D Y L A N
Dylan was stabbed in the neck by his housemates a few years ago. They claimed he’d been stealing their cigarettes, and although he vowed otherwise, they were drunk and didn’t believe him. He remembers the day well because it was his daughter’s birthday. He’s been homeless and washing windscreens ever since.
I don’t have to ask him many questions. His stories spill out of him as effortlessly as his laughter. And although they seem an incongruous mix – the tales he tells and the smiles that escape him – it’s simple enough logic to him. ‘When I smile more, I earn more,’ he says, grinning despite the gaps in his teeth.
On a good day, Dylan might treat himself to a pub feed or a ten-dollar night at a mate’s house. Otherwise, he relies on charity meals and a keen knowledge of the local squats. I ask him if he enjoys what he does, and he takes his time before answering: ‘Yep. I do. It feels good when you do a really good job and they tell you... See, we’re actually making the roads safer.’ He beams and I wonder if I feel the same pride, the same sense of purpose and good will in what I do. I decide the question is too complicated to answer.
When the peak hour traffic arrives, however, the effort to smile comes a little harder as Dylan finds himself confronted by the dreary gaze of post-work faces. They come in surges, swelling and passing to the changing lights, eyes collectively fixed on the road ahead. ‘They don’t know life,’ he says of the homebound workers, ‘they’ve just been sitting in an office.’ Dylan tries his luck, squeegee raised high, but few respond. He is disheartened by the dry run, but more than that, he is saddened by what confronts him. He surrenders to the mood that floods the street, packs up his gear and calls it a day.
When I next meet with him, his only possessions have been stolen and his squat has been burnt down. Still he manages to go to work with a smile.
Dylan started smoking pot the day his grandfather died. He was nine and he’d just lost the closest thing he had to a father figure. Such a life he doesn’t wish upon his own nine-year-old daughter, who appears to be in a better situation – she is away in Europe attending the Gallipoli Anzac service with her foster parents, while her biological father shows me all the scars on his hands. Nicks from the job. There is a fresh one on his thumb and he holds it wrapped in his shirt to stop the bleeding while he tells me about his daughter. ‘She’s amazing,’ he says with that look of wonder that only a proud parent can muster. He explains to me that his ex-wife is an ice-addict and that after they split she had custody of the young girl. He believed her unable to raise their child and appealed to DOCs. The girl was rehoused with foster parents and Dylan was granted monthly visits, the next one of which he is delighted about, to hear of his daughter’s adventures overseas. ‘It’s better this way,’ he says, adding that his twenty-year-old son was not put into foster care and is now an alcoholic.
Pivoting on the subject and confessing that, ‘like everyone,’ he enjoys a drink every now and then, Dylan tells me he’s sick of people getting drunk and violent. ‘Violence is a spiral to Hell,’ he says, then adds that his girlfriend has been drinking a lot lately and recently went missing for two days: ‘Just disappeared. The police found her though. All beaten up. She’s on a program now.’
His own interactions with the police have been mixed. In the time I am with him, he disappears twice to avoid being seen by passing patrol cars, but as yet has not been fined for windscreen-washing. Occasionally he is asked to move on, and he puts this down to misunderstanding: ‘This is street survival, you know. They just don’t understand that.’ But he finds that being open with the local police about his past, as with anyone who will lend him an ear, goes a long way to helping him stay on their good side. It is through this unguarded honesty that he seeks and finds their respect and understanding: ‘How can they be sympathetic to you if they don’t know your story?’
I don’t have to ask him many questions. His stories spill out of him as effortlessly as his laughter. And although they seem an incongruous mix – the tales he tells and the smiles that escape him – it’s simple enough logic to him. ‘When I smile more, I earn more,’ he says, grinning despite the gaps in his teeth.
On a good day, Dylan might treat himself to a pub feed or a ten-dollar night at a mate’s house. Otherwise, he relies on charity meals and a keen knowledge of the local squats. I ask him if he enjoys what he does, and he takes his time before answering: ‘Yep. I do. It feels good when you do a really good job and they tell you... See, we’re actually making the roads safer.’ He beams and I wonder if I feel the same pride, the same sense of purpose and good will in what I do. I decide the question is too complicated to answer.
When the peak hour traffic arrives, however, the effort to smile comes a little harder as Dylan finds himself confronted by the dreary gaze of post-work faces. They come in surges, swelling and passing to the changing lights, eyes collectively fixed on the road ahead. ‘They don’t know life,’ he says of the homebound workers, ‘they’ve just been sitting in an office.’ Dylan tries his luck, squeegee raised high, but few respond. He is disheartened by the dry run, but more than that, he is saddened by what confronts him. He surrenders to the mood that floods the street, packs up his gear and calls it a day.
When I next meet with him, his only possessions have been stolen and his squat has been burnt down. Still he manages to go to work with a smile.
Dylan started smoking pot the day his grandfather died. He was nine and he’d just lost the closest thing he had to a father figure. Such a life he doesn’t wish upon his own nine-year-old daughter, who appears to be in a better situation – she is away in Europe attending the Gallipoli Anzac service with her foster parents, while her biological father shows me all the scars on his hands. Nicks from the job. There is a fresh one on his thumb and he holds it wrapped in his shirt to stop the bleeding while he tells me about his daughter. ‘She’s amazing,’ he says with that look of wonder that only a proud parent can muster. He explains to me that his ex-wife is an ice-addict and that after they split she had custody of the young girl. He believed her unable to raise their child and appealed to DOCs. The girl was rehoused with foster parents and Dylan was granted monthly visits, the next one of which he is delighted about, to hear of his daughter’s adventures overseas. ‘It’s better this way,’ he says, adding that his twenty-year-old son was not put into foster care and is now an alcoholic.
Pivoting on the subject and confessing that, ‘like everyone,’ he enjoys a drink every now and then, Dylan tells me he’s sick of people getting drunk and violent. ‘Violence is a spiral to Hell,’ he says, then adds that his girlfriend has been drinking a lot lately and recently went missing for two days: ‘Just disappeared. The police found her though. All beaten up. She’s on a program now.’
His own interactions with the police have been mixed. In the time I am with him, he disappears twice to avoid being seen by passing patrol cars, but as yet has not been fined for windscreen-washing. Occasionally he is asked to move on, and he puts this down to misunderstanding: ‘This is street survival, you know. They just don’t understand that.’ But he finds that being open with the local police about his past, as with anyone who will lend him an ear, goes a long way to helping him stay on their good side. It is through this unguarded honesty that he seeks and finds their respect and understanding: ‘How can they be sympathetic to you if they don’t know your story?’