adamdaniel

Tales from the Punchbowl #12

The Russian-Pakistani Conductor

I bustled through the corridors like a Londoner on the subway, dodging and weaving and hurrying past the students, with get-to-work gusto and agitation. I’m in H block again, the English course, year eights. I perused the relief notes briefly. Read chapter six then explain how to craft an orientation for a dystopian novel. Can do. I settled the rag tag group, first by booming at them assertively, making sure they were seated, then assuring them with calmness that an interesting lesson lay in wait. The learning aid sat with the boy that never works. We’re reading gang – chapter six. Please activate your mind headlights, we’re driving into weird territory. I flicked the light switch to render a nice shadowy room and proceeded to narrate the entirety of chapter six of The Giver, by Lois Lowry, detailing the various ceremonies that mark the rite of passage between different numbers, a form of social classification, in this alternate society based on enforcing sameness. Even symbolic haircuts are used to flag a person’s status. When you progress from a ten to an eleven your hair is cut back to reveal your ears, so everyone can gather where you fit. The kids were positively intrigued and visualized this societal permutation with keen interest. After much musing and conversation and imaginative flights of fancy, sparked by this unusual input, the kids elucidated their own openings to a scenario of their devising, coming up with some bold and entertaining ideas. The bell. Sorry people! Time got away from me. We’re out of here.

I returned my CRT kit and wandered out to the medical centre carpark, where I’d left my car. Gvllow’s Pray to God automatically flared on my stereo via Spotify. Such a cracker. I drove to the Punjab Restaurant for dinner, bopping along to the suicide themed goth masterpiece, then got out and looked through the shop window, but it was still too early. Damn. I was exhausted, having spent all day managing teenagers. I was about to open my car door when I spied a homeless character crossing the street. What’s up my friend, I hailed him gregariously. He hurried over, carrying a black zip lock bag. He had a shaved head, a gratuitously lazy eye, and an intensely nervous air, the rattled comportment of a trauma survivor, or war veteran. Please, please help me, he pleaded. I need to get away, away from Melbourne. Far away. Can I get a lift? To Albury? What? I remarked in disbelief. That’s in New South Wales. I have two hundred dollars. I can give you that. Wait, what’s your name? James – it’s my anglicized name. He was massively uncomfortable and I felt genuine dismay at his battered state. No creature should be reduced to this, I thought, in pity. I referred to my inner sanity consultant. Should I do this, I asked momentarily. Yes. Yes I should, came the answer. I’ll be right for school tomorrow. Get in James.

He sat in the front seat with his leg shuddering like a wind-up toy, such was his perturbation. He was in truth a nervous wreck, shattered, the flow of universal chi inside him a maelstrom of disharmony, a victim of some brazen overstimulation and assault that had put his disposition in tatters. I was kind of scared. Involuntary nervousness of a disturbing severity was on display and I wanted to calm it really badly. Please calm yourself, I will not harm you. I am not a policeman. He was gushing with gratitude at my decision, as the car pulled onto the highway and headed towards Bacchus Marsh. My brother, my friend, my comrade, you have no idea what has happened, he said in a thick foreign accent, completely bereft emotionally. I am indebted to you forever. His reaction was overboard but comprehensible considering his plainly disheveled state. I almost suicided last night, tried to kill myself. Where are you from, I queried, trying to distract him from that thought, as he retrieved a crisp one hundred dollar note from his bag and handed it to me. I am a half cast, he explained. Russian father, Pakistani mother. I noticed that his right arm was prosthetic. It was made of plastic, the hand shrouded in a black woolen glove. He pulled back his sleeve to reveal a pink plastic tube that formed a replacement for his original limb. I was striving to maintain a focus on the winding road with my eyes distracted by this unusual spectacle. What the hell happened? It happened in Pakistan. The Taliban attacked my village at 4 am. They launched grenades at our house. My uncle and cousin were blown apart – human roadkill, decimated. I meditated on their body parts in utter grief, weeping at their memory and untimely demise. My arm was blown off, but I survived. I came to Australia in 2012, but it has been only a living nightmare since my arrival. I spent three years in the penitentiary for something I never did. I hate the sordid justice system here. It robbed me of three years of my God gifted life – a punitive system devised of devils, not men.

I looked at the beautiful afternoon shades and shadows as we wended our way through the hills. In the soft Victorian dusk, the sloping wind-tussled trees were bathed in pink and orange, with an overarching ethereal violet from above. It was very lovely and a pleasant ambience with which to manage and counterbalance the disturbing input. We were aimed at Gisborne with the GPS, the Estima flying low along the ground like a space ship, reminiscent of our family trip to the Blue Mountains with Ken Arnold back in the 80’s. Low flying, my mum had called it. Now, with my insanely anxious comrade beside me, we were engaged in low flying, investigating the physics concepts of velocity and momentum in a brave practical experiment. We’re going to Albury. Not exactly a summer holiday, but fuck it we’re going. I surveyed the magnificent landscape. As we crept around a corner, I saw a perfectly formed stallion, muscular and mighty, galloping across the fields as though in the Melbourne Cup. He was gunning it, pelting at top speed, for sheer joy, enjoying his ability and freedom in full measure. One of God’s finest creatures in perfect and maximal animation, an energetic and handsome Black Beauty of the Shire of Moorabool. I felt uplifted and gladdened to see this animal in full flight, expressing perfect zest for life under the clement autumn heavens.

What are you trying to get away from, I asked plainly, returning my attention to the cab. The people I was living with, they were fucking psychos, spiritual bullies intent on crushing any modicum of humanity or sensitivity from me. They were out to get me and savage me and render me in perpetual fright, like a bashed guinea pig, or something like that, incapable of anything. Only the pit of hell can render such hatred in a human heart. These people professed to be Christian as well. They wanted me helpless though. If there were an inversion of Philippians 4:13 it would be “I can do no things in Adam who weakens me”. This is really what they wanted. I was so fed up with them, terrified actually, that I fled, leaving my car at the front of their house – a holden, commodore, worth about five K. I did manage to steal a twelve thousand dollar watch from them though. It was in a safe. I snuck it from them while they were sleeping, the two unaware I knew where they kept the key. He reached into his bag with his good hand, his left hand, and presented a gold watch with a stunning blue inlay, maybe opal, or turquoise, or some other gemstone of value. It was big and bulky, like a Rolex, the fancy item of jewelry twinkling like a princess’ diadem in the light of the evening. This impressive piece held aloft and displayed as though at auction garnered a twinkle of a smile in him, the small sense of revenge for his alleged mistreatment very real. He was glad to share his story with an unthreatening and newly trusted interlocutor. We’re going to need petrol I noted, looking at the slumping fuel level. We pulled into Riddell’s Creek, passing a massive cobble stone bridge at the entrance to the town, the bubbling creek whisking along underneath like lemonade.

I grasped the one hundred dollar note and filled the car, then paid for the fuel and a few chilled red bulls. We enjoyed these as though they were a divine elixir and continued our flight from the big, bad city and his troubling past. He continued relating stories of his misadventures and mistreatment on the continent, his prosthetic arm waving and gesticulating like a conductor as he presented sad visions of prison life and stories of survival. He said his greatest lesson was that you must never let another man hold the pen that writes the story of your life. You must never, he affirmed. Adam – your name, right? Right, I confirmed. That was the name of my best friend in prison – he helped me. He was my soul friend. He looked over his shoulder and in the rear view mirror again and again. He was literally paranoid and every time a car passed us he’d ask, is that a cop? Do you think they have monitoring surveillance on this road, he asked, referring to a wire over the M31. No, I don’t. He was very much freaked out and scared, absolutely in earnest that his life and existence was in threat. In the psychologist sofa comfort of the car, he’d been able to extricate quite a few stories that had been skewered inside him like so many poisoned darts, and this release of pressure allowed him some sudden solace and relief. He apologized to me then pulled his t-shirt over his head as though it were a private room and broke down weeping. I was instantly moved. My stomach sank in vicarious pain. He went on, crying like a baby, until he was done. I’m sorry, my friend, my dear brother, my helper. I have so many scars inside me. My body works, but my soul is a picture of agony and aching. Oh how it is cut into unsightly shapes and stricken in offensive and jarring deformity. It is terminally raw and redolent of death, a carcass of a thing, like a butcher’s fridge within me. I could not stop that outburst, he confessed, tears wet on his face. I assured him again that he was in no present danger and should do his utmost to breathe and relax. What are you going to do now, I asked. I can get rich very nicely, came his words. I know how. What sort of business? I don’t know yet. But I can. I can do it. You just have to be determined and creative and get on the front foot with a business concept that people want and need – meet the market and open new gateways and options for invitees. I surmised that this was a fairly nice summary of business acumen, having taught economics in the past week.

My own inner world was tumbling, like the cards in Alice in Wonderland, dissolving into a formless disarray, spiraling downwards, descending, in a forgotten pig pen of an existence-experiment, reserved for the Christless denizens of paradise lost. The heavens were twisting and spinning and black, a pitch vortex of inner drunkenness and disorientation that never seemed to go away. I felt slightly nauseous. I was really pretty spent after the constant banter and instructional focus of the classroom. I can do this. I can get him there, my affirmations, as I rallied my presentness and set my gaze on the white lines and reflective prompters of the highway. We drove on and on, into the territory Ned Kelly and his gang had marauded in several hundred years ago. Past Euroa, Strathbogie, Benalla and Glenrowan, the area in which the infamous gang had camped and poached and robbed in centuries past. This is the landscape where the Jerilderie and Euroa bank heists had occurred, I ruminated. Surely we resembled a faint echo of that detail of Australia’s history, here in the garbled 21st century, as I ferried a seeming criminal on the run from his guilt and trauma. Onwards we lurched, passing Wangaratta and Wodonga, the car barreling through the dark eucalyptus wastes like a space ship from Star Wars.

We reached Albury and stopped near the river, driving into the creepy, unoccupied park. It was about 11:30 pm and the dark water flowing past looked like smooth flowing oil, slick and glossy, with lamp light hitting off it like starlight off a black mirror. Noone around, my travelling companion was pleased to learn. His overworked conscience was now at ease. We exited the vehicle for fresh air. My foreign friend lit up a cigarette and disappeared on a quick perambulation of the grassy flat. I exited to the bushes myself, to become a pope in the woods. The timeless rhetorical question was at this point applicable; does the Pope shit in the woods? Everyone is aware that he does. So, having attended to my papal duty, this urgent call of nature consummated, bearing my remaining toilet paper like an important scroll, like the decree of Innocent the 27th, published proudly by the Vatican Chancery, I returned to the vehicle several kilograms lighter. I want to go to Sydney, James said, after emerging from the shadows, somewhat feverish in his request. Good sir, this town, Albury, was the object of our agreement and the limit of my solicitousness, I reminded him. How much is an uber to Sydney, he asked, urging me to check my phone and the attendant cost. My friend, you will be up for several hundred at least. Why not get a coach in the morning? Take me closer. A bit closer, I beg you. Okay – very well. 12 kilometers. Table Top. It’s not far, but it is closer. Okay, he consented, please take me there.

We entered Table Top and slowly crept through the nightshades, passing various businesses and houses, passing the ironically named Sunnyside place, considering the tragedy we were both living. We were both slightly freaked out and nervous. It looked entirely uninviting, like a village of Lovecraftian devising, closed in its business with the light and forever cursed to loneliness and inauspicious decay. I don’t like it, he whimpered. I can’t get out here. Please return me to Albury. I want pokies. Please take me to the pokies. I need something alive and bright. I was pleased enough to respond to this request and would have felt quite guilty to jettison his shattered person in such a shadowland and backwater. I returned down the M31 and back into Albury, looking up the location of pokie hotels on my phone. We were both famished and he offered to pay for Hungry Jacks. We went through and purchased an elegant sufficiency of spicy chicken burgers and devoured these like dogs facing an abundance of chum. We drove around the streets, which emanated the very same crustiness and filthiness of the streets described in Taxi Driver. I could hear Robert De Niro’s condemnatory narration in the background, as though through the speakers of my mind, observing and commentating with disgust at the human cesspit on display. We passed a few junkies slouched on the concrete at the intersection. I want to be with them, James said, unexpectedly. I want company. I want something human. Very well, Monsieur, I agreed like a faithful butler. I shall deliver you to their company presently.

I pulled up at the sidewalk and opened the door for him. I can offer you my sleeping bag and pillow, my parting gifts. Tears welled in his eyes at this display of kindness. My brother, he said, my friend. I reached into the boot, procuring my black and red sleeping bag and my silk pillow. Here – let me strap them up, so you can carry them more easily. He looked at me in genuine delight. You are a lovely one, he complimented me in his foreign tone. Sir, it is no trouble, I said, proffering his new sleeping gear and saying goodbye. Fare thee well – take care of yourself and never think of suicide again. I forbid it. You must needs live for the sake of your dead uncle and cousin. Imagine their sad ghosts mourning the sight of your dead body, taken by your own hand, when they had had no chance at all. He smiled, then baulked in emotional overwhelm, then shook his head and looked at me calmly as he digested the notion that his ruined and broken life had meaning. He hugged me and I left, returning back down the slipstream of the M31 like a racing car bound for the glory of another day. I stopped at a truck stop and slept until six. The morning light softly emerged through the acacia and bottlebrush, like a whisper from God, gently coaxing me to push onwards with my broken, hell-slaughtered life. I rallied myself to animation and sped determinedly back towards Melbourne, through Wallan and Darraweit Guim, finally reaching Melton, just in time to teach the next installment of the English curriculum to the kids.