Detours

by Tim Rogers

  And things are proceeding in rhythm until I turn to a stack of books lying beside the bed, watching me in my denim shorts and J. Geils Band T-shirt, singing as if Billy is pop music’s great apogee. They watch me like gargoyles. Gide, Parker, Flanagan, Rushdie, Hustvedt, Vonnegut, Rakoff.

  At my feet, a small pile of records emblazoned with similarly totemic names now taunts me. A Can of Bees laps over Radio Ethiopia. High Time drapes its brotherly arm around Prehistoric Sounds. For fuck’s sake. What prankster muse made me surround myself with such sublime works? It was as if they’d jumped from the bookcases and record piles like gang members jumping from behind walls to surround a hapless, lost foe. West Side Story or The Warriors set in a small apartment in St Kilda.

  But most of the masters remain silent: e.e. cummings stares at me coolly because he knows I’ve never really understood him. I’m not hamstrung by a fear of Jimi’s editing requests, I’m in fear of being judged. Like watching slides projected on a wall, I can conjure up every negative review from the past three decades – and bugger-all positive ones. Helen Razer (whom I have never talked with enough, but have read and admired for twenty-eight years) criticised a TV show I hosted, saying it exhibited ‘false intellectualism’. Admittedly I was interviewing Dave Graney and clumsily attempting a link between French symbolism and hip-hop, but it left me as flat as a dropped pie. I flop on the bed after retrieving a can of lager from the fridge, deflated and in defeat, with a deep thirst.

  After feeling sorry for myself for three cans, I spy a small pile of burnt CDs to the left of my bed. I had thought they were old demos, rubbish really, but shuffling through them I see one marked ‘Little Stevie’s Garage Who Special’. Mumbo-jumbo to most folks, but as I slide the disc into a modest player on the right-hand side of the bed a little flutter of recognition matches the geometrical, push-and-pull operations of the compact, silver stereo. The flutter is my sunken heart muttering, ‘Gimme something.’

  Peter Townshend’s guitar sound on The Who’s debut LP pokes my ribs. ‘Out in the Street’ begins with a flamenco-style strumming pattern but attacks like a pilled-up Mod with a head full of bad intentions. And I wanna join him for every single one. Three chords on his Rickenbacker – clang clang clang! – and the length of my body whips like a lasso. The drums at first are like a newborn foal getting to its spindly legs, and then – pow! – they’re a bucking stallion throwing off every rider with furious disdain.

  How did I forget this?

  I was a fifteen-year-old kid so spattered with acne that I needed to check my shirt hourly at school for wet spots, who stayed in his bedroom playing cassette after cassette of this delirious rush of sound, finally oblivious to the fiery little torments of his flesh. Little Steven Van Zandt of the E-Street Band and The Sopranos back-announces songs in his ancient hipster drawl that cannot hide his own spine-rattling enthusiasm.

  I’m crying. We’re free.

  I want to play for that guy, and I want to write for that fifteen-year-old kid. Maybe there’s a bunch of guys and gals that will feel the same rush, who knows? I go and find my guitar in the corner of the main room, propped up against a small bookcase (stacked with seven-inch singles that haven’t been played in years). I play a D chord but in my haste I get it wrong – a pinky finger has an independent thought and there’s a snag, something odd and wonderful in the mistake, and a voice comes from somewhere, exhaling a little melody that clicks its fingers in rhythm and sortilege and causes all the noise in the room to cease, all the books on the shelves, and all the bewitching records, to stop staring and let dust motes settle again onto their sleeves.

  It’s a little like stacking shelves in a dream supermarket.

  It’s a quiet joy that, like physical exercise for others, puts you back inside your body. All anxiety drains away. It might happen any number of ways but then you can stand back and, with no fanfare, look upon something you’ve created. Labels on cereal boxes stacked next to each other become patterns. Their liveries unfolding over each other, pulses and waves. The taunts of teenaged colleagues and other critics cannot prick your sangfroid. You nod, allow a little smile. And then move to the next aisle.

  This Must Be the Place

  Goodnight boys, I’ve had my fill

  Regretting each word that drips from my gills

  Gather my longing, my peacock suit

  Goodnight my boys, to all of you.

  Walking into the fish bar before it officially opens is my favourite welcome home after a tour. Straight from the airport, marvelling at how good it feels to be back in the town I love to call home, scowling a little at the sixty-eight buck taxi fare, resolving next time to do it by bus, greeting Vivienne with an exaggerated ‘Daahling!’ as I open the door, and asking if it’s okay if I take a seat at the bar an hour before opening. She’s not yet refused me entry, though there is an unspoken agreement that the minute I get too wobbly I am off to bed, or elsewhere. That minute is when she, or another staff member, puts a glass of water in front of me. That’s the sign.

  There’s usually some jazz on the stereo, accompanied by a vintage film playing on the computer screen behind the bar. So when a Sonny Rollins LP is playing, the visuals is La Strada; if Jacques Brel is singing, Marriage Italian Style may be on repeat. The smell from the adjacent restaurant, separated only by a few columns, of fish and spice and simmering oils, compounds the prevailing emotion. I’ve just come home from an adventure. It’s a soft landing.

  Vivienne fixes me her brilliant smile and pours me a Bitburger and places it on the bench in front of the bar. Behind her, the crowded shelves heave with exotic liquor bottles. Being a creature of habit I once again wonder if Aperol, Arak or Amaro will ever truly tempt me away from beer and whiskey. The bench is of knotted wood and it always surprises me with its balance. If it wasn’t varnished and polished, it could have been driftwood recovered from a shipwreck, landing on St Kilda beach after three hundred years of lonely travel. ‘For what ails you, sir!’ she says, laughing. Viv’s laugh is like two drains being bashed together in a thunderstorm. It comes from as deep inside her as her extraordinary singing voice. She’s wearing another of her print dresses. This one with short sleeves, a brave choice in the winter, but no doubt she’s got a woollen coat with fur lapels hanging somewhere here. At some stage this afternoon I’ll ask her to sing Warren Zevon’s ‘Carmelita’. Again. She’s still doing the inventory for the day so I won’t tell her where I’ve been until she asks. The beer’s good and cold. A Madeleine Peyroux record is on.

  I pull out my notebook from the inside pocket of my suit jacket. That slogan again – ‘Facts Are the Enemy of the Truth’. I bought three of them because I thought the slogan was such bullshit. The kind of snarky little epithet at least one backpacker round here has tattooed on the inside of their arm. Again on the plane I had written a list of ‘things to do when I get home’ when it was obvious I wasn’t going to sleep. Whenever the plane approaches the equator I traditionally order Baileys and wait for the turbulence. As I think my mortality is challenged, I want to be contemplative and not shit-scared. The list is familiar:

  •

  Start running. Just a km a day for starters.

  •

  Start the Spanish course again. And the French one. Alliance?

  •

  Proust.

  •

  Buy some indoor plants.

  •

  Fix the friggin bathroom.

  •

  Drink more water.

  •

  Have the occasional night off.

  •

  Write straight country songs. One every two days even if just for exercise.

  •

  Go back to the cabaret of Les Enfants Terribles.

  •

  Give clothes to Tracey at Frocks.

  •

  Try flaxseed oil.

  •

  New sheets. Try sleeping more.

  Vivienne brings me another beer and says she’s heading out to t
he courtyard for a smoke. One of the chefs, the lady with the smile that makes me think she’s seen me at my worst but won’t tell anyone, gives me a generous ‘Hello’ as she grabs some papers that look like invoices before returning to the oil, spices and shellfish. Outside it’s getting just a little darker. The first wave of folks returning from work hurtle by the window, with that Tuesday look. Maybe they’ll have a little red wine while making dinner. It’s winter, after all.

  Pascal comes in for his shift. Beautiful Pascal. Possessed of the best walk in St Kilda. Nothing hurries him. He walks with the shape of a question mark – shoulders drooped a little and his legs out in front, buckling at the centre. It sounds awkward describing it, but he’s so balanced nothing could topple him. ‘No way! How are yooooooou?’ he coos in his heavy French accent and gives me a big hug. Cheshire cat smile and vitreous eyes, dreads brushing my face like fingers. I tell him a little about the tour, about NYC, about the days off in Paris, but just a little. I speak in my least drawling accent to him, as I do to anyone for whom English is a second language. Maybe today it’s because I’ve had a month of being misunderstood while away, I don’t wanna assume anything. Besides I like him too much.

  A young family comes in with a pram. Two bright-eyed parents and a small girl maybe five years old and a new baby. Pascal greets them warmly and lets them know they can have a table soon. They sit on the benches behind me to wait until the restaurant opens. Must be around 5.20. I turn to offer them a drink, then check myself. Don’t wanna scare the kids. It was the layover in Sydney that made me feel so cruddy. Should’ve had a shower.

  Vivienne grabs the stool two down from me; she’s clocked off and is having a red.

  ‘How is your good lady, sir?’

  ‘Wonderful, wonderful, Vivienne. Thank you. “Sir” is having his little “homecoming rites” then I shall sweep her into the good night.’

  ‘You’ve been absent a long time.’

  ‘Too long, Viv. But I’m ready to rejoin humanity. At least this section of it.’

  She understands, Viv. She’s well versed in the absurd. Thank fuck.

  ‘Would you . . . mmm . . . like . . .?’ Pascal purrs. I follow his lucent, conspiratorial gaze to the bottles on the shelf behind him. He slides his index finger up and down the Jameson’s bottle as if he is a hostess on a TV game show.

  ‘Have we met? My hook!’

  It’s not late but it is dark. It’s maybe seven and I’ve had my fill. No glass of water has been put in front of me. Yet. The tug of jetlag is becoming heavy. The bar has become a little busy, there’s a band setting up in the corner I don’t recognise. Double bass, a trumpet, a hollow-bodied guitar and a woman in a large, maybe faux-fur coat with her hair bunched up high.

  I get a tap on the shoulder, not a friendly one. I turn to my right and there’s a tall young man who has never had a pimple in his life. Blond-ish hair swept off his face. ‘So, my girlfriend says I have to meet you.’

  He’s got that voice. The voice where every utterance is painful. The insouciant, exhausted, battered-by-life-at-twenty-three voice.

  ‘I can’t imagine why. How the hell are you?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know you, but she says you’re famous or something.’

  ‘Wouldn’t say that, but, hey, pleasure to meet you.’

  ‘Well, what do you do?’ You’re a rock singer or something?’

  I stand up. His straight back and tucked-in shirt are making me irksome. I want to put my fingers up his nostrils. Anything but play this little game of cat and mouse. I feel like crud. He smells clean as . . . wait – how the hell can I smell him in here among the spice, the fish, the liquor? Geez, he is handsome. He probably works for Médecins Sans Frontières, for Chrissake.

  ‘I sing a bit, yeah, and try to write.’

  ‘Well, what do you stand for?’

  ‘What do I stand for?’

  ‘Yeah, man. What. Do. You. Stand. For?’

  I’m taken aback. Are we talking politics here? Ethics? George Orwell says that even saying you’re apolitical is a political action, but where is he when I need him? Man, this kid is brimming with moxie. He’s a Young Liberal, for sure. Tosser. And why does he have to sound so deathly bored? What is it with that bloody way of talking? We’re in a bar. We’re in my favourite bar, you big hunk. And where’s your bloody girlfriend now? I could use her help. Why confront me with such a big question when my head’s still over Vanuatu?

  ‘Well . . . I stand for my daughter and my missus, and I reckon that’s about it.’

  ‘Great. Wow.’

  He sneers, with such contempt I think he might add, ‘Off with his head.’ Instead I get, ‘That’s so typical of your generation. I thought so.’ And with a scoff he walks off.

  My generation? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Which generation? He’s talking nineties music, right? Why didn’t he say that? Then I could’ve employed my ‘Well, sir, the 1790s were a disastrous time, especially for the traditional owners’ spiel, which might have been a little amusing. I’m not really part of a generation, am I? Am I? Me, in a suit that could have been worn by Alain Delon at Cannes in ’73, my hair from the clubs of Soho in ’66 and a vocabulary better suited to ’55? Sure, I regularly refer to musicians my age as being ‘of’ a generation that was offered it all and chose to shrug instead, but ‘typical of my generation’? As if I was indicative of anything or anyone else? No, you’ve got me wrong, you pumped-up prig. I want to follow him out to the courtyard and thump him, or really give him some verbal. Standing for the people I love is worthy, you prat. Love is all! All is Love! Geez, I’d love a sandwich and a kiss. My mouth curls in resignation. Let him have his time in the sun. I get Pascal’s attention, kiss his cheeks goodbye, motion for my suitcase, and settle my bill.

  Out in the fresh air, the cold doesn’t wake me like it should. What do I stand for? The fucker. He’s gotten to me. He doesn’t work for Médecins Sans Frontières. He’s a law student al-fresco dining wanker with shit music taste and he probably shaves his balls. I probably mowed your parents’ lawns last year, needle dick. Geez, my suitcase is heavy. Records and books from a month of afternoons walking around cities I only know from their record shops and bookstores.

  What do I stand for?

  •

  For taking a book to the pub, anytime of day.

  •

  For CheesyBite.

  •

  For the stories of Barry Hannah and Lorrie Moore.

  •

  For torpedo punts.

  •

  For the films of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer.

  •

  For the first five or seven Aerosmith records.

  •

  For the Gray Nicolls Scoop bat.

  •

  For smiling at strangers.

  •

  For getting lost on foot.

  •

  For tipping cleaners at hotels.

  •

  For erring on the side of kindness.

  L’esprit de l’escalier. ‘The spirit on the stairs’. The things you should have said but only think of later. This is ‘the spirits falling down the stairs’. I’m glad I didn’t start on the list, it wouldn’t have made sense to him. I bet he hasn’t seen Bull Durham and only knows Aerosmith from the big ballads, if at all. I’ll keep the list close to my chest and share it with the people I love.

  It’s time to go home, I’ve got a lot to work on tomorrow. I made a list, you see.

  Thank You

  Once again, a pursuit I never imagined setting out for developed into a blinkered gallop with all the grace of a Clydesdale in an egg and spoon race.

  Some who should know better took a punt on me; I can only hope they had an occasionally good day at the races.

  Melanie Ostell.

  Catherine Milne.

  Madeleine James.

  Andy Kent.

  That barkeep. Yep, you.

  Thee Convicts

  References to ‘The
Insults of Age’ by Helen Garner used with thanks. They are from Helen Garner, Everywhere I Look, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2017.

  All lyrics Tim Rogers. Because it was cheaper. ‘Up-A-Ways’ (p. ix); ‘Cars and Girls’ (p. 1); ‘The Umpire’s Boy’ (p. 6); ‘Age’ (p. 57); ‘Damn Songs’ (p. 82); ‘Dilettantes’ (p. 160); ‘Gone, Gone, Gone’ (p. 165); ‘Youth’ (p. 190); ‘Hi We’re the Support Band’ (p. 200); ‘Dinosaurs’ (p. 208); ‘. . . And Vandalism’ (p. 237); ‘A Time to be Lonely’ (p. 250); ‘A Mother Daughter Thing’ (p. 274); ‘Daemons’ (p. 286); ‘The Piano up the Tree’ (p. 298); ‘A Quiet Night In’ (p. 318); ‘When Yer Sad’ (p. 321); ‘Goodnight Boys’ (p. 328).

  About the Author

  TIM ROGERS is best known as the songwriter and front man of You Am I. He also regularly performs and records solo, and with multiple ensembles. Tim is also a stage and film actor, a composer for the theatre and frequently appears on Australian television and radio.

  Copyright

  Fourth Estate

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  First published in Australia in 2017

  by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

  ABN 36 009 913 517

  harpercollins.com.au

  Copyright © Tim Rogers 2017

  The right of Tim Rogers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.