Yellowhead Diaries.
December 6th – Day One
I was still downstairs when Tim came along the hall and looked at me from the top of the stairs. "Come and stand in the front room, to remind yourself why we're moving," he said.
Yellowhead.
He was playing, exceedingly loudly (the floorboards were buzzing) some kind of aggro rap/metal track with lyrics (they could be fully heard, owing to the volume) that were along the lines of "I fucken hate my home and I fucken hate my job and I fucken hate my country". This was the soundtrack to our lugging heavy boxes down the stairs. It was making me feel very agitated, and I banged on the floor with my boxed New Testament, the one in the individual chapters with the introductions by notable authors. The volume did not diminish. A few minutes later, I was crouched in the back of the station wagon, parked outside the gate, sliding around some boxes labeled "bedroom trinkets", when I heard the most gut wrenching scream I have ever heard. A male scream, that made me think "throat ripper". It was coming from Yellowhead. He was stationed either in his bathroom or under our stairs.
"Eeerrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh!"
"I'll fucken kill ya!"
"Bring it on - I can take it!"
"I'll fucken kill ya!"
"I'll fuck your mother, your father, your whole generation!"
"Bring it! Bring it!"
"I'll fucken take ya!"
I was terrified. Was he referring to my Bible bashing on the floorboards? Was he just singing along? If so I have never heard anyone sing along so psychotically. Any moment I expected him to burst from the back door, frothing at the mouth and wielding some kind of weapon, like a torn-off bedpost. His outburst was lengthy. After I while I resumed ferrying boxes down the stairs and into the car, even though I was scared. There was something I liked about being able to carry on with my tasks with all that going on. He is such an unpleasant character (although perplexingly, very polite in person).

The afternoon was quiet, with only some hacking coughs to remind us that Yellowhead was in residence downstairs. I deduced that perhaps he had lost his voice from the screaming.
The only other reminder of Yellowhead was the now regular occurrence of sexual grunting and groaning at bedtime (11:30 – 12). Having to listen to their grunts and moans has resulted in my own sexual desires being greatly reduced. It has only been recently that I have heard them engaging in intercourse – are they trying to make a little Yellowhead? As Tim said when I broached this idea “That is a terrible thought.” One night, on which the sounds were heard both at bedtime and at four am, we were shocked at the frequency of their mating. “They are like animals,” I said.

Day Two

All is quiet. “Yellowhead must be out,” I said absentmindedly, as I began writing messages on my Christmas cards.
I spoke too soon. Half an hour later a faraway clap is heard, which gradually increases in sound until it reaches typical Yellowhead volume. Yellowhead enjoys clapping more than anyone I have observed. He uses both a traditional clap, and a clap in which one hand is made into a fist, then slapped against the palm of the other hand. I have deduced this from the differences in pitch in his clappings. Soon, Yellowhead began rapping/yelling/droning. Sometimes it is hard to tell what his intention is when he speaks. I have taken to calling it “vocalising”, as it reminds me of a child yelling and wailing, simply because they gain pleasure from their own voice. I can make noise. Yellowhead would have been the type of child who would constantly be banging saucepan lids together.
Yellowhead vocalises constantly for about the next two hours, or at least the length of the two CDs that I put on to drown him out. His vocalising makes me tense, it is hard to concentrate with it going on, and I have found I am much clumsier and absentminded when Yellowhead can be heard in the background. Occasionally he would rise up above the CD we were listening to and I would whisper vehemently “Shut up.”
I was feeling great hatred towards Yellowhead after his outburst yesterday; he made me scared in my own home. Hearing Yellowhead cough today I announced, “I hope Yellowhead has lung cancer.” Last night, after the grunting was over, I could smell cigarette smoke seeping up through the floor. Yellowhead’s post coital cigarette – this is not something I wish to think about.
Later I announce, “If someone shot Yellowhead I wouldn’t care.” At that moment Yellowhead was situated right under my feet, rapping. This was too much for Tim “I don’t wish that,’ he said. I had been thinking how nice it would be for his rapping to cease, mid stream. OK, perhaps not shot, maybe knocked down by something launched from a catapult?
We were nervous that Yellowhead’s planned barbecue was going to take place. A few weekends earlier, I listened to an exchange between Yellowhead, who was sweeping the garden, and his little girl, who was hovering in their back doorway. He was telling her of his plan for a barbecue on the weekend. “We’ll invite all our friends…” he was saying.
“We won’t invite any bad people,” she said.
“No, no bad people,” he agreed.
“Like your naughty brother.”
“I don’t have a naughty brother, just good brothers,” he said.
“What about the one who (unfortunately, I could not hear what he had done – I was craning forwards with my ears tuned to high sensitivity, but I still missed it)”
“Nah, I’ve only got good brothers.”
Later, Yellowhead elaborates on his plan for the garden; growing fruits and vegetables.
“What about the flowers?” the girl asks.
“We don’t need any of that shit, just fruits and vegetables.” I tried to picture Yellowhead as a farmer, but I couldn’t. At the moment his contribution to the garden is a giant pile of recyclables that he has not put out for almost a month. He does not recycle properly, in the pile are ice cream containers still with ice cream clinging to the inside, for example. The rubbish pile is a mixture of these unclean containers, disintegrating cardboard boxes and plastic bags. Sometimes I think of what I would say to him if we happened to be in the garden at the same time, something about how this is the equivalent of my front door out here, how would he like it if I started a giant trash pile outside his front door?

Later, when I return home from the supermarket, I see that Yellowhead is vacuuming the back seat of their car, which is parked on the pavement outside their front door. I fear a confrontation, but he is too engaged in his task (or, performs his side of our mutual agreement – ignore each other where possible). I position myself directly above Yellowhead, in order to overhear his conversations, both with himself and his partner (Stoneface).
‘That’s beautiful – a fucking clean car.”
“I’m gonna go for a drive, clean the windows, then go to Maccas!”
What follows is a fairly boring conversation between Yellowhead and Stoneface regarding car washing. I hear the sound of a bucket of water being tipped onto the pavement.
“Why am I doing the fucken council’s job? Why I am doing the fucken councils job? Motherfuckers. Why am I doing the fucken council’s job?”
“Then don’t do it,” says Stoneface.
“Why am I doing the fucken council’s job?”
The council’s job, I assume, is cleaning the footpath. It could be argued that in fact cleaning the footpath is Yellowhead’s job. Many times he can be heard hoiking up phlegm from the recesses of his lungs, opening the front door and spitting it onto the pavement outside. There is a particular patch of dry grass that I believe he may be aiming for – I imagine strange plants will start to grow from it, weird mutated weeds, drooling tar. The path outside is covered in Yellowhead’s sputum, I pity anyone who unknowingly walks through it.
Things get more interesting when our other neighbour, the man who lives down the alleyway, draws up in his vintage car. Yellowhead lets out one of his piercing Michael Jackson “woop!”s, and begins praising the car. They fall into conversation, Yellowhead bragging about his car cleaning prowess, and what a good car the Daihatsu Starlet is. The Daihatsu Starlet looks like the type of car that would be won in That’s Life magazine. It spent months in the alleyway, unregistered and with a grossly mashed left hand side, although it has now been fixed. Yellowhead starts bragging about the car he is going to buy.
“I’m getting an RX5, a Godzilla. They’re about 85.”
Yellowhead is planning to buy and eighty five thousand dollar car. This is both humorous and sad. Yellowhead lives in community housing, and works sporadically as a labourer.
The conversation turns to the proposed development on the site adjacent to the house. The Gentleman next door is well informed on this issue, as his house would be most affected by this development. He told Yellowhead how he bought his house from a friend a few years earlier, before his friend died of cancer (I remember the man who used to live there, he was always working on his vintage cars and would wink at me. He smoked a pipe and it was often poking askew out one side of his mouth. I felt sad that he had died.)
“We’re saving up,” Yellowhead announces. He then begins to talk about replacing the walls inside the house, and its general condition. I realise Yellowhead wants to buy the house! He gets very upset about the development, that they’re encroaching on his turf. He has great pride for the house, despite its grand flaws. The downstairs part of the house was empty for more than six months before they moved into it, such was its state of decrepitude.
Stoneface steps in.
“We won’t be here then.”
Yellowhead will not be dissuaded from his fantasy that he will buy the house and either renovate, or demolish and build something new.
“You don’t want to buy this,” The Gent says, and they turn their attention to the half rotted balcony, part of which collapsed earlier in the year.
“It’s dangerous,” Stoneface droned.
Yellowhead’s fantasy world is an ambitious place. In his mind, he is a sleek rapper, the Ruthless Turk (I souvenired an envelope on which Yellowhead was practising his tag, from the recycling), who drives a flash car, grows his own fruit and vegetables in the yard of his either renovated or totally new home.

Other quick facts gathered from the eavesdropping session
– he has an annoying habit of constantly calling Stoneface “babe”.

I think I have stepped over the line with Yellowhead. As Tim and I were sitting down to dinner (a very nice risotto), we heard the unmistakable moanings and gruntings of their mating from the room below us.
“They’re doing it in the kitchen!” I whispered, feeling less enthusiastic about my risotto. Behind the groaning was the sound of either their washing machine or dryer, humming in the background. A new idea occurred: “They’re doing it on top of the washing machine.” According to certain magazines, this spices up ones love life, and adds to the sensation (something about the vibrations during the spin cycle).
As Stoneface reached a climax in her moaning (it had become more like lusty yelling at this point) I added a couple of my own screams of pleasure.
Tim put down his fork.
“What did you do that for?”
“What?” I asked, as if I didn’t know.
“You just screamed really loudly.”
“I was mocking them.”
“Do you have to make it worse?”
I now regretted my outburst. Underneath us, Yellowhead was replying to my yells in his favourite manner, loud screams and yells. I had debased myself, put myself on his level. Still, I felt a lingering sense of pride about my actions. Later we agreed, it had been funny, sort of.

Day Three
The child is back. I guessed she had been staying with her father for the weekend, thus the constant mating and liberal use of profanity (although Yellowhead barely tones down his language when she’s around).
Early in the morning Yellowhead is encouraging her to do some kind of trick involving their walls and jumping.
“C’mon, you can do it, one…two…three…”
At first, I didn’t dislike him so much when he was playing with the kid. I like to think of myself as a generous person, able to appreciate the joy of a child’s laugh, however I must admit to less than generous thoughts regarding the morning’s performance. Yellowhead was yelling so loudly I could clearly hear everything he was saying; never an enviable situation in ones bedroom. I look forward to the day on which the girl turns against Yellowhead, because her intelligence has surpassed his (there probably isn’t long to go before this happens. She’s about four years old, my estimate is six more years, at the most).

He is really hyped up today. “He knows we’re going,” Tim said. “So he’s gone a bit crazy. He’s like a gorilla, he thinks he’s scared us off his territory and he feels cocky.”
I don’t like the idea that he thinks he’s scared us off. As well as being untrue, it makes me feel like a pawn of Yellowhead, as he strives towards his plan for domination of the building.

The familiar sound of their front door, a sound like the twanging of a giant rubber band, drained the house of noise. They were loading into the car, I saw them swing out into the road, driving fast. One time, whilst walking down our street I witnessed a confrontation between the Daihatsu Starlet and another vehicle. Yellowhead jammed on the horn, yelled and gesticulated at the other car, which had been about to turn into the street when the Yellowhead-mobile appeared like an evil black bullet. Secretly, I think of their car as a nugget of black dung from a medium sized rodent.

No other substantial Yellowhead news from the rest of the day, I spent my first night in my new house. The neighbour there was on the phone, talking loudly about football. I could see right into his house; he was thirty centimetres away from a large television, although he wasn’t watching it. The bookcase held trophies and encyclopaedias.
“I think he’s a bit of a Yellowhead,” I said. Tim looked grave and upset.
“Don’t say that,” he said. I immediately regretted it; it is not something to joke about.

Day Four
It is easy to tell when Yellowhead is not home. This morning I heard no stirrings, other than his sunrise awakening (banging, coughing etc.), at which point I reached for earplugs. Sleeping with earplugs was a revelation, I found I dreamed better, and was able to sleep in, unable to hear the vigorous morning stirrings of Yellowhead and co. I have always disliked having my waking time dictated to me by the habits of others.
I find I cannot guess what kind of things Yellowhead, Stoneface and the Baby Elephant must do together when they’re out. The only places I can imagine them are fast food restaurants, surrounded by empty burger wrappers.
I was pleased that they weren’t around whilst we were moving our stuff out; I wouldn’t want to see the deluded smile on Yellowhead’s face when he realised that the house was his. Our other notable neighbour, Drunk Man, amongst his ranting, advice, commentary and offers of assistance, had this to say about Yellowhead:
“I’m really sick of that guy… he’s crazy, stay away from him. Always smoking bongs; don’t have anything to do with him.”

I haven’t been able to work out if Yellowhead is a drug-taker. If he is, his behaviour is more that of the amphetamine or crack user. The first night they moved in, they knocked on the door, to ask where the meter box was, as their electricity wasn’t working. Both Yellowhead and Stoneface had a puffy, slit-eyed stoned look. Since that time I have engaged my extra keen sense of smell, but haven’t detected anything but cigarette smoke coming through from their apartment.
That night, Stoneface was languidly complaining that they’d just bought a freezer full of food, and now the power was off it was all going bad. I imagined bags of sausages and chops slowly defrosting. Every day at around five or six pm, the smell of cooking meat rises up, and I test my memory to identify it. They seem to eat chops often. Whenever I am cooking something that smells really good, something garlicy, or bread or cake, I hope they can smell it and wish their kitchen smelt as good. I feel proud of myself for cooking better than them; such are the strange competitions that rise up between people living at close quarters.
Part of my obsession with Yellowhead and his transgressions comes with the fact that I have been spending a lot of time at home. I didn’t notice him as much when I had classes to go to, and was more occupied in the daylight hours. In fact for a while I thought they were really good neighbours; far better than the German economics students that preceded them. Slowly, they showed their true natures. When I encountered Stoneface in the garden one time, she turned the most vacant, pebble eyed stare onto me, and replied to my ‘hello’ in a very lacklustre fashion. She was putting some trash in the bin, and after she said hello to me, began to whistle. I knew that she didn’t just have the sudden urge to whistle. She was doing it as if to prove how comfortable she felt going about taking out the trash, when really she felt self conscious because I was there. I know this behaviour. Whenever I feel the urge to fill up an uncomfortable space with a whistle, I stop myself.

Day Five
Another very quiet day. I cannot think of any good reason why Yellowhead would be psychotic one day and quiet the next, other than perhaps he is more subdued on the days he works. I have noticed that he is most agitated on the weekends, that is when the floor shaking music and the rapping takes over.
Yellowhead’s presence only existed as a spectre over my own use of communal areas, such as the washing line. I fear the line being taken over by their clothes when I want to hang things out, and I get very protective over the washing for this reason. It is stupid, really. I think I was much more creative when I wasn’t worrying about laundry. I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning, and had an argument with Tim about my reticence to leave before I put out the washing. He thought I was doubting his ability to put out the washing; really I was worried that, behind our backs, Yellowhead’s “Beer Sex Football” boxer shorts would be hung out on the line, next to Stoneface’s G-Strings. Usually they only hang out Yellowhead's gangsta gear and bedsheets, but the day on which the underwear came out was one I will never forget. A g-string hung on a washing line is a stupid looking thing – the peg has more surface area. The g-strings were a sign that underneath her jeans and t-shirts, Stoneface thinks of herself as a foxy bitch.
Again, as Tim was loading the ute with our belongings, Drunk Man warned him about Yellowhead’s craziness and bong smoking. I had thought they were friends; on the weekends Yellowhead is often heard to be calling “Johnno! Johnno!” outside Drunk Man’s shanty, giving him spare ham and other leftovers from their kitchen. One Saturday, Yellowhead had been riding his bike in circles in the street outside the house, singing. I couldn’t work out what he was singing, but I decided it was a lament for his lost toilet brush. Their toilet brush had been on the back steps for almost a week, before it bugged me so much that I threw it out. The back steps is our only access point in and out of our place, so it was like someone putting their toilet brush on your front doorstep. I had given it a few kicks, but when they showed no signs of removing it, I put a plastic bag over my hand and dumped it in the trash. Later, I witnessed him talking to Drunk Man, and as Drunk Man is very interested in cars and bikes, I thought they were comparing notes in a friendly manner. No, it seems that Yellowhead was actually bugging the hell out of Drunk Man, who probably just wanted to settle down to the important task of rearranging his plastic wrapped discarded furniture. Before I knew they were friends I would joke that they would be the worst people to sing you a lullaby. A duet, standing on the side of the bed. Drunk Man slurring and Yellowhead doing a special bedtime rap “I’m gonna fucken kill all of ya, unless ya go to sleep.”
Late that night I couldn’t sleep, and decided to try and remove some of the blu tack from the walls of the living room. It felt strange to be doing this at 1:30am, but pleasurable. I had stood in the balcony doorway and surveyed the night street for one of the last times ever, enjoying the stillness of it, the full moon shining overhead, the familiar shapes of the surrounding buildings. My reverie was interrupted by Yellowhead’s thick hacking from the room below. He sleeps in their living room, which at first led me to believe that they were not a couple, until the mating sounds started (on this note, no sounds of mating since my outburst! I am ruining their sex life with my mocking!) Now I can only guess that he is an unpleasant bedpartner, and is banished to another room to splutter through the night. He is a walking anti smoking campaign. He is only about my age, possibly younger, but he has the cough of a sixty year old, pack a day all his life man.

Day Six
I could hear the sounds of a morning argument. I had been lolling around in bed, enjoying the thought of a day ahead in which I didn’t have to move any more boxes of books or armfuls of clothing (both of which I own in great supply). When the argument started, I inverted a water glass against the floor and tried to listen; unfortunately, their argument wasn’t vicious enough to be discernible.
One morning I was awoken by an argument, or more specifically Yellowhead bellowing “Don’t touch my fucken cupboard! I told you!” Then the sounds of slamming and banging, so hard that the mirror on my dressing table wobbled. This led to great speculation on what was in Yellowhead’s cupboard; drugs we guessed, or firearms. Neither of these propositions seemed too far fetched, or too comforting for us, desperately trying to get back to sleep. I had never heard anyone so angry before seven in the morning. It made me think of Vic’s descriptions of police emergency phone calls on Christmas day. The last Christmas he worked, the first call he got was a family dispute where someone got stabbed, at seven in the morning. I am pleased to think I won’t be around Yellowhead at Christmastime. All the excitement would make him into more of a monster, and the thought of his own special rap-carols, repeated over and over, is not an idea I am enthusiastic about.
After the argument, they were very quiet, the only other sign of them, before I left for my mother’s house (thus precluding any further Yellowhead observation for the day) was their car drawing up, blaring commercial radio, outside the house. I felt pleased that I had avoided a confrontation, they had just missed me putting out the bin. I had put it as far away from their giant, messy recycling pile as possible. I am a rubbish snob! I felt pleasure thinking of how their recycling would be rejected, have one of those orange sashes spread across it telling them it was not suitable for collection. This pettiness is pathetic, but unstoppable. Relations with neighbours are often based on comparison. With lives going on so close by, it is impossible not to rate things such as the amount of rubbish they produce, what they hang on the line, and their coming and going habits.

Day Seven
Yellowhead’s bathroom is adjacent to the back steps which are our only access point into our place. Thus, whenever I am in the garden, or on the stairs, I am able to hear what is going on in the bathroom perfectly. One might think that there is very little to overhear in a bathroom, beyond the obvious. Not so. In fact after hearing so much of Yellowhead’s bathroom rages I wondered whether my bathroom time would yield so much entertainment. Sometimes Tim and I have conversations in ther if we are having a bath or something, and occasionally there are moments of drunken desperation in there, but on the whole, our bathroom time is quiet.
We had hired a truck, and with the help of Helen and Clinton, were loading it with furniture. I was pleased at my arrangement inside the truck, I had secured everything with the ropes I borrowed from Drunk Man, and the back was full. Pausing on the stairs, I heard the anguished cry of the child, amplified by the acoustics of the bathroom. Stoneface was complaining about having to clean something up, “How would you like to do this?” she asked.
Yellowhead was more firm in his approach.
“Just sit there, and do your shit, ok?”
I shuddered, he was speaking literally.
A few moments later Stoneface appeared and grasped the mop which was propped up against the back steps. I could only assume that the Baby Elephant was having toilet training problems. It is believed by many that toilet training is an integral step in formation of the adult psyche; one can only guess at the ramifications of Yellowhead’s brutal approach.
Earlier in the day, before we hired the truck, we had lined up our furniture along the alleyway. In the daylight, our furniture looked shabby and piecemeal, but I liked seeing it all out on the street. Watching from the balcony to make sure no one made off with my fridge I noticed Yellowhead, Stoneface and the Baby Elephant peering around the corner and pointing. Ready to defend my belongings, I was poised to go down, but they merely stared for a while and went back inside.
Later, Yellowhead could be seen in the carpark. He was wearing naught but a small pair of shorts, I could see the tattoos (people’s names, although I have never been close enough to read them) on his arms and back. He was chatting up two guys who were spray painting the front section of a car. He was swaggering, using his hands to emphasise his main points. He was making a nuisance of himself. The talk ratio was about 20:1, in Yellowhead’s favour. I began to hum a little song I had made up about Yellowhead “My name is Yellowhead, I am an idiot.”

Day Eight
Returning to our old place to do some final, fixing up things, I was worried that there would be many signs that Yellowhead had taken over. This would make me sad; I liked to think I was in charge, by virtue of having lived for such a long time there. Thankfully, they had not encroached into the communal areas too obviously yet.
Ascending the stairs I could see steam curling from their bathroom window, and smell the sickening mixture of steam and Lynx. Later that morning I watched Yellowhead leave the house, dressed a notch smarter than he usually does (although still in casual wear), grasping a zip up file in which, no doubt, were important papers (perhaps pertaining to his purchase of a sports car?)
I noticed that bedclothes had been hung on the line – an eiderdown marked with cigarette scorches. The spidery blue floral print was interrupted with brown edged gouges. Yellowhead would be the type to smoke in bed. I pictured their fate as death in a house fire; I expect to be passing on the bus one day and see the street cordoned off and fire engines desperately trying to control the blaze. On the news report, the verdict would be cast; smoking in bed. Indulging in these fantasies I have a small, moralistic sense of guilt, that I shouldn’t fantasise about the death of others. Did Yellowhead have any inkling how many times I have pictured his demise?
Hung over the back railing – a plastic sheet, confirming my suspicious of the child as a neurotic bed wetter. I sympathised, imagining bed wetting to be the only recourse for the Baby Elephant to protest her situation.
Interaction since the sex-mocking incident has been nonexistent. For a while Yellowhead and I had been saying hello to one another, if we so happened to pass, but this has deteriorated. Now we both orchestrate it so that if we are in close proximity we are occupied or our backs are turned. This is far better than having to greet him, although it is uncomfortable.

The End
In time, I will remember Yellowhead most as the man who could not stay silent. Any substantial noise sparks him off. On our last morning, the familiar sound of the Tuck Truck’s 10:30 La Cucuracha car horn sounded as usual. The Tuck Truck delivers pies and snacks to the surrounding businesses from the back of a van, and the annoying sound of its horn provided part of the structure of my weekday mornings.
It provoked Yellowhead into a series of wild “cooo-eee”s, accompanied by hand clapping and popping, and then vigorous, fuck-laden rapping. A children’s book about Yellowhead would be entitled “The Man Who Made Noise Because He Could”. It reminds me of the opening lines of The Ballad of Yellowhead, which I began to write, then abandoned because he started to bug me too much for me to make light of the situation.

He wakes every morning
At the hint of first light
He must make up for the silence
Of a long sleeping night.