for Shane, Danny, Jasper, Norby & Gary

(i) Brisbane

It was the season of Hamlet. Circa 1990.
The two Danes took to backyard cricket,
but were mesmerised by Mad Max. Even
opened a themed nightclub in Copenhagen;
all leather pants, Sigue Sigue Sputnik hairdos
& jap motorbikes - took it that one step further
bush-beating through the forest on weekends
in souped up dune buggies dressed as 'Wez' &
the 'Lord Humungus'. One, a Fabio look-alike
reconstituted himself in a Bowen Terrace share
house as a big dinger, some berserk Thommo
armed with an SS that snicked chances into
a cherry sunset; the Storey Bridge molten.
The other was all out pace - a Lillee stylist
carving aerial runes through the sandflies
& mozzies which earned him the moniker,
'Paceman' Norby, honorary quick, master
of reverse swinging the taped up tennis ball.
They came to Australia for the cultural space,
but ended up as extras on A Current Affair -
some investigation into the poor living conditions
the six or eight Chinese exchange students
endured with them, (it was so Praise) newspapers
spread over bedroom floors like Tiannamen
Square flagstones. The last great textual tragedy.

(ii) Bundaberg

The Danes didn't take to Bundy rum or Wayne's
first time out of home. Thought about running
his army green Datsun 180Y station wagon off
the Bruce highway; these Viking road warriors
obsessed by Kennedy Miller's vision of post-
ragnarok Australia swamped by gasoline cults.
It came to a head when Wayne a 'gun' picker
try-hard, cut back down everyone's rows, zucchini's
bristling at knife point. His private esky of food
& refusal to cook didn't go down well either,
so Gary & the Danes plotted revenge. A simple
plan; eat his chow. After a headlock & a walk
through hot coal, Wayne exited next morning,
his living away from home adventure lasting
all of one week. Gary must have attracted it.
He got into a fight in some trashy nightclub,
his straw hat bravado & put on gay voice too
much for the cane farmers, distillers & small
croppers to stomach. The Danes stepped in
when things got wild, Norby's faux martial arts
& Gary's imitation Commando throws more than
a match for the townies' rum soaked king hits.
But goannas, rather than rednecks freaked out
the Danes; anything that fucking huge should've
been in a museum; thigh bone socket black eyes.

(iii) Bowen

Right from the word go they knew 'SuperYob'
dominated the Harbour Lights Caravan Park club.
This 7ft tall Kiwi fruit picker/self-appointed security
guard patrolled the grounds on a BMX, adjustable
spanner in his jeans pocket in case the 'Peeper'
tried to perve on the 'Canadia' chicks again. Gary
pitched his inverted A-frame tent, claustrophobia
rife as sexual politics, the Danes slept in their XC Ford
panel van; together they picked under ripe tomatoes.
Jasper found an aboriginal axe-head time-panned out
of the black soil & kept it; authentic Aussie memento.
Norby stole his akubra, pocket-knife & bowling action.
Bikers, Chinese & European backpackers sweated it out
for a $1.20/10-litre bucket. Crop dusters ejected poison
onto fields, illegal workers, green tomatoes rounded up
& gassed. Commando was 'SuperYob's' favourite film too,
so he & Gary got on famously, quotes & beer a common
room currency. Ate kangaroo meat fried up on buses;
they were all natives of somewhere; hungry for living.
Anyhow, after a drunken party someone woke up dead,
a yobbo sunk to the bottom of the pool: see Human
'creepy-crawlee'. 'SuperYob' led the inquiry by local police,
managed the homicide investigation. It was time to go,
the park rent fascist, tomatoes finished. Before detectives
arrived, Harley's chugged off & Chinese wisely vanished.

(iv) Muttaburra/Hughenden

This was a mini-Odyssey set amongst Western Queensland's
epic poetry. Two split from the pack & made a last Icarus
fall here almost, against the sun (or was it Hughenden?)
Hopping freights from Townsville to Charters Towers
(pre burnt down hostel infamy) they picked a vacant cattle
train, slept on dried cowpats & woke up fragrant as India.
Hitched a lift with the mail run & dropped off 50 clicks
from nowhere down a semi-desert highway in °40 heat,
they built a sapling tepee by the roadside & watched
DPI cars & shire council water trucks ease by.
There was something slightly more threatening
than Muttaburrasaurus which grazed cretaceous.
It was water, or the lack thereof they had taken,
1.5 litres rain gauge evaporated, ran out in minutes,
the signs were desperate: Mt Isa reworked - Help! Please!
But they weren't alone for long; black kites zoomed
in - first a pair pull focused, then a stereoscopic chorus
formed to pick bones clean from this 'tower of silence';
to borrow from the Parsis' tradition, the birds were up
for a taste of neo-Zoroastrianism. But after four hours
salvation motored by, then stopped & reversed back up
the highway: a silver Daihatsu hatchback & two bronzed
Cockney angels touring. Now a cramped Gemini capsule,
the girls had a rendezvous with Darwin. Deathcheaters,
they thanked Charlies' Angels & International Rescue.

(v) Mt Isa

It was a dream to some…a nightmare to others.
There was something Excalibur about pulling metal
out of stone. This was an MIM town, bauxite capital.
Red Mars in a nutshell, the final frontier. Ambushed
by sprinklers & canetoads - coastal migrants too,
they slept one dewy night on a football oval, then
dressed in their best chequered flannelette, presented
themselves for inspection to the Mines' 'Personnel'.
Only to be told, 'fill out these forms & come back in
two weeks.' The recession we had to have - put jobs
on hold. No wind lifted the Banana Republic's flag,
unemployment topped 11%. Inflation, not vultures
stripped the meat from the Emperor's new clothes.
John, ten years assassinated sang in pre-digital heaven.
There was only one thing to do, the boys packed up,
slipped thumbs out of holsters, jettisoned John Sayle's
Matewan vision. Passed over dry river beds inhabited
by second class citizens, who already owned degrees
in joke monetary reform. On the outskirts of the Isa
they caught a lift with 'Mud' - a true 'warrior of
the wasteland', who identified his major muscle
groups & years spent pumping iron. A cross between
Albee Mangles & Big John Stud, he shared his joints
but was paranoid of running out - of fuel not grass,
so they bought gasoline for this 'Lord Humungus'.

(vi) Cape Tribulation

Perhaps they were women who ran with dingoes?
Up from Cairns, true north's capital, they nicknamed
these two the 'Hiking Whores from Hell'. Hitching
to Cooktown for a weekend of expense free fun, Celtic
tattoo whorls covered arms, shoulders, navels, sacrum.
They sat around a beach bonfire, drinking, smoking
sucking in Cape Trib. An Aussie feral, dreads sapling
long, falsified a psychotic episode, blamed Vietnam?
Blackened a wedge of Johnny Walker's best aluminium,
pretended to slice wrists open & bolted into mangroves.
Yelling about 'gooks' coming to kill him, no one gave
a shit about his tantrum, the girls pissed themselves,
"Fuck what a mong!" Then a German 'student' tried it on,
the 'Hiking Whores' deflated him too; his sad eulogy
broke the Southern Cross's crystal-night; "no style no
class this is not my country!" Girls yawned with boredom.
Next day after trudging for kilometres up & down
the coastal road's white gravel vacuum, they hitched
a ride with a bloke & his son, who, all of thirteen
was driving the Nissan. It wasn't the underage driver,
beer drinking or excessive speed, but a flatulent blue
dog that burned memory's fat. The Bloomsfield's
high tide put an end to it, the 4x4 stalled crossing
its brown carapace. They bailed, didn't interpret
the signification - 'Estuarine crocodiles swim here.'

(vii) Cooktown

They saw the 'Hiking Whores from Hell' one last time
in a Cooktown pub, shooting pool against some locals.
(Crocs never took them, the 4x4 winched to freedom.)
'Got a place to stay', downed the boys sculling heavies?
'Yeah sure, we got a hundred places to stay if we want, they
saluted. Their fate was a restaurant's concrete shell,
half-erected near the Endeavour River's viper mouth,
& midnight bust by the owner who'd sussed them out.
After green ants had dreamed their poison on some
Methodist Church lawn, the cricket oval beckoned,
but was pitch invaded by locals. The boys ended up
sleeping under an 8ft statue of Captain James Cook;
their potted accommodation, bronze/post-colonial.
Caught & grilled a black tropical fish for breakfast,
but lack of funds (they had to get back to Brisbane
to put in their dole forms) & rainy season's onset
ended the Cape York expedition. Things got wet
& desperate, folk bunkered down, sheet iron spat.
The way out was Aussie Post; country people still
communicated through the inland route's sealed
bitumen envelope. It was paradise lost, this coastal
spot where Cookie holed up, cut down trees, repaired
his ship & took on fresh water. Now, only his golem
remains & a green armband view of history, of a guy
who named things off the top of his head.

(viii) Home

Jasper & 'Paceman' Norby were never seen again, Cairns
their last known position; jungle devoured them? Perhaps
they truly found a new home, marauding through a desert
wasteland - two, Sidney Nolan paintings or a pair of Burke
& Wills, they live now in hitchhikers' memories & a few
Kodak stills. Wayne returned to his real 'bedroom' & kept
it closely guarded; he's now a 'gun' dealer in ecstasy,
his competitive streak welcome. Gary, on his way to Bris-
Vegas conjured up snakes, but got a lift from a guy who
propositioned him instead. Of the others unmentioned
by name so far…Shane commandeered a freight train's
cargo boat & rowed through Ayr, the captain of his fate.
Danny who stooped at Cairns, returned for 'love', but
mostly for sex, as he was the only one getting some during
their attempted conquest. 'SuperYob' is probably in jail.
'Mud' opened up his own gym in Townsville & beefed up
Australia's defence force. The 'Hiking Whores from Hell'
after entering Far Nth Qld Amazonian folklore, retired
with husbands & a deep sea dive operator's license.
The German 'student' was really Boris Becker. Captain
Cook was still in the history books when they last looked.
& finally…Baldwin who continued on south, to pick apples
at Batlow & start writing stuff down. Well he, in another life
was picked up by Ivan Milat, this was all very innocent,
but then again, some ideas take root.