HIRTY
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Fuck.
T
HIRTY
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WO
Whatever marker pen the guy used was already running out, so the banner reading CUTS HURT in big red letters was faded. You had to really focus on it for a few seconds to make out the words – probably not what the guy underneath holding it wanted.
He looked beat up without being beat up. Pale with dark patches under his eyes. Like a panda.
But even though he looked like shit, you could tell he was mad – little globules of spit coming out of his mouth, frozen in time.
Here’s Tom, sweat leaping off his forehead like lemmings, splashing onto the photo of the angry panda teacher he’s eyeballing from a distance of two inches.
Can somebody, he says, straightening up, get the bloody air conditioning fixed? It’s hotter than my arsehole after a chicken vindaloo.
Around us, the paper’s staffers carry on. Keyboards tap, telephones trill, shouts shoot across the office from opposite sides.
Everyone hustling.
Fucking air conditioning, says Tom. You’d think one of the nation’s biggest broadsheets could at least keep its staff from melting.
For real, it wasn’t actually that hot.
Sean, says Tom. This teacher here, he’s out of focus.
I knew he was right, but hoped it wasn’t so bad that he’d notice.
He points to the other pictures spread out on the table. He says, This one’s out of focus, this one’s out of focus, they’re all out of focus. How can we show this strike if all the bloody pictures are bloody blurry?
There’s no point in having sharp images when you have fuzzy ideas, I say.
You’re not Jean-Luc Godard, says Tom. And this is journalism, not art.
Me, I’m looking around the office. I catch Michael’s eye as he looks up from his computer. His eyes widen and his mouth spreads to the bottom corners of his face.
Michael is the only other East Asian in the office, and I spend my days resenting him, resenting his presence.
Because the two of us working here among these white people means we get lumped together. But Michael is a try-hard plonker, it’s embarrassing, and for true, I don’t want to be lumped in with him.
I am nothing like him.
I’m not gonna lie though, the sympathy kind of makes me feel better. He is a dick, but even dick sympathy can make you feel grateful when you’ve fallen into a deep pile of shit with no way to climb out.
They’re not that soft, I say, picking up a fuzzy picture of a police officer pinning a woman down to the ground. In her hand is a placard saying… Nope, I can’t make it out.
Wait. FAIR PENSIONS FOR ALL. That’s what it says.
What a fucking disaster, says Tom, leaning on the table, looking at me sideways.
The veins in his temple pulse a Morse code at me.
He says, We can’t use any of these.
He sighs, and puts the end of his pen in his mouth and chews.
At this point, I have no idea what to do. So I just stand there, watching him.
Jane!
The volume of his bark makes me jump clean out of my skin.
See what Reuters have got on this public sector strike. We need pictures to go with Michael’s copy, ASAP.
Jane looks hassled as hell, but nods and gets busy on her computer.
Jesus Christ, says Tom. This is the third assignment in a row where you’ve come back with substandard pictures.
No playing, I was drowning. My first big gig as a photojournalist and I’d fumbled my way through assignment after assignment.
