He's leaving home.

We set off earlier than expected.
Not to get him out of the house at last but for a far more important reason; I wanted to catch the ten past six session for Three Billboards Outside etc.
So we quickly put this in a bag, that in the car, and took about the same amount of time again checking that he/we hadn't forgotten anything.
On the way to his new freedoms, we spoke of all manner of things starting with the idea of hubris as it relates to protecting lesser living entities, right through to the binomial hours of the shadow in Chinese astrology.
We arrived at his new freedom and quickly unpacked everything into the,
me: tiny room,
him: new adventure
and hopped back in the car hoping to avoid the beginning of the year peak hour traffic up around Carlton (I figured it would be a great send off to see a good movie with him for the last time in god knows how long).
And we almost made it too!
About two blocks from the cinema we hit bumper to bumper but even then we did not despair because we found pay parking in the next block and me out of shape and him out of shape ran and made it to the cinema smack on ten past six
Only to find two queues to the box office - both extending almost all the way out the main entrance.
We weren't alone in the idea of catching the flick.
I must confess it cost long moments in profound remorse and self flagellation to have to make do with the consolation prize of French Vanilla flans and Tiramisu at Brunetti's
but years from now, I think we'll both agree that no matter how great the movie may or may not be and no matter how many awards it may or may not garner, nothing and no one could touch those brilliant and precious minutes of Brunetti's heavenly morsels.
"Yes, can you put me through to the dentist please?
Two for bridgework with a side of sugar rushes."
Fly well and fair play, young man.

The adventure begins...

Perth 2017

Melbourne
Heading out to the airport in the early morning light. The whole city, the suburban weatherboards to the steel and glass skyscrapers, bathed in rose. Gracias a la vida, desde mi corazon.
Landing
Ah, Perth. Seems it was always destined to be a complicated relationship, wasn't it.
Fremantle
I'll tell you what's cool. What's cool is two old men in a beaten, though not defeated, Hyundai hooning through the wide roads and avenues and highways of Fremantle, belting out Seven and Seven Is, Psychotic Reaction, I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night, Alone Again Or.
And laughing till they're hoarse.
Yeah.
That
Is
Really
Fucking
Cool.
Kewdale
The names: Abernathy, Arthur, Belmont, Oaks, Stockdale, Acton, Towers, Scott, Kew... All and always leading back to Knutsford Avenue.
The middle aged European couple over the back on Arthur Street, slouching about their summer soaked front yard in matching his and hers fake tiger skin underwear.
Hey! You the kid who's always taking our almonds?
I dunno, maybe.
Well don't.
And after that I'd have to keep watch from the window of the caravan parked around the back of the house in which I lived, to make sure they'd gone out before stealing any more if their bitter, nearly ripe
almonds.
And Tomato Lake defying all conventional wisdom by actually being a lot larger and more scum covered than ever it was when we played there as kids.
These strange and stupid shards that keep sticking out, still cutting deep.
Yeah, Perth.
Like I said before. It's complicated.
Leaving.
Another double decker, another magnificent view. Pete, Jeannie, Rache, Jay, kids, and Helen and Brett for good measure: I love you. Thank you for every countless ordinary miracle and for teaching me that if you can adult with a modicum of dignity and a heartful of courage, then one day I too might succeed.

Lay Down.

Today's portrait of the landscape.

You're out walking, driving. Sitting. Unfamiliar places or familiar but seen at last. Bus stops, train stations, the inevitable eatery.
It dawns on you that you're bleeding, diminished
yet you feel stronger than you can ever recall feeling. A new delirium.
Everyone around you. Everyone.
Everyone you see.
The swaddled newborn next to you looking unfocused in your direction, at the mother, at the others.
The care lines. The mottled hands. The pink hands. All colours. Everyone. All sexes and predilections and convictions. All proclivities. All of them.
Everyone.
For this little forever you are the least interesting thing to have existed. They are all so much more important and intriguing than you will ever be.
Everyone
else.
Smiling, laughing. The inaudible conversations. The too audible ones. They walk dogs. They push strollers. At least one happy, indeterminate creature they had on a leash had only three legs.
Crows feet. Gestures, sullen and wild. Serious eyes. Wetted lips and rising and falling throats. Skin rough and smooth, receding hairlines, loose skin and taut through times of abundance and otherwise. Unconscious scratching and unwarranted and nervous hahaing. All this and everything else besides.
Never mind that these are days of thin money. Never mind the decided lack of exuberance flowing over everything. Never mind the lousy weather.
Or the vagaries of life rising slowly up from within, or around the corner the phone calls filled with hobbling and heartbreaking news.
All the terrors and triumphs of your life have leached away because of every person you see until you are left
with nothing.
And slowly it dawns on the small part of you remaining, that you have pulled off history's greatest disappearance
yet again.

Fade into you.

Concert

I was reminiscing with my brother and I recalled the first concert he ever took me to.
There was Copperwine, the La Di Das (who would later play in the assembly hall at my high school, around the same time as the unknown outfit AC/DC), Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, Johnny Farnham, Spectrum (or the Indelible Murcteps as they were then known, I think), and Johnny Farnham among others. My brother doesn't remember any of it but I distinctly recall someone pegging a bottle of beer at Johnny Farnham halfway through his version of Glen Campbell's Visions of Sugarplums and young Johnny F, ever the polite one, stopped only to gently chide, "That's not very nice!" before continuing.
Who knows. Maybe after all these years it was wishful thinking on my part (although looking back, I'd never consider Johnny Farnham to be high on my list of remembrances, nice though he's known to be) but I remember that damned missile and I remember the afternoon light and the noise. St Leonards Park 1971, maybe? Or possibly one of those bigger freeby gigs further west. Or maybe, as previously stated, I've been bullshitting so long, I can no longer sort truth from fantasy.

Sugarplums

Darker.

You stare and stare.
And the page gets no darker and you think back on the week, a brother who had a touch and go experience, a friend traumatised by a breakup, other friends battling cancer. And you try to be there or at least be around as a brother, as a friend, and you're somehow haunted by the possibility that you were never particularly skilled at either.
You think on remembrance. On eleventh hours of eleventh days of eleventh months
and the page gets no darker
and in particular you recall the interview with a 3 RAR soldier who spoke of the terror of the Battle of the Apple Orchard in late 1950. He described with pride how it is now cited as a classical tactical fallback in military manuals across the world. He described adventures that swung wildly between visceral horror and insane hilarity and how he never wanted to hear another chime or whistle or bell again because that was how the northern armies (foolishly) announced every major assault so even in the dark, all you had to do was point and shoot at the clamour, with devastating and senseless effect.
He goes on to describe a successful counterattack on a ridge because the Chinese and North Korean troops had overrun their position in the caves the UN Allies had settled into. The counterattack was not part of any grand strategy, it was simply because the RAR troops were royally fucked off as they'd spent so long setting up their still to make the shit Core 10 (as the Yanks liked to call it because they seemed to have trouble pronouncing the name Corio, where this horror with a whiskey label had been churned out to poison the masses for decades) somehow potable.
And we laughed then as I looked into the man's eyes and he was there in a happy moment in hell.
And I foolishly asked, "So it wasn't all bad then?"
And the laughter vanished in the blink of an eye
and he said, "It was worse."
And for the only time in my life I understood in my own shallow and savage and stupid way how people never come back.

Masters of war.

Saturday 28 October 2017.

They couldn't have measured much over five foot apiece. The dutiful daughter with clear skin and haunted eyes holding the unsteady hands of her mother, well into her seventies.
Stopping every few yards to allow the older woman to catch her breath. They didn't talk, they didn't smile.
The mother sat down a couple of chairs down and swatted feebly at her hair as if to brush the nuisance sunlight away. She indicated to her daughter who knelt on the footpath to rub her mother's calf.
Presently the mother rose and they continued their promenade.
A tall woman in her late 50s ordered a pot of tea further down. Her sunglasses dark so I had no way to determine where or upon whom she was casting her calm gaze.
The young waitress helped me make up my mind because the nuisance sunlight kept driving any clear thoughts out of my head.
A tall man with a cane, his left foot twisted inwards, ushered his large family into the cafe as a couple sat at the table next to mine.
This couple looked handsome, in spite of her lime green coat, in spite of his ornate Tyrolean hat with its ridiculous feather.
A cappuccino for me and ummm. She points to a cake in the window. All of this to the waitress.
The old man gently waves his hand. He's alright, thanks.
I told you, I come here often, Alex. I was here the other day. No, Monday. No. What day is it?
I don't know either in this moment, in this sunshine.
Her sunglasses are enormous and hair is jet black and she looks confident, as does he with the tufts of white hair screaming out from beneath the hat.
I'm not sure what else they have to do with the house but it's looking good, you must admit. I'm starting to feel better about it all.
The waitress brings out a flan, all custard and gelatine and colourful fruit, and coffee.
I realise I'm smiling and I don't know why.
The woman has fast reflexes. Her hand darts out and grabs the waitress's hand.
We're all slightly alarmed, I realise.
These. Such lovely nails.
The young waitress: Are you Italian? It's just that I'm Italian and that's the first thing we say every single time.
Can you tell me how you do these?
They last for about six weeks and then you can peel them off.
What are you laughing at?
This last to me.
I'm not.
I am,
I stammer.
I'm laughing at this -
This very special, very ordinary moment.
The old woman laughs.
The best kinds of moments, she says.
How could I even try to make them understand that I was drunk from it all before the nuisance sun went away again.


This perfect day.

Is the water rising or am I sinking?

There was a man with his kombi and this was in another lifetime,
as with every other laboured and tedious imagining of mine.
The man appeared kind as he stopped and gave me a lift in a snow-littered place called Enfield in a country called England
and I thanked him as I hopped in without paying too much attention to his face (which could have been any face in any country) or anything else about him in the pre-dawn darkness because I was tired and I couldn't sleep in the bus shelter because it let the sleet through and I was hungry but I had tobacco.
As we set off towards Chelmsford, I asked if he minded if I smoked because like everyone back then, we all had to smoke in cars because it was law. Or should have been, according to anyone who smoked and he said no, so I started to roll up, thinking he meant what he didn't mean at all.
And the next no had all the exclamation of a sharp razor blade.
I mumbled an apology because I was tired and so on and so forth as he said, "The tobacco industry is one of the many hands of world Jewry."
And I nodded lamely because a) he was hissing into my deaf ear and, b) I was etc. etc. etc.
"Did you hear what I said?"
"No, sorry. So I can't smoke?"
"I told you you can't. It's the Rothschilds. The bastards are behind it all. American money. How else do you account for Israel?!"
I was about to respond that I couldn't account for myself 6 hours ago let alone a country a thousand miles away that I knew nothing about.
But it was his kombi and I was stupid for warmth and sleetlessness.
He leaned across and flung open the glovebox and this, to be completely honest, scared the shit out of me.
Guns flashed through my mind.
Knives.
Scissors.
Anything that involved my blood or my lost and lifeless corpse.
But it was a tightly bunched clump of folded A4 sheets with what appeared to be badly mimeoed text and pictures.
All of it a trash testimony to antisemitism courtesy of this cockney kombi driver and his desert-headed, cousin-fucking cohorts kicking heads and soup tins back around the estates.
He was smashing sheet after sheet into my chest as I tried to make sure I lost none of the tobacco that I was still trying to push back into my pouch.
Our time'll come and we'll kill and blah blah fucking blah.
Hate, you say? You, you dumb cunt, you don't know what hate means!
Kike this and Jew that and
god
knows
what
else.
That glovebox appeared to be a bottomless pit of tacky pamphlets and his NHS mouth seemed to be an endless spewhole of bone-headed vitriol.
So we settled into a routine - him spouting to his well and truly captive audience and me internalising my newfound mantra of, "Who poisoned you?! Who poisoned you?! Who poisoned you?!"
with the occasional interjection of, "This is my stop up ahead," and "That was my stop back there".
And, "I'LL LET YOU OUT WHEN I'M FUCKING READY!"
And the flat countryside rolled past and this would be my last day on earth and his ugly face would be the last human thing I ever saw and
suddenly he stopped.
Nowhere. Ploughed, sodden fields. No houses.
Just
nowhere.
___

"Get out."
I did. I seemed to have heard him just fine first time around on this final occasion.
He didn't even lean across to shut the door. He just took off trusting impetus to do the job.
And the last thing I saw were the stickers on the tailgate.
I'm a boy scout leader.
St George.
Proud to be English
Ah well, you know this story already. I've told it to you in a million not so subtle variations.
...
But it all brings me to today and the comments on the news reports as the biggest mass shooting in America unfolds for the entire horrified world to see.
Murderous fools wrapped in their unshaken, despotic convictions defending and playing apologist for other murderous fools and we - the normal and the broken alike - go on holding our breath and waiting.
For nothing to happen once again.
With every beat of my fear-filled heart, I wish it weren't so
but the mantra in my head hasn't changed a solitary syllable.

Weeping.