Ej gets up looking bleary eyed. "Damn, I must have drunk a lot last night," he said. "What was it, twelve or fourteen beers?"
I decided not to say four, instead, "You realize that was the local police officer buying you drinks?"
He goes stark white, "What! Damn, will he tell my mother."
Jim chimes in, "Well, probably not, but it could be far worse. He was taking notes in his notebook, and they only do that when they are preparing for a court case."
"Why didn't you tell me?" he stammers, in shock.
"New guy in town, only found out after you left," Jim lies. "But, I guess he isn't here arresting you, so maybe he thought better of it overnight."
"You think he will charge me as the father of the minor?" I asked, innocently.
"Not out here," Jim notes. "Aboriginal drinking problem and all that, they just jail the young ones but only for a month or so. Teach them a lesson, I guess."
EJ is all ears, and worried. He isn't saying a lot, but you can see the mind ticking over: A month means he misses the start of school and therefore will have to find a way to explain it to Mum. "You think we can get away to Boulia early?" he suggests.
"Have to wait for Sandy," says Jim. "I wouldn't worry too much about the police, EJ. As long as we bring you back after the races, I think they will be good with that."
The glorious bravery of fifteen kicks in, and EJ sombrely nods. He will just have to face the destiny this trip has written for him. Neither Jim nor I add to the story and just let it ride. It was hard to not laugh - Outback Australia meeting the freckle faced kid from the city.
Sandy arrives, and we are preparing to head out when one of those Aboriginal kids knock on the window. I wind it down, "Hey white fella, you reckon you can buy me a carton of beer?"
"Just moving out mate. Maybe next time." I say. The boy would have been all of Fourteen.
Aboriginals were served at Dajarra. They could go to the bar and sit with everyone, but they didn't. They would go down a side hall to the back, and get a 'gooney' - A flagon of wine now sold in casks, but still called 'gooneys'. The only aboriginal who came in was Mick, an old guy, but not to drink. He was there to use the ATM, collecting cash for someone in the community
"It's a funny thing, " Jim says as we get underway. "There's nothing more superstitious than an aboriginal. I lived in the bush with them, the loveliest people, but there was always some place they couldn't go. Last night they might have had a dream and it means they can't go to a particular spot, because it will have bad spirits. It's not something you can argue about, or talk sense with, and I learned to say nothing. It's part of the whole thing.
"But even as I laugh, the truth is I will not walk under a ladder. I know it makes equal sense as bad spirits over by that waterhole, but there you have it. We are not so very different." Jimbo was full of small, pithy notes like this.
Boulia
Boulia is a fairly typical small mid-west Queensland town. It sits on the Outback Way, billed as Australia's longest shortcut. It is in the middle of the Channel Country and it is a major beef producer. Only three hundred people live in the town, but it is the center for all the local stations and the population can increase to a few thousand of a Friday night.
It's just another small outback town, important to the people who live there, but not a place that ever makes the news. But it did today, everywhere there are news crews, cameras, journalists. The inaugural Boulia Camel Race seems to have hit a buzz that captured the imagination. The streets are full of people from the stations all around and there is a festive air.
I see a Haberdasher, and say, "Damn, that's something that has disappeared from the rest of Australia, a Haberdasher shop!"
Jimbo and myself go inside to look about. There are racks of material, as you would expect, but the owner had gone beyond mere items for the creation of clothing, there were trinkets, useful home items, all manner of bits and bobs The original "cheap' store, only they weren't cheap. I learned something very important that day, listening to a conversation of the owner, Bob, and Mr. Sanderson.
"You married a Johnson, didn't you?"
"I surely did, Bob."
"They like breakfast in bed of a Sunday, don't they?"
"Yes Bob, every Sunday morning I am first up and cook her breakfast."
Innocuous enough, but as I listened, I heard more than the words. I heard a shop owner that knew every single person in that town. What's more, he knew them WELL. He would have known the hard working from the lazy, the rich from the poor, the good from the bad. He was intimately ENTWINED into this place. The shop, his life, this town, they were all woven into his existence in a way that stained his soul like a permanent marker, and the words written there are: Here is where I BELONG.
I also realized I did not have this stain of permanence. We were wanderers on planet Earth, Jim and myself, no deep roots, no fixed address. This was not a bad thing, we had the freedom to move, to do what we wanted. Still, I felt a sense of something hard to describe - here was a man who didn't NEED to belong, he BELONGED. He had found his place, stood his ground, and was utterly content in doing so.
Here was old Australia, where you knew everyone, everyone knew you. You never lied, never stole, never thought of cheating on anyone, other than your wife if you got the chance. People here would never lock their house, and would happily leave keys in their cars when they went to do the shopping. Here, your word was your bond and your handshake your contract. I felt deeply happy to witness it, to be a small part of this depth of being.
And then I think of the Aborigine, present and intimate with the land for tens of thousands of years. The oldest extant race on the planet. Somehow I see that old Australia has had a bleed-through from the original people - that THEIR land rights have come into the hearts of the white fellas and taken root. We walk about thinking we are this or that, but underneath the land itself has osmosed into our soul, become a part of our being. This is entirely lost in the rush of the cities.
We go to check out the camels, and Jimbo says, "If you are betting, put your money on the army camels."
I look at him with a question of why, and without me saying it he explains, "They are trained to run. The bookies have absolutely no clue as to how a camel behaves, some will get out there and saunter along, or do nothing. The army has trained theirs to behave and running is one of the things they are trained in. So bet on the army camels."
We leave the track, essentially a roped-off bit of red dirt desert, and head to the pub. EJ comes with us as there is nowhere else to go, but he seems happy enough to tag along. Everything out here is new and strange to his city sensibilities. And in the pub, we meet one of the real characters of central Australia, the "Whippy Man".
Every second word out of his mouth is a curse word. "Went to the fuckin Isa the other day, rodeo. Fuckin kids fuckin everywhere. Made a fucking fortune. The whippy fuckin game is fuckin great!" And on he went in general curse mode for quite some time. I gather we were all strangers in town, so shared a common bond.
As the evening edged closer, the station hands wandered in, and the aborigines went to their section of the bar, a separate wing with its own room and own entrance. You can look in and see the sea of black faces, but there is an invisible line. You know that is not your world, so you leave it alone.
It is a natural apartheid, where the two races agree to disagree and keep to their own world. It seemed to work well enough. Later that evening, a social worker from Sydney comes up to us (clearly we were not locals) and complains, "This is WRONG, the black people should be able to come into the white section of the bar. This is a terrible insult!"
I suggested to her, "Maybe you should go in there and explain to them their legal rights, and that they can sit here if they want to?"
"What! No, I would be raped!" she said indignantly.
I think she missed the irony as she careered off to find another more conducive set of ears for her opinions.
I found the surroundi
ng sea of people fascinating. Station hands, chugging their beer, laughing, but with askance eyes at the daughters of the station owners as they walk by. You know what happens at the end of the night if they can't pick up, they get the adrenaline of expectation out with a good fight. Never been anything different in all the years of human existence, or at least since the invention of beer.
The girls, prim, proper, smug. Daddy is rich, they know it, everyone knows it, and they have a sense of certainty of their place in the universe. They are not even glancing at us sitting with the Whippy Man, who continues to swear on in general about a thousand different topics.
The old men at the bar, elbows in place reserving their parking spot. They barely move beyond lifting the schooner of XXXX beer. They don't look about unless there is a loud sound and the start of a fight, but even then it is with disinterest. Grizzled faces, etched with wind and sun and rain. There were once stars in the eyes, I guess, but they faded long ago.
The station owners are in the restaurant with their wives. No one goes up to talk to them, and beyond the passing nods to other owners who walk in, there is largely silence in the dining room, unlike the bar which is a true hubbub of laughter and jokes and general chat about whatever. I feel like this could be a hundred years ago, with horses tied out front and no foreigners to be seen.
Sandy comes in with a smile on his face. I can't tell if it is because of some secret business, or a woman, or both, and I don't ask. Jim had explained he was a cattle duffer in times gone by, a rustler, what the law called a thief but who the people cheered like an old time bush ranger. Back then, with the rich landowners paying a pittance to the workers, for the lower classes it was seen as a semi-honorable profession. Certainly, it was just about the only way an ordinary bloke could get ahead.
Nowadays it is a dope crop, or growing and selling bootleg tobacco, but essentially the same thing. You have to stand to the wrong side of the law if you want to make a dollar. We decide it is time to make camp and find a place out of town to settle down and build a fire. Under torchlight we find what we need, leaving Sandy with his years of experience in charge of the operation.
Then EJ finally sparks up, he comes over to talk, "The old guy doesn't know what he is doing!" he complains.
I look at him, inwardly laughing, but outwardly serious. "So, what are you going to do? Tell a guy who has lived in the bush all his life how to build a campfire?"
"Well, he's doing it wrong ..." and the by is about to continue when I cut him short.
"Do you REALLY think adults know nothing?" I ask.
"Well, if you really want to know ..."
I cut him short, "No EJ, no one wants to know. But I will give you the advice my father gave me around your age: You will be amazed at what your father will learn between here and twenty one! And you know, I was amazed! He was right. So sit down, shut up, and say nothing. You might even learn something."
He sat in glum silence for the better part of the evening.
And that would have been it for the night before the races, only some local yahoos decided to come into the campsite in the early hours of the morning, brandishing guns, demanding to know why we were here. I learned another thing about survival then and there, because Sandy, normally so quiet, was up like a whip, talking.
"There's no trouble here fellas," he said, "Just a few people camping. Nothing to trouble yourself with."
"You are on private property!" one of the yahoos exclaimed.
Look about and all you see are miles and miles of fuck all. There are no fences, no signs, no evidence of cattle, nothing. "I am very sorry, but entirely our fault. We can move on Sirs, whatever you like. We don't mean anyone no harm," Sandy keeps up his conciliatory patter.
Eventually, the men settle down, get back into their four wheel drives, and head out, saying we should move on by the morning. What was that about? Who knows, but clearly it was something Sandy had seen and experienced many times. I guess in his profession as a 'duffer' he had learned to deal with aggressive land owners.
It was not just simple collecting cattle and getting them to market. Everything was branded, and the brands were checked at auctions. You had to have skill, and know-how to change a brand to something acceptable. This meant you had to keep the cattle out in the bush for periods of time till the re-branding took hold, and you gave yourself a clean slate for inspection. It was an art, a profession few had mastered.
Sandy, God rest his soul, had a gentleman's heart with a workers pockets. He was the essence of the quiet, thoughtful men of the outback, who lived off their wits and cherished the land.
ooo0000ooo
Race Day was a real show. Everyone was in town and the usually empty streets were full of life and color. Loud speakers spruiked the upcoming events, announced the beauty pageant, and gave out information on where a lost child could be found.
We are strolling about in the carnival atmosphere when we see a Rodeo Clown. He has a gaggle of kids around him, and a brace of balloons. He hands out the odd one, and a precocious child, clearly from a wealthy station, demands HIS balloon. "You want a balloon, kid?"
The boy nods a yes.
"You really sure you want a balloon? I mean, you really, really certain you want a balloon?"
"Gimme a balloon!" he says.
"Sure kid, here's your balloon!" The 'clown' was a really ugly looking roughneck with a vestige of smeared clown makeup. He looked more like something from a horror movie than a child's entertainer. Well, he lived up to his appearance, and plucks out a deflated weather balloon, the big ones. He pulls it back, stretching it, then snaps it off, pinging the kid in the chest, making him cry. "There's yer balloon kid. Hope you liked it."
The boy runs away in tears, while all the other kids are squealing with laughter. The clown is grinning, I guess because at last HE is being entertained. I gathered no one liked that boy, most especially the clown.
We come up to the Whippy Van and there is the Whippy Man, happily swearing away at the customers. A little girl comes up and asks for an ice cream. He says to her, "You want some fucking sprinkles with that love?" She looks a little stunned, so he turns to her mother, saying, "Is she fucking deaf? Should I put some fucking sprinkles on it for her?"
The mother barely registers the curse words, and just nods in the affirmative. And so on go the fucking sprinkles.
I just stand and look at this performance with amazement. In the city this man would have been reported to police, charged with profanity and lost his 'Whippy license". Out here, it was all just another shade of difference that added up to a rainbow of normal.
The races themselves were quite the event and well worth the trip. As predicted, the Army camels won every race bar one. As I recall, a saddle malfunction caused that loss. The people cheered, the bookies spruiked, but by the third race the odds were changed dramatically, and army camels became the odds on favorites.
In the crowd, the real game was afoot. The station hands eyeing up the landowners' daughters. The daughters snuggling up to Daddy, getting whatever it was they wanted. Daddy and Mummy station owners walking about like they owned the place, which they did. There were even horses tied up to horse rails in the streets. Yes, horse rails still exist in the streets of Boulia.
The aftermath all ended up in the Australia Pub, drinking their success and toasting their losses. For one day, it seemed to me, Boulia was the happiest place on Earth. No fights in the streets, and even the aborigines in their own bar seemed mightily pleased with the show, smiling and joking as opposed the rather severe appearance of the night before
We head back to Dajarra, drop off Sandy, and Jimbo suggests we go take a look outside of town, where he used to wander in the desert, catching and raising camels. "I would talk with the real locals out here, the bush people. They didn't much go into town. I loved it out here, just myself and the camels. I used to train them by just rubbing my hands all over then. Getting them used to human sense and touch. They didn't take long to get used to i
t and I swear they started to look forward to it."
I found that fascinating because my Aunt Dolly used to be a horse trainer, one of the leading ones in Australia, and she told me when I was very young that the reason everyone loved the horse she broke in was because they loved her. I had asked her why, and she said "I rub them all over with my hands. Every living thing responds to love, just as every living thing resists being forced into slavery. My horses WANTED to be ridden because they started with love."
We three wander to a place where there are large, round rocks. No words are spoken, the energy is very clear. We are standing in the middle of an unspoken song line, and if you listen you can hear it. A high, fine tone that seems to move between the atoms, giving the place a deep sense of peace. Even the boy seems to respond.
I am left with the thought we are in the real Australia, the place that existed even before the Aborigine arrived. A place of deep permanence and silent harmony. I can see why the 'bushie' loses all interest in the cities and prefers his or her own company in the vast nothingness of the central plains.
I had rung my sister from Dajarra and organized for an overnight stop at the Isa. Mount Isa, the mining town owned and run by, appropriately, Mount Isa Mines. For a short time during the 1980s MIM was Australia's largest company.
The Isa is a lovely town. Clean, well run, and by early evening we arrived at the family home of my sister and shown our rooms. My sister's kids are all eyes at the 'city folk' come to stay with them. Finally EJ has someone his age to talk to and they immediately head out in cars to explore the area. Julie (my sister) was married to Roy at the time, an electrician's electrician. He talked about the Chinese invasion, how Australia needed to stand up and stop this buying up of our country by foreign interests, and generally was preparing to go into politics.
Wind forward twenty years, Julie has divorced Roy, and he is married to a Chinese wife. But for the present, we have a great time, going to the Irish club, talking about nothing, and generally relaxing in the relative comfort of a decent house and good food. Brisbane seems centuries ago, but we only have a day before we have to head back and get the lad home in time for school.
Witch Hunters and Other Stories (2018-2019) Page 16