Dear Bella,
It’s weird what happens to you when you live in a shack by yourself with no power and a gun-toting freak next door and thoughts of your girl. I’ve been losing the plot a bit out here. Bad dreams and everything. I’m talking to myself a fair bit, put it that way. Pretty heavy-duty, some of it. I’ve also had to stop myself from filling your letterbox with crap. Though that didn’t last long, as you can see.
There’s something about writing letters—I feel more serious on paper, somehow. Maybe it’s okay to be a bit serious, especially now. It sounds like you’ve been dealing with heaps of stuff on my account, so maybe it’s time I got down to the grungy grit of my brief life and started answering my critics.
You know, I realise now what my punishment is. Being stuck out here is really about being separated from you. I can’t believe how much I think about you! Bugger off and leave me alone, okay?!! Stop whispering to me, stop grinning at me, stop working on me, stop looking at me, stop caring about me and stop helping me. I’m a waste of your time, Bella, I am. And I reckon that’s what Sull’s thinking to himself, now he’s locked up in some concrete hellhole, while I’m out here in my own private forest. Yeah, Joel Strattan—top bloke. Let’s face it: the one time Sull needed me I froze up like a retard and his life fucking disintegrated as a result. All I had to do was say something. do something to stop Craggs. But, no. I was weak as piss because that’s the real Joel Strattan. That’s the true Joel. You know, it’s taken me a while to figure this out, but that was what was really wrong about that night—me doing nothing. I mean, everything we did was wrong, but me doing nothing was the worst thing.
Before you get smart and get rid of me, I want to offload something else that’s been on my mind. Another thing I didn’t fully appreciate until now.
I love you. You: Bella McKenzie. And I miss you. I really miss you. At night I think about you and I feel sick and stoked at the same time. I feel sick because I think things might not be the same when I get back, and I’m stoked because you’ve been in my life and you’ve made me think about things in a much bigger way than I ever could have without you. Whatever happens, I’ll always have that.
That’s it from me. Hope this doesn’t freak you out. Write again soon, Belly.
Love,
Joel xxxxxoooxxxxxxxxxxxxoooxxxxxxxxxxxxxxoooxxxxxxxxxxxxoooxxxxxxx
PS: I’m making an artwork of instant-noodle packets. ‘Wall of Noodles’, it’s called. Thai, chicken, beef, Ramen, oriental, chilli, low-salt—they’re all there, nailed into the wall of the shack in the most satisfying frenzy of artistic genius this joint could ever hope to see. I’m sure you can picture it: Joel, armed with rusty hammer, and nails far too big for the job, gives life to what others might consider just rubbish. What I won’t tell you is just how much of the wall the artwork actually covers. It’s disturbing.
PPS: Get this: the power’s gone out. I have no idea when it will go back on again. I’m writing this with a couple of candles next to me that an old guy who lives not far from here brought over. He’s pretty kooky, Bella. Says weird shit, and has a gun for a companion. But I kind of want to know more about him, you know?
I promise, last PPPS: I’m really sorry for everything. Oh, and Foxy’s back. But that wasn’t a PPPPS.
xxx J xxx
26
Once I’ve written it, I want to send my letter to Bella as quickly as possible, so I go into town a day early. Okay, two days early. When I hand it over to the woman in the shop I’m overcome by the realisation that I’ve done possibly one of the most humiliating things ever in my life. Bella will read it and laugh. Then she’ll show it to her friends and they’ll all read it and snigger, swapping it between them and reading out loud the most embarrassing bits.
Joel Strattan writes pathetic desperate love letters to Bella McKenzie.
I want to ask the woman to give it back to me but I know that admitting I’ve made a shocker will only result in more embarrassment.
I write another quick note to Dad. He’ll be dark at me for not writing properly again but at least I’m sticking to our deal. Sort of. I wonder what he’d say if he knew I was writing Bella lame love letters down here? Aah. He’d probably love it, actually.
And it’s then that I realise that Dad hasn’t had a girlfriend since he and Mum split up. He hasn’t had a shag since I was seven? Is it possible to go for years without having sex? I’m kind of shocked and sad at the thought. I mean, there’s always Mrs Palmer and her five lovely daughters but—Christ, did I have to think that? The old man wanking, that’s totally unacceptable. No, no—he must have done it with some one since Mum. Maybe he went to a knocker shop or something because no one could suffer that long in silence. It’s unnatural. Not that I can imagine Dad going to a hooker (or having sex at all) but, hey, Mum’s actually marrying Scott, so limits are officially w–i–d–e open.
‘Juss found these, love.’ The woman passes me a couple of envelopes as I give her Dad’s letter.
I snatch them, mumble thanks, shuffle through. One from Dad and one from Craggs. That’s all. One from Dad and one from Craggs. Nothing from Bella. I go over them again, just to be sure. Nothing from Bella.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, it’s happening, it’s happening. She’s disappearing from view, slipping the scene. My heart drops.
‘Is that all there is?’
She looks up, surprised to see me still here, then turns back to the box behind her. ‘Yes, love, it is.’ She looks at me for a moment and, as I’m turning away, says, ‘But you never know what the afternoon post will bring.’
I nod, knowing full well the afternoon post will bring jack shit, and that I’ll be 17 k’s away when it does. ‘Yeah. Well, thanks.’
She pats the counter. ‘Ah, hang on. The register, for Sergeant Wardle—you need to sign; otherwise, we’ll both be in trouble,’ she chuckles, pushing the navy-blue folder towards me.
I sign and date it and pass it back. ‘Thanks,’ I mumble. I get out of there as fast as I can. The whole thing’s just so bloody humiliating.
Outside, the Mrs Mac’s sign buzzes like a huge dying blowie and reminds me of the electricity being out. So town does have power, which means I need to tell someone that me and the old codger are in the dark out there.
I turn reluctantly back to the shop. Who else am I gunna tell?
‘Um, I just remembered: the power’s gone out at my house and I don’t have a phone to let anyone know.’ I want to get this over and done with and just get outta here. I’m sick of the sight of this place.
The woman tuts and hauls out the White Pages. She makes a call. They put her on hold. She looks at me and says, ‘How long has it been out?’
‘Two days.’
She shakes her head and tuts some more and takes the opportunity to check me out, looking me up and down like I’m a mannequin in a shopfront.
She and someone on the other end of the line eventually have a monosyllabic conversation, and when the woman hangs up she tells me they’ll be out this afternoon.
‘But how will they know where to go?’
‘I’ll tell em, love. We all know where you’re staying,’ she says kindly.
I must look at her like I’ve got a machine gun in my backpack.
She smiles again a little nervously and adds, ‘Nallerup’s a small town, if you hadn’t noticed. Everyone knows where everyone lives.’
For a few minutes I stand out the front of the shop, looking up the road curving away from this town. It winds up between paddocks of black and white cows and sprawls of forest. Beyond that you can see the blueish haze of a mountain range.
I wish I were somewhere among it, miles further away from everything than I already am.
I trudge along the dirt road. I try to focus on the walk, on sweating out this next dozen kilometres. I don’t have too much in my pack this time, but I did buy a tin of Milo, and some ham and bread rolls.
The road is the worst section, because it’s hard on the legs and you have to
go about 8 or 9 kilometres before you reach the bush track. From then on, the walk is slightly less boring because it winds through the forest and sometimes you get to see flocks of parrots or a family of roos feeding in an open area. Okay, I said less boring, didn’t I? It’s not exactly blow-your-mind thrill-a-minute; all I’m saying is some stuff’s better than other stuff.
I hear the growing hiss of a vehicle coming up behind me, and move on to the shoulder of the road to avoid being gunned down by gravel. The crew around here drive like maniacs despite the dirt—it’s pretty humorous to watch, actually. It’s probably their only entertainment.
Whoever it is slows down as they approach. I hear a voice and turn around. It’s the dude in the ute who gave me a lift the first time I walked into town.
‘Wanna ride, mate?’ he grins at me.
I’m embarrassed that he always sees me slogging around on foot—it’s not cool. I climb into the passenger seat and we get moving.
‘How’s it going out at the shack, then?’
‘Yeah, good,’ I lie. ‘Getting food’s a bit of a hassle.’
‘Ah, mate, you should try a bit of hunting. The locals do it. Roo’s bloody good eating, ya know. And it’d save you all these hikes in an outta town.’
I laugh, but I’m thinking about the old dero’s gun and am wondering if that’s what he uses it for. I’ve never seen him at the shitty little shop.
After an awkward pause, I say, ‘The power went out a couple of nights back.’
‘That right?’
‘Yeah, bit of a piss-off,’ I add. ‘Feel like I’m living in the Dark Ages.’
‘Can imagine so.’
He doesn’t say much else, so I figure the companionable silence (which is what Dad calls the times when he wants me to shut up so he can read the paper) is okay.
We pass farms fenced off from the road and have to swerve around a tree that’s fallen, spraying branches everywhere.
‘Have to get the chainsaw out to clear that up,’ he mutters, swaying around it at high speed.
I nod and grab the dash.
He turns his face to me and checks me out for a second before saying, ‘Did you know there’s another way in to your place?’
‘Nah.’
‘Yeah, it’s a fair bit shorter than the way you’ve been going.’
Is this some good news at last or what? ‘Where is it?’
‘Just up here a bit further.’
We gun it by my track and drive on another kilometre or so before he pulls over and points between some trees. ‘There it is. It doesn’t get used much, so you might need to push your way through some undergrowth, but it’ll save you a heap of time, I reckon. And it’ll take you through different country for a change, eh?’
‘Yeah,’ I nod, almost excited. ‘Sweet.’
‘Just follow it until you get to the ridge and then cut back through the bush to your joint.’
I haul my bag out. ‘Okay, well, thanks a lot, mate.’
‘No worries.’ He puts the car into gear and grins. ‘And have a good time, eh?’
I close my eyes against the cloud of dust he scratches up as he drives away.
I wait for his car to disappear before heaving my pack onto my shoulders and pressing on into the great unexplored. The track’s not exactly obvious from where I’m standing. In fact, if someone didn’t point it out, you’d never know there was anything there at all.
27
I’m deciding that there are different kinds of green. There’s empty-block-next-door green and lawn-green, for example. One’s brown-grey and one’s fertiliser hypergreen. Then there’s next-to-the-track green and way-over-there green, which always seems so much denser and darker, like Amazonian jungle. There’s also short-forest green and tall-forest green, and right now I’m standing in giganto-green.
Around me is the kind of space you don’t have in the messy, scratchy bush around the shack. Here, there’s a field of ferns reaching up to my knees, true-green furry ferns. Above them there’s thin air and whopping grey smooth trunks scaling the sky. The trunks are straight like someone said, Pull your shoulders back! These guys are redwood massive, and classic Aussie grey-green up top. I get dizzy tipping my head back to look.
I’m amped that the ute guy showed me this route; it craps all over the boring track I’ve been using until now. I can’t believe that for all these weeks I’ve been going the long way. All those extra k’s—it brings tears to my eyes! And I can barely believe how long I’ve been here. The last few weeks, especially, have just kind of churned by, as though I’m almost used to being a shack-dweller in the wilds. The walking’s been good, in some ways, because it’s filled whole days at a time.
I reckon the new way has cut my walking time by nearly half.
I do a final three-sixty to take in the view, adjust the straps on my pack and get going again. I know I’m gunna come this way from now on, even if it’s just to see this patch of old guys. They are truly awesome.
I round a bend and come into a zone of low, scrubby bush. Looks like this was logged once. Through the straggling plants there’s a big light patch, which is a bit bizarre, unless there’s a house or a clearing in there or something. I decide to check it out—it’d be a nice change to lie in some sun after all this forest shade. I bush-bash my way in, and the sun streaks down ahead of me like the police helicopter spotlight on Friday nights. I go about a hundred metres in, getting scratched to the shithouse by all the thorny scrub on the way, and pop out into a clearing. As in, a small field. A round flattened area that people must have made. This certainly couldn’t have happened by itself, unless a meteor struck and this was its landing pad.
But I don’t think that what I see here is natural regrowth.
This is a crop.
Of ganja.
I look around me in a moment of panic.
No one’s here. No one’s here. Be calm.
And then I wander in, touching the green splayed hands and putting my nose to the sticky buds.
Oh, Jesus.
This is the mother of all dope plantations.
This is the answer to the rest of my time in the cabin.
This could land me a lot more than fifty bucks a week.
And it could bring me down big-time.
I do some deep breathing. I need to stay calm and keep cool.
I move out of there after a joyous and nerve-wracking fifteen minutes (it must be half a hectare of the biggest, healthiest plants I’ve ever seen), and walk up the trail a way so I don’t look suss if anyone comes.
Keep breathing.
Whose the hell is it?
I think back to the only person I know who even passes for a dope smoker: the ute guy. And then I remember his parting comment on the road, and the grin he gave me.
And have a good time, eh?
I thought that was weird, seeing I was about to hike 10 kilometres through the forest. It could have meant nothing—he might think I like hiking. I mean, why would he have sent me down here if that crop was his? It’s not that far off the track, either. He positively showed me the way, gave me a street map to the garden of paradise. No one would want some kid to find that, no way. You couldn’t be so dumb. Whoever planted it could get into some seriously deep shit. That’s a lot of hooch, man. A lot of hooch.
I eat lunch slowly, trying to absorb this new world of information. And I try not to think about Bella not writing.
I focus on the smoke zone. If it is the ute guy’s, then either he wanted me to find it so I could have some fun (unlikely, I reckon, unless he’s just a great bloke), or—and this is a bad thought—he’s trying to set me up.
Like the woman in the shitty little shop said, everyone knows where I live, which means they probably also know why I’m here. Dad told the local cop about me ... shit, maybe ute guy’s a fucking cop!
I concentrate hard. I think about all the cops I know. They’re not like him. They’re older and taller and more up themselves. They’re intimidating. Anyway, if
a cop knew about that place, why wouldn’t he just stake it out and get whoever it is, rather than leading people to it? Nah, it makes no sense that ute guy’s a cop, no way.
So why else would he be trying to set me up? To see if I’m into it? If I want to sell some for him? That’d be a bit difficult from the shack, with no phone and so far away from everything. And, anyway, why me?
Almost everyone smokes dope these days. I’ve got mates at school who choof with their olds, for Christ’s sake. It’s hardly even illegal anymore. Well, put it this way: a joint or two at a party won’t get you into trouble, but growing a whole field of the stuff would, I think, be a different story. That’s manufacturing, man. And presumably supplying. That’s not a personal-use amount, unless the guy’s some kind of Hell’s Angels hash king.
I press replay on that parting comment again. And have a good time, eh? Have a good time, that’s all he meant. That’s fair enough. He meant: if you find it, partake and enjoy, a sort of blokes’ secret. I zip up my pack, and look up and down the trail. No one’s coming. I doubt too many people know about this track, anyway. I throw my pack a couple of metres off the path into the scrub so you can’t see it if you happen to be walking past, and I stroll back to the hotzone to take a better look.
An hour later I’m at home with a plateful of heads and leaf on the table and a big juicy grin on my face.
Things are looking up.
28
Steak. Juicy, slightly burnt on the outside, flame-flavoured. Fire in the pan, blood in my belly. With a couple of barbie snaggers, it’s my favourite meal ever—and I’m not even stoned yet. Just the thought of some stash has helped, though, I feel like I’m already relaxing.
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