Chapter 27

Chapter 27

"Dong-myeong, hyung's here."

Opening the front door and stepping in, shouting, Dong-myeong who had been tidying materials sprawled on the floor ran up brightening, like a large dog wagging its tail.

"Oh, hyung! Good work."

In both my hands a bag with two big containers of Turkish meat kebab and cola hung heavy.

In Australia too, a staple matching fish and chips or meat pie was precisely kebab.

I set the kebab on the materials and asked Dong-myeong.

"But Dong-myeong. You not going to look for other work for a while? I'm thankful if you help when there's urgent work like today, but staying only home in the daytime is a waste too."

I brought up words I had been thinking from before.

Then Dong-myeong scratched the back of his head and grinned.

"Come on, right now, rather than earning a few more coins, learning the skill beside hyung and fixing the house seems much more worth. And in the daytime I'm studying English."

"Oh! You were? Still, how about finding even another part-time job. If you want, I'll look into an easy job?"

Dong-myeong, hesitating a moment, said careful.

"······But my English is still short."

"Kid. English originally grows if you bump and gesture hands and feet. I too, when I work, only a radio comes and goosebumps stick up on my back, and now it comes into the ear to some degree."

"Hm... then may I ask a favor?"

"Don't expect big, for now I'll ask around."

"Yes! Understood."

When I gave a short laugh, Dong-myeong took out a paper he had kept well to one side and pushed it.

"Hyung. This, Uncle Billy gave and left earlier."

"Oh, is this that?"

"Yes. And the uncle said to tell hyung, that······ bloody hell? Beautiful? And this is Jeong-su? Bloody master? Anyway he praised hyung crazy and laughed and left. It's English so I couldn't understand all, but roughly that nuance."

"Heh heh. Something seems tremendously omitted in the middle, but the important thing isn't that."

I opened the paper.

A legal plumbing-construction certificate that could be submitted to the state government, a CoC, Certificate of Compliance.

At the bottom of the paper Uncle Billy's formal license number and a large signature were stamped.

"Keu, sure. Good work, Dong-myeong."

"Hehe, what did I do. Ah! Hyung. And this."

What Dong-myeong passed additional was a card of a technician who lays electric line.

I had asked Uncle Billy separate, and it seems he did not forget and left it by Dong-myeong.

"Good!"

"What's that?"

"An electrical-wiring worker's card. The person to call when we finish laying our wire."

"Ah, right."

Solving the legal problems that had been awkward one by one clean, the fatigue seems to go clean.

I put the tool belt on my waist again and shouted spirited.

"Right, the documents came out and we crossed the biggest mountain, so let's run again. Let's work quick before the kebab cools."

"Yes, hyung!"

We began laying wire hard again.

When I pulled the cable through the holes and passed it, Dong-myeong took it on the other side and fixed it taut.

Hands and feet meshed smooth, and new blood vessels called wire found their place like a spiderweb between the frame.

After working a long while, we laid styrofoam rough on the floor and sat and began eating a late dinner.

"Keu, as expected kebab has to smell of lamb hard to be the real taste."

When I first ate lamb it seemed a sick smell, and adapting, this was tremendously tasty again.

I wiped the sauce on my mouth and bit the kebab large once more.

But Dong-myeong, who should have been inhaling kebab like mad, was somehow sitting with a stiff face, only fiddling the foil.

"What's wrong? Did you chew coriander in the kebab? I clearly said take it out."

Dong-myeong or me, we could not even put food with coriander to the mouth.

I don't know what the taste of people who eat that cosmetic-tasting grass saying it's good is.

"No, not that······."

Dong-myeong hesitated a moment, then opened his mouth.

"Actually, this afternoon coming out of the share house to leave for the site······ I ran into that Park Ji-hun bastard."

I go to work early at dawn and come home late in the evening, so I almost never ran into them.

But Dong-myeong, home in broad day, would have had to run into the guys often.

"So? What did that bastard say?"

"He said some strange sound to me. Talking sneering like usual, 'keep sticking beside that Han Jeong-su bastard and you'll get hit by lightning too,' he goes."

"And?"

"And there were no other words. Just about the level of look into a country-farm spot and go down?"

"Really bastards with nothing to do. When the wiring ends I have to report them all."

Anxiety was rippling in Dong-myeong's big pupils.

"It doesn't seem a simple threat, will it be all right?"

"That's what I say······."

Honestly if I weren't worried it would be empty words, but it wasn't worried to that point either.

Even if bastards like Park Ji-hun came a truckload, I had the confidence to face them.

But something else was more the worry.

"For now let's eat. Our life is too precious to worry about that kind of thing."

"Hyung, it's not a time to joke. Those bastards were bracing something hard."

I gave a short laugh and said.

"So? Shall we get a bodyguard? Or report to the police in advance?"

"······."

"In the end they're things we have to face. So we only have to keep our minds sharp. Got it?"

"Yes!"

In Australia there was no one to help us.

If they attack physically, no choice but to fight back.

"Hmph! Things not even worth······."

I snorted and chewed the kebab hard.

* * *

I acted tough and as if nothing in front of Dong-myeong, but inside it wasn't that I wasn't worried.

The next day, lunchtime.

The outdoor rest area, the noisy engine sound died down.

I approached and sat beside Foreman Gary, Peter, and veteran loader Mick, gathered to eat lunch, and set down the burger I had brought.

Foreman Gary, reading my face sunk unlike usual, held out a can of cola and asked.

"Why the face? Did you eat something wrong yesterday?"

"No, not that······ foreman. May I ask some advice about Australian law?"

At my serious voice Peter and Mick too stopped eating and looked at me.

I fiddled the cola can and honestly spilled the situation I had heard from Dong-myeong.

"Actually, in the share house I stay in now there's one Korean contractor bastard who illegally passes people to farms. And however I look, that guy's gang seems to be aiming me and my younger brother as a target. Honestly even if a fight sticks I have the confidence to suppress them so they can't gather bones. But this isn't Korea, it's Australia. If I stick a fight with them and get caught by the Australian police, I don't know how it's handled, so it's uneasy."

Hearing me, the three faces stiffened a moment.

Befitting Australian blue-collar workers who had gone through everything, they understood exact the weight of the question I asked.

The first to open his mouth was bearded Mick.

"Jeong-su, I don't know how well you fight, but in Australia a street brawl is absolutely best avoided. Australian police have zero tolerance for violence."

"Self-defense doesn't work either? Knocking down guys who rush first."

"I don't know about Korea, but here you can see it almost doesn't work."

This time Peter shook his head with a serious face.

"In Australian law self-defense recognizes only the minimum force to get out of the threat. If you drop them completely, from that moment it goes to mutual assault. Police come and regardless of who hit first, both go straight to the cells in cuffs."

"Right. And the most important thing, you're a working-holiday person."

Foreman Gary bit the meat pie and said firm.

"The moment you're booked for assault, that crime information goes straight to Australian Immigration. Separate from the police investigation, the Immigration minister can fail you on a character test by his own authority and cancel your temporary visa right away. It's not the end if you go to trial and pay a fine. Straight dragged to an immigration detention center and forcibly deported to Korea. You can't step Australian soil again for life."

A feeling of the head cooling cold.

The worst scenario I had feared was the most ordinary law-enforcement process in Australia.

"If I hire a lawyer, is there a defense?"

"Haha! A lawyer?"

Mick burst a hollow laugh as if absurd.

"Jeong-su, the moment you call even a duty lawyer at the police station, a bill flies at 300 to 500 dollars an hour. Go to a formal trial and use a court lawyer, and the retainer alone breaks thousands, tens of thousands of dollars. Not money those thugs or you can bear. And for the months waiting for trial your visa converts to a bridging visa, and there a no-work condition sticks nine times out of ten. You can't legally earn 1 dollar. You starve to death before you even go to the courtroom."

In a word, don't cause a problem, and if you have no money go out quiet.

As my eyes, listening, gradually sank cold, Foreman Gary pressed my shoulder heavy and said quiet.

"So my advice is, absolutely don't get blood on your own hands direct. Don't get tangled. However you fight them in self-defense, police come out and you too go in cuffs and deportation the same. That's not winning."

At Foreman Gary's firm words I narrowed my brow.

"Then not knowing when and where they'll rush, do I have to only get hit quiet like a sandbag?"

"When did I say only take it?"

Foreman Gary tossed the finished cola can into the bin and took out his phone from his pocket.

"It means instead of a fist, I'll put a more sure and ruthless legal club in your hand. You're still living in the city?"

"Yes."

"As it happens a long rugby-club friend of mine is a senior sergeant at the city-jurisdiction police station."

Foreman Gary pressed the number hard and grinned toward me.

Not simply tossing advice or a number, but about to connect his connection to me direct.

"A thug contractor crowd that doesn't work in Australia and flocks around sucking the blood of weak kids? Australian police, if it's a simple street fight, roughly lock both sides and clear it, but a special crime of a bad crowd with visa or tax obviously tangled flocking and trying to assault a decent person, they go crazy for. Very sweet for padding their own results."

The ring tone rang a few times, and soon a hearty voice was heard beyond the receiver.

"Hey, David! It's Gary. Doing well? Not something else, there's one really decent Korean guy working under me, and that friend is staying on the city side now. But a bad-quality thug crowd is bracing to attack holding a grudge."

Gary glanced at me and went on.

"Yeah, right. A situation of not knowing when and where they'll pop out. Whatever the place, if this friend hits help on your direct number, I called so you'd come out quick and help a bit. Yeah, a working-holiday person. A friend I guarantee sure, so please. Yeah, let's have a beer at the pub on the weekend."

Finishing the call, Foreman Gary wrote the number on the phone screen in a notebook, tore it, and held it out to me.

"Right, situation over. Senior Sergeant David's direct number at the city-jurisdiction station. I already briefed your situation all."

When I opened my eyes wide, Peter and Mick beside nodded laughing too.

"If those guys attack you in an alley or on the street, absolutely don't only get hit, dodge this way and that and contact this number no question. Don't mix fists if you can. Name the foreman and within five minutes police cars will come running with sirens. You become a legal decent victim attacked one-sided, and those bastards get dragged as special-assault flagrante to the cells and the immigration detention center and out of Australian soil forever."

The connection Foreman Gary punched himself, and one direct number put in the hand.

This was a gift more perfect and powerful than any self-defense weapon.

Like this, no need to bear the risk of getting deported from Australia getting blood on my hands.

Those guys would not even imagine I had a backing that could call the police on five-minute standby for real.

The look of trying to step one working-holiday scrap and becoming a target of the local Australian police.

"Australian police... really scary. Thank you, foreman. Thanks to you a very sturdy backing came. Later I'll repay this debt proper."

"What debt. Work hard like now. Zone B's breath opened and we all got easier too. This much we should help."

When I stood and bowed my waist Korean-style, greeting polite, the three laughed good-natured and patted my back.

Weeeing—

A sharp siren announcing the start of afternoon work rang long across the logistics yard.

I set down the worrying mind, and worked hard as the foreman said.

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