Too Close to the Wind

by Richard Attree

  He sat back and stared at me smugly.

  I tried to gather my thoughts and plan my defence. It seemed unlikely I could challenge their twisted version of events if it was corroborated by witnesses like the mayor and the chief of police. It was clear they were all in cahoots and out to get me. I decided to confront my fears there and then, rather than suffer endless anxious hours in my cell, so I demanded to be told about these allegations of “further misdemeanours”.

  My interrogator smiled—not a pretty sight. Whereas Mandu’s smile lit up a room, this bastard’s smirk turned out the light and extinguished all hope.

  “Well now, where do we start?” he crowed. “Fraud, corruption, criminal negligence—all relating to your dodgy cactus enterprise ... (a glance at his notes) ... ‘Dreamtime Plant Products.’ Ha, that’s a joke! Just the ticket for a domino dingo trying to sell Abo shit to druggies.”

  He dissolved in another fit of rasping laughter.

  I ignored the racist abuse and stayed silent until he stopped cackling. Then I asked him for the details of these allegations. He replied with a formidable list, starting with the financial irregularities: tax fraud, improper accounting, bribery and corruption—all linked to the pharmaceutical deal. He continued with possible charges of criminal negligence arising from bad trips experienced by our customers (who’d done stuff like jump out of windows while believing they could fly). Then there were allegations (no doubt from Mr Nasty, the Great White drug shark) of misdemeanours in my past—crimes I may have committed using a different identity. Finally, a possible link to the suspicious death of a windsurfer down in Esperance six months ago that might well result in a manslaughter charge.

  “These are all ongoing investigations, Mr Fraser ... (again the sinister emphasis on my assumed name) ... and plenty to be getting on with for the moment!” He sat back and smirked.

  I was escorted back to the cell with much to think about.

  The massive steel door slammed shut and I was alone again in the stark tiled room. I tried not to panic, but paranoia and self-loathing had me by the throat. I remembered how Mandu had warned me to be careful, to watch my back, but my ego had got in the way. I’d convinced myself that I’d fraternised with the right politicians, knew the right journalists, done deals with the right men-in-suits ... but he was the one who was right—I was sailing too close to the wind, flying too close to the sun. A fall from grace was inevitable.

  The can had been prised open and the worms were wriggling around my brain, along with a lot more dodgy metaphors. I was clearly in some deep and smelly water, wading through all the shit that had previously just missed the fan. My chickens had come home to roost and now my goose was cooked—they would go well with the worms! Manic laughter filled the cell.

  “Enough!” I shouted. My voice echoed down the corridor, jolting me back to my senses. I was losing the plot. I needed to think clearly and speak to my lawyer. But could I trust him? How could I be sure he wasn’t one of them, a member of their syndicate?

  Part of me, the rational bit that hadn’t been addled by the Plant, was aware this was just another paranoid delusion, but I decided to keep my dealings with him on a need-to-know basis anyway. What I needed to know was: if I pleaded guilty to possession of a banned substance, could he get me out on bail?

  Yes, he replied, when I was eventually allowed to speak to him, that might be possible. It would take some time and I would need to come up with the bond. I told him to speak to Mandu and take the money from Dreamtime Products’ bank account. He gave me a blank look, so I reminded him that he’d met the tribal elder when the three of us had discussed strategy. He shuddered at the memory but assured me he’d do his best.

  Moving on, he thought that with the appropriate plea bargaining it might be possible to persuade the police to drop the resisting arrest charge. They would, however, no doubt continue their ongoing investigations into my affairs and I should be prepared for a lengthy (and expensive) legal battle.

  After a five-minute court appearance I was remanded in custody in the local prison to await a bail hearing. In theory that wasn’t a complete disaster. A person on remand is not usually treated as a convicted prisoner. For instance, they should be able to wear their own clothes, have more visits, more rights ... that’s the theory, anyway. In practice, it didn’t work out like that. Not in that prison.

  The long-termers were at the top of the hierarchy there and us remanders at the bottom of the heap. Our stay was limited—either we were judged innocent and walked out the front gate, or if convicted of something serious we moved on to the state prison. So whatever malevolence we had coming to us was administered as swiftly and harshly as possible.

  What’s more, qualities that had previously elevated me shoved me even lower down the ladder in there. I was young, good-looking, something of a local hero … a prime target for ‘tall poppy syndrome’—an Ozzie expression describing the tendency to distrust anyone too ambitious, the need to cut them down to size. The knives were definitely out for this particular poppy. My assumed name and mixed race identity didn’t help either. As an activist and entrepreneur I’d used both to my advantage, but in prison they were further reasons to single me out for a beating.

  So, I was the lowest of the low in there—a cockroach to be stamped on. I was beaten by the white guards because I’d sided with “them Abo bastards out in the bush”, and by the black prisoners because they thought I’d sold out; picked on by everyone who thought I was a jumped-up poppy punk, and by anyone who hated Australia’s former prime minister; and battered by those who simply loved violence and didn’t need an excuse.

  At first I tried fighting back, but I’ve never been good at that and it only made the beatings worse. At times I feared for my life, but I clung to survival as I had when I was drifting around the Atlantic.

  The mental torture was just as bad. The windy season had started. I could hear the Fremantle Doctor blowing outside and watch the clouds scudding across the patch of sky visible through the bars. As a windsurfer I’d taken my freedom for granted—I was as free as the wind. Now I was a prisoner, time and space were no longer my own, and it was agony.

  I thought back to my time teaching the Cabarete kids to windsurf, the emotions I tried to communicate to them—the joy of harnessing the wind, living in the moment, feeling truly alive as you left your problems behind and blasted out towards the horizon. Locked up in a six-by-eight-foot cell I felt these things viscerally. They gnawed away at my soul. As the walls closed in around me I vowed never again to take my freedom and the ocean for granted.

  It was a lonely, terrible time. Hours of bleak, fearful introspection waiting for them to grab me again, then minutes of violence, terror and pain. Several days of this nearly broke my spirit, as well as my body. I might have looked for a way to end my life, but thankfully there were lifelines I could cling to.

  One of these was my memoir: ‘Too Close to the Wind’. I’d started writing it in the Dominican Republic, chronicling my adventures with Robo and my survival story. There could hardly be a better time or place to update it. Following my fall from grace, I had plenty of new material and shitloads of time for scribbling.

  Writing was an immersive activity. I got as much of a buzz from it as I did from windsurfing. Now it became a cathartic escape from the agonising confinement. I even found that composing passages in my head as I was being battered allowed me to escape from my body and the pain.

  The other thing that saved me was going ‘cold turkey’. Now that I could no longer take the Plant, the paranoia was finally under control. The delusions stopped, my head cleared, and I vowed never to touch psychedelic drugs again.

  Best of all, it turned out that I needn’t have worried about my lawyer. He was motivated more by money than malice, and he did as good a job as any of those greedy bastards ever do. After another brief appearance in court, I was released on bail.

  As I walked out into the sunlight, free again for the moment, I was met by a posse o
f reporters yelling questions at me. My lawyer read a brief, non-committal statement on my behalf and then I was bundled into a chauffeur-driven limo with blacked-out windows.

  There were two men in the back. One was the mayor. He nodded coldly to me and ordered the driver to get us out of there. For a moment I thought I was being abducted by the syndicate, then I realised the other bloke was Mandu. He was wearing his fancy court gear: dark suit and tie, and those shiny black shoes and socks. He giggled at my confused expression.

  “G’day mate. Like I told ya—I scrub up OK when I need to. This time it was t’get ya out of jail. But the bastards still wouldn’t let me stump up bail for ya, even if I weren’t wearin’ the bikin’ gear. So I needed yer Head Honcho here …”

  The mayor shrugged, and explained the situation:

  “Mr Mandu came to my office yesterday and asked me to help him get you released on bail. Apparently, the bond was not the problem. Luckily for you, a wealthy supporter offered to provide the funds for your guarantee (must be the Master, I thought to myself) ... because your company account has been frozen (a hint of a sly snigger). Anyway, the issue was one of credibility. Your lawyer advised that the bail bond should be lodged by a person of, ahem, standing in the community ...”

  Mandu interrupted: “Rather than a bloody Abo! Even if he is the tribal elder and kitted out like a fuckin’ tailor’s dummy!”

  “Whatever ...” the mayor continued, tetchily. “So I agreed to do what I could, because of your support for my election campaign, and because your case is generating a great deal of, ahem, interest ...”

  He paused, and I could see why. The journalists outside the courtroom had shouted questions about shady goings-on at the luxury villa of one of the mayor’s friends, rumours of dodgy deals, political shenanigans. The mayor was rattled. He wanted me out of the way, but the media attention made it difficult to gag me or keep me in prison for long.

  “Anyway, because of the interest in your case, Malcolm, I wanted to demonstrate my commitment to the shared issues we brought to the wider public. Indigenous land rights for example ...”

  Mandu chortled, and the mayor rattled on before he was interrupted again:

  “So, I agreed to lend my credibility as a person of, ahem, standing in the community ... (an ostrich-like preening of feathers) ... to facilitate your temporary release from prison.”

  There was a slight emphasis on “temporary”, as if articulating a subtle threat.

  “But I have to say, albeit reluctantly you understand ... (he gave me his best ‘reluctant-but-sincere’ frown) ... that this is the last time I can be publicly associated with you, Malcolm. I shall, of course, expect you to reciprocate by keeping our conversations out of the public domain.”

  He preened and looked at me smugly, clearly expecting to be showered with gratitude. I shrugged. Was that a bribe or a threat? I asked myself. Probably a bit of each, so to be on the safe side I nodded deferentially, gave him the slightest of winks, and thanked him for giving us a lift. He tapped the chauffeur on the shoulder and asked him to stop the car. Mandu and I got out. The mayor drove off, and out of my life.

  We were somewhere on the edge of town—somewhere empty, desolate, windy. The kind of street you expect to find tumbleweed blowing down. I gazed around, lost, wondering what to do next.

  Then I spotted my camper-van. The rusty old VW splitty was parked there with my trusty wave-board sitting inside!

  Mandu smiled, his dazzling smile the perfect response to my bewildered gawp.

  “D’ya remember what I told ya when we met in the library?” he asked me.

  Now it was my turn to smile as I recalled our extraordinary first conversation, tapping away on computer terminals.

  “You said the Master sent me to help your people ...”

  “Yeah, that’s right, Nick. Well, it’s mission accomplished and now it’s time for ya t’move on.”

  He looked at me, that smile still tweaking the corners of his weathered face, the lines etched there like canyons in the desert.

  Then it hit me—I was never going to see him again. This was our final conversation, the last time I’d see that smile. We’d come full circle and that’s why he was talking about our first meeting.

  I was overcome with regret. He was doing his best to end things on a high, but I’d let him down—I failed, miserably, to accomplish my mission and help his people. Suddenly I needed to turn back the clock and reboot our relationship:

  “I wish I’d made a better fist of it, mate” I told him, surprised at the depth of sadness in my voice. “If I could start again I’d do things differently ...”

  “Yeah, well I know we’ve ‘ad our differences ...”

  He paused, reflected, and moved on:

  “We are different, Nick, but we’re also the same. You’re the domino dingo kid from the other side of town, and you’re a bit mixed up because of it, but us Abos out in the bush could never ‘ave sorted things with the Whitefella without someone like you t’help us.”

  I shrugged—a gesture of regret rather than modesty.

  “When y’look back at what ya did do for us, y’might feel different.”

  “Like what?” I asked him, bitterly.

  “We got our land back and we got the Plant protected by the Whitefella’s law, just for us, as part of our religion.”

  He giggled as he spat out the last word and formed ironic air-quotes with his fingers, like a lawyer explaining slang to a judge. Seeing him do it dressed in his fancy court getup made it all the more amusing.

  “For sure I never wanted nothin’ t’do with the business of sellin’ the Plant” he added, “but no worries. That’s all over now, and I don’t ‘ave t’make that fuckin’ journey into town every few days. The Bullet’s knackered anyway, so I’ve been using that poncy Jap bike y’bought with our money. Hope that’s alright with you?”

  “No worries, mate!” I replied, creasing up. You had to hand it to him, the old fella had some cheek.

  He looked at me and reverted to ‘serious shaman’ mode again. The smile might be temporally absent but the twinkle in his eyes was ever present.

  “Like I say Nick, we’ve ‘ad our differences, but yer still the only outsider I’ve ever taken to the cave. I want ya to remember what ‘appened there, what y’saw, what y’learned.”

  I stared at him, drowning in those eyes.

  “The Dreamtime, mate. It’s not a story, it’s reality. And it’s in yer blood, Nick. Remember that when yer poncin’ around like a pimp, playing their game.”

  I tore my eyes from his and gazed around, bewildered, like an abandoned child, wondering what was going to happen to me now, what to do, where to go next. Silence. Tumbleweed blew down the desolate, empty street ...

  Then it hit me (the tumbleweed and the thought, simultaneously)—the wind was blowing! My friend, the Fremantle Doctor was there to heal me. The ocean was waiting. I was free again. There was hope!

  He watched me smile, saw the look in my eyes as I gazed west, out to sea.

  “D’ya remember me tellin’ ya what my name, Mandu, means?”

  “You told me it means: Sun.”

  His face lit up like his namesake.

  “Remember me, Nick. When the darkness comes for ya, just remember me ...”

  He embraced me and it was, indeed, like embracing the sun. I could feel his warmth, his energy. Light streamed from him, almost too bright to look at.

  “So, this is it mate. G’bye Nick.”

  He handed me a package, along with my phone and the keys to the van. I took them from him and stared into those eyes, for the last time. Did I detect a smidgeon of sadness there? No way! The gnarly old shaman was laughing!

  “I’m goin’ t’join the Ancestors in the cave soon ... (I understood that he was talking about his death, and yet he was giggling) ... and y’know what, mate? ... (the laughter stopped and his eyes drilled holes into me) ... not many people know this ... (pause, enigmatic smile) ... some of ‘em weren’t
from this planet!”

  He paused, for a beat. Then he winked at me.

  As I drove away it felt like I was waving goodbye to the heart and soul of the continent, the essence of the land, to Australia itself. Seeing him disappear in my rearview mirror was like watching an eclipse of the sun.

  18

  On The Run

  I drove for several hours in a trance, hardly aware of where I was heading. Anywhere south would do for now—anywhere, as long as it was away from that bloody town. Eventually, I pulled off the highway and opened the package Mandu had given me. Inside there was a passport, an airline ticket, and some cash—a mix of Australian dollars and euros, several thousand at a quick glance.

  I examined the passport. It had my photo and the name: Brian Cowen. I smiled as I checked his occupation. This time, rather than English teacher, it was listed as ‘public relations consultant’. So, the past eight months hadn’t been wasted. I’d moved up in the world, and the Master had recognised my progress—because, of course, this was his doing. When I switched on my phone it was confirmed by a text. I read it with the familiar feeling that he was somehow there in the van with me, pulling my strings again.

  Nick, by now you will be aware that I provided the funds for your bail, but I do not expect you to return to Broom. You must leave Australia forever, so I will never get my money back from the court. You now owe me AU$100,000.

  This debt will be written off once you have accomplished your next mission. It will be your final mission for me and the details will be revealed in due course.

  As usual, the message ended with his initials: A.A.L and the date: Wednesday, November 1, 2017. I’d always wondered about the extra ‘A’ in those initials. I knew his name was Alejandro Langer—that strange combination of a Spanish first name and German surname, but I couldn’t recall his middle name however hard I tried. Again I was left with the nagging feeling it was somehow significant—why else would he bother to include it?