Journey to the West

The shock, guilt and sorrow hit me all at once.

“I should’ve tackled him harder, before he got on the bike.”

“You couldn’t do that to a mate,” said Thorry. “He’d done it before.”

“There was no stopping him. He had something to prove,” said Laszlo.

The solid bass heartbeat was gone. Gary had always been the calm, steadying voice. The one who thought everything through methodically and kept the group mobile, in more ways than one. But Brujo’s words had found their way through a chink in reason’s armour.

The fall also forced us to face the truth that we were mortal. Brujo disappeared after that night. Rumours said he died in a motorbike accident or drank himself to death. Or both.

HellHound never made the record. The company offered us a session player but we refused. It would have felt like a betrayal. Rehearsals became visits to the rehab ward. In turn, these sessions became a ritual of forced bonhomie and banter. Gary tried joining in, but mostly lay there helpless amongst the wires and weights, as if trussed up in Vulcan’s chains.

The next visit, I noticed two teenagers sleeping in beds across the room, with battered wheelchairs chained to them.

“What’s going on there?”

“I call them Achilles and Damian. They’re also paras, sleeping off the tranqs the nurses gave them. You might remember them from the shanghai war. We’re mates now.”

“Why the chains?”

“They broke out of here on those chairs and knocked off their doctor’s Jag from the carpark. Acka steered and shifted the gearstick, while Damy lay on the floor working the pedals. The cops freaked when they pulled them over near Seaford. Two escapees from the spinal unit with floppy legs, wearing blue hospital gowns.”

“I guess old habits die hard,” said Laszlo. “But what a triumph of the will.”

After a long silence, I asked the inevitable question.

“Well, what do we do now? Get day jobs or start playing again?”

Which really meant: “We can’t go on like this, but we don’t want Gary to think we’re abandoning him.”

Thorry and Laszlo looked at me, not knowing what to say. Sibyl turned to us. Her eyes, no longer red-rimmed, had regained their far-seeing look.

“Why not do both? Work your way round Australia? You used to talk about touring. Start with a journey to the West. There’s lots of labouring jobs over there and you could play at night. They’re starved of entertainment in those small towns.”

The call sounded rehearsed. It was hard to work out whether she’d come up with a realistic solution or was just trying to get rid of us. But whatever Sibyl’s motive, we knew it was time to break out in our own way.

“My brother made a fortune at the Corazon goldmine in the Northern Territory,” she said. “You could come back and set up something for all of us. Our own recording studio, perhaps. Just for blues.”

“We can’t tour without our bass,” said Laszlo. “Besides, carting all that equipment across Australia in an old van wouldn’t work.”

“You can survive without bass,” broke in Gary. “We can’t spend the rest of our lives just sitting around looking at each other.”

He assumed his serious, practical tone. “You can play without the amps and all the other gear. Go unplugged. Harp, cut-down drum-kit and acoustic guitar. Take the 12-string. It fills the room and most places have a PA system of sorts. Just like the old delta bluesmen in the juke joints. Back to where it all began.”

That was the first positive mood since the buck’s night. It felt right. Thorry tapped a beat on the table and tried to channel the voice of Big Bill Broonzy.

I got the key to the highway, billed out and bound to go
I’m gonna leave here runnin’, because walkin’ is most too slow.

The rest of the visit turned into an animated discussion about repertoire, equipping the van and when to ‘start runnin’.’ Sibyl said the night of a full moon was a good time to set off on a voyage. That gave us three weeks.

“Fellers, just two favours,” said Gary as we left the ward. “Lots of postcards. And paint over the monster on the Argo. We did enough of that stuff.”

The rest of the month flew by as we packed up, stored boxes of records and farmed out dogs. Even Thorry’s snow-dome collection found a home. Sometimes you have to choose between kitsch and the Road.

The round of farewell parties included a poolside send-off hosted by The Three Sisters on departure night. Calling themselves Morgan, Calypso and Rati, the trio of singing sirens sometimes joined us on stage. They’d previously refused offers of even closer collaboration ventures and it seemed a pity they had finally summoned us, just when we were leaving.

The Three Sisters shared a house in the Dandenong Ranges, just outside Melbourne. We agreed to meet there for a farewell party. Thorry was to pick up Laszlo after fitting a roo-bar to the van, while I wanted one last ride on my bike before storing it.

The evening was warm and Arion seemed to know the way. The full moon followed me along the narrow winding road up through the forest. A secluded property with a high fence stood by a river. The sign said Kangra—Valley of Love. I turned in. A wrought-iron gate with a boomerang crest opened by itself. Burning torches lined a long driveway leading to a large house with white stuccoed walls. Surrounded by cypress pines, it looked like a Spanish mission with a multi-coloured roof of curved terracotta tiles. I parked my bike near the front door, where a screeching peacock announced my arrival.

Calypso and Rati were setting a table by the pool and greeted me with their captivating smiles. I walked down the path towards them. Patchouli and sandalwood incense scented the air. The pool curved sensuously through a sheltered grove with a pink, lotus-shaped fountain in the middle.

“Fantastic place you have here.”

“A little piece of paradise,” replied Rati. “Our guests usually want to stay on.”

Morgan walked out of the house and joined us.

“Laszlo just phoned. They’re not coming. Thorry went to one farewell too many this afternoon and got picked up. He’s sleeping it off in custody, so you can’t leave until tomorrow.”

“Did Laszlo say what happened?” I asked

“It seems a patrol car found a black van driving slowly down the road with its left-hand wheels scraping the gutters. Thorry argued that he was being responsible because he knew he was too drunk to drive in a straight line unassisted.”

“Typical Thorry,” I groaned, while the others laughed.

“So, it looks like we’ve got you all to ourselves,” said Calypso, with a hint of mischief.

“You must need a drink after coming all the way up here. Care to try the house cocktail? Pure ambrosia!”

“And you must have one of our manna muffins,” added Morgan. “Definitely not from a White Wings packet. And we don’t want you to starve to death.”

I tried both. The drink was sweet, with a hint of rosewater and something else. The muffins were shaped like small cupolas and tasted of cinnamon. A large hammock beckoned. The perfect place for us to lie together and sway by the water. A floating sensation came over me with the soft, rhythmic movement.

“Is that a harp in your pocket, or are you just happy to see us?” quipped Cal.

I pulled it out and blew some languorous runs in time to the swaying. The polished silver caught the moonlight and the engraved symbol lit up. Rati looked over.

“I’ve always meant to ask you. What is that sign?”

“Looks Celtic,” said Morgan.

“Or ancient Greek,” suggested Calypso.

I turned the harp over in my hand.

“It seems to come from everywhere. Depending on which way you look at it. Laszlo thinks it’s Romany and an African muso said it was Yoruban. The mark of Xango, the god of lightning and thunder.”

Cal climbed out of the hammock.

“Time for a swim”

“Play something special for us?” said Rati.  

“Not blues for a change. Music for apsaras to bathe by.”

She slid out of her clothes and walked down the steps into the pool. The others did the same. I almost dropped the harp at the sight of their pure white bodies in the water. They splashed each other, laughing. The drops of water fell in slow motion, leaving milky traces in the air.

What to play on an occasion like this?

A long-forgotten melody from the correspondence lessons stirred in my memory: Song of India, a 1930’s big band standard ‘adapted’ from a Rimsky-Korsakov opera.

“Not so corny after all,” I could hear Apollo saying.

I played it slowly, wrapping my heart around the yearning notes. I watched them drift across the water and caress The Three Sisters. They stopped swimming, waded to the marble edge and sang along in a heavenly three-part harmony. They swayed to the melody like a snake charmer’s flute.

The grove was silent when we finished. Then came alive with swirls of colour. A golden deer walked by. It stopped to eat a ripe pear from one of the fruit-laden trees.

“Well played, Hylas,” said Calypso. “You may join the nymphs.”

I stripped and dived in. The water made my body tingle all over, like a thousand tiny kisses.

Rati swam to the shallow end and stood up. A silhouette of divine nakedness reached towards to the sky, grasped the moon and pulled it into the water. She threw the large white ball at Morgan.

“Come on, Chris! Keepings-off. Try to take it from us.”

We were now children playing in the dawn of the world. Laughing, falling, splashing, touching. Calypso bent over the ball and clasped it to her breasts. I leant over, grabbed her from behind and felt her pressing against me.

Rati came to the rescue. She wrapped her arms around my waist and blew a raspberry on my lower back, sending a charge up the spine.

“Bullseye. Right on the chakra,” she laughed. “Let’s see what that does to your kundalini.”

It was too much. I let Calypso go as I felt the coiled serpent stirring. The worm that would despoil Eden’s innocence. Luckily the water was waist deep. I restricted my movements lest the shameful, wanton serpent be detected.

“Do you really have to go tomorrow? Why not stay?” they chorused

The temptation was strong. What a life we could have here! I thought about it for a while, but I realised I was committed to the odyssey. The night was special, but it wouldn’t last.

“I’d love to but … I’m tied up.”

They exchanged glances.

“We’re disappointed,” said Morgan.

The game quietened down.

“We’re getting cold,” said Calypso.

They climbed out of the pool and dressed.

“Are you coming out?”

I was turning Krishna-like blue but pretended I wanted to swim a bit longer.

The headlights of a car swept the drive. Two crystal eyes cast the harsh beams of reality, like a waiter turning up with the bill for forbidden fruit. Credit cards not accepted.

“It’s Mother,” said Morgan.

Mother?

A tall woman dressed in black got out of a Firebird and walked over to the pool. I was introduced and said hello, limply.

“I thought I’d drop by on the way home and make sure you were behaving yourselves,” joked Mrs. Mara.

“How was the opera?” asked Rati.

“Oh, splendid. They don’t often perform Sadko these days. He was quite a minstrel!”

She saw me shiver.

“You must be freezing. Why not join us for a hot chocolate?”

Aware of my nakedness, l remembered my clothes were on the chair next to her.

“It’s, er, stimulating here. I’d like to stay a bit longer.”

“We’ll wait for you.”

Okay, let’s see if the seventies have really hit the hills. 

I climbed out of the pool, dried myself very casually by the chair and put my clothes on. Mrs. Mara drew a short breath when she noticed my state, then carried on talking about the performance.

“I particularly enjoyed the frenzied court revels in the Sea-King’s domain.”

The Three Sistersgrinned.

I finished dressing and slipped the harp back into my pocket.

“Interesting symbol,” said Mrs. Mara. “One of the marks that Buddha was born with, if I’m not mistaken.”

She looked through me.

“Perhaps it will protect you as well.”

“As long as you don’t turn me into a stag.”

The peacock screeched.

“I think I’ll skip the chocolate, if you don’t mind,” I said. “It’s getting late and we’re supposed to leave early.”

We said good-bye with chaste cheek kisses.

“Are you sure you won’t stay?” said a wistful Rati. I started the bike and kicked it into first gear. The back wheel pawed the ground impatiently.

“Catch you next time,” yelled Morgan in the distance as I left the driveway and descended.

We reached the border late afternoon and crossed the river. Thorry complained the whole way about his thumping head and cancelled licence. Laszlo drove in sullen silence. He was peeved about bailing out Thorry, instead of enjoying a brief glimpse of Paradise. My scant, censored account of events only added to the conviction he’d missed out. He drove without a break to emphasise his martyrdom.

I was working through my own feelings of sadness, longing, uncertainty. What was I doing in a rattly van with a grumpy guitarist and a self-pitying drummer? But by the time we reached the desert, the rhythm of the road had worked its magic. Cleansing the past and promising the excitement of an unknown future. Thorry was asleep, snorting irregularly.

“Typical drummer,” I said to Laszlo. “Can’t even snore in time.”

He looked sideways at me and we both laughed.

The romance of the open highway lasted only a few days, until we hit the unmade section of the Nullarbor Plain. During a pit stop, Thorry noticed leaking drops of oil on the road.

“It’s the differential. The gasket’s gone.”

“God knows where we’ll find another one out here,” said Laszlo

“The diff’ll seize if we keep going,” Thorry added, unnecessarily.

“What would Gary do?’ asked Laszlo.

I shook the dust from my head.

“I remember him telling me once how it happened to him. He cut a gasket out of a Corn Flakes packet. It formed a good enough seal to keep him going.”

We emptied the food box. No cereal boxes, just muesli in recyclable plastic bags and Thorry’s tinned spaghetti.

“Trust my luck to be stuck in the desert with two health freaks,” he complained. “Why can’t you eat crap for breakfast like everyone else?”

“That canned crap isn’t going to help us either,” Laszlo snarled back. “Men of darkness eat food which is stale and tasteless.”

“Come on you two! We won’t get anywhere like this. Let’s have another look.”

We unloaded the van on the side of the road, but could find nothing suitable. The sun blazed. I passed around the canvas water bag hanging on the front bumper. The desert shimmered into infinity on all sides. We hadn’t seen another car all day.

“We might as well pack all the gear back in the van and wait,” said Laszlo.

He picked up the toolbox and jumped. A black-headed snake slithered out of my canvas army-bag into the scrub. I picked up the bag and shook it at arm’s length to check for other visitations. An old lesson-book fell out. Solutions to Common Problems, said the gasket-sized cardboard cover – about the thickness of a Corn Flakes packet. Thank you again, Apollo.

It took three hours to jack up the van, remove the differential, cut and fit the makeshift gasket. The seal held enough oil to reach the next town, a hundred miles on.

Walpurgis was built around a railway siding and a coven of thirteen wheat silos. It looked pretty dead. We found a garage and woke the mechanic, asleep on an old car seat. He replaced the gasket, still yawning, and went back to sleep when he’d finished. We made for the nearest pub, looking forward to showers and a bed, instead of a grimy sleeping-bag by the side of the road.

But the first priority was a cold beer in the downstairs bar of the Terminus Hotel. The dark old pub leant over the railway track, as if exhausted by the heat. The iron roof a rusty mantle, with rotten veranda posts as caryatids.

Inside, the place was nearly empty. A race call droned from a radio-cassette player held together with insulating tape. I sat on the corner stool by the faded photo of a dejected local football team. A beer jug containing water and a floating fishing-bob stood on the bar by my elbow. A light-gauge line, tied to the bob, extended upwards through a crack in the ceiling.

“What’s that for?” I asked Samuel the barman as he handed me a beer. He looked wistful.

“The other end of the line goes through the ceiling to the bed-springs of the Honeymoon Suite, just above us. If newlyweds had booked the room in the old days, we’d gather round the jug and check out their performance over a few schooners.”

“Did anyone keep the records?”

Samuel shrugged his shoulders.

“There’s not much to do in this town. It kept the drinkers here for hours, discussing form and betting on repeat bouts. But that’s gone now, since Sergeant Yama moved in and took over.”

“Who’s he?”

“Yama’s the new cop they sent from the east after some reports about the way we do things around here. That one-eyed wowser jumps on any fun and thumps the shit out of anyone who complains.”  

Samuel pointed to his broken nose and missing tooth. Thorry seized the opportunity to turn the conversation our way.

“Sounds like you could do with some entertainment. Let me tell you about HellHound.” He pointed to the radio-cassette. “Does that thing still work?”

Thorry inserted the band’s demo tape and played the first track. Samuel was interested.

“It’s what we need tonight! There’s a road gang passing through and they’ll be looking for a good time. I’ll call the boss.”

The publican gave us the go-ahead and worked out a door-deal for our performance. Thorry looked the bar-room up and down.

“Unplugged be buggered. We’ll have to find a PA system!”

“I just happen to have my harp mike,” I said.

Laszlo opened his shoulder bag and pulled out a clip-on guitar pickup.

“I also brought this, just in case.”

“We’ve got work to do.”

Samuel helped us track down an amplifier and speakers, used for meetings by the Country Women’s Association. He rang all his mates to spread the word. By eight, the bar was noisy with truckers, road workers and locals. Expectations were high. HellHound held a council-of-war.

“Nothing fancy, lots of boogie and push it hard,” I said. “They’ll know On the Road Again, so we start with that.”

After a quick and dirty sound check, I introduced the group and we launched straight into the opening riff of the first song. A roar of approval applauded the choice. Laszlo’s 12-string pumped out a rhythm of full barre-chords to Thorry’s pounding beat. The stamping Blundstone boots raised dust from the old floorboards. A raucous male chorus joined us on the hook-line. Samuel turned up the volume.

Jailhouse Blues followed and HellHound kept the heat up for the whole set. Thorry was in great voice. We blew out our pains, sorrows and frustrations. No catharsis like the blues. After almost a full hour we stopped for a drink. Laszlo and I joined the crowd at the bar, throwing down the beers they shoved at us. Thorry stayed behind with his drum kit to adjust an overworked snare.

The room hushed as the biggest cop I’d ever seen walked down the stairs. An angry Cyclops of a man. Obviously not a music lover! Thorry had fixed his snare and replaced the drum. To test it, he accompanied Sergeant Yama’s ominous entrance with a circus drumroll and cymbal clash. Bloody drummers! Even their social timing’s off.

The drinkers groaned. Sergeant Yama was not impressed. He marched over to the fount of his irritation.

“Listen to that. A smartass!”

He faced Thorry closely.

“And a smartass from who-knows-where. We don’t like the look of you around here.”

Thorry twirled his sticks as if nothing had happened.

“I think you’ll have to come with me,” said Yama in a tone of false jollity.

“Oh, come on, Sergeant, where’s your sense of humour?” said one of the drinkers.

“He was just having a bit of fun,” added another. “This is not an SS rally.”

Yama’s voice turned menacing.

“I’ve got a Disturbing the Peace and an Offensive Behaviour here. Care to join him? Who knows? We might even have a Resisting Arrest.”

Everyone slunk back. Yama grabbed Thorry’s red hair and dragged him to the paddy wagon parked outside. I followed them. The Sergeant backhanded Thorry viciously, punched his stomach and threw him in the back.

“That should quieten you down a bit.”

I heard Thorry retching as the paddy wagon drove off. I strode back inside. Laszlo could see what was coming. I shrugged off his attempts to calm me down. The PA was still switched on.

“What sort of place is this? You can’t even have a drink and listen to a bit of music because of one cop. Are you his sheep? Or just so gutless that you’re only capable of wanking yourselves around a beer-jug?”

I’d gone too far. Beer glasses slammed down and stools scraped the floor. Samuel broke in to redirect the anger.

“He’s right. We’ve put up with it long enough.”

He eyed some individuals in the crowd.

“Perhaps a few gentlemen who’ve enjoyed Sergeant Yama’s hospitality should visit the station and persuade him to take a ride on tonight’s wheat train.”

Nodding heads showed he had a quorum. He leant over the bar and whispered to me conspiratorially.

“I’ve been waiting for this. There’s a tow-chain in the back of my ute. Get your mate out and keep heading west. Sergeant Yama’s going east and I don’t think he’ll be back.”

Laszlo and I packed the instruments in the van. I found the chain, threw it in the front and started up. Laszlo grabbed me through the open window.

“Are you serious?”

“Look, Thorry could get three months if they add tonight’s charges to last week’s adventures. You don’t have to come.”

Laszlo paused. He walked to the passenger-door and climbed in.

“The bastard’s mad. But he’d do it for me.”

“You know if we go through with this, there’s no going back.”

Laszlo ignored the warning. “The cop shop’s just off the main street, under the carobs near the post office. We passed it when we picked up the PA.”

The lockup was a wooden shed behind the police station. I backed the van quietly up a nearby laneway. Laszlo crept to a barred window to alert Thorry. I bolted the chain round the rear axle and looped it through the bars of the door. The sole occupant grinned out with a bruised and bloodied face.  

I drove forward, riding the clutch. The lockup was stronger than it looked and the wheels spun, whining, as we tried to wrench it open. The back door of the station opened, revealing the giant form of Sergeant Yama. We were trapped.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

He stepped off the porch towards us, truncheon drawn.

Five men stepped from under the shadow of the carob trees. The outside light was smashed and the yard went dark

The first fist found its mark with a loud smack. “How does it feel Sergeant?” said a familiar voice.

I backed up and drove forward again, foot flat. This time, the whole wooden wall came off in splinters and dragged in the dirt behind us. Thorry scrambled out and dived into the van. We unhooked the chain and sped away, high on fear and adrenaline. I kept the headlights off until the dark form of Walpurgis faded into the desert.

 Thorry was the first to speak.

“Er … I guess I’ll have to work on my drum-roll.”