FRIDAY FICKOS: FIFO Bebop
introducing YNR's Friday Fiction posting
Howdy!
A few things!
First, hello and thanks to all the new subscribers! We (I?) hit 600 this week, which has honestly knocked my socks off. We’re currently at 70 paid subscribers (not bad!). My goal is 100 by year’s end. Life being what it is, $5 a month goes a long way towards supporting me and my work/writing atm, so I really appreciate everyone who has subscribed (both paid and unpaid), shared, and talked about YNR. Cheers m8s!
Second, sorry for the lack of articles this week. My debut novel, NOCK LOOSE (coming June 2025 via Fremantle Press) goes to print this coming Monday, and I’ve been in the crunch-zone finalising some truly unforgivable goofs. When it’s out of my hands, I imagine I’ll feel like a Victorian housewife post one of those Sunday brunch lobotomies. I cannot wait. Once that’s the case, I’ll be able to dedicate more time and energy to YNR. I’m aiming for one to two pieces a week, with a greater focus on culture writing and criticism, as well as personal essays and ongoing political commentary. Just the stuff I’ve been doing for Real Publications for the better part of 18 years, I guess.
Anyway! I mainly see myself as a fiction writer, despite being better known as an essayist and comedian. I write novels, for the most part. NOCK LOOSE is my first to be published, but I see it as my third proper book. A HORSE HELD AT GUNPOINT was listed for The Fogarty Award in 2021 but has been stuck in publishing purgatory (too many jokes about Tim Winton) ever since. CRAIGIE, which I wrote with the intention of self-publishing this year (life fell apart instead, so expect it in 2025) is, unfortunately, ontologically evil, and will lead to me being cancelled six ways to Sunday (cancel me 300 times, shame on YOU etc). FIFO Bebop, the first chapters of which I’m sharing here today, was written around this time last year, also with the intention to self-publish, as it is also kinda cooked, but I also reckon it’s pretty fun.
In short: it is a canto by canto ‘translation’ of Dante’s Inferno, made to be about two FIFO workers out for a cursed night on the town in Perth, Western Australia. For those who don’t know, I was born and raised and reside in Perth, sadly. The mining boom, the most cursed and grotesque farce of my lifetime, has long been an artistic and material (I can’t afford a home, ever) obsession of mine, having lived in its epicentre and witnessed the many ups and downs of its seemingly eternal hell-reign up close. FIFO Bebop is a satire of its carnival of wide-screen TVs, insurmountable mortgages, hideous robber barons, and wholesale environmental annihilation.
It’s a work in progress (this is the third draft, I consider 15th draft ‘finished-ish’), so go easy, BUT! it’s at a stage where I can share it in bits and bobs with you, my dear YNR punters. It’s an experiment in style, quite different from the other books, so if it puts you off, dw, the others ain’t like that (kinda).
Anywho, I’m gonna chuck chapters up here every Friday, but for paid subscribers only going forward (I reckon). Enjoy!?!
Cheers,
Patrick
FIFO BEBOP
By Patrick Marlborough
The globe is sadly groaning with debt, poverty and strife
And billions now are pleading to enjoy a better life
Their hope lies with resources buried deep within the earth
And the enterprise and capital which give each project worth
Is our future threatened with massive debts run up by political hacks
Who dig themselves out by unleashing rampant tax
The end result is sending Australian investment, growth and jobs offshore
This type of direction is harmful to our core
Some envious unthinking people have been conned
To think prosperity is created by waving a magic wand
Through such unfortunate ignorance, too much abuse is hurled
Against miners, workers and related industries who strive to build the world
Develop North Australia, embrace multiculturalism and welcome short term foreign workers to our shores
To benefit from the export of our minerals and ores
The world's poor need our resources: do not leave them to their fate
Our nation needs special economic zones and wiser government, before it is too late
– Gina Rinehart, “Our Future,” 2012
THROUGH ME THE WAY INTO THE SUFFERING
CITY,
THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE ETERNAL
PAIN,
THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG
THE LOST.
JUSTICE URGED ON MY HIGH ARTIFICER;
MY MAKER WAS DIVINE AUTHORITY,
THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL
LOVE.
BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGS
WERE MADE, AND I ENDURE ETERNALLY.
ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE.
– Dante, “Inferno,” Canto III
Canto I
I am standing at Ashfield traino in my hi-viz and work boots, minding the gap. I’m minding the gap in my bright orange hi-viz and scuffed to buggery work boots, wondering if there is a gap if there is no train to step on. I’m minding the gap anyway, and taking in a safety poster Transperth have put up. On it, a teenager is reaching out for a basketball that’s gotten away from them. This teenager has stopped minding the gap. On an adjacent poster, the same teenager is reaching out in the same way, only this time, he is short an arm.
That’s why I’m minding the gap.
He didn’t mind the gap, and now look at him.
The train driver didn’t see him coming.
That’s why I’m in my hi-viz and work boots. He couldn’t miss me. He couldn’t miss me if he tried.
I am a kind of tired that only exists in fairy tales. I am a kind of tired that only happens when you prick your finger on a spindle. I am a kind of tired that makes you look at a picture of a kid chasing their basketball in front of a speeding train, and envy the kid. But I’m rich. I’m minding the gap in my hi-viz and work boots, and I’m rich as all get out. I’m rich in a way I didn’t think someone like me was allowed to be. I’m the kinda rich where I can look at a poster of a kid chasing a basketball in front of a moving train and think: couldn’t be me. I’d just go out and buy another ball. Before this, before I got rich, I woulda lunged after my ball, too. Train be damned.
I dunno where Ashfield is. I dunno where Ashfield is, even though I’ve lived in this city my whole life. I never really took the train anywhere. I took the bus to school and back or mum picked me up. I took the bus to school and back or mum picked me up or I rode my bike or walked. I feel like I never really left Leeming before this job. I took the bus to school, mum picked me up, I rode my bike to the shops, I walked around the park. Now I’m catching a plane to work. I’m catching a plane to work like a rockstar. I’m catching a plane to work in my hi-viz and work boots like some sorta rockstar, and I’ve never been so rich, I’ve never been so rich in all my life.
Yeah I’m rich as all get out, but I’m buggered if I know where Ashfield is. I’m standing at the Ashfield traino, so I’m in Ashfield, but I’m not entirely totally sure where Ashfield is. But I’m in Ashfield, minding the gap. I’m in Ashfield, I’m minding the gap, I’m rich as all get out, and unlike someone I could mention, I’ve got both my arms and a basketball waiting for me back home.
But I’m buggered if I know where I am.
I hear some noise behind me. I step away from the boy and his basketball and stop minding the gap for a moment. Three other blokes have joined me at Ashfield traino. Perhaps they intend to mind the gap, also. They aren’t wearing hi-viz or work boots, however. The security light flickering overhead makes them appear ghostly and static.. I look back at the boy and his basketball then back at them. I am looking at three feral roos, the kind my uncle shoots on his farm. They appear demonic in his ute’s floodlights, which makes it easier to blow their heads off. I look back at the boy and his basketball, and go on minding the gap.
Oi mate…
One of the roos is talking to me.
Oi mate…
I mind the gap. I respect the basketball.
Ay mate…
I admire the neatness of the boy’s missing arm.
Ay mate…oi…oi mate…
Yeah?
Ahhh man…yeah? Haha, yeah? Ahhh…ay mate, you gotta lighter?
Nah, sorry.
I return to the gap. The three roos start giggling and huddle together to confer amongst themselves. They are giggling and huddling and making a sorta hissing sound, a sorta, I dunno, gurgle, yes, a gurgling sound, is what I’d call it.
Ay mate, says the second roo, you got a lighter?
Nah, I say patting my hi-viz for effect, not on me, ay.
They return to giggling and gurgling.
Oi mate, says the third roo, you gotta smoke then?
Nah sorry, I don’t ay.
They confer, they giggle, they gurgle, then the gurgle shifts to a sorta clicking sound.
How ‘bout a phone then?
You need to make a phone call? I ask, sorry but mine’s flat.
This is true. I put my phone on charge but it didn’t charge. I plugged it into the charger but I didn’t plug the charger into the wall. I am the kind of tired where walls aren’t really figuring into how I think about the world right now. That’s the kind of tired I am.
OI CUNT!
It’s the first roo, and now he’s lit up, now he’s in the flood lights, now he’s begging for the rifle’s deafening BANG.
OI YOU CUNT!
Sorry, I say, sorry, I didn’t mean any—
GIVE US YA PHONE YOU CUNT!
It’s flat—
GIVE US YA FUCKEN PHONE, YOU DOG CUNT!
They hop towards me and start spreading out around me with a truly astonishing lack of consideration for the gap. They are not minding it at all.
GIVE US YA PHONE, FAGGOT!
My phone is flat as all hell but I don’t want to give it to the roos, anyway. I look at the three of them, in my hi-vis and work boots, stop minding the gap, and ask:
Ay, uhhh, do you blokes know where Ashfield is?
They laugh.
Ashfield, says the third, ASHFIELD!?! Cunt, can’t you read the sign?
I look at the sign which reads ‘ASHFIELD’, then back to them, and smile:
Oh no, I know this is Ashfield, but uhhhh…where is it, y’know, precisely?
All three of them look at each other, then back at me.
I’M GONNA KILL YOU, YOU DOG CUNT!
I am running. Seeing as I’m running in Ashfield, I’m not entirely sure where I’m running to. But I’m running. I’m in my hi-viz and work boots and I’m running like mad. Beyond the parking lot of the Ashfield train station is a whole lotta darkness. I dunno if I’m scared of the dark like I was when I was little, but I’m scared of the dark if these roos are chasing me through it. So I decide to run bog laps around the dimly lit parking area, that way I can see them and where I’m going, while keeping my eye on the gap as I circle past the traino. They’re trailing me around like we’re running cross country. You’d think one or two would stand at a corner and try blocking me off, but nah, they’re going for the old cross country method, shuffling behind me like they’re asthma is somehow worse than mine. They’re barking:
OI YOU DOG!
OI YOU DOG!
OI YOU DOG, GIVE US YA PHONE!
I haven’t been bashed in a bit but I know I don’t wanna be bashed right now, or perhaps ever again. But I am so bloody tired that even though I loathe being bashed, I start daydreaming about laying down and letting them kick the living shit out of me. I could fall into a deep coma, and wake up in a comfy hospital bed, sucking on a feeding tube, feeling feeling fine after a well earned rest.
OI YOU DOG CUNT, GIVE US YA PHONE!
I’m minding the gap, and as I jog past on my fifth lap, I notice another man is now standing at Ashfield station. He is built like a brick shithouse and radiating light. Like me, he’s in hi-viz and work boots.
I dodge past the second roo and huff back up the ramp and shuffle alongside the gap to where the stranger’s standing admiring the picture of the boy and his basketball. As I get closer, I hear him saying:
Silly bugger, hurhurhur…
Excuse me, I am beside him in my hi-viz and work boots, catching my breath.
See this silly bugger, he nods at the boy, not worth his arm, was it?
Nah, I wheeze, probably not.
Yeah. Silly bugger…
Sorry but, I am coughing my lungs up, could you help me—
OI YOU DOG! The roos have regrouped at the top of the ramp at the edge of the light, GIVE US YA PHONE, DICKHEAD!
I am bending over, wheezing, gasping for air, my hands on my knees, pointing what would be by dribbling arm (if I played basketball) towards the roos, then back at this big orange mountain of a man. He looks down at me, then over at the roos. He steps back from the gap, strolls over to them, plants his feet square, and cold-cocks the first roo right on the flat of his pimply forehead, sending him toppling backwards down the ramp like a slinky. The others grab their friend and scuttle back into the darkness. The man walks back over to me and resumes his position, minding the gap and considering the boy with the basketball:
Fucken dickheads, he says like he’s reciting poetry, but that’s Ashfield for ya…hurhurhur…
He sees me gasping for air and begins slapping me on the back like I’m choking on a chicken bone. Before I can yell stop! that’s not how asthma works! he’s cured my coughing fit. I stand up straight, if shaken, besides him. I fix my gaze on the basketball hovering in front of the moving train on the safety poster:
Silly bugger, I say, I could buy so many basketballs right now, like, so many.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Well, he slaps me once more for luck, it wouldn’t do him any good, hurhurhur!
I’m catching my breath in my hi-viz and work boots when I stop minding the gap and turn to thank this stranger for his help. Fuck he’s big. They say I’m built like a meerkat. I’m not the biggest bloke going, that’s fair. If I’m built like a meerkat, then that makes this big boofer a warthog, or nah, a water buffalo. He looks like a keg of Heineken some village folk would leave out to appease the local hill giant. We’re both in orange hi-viz and work boots, but I glimmer like a dying candle at the bottom of a dark dank pit, where he radiates like a lighthouse atop of a limestone cliff: a booming, blaring, light. I notice the tattoo of a saxophone on his knotty forearm, itself wide as a trumpet bell. And then I realise who he is:
Oh fuck me dead, you’re Vernon Marrow, ay?
He looks down at me, his smirk spiralling into a gap-toothed grin:
Yeah mate…
I knew it! This is my guy! Big Vern Marrow, the bloke behind the YouTube Channel FIFO BEBO. I’m keeping it cool:
Oh fuck me dead! Fuck me dead!
…nah mate…I barely know ya…hurhurhur…
Nah, I mean, fuck me dead! I watch your all your videos! I mean, fuck me dead!
Yeah?
Yeah! I love your shit, mate, fuck I mean, I love your channel!
Yeah?
Yeah! But, and now I am no longer minding anything, do you still upload stuff?
Nah.
Yeah! That’s what I thought, yeah, ahhh, why not?
Awwww, y’know, just…can’t be stuffed no more, ay. YouTube’s shit as.
Yeah…yeah…yeah…wow! Vernon Marrow, I mean, fuck me! You’re why I’m here!
In Ashfield?
Yeah! Nah, why I’m here in…why I’m here in my hi-viz and work boots.
Ah, he laughs like a busted muffler, sorry ‘bout that then.
Nah, don’t be sorry—, I am so tired I could fall asleep against him,—don’t say sorry! Thanks to you I can buy, fucken wow, I can buy so many basketballs…
True, he reverse spirals back into his smirk, good for you mate, those things cost an arm and a leg, hurhurhur…
I’m standing there in my hi-viz and work boots beside Big Vern Marrow in his hi-vis and work boots, chatting away, not minding the gap at all. Maybe I’m not so tired. Yeah, maybe I’m not so tired after all. I must have fallen asleep and woken up at Ashfield traino. No, there was a bus, a plane, another bus, which dropped me here. No, I got off before that. I got off the bus. No, I got off work, then the bus, the plane, the bus, the train, and the other bus, and I headed to Ashfield. I got off work, I got paid, I got to Ashfield, then—
What’re your plans this evening? Vern asks.
I was—
I was getting paid, I was getting off work, I was getting off at Ashfield.
—I was gonna go to my aunt’s for some Good Friday thing…
Yeah?
Yeah…some Good Friday thing, yeah…
A Good Friday thing? Yeah?
A Good Friday thing, yeah.
A Good Friday thing, yeah? At your aunts?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
Yeah, well…
Why, what were you up to?
Ahhh mate, he pats his hi-viz where his heart would be, I just flew back in, I just got paid, and it’s a Friday night, y’know? Hurhurhur…
Ahhhh, mate! I pat my chest where one of the roos spat on me, I just flew back in, I just got paid, and it’s a Friday night, y’know!
Yeah? Well, fancy that. A young gun like you, eh?
I don’t say I’m so tired I could puke and make a pillow from my puke and sleep on it. I’m thinking that, sure, but instead I say:
Yeah, I’m, well, I’m kinda new to it hey…FIFO…
Yeah?
Yeah, just starting out, really.
Yeah?
Yeah, so like, yeah, so like you’re videos, y’know, really helped, ay.
Yeah?
Yeah.
And you just got ya first pay packet, did ya?
Yeah.
Yeah, so you just got paid, it’s a Friday night, and you’re gonna hit up ya aunt’s and eat a fish dinner and maybe watch ya nonna clack a few rosary beads, are ya?
Yeah!
Yeah?
Yeah, I am not minding the gap, yeah but…nah, I mean, we’re not Catholics, ay.
The face spirals again, the laugh is back, deeper now, earsplitting, spitting at me like a lawn sprinkler left running overnight, and I catch myself whispering:
Yeah we’re not religious at all, ay.
Yeah well, he leans down and whispers in my ear, who is these days, eh? Hurhurhur…
Yeah…
Tell ya what—
he presses a giant hand into his coccyx and leans back against himself, a toppling tree of a cunt, sighing until his lower back coughs-up an audibly gnarly pop!
—how bout ya skip the family-do and come out for a night on the town with yer ol’ mate, Vern. I mean, no offence but…ya look like ya dunno Perth from kindergarten, hurhurhur!
I don’t know what to say. I’m in my hi-viz and work boots and Vern Marrow of FIFO BEBOP is asking me if I wanna get on the piss with him..
Then the train pulls up.
C’mon dickhead—
he seizes the cuff of my hi-viz shirt and pulls me in after him,
—mind the gap.
Canto II
You know Beth, ay?
Vern Marrow of FIFO BEBOP has pulled me onto the train in my hi-viz and work boots and is asking me if I know Beth. I know Beth, yeah. I know Beth, I think. I am tired as hell, but I know Beth. I’ve known a few Beths in my time.
Beth Portinari?
Yeah, croaks Vern, Beth.
Yeah…oh yeahhhh…I know Beth, yeah.
Yeah mate, I know you do.
I know Beth Portinari, I think, yeah, I know Beth. We hooked-up at schoolies. I fingered her in the back of my mate’s HiLux. Yeah, I know Beth Portinari.
Yeah, I say, I know Beth. How do you know Beth?
Awwwwww, he churns his words like a cement mixer, never you mind that, hurhurhur, never you bloody mind!
Fuck, I know Beth Portinari, ay. I haven’t seen Beth in yonks but. What’s Beth up to?
Bein’ Beth, hurhurhur.
Bein’ Beth, I say, remembering the HiLux and the way she asked me why I’m fingering her like a jackhammer trying to crack a water main.
Yeah, bein’ Beth, he’s smirking again, yeahhhhh, nah it was actually Beth that told me to come find ya at Ashfield traino, ay.
Oh, it was Beth that told you to find me, I say, it was Beth, ay. Wait—
Yeah, said you’d been messaging her for months ‘bout bein’ lonely out on the job, missin’ ya mates, missin’ ya mum, missin’ her n’ all that, yeah?
Ohhhhh, Beth Portinari, I am the kind of tired where I’m forgetting Beth Portinari is the love of my life, oooohhhhh, yeah, I know Beth Portinari, yeahhhh, yep, that Beth!
Yeahhh, she said you were messagin’ her all last night and all mornin’ ‘bout bein’ back in town, goin’ on about how you’d pick her up at Ashfield traino, how you’d show her all around good ol’ Ashfield…
Oh, Ashfield, yep, I know Ashfield well…
Yeah, well, she said you said to meet you at Ashfield station at eight pm, cos you were despo to show her the wonders of Ashfield…
Ah yeah, Ashfield station, in Ashfield. And I remember that’s where I live now. I live in Ashfield, by Ashfield station, with one other bloke in a big empty double story unit where we don’t talk to one another cos we don’t see one another unless one of us has a foot halfway out the door and the other has a foot halfway in. Alternating rosters, yeah. What time we spend together is spent rewatching Anchorman 2, and laughing at Anchorman 2. Fuck! I signed a lease to live in Ashfield, didn’t I? Ashfield, yeah…
Boy…, I think, boy…am I out of it.
Anyway, Vern grunts, yeahhh, Beth ain’t goin’ all the way out to Ashfield for no one, no how, hurhurhur. So she texts me like: oi Vern, you’re out in Ashfield, yeah? And yeah, I am out in Ashfield, ever since the divorce, I spenda bitta time out Ashfield way, and yeahhhh, Beth goes: oi Vern, you spend a bitta time out Ashfield way, yeah? Could you meet a mate of mine at the traino and bring him here for us?
It’s not bad, Ashfield—, I nod,—yeah, not too bad a place at all actuall.
…anyway, so I text her back like halfa hour ago: sure thing m8, cos I like Beth, she’s a good kid, hurhurhur. And she’s like yeah, come to Northbridge, I’m out and about all night. I’ll catch up with yas! and I gotta say, I gotta say mate, cos I thought, hold on Beth, how will I spot this cunt? but I gotta say—
Rents not bad—, I continue nodding, —the rents not too bad in Ashfield, ay.
—I gotta say, she nailed you cunt. She texted: little fella. Hi-viz. Sorry looking. Meerkat vibes. Can’t miss him.
Just got paid, I shake my head, I should save…I should save and buy a house in Ashfield…
And fuck me sideways, he laughs, never mind missin’ ya, ya come runnin’ straight up to me outta the dark, hurhurhur, and I’m think’n to m’self: who’s this sorry little meerkat cunt, and then, ah get fukt, this must be Darren then!
Do you like living in Ashfield? I ask.
Mate, he’s scrolling on his phone, wouldn’t trade it for the world. But…
But?
I mean, I’m hardly there, ay.
Ah yeah, you’re hardly there, ay. Yeah, me too, I say, I’m hardly there, ay.
I mean, you know how it is by now, yeah? Yer workin’ six weeks flat-out, ya get home, and yer zonked, just about dead, just wanna lay about n’ maybe watch some porno…
Zonked, porn, Anchorman 2, yeah, just flat-out dead…
So y’know, what’s Ashfield but my lounge room and my laptop? Hurhurhur…
Yeah, what’s Ashfield but my lounge room and my laptop…
I mean, my ex missus lives in Morley, so I avoid Morley like the plague.
Yeah, Morley, yeah….
Fucken Morley Galleria…the worst place on Earth…
Oh totally, I’m nodding, worse than Ashfield…
…I mean, what’s with all those statues of walruses and seals and shit? Y’know?
It’s worse than bloody Ashfield, I’m laughing, Morley Galleria is that bad!
Walruses, I mean, it’s fucken Morley…it’s landlocked! Hurhurhur…
Just like fucken Ashfield!
Precisely, I notice he’s scrolling through photos of naked women on his phone, so ya gotta tear one off every now n’ then, ay. Otherwise…I mean…otherwise it’d be hellish.
You’ve got to tear one off, I say, I mean otherwise, you’d be in hell!
Exactamundo! So yeah, that’s what we’re doin’ tonight, kiddo. We’re tearin’ one off!
That’s what we’re doing tonight, yep.
I’m gonna take ya out on the town, and we’re gonna rip it up proper, I mean, we are gonna get properly fucken munted.
Properly fucken munted…
And for an instant, I feel something slither up my leg and tap at my gut. I mean, yeah, let’s get properly fucken munted, let’s get properly fucken munted with Vern fucken Marrow, let’s get properly fucken munted even though all I wanna do is sleep on that kinda-decent mattress I bought online with a promo code from my fav podcast—it’s calling me from the corner where I chucked it—calling me, sans bed frame, to come home to Ashfield for the world’s deepest sleep.
Ya got yer first big pay day, Vern’s saying, n’ tonight…we’re gonna piss it up the wall and burn the place down, yeah? We’re gonna piss in the face of the devil ‘imself…
Yeah, let’s piss!
First but, and he’s holding his phone to his immense head like a pitbull gnawing on a baby’s rattle, we gotta hook-up with Shazz.
I nod. I can hear the unanswered ringing coming from his phone:
Pick up Shazz ya useless cunt, hurhurhur, he turns to me and winks, yeahhh, we gotta hook-up with Shazz if we’re gonna piss it up proper, ay. Shazz’ll get us there.
I’m nodding.
Yeahhhhhhh, he’s ignoring the dial-tone, Beth’s doin’ good for herself these days, ay. Got a decent gig at the Viper Lounge now, she’s on most nights. Good money, yep, good fucken money. That’s how I know her, hurhurhur…
I nod, yeah, me too, The Viper Lounge. I mean, nah but, I mean, I know her from highschool, but yeah, oh suuuuure, The Viper Lounge, yeahhhh.
ANSWER THE PHONE SHARRON YOU USELESS MOLE!
People on the train are staring, tutting, shielding their eyes from the glare of our hi-viz. A pair of Transperth guards step in from the next carriage and start making their way towards us. I was minding the gap officer, I think, I was minding the gap, and then I realise: ah shit, I didn’t tag on…
Vern spits on the carpet, and nudges me:
Don’t worry, these rent-a-pigs’ll just tell us to get off at the next stop, Claisebrook. And guess what?
What? I am nervously looking past him down at the guards, one of whom points right at me then runs his thumb across his neck in a throat-slitting motion.
Claisebrook’s where we’ll hook-up with Shaz.
Canto III
We are knocking back beers streetside at a Claisebrook bar creatively named The Claisebrook Bar. Everyone around us looks like the ghost people who inhabit those coming soon signs architects stick up in front of developments: those blurry shades of men, women, and children who seem to be moving at lightspeed through the mirage of a future place that promises stillness. I look about at them, and am filled with that same longing that torments me most nights on site: the longing to be a blur myself, to be at the end of the promised construction, to be a stakeholder in the mirage. God, I hate these stupid cunts.
Nice spot this, Vern says, yeahhhh not a bad place to wet ya whistle, ay.
Yeah, nice spot this, ay.
I used to work over there, he points down the road at some nondescript office building, and I used to live, I mean fuck this is yonks ago now, but yeah, I used to live up there somewhere, when I was about your age, I reckon…
Yeah?
Yeah, oh yeahhh. I mean don’t get me wrong cunt: it’s no Ashfield.
I’m looking at him in his hi-viz and work boots, a sheen of sweat sitting on his boulder of a head like dew on astroturf, the glazed-ham quality of his skin, the absolute immensity of him as a bloke that fills up the world in all directions, and I’m thinking, how did they get him here? What island did they find him on, to return him here in chains? The King Kong of Cookers, what hole couldn’t this cunt fill?
So we’ll meet Shaz, he’s saying, she’s always good for a laugh…and a lift, hurhurhur! Yeahhh, Shaz is always good fun.
Yeah?
You fucken bet, yeah. God yeah, Shaz’s always hoonin’ up and down here, hoonin’ her skinny arse up and down for whoever chucks her a gold coin…hurhurhur…
What does Shaz do?
Ay?
What does Shaz do?
Shaz used to drive Caterpillars on site, all over, like me y’know? ‘n like you.
‘n like me, yeah.
But nowadays Shazza’s a bus driver. Drives The Cat ‘round the city, hurhruhur.
Oh, cool.
Yeah?
Yeah, I reckon.
I look about at the blurs and shades filling the pub’s patio where we sit, drinking.
No one here drives The Cat, I reckon.
True enough, yeahhhhh, fucken true enough, ay.
He is furiously texting someone, his double-barrelled thumbs pounding on his phone screen like amateur porn stars double teaming a cheerleader,
Yeahhhh…Shaz is a good egg, but….
A good egg, but?
Aw y’know how it is up there, he sniffs, ya get bored, ya go troppo, ya start losin’ it.
Ya start losin’ it…
Shaz got the sack way back for sellin’ pills on site, such rubbish, I mean…
Such rubbish…
…fuck, I mean, c’mon, we’re all scarfin’ down pills on site, it’s the only way to get through some of them shifts, yeah? Who cares if we get ‘em off Shazz or some cunt trucker or bent pig or one of those Coyote cunts? Fuck, I mean…
I remember getting a lecture about the Don Coyotes, the notorious outlaw bikie gang that run everything from drugs, to sex work, to beat downs all throughout the regional towns,
…at least Shazz won’t try n’ fuck ya over like them cunts will…
Good old Shazz…
…until she does of course, hurhurhur!
As he’s laughing I’m taking in the blurs, feeling that background bile bubbling deep within me, yeah, that background bile bubbling away within me like mum always says it’s bubbling away in dad. Who are these unnameable cunts? Who are these walk-ons? Who are these background dressing dullards? I can feel myself nodding off as I’m bubbling. I can feel myself nodding off as Vern is laughing and slapping his knees, while I’m bubbling away, silently, half-asleep, and half a blur myself. Then a screeching, a clanging, and a jangling of what sounds like a sackful of bones, and I stop nodding off and start looking up:
I ain’t taking this cunt nowhere, no way, no how.
A woman is standing over me wearing a black tracksuit and hoodie, her skull peeping through her paper thin face, her makeup applied to accentuate the effect of a living cadaver who’s returned from the dead to sell dexies at house parties for a fiver a pill. She’s parked her battered Camry with a skid halfway over the footpath. A canoe and a set of oars are couched on its roof like tomahawk rockets, ready to launch at the next slamming of the breaks.
Look at this sorry little cunt, Vern—, the cadaver tuts,—he looks like he’s about to drop dead.
Awwwwww, c’mon Shazz, hurhurhur, y’know what it’s like when ya been rostered on for fuck knows how many hours for fuck knows how many weeks and ya finally get in and ya just wanna have a well earned Friday night out! You of all people know how it is!
Yeah, I know how it is, the tutting rolls on, kid looks like he’s coming down or spacing out or shuffling off this mortal coil or something…kid don’t look right!
Awwww, c’mon Shazz, Vern slaps my back so hard my ribs rearrange themselves, you of all people know how it is! Or can’t ya remember, hurhurhur…
Get fukt, the tutting shifts-gear into a long sigh, I know how it is, me, of all people!
Then they're both laughing a kinda laugh which should land you on a government watchlist—the kinda laugh that says there’s more than blood, shit, and cum between these two. Without words, a fingerful of fifties flit from Vern’s hands to Shazz’s, and a plastic baggie of I-can’t-tell-what flits from Shazz’s to Vern’s.
But yeah, Shazz sniffs, I ain’t lettin’ this sickly li’l cunt in my car. No offence.
None taken, I say, half wanting to confess that skeletons terrify me.
But Vern has taken offence on my behalf, and starts swelling up like a septic tank.
Shazz, c’mon now, you owe us, remember?
Oh do I now?
Shazz…remember…
And I can see Shazz stop jittering for a half a moment, remembering.
Hmmmm…you’re sure he’s alright?
Fucken oath I am, he slaps me again, he’s ship shape.
I’m ship shape, I mutter, then, staggering to my feet, I attempt what I think is intended to be a bow, but I feel a great rumbling pass through me, pass through everything, pass through The Claisebrook Bar, and myself toppling head first into darkness.
Your writings really got an "edge", it is realistic, at least in my view. I've been meaning to read this since you 1st posted it, and I am sorry it took me so long to get back to reading it. I really like it, keep me posted on the book!