adamdaniel

Tales from the Punchbowl #14

A Pink Moon They Call This One

I hired a Tarago and determined I’d drive out to Gippsland – those rolling hills and fair vales were calling through the decades for a brave and unexpected reunion. I’m going to sleep by the rippling, rock-punctured waters of the Morwell River East Branch and spend my afternoons eel watching, for two or three days, and then I’ll get back to it; this was my loosely sketched plan. I phoned my old friend Shafiq, the respectable and excellent Muslim, the RMIT lecturer and car dealer, the type of man you would never want to upset, such is his patent integrity, and agreed on a fee for a worthy vehicle. I collected the automobile he had nominated from his modest home in Fawkner. I bundled my swag, my doona and bag of crumply clothes into the back and bade Shafiq adieu. I filled up at the nearby Caltex, very ready for a restorative weekend escape, and jumped onto the M1, heading southeast from Melbourne city, towards the rolling green landscape and rain-serviced gullies that define Gippsland and the La Trobe Valley.

My mind set in fast-forward as to my probable movements, I imagined all those leafy haunts and pretty vistas I’d perused with my pre-arsehole dad and cute little brother, those lazy afternoons cooking sausages on the lid of a 44 gallon drum, or doing ritual dances around a camp fire, on the lonely roads near Mirboo North, my brother and I quite happily ferried in the back of our poo brown Renault, “the car for making friends”, as it was affectionately dubbed, on account of its amazing unreliability, with the upshot we’d make friends with the people who pulled over to assist us. Led Zepplin II, James Taylor, The Proclaimers and The Gypsy Kings the standard (and top-shelf) musical fare. I was cheerfully preoccupied with these fond recollections when a massive, nerve-shattering explosion shook the car. I was just about launched through the roof via an emergengy-activated ejector seat, such was the electrifying shock and instantaneous commotion. What the? Where am I? Who is this? What happened? My mind reeled awkwardly. After the initial punch of energy, the car went blank, the engine shot – dead as a doornail. Fucking fuck sticks and big, ugly gibbon arses; not another mechanical mishap to perpetuate my cursed run!

After my initial dismay and jarring pangs of annoyance, I quickly accepted the reality of this incident, number #241526 in my litany of misfortune, and steered the car to safety in the M1 emergency lane. I checked my RAC status by logging in online, only to discover I was two days out of contract and overdue for renewal. Fucking fuck sticks and preposterously enormous camel dicks! I do not like this situation. I exited the defunct vehicle and looked at the inert fields, standing dutifully in their eternal attendance at the feet of the concrete sky, entirely unsympathetic to my woe – contentedly deaf and blind to the ridiculous dramas of the human family and my stupid breakdown. So it’s like that, eh, ye fields of stone-like numbness, ye sky of dismal grey. Friends! I have friends! I fired off a few sob story messages, beseeching a few money-organised contacts for some much-needed charity. Nothing. You get your shit together and be like us in our acceptance of the dominion of mammon. We are suckled to it, now you do the same, and conform until you have some nice debts and a grey flavoured job. This won’t do either, my immediate and determined protest. I looked at the racing car traffic scooting down the busy highway. Oy gevalt! Oy vey! Yet another customarily meshuga scenario! I stuck out a desperate thumb and cast my heart heavenward for an answer…

A string of racing drivers sped past, fiercely competitive, like the eager Nascar participants of Daytona beach, preoccupied with their almighty accelerator and too focussed on the promised glories of the next town and the pirouetting flag of the finish line to worry about a trivial thumb proffered at the sidelines. Aye, I saw before me wild eyed racehorses, frothing at the mouth and hungry for their destination, like the muscular, overclocking, quick footed entries at Caulfield or Flemington. After many weary sighs and galling feelings of abandonment, a rickety old car pulled over. My heart glowed in satisfaction, inclining instantly to the notion that there is somewhere in the mostly demented heavens a sparkle of goodness. I looked in the window to see a portly septuagenarian with a white, gnomelike beard and a friendly demeanour. My cherished saviour! My welcome comrade in fate! Thankyou for pulling over. I humble myself at the foot of your life. My car is cooked at I’m entirely lost as to my next steps. What’s up? Can I help you with a jumpstart? I’m afraid the pathology is far more serious than that, unfortunately. Like the noxious sting-ray barb into the heart of Steve Irwin, the heart of my beast is shot. Aye, my borrowed vehicle has suffered an untimely death. There is no hope for healing, sir. I’ll need a tow. Get in young son, we’ll sort this out.

After some basic small talk and introductory banter, I revealed my uninspiring financial position. Name’s Adam, no money. I’m Pablo, he smiled, pleased to meet you. What do you need kiddo, the sparkly, well-meaning Pablo demanded. I glanced through the rear window at the lamentably stricken Tarago, gulping again at this unwanted pickle, now veritably a staple experience and constant for my vexed incarnation. I need to pay my RAC membership and summon a tow, to get to the busy and perilous ant-hill of Melbourne, and then declare my mishap to the respected owner of this car. Right. What’s the damage? I need 200 to activate my roadside assistance cover and legitimately plead for a tow. Very well, my friend. Buckle up. We’ll make for Drouin and I’ll sponsor said fee. Really? Yes indeed. I pay it forward as a rule. It has never failed me yet. Well, if indeed your free will is cognisantly engaged in this decision and you are in fact positive, I would be much obliged! And might I add that I would dearly like to polish your shoes if you’ll give me the chance! Haha, my boy, I like your style, but really it is no bother. It’ll come back, you’ll see. He pressed on the gas and the budget vehicle chugged into the distance; Drouin bound.

Pulling up in the quaint, drug fucked town, he lumbered out of the car and proceeded to the ATM machine, returning shortly after with four fifties. Here, stick this in your pipe and smoke it lad – hope it helps. Excellent. That’ll do it, I yelped with grateful vim and hope. I deposited the money in my own account, paid for my membership renewal and requested a tow at the location of the break down. All organised. Thanks again my precious attendant in destiny, my amigo from God, my much revered Pablo. Can you drop me back? Yep. Let’s go. We sped back down the M1, sighting my freshly injured Tarago, resting mournfully in the dunce’s seat of the highway. Upon parting, he informed me that he was a devoted follower of Joseph F Dumond, the founding intelligence of Sighted Moon, a Christian organisation which observed calendars and covenants with particular obedience and care. Our mission may be plucked from the pages of scripture, he informed me… For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch. Isaiah 62:1. Look into it when you have time. Here are my bank detail if you care to return the money. He handed me a slip from his wallet with his BSB and account and I hopped out.

The tow truck arrived in a matter of minutes, pulling over in front of the dead Tarago, the driver asking for the lowdown. I explained the explosive and unnerving sequence that had put me there. After lifting the bonnet and tinkering momentarily, the driver confirmed the diagnosis with a curt declaration; yeah, she’d rooted. Engine’s shot. I know, I confirmed in annoyance. Let’s get you back to sunny Melbourne and be done with this. Amen and amen, I concurred. I sat in the tow truck feeling like a zombie, bereft of enthusiasm and entirely unable to entertain any more happy memories. Woe is me. My hopes for contemplation in the forest are gone. Waaaa. My script for vehicular misfortune was like a pillar of the universe by now, a seemingly constant season that progressed alongside the other seasons. Once again, my nice holiday has been overhauled and redirected by another cruel grenade from the unpredictable arms of life. I phoned Shafiq and declared the nature of my accident and my intention to make it right by any means possible. He exercised his typical gentlemanly decorum in fielding my awkward communique. It’s okay Adam. Deliver the vehicle to my friend. He’s a good mechanic and will sort it out. We progressed to the desired destination in Coburg and delivered the car into professional hands. I breathed a sigh and returned to my routine, my job with the education services provider and my nondescript purpose in Victoria.

Six weeks rolled by and the slip with the bank details continued to peek at me from the flaps of my wallet. I finally found a breather in my tight and pitiful finances, an opportunity to return the several hundred dollars to the much valued and beneficent origin. That feels better, I noted, my gnawing conscience slaked. I made the transfer and sent through the receipt to Pablo’s phone. It was received with gratitude. How are you going anyway? I need help, he confessed. I’m moving house and these removalists are a debacle. My wife is beside herself and my back is rickety and old. I’ll help you, I responded instantly, the trusty mechanisms of karma coming to life with gusto. I’m in the city at the moment but I could be there within a few hours. If you could sponsor my dinner, I will lend you my middle-aged body and we have a deal? Done, mon ami, came Pablo’s response. Please help us. I boarded the Traralgon line and slumped into torpor as the Vic Line service progressed through the unlikely and ridiculous sounding towns that go after Pakenham and before Drouin. I jolted awake and attempted to roll a joint as I sailed along through the afternoon light, spilling the precious doobage everywhere, given the undulating and swaying motion of the cart. Bah. I give up. I’m even cursed as a hippie! I retreated back into slumber in hopeless apathy, my eyes peeling open upon arrival at Drouin station. I’m here, I declared over the phone. I’m at the ANZAC memorial, keeping company with the ghosts of the First World War. Please come and get me, lest their spectral figures confess the truths of their stories to my Piscean ear!

A quarter of an hour later, Pablo pulled up in his wife’s car and we sped up the road to his newly acquired Warragul residence. He was perturbed and sweaty and stressed, his hands shifting nervously over the wheel, his speed excessive and his turns rushed. Our six-week-old acquaintance and rapport came back to animation with sprightly quickness but suffered under the pall of his situational duress and this cumbersome move. I stepped inside the very tidy, hilltop residence to behold the long white hair and teary face of his incredibly lovely wife. Oh gosh, such a lovely. Such a dear heart. Such a soft and loving demeanour as to melt the steel handrails of the balcony. A wonderful soul to behold, I thought privately, smiling at her as though she were a bride in radiant display. Andy – it is so good of you to come, she declared, getting my name wrong. I didn’t have the heart to correct her. Madam it is no trouble given the magnanimous heart of your lover and husband. He came to me in my distress and, casting my mind to his grasp of kindness begetting kindness, I can state in earnest that it is only proper and right that I present myself to you in your need. Some of these tasks are simply beyond us, she sniffled, smiling again at my presence. Thank you. She looked at me appreciatively as I set to work, assisting the Punjabi labourers in fishing their high-quality items of furniture from the carelessly parked removal truck, set skew across the front lawn.

I worked hard, lifting and arranging and conveying all their possessions into the rooms and hallways of the house, admiring their favourable location and cooperating quickly with the dithering Indians who were obviously quite average at their trade. They were, as Pablo had said, a bumbling pair, and I jovially compared them to Thomson and Thompson from the Tintin series. Pablo nodded his amusement. We have one more trip to make, Pablo instructed resolutely, and we hopped into his wife’s car once again, the empty removal van lurching from the grass and heading to the old house also. The trip was awkward and confronting. He was processing other trauma, and the energy of the day had brought some menacing ogres to the surface. I am quite riled up on one front, my dear boy, quite woebegone, in very keen anguish in fact. Pray tell. What is it? As we moved through the evening streets, Pablo stated his case in candid and sorrowful tones. One of my best friends has suffered tremendously with a court case of rare malignancy and pain. She is the mother of two and discovered recently, with her babies at the ages of two and four respectively, that her entirely aberrant husband had been raping them as habit. She is shattered into infinitesimal emotional shreds and has conveyed to us as her most intimate confidantes the excruciating tenor of the court proceedings that have ensued. His demeanour tightened in absolute exasperation, his body and face tremulous and scared, his soul demonstrably maddened at the factual yet unpalatable content of his sentences. I sank in emotional pain, like a fishing sinker descending into the stark and gaping blackness of the Marianas trench, like a lift in a high rise that had had its cable snipped, with the heavy weight plummeting into the unquenchable maw of hell below. I clicked record on my voice recorder and collected the following narrative…

This fucking demonic goat of a man was hell bent on intimidation and perfectly determined to perpetrate psychological violence against my dear friend, who we’ve known for years. We love her. Anyway, he starts abusing her, saying, you know, if you don’t watch it, I’ll kill you, just like I killed my last girlfriend. Because he had murdered another of his lovers and confessed it and gloated about it, but was never brought to justice, which is an all too lamentable scenario in this mine shaft of a world we inhabit. His persistent and consistent threats against her engendered an incapacitating Stockholm syndrome, and she submitted to his unpleasant and terrifying stratagems of overwhelm. In her feminine dismay, she succumbed. Stockholm syndrome yields a passage of control to the abuser. And tragically, our friend suffered such a noxious passage into her world, his abuse a crowbar into the shed of her life.

When the kids were first born, it was okay. Normality prevailed. But then about two or three years of age, he started raping them. Had sex with them. Had his way with them, like some cacodemon from the pit feasting on innocence. Then, when she found out, she took them to the doctors and got it all written up. The case was transposed into writing, with startling details of the terrible injuries and grievous bodily harm being captured in full. And he got away with it. He got the kids back by dint of a skilful lawyer that cast her accusations and the doctor’s reports as baloney. The judge actually fucking listened, curse his name, and awarded him full custody. Can you believe it? The only mild consolation we can find is that her mum is with her today and she’s worked for 18 years with police and in criminal cases. She knows in her heart and in theory how to deal with it, how to combat the iniquity. She’s already trying to get lawyers to set to work for some $250,000 just to get the medical records, the court notes and videos reconsidered. I’ve been trying to help them out with my meagre savings, gifting them what precious funds I have, with my somewhat precarious marriage suffering in the process. By some miraculous dint of providence, the kids are actually alive and have emerged from the travesty; they survived. They’re getting counselling from the police. Police counsellor. This counsellor is good, sharp and switched on. She has independently and solemnly verified the heartrending story and is convinced the abuse really happened. The court still don’t believe her case though – which is insane – and the loud protestations she has made in pursuit of justice have fallen on deaf ears! The original lawyer for the children was like a wet fish, a hopeless dope of a practitioner that assisted our friend’s cause in no meaningful way whatsoever. I have never experienced such pure outrage and fury in my seventy years on this planet. Look at my shuddering hands! Behold my ashen face as I relay this to you! Our justice system is pathetically inept in many ways, totally incompetent to serve up real justice. I looked at Pablo with a quavering heart and jellylike stomach, such was my alarm.

My apologies if I have shaken you, my young visitor, he said, glancing across at me concernedly as he navigated the car through the backstreets. This is why I observe the covenants of God with absolute consideration and dutifulness. The timing is important. I keep and preserve them strictly. It’s no joke, the evil in man. No laughing matter when two young innocents have their bodies and souls crushed to deformity by such brazen violence as my friend has witnessed, with her precious toddlers defiled and sorely misused at such a tender level. There are only certain and strict avenues that allow us to combat this type of demonic disregard for God’s property with any degree of efficacy. Straight and narrow is the way, young man – the Bible is right. The quality of the observances you select and duly enact are of vital importance. I can’t stress this enough. Aye, every atom in this endless cosmos belongs to God and if you think or behave otherwise you will be punished. Reverence and repentance are mission critical. The first commandment, to love God, is of paramount value and weight, and, by my troth, everything we find, bar nothing, in every time and every sprawling dimension, every person, place and object, IS God, is for God and of God. Love Him or perish. Bend thy knee and live, lest thy find the blankness and straightjacket muteness of hell. It’s simple.

Let me explain the covenants that mark my life, as it stands on this fourteenth day of the month, here in April 2025. Twelfth, I corrected, looking at my watch. No, I insist I’m right. Fourteenth. I use God’s calendar. This is calibrated around the sighting of the moon and the subsequent placement and execution of sacramental rituals thereafter. Today is the fourteenth. We are careful in knowing when Sabbatical and Jubilee years occur, along with every strategic occasion that we might utilise to approach God and win his favour. Perhaps you have heard of the fourty weeks of Daniel and other eschatological prophesy based around blocks of time, which serve a divine end? We keep the sabbath and observe holy days with great precision, with care and communal power. There are specific covenants you might not guess. It extends to the thinking behind Passover and the importance of the proper oblatory gestures needed to appease a holy God. Sacrifice is meaningful to God. Have you read the book of Ruth? Do you know the meaning and thrust of that precious book? In the story of Ruth, the “shoe covenant” refers to a symbolic act of transfer of ownership and inheritance through the exchange of a shoe. This ritual, described in Ruth 4, signifies the relinquishing of one’s rights to a particular property or position. It’s always about submission and showing that we submit to the person of Christ with our heart, mind, body and life. Only a penitent man will pass through God’s gate and into his high and worthy house. If you want to make peace with God and befriend Him, study covenantal practices and do your best. That’s my sage advice to you. Incidentally, we have a zoom meeting tomorrow to coordinate our prayers and offerings. Strength through fellowship is also a key concept for you to fathom. Strength through faith AND numbers, my precious friend. In our electronic congregation, we will ascertain with certainty our movements over the coming weeks and months. We move together. We move as one. Joseph F. Dumond is our esteemed leader and I trust him implicitly. I would encourage you to visit his website, sightedmoon.com.

My wife, who you met just moments ago, and who no doubt demonstrated her perfect grace, has the heart and countenance of an angel, as I gather you can appreciate. The gentle cherubim would look to her for inspiration, such is the quality of her being. Sir, I agree. She is the very fabric of love. In truth, I witnessed it. I would run great distances to proclaim her inner light and pulchritude, fearing no rebuke or contrary opinion. Anyway, Pablo continued, she has a prevailing love and compassion that has conquered the most incredible hardship and strife. When she was but a babe, a teenager of fifteen, she worked in aged care and was assigned the gruesome task of laying out dead bodies. And, it seemed, these deaths would always occur in threes. So, my kindred soul and spouse, my precious one that I hold and honour in a marriage covenant, would grit her teeth and position the corpses for collection, three in a row, covered in white linen, dutifully responding to the wishes of the establishment. She is a perfect and veritable Cinderella, with not an ounce of guile. I would injure the very heavens by dishonouring her. But these sorts of confronting memories haunt her at times and she is awash with weeping and pain. And I must hold my calm and watch on and show myself as a strong and resolute man, despite my aging body, my terminally wobbly finances and my destitute nerves. Still, my role of husband is a holy role, and I must hold true to my wedding day promise. I am glad I am out here to assist you in this evening’s mission, I offered gladly, deeply impressed by his words. Let’s get this done.

We pulled into the driveway of the prior residence, solid brick and tile and relatively new, beating the removal truck to the destination. We perused the comfortable space, appraising the task at hand. See here, he said pointing, entering the spacious lounge. We have an electronically actuated couch, which is the bulkiest item, along with numerous chairs, a desk and this wooden bookcase. Then out in the garage we have pot plants and herbs which my wife wants removed to our new place. Sir, consider it done. Once again, I moved to assist the dawdling removalists in their duty. We got everything into the truck, with the hydraulic platform rising and falling with each new batch of furniture. We entered the garage and shifted the numerous pot plants into the truck, my back and core straining against the onerous weight. I bobbed down to rest, breathing and labouring in tiredness. In front of me was a friendly looking grey rabbit, made of porcelain, along with a couple of other quaint bunnies peeking into a birdbath. I took a picture for the memory, collected my breath and declared with satisfaction that the job was complete. My boy, I owe you more than dinner, Pablo proclaimed. It’s quite okay, Pablo. It’s my pleasure, my sincere rejoinder.

The star apparelled night was descending from heaven like a convoy from the pristine other side. Back in the car we chased the horizon, speeding back to the tail end of the move, to the new house and his precious and prepossessing wife. The twilight had a perfect and magnificent ephemeral life, like a mayfly or luna moth, and was holding supernatural counsel with the fawn plateaus of earth below. Pablo caught the vision of the lambent moon rising across the fields, full and fresh from its bed below the horizon. His eyes brightened in joyful satisfaction. There she is Adam, through the trees, see, a pink moon they call this one. I was moved and impressed at the sight, the aesthetics profound, again committing the vision to posterity with my phone. We are a Christian group with a particular affinity for the cycles and movements of the moon. It is not purely a pagan proclivity to focus on lunation and its link to divine potentialities and worship. We see her as a timepiece and clock hand in the phases of the unfolding of time, and a cue for our various observances. We see the moon as a divine prompter, a hearld of the milestones of God’s will, rather than a mechanism to energise occultic practices. We name no other God but the God of Israel, the delivering God of Isaac, Abraham and Jacob. Pagan identities like Diana and Selene hold little meaning to us, he clarified with confidence.

The two vehicles arrived at the house and we set about conveying the contents of the truck to the back patio and the applicable rooms within. We heaved and laboured and huffed and puffed to see everything to its proper place. His wife was visibly depleted and resigned to the comfort of a chair as we darted back and forth, systematically delivering every last item. She thanked me again in solemn repetition, making her grateful heart plain. Madam, I am pleased to be your servant this evening and pray you will settle in handsomely. In one week, I’d wager your emotions will be quite different and you will be able to enjoy your new place undisturbed. Thank you Andy, you are a God send, she affirmed. The night was over and our mission accomplished. Where would you have me deliver you, Drouin station or Warragul? Whatever is most convenient I said solicitously, not wanting to consume any more of his time at such a trying and delicate moment. Very well, son, Warragul it is. I’ll have you there in minutes. Your message this afternoon was providential. I have been assisted enormously by the energy with which you tackled the job, and the conversation which you afforded. It is nothing. De nada. Good night sir and sleep well.

I waited at the station, looking down the tracks, then exited to the front of the dated edifice, the next service some twenty minutes away. On a nearby bench I could see a pizza box and a coke. I see you’ve purchased me dinner, I said comedically to the young man returning from the payphone. He inspected my person with bright eyes, noting my worn-out aspect instantly. He picked up the steaming box and opened it before me, allowing me to savour the wonders of a piping hot pepperoni and olive masterpiece. Go on. You said it, he smiled, lifting up two large slices and ensuring I accepted them, his bubbling good humour overflowing and infectious. Determined strings of mozzarella stretched out like thin yellow mooring ropes. Enjoy it while you can brother. I gratefully accepted the offering and waffled it down urgently before boarding the train for Southern Cross.

On the train, reclining on a priority seat, the clickety clack of the tracks assailing my ears, I sat staring at the neon lights inside the train like a caged pet or scientific guinea pig. My planets were spinning in wild orbits, my comportment jittery. What a harrowing and bone chilling account Pablo had set forth. I was profoundly confronted by the nauseating reality of a justice system so flagging in its function that you can commit paedophilia and emerge as the good guy. Aye, this fateful eve I have beheld the face of evil in high resolution. With mine eye recoiling in disbelief, I have spied through my world-weary kaleidoscope very dire and infinite tragedy, and once again my hopeful notion that “the truth will out” is set in awkward jeopardy. Nonetheless, I have enjoyed the presence of male greatness along with the perfect aspect of female beauty and I am pleased on that account. Through some very unlikely twists of happenstance, I have ultimately been presented with some very striking impressions, both of wisdom and terror, and by dint of my impromptu service to this respectable couple, I have garnered the rare satisfaction that arises when helping the right people, and from this I know momentary peace. I looked around stupidly, wanting someone else to understand. All I had in the way of a response from the human realm was the vision of an overweight goth chick inspecting the white dots of her bright red mushroom tattoo, the design and appearance closely akin to that brand of fungus visible on the cover of The Shooting Star, by Herge, in the Tintin series. Is it too late to dream, I dared to ponder. I knew hope in great abundance, once. Heroic Tintin would not give in. Indeed, I consoled myself that Herge was a vocal apologist for the idea that hope in the heart of man is much akin to the life of the mythical amaranth, the precious stone that cannot lose its glow. Herge is famously quoted as saying, by believing in his dreams, man turns them into reality. Belief is worth everything. I think it would behove me well to etch this line above the mantel piece of my soul, never to be removed again, not but reproving words, nor by doubters or detractors, nor by the astonishing behaviour of circumstance. When there is such grace and goodness extant in the panoply of dread around me, persisting and sparkling like diamonds in the coal seams of the Congo, I will not doubt and I will not fear. I will look to the God of Isaac, Abraham and Jacob, poised in the heavenlies like an eternal flame, and say on bended knee, Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me…