The Fabled Tribe (aka The Belushi) Jan25

 

 

The guys did a Belushi in the wee hours Sunday morning, reason Greg was looking a dishrag. All impromptu, naturally. The call came through at 2:30, at least the third that Greg actually answered. Pulling the phone out of his pillowcase it was Danny alright. The deal was sitting right there in front of Dan on the table at his place, ready to go. Good gear; and Danny knew the difference. $350 each; smack a gram. A couple of gals had landed with it, all set if Greg said. Danny & Mick knew of the money come through from the probate. Greg had been shouting the pair for a few weeks now. It had taken Greg a number of weeks to get the figure from the ATM straight—not two-point-nine hundred something. Plus two noughts. For a number of weeks Greg maintained it was a mistake; he had even been down to the branch in Acland Street where the woman told him. With his eyesight so bad, last few years Greg hadn’t been able to do himself, anyway. Mick walked round from Robe Street to the ATM with Greg’s card. Danny put the whole of the gram in the mix off his own bat, when Greg as usual wanted saving for later. It ended up felling Danny; for a while there Greg thought he might be in trouble. Danny thought Greg had a remarkable constitution, still standing up to it like that at almost seventy. The girls were good chicks; there was plenty to go round. It wasn’t clear whether Brock was there. Brock had cropped up recently a number of times, encounters on the street and joining occasionally, for the Belushi too it may have been. Brock that was; not Rock. Rock the hairdresser was a different guy. Rock had come up to the flat in Jackson Street regularly in those days when Greg had little money, shouting him. Greg put in a couple of basins for Rock at the salon, hosted Rock at his place, let him pull the pud on the couch during the rushes, yet Rock still thought Greg owed him something. Sometimes Rock brought a working girl and stroked off while Greg screwed the lady on his bed. The addition now this morning was Rock’s penchant watching girls pee. Number 2 Rock would have added, but Greg didn’t want a bar of that. (Ellmann’s mention of the famous compatriot’s coprophilia had Greg wanting to know the writer’s name. Famous guy on a level below even Rock.) That was Rock; not in on the Sunday morning Belush. More in the bundle was the story of the fiancé of the richest farmer in Emerald, and somehow also the cleaning of the fingernails in a construction site tearoom with a toothpick for a joke after sewers. (Poker faced with the dirt looking like the muck). The farmer guy had the snazziest ute money could buy, with a mount included for rifle. The honey used to come to the caravan where the boss was housing the workers and throw gravel onto the window. When the matter got out Greg shot through on the spot. Even in those days they were farming rice and alternating some other water sucking crop, in the driest region on the planet, basically. Within the interstices somehow Gaye entered the mix. The matter of impossible rescues maybe. That someone wanted him not dead caused a raising of eyebrow. Somehow, impossible to fathom, the final episode with Gaye had previously never penetrated. Earlier, whenever it had emerged it had been blurted in the usual blur, one on top of the one before, through endless annals. This was a difficult fit. Over the years the references to the incident over Gaye’s casket had been heard a number of times, without ever being properly grasped. It was always too much and all of it scrambled/bundled. A king hit delivered at a funeral. By the graveside. Under the force of the blow the victim lands on top of the casket that had already been lowered into the ground. Brother of the deceased. Greg was definitely a lover, not a fighter; nothing like a hard man. But here he was swinging at Gaye’s funeral and sending the brother into the hole after his sister. Gaye had had a very unusual blood type. Numerous people offered their kidney—Gaye’s sister, one of her friends, Greg himself of course. None matched. The brother, a PhD in two fields, had promised, before in the end backing out. Almost twenty years later the sewer rat with the gift of the gab of his tribe was not done. Real Malloy.

 

 

Scribble

 At the Viet cafe by Footscray Market.

And more legibly on the desk back home.

(The journal left at home.)

Eye of Beholder (Nov24)

 

Lew M. on Barkly corner at the lights waiting to cross not a pretty picture with that habitual gaping, as if he had seen some horror up on the hill. A keen-eyed prize-winning portraitist missing that signature visual of himself? We can never see ourselves, a wise old grannie once said, one who in her time had been a great beauty. Discovering that fact about the lady only when she was in her late-70s came as a great surprise. Former beauties you assumed acted and deported themselves rather differently. Like any portraitist, Lew had studied his reflection, without any hint in the work of the habitual Munch fright.

 

 

Car Sick (Update)

Suggesting old daytime TV Roman toga movies this pharaonic pose high in the seat; elbow protruding; highest disdain. Something too like a celebrity under the gaze of paparazzi another gent in his mid-range, well-maintained and polished model, radio’s steadying whisper audible within. 

 

Rear-view on the freeway giving the uneasy sense of crazed chase, five-six lanes all the more so. Years of TV pursuit— afoot, horseback, cars racing along LA highways. 

  

Lingering cop or ambo sirens audible miles afterward, like smoke from burning ruins. Miles and miles and many streets behind. 

  

The 6s or 8s when they're lowered ride not much more than arm's length from the bitumen, beefy lads hanging out, sometimes with fag ends that make you look for the moment of flicking. Other times they merely rattle the cage, thumping against the side. 

Often too without musical accompaniment, the arm hanging limply, trailing for air. 

Freedom. Something. Unfulfilled. Often only haring it once they are on the straight. 

  

Compulsive scanning of the abbreviations in the number plates, as if seeking hints lost in a maze. All the signage, logos, stickers. Interpretations lacking.

 

Side-view bent at the wrong angle, the white line unreeling from its spool slipping under the wheels, confirming the passage the bigger picture fails to convey. 

 

The fixation will never be relinquished by democratic means, just like in the States the right to bear arms. 

 

 

 

2. 

  

Cool wintry mornings the reflected heat gives a brief charge—like coming indoors from the cold and reaching for the logs in the grate. Pleasurable hit; mainlining serotonin. Sometimes when it’s a B double you get the first blast and then bask in the expectation of the following. Painted steel was ineffective, the same as tarpaulin or plastic-coating. Impossible to anticipate, on each occasion the blessing comes anew. The first few times it happens on especially cold days the confusion momentarily overwhelms. 

  

  

 

  

3. 

  

Case of brake failure on the freeways the dividers were the first resort, scraping along on the passenger side, tearing steel slowing and perhaps puncturing a tyre. A medium/light vehicle in front for the final halt, if time permitted. 

  

In the wet roll the window down a fraction for proper notice of the speed. 

  

The truck canyons on the freeways and around the port exited ASAP; blind spots in the mirrors avoided like the devil. 

  

Annoyance with other drivers was noticeably curbed of late, use of the horn especially. Possibly due to the virus.

 

The childish instinct to display exemplary motoring was still difficult to curb; that and the attempt to win pretty girls behind the wheel with elegant gestures and gallantry. 

  

Early November in a mild Spring immediately after Cup Day, the hands, elbows & trailing arms appeared outside driver's window. (Sometimes passengers joining on their side.) Relishing the end of lockdown.

  

Always a matter of frustration for an accomplished, courteous driver who mostly kept within the rules not being recognised or rewarded. Radio shows once upon a time conducted competitions where listeners would nominate examples. 

 

 

 

NB. Segments of this piece date from 2009-10; they have been augmented recently during the recent return to motoring down in Melbourne. Living without a motor car had been another benefit on the Equator.

 

Strongly Suggestive

 

That peacefulness along Beacon Cove was strongly suggestive. There was no mistake. Since the development thirty-five years ago it had been the same. Almost never pedestrian traffic. Occasional dog walkers, most prominent the late middle-aged men waiting on the ends of leashes on dawdling house pets. Across all the tower balconies over the years and low rise on the other side, there may have been appearances a handful of times—briefest glimpse of moving figures; never sitting. On the beachfront it may have been different, but those prospects soon wore away everywhere. Neat kerbside plantings, clipped lawns, stretched, taut silence. Strongly suggestive of those other wide yards peopled only sporadically, Mothers’ Days & Easter. Designated grave-cleaning days did not appear on western calendars. There may have been 30%, or possibly more, price differential between water and even this strip one block back.

 

Tolerable Bubbles

 

 

Worthy of a Sing innovative start-up this one to accompany environment-saving roof gardens and creepers trailing down the sides of reinforced concrete, glass & steel towers. Specialising in colourful mobiles & stickers around workstations, indoor succulents & evergreens.

Page 13 full spread carried by this morning’s Age newspaper here in Melbourne.

Ailing in the Old Town

Shouldn’t have told young Riley the doc this morning it was a boring town. What meaning could it have had for the chap? No call for it. Likely the man would have known of Yogyakarta without the nowhere near Bali. Nice guy easy to tell, tough gig on the revolving door, Mondays especially. Sometimes it gushes out, impossible to curb. Man knows he’s got a slippery customer, flickering eyes monitoring from the chair behind the mask. The sport, alcohol, car-dependent suburbia was the summary in the car afterward for telepathic explanation—for starters at least.