Love and Other U-Turns Read online

  Jim has places to stay in every little town from the Western Australian wheat belt to the north coast of New South Wales, copies of his self-made DVD are burned in Norseman and handed around at parties, and truckies across the Top End have started to CB each other when they know he’s coming into town. What drives him is a feeling that there are worse things in the world than making people laugh – even if it does involve a lot of attention on our sexual organs.

  ‘I’ve had that in the mining towns, you know Lou. Nobody’s going to laugh if you get up there and try to explain all the complicated difficulties there are in the world. They’ve just done twelve hours underground, they’ve got no female company except the skimpy behind the bar, they want a cold beer and they want to laugh.’

  Inevitably after each gig he has a bevy of new friends ready to offer him a couch, a conversation or an invite to the party after the pub closes.

  ‘I’m just always surprised by the amount of time people have for you in the country. In Sydney, everyone always seems to be looking over your shoulder, scanning the crowd, looking to see who else is there. But I’d rather be out here doing what I want than hanging out in Sydney getting bitter and complaining. Life’s good!’

  The long roads are often a relief, a place where he can mentally process the last gig, prepare his next set of gags, and gear up for the alter ego he portrays when he’s on stage. And then there’s the fact that when he does perform, it often doesn’t finish until well into the night, after he’s listened to the stories of another cluster of strangers, happy to have an unattached outsider to provide a fresh ear and a different perspective.

  ‘I mean, I keep my wits about me but Australia is very safe. I don’t really drink, I don’t smoke and I’ve nothing to steal except my car so it’s probably good that I sleep in it most nights,’ he says with a happy chuckle.

  During the Grafton gig, he’s pulling out his t-shirts and people are competing to win the coveted prize. After one girl takes her shoes off a guy decides to one-up her by pulling his pants down.

  ‘We have a winner!’ cheers Jim, presenting him with the t-shirt.

  It’s juvenile and base, but everyone’s laughing and by virtue of the stage interaction, many have even felt like a celebrity themselves for a few moments. Their smiles and demeanours have changed – the laughter has given them momentary relief from the dramas of everyday life.

  When he comes off stage – which is really just moving from his spot in front of everyone at the bar, winding up the night and slowing down the energy from frenzy to closure – he walks over to me and Roger.

  The similarities between these gigs and his clown parties astound me. Like a babysitter hired to bring everyone together for fun and laughter, in these pubs the only difference is that his jokes involve sex instead of burning his bottom with a firestick. But it’s all the same – taboos which, by virtue of his jester role – he is the only one in the room allowed to voice.

  We lie in the creepy room, with the backdrop of an old man coughing and wheezing down the hall, as we talk in the night. As dizzy as I still am in love-smack-land, my old self is starting to reappear, in this environment so far out of my comfort zone I want to cry. I feel almost superficial, for focusing on dust, dirt and rubbish in the bin. I miss my bed, I miss my – things. I miss having an anchor, a place to return to. And even though I have my notebooks and pens, I miss going off on my own to write. Here, I feel like I’m wasting valuable time I could be spending with Jim. Something about this feels like it’s on a time limit. Like it’s going to end – too soon.

  ‘There’s a saying, Lou. You’ve gotta stay healthy or where will you live?’

  I look at him admiringly, a fit, trim thirty-six-year-old, with no addictions or complaints, living life on his own terms. This will be my new anchor.

  His life is so far from the materialistic culture I am used to that I feel as though my brain has been kidnapped, but like someone with the Stockholm Syndrome I’m starting to love my captor, to empathise with his values and ways. My brain dips and spins in the night, trying to reconcile my life and my city values – of nice coffee, nice wine, bubble baths, intellectual stimulation, libraries, classical radio … and this – life on the road.

  I toss and turn, unable to shake the feeling that we aren’t alone in the room. Jim pulls me closer and eventually, I drift off. In the morning, after we tiptoe downstairs, I ask the guy behind the bar if the old man who was hacking and coughing in the night is okay.

  ‘What old man? You guys were the only ones sleeping up there.’

  7

  Sprinklerville

  ‘People always try to give me stuff. But if you’re happy and healthy, you don’t really need to buy crap, hey?’

  THE SUN IN THE MORNING, ever brighter as we inch further north, deletes the ghosts of the night before and we’re planted in a new day, in another new place. My morning hunt for coffee is rivalled only by Jim’s need for the paper from whatever town we’re in.

  We pull up at a café somewhere on the coast with plastic chairs, plastic tables and little vases filled with fake flowers. I order raisin toast and a cappuccino just to get into the holiday feel, and it arrives on a floral plate, garnished with pineapple.

  As part of his touring routine, Jim always gets the paper to read before the day’s drive, forming gags and punchlines around the news of the day. We collect the Daily Telegraph, from a petrol station, and I pull open body + soul to find an article I wrote a few months ago. Jim reads my article, about the link between debt, clutter and obesity.

  ‘Lou, this is great. But my problem is the opposite. I find it hard to keep my belongings down. People always try to give me stuff. Shopping is such an emotional thing anyway. If you’re happy and healthy, you don’t really need to buy crap, hey?’

  I don’t even need to ask if he has a credit card.

  ‘The only debt I have is my car – three hundred bucks a month. And I kind of need that.’

  He’s so healthy, so fresh, so – innocent. I love the way he moves through the world greeting everyone he meets with an openness only someone with so little material ambition could.

  I’ve long believed most problems and jealousies in relationships arise from projections – what we don’t have, what we wish we had, what we don’t see we can have, or can become. Similarly, all that we admire in others is something we secretly desire to have in ourselves. I love the light way Jim treads on this earth. I suddenly have a flash, of throwing out all my belongings and being as light on my feet as him.

  My first thought is of the shelves and shelves of papers and books I own. Residue built up over twenty-nine years on earth. But I want to be free! I think, looking at Jim, innocently chewing on his toast. No debts. Not more than a few bags of belongings in his back seat. How will I keep … my business afloat? I force my two brains – outlandish and practical – to reach a truce for a while. I’ll deal with you when I get back to Melbourne.

  Although it’s only been a few days, this is the longest holiday I’ve had in years. Freelancing requires a constant eye on the bank account, future and past planning, a momentum of ideas and work relentlessly garnered which I hadn’t allowed myself to ease up on – even for a few days, until now. Suddenly, I’ve pressed pause on my momentum.

  We drive in silence, and I ask Jim, ‘Have you ever run out of money and gone hungry?’

  ‘Babe, this is Australia. Have you ever heard of anyone dying of starvation here?’

  Still, I hope we get to a town with an internet kiosk soon. I want to be able to chip in for calamari hoops and petrol for a long time coming.

  ‘Um, babe, I think I need to go.’ We’ve been back in the car for a few hours. I’m not sure where we’re headed, today. I don’t want to be annoying, and ask for details. But I do need to go to the toilet.

  ‘Okay, I’ll just find you a nice tree.’

  After a slow lap of a withdrawn section of bushland, he pulls over. ‘That one there, I think that’s the nicest
tree for you. Nice wide canopy!’

  It starts to rain, and I smell leaves, timber dust and fresh pine. He ducks out of the car to buy some oranges sitting atop a ‘trust’ box near somebody’s driveway, and tears one open with his mouth as he does a leg stretch overlooking a hill. I get back into the car, clean and refreshed, inspired by the exquisite economy of nature. And how much care he put into finding me a ‘good tree’.

  Driving from Lismore to Mullumbimby, the leaves get greener and the landscape becomes more lush. Winding down the window, the air smells like lemon and pine, almost medicinal. In the main street we stretch our legs, me less interested in the shops than the people and how they change, as we dip and weave up the coast. Here, they seem more at ease, like a version of Sydney which has relaxed its shoulders and isn’t in an endless panic about where they’re going next.

  Tonight, we are to spend the night with the couple who gave Jim his first clown party gig over a decade ago. Or maybe it was a stand-up gig … I forget.

  Adjusting to the long drives has been hard on my body; the endless movement making solid stillness feel strange. When we pull in to the tiny, silent town flanked by fields and hills, I find myself praising the wife on her choice of chairs.

  ‘They’re so soft.’ And unmoving. It’s a delight to go to the toilet and not need back-up. Here, there are lights and soap, no sinks in the hallway, no decade-old dust, and no coughing men. But after the wacky places I’ve just been adjusting to in fast-forward mutability, it feels like the real world is on valium.

  The husband doesn’t really acknowledge me. It’s assumed I’ll gravitate towards his wife for chitchat. More stupid boundaries. He tells Jim about his bricklaying business, which hasn’t paid him, and how much the tiles cost that he really wants for the back patio.

  There’s tension over the food preparation. The baby boy screams, it’s somebody else’s ‘turn’ to feed it. Jim stops giving me his lovesick looks and instead looks guilty. These two are so far from lovesick it’s like a warning ad about what happens when you get a mortgage.

  ‘So, how did you two meet?’ the unhappy wife holding the baby asks, and I toy with whether or not I should mention the word astrology.

  ‘Ah – through a friend, in Melbourne …’ I sense it would be easier to ask about their renovations.

  After listening politely to their story about a new sprinkler system, and sensing that the woman is tired, I signal to Jim that I’m ready to hit the hay. Clean towels folded neatly on their spare king-sized bed break my heart with their domestic kindness. Jim stays on, talking with his friend, and I pull out my journal and attempt to write.

  Drowning out any adventure talk with sprinklers and paving information, the night was like a blind date gone wrong with a completely inappropriate combination of people.

  The delight of being in love and in utter bliss no matter the place, time or situation mixes strangely with the ‘me’ that starts to appear now that I’m alone in the bed. Why am I in this place? Why did I just waste three hours of my life listening to someone talk about renovations and timber when I could care less and I probably will never see them again? I miss my girlfriends. I want to check my email. I want to do some work. Work is my personal sprinkler system – it’s what makes me feel I’m getting somewhere. Like I’m progressing.

  When Jim appears an hour later, I’ve been lost in my solitary discussion for so long I almost don’t notice the look on his face.

  ‘I haven’t seen the guy for three years … and he talks about the sprinkler system …’

  During the stream of life complaints peppered with slight peaks when they talked of their renovations, the couple also seemed to have kept a physical distance from each other which involved no touch, no eye contact, and only the snidest of remarks about who was going to clear the table or put their child to sleep.

  I see, for the first time, how much I tame down my own feelings and passions when I hang out with my own ‘sprinkler’ friends. And then, because I have nothing to offer in that ‘scene’, at the end of the night I am left wondering – why don’t I have a house, a mortgage and some renovations?

  But as much as hearing about the sprinkler system bored both of us, I can’t help but realise their penchant for home furnishing has given me the cosiest bed I’ve slept in since Melbourne. But if I thought Jim was ready to sleep, I’m mistaken. He’s all aflame, passionately ranting in hushed tones about why the sprinklers are the reason he left Sydney.

  ‘It was like everyone turned thirty and decided to get new carpets. I can’t get any sense out of anyone anymore. It’s all mortgages and babies and divorces and depression, so they drink and smoke and gamble and go to strip joints snorting coke while they complain that their wives or girlfriends don’t understand them … then they look at me and tell me I’m the crazy one!’

  He pulls out one of his DVDs, and puts it into his laptop. ‘Here, Lou. Can I show you something? I know you’re tired but just watch – a little bit …’

  His DVD is like a seven-up documentary about what happens when you put someone sensitive and wildly creative into the fray of the media game.

  It starts with clips of him in beer commercials (‘they always thought I looked like the typical beer-drinker’), then a current affairs show following him on a day of kids’ parties (on an average Saturday, during his clowning ‘peak’, he did about ten), to a funny short film which won an award (he plays an ocker guy who gets a Greek girl pregnant and has to marry her). In the early clips he looks clean-cut, speaks with a slightly arrogant drawl which reeks of private school privilege, and wins an award doing cute gags on talk-show TV. But then there’s a visible shift.

  The authentic Jim starts to emerge when he starts his own comedy night in ‘rough’ west comedy rooms, improvising with the untamed crowd, laughing in an unrehearsed bellow like he really means it, looking like he’s doing this for the fun of it, for nothing but the pure joy of creating other people’s laughter from his own thoughts and ideas. Then the DVD takes on an even bigger leap. He’s suddenly in the outback, chatting to a man outside a pub in Broken Hill, panning the camera across the wide, dusty earth. There are clips from towns I’ve never heard of, pubs which look like they were in Crocodile Dundee, clown shows in Aboriginal communities where the happy smiles of their teeth glimmer in the light, joyful children crawling all over the ‘funny man’. And in most of the clips from the last two years since he hit the road, he’s wearing one or two outfits.

  Dirty. Alive. Living intensely.

  ‘Lou, I made myself two promises when I left Sydney. To see the real Australia. And to make as many people laugh as I could.’

  Discovery. Adventure. I view what his trade-off for possessing things has been – he’s had experiences and seen more of Australia than most people would do in five lifetimes.

  The DVD is still playing, and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. But he begs me to stay awake for just a bit longer.

  ‘Just watch this bit, Lou. This is when I went to Coober Pedy.’

  He films himself walking into an underground house with an old man drifter he befriended at a gig. ‘Got no bills, Jimbo. Live under the earth, just pay a hundred bucks in rates a year. Long as I’ve got that covered I can eat prawns every night if I want to!’ he cackles with laughter.

  ‘Do you miss Sydney?’ Jim asks.

  The man chuckles and shakes his head, stirs something on his stove and rolls a cigarette. ‘Send me a postcard of a traffic jam!’

  The silence in the man’s cave echoes graciously in the background.

  Watching Jim morph from the footage of just four years ago, when he’d been a slick urbanite, into a soulful wanderer who wears the same t-shirt for three years, makes Aboriginal elders laugh and gives most of what he has away on a regular basis, I’m hit with a wave of sadness, because I know why I’ve met Jim. He’s going to show me how to say goodbye to it all, too.

  It all, suddenly, seems inevitable. I’ve always wanted to feel alive, to lov
e madly, to see what really matters and not get caught up in useless trappings.

  This sprinkler night has crystallised how similar our values really are. His look of horror and shock when he emerged from the living room reminded me of something I was taught once, in an acting class, years ago. Define the biggest fear of your character. Therein lies their motivation.

  ‘What’s your biggest fear, Jim?’

  ‘Not doing – or being – what I love.’

  I fall asleep in his arms, the outback footage merging with my dreams and when I wake, I think I’ve got no belongings either, except my body, lying here in this space.

  Jim hasn’t got another gig for a few days, and we need a break from the social interactions inherent in sleeping in other people’s spaces, so we just drive. The trees and landscape ask nothing of us, but reflect our sense of peace and freedom, a sense that something is growing and changing, silently, from deep within.

  As we drive further and further inland, the flat fields become lush hills and valleys, until we don’t know where we are anymore. We stop in Nimbin for a tofu burger and wander through the museum, fielding offers of hash cookies.

  A sign catches my eye:

  ‘What will matter when you die?

  How many you loved How willingly you braved How much you let go …’

  Tears fall down my face, and Jim draws me tight, knowingly. It grows dark, so we pull into a place called Woodenbong, at the foot of a lush rainforest. The air is sweet, crisp and moist with ions. We book a room in the hotel which looks like an old hall from the outside, and there’s a horse grazing softly in a paddock at the back door. I take him an apple, happy to share a private conversation with this being who asks nothing of me.

  We’ve forgotten about meals again for the day, and at only nine o’clock, everything is closed, so I buy some broccoli and dip at the service station and bring it back to our motel room, where we eat our ‘supper’ in bed.

  ‘This is good, Lou.’ Jim eats the raw broccoli enthusiastically, like I’ve cooked him a Sunday roast.