by Peter Drew
I waited until the fourth of July to launch my project amid the drunken fragility of American patriotism. It worked. Unsurprisingly, the gun control poster attracted the most attention. It was the easiest to read and the most topical. My inbox quickly filled with American rage – some vile, some quite funny. But I got the impression that most people understood the project as an act of satire. The people I engaged with often revealed the playfulness of their game, confirming my core suspicion: our culture of outrage is little more than a profitable sport.
I attracted similar outrage from people on the left. It was strange being called ‘alt-right’ and a ‘socialist leftard’ on the same day. Departing from past practice, I was letting the audience decide which posters I would stick up. For every poster sold I promised to stick up ten posters on the streets of America. In this way the audience would effectively control my agenda. Many people chose ‘Equality’ and ‘Please Be Offensive’, but most chose the gun control poster, so I guess I’m still a lefty. However, I couldn’t deny the project’s overall nihilism in its attempt to exploit both sides of the political dialectic.
In previous years I’d committed to my posters with a frenzied intoxication that fed upon my personal attachment to Australian identity. Now I couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm. So what if America’s political discourse was munted? But nor could I rest on that sentiment. How can someone with plans to start a family afford to be so cynical? Surely my host country of America deserved something more than my empty jibes? Surely the oldest democracy in the world deserved a little more respect?
With that sentiment in mind I designed four new posters.
Out of many possible affirmations, I deliberately chose the seemingly antiquated notion of brotherhood and sisterhood. I actually liked their theological tone. Despite being an atheist since I was nine years old, I was gaining more and more respect for the power of religious metaphors. I often wonder whether our regressive tribalism is a result of our failure to find a secular substitute for the way religion universalises our familial bonds.
I felt sure my new posters would provide a potent catalyst for my experience on the streets of America. However, in the back of my mind I could hear a faint voice telling me that America was just a distraction. I knew it was true. I was just running away from my problems by creating a spectacle. I’d soon discover that the last thing America needed was another spectacle.
America
On our first morning in Los Angeles, Julie and I went down to Venice Beach to take in the sprawling kaleidoscopic extravaganza of American freedom in all its lurid intensity. It was eight a.m. on a Sunday and the place was crawling with exhibitionists ‘living their best life’. In a way it was beautiful, maybe even inspiring … Then I saw this guy.
He wasn’t joking. Online it’s hard to tell whether anyone is really sincere but on the street it becomes obvious pretty quickly. I rushed over to the man in the picture, whom everyone else was ignoring, and asked for an explanation. As I held up my phone to make a video he was happy to share his thoughts.
‘You can’t measure the curves, can’t measure the spin … Water is flat, man, water is a level. You can use a level with the bubble in it because water is inside, because water finds a level,’ he told me as he pointed at the horizon of the Pacific Ocean. ‘The only reason they say it curves is because of gravity.’
He let me take his photo, then off he went to spread the word. Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to follow up on his claim that ‘Space is fake’. Apart from his sign, nothing about his appearance indicated insanity. He probably had a good job. He seemed quite peaceful, like an everyday American pursuing his hobby. I guess in America you’re free to be crazy as long as you’re not hurting anyone.
Early the next morning I got to work spreading my own theories. Julie and I were living among the hipsters of Silver Lake. As I followed Sunset Boulevard towards Hollywood I found plenty of spots to place my posters. I encountered almost no resistance.
‘You Aussie?’ asked an elderly man as I was sticking up a gun control poster. He had ridden up on a bicycle that was customised to resemble a prop from Mad Max. He was wearing a mixture of denim and piercings over skin that had turned to leather in the sun.
‘Yep, I’m an Australian,’ I said, continuing my work.
‘You can’t change the Second Amendment,’ he said flatly, through a cloud of facial hair.
‘Yeah, I know. I like your First Amendment though,’ I said, then shifted the conversation towards his bike. I was happy to avoid a debate and he was happy to chat about his bike and his love of Los Angeles. No matter how disconnected some people seemed, especially in LA where everyone was acting out a fantasy version of themselves, a deep civic pride shone through. Several times I was told off, or granted approval, by homeless people who insisted on having their say over my posters being stuck up near their spot. That never happens in Australia.
‘Take care, brother,’ they’d say. Sometimes it would be ‘God bless you.’
I divided my efforts between West Hollywood, the Sunset Strip, Echo Park and Downtown. The following week I was in San Francisco, where I made a special trip out to Berkeley to make my little contribution to America’s epicentre of progressive thought. On the university campus I found myself walking among the hubbub of orientation week. Fresh young students collected handfuls of fliers at the festival of stalls advertising their clubs to potential new members. Everything from archery to Zahanat, the all-male fusion dance group, was on offer. Nobody seemed to pay much attention to me putting up my posters. I was just part of the circus.
The following week I was sticking up posters in Brooklyn to a similar lack of interest. Being a street artist in the hipster capital of the world couldn’t be more passé. Many of the best graffiti artists had formed companies that painted commission murals for brands like Evian and Louis Vuitton. Covered in anti-graffiti protective coating, these giant ads dominated the streetscape. Many warehouses that once housed artist collectives had recently been demolished to make room for high-rise luxury apartments filled with young professionals. They all worked across the river in Manhattan. Every morning they clogged the subway like a swarm of talking haircuts, leaving their toddlers in the care of immigrant nannies who clustered together to gossip in the park.
Eventually I took my last twenty posters to Times Square and gave them away. It was near midnight and the place was packed. I was relieved to see the last few posters disappear into the crowd. Afterwards I stood and gawked at a group of black Israelites pouring racist bile upon confused tourists. Behind them a glowing billboard of Beyoncé and Jay Z completed the picture of America, the land of absurd contrasts.
The next day I went to Brooklyn’s Bushwick Inlet Park to look across the East River at Manhattan and try to make sense of my trip. A week before, Julie and I had been in Yosemite, among the Sierra Nevada mountains. But now, as I looked upon the sprawling mass of humanity that is the New York City skyline, I was surprised to admit that I found it more impressive than Yosemite. It looked like a vast engine of human imagination, inviting me to dive into its furnace. If I were younger I’d have happily submitted to its promise of transformation, but now I felt like I had too much to lose. I had plenty waiting for me back home.
I have one last poster to show you. I designed it just before leaving for America. The idea came to me on a whim, maybe due to my general dissatisfaction with the rest of my posters. When I shared the new design it was immediately popular, which made me curious. A few people hated the design, which made me even more curious. They wanted to know whether I was trying to be ironic, which of course I was, but not in the way they were hoping.
In truth, the new design was an experiment and I wanted to be its guinea pig. When I got back from America the experiment would begin. It was time to go home and take some responsibility for my real problems, the ones that were right in front of me.
Getting It Done
The week after we got back from America, Dad came over t
o help me move some screens. He’s always driven a bigger car than mine and I still rely on his help moving things. These days his body is getting old and I need to do the heavy lifting, otherwise he’ll gladly hurt himself ‘getting it done’. I lifted the screens over the roof rack and Dad threw straps across the top. We each tied a clove hitch before adding octopus straps for tension. The ceremony was complete in under a minute with barely a word spoken.
When I was a kid I’d watch Dad work on the house. I could stand there for hours, holding tight to the possibility that I might be called upon to hand him a tool at a crucial moment. That enthusiasm dried up in my teenage years, and only came back when I realised I still needed him. By the time I moved out of Tooth & Nail Studio, I had a chance to do some building of my own. Dad and I took two months to build a 6x6 metre shed that would have taken professionals two days to construct. We lost our tempers with each other more times than I can count, but we got it done.
The screens on the roof were headed for a printer on the other side of town who’d offered to expose my new designs. We had a forty-minute drive ahead of us. As we drove along in silence my head was swimming with technical problems. Had I stripped the screens correctly? Where the transparencies opaque enough? Were the designs any good? That was the real problem. I started running through my catalogue of imaginary arguments with all the people who would hate them.
‘How’s Julian?’ I asked out of nowhere.
‘The same,’ said Dad, after a pause.
I’d seen Julian less and less since he’d come to zippole two and a half years earlier. Even when I did visit the house, which wasn’t often, he rarely showed his face. Dad and I didn’t talk about him, so it was like he didn’t exist. It was easier that way. But on that day I wasn’t in an easy mood. I felt like attacking any problem within reach.
‘What’s the plan?’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’ Dad replied.
‘Well, Julian’s a 36-year-old man who’s been living with his parents for well over a decade. He doesn’t have a job. He doesn’t seem to want a job. All he seems to do is troll the internet. That’s the problem, so what’s the plan?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Dad quietly.
‘Have you tried talking to him about it?’ I asked.
‘He won’t listen to me.’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, I don’t know!’ said Dad.
A couple of times in the past I’d confronted Dad about the situation with Julian and it always got stuck at this point. I’d encourage Dad to sit down with Mum and hash out a plan. Maybe they could give Julian an ultimatum? Maybe they could ask him what he needed from them? Maybe Dad could find a support group of parents who have the same problem? Maybe he could try something? Anything would be better than ignoring the problem for another year. But every time I tried to push Dad into action he’d placate me with agreement and then nothing would change. I never bothered to talk to Mum. She was in complete denial.
We slipped back into silence. I knew how the conversation would play out if I pushed it any further. What was the point? Besides, I had my own life. What did I care if there was a black hole at the centre of my family, crushing them slowly?
But I’d been thinking about it for years. I’d been projecting my family’s problems onto Australia for years. Of course I cared. It wasn’t for lack of caring that I failed to confront the matter. It was cowardice.
‘Why won’t Julian listen to you?’ I asked again.
‘I don’t know!’
‘I think you do,’ I said.
We had twenty minutes left on our drive. If I didn’t push the point now, it would be another year before we spoke about it again. I didn’t want to speak about it again. I wanted to get it done.
‘It was fifteen years ago that we drove to Canberra to get Julian,’ I said. ‘He managed to live there, on his own, for two whole years. So there’s really nothing wrong with him. He can take care of himself.’
‘Yes,’ said Dad.
‘So don’t you think that he’s just feeling humiliated? Don’t you think it might help him if he felt forgiven for his failings? Don’t you think you could help him get over that humiliation?’
‘He won’t listen to me,’ Dad insisted.
‘You can’t think of any reason why Julian doesn’t trust you?’ I asked. ‘Was it always like that between him and you? Even when he was little, he wouldn’t listen to you?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
Now I was getting pissed off. Now I was sure he was playing dumb. Now I was sure I wanted to hear him say it.
‘I think you do know,’ I said. ‘I think you can probably think of a pretty good reason why Julian wouldn’t trust you.’
There was a long pause. In that moment I knew his secret was right on his mind. I wondered how many times over the past thirty-two years he’d been this close to telling the truth. Moments came to mind. Lost opportunities. I wasn’t going to lose this one.
‘Did something happen between you and Mum when we were little?’
‘Yes,’ said Dad.
And like that, it was gone. The secret was broken. The invisible boundary had been crossed. I knew it would all come out. I felt dizzy.
‘When you boys were very little I fooled around on your mum. It was a completely stupid thing to do and I’ve regretted it ever since. Mum and I decided to never tell you boys.’
‘How old was Julian when it happened?’
‘Four.’
‘Do you think he remembers?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Dad.
We pulled up in front of the printers. Dad started to get out of the car but I asked him to wait.
‘Did Mum forgive you?’ I asked.
‘Well, she said she did, but the way I saw it, that shame was just something I should learn to live with. We decided to never, ever tell you boys because we didn’t want you to think that you weren’t wanted. Your mum had to carry that secret too, so why should I feel forgiven?’
‘I’m thirty-five years old, Dad. I’ve been around long enough to know that nobody’s perfect. I’ve had moments of weakness. Everyone needs to be forgiven. But if you keep going around carrying this shame, how can you forgive Julian?’
Dad nodded. Then he looked at me and said, ‘Okay, let’s get on with it.’
So we got out of the car and untied the straps. The next day I started writing this book.
A Real Boy
My initial fear in writing this book was that the scale of my story would not match the grandeur of the theme. I was afraid that adultery plus posters would not equal a tale of spiritual poverty. Is my story big enough? Are my posters clever enough? Am I good enough? It’s all the same question, really. It’s all the same fear. Give in to that fear and it’s amazing how quickly the world can fall apart. But we rarely give in completely. We mostly just diminish ourselves in little ways. We commit little sins of neglect, often disguised as modesty. We tell ourselves that it doesn’t really matter, but it all adds up. Before you know it, there’s a pile of sins so large that you need to write a book just to make sense of it all.
You’ll notice that I never asked my dad to apologise. I don’t feel that I’m owed an apology. I forgive him regardless. My dad’s already given me more than I could possibly ask for and he’s suffered too. I’m no better than he is. I’ve made mistakes and I count myself lucky that they haven’t been big ones. If anything, I’ve learnt from his mistakes. If I hadn’t known about our family history, maybe I would have ruined my own marriage a long time ago. Who knows? The one thing I do feel that I am owed is the truth. I think everyone deserves to hear the truth. I have faith in the truth. I believe in its regenerative qualities. The truth reverberates and heals in unpredictable ways.
One thing I haven’t said yet is that I’m grateful to my mum. I’m grateful for her cunning and tenacity in keeping our family together. If she hadn’t undermined my dad’s affair he might never have returned. Sure, they could have done a bett
er job at forgiving one another, but I think they did the best they could with the skills they inherited. The fact that my parents stayed together out of duty to me and my brothers is ultimately humbling. The fact that they used shame to hold us together is the obstacle they now need to overcome. They should do it for the sake of my brothers but also for themselves. I believe they can, because I believe they’re still in love.
My obsession with Australian identity grew out of my family dysfunction, but to what extent is a nation like a family? A nation is composed of love as well as power. Nations are born; they grow and die. Nations protect, and they oppress. Above all, nations, like families, are composed of stories.
But if my experience can be boiled down to one essential lesson, it’s that nothing can move forward without truth-telling. If lies persist, they gradually erode love into shame. If Australia is to survive, it needs to take full responsibility for its past. Occasionally, every one of us entertains the idea that a truth kept hidden can be undone by its un-telling. It cannot. Left untold, the truth is only delayed in the force it must manifest in the world. So best not keep truth waiting, best not give truth reason to be vengeful in its arrival. Best pay the truth its due, lest it turn to spite and fury.
I recently caught up with my younger brother, Simon. For the past three years he’s been renovating his apartment between bouts of depression. Dad’s done most of the work. The apartment is starting to look really good and he should be able to move in by the time this book comes out. He sees a psychiatrist every week and he’s getting better. I spoke to him about his drinking at Christmas and he admitted that he blacked out and vomited in his room. We laughed about it but he knows it’s a problem. When we spoke about Julian, Simon suggested that he should get some regular help from a mental health professional. It’s not a bad idea but first my parents need to admit there’s a problem.