I sat with my legs spread out in front of me, resting my weight on my arms. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was the best I could manage.
She stood barefoot on the grass, with harsh red lipstick, dirty face, unkempt hair, drunk off bitter bands. Glad to be exactly where you are is a dying luxury afforded to the peaceful. The rest of us live in the right lane, the lane for speed addicts. I left with chemical speed. Nauseous acceleration showing disregard for life, lights strobe and flicker, epileptics breakdance in the backseat, the lipstick on my collar stains, I camouflage it by spilling wine, I swerve into the white light that fills the windshield, I swerve back, the lipstick isn’t noticeable now.
Her bare feet are on the dashboard. I fall into the creases of the skin on her dusty feet. The dirty dry back roads lead to nowhere, but it’s safer than taking the paved government-paid blacktop, and we’ve got nowhere to be.
“This is a crisis”, she yells before letting out a scream. I turn to see, she’s asleep, the backseat is empty except for the crushed beer cans and spilled ashtrays.
The right lane is nothing but the horizon, rearview mirrors are dead. Everything else is possible, everything else is Lasseter’s reef. Gold, always visible on the horizon, always going in the same direction at a teasing pace.
I keep waking up to the car slowing down. Every time I shut my eyes, she tries to sneak to the shoulder, I always wake in time to catch her. We belong in the right lane; convertibles remind me of open caskets. It must be nice, I’m the chauffeur to empty seats and forgotten people.
“There must be more drugs,” I say it out loud. I put her in cruise and checked the glovebox old receipts, unpaid parking fines and an empty CD case spilled onto the floor. I climb into the back, emptying bird feed tobacco onto a CD case to try to put together one more cigarette, some joy, the paper explodes, and I blaze a trail through an open window for miles. I drive through the great kangaroo holocaust, the unforgiving outback highway, without time to mourn the dead.
Where is she?
Where are they?
Where is the nearest pub?
A car passes me with Queensland plates. One of the northerners leans out the back window and shoots the carcass of a big red roo, bloated from the hot sun, the blast sends blue and purple confetti into the sky, then falling onto the road, tinting my windshield, mood lighting for white knuckle driving.
The wine tastes like old ink, it smells like old ink, it intoxicates like the written word. It hurts to drink; the hangover lasts for years. The road melts, tired rubber, looking for grip, keep a grip, lose control.
I park and can’t find the handbrake, in front of an old weatherboard pub, the sign is older than so-called “Australia” flags hanging from the ceiling. The Union Jack, Eureka Stockade, a White Ensign, signed by sailors, all the boys were here in 2010.
A topless woman pulls drinks, her breasts rest on the bar as she passes cold glasses, mainly made up of head. A group of men play pool in the corner. The green felt is covered in dried ring marks, tobacco ash, and the familiar deep maroon of aged blood.
I find refuge in uncomfortable surroundings. More alcohol it reminds me of the road. I pass roadsigns’ naive recommendations, issued to myself and fellow motorists. I haven’t spoken to another person in days, stopped in hours. I sold her radio for some fuel some ways back; she cannibalised herself to survive.
She lurches forward, running into no man’s land, empty-handed, ready to pick at the dead, ready to picket in line, ready to run on empty. All her gauges are red. The right lane is chemical, chemical, chemical speed. I move all the mirrors so I can only see me, no distractions. I start pulling faces. All of them are different. All of them are mad, been mad, love mad.
Dirty roadside diners plagiarising American sentiment stand like lighthouses on angry black oceans, skinny blonde girls lure old thick truckers with sirens to service them and their machines.
I should stop, but I don’t. I hit the gas right foot, right lane, Lasseter’s reef. Street signs have two arrows, one mind, one name, then there’s a whole lot of desert. I should pull over. I’m starting to sober up. There isn’t anything out there. I should buy land close to where I grew up build a house, pave a driveway, I don’t want to park in the mud again. Children might be nice, gotta get married.
She stood barefoot on the grass with harsh, red lipstick, dirty face, unkempt hair, drunk off bitter bands. I wasn’t comfortable, but it’s all I can manage.
.
Antonio Montaine is a rhythm poet whose style is shaped by the pulse of Jazz and the edge of Hip Hop. His work dives into social and political issues, carrying both urgency and groove. The son of immigrant parents, Antonio grew up in the western suburbs of Melbourne (Naarm), and those roots shape the stories of culture, struggle, resilience and belonging. His voice reminds us that rhythm itself carries history, memory and movement.
