by Paul Carter
‘Kidney stone,’ smiled Dr Brooks.
‘Yes, I know, it’s just like childbirth,’ I moaned.
The doctor nodded, smiled kindly and calmly explained that I was about to pass another boulder, this time from the other kidney. Then he gave me morphine and out came what I was thinking: ‘My wife’s upstairs having just produced a giant penis with a small baby attached to it. The Green Hornet’s up there sewing her together again right now.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Dr Brooks said as he checked my pulse.
I was wheeled into a room, a quiet, dark, private, junkie- and poo-free room. I think I called The Cath but it was foggy; I vaguely remembered Lola’s sweet voice telling me something about the zoo. The stillness and silence was perfect—so much activity and white noise had filled every day for months, it had been a long time since I’d felt such peace. I was gone, floating sound-free like a mime artist performing in space . . . until clang! Out came the north face of the Eiger. I went home to have a shower and drink 600 litres of water.
The Cath was making breakfast for Lola when I walked through the door. They both ran over and gave me a hug. I told them about Sid, that both he and Clare were doing well, but omitted the bit about giving birth to a mountain through my dick. ‘Are you hungry?’ The Cath asked.
I nodded and wandered off towards the bathroom. ‘Jesus, what a night, mate,’ said Jason after I told him why I was going to be late into the office. I threw the phone onto the bed and stripped on my way into the bathroom. We have one of those bathtub-shower combos so I climbed into the tub like an ancient man and turned on the shower taps.You can imagine the bliss.
As I stood there feeling safe, a little euphoric, but somewhat sore, squeezing shower gel into my hand and thinking about Sid and his mum coming home, the bathtub moaned at me. I dropped the shower gel and looked down. What the fuck? The tub groaned again then suddenly dropped, taking me and the shower curtain on a brief but exciting flight into the basement.
I lay there, still in the bath, the shower curtain twisted around me, smashed plaster and plastic pipes hanging above like giant spaghetti. My head hurt as I looked up at the light-filled hole above me, water pouring down on my face. Like an angel The Cath appeared in the light by the edge of the hole. ‘Oh my god, Paul, Pauli, are you okay?’
‘Yup,’ I replied to the light. ‘Turn off the water, will you, love?’
Slowly and cautiously moving one body part at a time, I got to my feet and realised I was unharmed. Wow, what a ride.
We found out later there was a small leak in the plumbing behind the taps in the wall cavity and over the years it had dripped away on the timber frame that held the bathtub in place. There was no substructure underneath the bath, as there should have been, so when the whole lot let go, it was catastrophic.
The Cath was there with a towel as I emerged, triumphant, from the basement. I called my insurance company and some tradies, and drank 600 litres of water.
ADVERTISING
TODAY IT’S SATURDAY and I’m once again stumbling through all the things I take for granted. The Saturday morning grocery shop, a truly horrendous experience, but not for the obvious reasons, like the first time I took Lola to the supermarket and blew all my money on smashed produce and ten packs of jelly, all because I put her in the trolley with the shopping instead of making her sit in the little seat. This time I’m on it; she’s not smashing the eggs or randomly grabbing things off the shelves or sitting on the bread. This time she’s in her seat and taking it all in, her soft, vulnerable brain a sponge for mass-marketing—my new fear.
In the past I’ve spent some time working in advertising, I know how it thinks, and it’s clever. Marketers are trying to insert brands into my child’s dreams, turn her into an obese TV junkie, kidnap her imagination and plaster giant logos across her soul. It’s relentless and annoying. For example, all the chocolate bunnies that don’t get sold at Easter get rewrapped in foil to look like Santa for Christmas.
Clare and I try to shield her mind from its reach and mostly she has been protected. Right now at the age of four, Lola likes to paint, dance, play in the garden; she likes the park and battering her little brother for no reason. She reads much more than she looks at the TV. In fact, she doesn’t know how to turn on the TV or use the remote, and she has never been near the net. Suffice to say it will eventually trap her. We turn down the volume during commercial breaks when the networks turn it up, we avoid saying the names of particular stores that could entice a frenzy (we spell them out if we need to), we never go near junk food, and luckily she’s afraid of clowns and equally suspicious of Santa.
But the mega-reach of the marketing machine has already touched her much more than I like. I start to pay attention to the cross-branding, realising I suddenly have half a dozen items in my trolley splattered in Toy Story crap. Lola sees and remembers everything: the Buzz Lightyear toilet plunger I just picked up or the Woody & Buzz shampoo—it goes on and on through every section of the supermarket.
She came home from day care last week demanding blonde hair because ‘Barbie is blonde’. She does not have a Barbie doll, Barbie DVD or Barbie handgun, but thanks to the other kids at day care she is now familiar with the branding and wants to be a blonde. She’s four. In the same week she discovered the computer, soon the internet will follow.
There are monsters under the bed, there are monsters under the packaging and behind every single website that ever existed. We unknowingly bring them into our homes and lives.
Think about it, but for all the right reasons, the ones you pretend not to think about until a random news story or article makes you remember. Indiscriminate and painful, the mother who can’t start her child’s heart because she didn’t find the time to get the training, or that bastard who snatched a toddler from right under the father’s distracted nose. Put faces on them, dead fractured faces. Without hesitation, without pause for reflection or consequences, I know I can become overprotective in a bad way, in a ‘five to nine years but out in four for good behaviour’ way. I’m not prone to violence, but I know it, like I know an alcoholic brother from a safe distance.
Clare is equally guarded and driven. That ability to fight, to protect, it’s remarkable. I can tap into that protective rage like muscle memory.
It’s a very, very bad world out there. I’ve seen human life sold for kicks and snuffed out for much less. I will have to educate my children extremely carefully; they are not growing up in poverty, they will not have to learn the hard way, like I did. Physical education in my day was more than pulling on a pair of what 70s Britain called ‘plimsolls’ and running around a muddy sports field. For my generation, physical education also often meant the back, or indeed the front, of your parent’s hand. This is considered immoral and/or illegal in some places now, but that’s how it was for many kids then. Besides, I couldn’t beat the lessons into them anyway; it never worked for me. So how do I replicate the learning curve without destroying their innocence? Is it even possible? How do I teach my sprogs the value of their word, and the value of every dollar they make, and the value of life?
While I’m out doing the groceries I occasionally see things, triggers learnt over many years of being tuned in, usually men’s eyes wandering over my family in a way that makes all my alarm bells ring. I feel the St Vitus dance vibrate through the floor, the airport travelator emerges through the frozen goods section ready to whisk me first class, at speed, via my gold ticket purchased years ago at the Slut Atlantic desk in Pakadaystan. Onward and upward into a shit-filled bloody broken explosion that would make Tarantino vomit in this lightly chilled flute of Cristal. Wonderful, isn’t it? Being human, normal middle-class rules apply in Legoland malls, chew with your mouth closed and your mind open at all times. I can feel muffled screams, braille messages from behind the defunct veneers of happy family eyes . . . Just doing the shopping, home in time to get drunk and beat the lot of them senseless by dinnertime.
Get me out of here; sometimes t
he mall disturbs me more than Nigeria did.
CURRY
AFTER SPEED WEEK was cancelled in 2011 and the bike tested at Tailem Bend, we put her into storage and went back to our lives. For me, both businesses were doing well, our court case strolled on into more of the same redundant stalling and mesmerising drone. So we just rolled with it and paid the legal bills in the hope that the trial would be slated before another year went by.
Jason, though, was getting into it; our director was starting to read legal books and really listening to our QC in meetings. One morning when we were in the counsellor’s office in the city I even caught him leaning in when the QC was talking.
‘Fuck, you’re keen,’ I said as we grabbed a coffee in the huge marble-clad lobby during a break.
‘I like it; it’s like chess,’ Jason countered.
‘Yeah, do me a favour.’
‘What?’ He looked at me unblinkingly as he stirred sugar into his cup. ‘I think it’s amazing, court is fascinating.’
‘So is my arsehole.’
We walked out into the sunlight with Jason expounding the virtues of the legal learning curve, how it was all a challenge, not a giant waste of time and money. ‘You’re just not interested in anything that doesn’t have an engine or a gun involved,’ he said, grinning.
I conceded this was true. In fact, while he’d been rabbiting on about the fascinations of law, my mind had drifted off and I was thinking about the salt.
‘And stop drawing robots, for fuck’s sake.’
In the end we all just got fed up paying the lawyers, I guess, and settled.
Ten months, three days and eight hours since I rode the BDM-SLS. (Give or take a few hours or days.) Spent largely doing nothing of significance whatsoever. Apart from Sid’s arrival, I worked, changed nappies, went to swimming lessons, did the dishes, rode my motorcycle every day and slept well. My writing is uncomplicated and by implication my life can be very similar. Besides, I don’t want to bore you with my normal activities and mortgage repayments.
This is how it went along until my phone rang. It was Colin—the time had come and our shot at Speed Week 2012 was upon us. And suddenly it was like a rising wave with about 400 other excitable bogans, emailing each other, cyber-chatting about the weather conditions, swapping tips (some very dodgy) on everything from airfuel ratios and traction, to places to stay (I can recommend a gay-friendly motel), all preparing for our moment of salt-lake glory.
One of our first jobs was to get the bike through the final shakedown. This is the formal vetting and scrutineering of Speed Week vehicles at Tailem Bend test track by the Dry Lakes Racers Association. David Hinds and Peter Noy, two immensely likable gents from the DLRA, contacted me to organise the shakedown, and Colin, Rob, Ed and the uni lads dragged the bike out of storage and started prepping her. They had also redesigned and fixed the lifting issue, and made a few other modifications to finetune her performance. She was ready to roll.
I booked flights and the motel at Tailem Bend, then went to work like one of my robots while my mind opened up the heavily barricaded door that had been holding back an overflowing stream of salt-filled motor–cycle dreams. The speed, the passionate lunatics I was going to meet and hopefully set records with. No matter what’s going on in your life at the time, the moment you step onto the salt, breathe in the dry outback air, you’re ready to leap on your bike or into your rocket-powered homemade car and smash it down the track as fast as you can. Salt-lake racing crystallises the mind; it penetrated everything I was doing and I felt suddenly elated, anticipation quickening my heart. All I wanted was my shot down the track—I wanted to know if I could do it, if the bike could do it, if it was the drug I thought it was.
My slow walk through the university grounds was contemplative; I had done this several times before. As I get older I’m prepared to accept that time does indeed speed up, and, sure, there were periods when it felt like Speed Week would never come, but, shit, now that I was back I couldn’t believe how fast the last year had gone by. It was almost a carbon copy of the scene I walked into one year ago, as I rounded the corner to see the same faces packing the bike into the trailer—a Groundhog Day.
Colin muttered over his clipboard, Rob fiddled with spare parts and Ed hovered around with his pants falling off his arse. Ed has this look, and from the first time I met him I started calling him ‘Flock of Seagulls’. His thick hair defies gravity without the aid of product, and has a kind of retro-cool mid-80s Brit pop flair to it. He’s like a cross between Morrissey, Thomas Dolby and everyone from Joy Division, except taller. Combine this look with Ed’s natural ability to remain slightly aloof but highly aware of everything around him, and a good dose of brilliance, and you’ve got a new-wave nutcase.
We rose early the next morning to a glorious warm day. The drive from the uni to Tailem Bend was comfortable in the trailing final ebb of summer. We had a few beers in the sun, a great curry at the pub, sitting on the balcony overlooking the Murray River. Tomorrow clutch-in 7 a.m. sharp, this time without achieving flight. So it was off to my room above the pub which had a large window that looked onto the silver bend of the river through the small town. The sun had just set, leaving the last of the sparrows to dogfight aerobatics, chasing invisible bugs through the air in front of me. I fell into a deep restful summer Sunday night sleep.
Lightning woke me at 6 a.m. and I sat up to hear thunder and what sounded like the wind hurling dead sparrows against my window. I launched out of the bed, flinging the curtains aside and stood there naked and shocked. Before me was the exact opposite of yesterday’s idyllic scene. Trees bent over against the wind, threatening to snap, the river void of happy water-skiers now raged angrily through the rain. I heard Colin next door fling his curtains open through the thin walls, followed by a clearly audible ‘Fuck’. He was closely followed by Ed on the other side.
We met up in the car park in disbelief. ‘Can you believe this?’ Colin walked towards me his hands upturned. ‘Every time we come here the weather turns to shit.’
I made agreeing noises but was inwardly focused on regretting that curry; it was repeating on me in a bad way.
We drove over to the roadhouse and had a slow breakfast. I ate dry toast and drank coffee in an effort to stop the curry from liquefying my tongue. Then I called David Hinds, and we agreed to go out to the track and hope for the weather to clear. David met us there with a few other DLRA members, and we all sat down and waited.
Meanwhile, David checked out my crotch and armpits, which isn’t as nasty as it sounds. Not only does your bike get thoroughly checked at these shakedowns, the rider’s gear has to pass safety standards, too. That year the DLRA adopted the US rules for the first time and one of the new rules stipulated that a rider’s clothing had to be made entirely of leather.This caused a problem for many riders as modern motorcycle leathers have a stretchy elastic material in the gussets under the arms and often in the crotch area as well. These popular leathers don’t comply with the new rules, which were probably established through the pain and suffering of some poor bastard who barbecued his ball sack when his bike burst into flames while doing 300 kph across the salt. So a compromise was offered in the form of a full-length fireproof underwear option. I pictured a large group of slightly overweight middle-aged men squeezed into knitted woollen body stockings and sucking in their guts for all they’re worth while attempting to get the zip up on their already tight racing leathers, then passing out with heat exhaustion.
My racing leathers were given to me by my friend Erwin who had purchased them 30 years earlier, the first time he decided to see how fast he could go down a racetrack on a Ducati 900. They fit me well and are entirely made of leather so I have a fireproof crotch and armpits.
Finally the wind and rain died down and the track dried out a bit. I sat anxiously at the side of the track, watching David as he had a conversation with other DLRA members. Colin and the guys had the bike parked on the track and ready to pounce. Then David broke from
his conversation, said something into his radio handset and lifted his head looking for me. I sprang from the side into his line of sight to get the nod.
Once again she burst to life under me and bolted down the track and through the gearbox, capping out at 170 kph, no eagles, no wobbles, no lifting. We were told at the start of the day that this exercise was not about speed but more about going over the bike, so I just eased down, turned her round in a huge arc (her battleship turning circle had not improved), and gunned her back to the pits.
My ride back was interrupted by the metabolic chain reaction of riding a fast but homemade experimental motorcycle down a racetrack after consuming a dodgy curry the night before, followed by coffee. As I leant forward to lie over the fuel tank, my brain put a bit too much effort into getting the gear changes right and forgot to maintain the clench and I passed what felt like a gram of gas. No problem, I thought, I can make it to the pits, get my leathers off and find a toilet before I lose my arse. Then it hit me. The tiny fart had expanded into a cubic metre of horrendous air that rose sharply up through my leathers and filled my helmet. I gagged, my eyes stung, the bike was passing 160 kph, I sat up and flipped open my visor in a desperate effort to breathe fresh air, nearly crashing when the wind hit my open lid and tried to rip my head off my shoulders.
Pulling up fast I leapt off, handed the bike to the boys and ran off pointing at the toilet block. Our bike passed the shakedown with flying colours, so did my curry.
That was it; everything was prepped, organised, checked, approved and ready to go. All we had to do now was wait for Speed Week to kick off in a fortnight.