Emerald City – by Henry Chase Richards
ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY
I never thought I’d move back here. In my mind, the people were too stuck up and the public transport too bad and I had too many other more important places to be. Then I realised the problem was me. I hadn’t really been anywhere besides the Northern Beaches and I was conflating a whole city with my limited experience. So I moved back and to the Inner West, like all Northern Beaches expats do. I soon learned that I wasn’t completely wrong, but there were far worse things about this city than inaccessibility and snobs. At least the proximity to the ocean kinda takes the edge off. Years later, the pandemic hit and the nearby ocean suddenly counted for a lot. This was the greatest place in the world again, like it was when I was eight and it was ‘Sydney 2000’. In the early 2020s, the city was reduced to beaches and the bush and quality Uber Eats, and Sydney really sang. Plus the government saw fit to finally pay a liveable wage for us dole bludgers, as I was at the time, being a student and also coping with the reality of a global crisis that never seems to go away but was definitely at a flash point back then, coz we could barely leave our houses anymore. So life was the worst it’s been but Sydney was the best, especially in comparison to Melbourne, the most locked-down city in the world with only a single pretty shit beach and a ton of places that are objectively cool but useless if the government won’t let you sit near other people for fear of a deadly virus. That was a real win for us Sydneysiders. It could never last tho. They let us out eventually and they took our benefits away and now no one has any time to go to the beach or any money for Uber Eats and suddenly we’re back in Melbourne’s shadow. You could stop complaining and try taking public transport to Bondi, but it’ll take you two hours. Some of my friends ride their bikes out east but most of them have been hit by cars before and all of them seem to be nearly permanently sweaty from all the hills and the sheer heat that only seems to go away when it rains for two-week stretches or for about a month come winter, when it’s colder inside my house than outside coz for some reason insulation and closing the share house front door properly are foreign concepts here. Apparently north of the bridge was once all farmland. Then they Merivaled it. Eastern suburbs was diverse with working-class folk and Jews and Greeks and Chinese. But they Merivaled it. Petersham used to be considered part of Western Sydney. They Merivaled that, too. You’d better believe that Justin Hemmes’ slimy tentacles are creeping out past Parramatta, further and further by the day. Pretty soon it’ll all be Merivale from the Royal National Park to the Kuringai, the Heads to the Mountains. At least you’ll be able to get a decent burger and a pint of Stone&Wood wherever you go, for about as much as Centrelink pays a fortnight. They’re opening the nightclubs back up. People have stopped punching each other in the face so much, so NSW Government said it’s ok again. Trains don’t run after midnight though, so you either have to sit through your nausea on a bus or pay through the nose on a cab home. I basically just walk everywhere. It takes me an hour plus to get anywhere these days. I’ve got great legs, and when you compare photos of me to my father at my age, it’s like comparing Han Solo with Jabba. That’s probably unfair, but I’m using hyperbole. Coz the context fits; Sydney is a hyperbolic city. The skyline is immense, the nature breathtaking, the cuisine mouthwatering, the cockroaches infinite. One thing you have to give to this city is it doesn’t do half measures. They say everything’s bigger in Texas, but everything here is pretty large too, if you’re willing to pay for it, that is. I feel like the whole of Australia is throwing around terms like ‘cost of living crisis’ (or ‘cozzie livs’ if you’re particularly inane). But Sydney has been on that tip for decades. You do a shit and you’ve gotta pay tax on it, get it registered or risk a fine. We’re so used to paying $8 for a cup of coffee that we won’t buy one for anything less coz something must be wrong with it. And you’re goddamn right that money isn’t going into savings; I’m too used to my creature comforts to start drinking instant and the barista around the corner has a cute smile. Everyone does around here. Everyone is good-looking and well-dressed and wants nothing to do with me. No one wants to talk unless I brownnose my way into their clique or match with them on Hinge, and even then I’ll probably only get a few messages at best. The city is so atomised. Who even goes to Chester Hill or Cromer or Zetland or Caringbah? People live there, I’ve heard, and there’s a sandwich shop that slaps. Once I visited to go to the camping store. I had to escape, you see. But then I got to the bush and I was as lonely as I was back in Syd and I realised that all I really needed was some human connection. I see the same faces at all the Marrickville warehouse parties or walking down King Street and people avoid eye contact or get their phones out so we don’t have to say hi. Maybe they just can’t remember my name. I get that. I don’t remember theirs either and all I want is a pork roll. I hope there isn’t a line. You have to wait in line for everything in these parts. The other day Chemist Warehouse had a sale on psyllium husk and I had to queue up just to be told there was none left. It was even worse when the landlord raised our rent and we had to move out. We were going to viewings for shoeboxes with no natural light in Randwick and the line to see the place went around the block in torrential rain. Before we’d even gotten through the door, we knew it was a hole we could never live in, but you’d still see someone a few spots up licking the realos ass clean on the way out. I wonder how much extra they offered to pay per cycle? Somehow we ended up landing this gorgeous Art Deco Dulwich Hill apartment right by the station for a reasonable price (by comparison to the rest of the market). We wondered how we got so lucky, until we found out the place was already occupied by a colony of cockroaches, the trainline is closing for maintenance for a year, and they’re developing the corner, meaning there’s construction running all night most days and weekly power cuts. That’s ok. At least all that development will mean there’ll be a decent bar around here soon. A Merivale venue, I hear. ▼
Image: Johnny Bhalla - Unsplash
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