adamdaniel

Tales from the Punchbowl #15

We Like to Boogie

I sat fidgeting with the whiteboard markers, looking downwards at the time display in the bottom corner of my laptop screen, waiting hopefully for the winged shoes of time to race with increased alacrity. The students – oh how I love their esprit and cheeky banter – were at the conclusion of the term and bereft of any discernible zeal for the subject matter, distracting themselves with inane games, or gossip, making rude wise cracks or exploring the edges of inappropriateness and bad taste, or engaging in that timelessly entertaining option – provoking each other. The overall withitness (teacher jargon), alertness and efficacy of my policeman laps through the desks was now basically defunct and I might as well have been invisible Casper circumnavigating the premises in an alternate century. Every man and his texta was over it. I was on the second level, in the new building, hemmed about by nicely manicured gardens and a foresty veil of trees. I examined the shadows outside, witnessing the swaying branches dreamily, surmising with dorky scientific interest what species of eucalypt I had the pleasure of beholding. A long siren – the shofar call to the sweet breezes of free movement and emancipation from the academic yoke. My prayer had been duly attended to by the heavenly review committee and the day was done, indeed the term was done. A stampede and exodus ensued, and the room was in moments an abandoned building, vacant and rubbish strewn, now the prerogative of the thick skinned and long-suffering cleaners.

I clambered into my four-wheel drive, excreting whiteboard markers and permission slips from the pores of my skin, it seemed. How precisely they get there, into the clothing and into the folds of one’s hair, into the darkest reaches of one’s undergarments and socks, into the very interstices between the stitching of one’s business shirts, is like a hermetic mystery of rare curiousness, a paranormal yet normal phenomenon that belongs exclusively to the teaching fraternity. Indeed, this is the discombobulating, perplexing, yet somehow sacred lot of the secondary teacher! Jimmy Rees knows how to estimate this reality so very well. Anyhow, I collected my accumulated writing implements and jammed them into the repository of the glove box, a crypt where they might dwell together in lightless sleep until my next teaching contract. I fired up the V8 and the muscular engine rumbled into pleasing life. A three-and-a-half-inch exhaust system that mechanical dreams are made of! With a few pumps of the accelerator, I had restored my bravado for existence and proceeded to the slip road down to the M8, the laneway to exit crime riddled Melton, my faithful yet slightly abused off-road caravan in tow. I drove with a determined air, contemplating what form my dinner might take, or where I might source some food to negotiate the next week or so. I was suddenly aware of some violent swaying – something was wrong. Then a spectacular and jarring scraping sound, loud and horrendous, like an industrial grinder or electric bandsaw in tenor. The caravan was off its hitch and fishtailing in forceful gyrations. Holy mother of God, keeper of the saints and most earnest monks of all history, please be merciful!

I was in moments totally out of control and pitching around like a rudderless boat on the busy double lane thoroughfare of the M8, inbound to Melbourne city, in peak hour. An enormous semi-trailer next to me made a swift escape manoeuvre and veered into the emergency lane with remarkable skill. The other cars nearby heeded instantly my dismay and applied the brakes, avoiding collision with admirable level headedness also. The caravan rolled and smashed into the freeway asphalt, my eclectic set of survival possessions spilling out of the storage compartments and spreading all over the lanes, to my utter dismay. The car was now orientated sideways to the traffic, grinding to a halt awkwardly, with debris now covering two lanes, my eyes nigh cross-eyed with confusion. The fast-racing, perennially weaving snake of the M8 freeway was now pincered to inertia and blocked, completely constipated as I sat bewildered and in shock in the front seat, staring at the twined metallic ropes that make the cable barrier of the median strip.

I stepped out of the car, shuddering and afraid and regretful and alarmed and dismayed. I didn’t even comprehend what had happened. I was like that girl in the photograph, that profound and famous photograph, the napalm girl, frozen in the midst of the Vietnam road, arms hanging, face agog and frightened, in the wake of overwhelming tumult. I stood there looking at the two neat lines of built-up traffic, like an idiot, staring and on display, as though on a stage, the man of the excruciating moment. A tradesman exited his vehicle, walked directly up to me and planted a forcible bear hug on my person, holding me tight for a few moments, cognisant of my state and sympathetic enough to do something human and warm to ground my reeling senses. He then clasped his calloused hands over my shoulders. I looked straight at him, straight into his soul, ready to cry and emotionally shattered. In his thick Aussie tone, gruff and time weathered, eyes glinting with friendly humour, he said, “we got this bro”, and I knew relief and resolve in fresh comprehension. Then flashing lights and sirens. A Vic Roads incident response vehicle was there, followed shortly after by two police cars, emerging through the evening haze.

The Vic Roads officer on duty, blond haired and stocky, assessed the situation with urgency and perspicacity. Don’t like the gas bottles, she grunted. They get hit or get sparked it’s bad news – last fucken thing we want is an explosion. The tradie and I retrieved them from their metal straps and checked them for punctures. They were miraculously unscathed; we bundled them into the cab of the four-wheel drive. Drivers were now honking their agitation, wanting to know what was going on, expressing their piercing inconvenience from their seats, various expletives slipping loudly from the car windows. We need to open something for them, the Vic Roads officer surmised. The tow bar was still linked to the caravan by chains, and under evident strain and tension, even though the D-035 hitch system was decoupled. Gunna need to grind through, she determined quickly, to get this car out of the way. One lane’ll do for now. She returned from her vehicle with a massive saw, doubled bladed and deadly, then fired it up, intent and determined to sever the connection between car and caravan. She prevailed. The chain succumbed to the rapidly actuated teeth of the high-quality cutting implement and the two items were free. A towie had been called in the meantime, in urgency, and for now he needed to operate from the other side of the freeway median barricade, the passage to the incident blocked on our side by masses of built-up traffic. He dragged the car from its position with chains and used blocks of wood strategically to get the car to the location he wanted. Pretty neat skills to witness and a palpable salt-of-the-earth goodness of character as well as he undertook his role. The Vic Roads officer lauded his skill and dexterity openly, exclaiming “what a team”, for it was a husband-and-wife tow service that certainly knew their trade.

The police wanted answers and had declared a full freeway closure to manage the situation, with cars now banking up north of Melton. They breathalysed me and undertook a drug test, taking down my personal details. No sir, honest accident, I proclaimed. No drugs or alcohol. They interviewed the driver of the semi-trailer and the other drivers nearby, deeming it an honest accident and a hitching mishap with no connectable intoxication or dangerous driving. With the car now dragged onto the dirt and off the laneway adjacent to the median strip, cars began to wend their way through, via a relatively small gap. I spent some fifteen minutes grabbing anything of value off the black surface of the road, still overwhelmed and agitated, bundling the excoriated items into my canopy or cab. An additional tow truck had now arrived and proceeded to right the caravan by its wheel, which was cocked up like a dog’s leg, and, once upright, he dragged the severely injured XT12HR onto the platform of his truck by a winch, giving me a business card with details of his company. Once the caravan was out of the way, the movement of traffic was restored and I drove away, returning to the residence in Windsor with stars spinning in my rattled brain.

I maintained adequate coordination to navigate my way back to the Windsor townhouse, through Docklands and down the curved arch of the Kingsway ramp. I slumped down into my loungeroom cocoon, positioned below the heater, comfortably entwined in cushions and doonas, like Frodo in Shelob’s tight web, and stared into the abyss with a blank mien, replaying the uncanny events of the afternoon and lamenting the demise of my nicely decorated, sixty-three-thousand-dollar, uninsured caravan. I was awakened by Shirley, having drifted out of consciousness, proffering a plate of bangers and mash to my slumbering form. Here, kid, for you. My gratitude was infinite. Oh, what a kind and unassuming character, of Indigenous blood, who I would lavish with a planet of her own, with devoted stars and suns, away from all known trouble, if I had a Tinkerbell wand large enough. The boys were up and in a silly mood, and now they were in the lounge room.

They had in their possession a massive dildo, which they had employed to comedic effect in every conceivable way. Every suggestive position and every grotty innuendo known to man had been manifested in connection with this bold and intimidating phallus, a symbol of male reproductive prowess liable to outclass Dirk Diggler himself. It was indeed a caricature of an actual male appendage, with a massive shaft and a huge, contoured scrotum, with a big suction cup at the base, so a woman or man could root themselves in the shower as the desire arose. Anyway, now, in a mischievous frame of mind, the boys – totally oblivious to my misadventure – decided that they wanted to punk my defenceless ass as a means of entertainment, suctioning the prodigious rubber cock to the ceiling above me, directly above my woebegone, teaching-exhausted head. I stared at the object in genuine apprehension. It was more dire and more pointed and more threatening and more doom-ridden than the very sword of Damocles itself. And after thirty seconds of precarious teetering, it finally gave way and descended with torpedo like momentum towards my person, sailing by force of gravity, like a bunker busting bomb, intent to penetrate the subterranean depths of my brain. I threw my hands up in terror, in flailing self-defence, as the rubber implement collided with my forearms. Luckily – saints be praised – I was unharmed physically, but I must say, bewildered emotionally and very tempted to lodge a complaint with the local police, for sexual harassment and grievous bodily dildoing.

Later, in philosophical quiet, in pensive depths, I thought along the following lines: I will interpret this as a sign, a milestone, a marker on my life path, a clear suggestion, bold as a twirling racing flag, to exit the erratic and crime riddled expanse of Melbourne city and engage brave new horizons of experience and travel. I duly made arrangements to collect the last of my possessions from the towing yard and exit stage north to New South Wales. I will pick the idyllically named Eden as my destination, I determined. I purchased a small cage trailer from a Bayswater manufacturer, sending him the transaction receipt. In anticipation, I camped overnight, out the front of the industrial area in which he operated, taking possession of the hot dip galvanised item the next morning, smiling at it with satisfaction as it represented my exit ticket from the stern classroom that is the reality of Melbourne. He was an enormous man, obese, requiring that he lumber to move, and good humoured as a whistle, wishing me well and providing a tool rack for extra storage. With my new storage ability, I sped out to Deer Park, collected my possessions and escaped to the M1, with a decent canvas cover draped above, to protect my scraped and discombobulated possessions, still very much in disorder after the crash.

I drove through the hills of Gippsland, examining the sweet rolling vales and quaint towns with the same interested eyes I had employed as a boy, thirty-seven years prior. Even Yarragon held a strange and timeless familiarity, a Brigadoon sort of mystique that served as a buffer against the decaying influence of time. It looked just the same as I remember. In surveying the facades and shop fronts, I recalled being escorted by my mother to a play group in that vicinity decades earlier and enjoying nicely cut slices of orange and apple, as I capered in the blissful ignorance of a budding life (my keenest memories seem always to concern food). The V8 was a pleasure to command and the efficient heater provided a bulwark against the chilly winter atmosphere. Onwards I barrelled, past Lakes Entrance and Orbost and Cann River, down to picturesque, seaside Mallacoota, swagging it at the local park, with raindrops pattering upon me in the pitch silence. With the rose fingered effulgence of an unassuming morning to rouse me, I furled my swag into a tight spiral and crossed over the NSW border, continuing on to heavenly Eden, through leafy wormholes of the Princes Highway, encased in towering and impressive treetop canopies.

I arrived in Eden late, ten minutes before the service station closed, at nine fifty PM. Exhausted from the concentration connected with driving, I lethargically filled the tank with diesel and returned to my car, only to discover the keys were locked inside. I phoned AAMI insurance and requested assistance, only to discover that the late hour prohibited my being attended to by a local contractor. Oy vey! Oy gevalt! Such fantastic inconvenience! I did not have the money to check in at a hotel, so, after some cursory deliberation, I unfurled my swag and spent the night staring at pump three at the Ampol facility, shivering and disgruntled, only to be awakened, eventually, by the chirpy banter of the petrol station staff starting their day at 4:30 am. What the actual fuck? Do you see a sign that says camping encouraged? Wheretofrom is you, street bum? Apologies ma’am. I’m locked out. Excommunicated from my 79 series. Debarred. Shuttered. As mournful and disenchanted as a wet cat at the door! I had no choice in the matter! She smiled and said that this was entirely understandable and that she would, as an expression of her sympathy and great magnanimity, buy me a coffee to catalyse my physical engine. I accepted her offer with a smile and doled myself a prodigious, jumbo coffee, and then summoned the rescuing services of AAMI to get me going again. I spent a week overlooking the peacefully swooshing bay and glancing through the history of the area, with keen interest, given my historical training, maintaining my physical being via a generous donation from the Uniting church.

I pressed onwards in my journey north, through the spectacular terrain of the South East Forest National Park, with flashes of all-encompassing green hanging in my eyes like a form of hypnotism, a sort of virtual reality mask through which I could find comfort and egress from the dilapidating world outside, exploding now under perpetual rocket fire and paroxysms of political acrimony. In addition to the soft beguiling green, I was worshipping at the altar of blue also, the bold azure winter sky hanging above me, like a limitless art piece, or like an encapsulating snow globe, cupped over the diorama of my life inside. I recall Aldous Huxley describing the palpable zen that belongs to the open road, the resounding freedom that it affords, and the underscoring wonderment linked to the internal combustion engine, as it flickers and putts and purrs below (the memories stemming from a unit on the history of technology at UWA coordinated by Prof. Andrea Gaynor). I stopped in lovely Pambula, a place of fast bewitching beauty, for those with a ready love of nature, espying with total aesthetic satisfaction the rippling waters of the inlet and the trees huddling there in gentle attendance, walking down the stone steps with care as my senses became fully indulged and saturated by the postcard worthy vista. It is a truly beautiful spot, with English countryside loveliness and alure, a pulchritude I would ideally like to announce to the entire cosmos with my poet’s feather and cyber-parchment. Back in my car, overbrimming with the contents of my caravan, I continued into the area of the Snowy Mountains, examining the khaki grasses and atmospheric trees with real love, rolling past the huddled buildings and dilapidated farms dotting the landscape. I marvelled at the intermittent choirs of Snow Gums that lined the highway, standing in righteous straightness and ready to worship the indomitable sun, along with the stately Alpine Ash and hardy Mountain Gum, arboreal beauties characteristic of montane and wet sclerophyll forests. I stopped in Nimmitabel and greeted the husband and wife swans at the lake before photographing the sweeping expanse of olive green fields and sapphire blue heavens in wide panorama. Onwards I drove, past terrain combining reds and ochres and greens in every possible variation, through Nowra, past Woolongong, and onwards to Weatherill Park, one of Sydney’s western suburbs, to pick up an awning for my car.

Exhausted, I camped in a random area, down near a creek overhung with trees and vines. As I made the final turns to my streetside camp, I saw a number of men transacting a deal at the boot of a car, with money evidently changing hands. They looked nervously over their shoulders, lest my status resemble law enforcement or police scrutiny. Just a cruiser, they shrugged. I pulled over and slept on the sidewalk next to my car and trailer. The next day, scoffing the last of my avocado, I used the very useful tool forged by Foodbank, the find food page, a database of distinct value and utility in any corner of our increasingly dark continent for those teetering around the domain of homelessness or food insecurity. I was directed to the nearby Community Centre for a tri weekly food handout, passing on the way a Catholic school, St. Therese’s. Sitting next to a large boulder I found a scrawled set of affirmations, bright in yellow and pink, the preparations for upcoming time in chapel:

Julian – practice for liturgy:
Help of Christians – Pray for us
Queen of Angels – Pray for us
Queen conceived without original Sin – Pray for us
Queen consumed into Heaven – Pray for us
Queen of the most holy rosary – Pray for us

I meditated momentarily on the old Catholic ethos I had encountered as a boy at St. Vincent’s Catholic school in Morwell, as evoked in this plea for divine assistance, addressed to Mother Mary. Interrupting my reverie, a man walked past slowly, wheeling a trolley with a few meagre possessions inside. Greetings my friend, I chirped with an amicable air, approaching the gentleman sporting a faded black tracksuit. He had pale blue eyes and a ready smile and an accent close to an Israeli one. My name’s Ali, he said in warm introduction. My longing for a human touch was kindled instantly, having been on the road for some weeks and essentially deprived of any nice gregarious banter to bolster my flagging enthusiasm. I have recently escaped from war battered Lebanon, he informed me with forthright candour. The Israeli aggression that has impacted our cities is dire and devastating, foul as the stench of hell itself, with city spaces caving in and slumping like dominoes under the explosive affront sent by that hubristic nation. Typically, their intelligence is as accurate as a blind sooth sayer on acid stumbling through a rock pool, yet real lives get obliterated. It’s not right. Senseless. I have seen too much death! Indeed, I said softly, real emotional angst piqued into life within me at the iniquity he outlined. I have seen these harrowing visions you speak of on the news. I understand, I encouraged sympathetically, and I am sorry.

We entered the community centre together and accepted a pink ticket each, our numbers in the queue written there in black pen – 64 and 65. We maintained company with friendly conversation and ready laughter as we surveyed the rag tag sea of needy people, all struggling to survive, with tickets numbering up to one hundred being doled out. We managed to acquire an abundance of offerings, from bread, to lasagne, to vegetables and herbs and fruit, to desserts like cakes and pastries. We feasted with gusto on pork rolls and chicken soup available from the barbeque area, before exiting with an elegant sufficiency of supplies. I’ll drive you anywhere you want, friend, I offered. It’s okay. Thank you, Adam, he said, and we parted company. Then I met another attendee at the handout. An elderly woman with bright blue eyes, friendly aspect, and a trolley of her own, freshly replenished with foodstuffs and clothing. I told her my situation. A babe in the woods of Sydney, madam. You need a place, she queried. Yeah, I sure do. Name’s Sapphire, she informed me. Adam, I returned. I drove to the address she supplied and was invited inside. This is David, she said, gesturing to a decrepit, white haired form stationed centrally on the floorboards in the living room, staring into his lap in total silence, with a walking frame positioned directly in front, and a connect four set on a towel, the yellow and blue discs set inside the columns stacked to completeness. He’s the landlord. Got given this place by his dad after World War two. He’s the backbone of four of us and we help him survive with devotion, escorting him to the toilet or mopping up his drool as required. Okay, I said respectfully.

I set up camp and awoke to a sea of bird life, with ibis strutting across the nicely mowed grass with prehistoric simplicity and aplomb, the black and white creatures perusing the extensive yard with measured steps, pacing carefully, the glancing orange sun striking through the trees, with other noisy miner birds darting around and chirping their dainty existence in celebration of the new day. I entered the house and found Sapphire coaching David with encouraging words. Now do your power rangers, David, you can do this, she affirmed. His feeble arms engaged a determined set of pumps and extensions with a rubber sheet. One, two, three, four, he squeaked in a feeble voice, mouselike, maintaining his exertion up to thirty. Upon finishing, he said with geriatric feebleness, I gotta go toilet. Take me to the toilet please. Sapphire patiently assisted him as he made a pilgrimage to the toilet, shuffling his slippers in little jolts across the boards, resting on the four legged frame, clinging on for dear life, with Sapphire’s hand upon his shoulder, onwards to the destination of the lavatory, replete with surrounding handrails and a thick seat of foam designed for disabled individuals.

Another character was present in the lounge room, I discovered, sitting in front of a laptop computer in the corner, in the shadows, tall and friendly with a deep voice and grey eyes that had witnessed a long and interesting life, a life spanning several continents and long decades of hardship – betrayal, impoverishment and multitudinous shades of heartache, flashes of misfortune in an endless disco ball rotation. A grand life, based in the United Kingdom and South Africa, then Australia. I’m from Leeds but spent twelve years in South Africa. The landscape of Johannesburg city I know with real intimacy, he offered. Well, I was born about an hour south of there, in Sasolburg, I informed him, glad of the connection. My mother was an accomplished opera singer, he went on, performing for dignitaries and at theatres and in music halls through various states, almost a celebrity name at the time, a musician par excellence. Very good, sir, very good, I smiled, impressed. I’m set up now. Tent is up. Canvas spread. Even the tarpaulin is down as my veranda. My generator is handy, tentside, and my table too. Generator? He queried. Yeah, for power. No, no, no, my boy, my young son, that won’t do at all! I’ll get you a lead, a power cord – it’s my pleasure. He summoned a driver and disappeared. About an hour later he returned with a sturdy tradesman power cord from Bunnings, exiting the cab and stepping onto the grimy grey driveway upon his return. He extended his hand with a smile, gifting me the newly purchased item with beneficent satisfaction. I smiled, taken aback. You sure? It’s nothing. “We like to boogie”, he said in bold affirmation and good humour. You know who wrote that, son? T-Rex.