Nephew letter

The Farm

The farm

We drove down there to check it out, as a place to grow, Jason at the wheel of the white Landrover and me riding shotgun, dying for a piss the whole way, especially after drinking a large takeaway latte earlier that morning. The place was what you might expect, a one-storey stone building with a wooden veranda on three sides, crowned with a corrugated tin roof and surrounded by course, gun-metal grey gravel and additional agricultural buildings-sheds and a large water tank, all of it backing onto sloping, rectangular paddocks sectioned off by wire fences. Paddocks which, once traversed would lead you down to a creek a dry creek at the time of our first visit. A creek which defined the boundary of the property, separating it from the green mesh of natural bushland which reared up to cover the sides of the surround hills, up to the foot of several stone cliffs. And it was just beyond the creek, not too deep into the bush, that we found the clearing like a natural amphitheatre, the proposed site for the crop. And shortly after we'd arrived, I say, “Mate are you sure about this? I mean...a judge?” And Jason goes, "He's a retired judge. And it’s fine. He owns the place sure, but it doesn't matter. He's never around. He's handicapped, or disabled, whatever the current acceptable word for being in a wheelchair is these days. Besides, you don’t really have a choice in the matter, do you?” And as he talks, Jason begins to sound annoyed, and he turns around to face me and I just see an internal blankness in his eyes, and I know that the potential for violent, like an unseen vibration lingering in a tuning fork, resides deep in his bones and muscles, and that once the command had been given, the body will deliver this violence without anger or anything that resembles emotion, it'll just happen automatically. And I immediately understand the matter is not up for discussion. It has already been decided. And Jason goes, “Act accordingly, keep a low profile and you'll be right, okay? Any of these gentlemen farmers come snooping around you tell them you’re fixing a fence. Understand? And then you call me. immediately. Otherwise, all you need to concern yourself with is delivering the crop. We clear?"

Horses, dogs and cards

Before all of this, I'd been pretty good, the odd slip here and there but overall nothing too financially damaging. But then things got out of control and I found myself calling my boss Rodger at 4 am, and he gave the number of one of his so-called his special mates, a loan shark of sorts, and to be fair to Rodger, he did warn me, saying, "I am strongly advising you here and now....do not borrow money from these people, okay? They are not to be trifled with." And did I listen? No, I did not. The call was made and shortly after that, the money was delivered, handed to me without a word by an innocuous looking man with short grey hair, after which I went back inside the casino and lost it all in the space of four short hours. The result being, I found myself into these people for 50 grand on top of the money if already lost. Coming out of the casino, now into bright sunlight, tourists and minor gamblers milling around the front entrance, and the adrenaline I'd been riding already beginning to subside and leaving me feeling like a flat, dull version of what I'd been only an hour before back at the tables, I realised this was the same kind of behaviour that had ruined my first marriage and completely estranged me from my wife. Back then, I'd emptied out our mutual savings account not once but twice and yes, each time I'd voluntarily gone to seek treatment, and I promised myself and my wife that this would be the last time, that I would change and put this demon to rest for once and for all, and stop jeopardising my family's future. But deep down, I knew it wouldn't be like that. There was always going to be that little voice in the back of my mind saying, who are trying to kid? You'll be back. And sure enough, I'd find myself at a low point or under pressure or even in moments of extreme boredom, and that was it: I'd reflexively start thinking about the gates at the track springing open, releasing horses and dogs, followed by shuffle and acceleration of those animals, triggering that first bloom of adrenaline. And before I knew it, I'd find myself in the TAB or in the gaming area or in a private card game, having completely forgotten about the resulting self-loathing which would inevitably occur once things went badly, because for a long time it was difficult to really remember the bad times because usually, I was breaking even, losing but then winning it back, in small increments. This went on for years. It was my secret life of luck. And you can ride for years, fooling yourself that you have it all worked out and then one day...it's gone. Vanished. In reality, it was always a steady, almost imperceivable financial drain, a slow leeching, but this is where all the rationalisations and justifications and head games come into play, balancing everything out, making it all seem viable, sustainable, even when things were getting crazy. And this time? With the fifty thousand dollars loan? This time was bad because I kept thinking I could correct the situation, that I could find my luck again, even as I drilled straight down to the bottom of my savings and then kept going, right past the usual fail-safe mechanisms which ordinarily would have stopped me. The problem- actually there were many contributing problems- was that this happened at the start of a three-day weekend and usually there was something to contain my impulses, some kind of barrier or limitation like work or a scheduled visit with my daughter. Something. However, this time, I just couldn't catch a break.

Old growth, new growth

The seeds germinated, sprouting in cotton wool, before I transfer them to the site, while also laying out a PVC irrigation system which drew water off the dam through a series of pipes and a battery operated pump. And then I hauled sacks of Chinese fertiliser packaged in polypropylene bags along the access road on the back of a quad bike, a vehicle I found in the shed, making sure to separate the males and females plants, carefully planting each seedling in the earth at uniform  intervals, along with handfuls of nutrient-rich fertilizer, checking and double checking everything was done correctly, then driving back to the farm each week, through the little tourist town, a place comprised of a single main street containing the usual variety of business, a federation style pub, a brick library and park fronted by a military monument-a cannon plugged up with concrete. And then, through a neat industrial estate further on, to check on each plant. And over time, thankfully, I found that each plant had taken root and had thrived beneath the sun, straining out of the soil, first a shrub, then growing stronger, taller, becoming as a knee-high plant loaded with dense and THC potent buds, all of which were covered with beautiful purple hairs. And this was not your usual city swag. No, this was a high-grade weed, the strain widely acknowledged among more informed connoisseur and picky dope nerds, 500 plants all told, which might have had a street value of 100 thousand dollars, although it was difficult for me to be sure on that because I'd been out of the game for so long. And so, after an initial period of nail-biting that included the constant Googling of factors that might kill off my crop (regional pests than might consume cannabis, erratic weather conditions, unusual police activity in the area....) and finding nothing threatening, I was understandably relieved to realise that these plants were actually going to survive and thrive. All I had to do now was ensure delivery after the harvest.

Jason

I first met Jason when he came to the restaurant. Rodger knew Jason from years before, when he used to frequent the restaurant, and that afternoon, Jason just appeared, wandered out back, very casual, appearing in the doorway, quietly asking if he could have a word with me. And at first, I thought he was delivering something or looking for the toilet. "What the fuck is it?" I asked. I was in the middle of prep, going over all the shit you need to think about as executive chef, well ahead of time well before the customers started arriving, trying to avoid all unforeseen mistakes and calamities which would result in your team ending up in the weeds. I can't remember what day it was exactly, only that it was going to be a busy one, which meant 100 plus covers and all the usual pressures that you have to expect during a busy service. I was pissed off because I don't like being interrupted when I'm working but then, realising he wasn't one of the regular suppliers, I understood who he probably was. And that by ignoring all his texts over the past couple of weeks, stupidly hoping that the problem would just go away, evaporate, I had made it necessary for this man to track me down, to come to the restaurant and talk to me face-to-face. A mistake to be sure. Anyway it wasn't a particularly advisable method of dealing with my debt, but it was predictable. I'd done the exact same thing when I got into serious debt in the past, when I was still married and I tried to hide it from my wife. Of course, you can only dodge this kind of thing for so long before it finds you. In my wife's case, she found out one day when she went to the ATM and discovered there was nothing left in any of our mutual accounts. In any case, once I realised who he was, Jason and I went out to the back, into the alley, because I don't want to have this conversation in front of my staff. And I was just running off at the mouth, making excuses, talking about how I was intending to pay him back but that I'd been so busy recent and Jason cut me off by pinning me violently to the wall by my throat, closing off my windpipe between his thumb and four fingers, and while this is happening, he calmly told me if I even make him come down here again, he would dip my feet and hands in the deep fryer. And then he asked me if I understood? If I get the message? And for the first time, it really hit home that Jason is a. a psychopath and b. a big boy, solid as a tree trunk, his upper body stacked with muscle which is only just beginning to go to fat with middle age. And that he was capable of introducing violence to the conversation in a measured, calm way and without emotion. A calculated tool of persuasion. Nothing personal, which is worse in a way because at least you can predict personal violence. And in that moment, my brain deprived of oxygen, my feet slipping on the greasy tiled floor and my hands grappling pointlessly with his clamped fingers, I understand that he could easily make good on his threat to deep fry my hands and feet. It would be nothing to him.

Payment plan

It goes like this, I would pay off what I could on a weekly basis, which is most of what I earn, but as punishment for evading payment, I would be personally responsible for bringing in the crop. Simple. I need to monitor, harvest and deliver by the agreed upon date of December the 15th. And the reason for all this is, somehow, Jason knew I'd been involved in this kind of venture before, in WA, before I became a chef. I successfully ran two grow houses in quite suburban areas, each operation fronted by two ordinary families. Grow houses I had specifically set up with timed UV lights, reflective panels, extraction fans. Houses with enough spare rooms and shed space to contain two highly profitable indoor forests of cannabis. And in terms of security, I was methodical and cautious, reducing risk whenever possible, always keeping a safe legal distance from both operations and dealing only with one trusted dealer in the distribution chain. And being younger and having fewer responsibilities at that time (this was before Hayley my daughter came onto to the scene), the risk seemed acceptable. I was making more money than I knew what to do with. And having all this extra cash while trying to live, at least outwardly, like someone who was not involved in the drug industry, lead me to start dabbling and then later become heavily involved in gambling. I was very good at running those two houses. Crop after crop came in, with no problems of consequence. And during that time, I also started studying to be a cook, mainly as something to do because when you are involved in something illegal, you are basically living a fictitious life, and there comes a point where you have no choice: you need something to talk about, some kind of cover story. I never tell my wife or anyone else my family that I was growing dope. No way. Success hinged on compartmentalisation and having a credible story, on keeping what happens behind the scenes to yourself. And for a long time this business of mine was ticking over nicely, making money, but then, one day, I decided to give it up. There were omens. Signs. Words and numbers beginning to gain superstitious relevance as they collected on the edges of my conscious mind. In effect, the universe whispering a warning to me, saying, get out before it's too late. This can not go on forever. Get out while you're ahead. Besides, by that point, I had something to lose. Hailey, my daughter had arrived on the scene, and the last thing I wanted was my daughter visiting me in jail. So I decided it was time to stay on the right side of the law. Besides, I had quite a bit of cash put away, money I had managed to refrain for gambling away. So anyway, I decided it was as good a time as any to get out. You have to know when to walk away. I didn't have any kind of epiphany. I just stopped. Anyway, by then I started taking cooking a lot more seriously and I was working part-time in a restaurant so I decided what the hell? Time for a change.

The Judge

When I drove down there, to the grow site, sometimes it was necessary for me to go inside the farmhouse. And to gain access, I'd use the spare key which was kept in the hanging pot plant on the front veranda-a key that Jason had shown me but had told me to avoid using if possible. The inside of the judge's farm house was what you expect of a holiday home: comfortably furnished, empty cupboards with rows of wire coathanger hangers, a light film of dust over everything, and linen, plates and cutlery. I'd been told the judge was too sickly to come out here anymore. And the was true for the other members of his family. Can you imagine having that much money? Enough so that you had a spare house you never bothered to visit anymore? From the outside, you could clearly see where the original structure met up with a more recent addition: a single-storey sandstone building, with skylights and lime-washed interior walls and recessed lighting. A room containing a cast iron stove and various ornaments from different countries such as African and Indonesian carved masks and handwoven tapestries. And of course, many books lining the floor-to-ceiling bookcases.
I went in the house a handful of times, to use the toilet but really just to take a look around (I didn't like being watched by an empty house each time I turned up), and I would notice the photographs lining the walls, all of which had the combined effect of showing the judge's life in a series of stagger glimpses, in much the same way you might flip through the pages of a book. And some of these framed photographs harked back to when he was a young man, fresh out of uni, first working as a junior lawyer dressed in a natty suit then later appointed to the courts as a judge. His wife was included in these photographs, at a dance in white gloves and on the bow of a classic speed boat in Sydney Harbour, the judge at the helm, looking virile and rangy, a cigarette in his mouth, his shirt ripped open in the wind as he pilots the boat. And then later on, in  photos taken in the 1970's and 1980's, his children appear and begin to grow, as the images change from crisp black and white to sun-bleached colour, but then the colours begin to gain strength as I move down the corridor, trying to fill in the gaps, moving into the 1090s, each family photo now crowded with the Judge and his family on ski trips, at the beach, and later, once the kids must have become adults and have been edged out of the frame, it was just the Judge and his ageing wife again, both looking smaller, diminished, in Europe, probably around retirement age now, reaping the rewards of a life working. And in each of these photographs, the Judge ages incrementally as gravity takes hold and the years scored his face and time kept moving on. And standing there, in the Judge's forgotten house, sometimes I would get the strangest feeling of being a ghost on the peripheral of all these lives. And maybe I already was?

Fictional Lives

The rest of my life when on as before. I worked mainly at night, took my daughter Hayley out once a fortnight to wherever she wanted to go, even though I knew it was becoming a bit of a drag for her because, being a teenager, hanging out with dad was hardly the done thing. Wasn't cool. But she didn't mind when we went shopping for something she wanted like clothes or when we went a movie in one of those multiplexes. Occasionally I'd get annoyed when she wouldn't put her fucking phone away but I'd hold my tongue because it was just the way teenagers were today, wasn't it? All of them not happy unless they were talking to twelve different people at the same time, sending photographs of themselves doing god-knows-what. But no, I'd stop myself from saying anything too critical because it would only have caused resentment and wasn't this all part of parenting? Disapproving of whatever your kids were into at the time? Anyway, what choice did I have? Withdraw like my old man? Becoming a non-entity? There was no way I would do that to my daughter. During that time we seemed to have less and less to talk about, but to my way of thinking that was okay because spending time with her was the important thing. Just being there. Regina, my ex, told me that Hailey had a boyfriend, a polite young guy with a fringe hanging down over his face, but I wasn't to bring up the subject because she was too sensitive about it. So we ignored this new development. And I couldn't talk now, could I? Expecting truth and transparency? Me having this new and unwanted secret, lying again to my daughter through omission. So we skirted around these truths and went shopping and watched shitty movies. And the rest of the time- my free time- was spent waiting, resting, reading easy crime novels with tough protagonists, shopping and watching TV. And seeing as how I didn't drink-I'd never really had a taste for it-, and the restaurant I worked at wasn't really the sort of place where the staff sat around after closing, fraternising and getting pissed, I didn't really have much to do other than work and get ready for work. Four or five times a year I paid for sex, just to release build up and not feel completely disassociated from my masculinity. And I went on the odd date as well using the computer. They were at best, interesting but ultimately failed experiments in reconnecting. At certain times in your life, you can fall out of step with the opposite gender. This happens for a number of different reasons. I was still interested but if I was being honest, I didn't want anything long term. I had enough on my plate with my daughter and dealing with my ex-wife's bullshit. And sure, I was conscious of the fact that you didn't want to drift too far away from the world of women. The danger of isolation can be that you figure out too late that no one really wants to die alone. Anyway, at least from the outside, it looked like I was just getting on with my perfectly unexceptional life.

Trouble

Walking among the rows, checking on the health of each plant, submerged in the dank perfume of cannabis, spiky foliage up to my shoulder now and by my estimation, maybe a month away from harvesting, I notice something down on the ground. A white thing, which stops me dead in my tracks. I look down at this object, this cigarette filter, which is crushed flat in the middle of a bootprint, an elaborate tread pattern stamped in the dirt, and I drop to one knee and pick up this cigarette filter and turn it over in the palm of my hand. And it is at this point that tiny shrill alarm bells began going off in my head, one after the next, and then my heart was suddenly jack rabbit fearful and empty at the same time, a sudden drop in pressure as if all the blood had been sucked out, forcing the muscle to collapse. And I know that the only way this dirty, crushed cigarette filter and this boot print could possibly be here is because someone has been checking this place out. And recently. This knowledge is based on the certainty that I have been over every inch of this area, every pebble and every plant. And knowing this, causes me to look around, scan the imposing static of the distant bushland, becoming aware that suddenly this environment has gained the sinister weight of concealing a watcher or even several watchers, and no matter how hard I try to locate the source of this feeling, to flush it out with my eyes, all I get back is the silent pressure of being observed. And me, being a city boy, suddenly I feel completely out of my depth, swallowed up in the sudden immensity of it all. And somehow nothing happening is worse than a resolution to this question. And I completely fail to follow Jason's instructions. I don't text him right away like I'm supposed to, hoping that by going about my routine, the problem will simply go away because my main objective is to keep this operation at simple as possible, to get to my goal, to harvest the weed and then to pay off Jason and get on with my life. Stupidly, I choose to bury my head in the sand. I kept ignoring the obvious questions like who are these people? And if they were sniffing around, why didn't they steal some plants? From what I could see, nothing was out of place. All the plants were present and accounted for, happily growing at a steady rate, mainlining sunshine, H2o and nutrients in the soil. And then I realised with a sense of both relief and continued anxiety that if it had been the law, I would probably have been busted already. The question was answered several days later when breaking one of my usual safety precautions because of bad planning, I was forced to pull over at the service station in the little town to the north. No big deal right? Anyway, I had just about finished filling the tank, my eyes fixed on the analogue numbers as they ticked over in the old fashion petrol bowser when two men approached me.

Local boys

The conversation went along the lines of, who the fuck do you think you are? Coming to our neck of the words and thinking you can set up an operation without permission? To which I replied, I have no idea what you're talking about mate. To which the greyhound thin one, the same one who looks like an animatronic puppet, all neck cords and gristle and horribly articulated body parts most likely whittled down by amphetamines, and obviously the brains of this duo said, we know exactly what you doing out there at the farm cunt. So don't test my fucking patience. We want our share. And both men continued to crowd in, with me still holding the petrol pump and the numbers still ticking over as my vehicle drank in petrol. On hearing what he has to say, I replied, okay that's not my....you know....decision. I have to speak to my boss. To which he replied, I don't give a fuck who you speak to mate, just know this....we need to get compensated. This is our patch. And suddenly I find myself suppressing a smile, maybe as a reaction to the tension of this situation, maybe because to my ear, this is all starting to sound like dialogue from a gangster movie. And it was at this point that the automatic cut-off kicked in, stemming the flow of petrol, freezing the numbers at $64.70. And I say, I need to talk to the guy who is running the show. It's not my decision man. And the Grayhound said something like, Right-o. Let's just make sure you convey to this boss of your just how serious this situation is....shall we? And it was at this point that the fat one, the sidekick wearing motorcycle boots and a denim shirt, punches me in the stomach and when I double up, he nails me in the face, then the balls, all the while not allowing me to crumble to the ground, propping me up against the side of my own car, with me being knocked around, trying to figure out when this scene will attract some attention and get me a little bit of assistance from staff in the service station as I absorb one dull blow after another. But then it occurred to me that the three of us were concealed from view behind the line of petrol pumps. And it also occurs to me that these guys might have more influence than your regular joe-blow in this community. And the big guy just kept pounding away until finally I was allowed to slide down to the ground and at least protect myself by tightening up in the fetal position on oil-stained concrete, at which point the greyhound, the thin one got in a few hard kicks with the squared off toe of his own boot. And while this was happening neither man spoke, they just got on with the business of giving me a good beating. And then, after they were finished, I was dragged back up onto my feet, my spine racking the door handle of my vehicle on the way up, blood in my nose and mouth, my head ringing and the pain already starting to come into focus through the shock, becoming acute, localised. So, said the skinny one, breathing hard now for the excursion of kicking my ass, do we have an understanding? I nod, my head cradled in my hands as they walk off. And then I'm stumbling into the service station, credit card in hand, the fat mouth breather fucker behind the counter goes $64.70, please. I lean against the counter, already feeling at least one broken rib, and I can see all the CCTV camera monitors behind the counter and i want to say something but in the end I don't.

Cowboys and Indians

Jason brought some of his friends along the next time he came up. They all clamoured out of the two SUV's that pulled up in front of the farmhouse. Big guys, heavily muscled, most of them tattooed and all of them wearing designer sunglasses. They all stood around in a loose circle, sniffing the air, popping their necks, checking their phones and stretching like athletes limbering up for the big game, while Jason quietly talked strategy. All this happened one or two hours before the shit went down and those local boys showed up at the farm to collect. Jason and his friends bought a small cache of weapons, which I only caught glimpses of and which they used in the subsequent confrontation with these local boys, and really, I only had a vague impression of how it all went down because I was told to remain in the farmhouse, where I waited, nervous as hell, having been described as "useless as a pair of tits on a bull" by Jason. It was real Cowboys and Indians stuff. Like I said, I was a witness insomuch as I heard both sides going at it in the dark: revving engines, isolated shouts too distant to make out the words and sporadic gunfire, followed by more shouts followed by what sounded like a thin, pleading scream in the distance, a distressing sound that which went on and on, before finally becoming lost in the dull blanket of silence that wrapped around the edges of house, ear-prickling in expectation, until finally the screen door banged open on its hinges and I heard the floorboards creaking under someone's weight, as this person moved through the house. And I thought this will either be Jason or someone less friendly. And then it occurs to me that either option was potentially dangerous.

A team player

Keep going, said Jason. After I'd finished puking for the second time, spewing up another beige coloured puddle, I found myself straining, exhausted, digging a hole down through rocks and roots and arid soil, the blade of the shovel sparking when it glanced off rocks. And while this was happening, that motherfucker Jason was just sitting there, reading messages on his phone or whatever, his ponderous, unreadable face underlit by the blue light which was thrown off the screen of his device, light which was strong enough to illuminate the thin canopy of tree branches overhead. We were out in the bush, 2 kilometres deep by my estimation, burying this biker cunt, the same thin amphetamine ruined guy who had beat me to a pulp at the gas station, the leader of this group of men who'd come for and failed to secure their cut. And now here he was, part of his head pitifully caved in like a deflated soccer ball as he lay face down in the dirt. And believe me when I say, I've seen lots of dead animals in my time, in cold storage, skinned, glassy-eyed, at various stages of being broken down into muscle, bone, connective tissue, organs and fat. Animals sawed into pieces and hung on hooks but I'd never seen a dead person before. It really did a number on my head. And as I dug, I was still trying to figure out why I needed to be involved in this little misadventure because Jason's brief explanation, that 'I need to pull my weight...take on some of the responsibility,' just wasn't really helping me understand why my involvement was required. This gangster bullshit wasn't my business. I was the gardener for christ sakes. Anyway, when I got about a metre and a half deep, which took a long bloody time with me doing all the digging, we removed everything from the dead guy's pockets: his money, wallet and keys, before rolling him into the hole. He went in like a wet noodle, limbs flailing, landing twisted up and wrapped around himself. And noticing there was still room in the hole, there was another moment of uncertainty, a moment in which I didn't much like being out there in the middle of nowhere with Jason looming over me, but then again, I figured I still owe this guy money so it wasn't like he was going bury me as well. Of course, you never know with these people, do you? Anyway, I filled in that damn hole as quickly as I could, shovelling the dirt back in on the dead guy and I started feeling a lot better once I realised I couldn't see him anymore. And when that was finished, I spread branches and leaves around like nothing had ever happened and then we drove back the way we come, along a series of barely visible tracks, through a new growth pine forest, the headlight of the quad bike bobbing and pushing forward, illuminating repetitive patterns of endlessly advancing tree trunks, as the darkness continued to swallow us up, the sound of the engine droning away in my head.

Tightened security

It started getting to me. In the coming weeks, Jason would call me, or send random texts, checking in, keeping tabs on me, asking me to call him back on different numbers. And when he picked up, he'd say something casual like, how is anything going? And I'd say the same thing each time, something like, yeah man, everything is cool. And he says, you're being security conscious right mate? You are not resting on your laurels? And I'd say, no, no, of course not....everything is cool mate, and there would be a long moment of silence, with me stand there, in the kitchen, at work or in my apartment, the phone pressed to my ear, listening to Jason listen to me. Presumably, Jason was trying to work out if anything usual was going on, listening for doubt in my voice and this made me more paranoid, and this magnified paranoia was purely generated because I felt that, I wasn't putting myself across as trustworthy, and that in these moments, Jason could actually hear my heart beating guilty in the silent lapses of our conversations. And sometimes, when I was at the farm, early in the morning, surrounded by all that distance and isolation and silence, mist spilling across the landscape, waiting for the sun to burn it off, I'd imagine hearing the thump, thump, thump of rotor blades approaching, and then seeing a chopper to come nosing along the gorge, to hover over the grow site like a blow fly, What then? And generally speaking, with each passing day, I was becoming more tuned into the people and events happening around me. This same tremor of fear existed in my blood when I was running those grow houses in WA. And I started playing those head games with myself, interpreting the signs and nervous coincidences, seeing fate's path unfurling at my feet, trying to figure out ahead of time which decisions pointed towards disaster and which ones would lead me to basic safety, if not salvation.

Local news

There was no mention of this man's disappearance in the local media. I only had the briefest of conversations with him yet somehow I was required to keep on imagining what his crappy life in this town had been like and the people he'd left behind after he'd died. And each time I'd look out the car window or return to the grow site I'd get that old irrational feeling of dread, like the landscape could just swallow you up, pulling you down under all the roots and rocks. And I understood that there was no such thing a ghost but that residual traces of the dead got stuck in the minds of the living. The faces, hands, teeth and breath of the dead. And he was there, the greyhound, not quite taunting me but watching, interested, observing as the dead like to do, for the demise of the people who took them out of the game. Well, at least those who are weighed down by a conscious such as myself. And in these moments I would say to him, mate I wasn't the one who did this to you and he'd say something like, you are part of the team cunt. And besides, you're all I got. And so there I was, having imaginary conversations with this asshole while I drove back and forth to the farm. And at night, I could see his dead body, the exact movement he tumbled down into the darkness, that last fleeting illusion of life as his limbs flopped around, as he went down into the hole. And there was no way I could know that in a decade's time, a pair of hikers would stumble across his skeleton, which had slowly become unearthed by the elements and soil erosion, the dome of his skull growing out of the ground, white and dirty, crowning the dirt.

Harvest time

I cut the plants down and hauled them all down to the shed to be hung and dried and then, a week later, I broke each plant down, separating bud from stem from leaf, before weighing and bagging kilogram bricks for transportation, the start of the process as the crop moved from the soil to the consumer, through the arteries, veins and then capillaries of the distribution process, working its way out into the greater Sydney area, each step of the process creating a proportionately higher profit margin as the quantities become smaller. I hired a truck and loaded up the weed before cleaning up the farm, covering all traces that I'd been there, and then finally I headed off, driving back to Sydney, a little numb with the realisation that my luck is still holding out, even as I passed a motorway cops waiting for speeders. If I was pulled over it would probably all over because of the smell, even through the double plastic wrapping. But the thing is I don't. I just keep going, sticking to the speed limit the whole way, taking it easy, even after I grind into Sydney traffic, getting stuck in the red brake light molasse of evening gridlock.

Delivery method

As arranged, the rental truck is driven to an area near the airport. An area surrounded by parking structures and newly build apartment blocks waiting for foreign investment. And I sat there behind the wheel, planes taking off every eight minutes or so, and I waited and then a guy appears at the driver's side window, making me nearly jump out of my skin. We swap places, him sliding behind the wheel, neither of us saying a word, and that's it. He drives off, leaving me to find my way home, following my little the dot on my phone map, through the back streets of Mascot until I hit a major road. And a few days later my phone rings and its Jason saying, where are you? And when we met up, for a beer down at the pub in Bondi, I walk in and Jason is already there, a beer sitting on the table going flat. Jason says, just touching base with you mate. And I say, cool. And he says, alright, let's get this over with....this is just a reminder. I want you to think into the future, down the track so to speak. At this moment you are walking around with some information in your head. Some information that could be potentially harmful to me and some of the people I know. So like I say, this is a reminder because you never know what life is gonna throw your way, do you? If something happens to you and for whatever reason you find yourself in position when it might seem like a good idea to use this information....legally or otherwise......don't. Okay? Because in the long run, it won't benefit you. It will only hurt you. If I unexpectedly end up in a legal situation, someone is coming for you, mate. Understand? I nodded my head and said, yeah, got it. And Jason stood up and left, the full beer on the table untouched.

Life goes on

My life resumed its normal rhythms. I worked extra shifts at the restaurant and paid off the debt and I made sure I kept clear of any situations which might see me start gambling again, walking past TAB's and ignoring various races of significance and tips and old associates who wondering if I'd like in on this or that poker game, to which I'd say no, no thanks. I redirected most of my pay to Jason via cash payments picked up in different places by the same guy, the same one who'd originally given me the money in the casino all those weeks ago, and sure this caused disruptions in my relationship with my daughter because I just didn't have the money to spend on her anymore and it made me realise something: ever since the divorce, I'd been overcompensating, buying crap and chucking money away in place of us just spending quality time together and admittedly, it was my fault. I'd tell her we were going to do the Bondi to Clovelly walk, no eight dollar health drinks, no brainless over priced 3D movies, no credit card for apps and music. Just father and daughter time together and I insisted that we leave the cell phones in the car, which would mean a whole hour and a half without facebook, horror of horrors. She didn't like it at first but eventually she stopped sulking and we had a reasonable time. We walked the sun-drenched cliffs, going up and down stairs carved into the rock, and after that, I bought us some fish and chips as we sat looking out at the water, seagulls wheeling for stray chips. Anyway, for a time my relationship with my daughter and everything else in my life seemed to move forward in a productive, hopeful way, and eventually, I paid Jason off. And that day, when the guy with grey hair turned up for the last payment, after he took the envelope off me like all the other times, not saying a word, just walking away, I felt this great jolt of relief and happiness because in that moment I knew I had gotten my life back. And strangely, not only did I feel relief but also a sense of melancholy because truth be known, there was a thrill in the risk. It felt good to change the predictable routine. Anyway, I handed that envelope over and that was it. I was debt free, and, in a private gesture of celebration, I deleted Jason's number from my contacts, put my phone away and finished off my coffee, and not long after that, the first orders began coming in and I got my staff moving by calling 'Order in'. And then, I was expediting orders through the service hatch.

The dead

This bullshit happens on my day off. And if I'm being honest, and there is no reason not to be, I had been looking at the names of horses on the racing page, speculating, waiting for something to leap out at me, a hunch, a feeling, while I drank a cup of coffee and waited for the washing machine to run through its cycle. There was someone at the door and I assumed it was the polish woman down the hall who had been testing my patience recent, taking liberties with my time, asking could I help with some of her 'little jobs' she really should have hired a handyman or a career for, or maybe found herself a husband. I usually ended up putting my annoyance aside and helped her out. I assumed it was her because I live in a security building. My apartment is nestled in a warren of corridors lined with identical doors so my visitors are always predictable and prearranged. I walked to the front door, vaguely aware of the washing machine clicking  over into the spin cycle, the noise like a distance aircraft taking off, and didn't bother to look through the security peephole, expecting in a few minutes time to find myself sidelined on some task by my cloying neighbour, perhaps lifting something heavy out of her car or fixing a broken shelf in her cat piss smelling apartment but no, when I opened the door there was just a man wearing a baseball cap and dressed in a tracksuit jacket, his hands stuffed into both pockets. All I could see was his jaw and his mouth which was set. My brain was still geared up for the inevitable irritations of dealing with Mrs Warzsawcowski. This man, who was shorter than me but broader in the shoulders, removed his hand from his tracksuit pocket and I noticed that there was something attached to that hand, moulded into his fist and fitted around his fingers, and he extended his arm through the doorway, and I saw the black object for a split second, not that there was time enough to think about what it was, only that it looked quite heavy, quite solid, and I thought he was trying to give me something. And in a way he was. The bullet travelled across the threshold and entered my check a few inches beneath my left eye, causing my head to snap back, before it continued, burrowing deeper into the delicate cockpit of my skull, turning part of my brain into a pink milkshake that sprayed out the back  of my head in a fine mist. Free now, the bullet continued down the hall until it becomes embedded the kitchen wall. All this while my hand was still gripping the door handle. I went down, folding up in jerky stages, slumping to the carpet, as my damaged-beyond-repair brain fired off it's last involuntary SOS's through my nervous system, and this guy, this man who had so rudely interrupted me in the middle of my day off, looked left and right, up and down the corridor, saw nothing, then stepped inside my apartment, without an invitation mind you, stood over me and put two more bullets into my head, one going straight through the orbital bone, the other smashing my nose in, both going out the back again, embedding themselves in the concrete while promoting the flow of blood which the carpet greedily began to soak up. The man left, locking the front door behind him, with me splayed out in the corridor, staring up at the light fixture. The recovered some CCTV footage of this man, walking purposefully through the parking garage, and out on the street, his hands in pockets, his head held down and his face still concealed beneath the bill of the sports cap. I lay there. The spin cycle finished and then there was silence. Two days later my daughter left a message on my phone. Then work called when I didn't show up. The police came through the front door five days later, splintering the lock because of the smell. The two cops squatted over me, one clearly distressed even though he was trying not to look like he was. Then two plain clothes cops appeared and did the same. Evidence was gathered, I was photographed with my dead vacant dead person expression and things were bagged. They took me out in a bad as well. The flames were a relief after the tedium of cold storage. The door slammed shut and I was reduced down to ashes and then later released into bright sunlight and the ocean while a small group of people I knew made their way back from the edge of the cliff to the waiting cars.  

Big fish, little pond

Let me explain,

The thing about Trent Janson was, in this life, you couldn't hope to meet a bigger piece of shit. We all knew it. By 'We' I mean the entire town. The man was a drunk, a womaniser and a misanthrope. Imagine a creature that had grown too big for its enclosure like some hideous fish in the viewing tank of a Chinese restaurant. A fish that eats everything in its path, including the other fish, including its own waste. A fish that has become so big it can barely move anymore. And that will give you some idea of what Trent Janson was like.

Janson had three wives and more than a few mistresses. In regards to women, I’d heard him say a number times in the pub, "if it drives, floats or fucks....rent it mate. Save yourself the trouble".

With the men of the town, he'd caused numerous grudges that vivisected the community like hairline fractures. He had many enemies and detractors.

Several years ago he punched out the high school English teacher at the parents night. Generally speaking, he treated people very badly, even some of his closest cronies.

You know the old saying, don't shit where you live? Janson was one of these people who never could grasp that concept. For some reason, he was just hellbent on shitting all over his own nest.

God knows how many illegitimate children he fathered over the years. Genetic influences aside, at least his unclaimed offspring escaped his parenting techniques. His legitimate children, he methodically turned into horrible versions of himself.

In business, Jenson had a well-established reputation for been unscrupulous and underhanded. He had the restaurant on the main street-his original business-and over the years he had bought up a number of local properties. He had a hand in the duplex development down south, the one that caused so many issues with the environmentalists. He owned the caravan park, a construction company and rumour has it, he was a shareholder in the whorehouse near the river. From the outside, there was nothing to this place. An oversized shed with a dirt car park out front and some Christmas lights in the window, but as a business, it must have been profitable. They never had less six girls working there at one time. From what I understand, he had relations with many of these young women over the years. Hence all the illegitimate children and overturned lawsuits. 

The first time I met Janson, I got my arm pumped and my hand crushed in the handshake Johnson is known for. Even in that short exchange of words, the handshake aside, I could feel the hard press of man's character in action. His need to dominate and crush other men. The enjoyment he took in judging his effect on the room in the reaction of those around him. 

From the way I understand it, towards the end, he seemed determined to piss everyone off, like he enjoyed rubbing everyone's face in his dog shit, bigger than life personality. They said he hadn't mellowed with age. I was told the magnification of his already larger than life personality was a result of ageing, of virility slipping.

He had his face plastered all over a billboard in town. On the side of the pharmacy. You know those photo advertisements real estate people put up? "A face you can trust!" There was something insidious about having him watching over us day and night.

Occasionally somebody's kid might take to this billboard with a can spray paint, painting an obscenity or an obscene symbol on his face. Last summer, a white penis appeared near his mouth. Janson had the image replaced before the end of business that day. As far as the gossip goes, the offending teen was tracked down and discipline by the local cops. A murder wouldn't have been more speedily dealt with.

Then Johnson died. Just like that. Never assume people are a fixed entity, they are not. They change. Their allegiances shift.

At a dinner party, after his death, I listen to a group of his established detractors agree that he was ‘misunderstood’. That he actually ‘did a lot for the community’. That while you couldn’t exactly describe him as a saint in recent years,  he was still a son of the community. They’d all gone to school with him. He was emblematic of town in a way: tough, resilient and shaped by isolation.

These hypocrites. They absolutely hated Jansen in the flesh. I'd seen it many time. As soon as he left his stool at the pub, to go off to the toilet, they’d be tearing strips off him. They were too scared to do it to his face but they couldn't resist the opportunity once he was out of earshot. And when he returned? It was all smiles and 'Ah there he is! Speak of the devil!'.

And now? Down at the beach pub, they put a colour photograph of Janson up behind the bar. What kind of bullshit was this? A photograph of the man they used to timidly mock. And then the entire town turned up at his funeral. They were all there. They stood by the graveside while the priest prattled on, sombre faces, their eyes cast down into the hole as his casket was lowered, their hands clasped.

After he died, I started seeing Janson everywhere. Not physically and not like a hallucination in a movie. Life isn’t like that, is it? Our ghosts are really just the past refusing to go away. Some nasty bit of business that lives inside the brain and which we can't reconcile or digest. A fish bone hooked in your throat. I’m a teacher myself. I live in a house with another teacher. After his death, I would wake up every morning at 3 am. Bang! Just like that. I’d come awake, surfacing in my room, the objects in the room becoming tangible as my eyes got used to the dark. I’d look at my phone, see the numbers illuminated on the screen. 3 am. Every morning it was like this.

And there was no way I could get back to sleep. I tried everything. I took a pill before I went to sleep in an attempt to get in a solid eight hours but that didn't work either. No matter how tired I was, at 3 am, I would find myself wide awake. Usually, I’d go outside and sit on the veranda.

Morning after morning the same thing. And inadvertency I'd start thinking about Janson. And of course, all these interruptions impacted on my daytime activities. I’d be half asleep in the classroom which is not acceptable. I'd be literally falling asleep on my feet. You know how that kind of deep fatigue affects your ability to work? It is impossible to keep focused, the world swimming before your eyes. You simply can’t function. Sleep deprivation only increases the sense that the past has broken its banks and had sluiced into the here and now. The muddy waters advance, coming under the door, covering your ankles, your knees and soon you have retreated to the roof of your house. Or you run outside and climb the branches of a tree outside in the yard.

"But what if the water just keeps rising? Higher than the apex of the roof? Higher than the top braces of the tree you are in? The muddy, swirling water full of chewed up pieces of concrete and wood and washing machines and muck. What then? Will you just be swept away with the deluge? I mean, if we’re thinking about water as the past. Mistakes we make.....Or is it sleep? I am trying to illustrate this for you. I…..What I am trying to say is……."

At this point, I pinched the bridge of my nose and screwed my eyes shut. I just needed to take a break. When I opened my eyes again I was sitting in the principal’s office under harsh strip lighting, which didn’t make sense because I couldn't remember walking in here. It was just me and the Principal, the fan slowly rotating, stirring the papers on his desk.

And I realised that I was talking, explaining my recent problems with insomnia (and subsequent inability to focus at work) to my Principal, using this metaphor of the flooding landscape and being stranded on rooftops and, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what I was actually trying saying.

Anyway, the Principal was looking at me with what could only be described as mounting concern. I moved my hand from my face and I didn't know what to do with it for a moment. My hand just hovered there in the space between my face and the desk. Then I rubbed my eyes and felt myself slipping again before regaining traction. Insomnia is like that, little slips, mental picnics off in the daisies.

Anyway, I straighten up and tried again, saying, "I….I...." But the Principal interrupted me and said, "Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?"

I saw Janson everywhere. Driving home, on the road leading into town, in front of the pub, his absence like a wound that just won't heal over. You cover it with bandages and the blood keeps on seeping through the gauze.

There were other reminders as well. Reminders which were grounded in reality. His son worked at the real estate company in town. I saw him from time to time. After his father died, the resemblance between father and son seemed to increase overnight. I know that's not possible but there it was: the jowls, the lack of space between his eyes, the eyes themselves, cold blue and the laugh. But alway with the humour of the oppressor. 

There was the billboard in town, the one with Janson's smiling face on it, looked down on the main street. Looking down on all of us.

The hit-and-run story lingered in the news for quite awhile. "Local man killed in a hit-and-run". It was the biggest thing that had happened in our community for a long while.

The evening it happened, the stupid bastard was in the middle of the road, snaking along the centre line. The irony was that the barman had confiscated his keys forty minutes before in exchange for one more drink. Ordinarily, Janson would have just driven himself home drunk. The man had crashed into his own front fence that many times, he’s stopped bothering to repair it.

I was stone cold sober when I came over the crest of the hill. I don't drink. Sure, I was driving a little fast but nothing reckless. There he was, stumbling along in the headlights, already half turning as the glare hit him. I hit the brakes, slid into him and basically scooped him up on the hood of the car. I saw his stupid face, thick-lipped and astonished, pressed into the windshield. I remember thinking, thank god he didn't go under the front bumper. He’s going to be all right. I applied more pressure to the brakes and the car snapped to a dead stop. That was a mistake.

He went flying off the hood and into the road. That must have been when he slapped the back of his head on the concrete. I didn’t see any of this. I got out, tried to help him but he pushed me away, swearing, saying he was all right before he staggered off across the golf course and into the night. He went home, passed out on his sofa and that was it, he never woke up. His wife found him stone cold in the morning. There was severe bruising to his brain.

I didn't tell anyone because as far as I was concerned, he just walked away and so I thought it would be all right. Isn’t it usually the case that drunks have a kind of superhuman resilience? That they roll with the punches?

I should have said something, I realise that now. Stupidly, I just thought it would go away. Two weeks went past and nothing, just me trying to get on with my life but not being entirely successful. There was no visible dent or marking on my car. There were no witnesses. They pieced it together from forensic evidence and because of a rumour that wormed its way on the tips of people's tongues, slowly through the town, into the Tops Cop's awareness. What about the new school teacher? Hasn't he been behaving strangely as of late? Is something was wrong with him? He seems ill at ease with himself.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and screw my eyes shut tight. And when I open them again, I am sitting in the little interrogation room down at the police station and the disturbing thing is I don’t even remember walking in here. The Top Cop is sitting across from me with another constable, both men have their arms folded across their bellies. And the Top Cop is saying, "You better come clean mate".

When I open my eyes, when the world swims back into focus, I notice the table between us is bolted to the floor and there is a one-way mirror behind the two cops. "Your story is all over the place," says the main cop. And I can't even remember what I have been saying over the past couple of hours. Has it been hours? Anyway, to clarify things, I started from the beginning.

The first day I walked through the gates was surreal. Just the noise of the doors and gates being locked behind you, as you go deeper through processing and into the prison, past guard posts and along enclosed walkways, one after the next, burrowing deeper and deeper in your new home. You keep reminding yourself that this is it, that you can't leave, but it just doesn't seem real. I got five years for manslaughter.

Prison is a mixture of long stretches of boredom, chess, reading, exercise and endless bartering with items from the commissary. Food, tobacco, fizzy drinks, pornography....Sometimes inmates will mess with you. They will play mind games just to pass the time.

Camilla came to visit me a few times. She'll sit there, telling me about things out in the world that have no consequence to me now. During her last visit, I told her not to bother coming back. I told her I just want to do my time and then we'll see what happens.

At night, when I can't sleep, I sit by the window to get some cold air. One night I heard a music festival in a field behind the prison. You could hear the crowd and the bands playing. It was weird to think that, several months before, I could have been in that crowd. 

I will speak to you later. As I said to Camilla, it is probably better if you don't come down. I hope you understand. 

In four and a half years, I will be out and we will talk then. 

Your son, Bobby 

The exam

How are you, sir?

It's a bit weird writing this, what with you knowing my name and me not knowing yours but there you have it, that is the way this have to go.

Beyond my name, which I have never really liked because it sounds, at least to my ear, like it doesn't belong to me, or I to it, I will tell you honestly that as of late, I have lost all me mirth. Who said that? Which character? Probably Hamlet. Or was it Horatio? Yeah, must be him. I can't keep my Shakespeare plays or character straight at the moment. And I know, I know, I'm supposed to be writing about one of his plays now, talking about the themes and meanings but, as you have probably guessed by now, I won't be doing that. I have read four of the buggers this term and as I say, they have all sort of bled into each other by this point. The language is totally confusing. You gotta read everything three times. Talking mules and fairies? Star-crossed lovers? Depressed Princes? No doubt about it the guy had a brilliant imagination. The one that really stood out for me was Titus Andronicus because it was such a bloodbath. Like a horror movie mixed with tragedy. Characters getting it left, right and centre. But getting back to the question on the top of this booklet, no, sorry to disappoint you but I won't be discussing how metaphor creates textual meaning in one of Shakespeare plays. Instead, I'll be writing about the last couple of weeks to fill in the time.

They have given me four more days here at the school. After that, I have to leave. Everyone else has already gone, off with their parents or alone on the coach, off into their bright and shining future. I am in no particular rush to leave or to encounter the future. No sir. I am enjoying the present.

Up until the end, the other guys were all shaking their heads and saying, I can't wait to leave this joint. And I was saying the same thing, although I don't really mean it. I guess I was just showing off. I said it because...isn't that what you're supposed to say when you've outgrown a place? When you have moved on? Anyway, the point is, I don't think I'm ready to go yet.

In a couple of days, I'll pack up all my stuff up and take down Ms November and Ms October, peel the ladies off the inside of my locker, leaving behind lumps of blue tac (or maybe I should just leave them for the next guy)?. I gotta say, it is very weird being the last man standing. I mean, walking around the grounds, past all the buildings, each one brainless with empty windows looking down on me. Eating alone in the cafeteria and sitting alone in the tv room or shooting pool, seeing all the dorms and common areas empty like the place was suddenly evacuated before something terrible happened.

I can stay up late as I want now, no problems at all. And they don't care if I smoke. A few weeks ago, we all still had to go up to the top of the parking lot, under the stone arch and behind the stables out back. They aren't stables anymore. Thirty years ago, when the school was still a grand old establishment they would have contained horses but not anymore. Now there is just some junk in them-gardening supplies I think.

But back to the smoking-the housemasters and teachers knew what we were doing, they just wanted us to do it out of sight. And now? No one cares what I do.  

Speaking of authority figures, there are a few teachers still hanging around but they are all busy finishing up, so they can leave on their holidays. I can tell by the way that they talk to me that they don't consider me a student anymore. I mean I'm not quite one of them, an adult, but I'm not a student either.

I guess mainly I have been moping around, soaking up the atmosphere of this place, looking at everything real close, knowing I won't be back. Well, not until I'm an old guy, returning to reminisce about the so-called 'best years of my life'. By then maybe I'll have a sports car. A red MGM with ms October in the passenger seat. I'll drive into town and park and say to ms October (who I vastly prefer over ms November) "Well honey, this is where it all began." And I'd show her around, show her the classrooms, and then we'll drive off, her hair flying in the wind and me accelerating towards our quaint hotel where we will spend the night. But only the night because we won't live in poxy England. We'd live in a country like Argentina, high in the mountains overlooking....

You can see one of my main problem here, right? Instead of buckling down, thinking about what I should be thinking about, instead of ms October.

As I mentioned, I have been feeling quite melancholy and anxious about leaving this place and trying to figure out exactly what I am supposed to do with the rest of my life. I have had a few long conversation with Mr Trillo about this very topic.Trillo is a decent enough guy. He has his faults like anybody else (his BO, man, that is downright offensive), but that aside, he is one of the most truthful adults I know here. In these conversations, Mr Trillo keeps making the point that there is a certain amount of uncertainty in life, even with the best planning, so at the end of the day all you can do is be yourself. Certainly, make plans and have goals, but be true to thyself. More Shakespeare!

I guess Mr Trillo is trying to give me some last minute advice before I walk out the door. A lot of these guys, these teachers....you have to wonder. I mean to end up here, in this school? surrounded by a bunch of snot-nosed kids like us? How did that happen?

But seriously, Mr Trillo...he's all right, compared to the other teachers. At least he doesn't sound like a hypocrite when he gives advice.

I am pretty glad that McDouglas left. I couldn't face him anymore after the blackmail thing. I can see now that were all being a bunch of idiots. We should never have treated him that way but I guess you could say he should've been so careless about having sex with the canteen worker while his wife was away in Ireland. He acts like that and we are supposed to respect for him? The man was a jerk. And when Harrison got hold of that information...oh boy. McDouglas wasn't going to tell us what to do anymore. Harrison was a real dick about it as well, really playing mind games with him, rubbing it in. Harrison was my friend but I felt pretty bad about the whole thing, torn I guess, seeing someone my age treat an adult like that. It didn't feel right but then again, I just followed along. And being the last one here, it felt like I inherited most of the guilty about what we did. I tried to talk to McDouglas, tell him I was sorry, no hard feelings and all that but he didn't want to hear it. I don't blame him. Even though I wasn't the main instigator, I was involved. So I felt pretty bad about the whole thing.

To pass the time, lately I have been conducted a few experiments. I have been hitchhiking around the local area. All I have to do is go to the edge of town, sticking my thumb out and see what happens. Pretty stupid, right? Maybe I'm practising being independent and self-reliant. Weening myself off this place slowly. The thing is, I don't know if I'm, you know, ready to leave yet. As far as I'm concerned, this has all happened too quickly. Then again, it's not like I have a choice, do I? I can't stay here forever. I can't get a job in the chicken factory up the road and spend the rest of my life here. Imagine that. Right now I have this image in my head of some old guy dressed in his school uniform.

I get rides from different people: farmers, salesmen, factory worker and other people with lives I'll never know about. They see the school uniform, pull over and say, "Maybe you shouldn't be hitchhiking, kid. It isn't the seventies anymore". But I get in, into their cars and off we go, along the country roads, heading in different directions. And sometimes the drivers get a bit weird because I'm pretty vague about my destination and purpose. And I have noticed that people in the adult world really, really prefer it when you have an iron clad purpose.

With these side trips, I like the idea of starting in the same place and ending up in different places, places you would never have a reason to going to. Why the hell would I chose to end up in Chipping Warden? Standing in the middle of nowhere? I mean it's easy to find yourself standing in the middle of somewhere famous like Time Square or where ever.....But how many people have been here? The weather has been really good recently so off I go. I try to get back before dinner time. Every so often Trillo will go, did you study today? And I'll say, "A little," feeling bad that I have to lie to Mr Trillo.

Of course, I mostly end up in Oxford, Bunbury and once or twice, Northamptonshire because that is where everyone is usually heading with purpose. And yeah, there have been a few adventures. I got in this one guy's car not realising he was drunk and off we go, rocketing along the road, with him barely in control of the car, talking to me about his wife. And I was just bracing myself for impact and saying, watch out! Every three minutes because we were about to plough into a hedgerow or stone wall. Boy, I'll tell you that was, hands down, the most nail-biting ride of my life. After five minutes I said, "Well, thank you, sir, but I think I'll get out here". He dragged his eyes off the road again, looked at me with a kind of incredulous expression on his face, the kind that really drunk people will look at you with when you say something they don't like, and then he shouted, No! You said 'the end of line'!" (He had me there. When I first got in, I did say that). So on we went, swerving and skidding, way too fast, him red-faced, distracted by every bloody thing other than driving the car, lighting a smoke, dropping the lit butt in his lap, jerking the wheel, turning up the music, singing along to a White Snake song, trying to tell me long stories about how great his wife was, shouting over the noise of the wind coming in the car window. And me thinking, brace for impact. A real white-knuckler, I'll tell you.

There was also a pervert who asked me all these questions which didn't seem sinister at first, but the longer I was in the car, the more it started to feel like he had something in mind other than shooting the breeze. So I got out of that car in the next village. He pulled over and just sat there on the soft shoulder, the engine running, so I went into the pub, you know, one of these wonky stone, thatched roof buildings, and sat there, a few local people looking at me until I could see out the window he had driven away.

I wonder about this, I mean, why I am doing with all this hitchhiking? Because I'm young, people keep saying "You have your whole life ahead of you." Like this is supposed to be a good thing. Lately, I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed by all this choice. And at the same time, it all feels so fucking predictable in a way, you know? Like no matter what car I get into, it has all been pre-determined. I don't know why I feel like this but I do. It's like....Because of who I am, I'll always be stuck on this one groove. This one path. Like any decision I make, even if it is against what I originally wanted to do, has still already been planned out. Do you know what I mean? Like changing my mind is just part of the plan anyway and nothing I think or do is original or unexpected.

And even when I'm feeling optimistic, thinking that maybe, by getting in this or that car, I could end up anywhere, a different country even, like in some Tin Tin comic, a little voice in the back of my head is saying, "Ah who are you kidding?" You know who would be there at the end of this magnificent journey into the unknown? Me. Thinking about things, in the same way, brushing my teeth the same way, obsessed about Ms October when I should be doing something meaningful or different, only I wouldn't be. I'd be thinking and doing something you would expect from someone like me.

Don't get me wrong. I like myself and all. I mean I want to stick around and see what happens. What choice is there? You can do a million different things and you'll still be you. You still have to put up with all this predictable uncertainty or....or what? Hope that there is a big party when you die. Up there in the clouds? It's a huge gamble. I mean I go past all these country chapels, pointing up at the sky like grounded rockets and it makes me think about these things. I think about other people. Do they ever just look in the mirror and think how strange it is to be someone? To have a face and a body and a name? Do they ever realise that, when it comes down to it, there are only really two choices? Be alive inside a strange life or don't be. On or off.    

Anyway, the plan is, I'm going to France to see my father. And then we'll talk about what the hell I am supposed to do with the rest of my life. He has some ideas on the subject. He wasn't too pleased with me when I told him about messing up my exams but what could he do about it? He kind of shouted-whined at me. We will talk about this! He said, you promised me that you would work hard! I tried to make an excuse but I had run out of plausible excuses by then. Man, he was upset, I mean really upset, but then again, I guess he has had that kind of dragging disappointment now during all our international calls.

Yesterday, I said goodbye to my girlfriend Jessica. Or maybe she wasn't my girlfriend anymore. It was hard to say. We hadn't really done it properly yet, just messed around in my dorm once of twice. I'd been trying with her but I got too excited and she started putting the brakes on as soon as school let out anyway. I wish I was better and more confident with the whole sex thing but I'm not. I think about things way too much while it's happening. The wrong kind of things, I guess. I thought you were supposed to be swept up in all the lust. Sometimes it feels a bit instructional. In my mind, I keep seeing that old book my parents had. The joy of sex. All those illustrations of hippie with lots of pubic hair doing in it. It's kind of off-putting thinking about that with your hand jammed down a girl's pants. Like I have to be like the guys in those illustrations. And what if I don't want to throw my head back in ecstasy? What if I don't feel that way? Is something wrong with me?

Anyway, I got there (Jess lives in a village a few miles from here, just a pub and a few houses) and I'll tell you, it wasn't that great a visit. Jessica is going to Bristol University to study chemistry. Or what her dad calls a real degree. I guess she is moving on. From this place. From me. To be honest, it seems like her parents were happy to see the back of me as well. I mean, I get it: I am part of something that was, that has already happened. I'm the past tense baby. A phase she was going through.

Now she will move onto other opportunities. I don't think we really liked each other very much to begin with, not really. Like I say, you see these girls in magazines and they get you all excited but then you have to figure out real girls. It can be difficult. And sometimes, at least in my experience, it can be a sad prospect. Good but sad. Some guys are born good at it, or at least they say they are.

Anyway, it wasn't a very good visit. I just sat there in the living room not knowing what to say or what to do. Jessica talked for a little while about going to college but then the conversation sort of ran out of steam. When Jess's dad asked me what I would be doing, in the all important future, I just shrugged and said, I don't know. Then I looked at my hand which was on my lap, kind of open, five fingers not doing anything and then I looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. I noticed Jess's dad, Ken, looking at me kind of strangely. You know when that happens? When you catch someone giving you a weird look, like an expression you haven't seen before? But then they quickly correct themselves. They reassume their fake expression, and in that moment you realise they have probably been faking it all along. It was like that with old Ken. Thinking about it now, Ken was a complete fake. He would always get stuck on this one story, telling me how he made his fortune in the city before moving out to the country to get away from the old rat race and give Jess a better life. But Jess told me that he got most of his cash from her grandfather, that he was kind of an embarrassment when it came to the world of high finance. Anyway, I laughed because I suddenly thought about Jess's tits, which are nice with pink nipples and that smutty image in my mind contradicted all this polite sitting around. I laughed because my visit had become so uncomfortable and stagey, like we were actors who had run out of things to say but we were still stuck on this stage. Like the walls were fake and all the things: the clock, the books, the knick-knacks and the fireplace had all been carefully set up by somebody. Like the view of the paddocks outside the window was just a painting and if you turned on the TV it wouldn't work because it was just an empty shell.  

"Well, it has been great getting to know you Bobby," said Ken, all manly, as he stood up and shook my hand. And then Jess stood up as well, smoothed her skirt down. But the problems was, well, I wasn't quite really to leave yet. I was the only person who was still sitting in that room. Usually, when I come to Jess's house, her parents would make a big fuss and insist I stay for dinner but not this time.

But before I left, I had to go to the toilet. I had no choice. Whereas before I could go pretty much anywhere I wanted in their house, they made me go to the toilet downstairs. The little guest one under the stairs. I sat there in complete silence doing my business which was embarrassing because my business was particularly loud that afternoon, and it felt like the whole family had stopped moving around and they were all just sitting there in silence, listening while I defecated. The living room was only across the hallway, separated by one thin wooden door. It's funny how you can be talking about lofty things one minute and then the next, you excuse yourself to go shit in another room. And then when you come back everyone pretends nothing happened. And the real kicker was, there was no toilet paper in there. Just a cardboard roll with one tiny flap of paper stuck to it. No way near enough. I mean who would make their surrogate son go through this kind of embarrassment?

Anyway, I guess it was closure because I had to use a flannel covered with little embroydered bluebells, which was pretty disgusting but I didn't really have a choice. I folded the flannel up and put it back in the cupboard. Of all the lousy craps you can take, this was one of the worst. When I came out, they were all sitting there waiting. I said goodbye and that was it. Jess only came as far as the front door. I appreciate that we didn't go through some big fake thing about seeing each other again and all that. Ken was standing behind her, that same expression on his face.  I walked out of that little cul-de-sac and that was it.

Anyway, you probably don't need to hear about any of this. I picture you probably as some guy dressed in a sweater with elbow patches. You probably drive a Volvo and you're working on your first novel in a converted barn, sitting there by a fire. I bet you only mark these papers for extra money. I wish I could have given you something more appropriate, something about those plays. Something meaningful. To be or not to be, and all that shit.

If you didn't know it (and how could you)? They had me reset this exam because I messed up the first one so badly. They gave me one more chance. They told me to buckle down and hit the books. In the end, I didn't study. I hitchhiked around and listen to music (three Cure albums mainly) and thought about everything. And when I came in here at 9 o'clock this morning, I decided I wasn't going to try and bluff my way through this. The truth is, I was never any good at exams.

I have another hour sitting in here with Mr Daniel, just the two of us in the empty hall, with sunlight coming through the stain glass windows and me scratching away, pretending to take this all so seriously while Daniels sitting up front with his newspaper. And when the clock hands swing around to 10:30,  Daniels will look up and say "Time is up, please put down your pen". And I'll leave. And in four days I'll go to France on a boat. And I'll probably stay up on the deck for the whole crossing, depending on the weather.

Many thanks,

All the days

How are you?

We came down here to regroup, to chill out, and mainly because I lost my job. Actually, I quit my job which wasn't a particularly wise move because, as I have subsequently found out, at my age, they wouldn't even offer me an interview for my old position. But I had to have my moment of glory, telling Rick and the others to fuck off before marching out the front door, head held high, an act of defiance and heroism, well, at least in my mind. It was probably just as I was turning the key in the ignition, sitting in my overheated car, that I thought, "Oh shit. Now that wasn't really too smart”.

I'm not a hundred percent sure why I did it. Usually, I can cope. Usually, I would have cooled down. Not this time. I didn't tell Deb that I'd quit. I modified the truth. I told her that they fired me, just to allow myself some time to think things through. I don’t want to talk about it, I said. This immediately caused problems in the form of arguments and tension. The reason being that Deb knows what I'm like and is alert to all my bullshit, so she didn't believe that they would just fire me out of the blue after eight years of reasonable service. And in Deb's case, I am hopeless when it comes to sustaining a lie, even a small one. I usually give myself away within days, if not hours.

We came down here and things have been better ever since. We are in a bubble. All we do is eat, swim, read and then do it all over again the following day. It is a good pattern that has everyone in a relatively happy frame of mind, my daughter Monica included, even after she discovered (horror of horrors)! there was no internet (There is but it’s hidden in a cupboard). And therefore, the usual unrelenting stream of moody selfies posted online would not be possible. In other words, I have my daughter back, temporarily at least. And for the time being, I don't have to worry about her putting herself out there as some kind of pouting, soft core porn starlet.

So yes, every day is the same as the previous one but in a good way. Long, warm days rolled out one after the next, with all the members of my family's diametrically opposed personalities somehow balanced out and working in unison for once.

Of course, there is no money coming in (trips into town, stopping at the ATM make us wince) but in terms of reduced stress and general fulfilment, this extended holiday makes our regular life seem a bit insane. We go swimming once a day, at the pond dug out by the mining company. It's a large body of water, instantly colder when you dive below the surface, surrounded by a neat, new growth forest. There is a jetty and what must be an imported sliver of beach, made up of course sand contain shell fragments. And one kilometre down the road, an old heritage pub where we usually stop for a drink on the way home, watched over closely by the dead: the long-bearded miners and town drunks, a history reaching as far back as the 1920's captured in the black and white photographs that line the walls.

After this, we walk back to the house, talking along the way, to read and take naps, being out in the sun having taken its toll on everyone. We have had some great meals in this house. I mean good food made primarily from the veggie garden out back which is exploding at the moment with tomatoes, gourds, beans and much more. It is amazing to see the kids really understand where their food comes from. We seriously talk about staying down here but what then? How would that affect the children in the long run? How would it affect us? You look at local people and think are you happy because you live here? Or is this just the way you are?

Casey has given us a few more weeks at the house if we want it (which we do). I still think I should have followed his route. He was the one who, straight after Uni, opted for a mining career while we were all scoffing at the idea of chasing the dollar and off 'finding ourselves'. And now look at him, eighteen years on and he has a spare house just laying around. Granted he doesn't have a family but sometimes I seriously ask myself, would I have been happier to follow his path? Sometimes I think I might have been.

What's not to like about this place? Every window has a view of rolling green hills, sectioned off into the paddocks of the neighbouring farms. Being here is good for everyone, including Jacob my son. It makes you realise that children penned in concrete environments and manicured backyards, well, it's completely different to this experience because, in the city, there is no real understanding or respect for nature. Think about it; do you every really feel awe standing in a suburban park? Looking at nature from the outside and being immersed in nature are two very different things. But despite all these groovy, back-to-nature good vibes, we have to remind ourselves that nowadays this kind of living is a luxury for most people. That for most of the world’s population, the view outside their windows is of manmade junk and concrete.

The other evening Jacob left that bloody plastic sword he has been bashing his older sister with, out in the back paddock and when he realised it was missing, he started whining. So I said, okay, okay, stop whining and go get it. But he wanted us, or more specifically his mother, to got out there with him. All this after I told him to leave the fucking sword in the house when we went on our evening walk around the property a few hours before.

And I'll admit that it would be a frightening prospect for a little kid, going out there, the hills and paddocks fast receding into darkness as the sun went down, with the insect noise pulsing. He tried to pull his usual bullshit, trying to get his mother to cave in because basically, Jacob has her wrapped around his little finger. But then, after realising he’s on his own, off he goes, still carrying on, whining and dragging his heels in the dust, before setting off into the grass, which is about waist high for him. All we could hear in the gloom was Jacob carrying on. It was one of these moments when I had to stop myself from thinking, is this really my son? And is he intrinsically like this or did we make him like this? Even though we were keeping an eye on him from the veranda, his mother started fretting about snakes. Oh...he's going to get bitten by a brown snake, she was saying. He won't get bitten by a bloody snake, I said. Just let him do something by himself for christ sakes. This probably came out sounding a bit harsh but I felt strongly about it. I wanted him to do it alone.

And he did. He went out there, found the sword and came running back, running even though I told him to watch his footing. I'll tell you, as this was unfolding, as he came running back towards the house, I realised that what we were witnessing was an important rite of passage moment: my son coming out of grass, returning to the warm glow of the farmhouse, his idiotic sword held aloft. Sure, everyone, including Jacob, was carrying on like we'd sent him off to survive in the desert for three days and nights but still, for him it was an accomplishment. A sense of pride caught me by surprise.

Anyway since then he has been more motivated and confident, and less of a baby. And we have gone off on a few male only adventures involving compasses, walkie-talkies, canteens, pocket knives, hiking, climbing and anything else I can remember from the year or two I was a reluctant boy scout.

All right, that's it for me. This pen is running out of ink and for some reason, Casey doesn't have any replacements. I have looked in every draw. You have to wonder about a house where you can't find a single ballpoint pen. So all I’m doing at this moment is carving words into the page, one after the next. Time to stop.

Cheers,

The exchange

So I am walking past the public phone on the corner one morning, the phone near the station, and it started ringing. It startled me, that sound.

Who uses public phones anymore? Anyway, I'm not sure why but I picked it up. Maybe it was an emergency or.…The voice on the other end started asking me questions, almost like he was taking a survey, you know? Just ordinarily, friendly questions.

I ended up having maybe an eight or ten minute conversation with this joker. Maybe longer, i can’t be sure. Of course at first, it occurred to me this was a prank and as such, I became acutely aware of my immediate surroundings, started looking around, thinking, is there a camera crew lurking in a van parked across the street? I even wondered if the people around me weren't in on it, like paid extras in a movie. I had no intention of ending up as the latest viral punchline on Youtube. No thanks. Or maybe this guy was some kind of pervert? Some guys like women’s feet and other guys like dressing up as babies. Maybe this guy got off on hearing other people’s voices? I couldn't image how this could be titillating but human beings are capable of anything. You only have to go online to realise that. As far as the pervert angle went, thankfully the conversation never evolved into anything sordid, just more general conversation.

He told me a little bit about his life, some personal stuff. He hadn't killed anyone but there were a few indiscretions that you might expect from someone who’d lived an average life. And once he got going, well...I opened up a little bit, told him a few things. It only seemed fair. Things about Monica and the kids. Some of my true feeling about my Dad. Some of the feeling I have had recently about a female co-worker and the incident that had happened as a result of those feeling. Only I didn't use their real names.

"So what is this?" I asked the voice on the other end, "Therapy for you or something? You like to confess to people? Is that how you get your kicks?"
“Let’s just say I'm just exploring random connections in the universe,” he laughed.
"Just reaching out?"
"Something like that," he said.
"Alright then...enjoy the rest of your...life. I guess."
"Same to you," he said.

2.

I hung up and went back inside the house. I fucking hate modem phones. You know how it is, how they steal away your privacy one insincere update at a time. Still, I guess you have to have one these days, right? Otherwise, you might end up as some kind of digital shut-out. A hermit in the modern age. “Join the conversation.” Isn't that what they say?

I got this list when I used to work nights at the exchange. God, that was a job and a half. A night watchman in a completely empty building. Back in those days, the network consisted of rooms full of electronic switches and sub-switchers clicking away in the dark as the city whispered dirty secrets to itself. All night long. I did that job for 8 years. It changed me, I realise that now. Anyway, there it was, in a three-ringed binder, in a draw, this complete list of all the public phones located around the metropolitan area. Most of them would be decommissioned by now, especially seeing as how everyone has their little handheld toys to keep them company.

These calls can go a number of different ways. You punch in the number and sometimes no one answers. The phone just keeps on ringing on an empty street at the end of the line. Sometimes people pick up and tell you to fuck off. Sometimes people get freaky, like this is their big opportunity to say something terrible. Something thrillingly counter to their nature, something they can't ordinarily say.

Sometimes they make things up. I can usually tell. I have talked to my share of mental cases as well. Ranters and ravers. And sometimes they just tell the truth.