A Gladiator Finds His Arena

The ball soared over the towering fence and landed right in front of me as I walked down a pedestrian only cobblestone street in Abbesses.

It was the size of a football (soccer, if you're basic) but lighter, and made from a spongy blue foam. And now it was on the street and not in the schoolyard, one full level above me where the children were playing out of sight, their cheerful voices clattering off the buildings like loose change.

As I reached to pick up the ball a hoard of primary school age boys rushed to the only window in the wall to beg for its return. The window was covered in a mid-grain wire mesh which gave the impression the children were stuck in a ventilation shaft, attempting and, so trapped, failing, to outrun zombies.

'Monsieur, moniseur,' they cried in unison, faces moving like shadows behind the grate. 'Monsieur, s'il vous plaît monsieur!' Their cries roared to a crescendo as I threw the ball with all my dim might and then fell again, in much the same arc made by the ball which did not clear the fence and came rolling back almost to my feet.

Here is a diagram I have prepared for this occasion:

As you can see by the scientifically accurate red arrow from the street, I was at something of a height disadvantage. And the ball, being constructed from a whimsical sort of foam, was not especially given to propelled flight. I suspect this is to prevent injuries to small children. Ronaldo couldn't kick this thing hard or fast enough to even graze a child let alone give them CTE. Lovely news for their physical health, terrible news for mine down here in the basement of their disappointment.

I tried four or five more times in quick succession and on each throw the ball sauntered to somewhere near the top of the fence and then lost all confidence in its vertical ascent. It was a sad ball. It had low self-esteem. It had been thrown by a man with less and less of the same.

The circumstances combined my two greatest abject terrors: public spectacle and school sport. I must emphasise that at no point throughout this attempt did the children stop their cries. They were imploring but supportive cries. Our fates were bound. We all wanted the same thing. Monsieur, monsieur! Still, the ball smacked the top of the fence and fell to earth every time. It reminded me of a video I saw on Instagram where a low-flying flamingo hits a bridge and plummets, stunned, into a canal.

After the seventh attempt the cry of the children turned into a chant which hastened each time I picked up the ball.

'Mon-sieur, mon-sieur, mon-sieur!'

People walked by me on the street, smiling and enjoying the sense of play but they did not know, could not have known, that I was torment made flesh. I'll die in this street, I thought. And the hopes of the children with me.

I tried kicking the ball. Perhaps I could achieve by foot that which I could not by arm? The first kick was promising. The next three were scandalous. A young man, perhaps 19, walked down the street with his friend and I begged him to try on my behalf, holding the ball in my outstretched arms while breathlessly reciting something incoherent in French. He looked at me like I'd asked him to take two seconds out of his escape to unlock a gate in a flooding passageway on a sinking ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage.

Then he just kept walking.

I was Erin Brockovitch. Just me and the kids.

'Mon-sieur, mon-sieur, mon-sieur!'

In the baseball/football/hockey/basketball Disney version of this story, this is when the game is lost and the audience is led to believe that all options, short of bringing a dog into the squad, have been exhausted. My arm hurt. I tried to throw the ball twice more but I was fading. God, having kept a few of his belongings in the storage shed of my soul, turned the locker over to the sharks at Storage War$ and fled. Whatever outcome awaited me now was mine alone.

It is the natural way of things that this story ends on my final throw. What could not be seen in advance was whether victory or failure would meet the occasion.

To which pantheon would my remains be interred?

Ball in hand, I paused for half a beat to feel the energy power into my right arm; to imagine this errant ball as a javelin, an object I also couldn't throw in school but which at least felt engineered for basic success.

And then I threw. Hard. So hard it felt as if my right arm had detached at the shoulder. I was in genuine pain. But the ball! Oh, how it soared on its correct trajectory; its arc de triomphe. To the lip of the fence and beyond, beyond.

The children turned their chant into a collective roar. When the realisation settled, they crowded the meshed window in the wall and screamed thank yous over and over again. Merci, merci monsieur, merci! City streets reverberated with my praise.

God tried to buy back his belongings but they'd been sold to a round man from Florida. This praise was mine alone.

Adulation only lasts so long, however. The children returned to their game and I continued on to a nearby boulangerie for my morning pain au chocolat where I was welcomed not as the hero I'd just become but as a simple man whose extraordinary deeds were rendered mute by a mere city block.

Honour, and a unique sense of belonging in this foreign city, folded me into an embrace for mere minutes and was gone again.

I walk down that street every day, the cheer of the crowd having long since ebbed. Perhaps, I think, another ball will come over the fence and I can rediscover my singular purpose.

Alas, all the chariots have left and the tigers have withdrawn.

My Colosseum has fallen silent. If there is any din left to it, it is a whisper that travels beyond my ken and reaches only for the spirits of forgotten glory.

Addenda

A Longer List of Shortlists

So, since last we spoke, I have had the happy news of learning that Mean Streak has been shortlisted for two more literary awards in addition to the Prime Minister's Literary Award and, from earlier in the year, the Australian Book Industry Awards for social impact book of the year.

Having first been longlisted for both, my large baby is now a finalist for the Australian Political Book of the Year alongside three other sensational titles and also the Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award alongside five other incredible books.

The awards are governed by judges, as one would hope, but with the latter there is also a People's Choice Award category which is open to a public vote and comes with some handy cash ($4000) for the winner. You could also win the full set of finalist books and a $200 book shop gift voucher for the truly wonderful Gertrude & Alice Bookstore, including online.

I've never been great at asking for favours because I have developed a scary ability to ruin myself and my options long before I even consider formulating a potential request for support. It is likely I will die with this condition, but I'm better than I was.

So, on that note, and with a not inconsiderable amount of distaste, you can vote for your favourite title from the Nib Literary Award shortlist here:

It does not have to be mine. I'll never know!

Charlie Kirk is Dead

Charlie Kirk, the far-right influence merchant stirring hatred and division in the United States of America and beyond, was fatally shot by a 22yo with a rifle. I have little to say about this other than that it is bad. All of it. Charlie Kirk was a bad man who was no warrior for free speech. He hunted minorities through modern McCarthyism, calling for his enemies – and he identified so many enemies, all of them on the 'Left' – to be fired, destroyed, deported, ruined or even directly put to death. He advocated for prison, deportation (how?) and death for the former US President Joe Biden. He implored his followers to buy weapons in case their far-right revolution needed them when the time came. He hired the pizzagate guy:

Take a look, for instance, at a 2024 interview he did with Jack Posobiec, a far-right commentator known for spreading the #Pizzagate mythos and for his association with various out-and-out white supremacists, none of which stopped Kirk from employing him for years in his organization Turning Point USA and cohosting a podcast with him. It was “one of my favorite conversations I’ve ever had with him,” Kirk told listeners after interviewing Posobiec for his book Unhumans:The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them), which argues that right-wing dictators were right to torture, kill, and otherwise repress the Left, and that today’s conservatives might have to take a page out of their book.

And:

He called for the military to be sicced on migrants and for “lethal force” to be used on them, and advised his viewers to arm themselves to potentially kill these migrants themselves, because “they mean harm to the American homeland.”

I could go on and on but I won't, because I do not have the time. Charlie Kirk was a bad person. He willed evil on to others. And he got it in return. I wish he hadn't. I feel particular sympathy for his children, who asked for no role in any of this. One reason I care is a matter of basic humanity which, in my case at least, I try to extend across the spectrum. The other reason is what follows when the rules are bent and then broken selectively.

It is not a mere rhetorical flourish to ask why it is this killing has so captured the attention of the west when more than 200,000 Gazans have been killed, maimed or otherwise injured by Israel's retribution since the October 7 attacks orchestrated by Hamas killed 1195 citizens, members of the security forces and foreign nationals to what feels like perpetual permission from the rest of the world. A whole-ass genocide, according to renowned scholars of the subject and two Israeli human rights organisations. That Gaza figure is no longer even up for argument, rejected as it always was by Israel's spin machine. The former IDF army commander Herzi Halevi is gloating about it.

“This isn’t a gentle war. We took the gloves off from the first minute. Sadly not earlier,” Halevi said, suggesting the Israel should have taken a tougher line in Gaza before the 7 October attack. The former commander was talking on Tuesday night to residents of Ein HaBesor moshav (agricultural cooperative), who succeeded in repelling the Hamas attackers two years ago. A recording of his remarks was published by the Ynet news website. “No one is working gently,” Halevi said, but insisted the IDF operates within the constraints of international humanitarian law. That claim has been repeated throughout the war by Israeli officials, who have said that military lawyers are involved in operational decisions. However, Halevi denied that legal advice had ever affected his or his immediate subordinates’ military decisions in Gaza or across the Middle East. In a quote that was not on the recording but was cited by Ynet, Halevi appeared to suggest that the main importance of Israel’s military lawyers was to convince the outside world of the legality of the IDF’s actions. “There are legal advisers who say: We will know how to defend this legally in the world, and this is very important for the state of Israel,” he is quoted as saying.

What's the link, other than to ask why we care about one and not the other?

Well, for a start, both things are preventable. One could argue, even, that both things are preventable by the United States of America which could enact gun control and help protect all its citizens' lives like we did in Australia rather successfully. And it could lead international condemnation of Israel which continues to operate beyond the explicit boundaries of international law regarding war and occupation because it has interpreted, correctly, that few will try and stop it.

International law only works when it applies evenly. It hasn't for a long time but there has been no greater or swifter dismantling of its promise than what we have been able to directly witness at the foot of Israel's leadership.

What is darkly ironic about all of this is that Charlie Kirk was an extremist who totally supported Israel. He was also a frequent merchant of antisemitic remarks.

Guess who mourned Kirk's death, but not the tens upon tens of thousands in Gaza at his own command?

Netanyahu.

In death, Kirk's legacy of hatred and demonisation continues. He would have loved it. But make no mistake, any kind of political killing makes the world less safe for everyone.

Addenda Addenda

Two Facetimes in the last fortnight. First with my sister, nephew and niece (Nanny Mort aka Mum has been in the Northern Territory visiting for a month but was napping when I called because she was tired). Oh how I can't wait to meet my baby girl, Rory. Especially after I had dinner with my friend and his French friends who have a four-month-old daughter who was so googly woogly at dinner that it made me want to book a flight home then and there. Look at how much Hugh loves his sister.

And then I had a long overdue FaceTime with my best pal Bridie and her two sons, who I affectionately call my Fake Nephews. Hamish is so God-damned funny now and Cormac was so excited to see me he panted like a dog.

Then, during the call, Hamish announced with some fanfare that he was off to draw me a special picture and returned like he was Cézanne with this affair:

The look on my face says it all!

Much too much else has been going on but rest assured every day I spend in this city is a God damned blessing. The colder days are slowly setting in, and some rain, but all this has done is remake the city in a new image; I feel like David Hockney some days, wondering around absolutely ecstatic about the way the light is changing, how it is always changing, how the wet floor of this city makes a mirror of it.

What a gift. And then Julia Zemiro came to visit and my wonderful friend Meg Clement and I took her out for dinner and drinks. Could it get any better?