‘Hello, Amy,’ smiled Les. ‘How was your night?’
‘Fairly busy,’ Amy smiled back, her pupils firmly jammed together near the bridge of her nose. ‘How about you?’
‘Ohh yeah. I kept on rockin. It was good when they all started dancing in the end.’
‘Yes. I saw that.’ Amy reached on top of the fridge, frowned, and then started running her hands across it. She had another look then turned to Norton. ‘Hey, Les,’ she asked. ‘Did you see a little bag of chocolate biscuits up here?’
‘Yeah,’ nodded Les. ‘I ate them.’
Amy’s crossed eyes bulged out of her head like two soft boiled eggs. ‘You what?’ she said.
‘I ate them. I had them with my coffee.’
‘Oh my God. You didn’t? How could you do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ shrugged Les. ‘I just did. Shit I’m sorry, Amy. I suppose I shouldn’t have just helped myself. But I’ll pay you for them. And the coffee.’
Amy squealed and put her hands over her mouth. ‘I’m going to get Lonnie.’
‘Hey. There’s no need to get the boss, Amy,’ reasoned Les. ‘I said I’d pay you for them.’
Amy ignored Les and ran out of the snack bar leaving Norton shaking his head. Strike me blue, he thought. Three lousy chocolate biscuits. You’d think I just ate a tin of caviar. Next thing an agitated Amy arrived back at the snack bar with a very concerned Lonnie in tow.
‘Did you just eat three of Amy’s chocolate biscuits?’ demanded Lonnie.
‘Yeah,’ nodded Les. ‘But I apologised and I offered to pay for them. Shit, how much do you want, Amy?’ Les patted at his pockets. ‘Ten? Twenty dollars? How much is half a packet of chocolate biscuits worth up here?’
Lonnie shook his head. ‘You don’t understand, Les. They were Nimbin biscuits.’
‘Nimbin biscuits?’
‘Yeah,’ replied Lonnie. ‘They were full of dope. Like hash cookies.’
‘I bought them to go on a picnic tomorrow with two friends,’ explained Amy.
‘You did?’ said Les.
‘Yes. Oh God,’ wailed Amy.
‘So what’s all the big deal?’ asked Les. ‘I’ve smoked pot before. Heaps of times.’
‘You don’t understand, Les,’ said Lonnie. ‘You’ve just knocked over something like two hundred joints in one go. In about half-an-hour, you’re going to be in orbit.’
‘Orbit?’
Lonnie turned to Amy for a second then turned back to Les. Behind Lonnie’s eyes, Les could see his mind moving at the speed of sound.
‘Right. That’s it, Les,’ asserted Lonnie. ‘You’re coming back to my place with me.’
‘I am?’
‘Yeah. You can’t go back to the hotel. You can’t drive your car. You’re better off at my place.’ Lonnie stabbed out a finger. ‘Stay where you are. And don’t move.’
‘Oh, Les,’ said Amy. ‘What have you done?’
‘Had a mug of coffee and some biscuits. That’s all,’ said Les. ‘Shit. What’s all the drama? I feel as good as gold.’
‘Just stay there, Les,’ ordered Lonnie. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
With Amy following, Lonnie left Norton in the snack bar and strode round to the bar. Les still wondered what all the fuss was about. He felt quite normal. Good, actually, considering he’d been on his feet for four hours. Lonnie returned jingling a set of car keys in his hand.
‘Okay, Les,’ he said. ‘Let’s get going. Kerrie’s going to close up and pay everyone. I’ll get us home as quick as I can.’
‘Okay,’ shrugged Les.
‘But before we go, take these.’ Lonnie handed Les two white tablets.
‘What are these?’ asked Les, examining the tablets.
‘Mogadons. I brought them in for Kerrie.’
‘Sleeping tablets? I don’t need sleeping tablets,’ protested Les. ‘I can sleep under a horse pissing.’
‘Believe me, Les,’ insisted Lonnie. ‘Just take the fuckin things.’
Les shook his head. ‘Okay. Anything to make you happy.’ Les poured some water into the mug he’d made his coffee in and swallowed the two sleeping tablets. ‘There. You satisfied?’
‘Yeah. Now come on. Let’s go.’
‘Whatever you say, Lonnie.’
There was no sign of Amy as Les followed Lonnie around the bar. Mason and Buddy were gone and the girls had finished the tills and were having a staffie. Les gave them a wave and a smile as he went by. The next thing Les knew he was sitting alongside Lonnie in the Colorado and Lonnie had started the engine.
‘Hey. Nice car, Lonnie,’ said Les, buckling up his seat belt.
‘Yeah. I’ve only had it a few weeks. It goes good.’
Lonnie reversed out of the car park then put his foot down and they sped down the same road and in the same direction Les had jogged along the past two afternoons.
‘How far to your place?’ asked Les. ‘You told me. But I forgot.’
‘At this rate,’ replied Lonnie, glancing at the speedometer, ‘we should be there in twenty minutes.’ He looked at Les. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Good,’ shrugged Les. ‘I wouldn’t mind another mug of coffee and some more chocolate biscuits.’
‘Very funny, Les.’
They had sped past where Norton had jogged to the day before, when a bit further on down the road Les started to feel strange. His eyelids seemed to weigh a kilogram each and his body felt like it weighed a tonne. He turned to Lonnie and found the bar owner had changed. It wasn’t an hallucination. Lonnie hadn’t turned into something weird similar to when Les had taken magic mushrooms down the south coast. Lonnie had turned into exactly what he was. A carbon-based biped. A moving, breathing pile of flesh and bones with a head on top. Behind the head was a brain and two eyes and beneath all the flesh was a heart, lungs, kidneys and veins, circulating blood through his body loud enough to hear. The car had turned into exactly what it was, too. A big futuristic-looking metal box crammed with lights that glowed in the dark. It had tyres made from rubber that went round in circles and up front was a noisy iron device that exploded petrol pumping into it from a tank under the back. And he was strapped firmly into a seat almost above the tank.
‘Oh shit!’ murmured Les.
‘Are you all right, Les?’ asked Lonnie.
‘No, I’m not,’ answered Les. ‘Everything looks different and I feel like I’ve turned into wet concrete.’
‘You’re stoned, Les,’ said Lonnie. ‘Full on. And it’s a creeper. It’ll keep getting stronger. But don’t worry, mate. We’ll be home in a few minutes.’
Les was wide-eyed. ‘Home?’ he said quietly.
‘Yeah. My place. So just hang in there, ET. You’ll be safe and snoring before you know it.’
‘Snoring.’ Les chuckled and stared at all the bones in his hands and fingers before gazing out the windscreen at the beautiful night sky. He was gazing away, when suddenly something struck him. It was a revelation. ‘Hey, Lonnie,’ uttered Les. ‘Look at the stars.’
‘I know,’ replied Lonnie. ‘There’s a lot of them going around. Anyway. We’re nearly there.’
‘Where? At the stars?’
‘No, Luke Skywalker. My place.’
‘Oh,’ replied Les, still staring out the windscreen. ‘It would be nice if we could go to the stars.’
Completely transfixed, Les continued to stare up at the night sky when Lonnie slowed down and swung the Colorado right at a wooden letterbox almost hidden at the edge of the bush. They lurched over a concrete causeway, then started following a narrow dirt road running between steep hills on the left and level ground on the right thick with trees. They continued on for roughly a kilometre when a rusting metal gate appeared in the headlights. Lonnie stopped the car and got out and unlocked it. He moved the car forward then got out again and locked the gate behind them.
‘Is everything all right, Lonnie?’ asked Les when Lonnie got back in the car.
‘Sort of, Les,’ replied Lo
nnie, putting the Colorado in drive. ‘I’ll fill you in on everything in the morning.’
‘Okay,’ smiled Les.
The road climbed for half a kilometre then levelled out onto a clearing with a brown Kingswood station wagon that had seen better days parked on one side. Built above the clearing was a rambling old home with a brick verandah at the front and a covered space underneath. A set of wooden stairs ran up to an entryway on the left with a light on above the door. Lonnie cut the engine and turned to Les.
‘Here we are, mate,’ he said. ‘Home. Are you all right?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Les. ‘I think I am. I’m not sure.’
‘Come on. I’ll get you to bed.’
‘Bed. Yes. That could be good.’
Lonnie helped Les out of the car and Les followed him up the stairs to the front door. Lonnie opened it and they stepped inside into a small foyer next to a loungeroom full of comfortable, if somewhat dated, furniture, along with a good stereo and TV. The verandah Les had noticed was on the right and a hallway with bedrooms and a bathroom on either side led to a kitchen at the back of the house. Les tried to concentrate on the surroundings. But his world had turned into a painting by Vincent Van Gogh: fabulous colours everywhere with a loose sense of perspective.
‘Follow me, Les,’ said Lonnie.
‘Okay, Lonnie,’ smiled Les. ‘I’ll follow you.’
Lonnie led Les to a bedroom on the right and pushed open the door. The room seemed pokey yet large at the same time. There was a window on one side with pastel blue curtains above a single bed covered by a blue duvet and again everything was oozing colours and out of perspective.
‘That’s a nice, comfortable-looking bed, Lonnie,’ said Les.
‘And that’s where you’re going right now, mate,’ said Lonnie. ‘I want you to get a good night’s sleep.’
‘Okay,’ smiled Les. ‘But before I go to bed, Lonnie, just let me show you something.’
‘All right. What is it?’
‘Take me out to the verandah.’
Lonnie led Les back down the hallway, through the lounge and onto the verandah. Les stared up at the stars, then, feeling like he was Carl Sagan in Cosmos, pointed something out to Lonnie.
‘Hey, Lonnie. You see the stars,’ said Les.
‘I do,’ replied Lonnie.
‘You know why some are brighter than others?’
Lonnie shook his head. ‘No, Les. You tell me. Why?’
‘Because the brighter ones are closer. And the others are further away. It’s not necessarily because they’re bigger. It’s the distance. In light years.’ Les turned to Lonnie and grinned. ‘What do you think of that, Lonnie? Isn’t that amazing?’
Lonnie shook his head again, this time in mock admiration. ‘You’re a deadset genius, Les. They should have you working on the NASA space program.’
‘I reckon I could handle that,’ agreed Les.
‘Come on, Einstein. I’ll get you to bed. It’s going to be a whole new ball game in the morning.’
‘That’s all right. I like ball games. Did I tell you I used to play football?’ Les went to walk away from the edge of the verandah and found he felt heavier than ever and could hardly move his legs. ‘Shit, Lonnie,’ he said. ‘You might have to help me into bed. I’m gone. I’m so bloody tired too.’
‘No worries, mate,’ said Lonnie. ‘Come on.’
By the time Lonnie got Les onto the bed and out of his trainers, Les not only felt like he was made of lead and living in a Van Gogh painting, but astonishingly tired as well.
‘Shit I’m sleepy, Lonnie,’ yawned Les. ‘I can hardly keep my eyes open.’
‘That’s the Mogadons kicking in,’ said Lonnie, helping Les climb beneath the duvet.
‘Mogadons,’ smiled Les, sinking his head back onto the pillows. ‘Sounds like something out of Walking with Dinosaurs. Look out. Here comes a herd of Mogadons. We’ll all be killed.’
Lonnie gave Norton a pat on the shoulder. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Les.’
‘Okay,’ said Les, closing his eyes.
Lonnie switched the light off and shut the door quietly behind him, leaving Les in darkness. For Les, the bed and pillows felt like they were made out of the softest marshmallow imaginable, while in his mind, rockets and shooting stars exploded into cascades of beautiful flowers and waterfalls turned into tumbling kaleidoscopes of wonderfully hued hexagrams and pentangles. Shit. How good’s this, smiled Les, as a big rocket exploded sending flowers and sparks and colours he’d never seen or imagined before spiralling and spinning everywhere. Next thing, everything went black.
After spending most of the night virtually comatose, Les felt groggy and acutely unsure of where he was when he woke up the next morning. He knew he was in a bed, it was getting on for nine, and apart from his trainers he’d slept in his clothes. That was about it. He raised himself up on his elbows and had a look around. He was in a modest bedroom with a window above the bed, an old wooden wardrobe against one wall and a dressing table against another. A couple of colourful bird prints hung on the walls and a worn red scatter rug covered the wooden floor. He drew back the curtains and gazed out at a sunny day, shining on lush green fields hemmed by sagging wire fences and surrounded by thickly forested hills that rose gradually to a mountain range in the distance. Les shook his head then rubbed his eyes, sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Shit. Where the fuck am I? he asked himself. His trainers were placed neatly beneath the bed. Les stared at them for a moment then laced them on, opened the bedroom door and stepped outside.
He found himself in the corridor of an old house with high ceilings and polished wooden floors. Opposite were two more bedrooms and on the left was a loungeroom then glass double doors led onto a large verandah. On the right was a bathroom and at the end of the hallway a kitchen, where Les could hear talk-back radio. Les stepped into the bathroom to splash some water on his face.
It had a tiny cabinet above the sink with a small window to the side, and a big round shower nozzle sat behind a green plastic curtain covering a claw foot enamel bath. Les soon recognised the face looking back at him in the mirror and threw several handfuls of cold water on it as he tried to kick-start his mind. He rinsed his mouth then dried his face and walked down to the kitchen.
Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was spacious and belonged in the past. A chipped electric stove sat next to a one-tub sink under a small window, a thick wooden cornice ran around the whitewashed walls and an open door on the left led to a set of stairs running down to a backyard. A modern two-door fridge sat opposite the sink, all the appliances were new and in the middle of the kitchen was a solid old wooden table and chairs. Seated at one end of the table, listening to a small radio and drinking coffee from a plunger was Lonnie Lonreghan, dressed in a pair of black cotton cargoes, a plain black T-shirt and a pair of black Converse gym boots. He looked up as Les entered the room and switched off the radio.
‘Hello, Les,’ he smiled. ‘How are you feeling?’
Les shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Lonnie. Where exactly am I?’
‘My place,’ replied Lonnie.
‘Your place?’
‘Yeah. I drove you here last night.’
Les thought for a moment. ‘That’s right. You did too. But…?’
Lonnie pushed a mug over in front of a chair. ‘Sit down and have a cup of coffee,’ he said, filling the mug from the plunger.
‘Thanks.’ There was milk and sugar on the table. Les tipped some into his mug, gave it a stir and took a sip. ‘Hey. That’s bloody good coffee, Lonnie,’ he said.
‘Yeah. I get it flown in from New Guinea.’ Lonnie pushed two tablets across the table—a small white one and a pink and grey capsule. ‘And while you’re at it, take these.’
Les frowned at the pills. ‘What are they?’
‘Duromine and Sudafed.’
‘Duromine and Sudafed. My sinuses aren’t too bad this morning. And I don’t need to lose any weigh
t.’ Les took a sip of coffee. ‘Hey wait a minute,’ he said. ‘Did you give me a couple of pills last night?’
‘It’s all starting to come back to you,’ smiled Lonnie.
‘Yeah. Sort of,’ Les replied cautiously.
‘So take the pills, Les. There’s a little bit of mild speed in them. And they’ll clear your head after last night.’
Les stared at the two pills. ‘Ahh, fuckin why not,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a long drive in front of me and I don’t know which way’s up.’ Les picked up the two pills and washed them down with a mouthful of coffee. ‘All right, Lonnie,’ he said seriously. ‘Last night. Exactly what happened?’
‘What happened? You stole poor little Amy’s choc chip cookies from the snack bar and pigged out on Nimbin biscuits, you goose. That’s what happened.’
Lonnie filled Les in on the previous night’s events. Including the licensing police arriving, the punters dancing their heads off, Buddy and Mason getting hurt and how Les inadvertently ate all Amy’s biscuits.
‘I couldn’t let you go back to the hotel on your own in your condition,’ said Lonnie. ‘Those blokes waiting for you would have flogged the shit out of you. And there’s no way you could have driven your car. So I bombed you out on Mogadons, brought you back here, and put you to bed before you flipped out and spent the night howling at the moon.’
Les thought for a moment then raised his mug. ‘Thanks, Lonnie,’ he said. ‘Things are starting to fall into place now and that was very good of you. I appreciate it.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ smiled Lonnie.
‘And you’ll take me back into town shortly?’ said Les. ‘So I can pick up my stuff. And get the fuck out of beautiful downtown Nimbin.’
‘I will, Les,’ Lonnie nodded sincerely over his coffee. ‘But not for a little while yet.’
‘Oh. And why’s that, Lonnie?’ asked Les.
Lonnie glanced at his watch. ‘Because…in about another hour or so, nine hillbillies will be coming up the front driveway in two cars to murder me.’
‘Murder you?’ Les was incredulous. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
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