Just Can’t Wait – Queensland, Australia

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…I squint down the road through my bifocals. Is that a car? They are getting rarer and rarer in the last five years. Most people have upgraded to anti-grav ships or jet-packs, these days. Yes, it’s a car. I lift my thumb a bit higher, and smile a disarming, wrinkly, old man smile, letting my arm tremble a bit to emphasise my advanced state of decrepitude…

 

Flash-Back: Sydney, Australia – July 1994.

It’s a cold, clear night. Rodney and I lie on our backs on the roof of the dark theatre and stare at the sharply intense full moon above us. We’re three-quarters of the way through a bottle of cheap port.
The show isn’t going so well. We’ve been working our arses off for four and a half months to make it happen, and the crowd tonight was five people, in a theatre that can seat a hundred and twenty-five. We’re young, tired, drunk, and depressed.
Rodney hands me the bottle.
“I’m sorry I screwed up that cue again” he says.
I prop myself up on an elbow to drink.
“Don’t worry ’bout it, mate. What difference does it make? Nobody’s watching this play anyway. We could make the whole fucking thing up.”
“That’s not a bad idea” Rodney says, sounding a bit brighter. “Let’s just improvise. This Harold Pinter writes such wordy plays. It needs some pruning.”
“Damn straight. We need to knock an hour of the show. We only made twelve dollars a piece tonight, you know? That means with a two hour running time we’re making, like, six dollars an hour. Be better off working at a burger joint.”
I take a long drink and cough. Rodney lights a cigarette.
“You and I are gonna wind up bums” Rodney mutters.
“What?”
“You and me” Rodney says. “When we’re old men, we’ll be homeless cunts with the arses out of our pants, begging for loose change and sleeping rough under bridges.”
We both burst out laughing. We laugh hard and long. The laughter is disproportionate to the comment, but it feels good to laugh. The strain on our friendship from the last weeks of frantic effort and disappointment fade away, and we grip each other’s shoulders as we rock helplessly, gasping for breath.

 

Flash-Forward: Northern Australia, 2054.

It’s forty years since that night on the theatre roof. I’m eighty years old. I’m not a bum, but I do have a very unconventional lifestyle. ‘I’m not homeless, I’m home-free’ I like to tell my grandchildren, and anyone else who will listen to the rusty witticisms of a tousled old man.
I’m standing beside the highway, with my thumb out, just like I have been every other day for the last forty something years. I have a homemade walking stick in my left hand and a floppy, sweat stained roo skin hat on my bald head.

I’m on my way to see Rodney. We haven’t spoken much in recent years. Time and tide. We both woke up to ourselves and quit show business a long time ago. I started travelling, and Rodney married and moved to Queensland, in tropical northern Australia. Rodney has never been one for social media, but I heard from a mutual friend that he had founded some sort of bizarre commune-slash-cult and made a lot of money importing slaves. Now I’m on my way to see him for the first time in more than a decade. Rodney doesn’t know I’m coming, but we’ve never needed invitations.

I squint down the road through my bifocals. Is that a car? They are getting rarer and rarer in the last five years. Most people have upgraded to anti-grav ships or jet-packs, these days. Yes, it’s a car. I lift my thumb a bit higher, and smile a disarming, wrinkly, old man smile, letting my arm tremble a bit to emphasise my advanced state of decrepitude.
The car turns out to be an old-fashioned four wheel drive, with rubber tyres, metal body work, and a pre-nuclear internal combustion engine. Perfect. I am filled with a sense of nostalgia, seeing the rusty, carbon-emitting old beast approach.

The driver slows and pulls up beside me, and the window slides down.
“G’day mate!” I greet the surprised looking face inside the car.
“G’day old-timer” the driver replies. “You OK?”
“Yes mate” I say. “Lovely weather up here in the north. I’ve come up from the south to visit an old friend.”
“And you’re hitchhiking?” the driver asks me, incredulous.
“That’s right mate. Too broke to take the space shuttle, and supersonic flight makes me queasy anyway, on account of me dodgy bowels, see?”
The driver grimaces.
“Well, jump in mate, I can take you as far as Townsville if that’s any help to you.”
“That will be a big help” I say, turning up the charm factor on my grandfatherly grin to eleven. “Do you have a tow ball on this fine vehicle, son?”
He looks puzzled.
“Yeah, I’ve got a tow ball…” he replies.
“Perfect” I exclaim happily. “My caravan is right behind those trees. If you can tow me into Townsville, I’ll be mightily obliged to you.”

Slightly annoyed, but mostly bemused, my benefactor backs his truck up to the draw bar of my caravan and hitches her to his tow ball.
“I’ll ride in the caravan mate” I tell him as he finishes securing the tow bar and safety chains. “I got a rotten bit of gas right now, and I wouldn’t want to inflict the stink on you all the way into Townsville.”
To emphasise my point, I drop a noisy fart and make a pinched, apologetic, face.
The driver hastily agrees and climbs in his car.

I settle myself on the lounge in the caravan and make a cup of tea. Roadside trees flick past the windows of my home as we pick up speed.
I put my earbuds in, and punch the play button on my MP3 player.
…On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again. I just can’t wait to get on the road again…
You tell it, Willie.
I tear open a packet of biscuits and smile contentedly. Ending up a bum isn’t all that bad.

 

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A Long Story That Doesn't Make Any Sense
Inspiration. Right in the Head Hole.