The Atacama Llama

My first crack at a short-story proper!

What a sorry sight he makes, this woebegone llama, down here in the lonely Atacama. Dessicating, evaporating, sublimating. His dusty white coat shuddering up and collapsing down with every breath, his tongue shivering and curling in-and-out, lapping at the sharp desert air. And that jellyscum around his sinking eyes, with its thickening crust. I wonder, can he see me still?

Every so often, a llama will come – and go – this way, winding down from the high Andes and through these desolate foothills, towards the promised coast. I can only guess at their motivations: love, hate, rejection, rebellion, bravado? Curiosity, fuelled by the idle speculation of elders? Dementia or youth, which are not so dissimilar?

I first spotted this one four days ago. How insignificant he’d seemed from the hilltop: a small white speck inching through the vast, dead river of red-brown stones. But out here, where nothing moves but the sky, it’s easy to spot a wayward llama, especially when you have eyes like... well, like a fox. He was moving at a decent pace then – still had that determined step – but when I visited the next day his legs were weakened, the heady fuel of adventure exhausted.

These bold young llamas will charge straight over the last running water they’ll ever see. And such is their enthusiasm for this new sparse environment and this romantic descent, that they’ll not notice the very last tinge of green as it races beneath their eager hooves. It’s subtle and wobbly and migratory, the limit of that hardy frontier growth, but so terribly sharp and absolute upon reflection. Only a few days past the boundary do they realise their mistake, but still they press on, guided by that natural optimism of the mountain-dwellers, straight out into my country.

I like it down here. I’ve spent time up high, in the trees and streams and the sparkling grass, but I always return to this desert, craving the dry air and space, and the discipline and patience it demands of me. There’s too many links in the food chain up there, too many backs to scratch and always someone picking at yours. Down here I keep lean and sharp and nimble, and worry only for myself. It’s no place for soft minds and bodies and morals.

This one wasn’t frightened when I first darted out – fresh from the mountains, they never are. They fail to grasp the new desert dynamic: size is a burden. The threats out here are small and simple, their urges primal and deadly. But they never run, these big, giddy llamas. Instead, they follow closely, driven by a thirst that has seized control. I am, after all, evidence of water.

On moonlit nights, I sit up on my peak and watch the thick mist come creeping in, advancing inland as moist air from the sea meets the sinking Andean chill. I watch it sweep and swirl through the latitudinal valleys and reach up over the saddlebacks, unfurling like the fingers of a silvery ghost. Its route and extent are temperamental, so I stay alert and take careful note of the gullies and overhangs it favours. Sometimes the cold mist slides right up with peculiar force and swallows me whole, and on those nights my sleep is filled with dreams of the dawn’s fine harvest.

That first morning, when this llama started to follow, I led him over to a black monolith that bubbles out from the fringe of the stony river, because there, in the rock’s permanent shade, grow eight fragile, leafless shrubs. Pathetic, dry plants they are, smaller than me and no good to eat, but their spindly branches collect enough tiny droplets of mist to slake a small thirst. I showed him what to do and he licked and licked, and I dashed away before he looked up.

It’s a futile thing I do, showing them those miserable droplets, and even a terrible thing, given that I don’t show them my best spots - they’re walking dead before I see them, and I don’t seek to delay their fate unnecessarily. But I’ve been up in their mountains and looked down on this and seen – I think – what they see, so I feel a host’s obligation to show them the desert way – the getting, almost, of water from stone.

He was happy to see me again yesterday morning, when I showed him some more dew-catchers and hidey-holes, but this morning he was drawn and vacant. The blade of looming death, which so hones my desert craft, had shredded through his fluffy soul.

All this long day, my tail brushed the ridgeback as I paced its length. My movements were rigid and ill-thought, and I cursed myself for the energy wasted. Eventually, late in the afternoon, he staggered and fell, right in the spot I like them to reach.

Now, his long white neck is arched back and, together, we take in the lower reaches of this long-dead river, which opens out toward the distant ocean and the sinking sun. His eyes still flicker lightly.

Long ago, torrents of glacial water carved out this landscape, moving and shaping the pebbles and cobbles and boulders that are now polished by the streaking, unhindered winds. Most stones lie flat and relaxed, hibernating through this infinite dry, but the rare ones stand tall and tortured, leaning down towards the coast and begging for a nudge. In this late afternoon sun their shadows are long, and the riverbed resembles a cemetery.

I think this is a good place for them. I like to imagine that the dusky light might deceive their wistful eyes; that the rocky hillsides bounding the valley might soften into grassy alpine slopes, and the piercing spires might capture the last intense sun and look for all the world like cool, snowy caps. Having been drawn down into these horrors by their rosy mountain focus, I like to leave them with a vision of home.

He shuts his gummy eyes to focus on every breath. My tail betrays me. When his chest stands still, and when the mist shrouds us both, I’ll go to work on him with no regrets.

THE END

Commuting

I spin around the corner and see the bus-stop seat with its chunky concrete legs, its horizontal two-by-fours and its thick mission brown paintwork, and I feel my shoulders slump like the flimsy spines it is contoured for. It's made for four people but only ever used by two, of which I am now one.

My book rests back by the bedside so I prop my elbows on my knees and swing the laptop back and forth. Occasionally I look up for the punctual receptionist across the road - the unknowing harbinger of the 7-2-3 to the C-B-D. And there she is, out and dusting the mat and making it square with the door and standing back to nod in satisfaction. She's still nodding when I am flushed by a rude cloud of exhaust and the squealing bus wipes the scene.

A wiry little business lady jumps in first. It's a jungle dawn. I fumble for coins and when my turn comes I say "Just to the city please" as cheery as possible to endear myself to the driver. He plants it when I take the ticket and I am whirled down the aisle. No-one laughs at my slapstick entry, or even looks up. I'd be smirking at least.

I take the last seat, beside a skinny schoolboy, maybe a year seven or eight. He's reading a book so I read it too until he notices, then I look around the bus wide-eyed like it's all foreign and fascinating. But all I can see are dark-haired skulls and i-pods and briefcases, and those things gets me down and my weak, silly smile
starts to drop.

At the next stop, as the pilgrims push down the aisle next to me, I look out past the boy and see a cyclist struggling by, up the hill and out of the saddle, his gullet opened out and rhythmically stripping oxygen from the dull metropolitan air. The demands of his blood are met. His machine quality is enviably human. I am inspired to draw a deep breath - how long since my last? - but my blood is lazy. I imagine it is thick and dark.

I straighten up again and there is a middle-aged lady's arse next to my face. It is pleasant enough in form but such is its proximity that by the next stop I am beginning to resent its presence. Nevertheless, and in the absence of other options, I begin to study it more closely.

Ten minutes later, just as the arse is dissociating from its lady owner and taking on new absurdity as a free-standing entity, I feel a nudge from the schoolboy and he flicks his head to suggest that I move. He's getting out. I peer from him to the arse and back again. I flick my head towards it and raise my eyebrows in enquiry. The boy shakes his head quickly; I shake mine back, extra slow in mock disappointment.

I lift my hand and drift it towards the arse, gradually extending my index finger. I am looking at the boy, who is frozen with anticipation as I make to touch the cheek. But I change tack late and tap her on the jutting hip.

"Excuse me miss", I say, all business-like.

I get out too, though it's a stop before my usual. The boy and I share a shy laugh on the outside and I wish him a good day at school. He stamps off with his enormous backpack and I mosey away to work, sucking in the air.

God bless those tiny human moments - the eyes meeting like eyes - that make public transport bearable.

Harvey's Odyssey III: The Blind Prophet

The pained caw of a grease-craving seagull tears through the cold, moonless Wednesday night at the Fishing Boat Harbour, laying an electric jolt over the softgurgling base line of lazy water. Three men are present: two bronze fishermen, rigid in pose, and the coach of the Fremantle Dockers, who leans against the wooden railing with locked arms and with legs intertwined, himself statuesque. Groans and clicks escape from the timber that supports him. What weight does this man bear? What density his flesh? Not that of an ordinary man.

Light blue-grey beams project from his eyes, illuminating still black ships and the wine-dark sea. A fluid tangle of baby squid bubbles up through the phosphorescence as it sweeps. Normally, such a sight would cause him – he who was, at least, absently amused by his ‘difference’ – to sniff and faintly smile. But not now. No, now his bottom lip slides further into his mouth, and his top incisors bite down on it ever harder.

He aggressively pushes away from the railing, sending it splintering into the sea. The resulting surge of water is matched, and now bettered, by a wave of sickly protest from the restless junkie gulls, who cry, it could be said, from under-the-bridge. He points his beams towards South Terrace and the juvenile squid sink down, the foolishness of their ecstasy realised.

Treading heavily through the deserted streets, the coach curses his newfound weight and the dull insistence of gravity. From a chain around his midriff he drags an immense, rusted-iron kinder egg – his personal egg – containing such ‘surprises’ as strands of hamstring and cruciate ligament, screwed-up newspaper articles, and a small Korean-Australian lawyer, all floating like shreds of clam in a thick purple chowder of expectation and Dockerliness. But is that enormous egg real, or is it imagined?

The main street is in darkness. But now Zeus, that unscrupulous sprayer of lightning, does his thing and a neon sign explodes to life: ‘The Clink’. An ominous stairwell beckons. Sighing heavily – the inevitability of Olympian incursions into his life is beginning to grate – the coach submits. Dragging himself over is a strain, but the descent is easy: now, slipping down towards the hot liquid core of the earth, the terrestrial Mecca of weightlessness, the only place where a heavy soul can be completely at ease – yes, now gravity is a splendid friend indeed.

Inside that warm black womb of the underworld, a malfunctioning Bundaberg Rum sign provides the only sound and light, buzzing to a crescendo, popping to life, and returning to dark silence. Its slow strobe reveals a single hooded figure at the bar, his orientation and inclination varying greatly between snapshots. Uncontrolled movement, and inebriation, are implicit.

“Haar-a-fee, harfeee”, calls a voice from the present dark. “Cumovareer”.

A curling finger and loose grin are revealed by the next yellow-white burst of the bear. The coach groans – those Gods! – and wanders over.

“What?”

“Umgonnagifyoosum... adfice.”

The coach’s eyes have just finished a secret exaggerated roll, when the bear suggests a round of rums and the hooded man’s face is exposed. Only, it’s not a man: it’s a boy. The child’s head is absurdly large and triangular, and fine tufts of regularly washed hair fan out from under the hood.

“Yep”, he hiccups from the dark, “Shoo need ta gerridda Paflisch. Heesh only goddanuvva shix sheashons innim.”

Who gave this boy a beer, wonders the coach. Look at him - all over the place, drunk for the first time, gibbering some nonsense.

The bear insists, and the face under the hood has dramatically changed. It’s now drawn and sullen, and lacking a chin of any note. None of these features are at all disguised by the small diversionary beard that covers them. Resident specks of drying vomit further rob the patchy mat of its intended nobility.

“Yagodda become more Fictorian Harfs,” the wise man gurgles through a mouthful of carrot, “and stand for Fremantle. And play Paflisch in the shenta, and up forward. And in defensch. And trade im.”

What’s hiding beneath those whiskers, the coach asks himself. In removing that hair, would one be exposing an absurd labradoodle? Peeling back the moss from a shallow (for they are never deep) bush grave? Scraping the fly-strike from some rotten, undersized flathead? His creeping nausea is heightened when the desperate bear calls lasts drinks, revealing a clean, bespectacled Greek beneath the hood. Before a word can escape those keen headmaster’s lips, the coach spins and marches away.

Every step back up is heavier than the last; the lure of sinking back strong, but not strong enough. The density of the coach’s flesh has, in recent months, passed that of iron, of lead, of gold, its exponential rise smashing through glass ceilings of physics like a streaming white tiger. But with greater density comes greater potential energy.

Stepping now onto the street, he is a rapidly collapsing purple giant. He will shrink and shrink, growing denser and harder. He will draw in and feed on the weak matter that surrounds him, until he is nothing but a tiny, shaking ball of Big Bang fury. He is Mr Fahrenheit. He is a collapsing, shooting star. He is an atom bomb. And he’s about to whoa-whoa-whoa explode.

War, Art, Sport

I arrived in Subiaco obscenely early. It had been a long day - a dawn service, a big breakfast, a train trip to Mandurah for an Italian family lunch – and I was tired. I had waved goodbye to my girlfriend at Perth station: “I’ll sleep in the park for a few hours”.

An early, deserted football special delivered me at 4.00 pm. At the second-hand bookshop I searched the Australian section for something to read on the grass, or to at least serve as a rudimentary pillow. Right down the bottom of the shelf, an outward facing recent edition of Patrick White’s ‘Voss’ was prominent. Yeah maybe - I’d wanted to give him a go for a while - but what was behind it?

Not only spine out – for he of the supple neck and keen eye – but also covered by its shinier yet poorer clone, was a second edition hardback. ‘Voss’ – the only word on the disintegrating paper outer, scrawled in some crude freehand graffiti, and accompanied only by a wobbly line-drawing of the absurdly bespectacled, fictional German explorer of the Australian interior. The deal was done.

Inside the ground – I had foregone the sleep on the grass, too excited by the game and my $8.80 jewel – I searched for a common feature between me and the other early arrivals, at this stage numbering about three or four per block. They were young and old, grouped and alone, purple and plain and horizontally-striped.

Out on the ground there were cords and cameras, fingers pressed in ears and a bunch of misfits training. The Docker-for-a-day boy was ushered here and there by his smiling hostess. Every so often a player would wander out, still in his suit, for a chip kick and a cheap laugh. Mark Harvey appeared at the top of the race and stood alone and contemplative for a full five minutes. Shouldn’t he be doing something, I thought. Maybe he was.

I only got a few pages into Voss. There was too much fascinating build-up going on. But I think I already understood that, like any Australian masterpiece – of war, of art, of sport - it was going to end in tragedy. That German, he was gonna fry in the desert.

-----

On the way out of the ground, a Geelong supporter told his mate, quite without condescension, that Fremantle had played the better football. Never have I felt so deeply just how little that means. It means zero. I calculated to the 375th decimal place before giving up, and it was still all zeros.

The train home was dominated by quivering purse-lipped smiles. A lot of people seemed to have something lodged in their eyes. Barely a word was spoken: even the Geelong fans understood that any mention of the game would precipitate a volatile outburst of emotion, swinging wildly between tears and violence, or perhaps some comic-tragic fusion of the two.

When I got home I was locked out. I sat in the cold and dark, and the now-shredded cover of Voss flicked up in the wind like a viper. I was very close but oh-so-far from the television – the one thing that could, like a surgical laser, have numbed and killed the memory of Fremantle vs Geelong, ANZAC day 2008. I’d have peeled my skull back if I could’ve, and removed the offending three-by-one-by-one centimetre piece of brain-tube. And I’d have cast it out onto the footpath, beside the honeyeater chick that fell from its nest, and let the ants eat it alive. But, instead, I sat there and it spread.

That’s the problem with getting to the ground early: you invest too much. It’s far easier to turn up later and drunker. I took down my defences yesterday. I exposed myself. I stepped up, knowing fully but faintly what the outcome was going to be. And down I went, just shy of the oasis.

This (Rocky) Life

Written for the 'This Life' section of The Weekend Australian, which calls for contributors to write a 600 word first-person account of some aspect of their life.

‘Bloody geos,’ the driller yelled the other day, over the roar of his phallic machines. ‘Give a group of ‘em a rock and they’ll argue over it for hours.’ A common anecdote in the mineral exploration industry, but a false one.

Now, I sit on the polished rubble of a pathetic low outcrop, one of the few God has delivered me in this remote quarter of Western Australia’s goldfields. Somewhere under this silent landscape there lies an economic accumulation of gold. I have to believe that. The prospect of there being no needle in the haystack – of this physically and mentally and financially expensive effort being not just fruitless but hopeless from the outset – cannot be entertained.

I will sit here studying the landforms and vegetation and the scarce red-weathered bedrock until I know, until I feel, what was happening here 2.5 billion years ago. Where would the gold-bearing fluids have deposited their treasure? If, indeed, there was any gold-bearing fluid. I shudder, despite the heat.

Contemplation – ‘becoming the rock’ – is a geologist’s most effective weapon. A multinational I once worked for asked that employees code their work time by activity performed. There was no code for ‘thinking’. The exploration department revolted and was made exempt.

The geologist is slow, but the earth is patient. The earth, in fact, is tormenting, showing just enough to bewitch, just too little to embolden. In my mind the geology and prospectivity change with each dusty scrap of evidence I gather, but the reality is that, out here, nothing has changed in a very long time. The earth is dormant, the gold either there or not there. But where? Or not where?

There’s a name for this illness of mine: gold fever. No, it didn’t pass with the 19th century. The only difference is that we have Landcruisers and water. No-one is dying. The lust, the passion, the absence of reason; geologists dragged away from their pet prospects, pleading with the money-men for ‘one more drillhole’. I see it often.

It’s strange behaviour to an observer, because the company geologist doesn’t stand to gain financially. It won’t be his gold or nickel or copper: he is paid good money to find it or, as is more often the case, not find it. But the fever is not driven by greed.

I have no interest in the mining and the money. I just want, once, to defeat Mother Nature. Or, to put it better, to have Mother Nature applaud me as her equal. I just want to find that mother-lode and walk away, vindicated. Oh, for the high that would give me!

It’s a consuming profession. I see life through the framework of geology. I see people metamorphose under heat and pressure; erupt like Krakatoa; settle like silt in the Ganges delta. It’s also intensely individual: just me, alone, versus the 100 km2 or 1000 km2 I’ve been assigned, armed only with a hammer, a magnifying lens and my bare wits. Unless they’re going to sit in the dirt here with me, no-one else need be involved.

There’s no such thing as a group of geologists.

I wander over to the next subtle rise, breathing in the heat and the smells and the flies. There’s no sound but my own. Perfect. I kneel down and lick the dust from the rock.

I am in a deep ocean trench. Sediment pours in from the adjacent volcanic range, hot bombs fizz past from above. The earth cracks and grinds and I know that I am close. Think, Michael. Think.

Letter to Kalgoorlie Miner

In response to:

As a resident of Kalgoorlie for the past 24 months, having come from Perth, I am becoming disillusioned by the current state and attitude by in the 'city of extremes'.

The majority of people here are (let's be honest) only here for the quick cash, and then bugger off somewhere else. I tend to find these types of people (usually identifiable by their apparent desire of material things like big 4x4 vehicles, several beer fridges, a 3 m wide LCD television, and basically a greedy nature without considering anyone else) they lack social skills when communicating with those of us who earn more modest incomes and live a more modest and real lifestyle.

Then on the other hand, you have people who won't lift a finger and find a job! They revel in dire conditions and choose to eat takeaway meals three times a day and wonder why they are obese!

Now before some whinge at me in defence, it is not jealousy or sour grapes, it's reality!

I mean, for a town that is probably one of the best known gold mining locations on earth, so little money is actually put back into developing a decent infrastructure for the benefit of residents! But then again the very roots of 'East Coolgardie' was greed and lust of the yellow metal. Instead we have wasted money on fleshy pursuits and crazy superficial projects that benefit only the wealthy.

What about under staffing at the local hospital, the terrible pot holes in the roads and the most embarassing thing I have ever seen for a supposedly 'rich' city, the third world-like road conditions when the heavy rains were here three weeks ago? I was driving through many a street and was absolutely shocked with the very poor drainage system. I thought I was in India, driving through the Ganges or some canal in Venice.

Sorry, but Kalgoorlie is a laughing stock when it comes to infrastructure and culture. I've lived in smaller towns that actually have a decent standard of living, where people show genuine kindness to each other, have a culture other than sex, beer and money, and where greed is not the be all and end all.

Kalgoorlie and Boulder need revolutionising. It's time many woke up and smelt the coffee! If the much expected worldwide economic crash happens, many will truly be in the poo.

P Walterman, Kalgoorlie



P Walterman, in his thesis (Letters 15th March) dividing Kalgoorlie-Boulder residents, all uncultured, into two further sub-classes – the greedy and materialistic, the fat and unemployed - begs us not to cry “jealousy or sour grapes” in response. Don’t worry friend, I won’t say either.

What I will say is that you are ignorant. What I will say is that you are hypocritical. What I will say is that you belong to that third and most unwelcome class of Kalgoorlie residents: the man who vainly elevates himself to the position of anthropologist upon his arrival in town; who forms his opinions on exteriors alone; who flaps about in the shallow fringes of the river, too weak and insecure to explore the depths.

What I’d really like to know, P Walterman, is what you look like. Honestly. What is it about your exterior image – your body shape, your clothing, your motor vehicle – that will catch my eye as I pass you in the street, and define you as a man of culture and intellect and integrity? Do you have a t-shirt that says “I’ve read Dickens”? Or perhaps it’s your “Free Tibet” bumper sticker?

You won’t know me, because I’ll be in a dirty orange shirt or a blue singlet or a pair of footy shorts or, from time to time, nothing at all. I’ll have a patchy beard. I’ll be driving a rusted out Valiant. And yeah, I’ll be eating Hungry Jacks.

You are the shallow and judgemental one. You are the one defining people by the money they have the good fortune to earn. But you are not only defining the people by their exteriors – you are doing the same for the town itself.

I urge you, P Walterman, to look for depth in Kalgoorlie-Boulder and in its people. It’s not hard. The only people I know who leave town bitter and untouched are those that refuse - they are not unable, they refuse – to look past the trucks and hookers and pubs and spoon-drains. Some are the greedy, some are the lazy, but many are the P Waltermans.

You need to stop observing town and become a part of it. Leap through that window behind which you sit and lament, my friend. It will only hurt for a bit. And Kal chicks dig scars.

Harvey's Odyssey II

Startled by the heavy slam of the door behind him, the coach turns quickly, his dress shoes spinning on the sweaty white tiles. The shouts that lured him in die quickly to a murmur, and quicker again to nothing. Twenty-five pairs of taps screech, and the hiss and roar of twenty-five hot showers fades into the empty depth of twenty-five cold silences, one on top of another. The only sound remaining is the padded thump-thump of panicked hearts.

He can see nothing: some meddling immortal – that spiteful earth-shaker Poseidon, he supposes - has conspired to create a thick steam haze. His eyes scan the whiteness. It’s futile. He clears his throat and speaks sharply.

“What the hell is going on in here?”

The white-tiled walls return the query, unanswered. He can sense the bodies surrounding him, and opens his mouth to force the question, but a single faint drip interrupts. Biting his lower lip in contemplation, he surveys the mist again: nothing. Ten seconds later there’s another drip, a little bit louder now. It’s coming from the doorway. A long minute later, and the drip is beating at presto tempo in unison with the now-vibrating hearts.

The mist begins to thin. As his eyes begin to serve him, the coach is horrified by the sight of a swirling pink rivulet of diluted blood, sliding into the drain at his feet. Like prospectors chasing some cursed treasure, his eyes follow the trace upstream to the headwaters, slowly revealed by the mocking mist. Then Poseidon, with an impeccable feel for dramatic timing, sweeps the remaining cover away in an instant, revealing the source with stunning effect. Its form is unmistakable.

Minutes earlier, it had all been good fun. But convention dictates that after any period of good fun, somebody must lose an eye. That somebody was:

“Sandi?”

The 211 cm chunk of flesh now guarding the door had been the innocent victim of a twisted-towel whip fight between the two Johnsons: a typically-reckless Mark had missed a typically-agile Michael, lashing the eyeball of the typically-omnipresent ruckman. Several small midfielders now lay writhing on the floor as testament to the sickening violence that followed.

Sandilands now licks at the blood streaming from his bubbling right socket, savouring its thick metallic tang and salinity. His good eye peers up from under his brow, fixing on the coach, and a growl escapes from his cavernous chest. The men, now visible and pressed against the walls, await direction from their leader. Their leader awaits direction from above.

Bright-eyed Athene, Olympian advocate of the great purple chief, rushes to the scene from her mountain-top day-bed and sets about her task with urgency. She works first on her favourite’s appearance: browning his skin and making it lustrous with olive oil; broadening his shoulders and filling out his biceps; adding tasteful blonde tips to his mullet and smothering it in top-shelf product. Seeing that the men are now looking upon the coach in awe, as if he were some immortal god, the goddess sets to work on his mind, granting him cunning and craftiness over and above that for which he is already renowned. Pleased with her intervention, she whisks back to Olympus to spectate.

With the blissful knowledge that Zeus’ daughter has blessed him, the coach hesitates no longer, darting behind a low partition while the one-eyed giant stands frozen by a strangling mixture of admiration, fear and agony. Finding himself face-to-face with the sheepish Johnsons, he takes them into his counsel with a wink and, with a whisper, lays out his devious plan.

Slithering across the floor now, he grabs one of several soaps that lie conspicuously around Luke McPharlin’s feet, and flings it at Sandilands with godly dexterity. Atop Olympus, Athene hurriedly dons a panama hat and lobbies the archer god Apollo, who agrees, for a reasonable price, to vouchsafe the soap’s passage straight and true into the good eye of the terrible beast. Apollo is a man of his word.

The impact and sting of the soap blinds and enrages Sandilands, but his woes are far from over. The two naked Johnsons leap forth and begin slapping him in turn. Meaty thwack after meaty thwack batter his face and torso. Bang! Slap! Crash! Who has ever seen such furious Johnsons! They swell with pride at every blow, knowing they are serving their god-like leader with honour.

While the tormented giant spins and howls, the coach now opens the door and leads his troops out, like a simple shepherd boy leading his fattened-lambs from the woods. But unlike the shepherd boy, he strides before the pack glowing and surging and electrified by the motherly labour of bright-eyed Athene. The exhausted Johnsons bring up the rear of the pack, leaving Sandilands crying and staggering and crashing into the walls. As a final act of fury, the wounded giant throws great handfuls of loosened tiles towards the fading sound of jiggling buttock cheeks. But his tormentors are too far gone.

The coach lets the group pass him by. He looks back and sees Sandilands framed by the doorway, curled up in a ball amongst the dust and the rubble, wailing like some huge dying cat. It makes a sorry sight for his eyes but he’s certain that, with the goodwill of the Olympian gods, the ruckman will return to health in good time – if not by the time Dawn paints the sky with crimson, then certainly by Round One against Collingwood.

Kalgoorlie Delis

In Kalgoorlie, the proprietors of my local delis were larger than life. They made every purchase an adventure, and left me with a story to tell, always. In Perth, at least so far, that hasn’t been the case.

You’ll have noticed that I used ‘proprietors’ plural and ‘delis’ plural just moments ago. See, in Kalgoorlie, I lived halfway between the Carbarn deli – or ‘Carbarna’ as a housemate of mine tagged it, trying to spice up its image – and the Wilson Street deli, and was able to choose between them on a whim. Sometimes I would step out with a few dollars in my pocket and not the slightest inkling where I was going. Usually, though, the choice was clear.

I chose between the delis not on appearance, nor by the goods in stock, but by the character of the proprietor, and, more specifically, the compatability of that character with my mood at the time. My moods were, and still are, variable, but the men running the delis were constants. Old Cheeseman at Wilson Street and Old Genovese at the Carbarn, eternally jovial and eternally melancholy, respectively; predictable, like the sun and the moon. Those men were the benchmarks, the standards, the knowns, that I, the unknown, gauged myself against.

Old Cheeseman was a talker. I knew a couple of his sons and they were talkers too. They may have descended from a long line of storytellers or bards. Or cheese men. Who knew? All I knew was that, before setting off to Wilson Street, it was wise to clear the diary for half an hour, maybe more. One certainly wouldn’t leave a pot of tea to brew at home, unless one was fond of cold, bitter tea. No siree.

He had a story for every item in stock, Old Cheeseman. Bottled water: his mate invented it. Chiko rolls: he knew how the filling got in. Washing powder: his dog ate some and had to be put down. These yarns would be told to completion in a slow and methodical manner, no matter your hurry or the hurry of those waiting behind you. If unsure of a narrative detail, he would stop counting your change and sieve through his mind, carrying on the story (and the counting) only when he had extracted the elusive and entirely insignificant fact in question. You could tap your watch or naked wrist, drum your fingers on the counter, clear your throat, pass wind, or scoop out your eyeball with a teaspoon, all to no avail. Nothing would stop him.

On certain days, though, when the sun was a-shinin’, the birds were a-singin’, and the lollipops were a-plentiful, I could appreciate Old Cheeseman and his quaint, saccharine ways. Wilson Street was the optimist’s deli. Steve Irwin would have liked it. Terri Irwin and Bindi Irwin and Bob Irwin would like it. And Marcia Hines and Brad Hogg and Scooby Doo. But sometimes the thought of clanging through that flywire door and seeing Old Cheeseman’s ruddy, smiling face would cripple me. Some days the sun was a-hidin’, the birds were a-rottin’ on the pavement, and the a-plentiful lollipops were a-laced with strychnine. On those days I went to the Carbarn, the pessimist’s deli.

The Carbarn was entirely devoid of warmth: physical or conversational or atmospherical, faux or genuine. Old Genovese made sure of that – in fact, like some strange deep-sea bacteria, he positively thrived in the anoxic conditions. But, like Wilson Street, the Carbarn was therapeutic for certain states of mind. You went there stressed to be served in silence. You went there jilted to be numbed in the cold. You went there angry to mentally duel with a man angrier than you; a man who would flog you with a liquorice strap as soon as sell you one. I found his weakness, though, and visiting the Carbarn then became a fiendish game.

See, Old Genovese had an unsettling habit of cupping his hand to receive my money before I had placed my goods on the counter. There his hand would remain, unwavering, as I furrowed my brow and fumbled my coins and apologised to all and trembled like a junkie sans junk. And all the while, he wouldn’t even bother to lift his eyes from the morning paper. At least, that’s how it was to begin with.

I knew Old Genovese didn’t tolerate ill-prepared fools like me; fools who interrupted his day with their petty concerns and indecision and clumsiness. So I adopted and exaggerated these habits, giving mad performances of verbal and physical slapstick designed to make him shake and sweat like I had before his motionless palm. As I searched for a dollar in ten cent pieces or considered aloud the pros and cons of having sauce with my pie, I casually twisted a red-hot poker into his gut, eager to hear him scream. But even my wackiest performances failed to break that most determined of warriors. I just wanted to make him laugh or cry, but he did neither, and for that he has my respect. Our silent armwrestle, imperceptible to the passing observer, and perhaps even to the man-of-stone himself, remains undecided.

Characters they were, Genovese and Cheeseman - annoying characters, but characters none-the-less. They were end-members of the personality spectrum - one light, the other dark, one warm, the other cool, one licky, the other bitey – but in having and displaying personality they occupied common ground, and made the deli run an experience.

I’ve no doubt that such personalities exist in Perth, but too often they are not displayed. The deli owners are friendly, efficient and helpful, but in the fashion of the air hostess. I find that paid familiarity disturbing, a whoredom of sorts, and I wonder about the society that demands it. I wonder about the society that values homogeneity; that puts smoothness before texture; that sands the edges off its sharpest and rarest stones, when it should be dusting them off and putting them on display in fancy glass cases.

But I’ve wondered long enough, so I step now onto my soapbox and I shout: “Shine on, you crazy diamonds, you Cheesemans and Genoveses! Pay no heed to my petty critique. Shine on, shine on!”

Harvey's Odyssey I

The nail of his right index finger lazily scratches at the armrest of the recliner he now inhabits. Sweat-derived scum begins to peel away in distinct sections: a thick consistent top layer; a wafer-thin film; a pale and uninspiring goo; and, finally, a heterogeneous but strangely beautiful basal crust, whose peculiarities – like the pea beneath the princess’ mattress - are mimicked by the overlying strata. Blowing the scrapings away, he sees the clean black leather beneath. And he sees that it is good.

Easing back in the chair with hands clasped behind his head, the coach now forms an imposing silhouette against the grass and blinding concrete terraces of Fremantle Oval, the ground’s centre circle framed by the isosceles triangle of his left arm. His gaze drifts beneath the desk and, seeing the heavily-pilled tracksuit pants and tattered ugg boots, he eases forward again, feeling embarrassed, though no one else is around. If a visitor happened by – Pav, Rick Hart, that old water boy who looks like Yoda – he would have to remain seated.

He leans forward now, elbows on desk and fists on jaw line, forcing his cheeks high until they almost touch his furrowed brow. All of the videos and DVDs and books and papers lining the shelves loom before him, laughing and probing, coldly: “Are you ready for this?”.

“Dunno”, he whispers, stroking the patchy stubble on his chin. A short time later he resolves to stop conversing with inanimate objects. That was the downfall of Damian Drum, or so he has heard.

Abruptly, and without knocking, a deep mauve haze of melancholy enters the room, settling around him. He begins to feel strangely out-of-place, as though adrift in an ocean far from home. Frowning at his ill-fitting purple polo shirt, he plucks at its fabric, testing its reality. It all seems so foreign, so other-worldly. Doubts infest his mind, bouncing against and chewing at his skull’s inner wall. Was he good enough? Were they good enough? Why was he even here? Here, in this harsh, isolated place, far from the padded jackets and the icy breath and the sloppy, tasteless four-n-twenty pies of his earlier life? His head, involuntarily, rattles now from side to side and now from back to front and now round and round, fruitlessly attempting to expel the concerns through one or both ear holes.

Calming slightly, or perhaps advancing into a higher, Zen-like form of madness – it’s hard to say – he reaches for the phone, pining for the counsel of Kevin Sheedy. But just as his clammy fingertips touch the handset, a knock at the door jolts him.

Without awaiting his invitation, Cameron Schwab enters the room - at least, the bodily form of Cameron Schwab enters the room. The tense, squirming muscles and flickering red eyes betray his real identity: Apollo, deliverer of prophesies, cunningly disguised as Cameron Schwab. The coach is wary.

“Hi Cameron”, he says, smiling as best a former Essendon hard man can.

“We should never have sacked Troy”, booms Schwab, foregoing any niceties and displaying fury dramatically incongruous with his pale skin and delicate spectacles. “It leaves us lacking centre-square hardness.”

A droplet of sweat trembles on the tip of Schwab’s equine nose as he awaits reply. Knowing better than to engage in a shouting match with an immortal – a fiery death usually results - the coach is measured and unflinching.

“Hardness won’t be an issue Cameron. And Troy retired - he wasn’t sacked.”

“Oh”, says Schwab, noticeably slumping as Apollo, defeated, sublimes and dissipates through the open window. “Sorry, I...,” he starts, turning his flaccid body back from whence it came, “I don’t know what came over me.”

As Schwab’s shaking head is eclipsed by the closing door, the coach sits back in his chair and sighs. If he could ward off the meddling Gods – and he was certain they would interfere again – then, he reasoned, he was capable of handling anything, even a pre-derby press conference with John Worsfold. It was almost time to perform now: like a demon before the players, like a gibbon before the press, like a philosopher before the fans. Like a Docker.

With that thought lingering, he springs from his chair and strides out of his office and out of the building, possessed by supernatural energy and entirely unconscious now of his bogan attire. He would go home, roast a suckling pig for himself, cast another onto the fire to appease the Gods, and retire to enjoy the boon of sleep until the first rays of rosy-fingered dawn. Then he would awake and lay out his plan for the men, his plan to take them all to their rightful home: the MCG in late September.