The Same Direction
Picture a flat surface extending to the horizon, then dot it with bushes, maybe a meter high, grey as a green can be, then draw a black line across the middle, me and a shotgun-blasted speed limit sign on one side, a Coke tin on the other.
Every ten minutes a car crescendoes past, fades to a black dot in a liquid haze. I swear at the bastards and throw rocks at the Coke tin.
Until a Kingswood ute slows, then stops.
“Hop in man, throw ya bag in the back man”. His voice is all surface, a voice to sell something. He’s got a dirty red bandanna, just like in the song, and grey-stranded hair.
“Dunno where I’m goin, and sure as hell looks like we’re headed in the same direction,” he says, and he laughs.
He rolls a joint as he drives, and blows the smoke out real cool for the cameras, says he was at Woodstock, the first one, says he was wounded in Vietnam, says he’s still connected with the milla-terry by way of a pension, flashes a card with US Army written on it, with a wanted-looking photo, no trace of bravado yet, says he’d been married to a ballet dancer with red hair down to her bum, says they didn’t have much in common, sex was all, and sooner or later that wasn’t enough, says he used to deal in coke and speed, says he isn’t into that shit anymore, just weed, says an awful lot, says it loud, like the audience is more than just me, and now and then he trails off into “you know…” and a friend-of-the-devil-may laugh which says, you and me, we’re part of the same tribe and we wear the same uniform and the world is our crazy playground and we know what it’s all about, man.
I take a puff when it’s my turn, and he tells his stories, and when he trails off into “you know ….”, I can’t very well say no I don’t know, I don’t know anything, I haven’t got a clue who I am or who you are, and you’re talkin to long hair and the patches on my pants, you’re sure as hell not talkin to me. I can’t say all that, and every now and then he falls silent and looks at me from out of his eyes.
The grey green and the dull dirt roll past without limit, and when the sun is a red balloon, sinking with no strings attached, he says carefully casual, he says “man, you ever noticed how everybody in the world is a person out there, except you?”
John Revington is a freelance writer and editor based on the North Coast of New South Wales, Australia. His website is correctionalservices.com.au.
