I have one official Fan Gurl. She
sleeps with my sister, is mother to my granddaughter and for some reason her
parents named her Hairy Rat, but that has nothing to do with her adoration. She
thinks I’m hilarious, when in fact I am just honest. Her laughter at my
comments is not a result of my sharp wit but my ability to say what she is thinking.
Most of the time it’s purely because I have the gumption to utter the words in
public. A subtle wink across the table is enough to let her know the comment
was as much for her benefit as mine. The thing that connects us is that we
Understand. Not just each other but existence in general.
According to people who have
allegedly completed Degrees in Medicine, we are both crazy. So much so that the
other day we went on a Pharmacy date so I could get some Valium for my back
pain (?Seriously, what the fuck?) and she could get whatever they’re making her
take. Sitting in The Pub before we did the walk, Fan Gurl mentions she’s just
gotten off Valium and me strolling in with her might make the Chemist
suspicious as to whether or not she’d convinced me to get a script. I absorbed
this for a moment before suggesting that I go home for my Viagra prescription
and we walk in holding hands. Poor Miss nearly pissed herself.
The thing is, we appreciate the
futility of existence but are not willing to commit suicide because we’ve been
to more funerals for that cause of death than any other and experienced the
terrible grief felt by all connected to the poor soul who couldn’t take it
anymore. The last memorial I attended (think Fan Gurl was there as well) was
for an artist friend of ours who decided he’d had enough.
Before that, I had to
cross The Ditch and give a eulogy at my Nana’s cremation. A direct quote –
“Unfortunately,
this is not my first funeral, but it’s the first in a decade that has not been
convened as a result of suicide and for that I am ashamedly grateful”.
Not wanting to bring the mood down
any further, I didn’t mention the decade old pre-suicide epidemic cremation was
the result of murder. Or that the ones prior to that had also been suicide. If
truth be told, I have only been to three funerals that haven’t resulted from a
needless end to someone’s life. Both of my Grandmothers lived long lives and in
both cases were seen off by all but one of their children. The other was a kid
I went to Primary School with, he died of Leukemia. The doctors did all they
could, but it didn’t work. I’ve always felt guilty for not being nicer to him.
Fan Gurl and I are no different to
our friends that decided ending it all was the only option. I’ve been close on
more than one occasion. I won’t comment on Fan Gurl, she’s a grown woman and
can do it herself if she wants. What separates us from our peers is
stubbornness. There is no frikkin way we are giving the people who don’t like
us the satisfaction of our deaths. We are both graduates of The School Of Not
Pissing On Your Opponents When They Are On Fire But Getting Pissed And Dancing
On Their Ashes Once They’re Burned. (I understand that’s a bit of a mouthful,
from now on please refer to it as TSONPOYOWTAOFBGPADOTAOTB).
Being distinguished alumni from
such a venerable institution allows us certain privileges when it comes to
matters of social importance. While Fan Gurl uses her fiddle to foster
frustration amongst The Great Unwashed, I’m forced into The Cave to type in the
hope that some part of the message gets through.
“Thoughts and Prayers”, already
ringing hollow, will become the carrion call of this summer. The supercilious
reaction of Prime Minister Scott Morrison to the undeniable fact that close to
the whole country has been on fire for weeks is a cause of concern. Not only
for those people who lose loved ones and property to the fires that are
recognised by scientists, firefighters and farmers alike, as the result of
human influenced climate change. But more importantly, for those families and
communities who have been ravaged by fire that start losing people by their own
hand. I don’t want to be the one to point it out, but Australia must be
prepared for a spike in Rural suicides.
It is well recognised that Rural
and Regional Australia have a disproportionate suicide rate compared to the
major Urban centres. Couple that with the worst drought since Europeans started
taking records and throw in a few fires that destroy everything you had left
after destocking or not planting a crop this year. This will not be a happy
summer in The Bush. The Bureau are predicting rainfall at levels of bugger all
to none, while informing us that any storm cells forming over or moving through
drought affected areas will likely be dry and cause more fires.
Mental health has begun to be
something that some people feel comfortable speaking about openly, yet it
remains an issue of little redress when it comes to government policy. I
struggle to begin with which failure should be addressed first. The lack of
post service care for Veterans is well documented, along with their suicide rate.
Young people (particularly men) are disproportionately represented. As are those
from Indigenous and sexually diverse communities. Older women are finally
being recognised as the fastest growing and one of the most vulnerable
demographics to experience homelessness. An increase in suicides of women aged
over fifty-five would not be a surprising statistical outcome moving forward.
Shocking, Yes. Surprising, NO.
We. And I speak of the nation known
as Australia, is nothing more than an example of abject failure when it comes
to addressing the ever growing epidemic of mental illness in this country. From
the Stolen Generations, to the victims of institutional child abuse and the
outright illegality of indefinitely detaining people exercising their fundamental
human right to seek asylum.
What was once seen as a shining
light of all that was good and right in the world has had the sheen rubbed off
to expose the dirty, selfish core of these colonies, yet the powers that be
don’t seem to give a shit.
That we are suffering, and killing
ourselves at a greater rate than any previous period in our history should be
more than enough impetus for our elected officials to wipe the beer from their
chins, remove their phallus from whatever staffer is looking for a job that
doesn’t exist and do what they are paid by ordinary taxpayers to do. (Don’t let
me get started on Big Business not paying tax, considering they’re responsible
for a decent whack of mental illness issues, we’ll be here all week).
This Burnt Country. A Land of
Blackened Plains. Of Scorched Mountain Ranges. Of Droughts and… well, let’s
wait and see. I fear her fiery horizons. I miss her jewel sea. No beauty, just
terror. A ruined land is all I see.
Apologies to Dorothea MacKeller. My
Country is one of my favourite poems, but I struggle to see how it could
have possibly been penned if attempted in the climate crisis we are
experiencing now. However, it is at times like this that we must turn to the
arts to provide some respite and perspective to what is being experienced more
broadly. Sitting to right of my monitor is a printed copy of Anthony Lawrence’s
brilliant piece,
The Central
Bus Station,
Beer Sheba
I read it most days when at the
keyboard deleting sentence after failed sentence. There is something beautiful
about its simple honesty. Its tone resonates with me.
I’ve never set foot in Palestine; therefore,
I cannot speak for the location or customs that inspired the tome. I can
however relate to the mood. Having wasted my fair share of time waiting in
foreign transport hubs for buses and trains, the picture his words paint in my
mind centre me. Not for the reference to warm whisky, rum is a much more
appropriate tipple in such a climate, but beer is clearly the best choice. Nor
is it the revision of poems and cheap cigarettes. Of course I’d be smoking the
cigarettes, but I rarely write poetry and would probably be stuck trying to
compose some rambling screed such as this.
It is not even the nonchalant
soldiers taking their rest in the shade. I have had enough rifles pointed in my
general direction to not be concerned unless someone is pulling a trigger at
the same time. Being drunk and having the sun burn a hole in my face is nothing
new to me. Northern European ancestry growing up in Australia pretty much
guarantees that if lung or liver cancer don’t get me first Melanoma probably
will. Could just have another heart attack or stroke, but I’m getting off
point. What really brings me back to reality when I read the poem is not until
the final paragraph, but before we get there, the elephant in the text must be
addressed.
If I had some republishing rights
or even knew who the bloody hell owns the words these days I would have just
printed it in full and let it speak for itself but as this is not the situation,
I must paraphrase and will apologise in advance for any perceived insult that
may be inferred by my thoughts and reflections.
Lawrence, and we are assuming it is
Lawrence, as the poem is written in first person, goes for a little wander in
the desert when the soldiers position themselves nearby to have a snack and
cool off for a while. He recalls that a battle had once been fought in the
hills surrounding him. He is correct. More than one in fact, but he is
referring to the last successful cavalry charge in a modern military setting.
The 4th Light Horse Brigade stormed the Turkish lines at dusk on the
31st of October 1917, and overwhelmed their opponents, helping to
break the stalemate in The Middle East. It’s just another significant contribution
that Australia made to a war that we were only fighting because the bloke on
our coins was having a tiff with his cousin. Again, I digress, but stick with
me. Fan Gurl wants you to.
So, Anthony buggers off to walk in
the sand and comes across a bunch of old folks who’ve been out picking
wildflowers. They tell him it’s been eight decades since such a crop has been
seen. (There’s a little continuity screw up coming but you can figure that one
out for yourself, just remember I first read this poem in the early nineties).
One of the group tells him that it is a result of “Days of rain and prayer”.
Notice that and spot the difference with the bullshit rhetoric spouted by our
Piss Poor Pentecostal Pretend Prime Minister – “Thoughts and Prayers” is his
preferred method of placating the masses when it comes to his ineptitude and
that of his predecessors regarding the Armageddon caused by global inaction on
climate change.
Those elders were praying because
it rained. Not for it, in some over publicised, scripted media event as Scott
Morrison is wont to do. The outright hypocrisy of the man (and I struggle to
call him even that. It shames the rest of us, we’re in the shit already)
falsely presenting as a compassionate Christian while protecting a charlatan who
controls a cult that won’t admit its guilt regarding child sexual abuse. Then he
offers up nothing more than bullshit platitudes for humans whose lives have
been ruined by those who claim to represent the god he prays for rain to.
As he dances around in his Happy
Clapper Club; denying responsibility for the continued suffering of the
citizens he is supposed to be leading and caring for, the desperate souls seeking
refuge in this country who thought a person who claims to be a follower of
Christ would have a shred of Christian compassion, the continued subjugation of
the oldest continuous (who should be, by default, the most respected) culture
on this planet and the whole country on fire by the end of November while our
“Pacific Family” slowly drown. The PM’s private thoughts will be focused on how
quickly he can get home, whip out his Bible and furiously masturbate while
reading Revelation.
I’ve already apologised in advance,
but I feel I must once more for placing that image in your head. Just be glad
this rant isn’t having a go at Barnaby Joyce. Shit. Sorry. That was
unintentional. Anyway, back to the poem.
The woman who had informed Lawrence
they had prayed when it rained, picks a flower from the desert sands for him
and he threads it through a button-hole in his shirt. He notices a faded tattoo
on the woman’s arm. He has nothing to say to her, nor her to him apparently.
This is where I can centre myself.
Survivors of real tragedy are the truly enlightened. I have only met one person
who I can say, said more to me without speaking than every educated eloquent
orator that has crossed my path.
I was in Hue, Viet Nam, and figured
a moped tour around the DMZ would be a good tourist thing to do. Arriving late,
still drunk from the night before and floating in post-coital bliss. My
inability to start the bloody bike and shooting straight through the first red
light I encountered only served to convince the guide that I was but an
accident waiting to happen. After a few stops at bunker complexes and a couple
of temples, maybe an old university or palace – I don’t really remember, or
care – where I was able to load up on enough soft drink and tobacco to operate
the vehicle normally, things picked up.
We arrived at Thien Mu Pagoda late
and my companions all seemed a little bit worn out by the whole experience. I
didn’t know any of them beyond the few I had been unfortunate enough to be
forced into explaining how being Australian is an appropriate response when
deflecting questions regarding how one can fall off a mountain, survive
sub-zero temperatures and trek themselves out of a foreign jungle less than a
week prior to their current activity.
Lighting a cigarette and walking
behind the main building while shaking my head as they ignored the signs in
multiple languages politely asking that shoes be removed before entering the
temple, I acquired a shadow. Oblivious of my escort I headed for what I was
really there to see.
In a non-descript shed toward the
back of the compound is the Austin Westminster sedan that Thich Quang Duc drove
to Saigon in June of 1963 before self-immolating in front of the Cambodian
embassy. If you happen to be the only person on earth to not have seen the
photo (Credit - Malcolm Browne, AP.) pause for a moment and look it up. You got
it? Yeah, that one. I pinched out my smoke and put it in a pocket before
approaching the car. I didn’t touch it but tried as best I could to see through
the windows while attempting to imagine what the knowledge of your imminent
suicide would feel like. Having faced my own mortality head on only a few days
ago, the monk’s fortitude was both humbling and admirable. Retreating to a
respectable distance, I bowed thrice as is Buddhist custom, sent a few words of
thanks via The Universe and turned back to whence I had come.
I notice my companion at almost the
exact time I catch sight of the guide shooting daggers in my direction waiting
for me to re-join the gaggle of gits. The Monk gestures in roughly the same
direction with a slight movement of his head. We fall into step as we near the
entrance to the pagoda. A subtle brush of my elbow is enough for me to know
that I must pay homage in the temple proper. Seating myself on the steps, I
remove the Vietnamese jungle boots I’d picked up in Hanoi. My new friend
gestures at them. ‘Army’ I say. He nods and waits for me to place them to one
side before touching my shoulder and shaking his head to indicate that removing
my socks is unnecessary.
Making my way toward the obligatory
statue of a Buddha, I am detoured to the collection of unlit incense. I take
one stick but am handed two more. The monk smiles at me and bows. I return the
courtesy and, confused, light all three before going through the motions of
placing them in the bowl positioned in front of the idol for that very purpose.
Turning in preparation to leave the shrine, I push some Dong into the donation
box. I didn’t bother to count it but from the impressed reactions of the
Vietnamese, it was probably more than I’d paid for all of my accommodation up
to that point. The Monk smiles once more, takes me by the elbow and leads me
back to the front stairs. He waits as I sit and re-lace my boots.
The guide seems less impatient,
observing my interaction. I stand and The Monk finally breaks his silence by
asking where I am from. ‘Australia’. He smiles and extends his hand. I shake it.
His left hand is added to the embrace. I bring mine forward to replicate his
action. For the first time in my life someone looked into my eyes.
Not at them, in them, or dancing
around them.
Into Them.
His left hand shifts to mine and he
taps The Bracelet on my wrist. ‘Sapa’ I said. He nods before turning my right
hand that was still firmly in his grasp. My little finger, still taped to its
neighbour, not having set after only a week. He looks back into my eyes. ‘Fansipan’.
There is the briefest pause before
he bursts into laughter. He releases my injured appendage before slapping me
lightly on both shoulders. Stepping away from me, palms pressed together, he
bows.
Deeply.
I am shocked at the level of
respect he is displaying and can do nothing more than attempt to duplicate his
action. When I realise he’s resumed an upright position I follow suit. He
acknowledges my guide who’s managed to edge himself into our radius. The man
bows to The Monk, who slightly dips his head in response. The guide thrusts
some money into The Monk’s hand, and from nowhere a minion appears before
scurrying off with the notes. Once more, a hand is extended, and I take it in
both of mine. Again, he looks into my eyes, smiles and in unspoken unison we
tap each other’s right shoulder.
Walking away, I realise I have just
met the first truly Enlightened person in my life. People speak of the feeling
when in the “presence” of The Dalai Lama. Having never met His Holiness I
cannot attest as to whether what I had experienced is comparable but as I got
further away from where he was still standing on the steps watching me leave, I
become aware that I had been in the company of a soul who knew exactly what
they were going to do when their mortal husk finally failed. The hairs on my
arms started to rise, but I was calmer than I have ever felt in my life.
The guide was following me, a
couple of steps behind, in what felt to me, like deference. When we were well
out of earshot he asked what The Monk had told me. ‘A Lot’.
‘You very lucky man, he only speaks
to other monks, what did he say?’
I looked back at The Monk. He
waved, placed his palms together and bowed once more. I again mimicked his
actions, the guide almost prostrated himself, none of the group showed any
deference or respect. ‘Was he in Saigon with Duc?’
‘Yes, they were friends'.
Starting the moped, I look back one
last time, but The Monk has disappeared. I lead the convoy back to Thu’s Café
on Two Wheels (unpaid plug, if they still exist), pausing only at intersections
to look over my shoulder for directions. When my guide catches up after I’ve
already sat myself down and opened a beer he goes to his sister and excitedly
explains the day’s events. Thu comes over to my table with a fresh beer and
asks if it’s true The Monk spoke to me. Her brother loiters at her shoulder. I
confirm his tale. she also asks what was said to me. ‘He asked me where I was
from’. They both know my nationality, they found it out last night when I was
asked to tell my tale of falling off The Mountain.
‘You spoke to him’ her brother
insists.
I don’t deny this fact. Pointing at
my boots ‘Army’. My chest ‘Australia’. The Bracelet ‘Sapa’. The finger
‘Fansipan’. Thu had seemed the sharper tool from the outset, she looked at me,
waved away the proffered Dong and returned to the bar. Confused, her brother
followed her, to be educated in hushed tones (unnecessary. My Vietnamese is
pretty much restricted to being polite when ordering food and drink).
The Monk didn’t need to hear my
story, nor did he desire to. He had seen more trauma than any person should
ever have to experience. He, however recognised that part of me is still stuck
edging along a narrow cliff with nothing but clear air separating me from the
rocks, several hundred metres below. He was also aware that another part had
been in The Jungle for years before I physically set foot in it. The Universe
had spoken to me, that night when I stared at The Milky Way, alone and
freezing. I didn’t recognise it at the time, but The Monk was a conduit.
He Knew.
He Knew that I’d heard the message
but hadn’t listened.
The next day I caught the bus to Na
Trang.
I haven’t returned to Hue since.
What took me more than a decade to
realise is, in my opinion, eloquently summed up by Lawrence when he leaves the
woman and returns to the station. He tries but fails to remove from his memory
what he has just seen. At risk of being sued for reproducing a part of someone
else’s work without formal consent, I’m tired, half drunk and he says it better
than I could –
… -
anything to stop
the details
of a letter and six
green
numbers from entering my head.
But the
cannons and the soldiers
lounging
over their guns make this impossible.
I polish
off the whisky, and take the flower
apart – a
stem and six faded petals: J579219
As with The Monk, Lawrence’s
Holocaust survivor is able to remain silent while still transmitting the horror
and grief of the Hell they had lived through (I know Hell is not held to exist
in Judaism, but I think even the most hardcore Zionists can accept that
analogy).
When I returned from my third tour
of Viet Nam. I don’t want to cause offence to Veterans, but I refer to my trips
to SE Asia as such because that place seriously wants to kill me. Fansipan was
its first real attempt. Laos had four cracks at it, first when the pilot skewed
the plane 45 degrees to port when landing and nearly took us off the runway. A
few days later, I stopped in my tracks and looked at my feet. There was a
bomblet an inch away from my right boot, advising my lady friend of the
situation we backed up and went off to get a feed. On returning to our shack I
nearly stood a snake the locals call “Johnny Two-Step”. Waking to a fever that
averaged 38.5⁰C and doing
your best Exorcist impersonation from both ends of the digestive track is not
the greatest situation to find yourself in when stuck on an island in the
middle of The Mekong.
Fast-forward to Cambodia where a
different lady friend managed to fracture my skull after driving her car into a
concrete traffic divider, flipping the thing, crushing the doorframe into my
cranium and leaving me with recurring flashbacks every time I sit in the front
passenger seat of a car.
I could go on to detail the time I
was almost thrown in prison at Hanoi airport because I didn’t look anything
like the bloke in my nine year old passport, but I’ve written about that before
and if you haven’t gotten the point by now, find someone to explain it to you.
Anyway, I had a stroke. At least
that’s what I call it. Like most Australian males I don’t seek medical
treatment when I probably should. I didn’t do it when I had my heart attack and
played my whole senior year of rugby with a broken scaphoid. “Rub some Dirt on
it”. “Walk it off”. It could have been
some other type of seizure, epilepsy perhaps. I had seizures when I was younger
after huge nights on The Drugs, but this was different.
The morning we flew out of Hanoi, I
noticed an odd bulge around the scar from when the screw was placed into my
left wrist. Moving The Bracelet and it’s younger sister I’d acquired on my
second tour, I massaged, what I now believe was a blood clot, until it
dissipated and quickly forgot about it. With my only contact in Singapore out
of the country I spent a solo evening by the river until that day’s Monsoon
hit. Think on that for moment Australia. Remember when it used to rain? Not
Cyclones or floods. Just rain.
So, I got back to Brisbane. Opened
my door. Said hello to the cat. Set the laptop up for some music while I rested
until The Pub opened and rolled a joint to help facilitate the process.
Then my nose started bleeding. My
whole body began to shake, and my vision blurred.
Somehow, I managed to text my
housemate asking him to call before he came home and scrawled a note that I
placed in front of The Cave door telling him not to call an ambulance – I
didn’t want to be resuscitated. Smashing a last will and testament onto a blank
word document and concentrating as hard as I could, wrote what I thought was a
legible representation of my password.
Blowing as much blood from my nose
as possible, I plugged my left nostril with toilet paper and lay on my back,
preparing, once more, to die.
When The Universe spoke to me as I
lay, staving off frostbite at the foot of Fansipan, it did so through the
medium of The Milky Way. With no such luxury available due to me being prostrate
on my futon in The Cave, it needed to pick up it’s game.
Now I’ve taken drugs in my life. I
make no secret of that and I’ve taken many of them. I’ve even taken the crap
that doesn’t have a street name yet because some chemist mate of your dealer
only invented it last week. Most hallucinogens don’t make me hallucinate.
Mushrooms are shit. Best they ever did was make a yellow light look slightly
more yellow. Acid is fun. I’ll tell you about seeing a Gnome at Woodford another
time. 2CB and 2CI and the others are frikkin weird, but the undisputed champion
of hallucinogens is DMT.
Apparently, the chemicals released
when you consume DMT are only produced naturally when you are born, and when
you die. I can tell you. From experience, that when you are actually on the
cusp of dying, what your body does on its own, exposes human manufactured drugs
for the pale imitations they truly are. I’ve seen some weird shit on DMT, but
an actual conversation with The Universe is a fully immersive experience. All
of your senses are affected, and you realise the bullshit about a sixth sense
isn’t nonsense at all. It’s YOU. Your sixth sense is that voice that tells you
not to do something stupid before you do it anyway. It’s that feeling you get
when you know you are in a dangerous situation. And it’s what enables a frank
and direct discussion with The Universe.
Before you get on your high horses
accusing me of being on some kind of religious or spiritual bent, please
remember I am technically an Atheist, philosophically a Buddhist (not a
religion, by the way) and politically an Independent. Call it what you want.
I’m not going to sit here and tell you I spoke to God, Allah, Gaia or any other
magical sky fairy.
What first struck me was the
colours. A childhood on a Pacific Island, Camping in The Outback when I was a
bit older and the night in The Jungle had provided me with magnificent vistas,
but nothing compares to what The Universe really looks like. It’s none of that
bullshit you hear about seeing your life flash before your eyes, but you
definitely get the feeling that you are leaving your body. And that is fucking
confronting.
The convulsions get worse. You are
freezing whilst drenched in sweat. You smell burning nuts and remember that is
a sign of stroke. There is a metallic taste in your mouth and all sound
disappears. This is how you know that someone is full of shit when they say
that one of the sky fairies “spoke” to them when they had a near death
experience. You hear nothing. It is probably the scariest aspect of the whole thing.
When one converses with The
Universe it is not in a human construct of language. It is more a complex
subliminal exchange of ideas. You’re reminded of what you’ve stuffed up, how
you might be able to fix it and what you’ve done well. And then, in my
experience at least, it tells you how much time you’ve got left and thumps you
back into your mortal vessel. Rolling over to cough/spit the blood that had
almost drowned you, the cat, who has been by your side for what you discover to
have been three hours, looks at you with genuine concern in her eyes.
Stumbling to the bathroom,
collecting the housemates warning as you step over it. You scrunch the now
useless note into a ball. It finds its way into the bin followed quickly by the
hardened plug of paper from your nose. A cold shower is run. Partially due to
the heat but more importantly to close the capillaries in your nasal cavity.
Expelling the dried residue, the flow of claret begins again. It takes several
minutes before the water can be turned off. You struggle to dress as your
feline friend frets around your feet, but you manage to in the end. Grab the
first beer from the six-pack you failed to start, thanks to the seizure, and
walk out the front door.
Your pussy follows you of course.
She will track you to the convenience store at the bottom of The Hill like she
always does, before getting frightened and running home. You spark the joint
you didn’t have a chance to smoke earlier and chat with the cat until she takes
her leave. Turning onto a side street you know is not frequented by police due
to speed bumps, the beer is cracked and consumed before returning to a main
thoroughfare. Three corners before walking through the front door of The Pub.
Dougie is working. He welcomes you
back, asks how the trip was, etc. as he pours you a beer. ‘Yeah, pretty good.
Think I just had a stroke’.
‘Shit. Seriously?’ As he places the
lager on the bar.
Dwell on that for as long as you
want but I feel as if you may curious as to where Fan Gurl fits into this
rambling rant. The simple answer is, Everywhere. Considering I’ve already
reproduced a section of Lawrence’s work and bastardised MacKeller’s, I may as
well quote the late Prophet – Hunter S. Thompson
…but only
until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge
…The Edge…
There is no
honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is
are the ones who have gone over.
The others
– the living – are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they
could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had
to when it came to choose between Now and Later.
I find myself agreeing with Dr
Thompson’s opinion on most topics he bothered to invest the time to formulate
one on. Except his claim that The Great Gatsby was the best novel
written by an American (it’s To Kill A Mockingbird if you’re playing
along at home), and the implication in the above quote that those who have gone
over The Edge are by default dead is one that I take personal umbrage with. I
appreciate that he was talking about riding motorcycles, and he does continue
on to recognise the connection between LSD use and motorcycles riders at the
time. So, I’ll take whatever leeway I can get.
The thing is, both Fan Gurl and
myself have gone over The Edge and lived to tell the tale. We are not alone in
this. But Fan Gurl knows that she’s been over The Edge. Most other people
aren’t aware. I showed her the first few paragraphs of this piece, thinking she
might have been offended that I’d called her crazy.
I asked.
She responded.
‘I’m on an injection for it. I’m as
crazy as they get’.
This is what sets us apart. Not
only do we recognise that we are crazy (if a person denies it, call the people
in white coats -- they’re a proper nutjob and need help), we celebrate it. We
joke about it because we know it is part of us and it ain’t goin nowhere. I
don’t know if this a uniquely Australian phenomenon or something that is common
globally for those of us to be listed on a Government register as a certified
loony. I prefer The Australian argument mainly because I’m a parochial prick
but also because we seem to be the only country on the planet that manages to
laugh about our misfortune.
Some bloke has his house flattened
in a cyclone. ‘Yeah, got a bit windy didn’t it?’
A woman who has saved nothing more
than her children and the pets from a bushfire that destroyed everything they
owned. (Laughing) ‘We forgot the dog food!’
Family whose house has been
inundated by flood water ‘We drained the pool because of water restrictions.
Just got filled for free’.
It is not just the distinct
Australian acceptance of our lunacy that binds us. (Both of us know plenty of
Australian lunatics we will cross the street to avoid and a few more that
either one of us would’ve been conveniently looking in the opposite direction
of as they were getting their arse handed to them. Crazy people make poor
witnesses in court anyway). It’s that Fan Gurl and I have both spoken to The
Universe.
We discussed it once.
I had slept the night in my room at
the sister’s house and while she was having a shower before the three off us
relocated to The Pub, the conversation with Fan Gurl quickly turned to our
mutual craziness. A common topic, but one we rarely get the opportunity to
discuss between just the two of us. We reaffirmed our commitment to not killing
ourselves quickly. Somehow that led me to telling her about my stroke and
subsequent chat with The Universe. It had happened years before Fan Gurl became
Fan Gurl, she knew me back then but hadn’t stuck her hand in the radioactive
Fan yet.
Post transformation, as I told her
this tale she was more intrigued than had ever seemed before. Since she became
Fan Gurl, she’d laughed whenever I’d questioned someone’s right to exist (not
directly, but by virtue of wording questions in such a way that anyone with only
basic knowledge of the subject matter they were purporting to be an expert on,
would know). On other occasions she’d come close to losing control of her
bladder as I explained the global and local political shitstorm that had
erupted while she was sleeping.
But this time she was staring at me
while I recounted my tale. She knew about The Mountain, Laos and Cambodia and
all the rest. We were at least a year into Fan Gurl stage when I told her this.
She’d started reading everything I wrote after my sister had shown her Yellowskull
(still unpublished). Then there was the whole incident with the Fan and Fan
Gurl was born. Interrupting me with three simple words.
‘I have too’
Despite my Spectrum Aversion to eye
contact, I glanced up and she caught my gaze.
I looked into her eyes.
Not at them, in them, or dancing
around them.
Into Them.
She wasn’t lying.
We asked nothing of each other for
confirmation, we knew both of us were on the level. Just as we knew that beyond
the details I have described above is all that anyone else is entitled to know.
What goes over The Edge, stays over The Edge.
Fan Gurl was looking into my eyes
as we came to this conclusion.
Not at them, in them, or dancing
around them.
Into Them.
It was strange, and I have later
wondered what I may have learned, had I looked into the eyes of The Monk.
Looking into Fan Gurl’s eyes, I
learned more about her experience with The Edge than she has ever told me. And
I know her knowledge of my interaction exceeds what I’ve expressed to her. It’s
an odd feeling to be aware of things about someone, though they have never told
you any of them and even more disconcerting to know that they are informed
about your path without you having divulged anything of particular detail. Some
people will mock this as “Telepathy”, which is an ignorant assertion, neither
of us put thoughts into the other’s mind, nor did we try. Awareness is the term
I prefer. I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to suggest that either of us are
enlightened, nor use a fantastical term such as “Kindred Spirits” to describe
our connection but the understanding we reached, formed a bond of a strength I
struggle to describe adequately.
That was the point where we no
longer required words to communicate with each other. It was when a furrowed
brow, raised eyebrow or subtle sideways glance to whatever lunatic was on a
rant at the other end of the table would result in uncontrolled laughter from
the recipient or the pair of us. It’s not as if we stopped talking to each
other. We have great chats. But when you know that someone has seen what you were
also shown, language becomes superfluous and a simple facial manipulation can
speak volumes. It is oft said that a picture speaks a thousand words, but a
well placed wink to someone reading from the same page is more words than
Tolstoy discarded.
Fan Gurl and I accept and relish
the looks that people reserve for the crazy. If they missed our subtle,
non-verbal conversation – that’s their fault. They probably wouldn’t have
understood anyway. We just laugh a little bit more, clink our glasses, have a
drink and resume communication on a higher plane.
Not to boast, but I think I’m a
couple of rings higher up The Coil than Fan Gurl. It has nothing to do with me
being a rough decade older than her on the mortal scale, more that, on
occasion, her raised eyebrow implies confusion rather than acknowledgment. She
reminds me not only of myself and my interaction with The Monk, but my Nana. Sounds
weird, I know. A woman in her middling twenties and another who clocked
eighty-eight before calling it a day aren’t often placed near each other on The
Coil. But, The Universe is complex and sometimes things just work out that way.
Nana was a master of The Unspoken,
but after I’d survived Viet Nam for the first time and performed the obligatory
bi-decadal crossing of The Ditch, I discovered I had surpassed her in The Art.
Only as a result of persistent
pestering from my mother to tell hers how she’d managed to raise an intelligent
and resilient child who was able to survive an ordeal that would have seen some
of my cousins curl up and cry themselves to death, did I tell her about The
Mountain.
She listened intently, interrupting
only when I used a word she was unfamiliar with. Things like rattan and H’mong.
My mother on the other hand interrupted to remind me of something I hadn’t
forgotten about but was yet to mention because it occurred several minutes
further into the narrative.
Later that day, we three went to a
local pub for dinner and Nana had lost it. She was fine when we’d been at her
house. Every interruption from her daughter was verbally responded to, before
we communicated in Unspoken, had a little laugh and I continued reciting my
tale. At dinner though, it was gone. I never had another conversation Unspoken
with my Nana. Small interactions comparable to my grasp of Vietnamese, sure,
but nothing of substance. It wasn’t Dementia, Nana was coherent until the end. I
don’t know what it was, but something I had said or implied, had robbed her of
The Art. On reflection a decade or so later, I came to the opinion that when I
told her the story I was roughly the same age as her brother Jack was when, by
all accounts, killed by Italian Machine-Gun fire on the side of some hill in
Tunisia. I’d also told her about my diagnosis recently and she had confided in
me that she’d suffered from depression for most of her adult life.
Although I was sworn to secrecy, it
was the first crack into the history of mental illness on my mother’s side of
my family, it get’s a lot deeper, but I’m writing a book about that so you’ll
have to buy it if you want the full story. What really struck me though, and
this is only recently, was that her other brother Len who I had always thought
was killed at Cassino, survived WW2 -- only to succumb to PTS eight odd years after
the war in Europe had finished -- around a month after my mother was born.
Nana had been a medical
receptionist in the latter years of her working life, and odds are, she’d seen
every first world problem walk through the doors of her clinic, but I think she
saw something of Len in me and it scared her. That I didn’t follow in his
footsteps before she died, I hope gave her some solace, but she did still call
upon her god to save her, at the end of her innings.
The similarity that Fan Gurl and
Nana shared was they both know/knew The End is/was coming and that they
are/were somewhat apprehensive about it. I, on the other hand don’t give a shit.
But what binds the three of us together – The Matriarch, The Prodigal Ebony
Ovine and Fan Gurl is the aforementioned stubbornness.
Despite enduring more than seven
decades of hellish internal torment, Nana didn’t give up.
Fan Gurl and I wouldn’t be nearly
as polite as Nana would’ve been when (considering) suicide knocked on the door.
Whereas we would just shout, “Fuck Off!” and slam the door in their face as we
are wont to do with religious door knockers. Nana would’ve invited them in for
a cup of tea before courteously ushering them back into the elements. Being
slightly differential in our approach to dealing with The Black Dog is insignificant
when one appreciates that despite our dissimilar methods, we all reached the
same conclusion – there is no point ending it yourself when The Universe will
take care of it for you as soon as it’s good and ready.
*Here you
go Fan Gurl.
This one’s
for you.
Thanks for
existing.
Love you
more than you love Vegemite*
HH. 2019.
