitive at the net and monumentally boring to argue with in the clubroom after a game. I remain convinced to this day that he could have had a successful career as a sportsman had he not turned his hand to other things, and for many years I swore he had wasted a great talent. But he had other talents.

It all began rather abruptly on that sticky March evening. Was it fate or just an accident? If you took Frank seriously, I suppose you would have to say it was fate or that it had already been written—perhaps it had even already happened. Personally I believe it was just an unfortunate accident.

Accidents do happen. All the booze buses, speed cameras, and radar traps in the country can’t save you when you sneeze and steer into an oncoming lorry. Therefore, it couldn’t have been anything else but an accident when Frank set up his easel on the same corner the Christians used every Friday night for their public rally. He had simply come to draw, sell a portrait or two, make a quid, and generally fill up an evening. He’d done it many times before. Over the years he had become a semiregular feature at Kings Cross, the notorious strip of bars and nightclubs in the heart of the city of Sydney. It filled the requirements of the classic Red Light District: to service the harbor’s complement of sailors. Crowded and busy late into the night, it was perfect for busking.

Although it was the end of summer, nights were still balmy and the streets full with people. Frank had set up his easel with a board to which he pinned examples of portraits he’d sketched, and he placed a tin sprinkled with coins on the ground. As he sat and waited for customers, he drew in crayon the street scene that paraded itself before him: the pimps and the prostitutes; the derelicts and the doormen; painted ladies in tight black miniskirts, scurrying between discos and strip joints; rich men in tailored suits, their wives sparkling behind their jewelry; and cabs nudging each other down Darlinghurst Road to the shimmering water ball of the El Alamein fountain.

Frank worked furiously on his streetscape for over an hour before pausing and reflecting on its progress. The real traffic didn’t begin until ten o’clock, but he liked to get an early start just to claim his territory. There was an unwritten code on the street that went something like this: Don’t set up too near the door of a strip club or the bouncer will rearrange your face. If you set up near a prostitute who’s having a bad night, she’s likely to do some rearranging herself—and if she doesn’t, her pimp will. Never set up beside another street merchant or busker unless they’re cool about it. But more than anything else, the first and most sacred tenet of the street was first there, first serve. Any spot that wasn’t threatened by any of the above mentioned circumstances was yours until you left or the police dragged you away screaming.

I can see him. I’m watching him now through the eyes of an old drunk who’s sitting on the wall beside the hotel across the street. He’s been there since Frank arrived, shouting garbled abuse at the passing crowd, and I couldn’t have a better view if I was standing there in person.

Frank’s wearing a checked flannel shirt halfway tucked into his old, baggy trousers, with the sleeves rolled up and the top buttons undone. He never was very fashion conscious. His light-brown hair is long enough to make a Rasta-style ponytail; it hovers over one shoulder and is tied at the end with a colored band. His three-day growth has almost become a beard. He’s put down his crayons and picked up an old guitar that’s been lying innocuously under the easel, and now he’s bashed out a few chords.

I taught Frank to play that guitar so that he could act as a rhythm section for me when we knocked around together so many years ago. I played trombone, and it was through busking with me that Frank was introduced to the street culture of Kings Cross. Two chords—bar chords off the E and A string—that’s all I showed him, and he could blunder his way through almost any song. He’s blundering his way through a blues now. I can hear him as clearly as the small crowd who’ve formed a semicircle around him.

Thank you, good people, he says to them. Whipping up his tin, he waves it before a young couple, assuring them, Don’t think I’m too proud to accept donations.

They look embarrassed and do nothing, so Frank waves the tin in front of a middle-aged businessman. He grunts with a breath that would lift a lead-based paint and throws in a pocket full of change, which rattles like a chunky maraca as Frank passes the tin around the circle. Others contribute as well.

Thank you, one and all, Frank says. "What’s a bit of loose change? And look what it’s bought you: a moment in time, a moment we’ve shared together.

Time is life, and the time we are granted to be here on this earth is the greatest gift of all. Every hour of every day, every minute, every moment is a treasure, for we cannot repeat them. He pauses. Unless of course you throw yourself off the Harbor Bridge and catch that moment again as your life flashes before your eyes.

A young man standing with a mate, both with stubbies of beer in their hands, scoffs audibly.

Yes, a bit drastic, Frank concedes. So here we are, sharing a moment that will disappear into the night as we all go our separate ways. What good is music? Frank bashes out a chord on the guitar. "A song is here and gone. Its memory like an echo disappearing in time, but draw with a pen and you have it forever, or at least until you run out of toilet paper.

You, mate. Frank points to the friend of the cynical young man. Two dollars says I can draw the spittin’ image of your mate in a minute.

I wouldn’t give you two bucks for a picture of him! the man says, and he gives his friend a push on the shoulder.

Watch! Frank shouts to the circle, and putting down the guitar, he picks up his pad and a piece of charcoal from under the easel.

In just one minute. Does anybody have a watch? You, sir, he says, singling out a large young lad who looks like he plays for the local football team. He had crossed the palm of the donations tin, and Frank gambles he’ll be obliging. The lad raises his arm and hitches up his sleeve.

Okay, Frank calls, and then addressing the man he is about to sketch, he says, Give us your best side.

The man turns as if to leave.

No, Frank says, try the other side.

His subject looks at him uncooperatively.

No, look at that girl over there. Frank points to the shy couple. She’s pretty to look at.

By reflex the man looks in her direction.

Perfect! Frank shouts. Hold it there. Don’t move—any minute. His hands flash over the paper. Are you keeping track of the time over there? Just tell me when! Ha! Don’t move. Only takes a minute. Coming, coming.

A minute, the lad announces.

Okay. Frank makes a last stroke with the charcoal and then holds up the portrait. Is this our friend? Would you recognize this man?

A wave of laughter ripples through the crowd, and the subject’s mate pushes his friend again, his own mirth testifying admirably to the success of Frank’s portrait with its crazed, lustful eyes and tongue that hangs in a dangling slobber. The man’s thin moustache, lurking reluctantly beneath flaring nostrils, and cynical smile are unmistakable, and he scoffs even more effusively than before.

Yours for two dollars, Frank says to the friend, who gladly buys the drawing to taunt his mate.

Painting always was Frank’s passion. He would lock himself in his room for days, even weeks sometimes. I tried my hand at it myself at one stage, and often we would paint long into the night with the music blaring. We’d brew the coffee strong and watch for the sun to come up over a forest of red roof tiles, the colors of the dawn dancing like hallucinations from a psychedelic drug.

Frank was never into keeping his cake. He liked to eat it. He’d eat till he could eat no more, drink till he could drink no more, and paint till he could paint no more. There was something of the obsessive about everything he did.

Frank was actually not an extroverted sort of person. He was quite shy in a way, except when he was on some bender or other. I ran into him once, not having seen him for several years, to find he was totally engrossed in the cult of Siddha Yoga. He’d spent the better part of two years sitting in a corner with his legs crossed and a bowl of nuts beside him. That really didn’t surprise me. What surprised me was when not long after, a clean-shaven man in a business suit, carrying a briefcase, stopped me in the street and said, Hello Jazz.

Frank! I gasped. What happened, man?

It turned out one of Frank’s drawing students owned a computing firm and gave him a job on fifty thousand a year, which at the time was quite a respectable wage, especially for a beginner. He didn’t know anything about computers but was keen to learn. I marveled at this transformation for a year before I saw him again, looking more like his old self, and discovered he’d quit.

Why? I inquired. It sounded like a good gig.

I had one of my balls cut off, he told me. Cancerous, and it made me think, you know, lying there in the hospital, what do I really want out of life? And I realized, everything.

He wanted everything. But isn’t that what money buys you. Did he want what every yuppie wants: a house in the city, a house in the country, two Ferraris, and a Jacuzzi on the patio? Frank must have had a different sort of everything in mind because he was back at his easel. The saffron had gone and the bowl of nuts was replaced with a leg of mutton and glass of wine. He was painting again, and now he was back on the streets.

It’s ten o’clock and Frank’s small crowd has already been infiltrated by anxious Christians who are there waiting for their meeting to commence. A group of three men with their own easel and soapbox and armfuls of leaflets are crossing the street. They stand when they reach the curb and peer over the heads of people gathered around the street artist. Looking flustered, they learn from one of their spies that this busker has been working the corner for hours.

Did you hear about the man with five penises? Frank is shouting at his audience. He made the mistake of asking the tailor to make a pair of pants that fit like a glove.

The Christians have made a decision. A man of slight build, in a light, colorless suit, is breaking off from his colleagues and pushing his way through the crowd, into the space Frank has cleared for himself. He sidles softly to the street artist’s side, telling him quietly that they use this corner every Friday night for their prayer meetings. They want Frank to move on.

The man wants a prayer meeting, Frank shouts. Sure, have your prayer meeting. Don’t let me stop you. There’s room for everybody. Two bucks and I’ll draw a picture of God for you.

You don’t understand, the man says, failing in his attempt to raise a smile. We want you to move on.

But I don’t want to. Do you want me to move on? Frank asks his audience. They hoot and yell and obviously don’t want him to leave.

No, you’ve got to go, the man says quietly but persistently.

Why? It’s a bible meeting, isn’t it? Well, I’ve read the bible. Anyone here read the Bible? Frank shouts. Two bucks, two bucks and I’ll draw a Bible.

The man has beckoned to his friends who push their way through the artist’s congregation.

He won’t go, the man tells them when they arrive.

One of the three is a big man in a light suit with a tie and white shirt. He’s in his forties and has the growing stature of middle age, a pudgy face, and a few strands of hair greased meticulously across the top of an otherwise bald head.

What seems to be the problem, brother? the big man inquires in a tone that leaks with suspicion and loathing.

What in the world generally do you mean? Frank asks innocently.

Excuse me but we hold meetings here every Friday night at ten, and if you could just move up the road a piece, then we could get on with it. He smiles apologetically.

Well, I’m sorry, mate, Frank tells him. All the good spots are taken by now. I’ve been here all night. This is my corner.

But it’s ours, the slight man insists.

Leave ’im alone, some drunken larrikin yells from the semicircle.

Yeah, get out, ya buggers, another calls.

Up Jesus.

Frank wants to be accommodating so he volunteers a compromise.

Look, what about we share it? Forty minutes on, forty minutes off.

Get out! the big man orders.

That doesn’t sound like a very Christian attitude, brother, Frank says hotly. He considers his offer to be more than generous and finds the bullying manner of the men who profess to work in the Lord’s name offensive.

If that’s your attitude, Frank says to them, you can do what you like, but I’m not moving. I was here first. Throw me out if you dare.

Now let’s not get carried away, the slight man hastens to say, preempting his large friend who growls under his breath.

Faced with the busker’s open defiance, they set up their easel a short distance away, and the largest of the three Christians starts to