Hazza leans against a veranda post, drinking a malted milk, his hat brim pushed up, smiling into the sun. He is young. Across the road a three- legged, one- eyed Labrador goes car to car outside the takeaway, hedging itself to a tyre with a back leg propped to the rubber, gently as a sculptor’s finishing touch, passing on its memories. It manoeuvres its way up four concrete steps, tosses down on an old sleeping bag, and begins to lick itself clean of any crime. “What are you watching”? the foreman comes out of the shade, having stocked the ute. “Just an old dog marking his grades for tomorrow” Hazza muses, as the boss looks puzzled. “C’mon son, we’ve got to get over the range to the flat for the next job, and those cattle aren’t waiting for no-one, especially your learned friend over there.” They pull out of the side road, meander over the highway, head west into the set, the rest of the crew in a separate vehicle, close behind, each car playing a different mix. Led Zeppelin, Keith Urban, Bee Gees, and Ed Sheeran break cover into the late hour; the evening taking in the outreach of human folly.
The Warrambungles crouch, a tenon into the skyline, the hidden waterways within, animals and tourists, witness to a carefree waiting silence. The travellers road changes to National Park, then bends south towards the plains. The mountains now lit by a moon too big for the horizon; the air so clear you look into forever. There are few lights on the land as they descend – the car music swapped over for radio. Only Classic FM makes it this far, and there is no phone signal to penetrate country. “Find something else, that’s putting me to sleep, maybe we should have gone through Cobar, but we’d end up in a blue with the drillers.” Sam answers his own questions as Hazza fiddles with buttons, gives up and puts on a CD of greatest love songs. “Jesus H it’s only you and me, find something to keep driving by”. A mist clears, an owl swoops its presence, things call out the noises of being and ending, the headlights behind dim to cellophane, losing shine in some dust. Sam winds the window up, “That’s done the trick”. The nocturnal wild closed out, a loud music within.
The five have eaten and spread out around the fire. Their dogs yap an interest. John asks Bob what he’s reading and in answer he holds up a tattered Womens Weekly. “Mysterious as the Sphinx, you are mate”. Frank rolls on his side, “I’ve got this old Zane Grey from the job on the Diamantina if you want.” John declines, “I thought the only ones left of those were in detention centres, juvi, and prison.” Frank is not offended, “Higher education is not for everyone.” Hazza on his back watching the stars lets the banter pass over him. Sam takes his chance, “You wanna get the big red book out, tell us how old Cromwell severed Charlie’s head again H, it may as well be used better than ballast.” He shakes it from the rucksack, the Sources of English Constitutional History, as the collective groan paces and drops. “This is the world here you know, what good that’s gonna do us”? still John leans over. Later, Hazza sits up, the heavens in brocade to magenta swirl, the earth howling out of a quaking quiet, a tremor before he can speak. In the east, cities crumple as the Pacific withdraws to curl.
James Walton Poetry 