Stereotypes lie.

Anyone who has ridden the Lilydale line out to the end on a number of occaisions will at some time have feared for their safety. The gauntlet from Ringwood to Lilydale of kids with their caps pulled down and their hoods pulled up drinking wine out of styrofoam cups and looking for a fight. I have narrowly escaped violence with homeless single mothers (Mooroolbark) and psychotic homeless men (Croydon), I have been solicited by runaways (Mooroolbark), spattered with the blood of drunken bogans beating the crap out of one another (Ringwood) and stepped over comatose junkies (Lilydale)... I have many stories and some of them will probably be posted in the future.


The story I would like to tell happened about two weeks ago at Lilydale station. It was four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon and I was waiting for the train into the city eating sushi which I had picked up from the noodle shop on main street. There was violence in the air, as usual, a group of teenagers in Dada and Fubu milled around a cask eyeing a bored security guard with menace. I slunk down, pulled my hood up over my face and turned my discman up.


I was in a world of my own smearing wasabi on my handrolls and listening to the paranoid ravings of the Residents when I felt a hand on my shoulder... oh shit!
"Hey buddy?" I looked up: dirty Ruff Ryders windbreaker, baggy linen pants stained with grease and a well worn cap pushed down over a greasey head of hair. I felt very sick all of a sudden!


The guy smiled and pointed at my sushi,
"Doing some cooking huh?"
"Er, yeah I guess. Sushi." He looked very surprised and I replayed what I had just said in my head, SUSHI, fuck why didn't I just say "It's okay, roll me I don't mind coz I'm a complete pansy" Lilydale is not a very sushi kind of place! But then...


"Oh wow, is that really what sushi is? Geez, I've heard of that stuff but I never seeen it." As his grin widened I began to realise that this was not the usual 'your-about-to-be-swallowing-your-front-teeth' smile I was used to. He sat down next to me pulled out a pack of Longbeach and a can of Wild Turkey. A look of concentration on his face as he extracted two smokes and handed me one "You've got a lighter?" He asked.


I was dumbfounded, I gave him my lighter, he lit his smoke and then held the flame out so I could light the ciggie he had given to me. These things don't usually work out this way trust me.
"So it's like rice and fish but what's it wrapped in?"
"Seaweed" I said starting to relax.
"So you can eat seaweed?"
"Um, yeah, sure you can."
"I reckon I'm gonna have to try it."


Without thinking I handed him one of the three uneaten rolls instructing him on how to apply the soy sauce and wasabi. So there I was smoking his cigarette and there he was eating my sushi and five minutes earlier I had never seen him before.


The train came and we thanked one another for our respective generousity, shook hands and got into different carriages. Sometimes the world can be a surprising place and although I couldn't go around expecting this sort of thing from everyone I meet in these streets (I would very quickly end up in hospital) sometimes it feels good to be proven wrong.