The Turning
Because I do not hope
to turn again.
Because I do not hope.
Because I do not hope to turn.
I left them Misting,
turning below.
There were no more faces
and the stair was dark,
damp, jagged,
like an old man's mouth
dribbling, beyond repair.
Or the toothed gullet
of an aged shark.
Desiring this man's gift
and that man's scope,
I no longer strive
to strive towards such things.
Because I know
that time is always time.
And place
is always and only place.
And pray that I may forget
these matters
that with myself,
I too much discuss,
too much explain.
Because these wings
but merely fans
to beat the air -
the air which is now thoroughly
small and dry,
smaller and drier than the will.
Teach us to care
and not to care.
Teach us to sit still.
Although I do not hope
to turn again.
Although I do not hope.
Although I do not hope to turn.
After five years of high school,
and leaves
as suddenly as a spring storm.
Exams, graduation,
huge beach parties.
Biggie and me, we're feverish
with anticipation.
We steel ourselves
for a season of pandemonium.
But after
the initial celebrations,
nothing really happens.
Somehow our crappy
Saturday job at the meatworks
becomes full-time.
so do the dreaded exam results.
The news is not good.
A few of our classmates
pack their bags for university
and shoot through,
Biggie and me,
heading to work
every morning in the frigid wind
in the January of our new lives.
Some days I can see me and
Biggie out there as old codgers,
anchored to the friggin' place.
Beside me, Biggie's face
gets darker and darker.
When the shift horn sounds,
he lurches away,
his last canon half-empty.
"F*** it," he says.
"We're outta here."
That afternoon, we buy a kombi
from a hippie on the wharf.
We fill the ancient VW
with tinned food
and all our camping junk
and rack off
without telling a soul.
I can't believe we've done it.
The plan is to call
from somewhere
the other side of the city,
when we're out of reach.
I want to be safe
from the guilts.
The old girl
will crack a sad on me.
But Biggie
His old man will beat the sh*t
out of him when he finds out.
I can't tell Biggie this,
but missing out on uni
really stings.
When the results came,
I cried my eyes out.
I thought about killing myself.
Biggie's results
were even worse than mine.
He'd really fried.
But he didn't have his heart
set on doing well.
He couldn't give a rat's ring.
In his head,
he's always seen himself
at the meatworks or the cannery,
until he inherits
from his old man.
He's content.
He belongs.
Biggie's not
the brightest crayon in the box
but he's the most loyal person
I know.
He's the real deal.
We didn't meet until
the second week of high school.
I was new in town
and right from the start,
a kid called Tony Macoli
became fixated on me.
That's how it started -
a single
decisive act of violence
that joined me to Biggie
forever.
If you believe him
on the subject,
he acted more out of
animal irritation than charity.
But I felt like somebody
ransomed and set free.
Biggie became my mate,
my constant companion.
Friendship, I suppose,
comes at a price.
There have been girls
I've disqualified myself from
because of Biggie.
Not everyone wants to have him
tagging along everywhere.
Right through high school,
I had occasional moments,
evenings, encounters with girls,
but no real girlfriend,
Except for Briony Nevis.
For two years,
we're sort of watching
each other from a distance.
Sidelong glances.
She's flat-out beautiful.
Long, black hair.
Glossy skin.
Dark eyes.
I kiss her once at a party.
But there,
out of the corner of my eyes,
Biggie,
alone on the smoky veranda
waiting to go home.
I don't go to him straight up.
I do make him wait
a fair old while.
But I don't go on
with Briony Nevis
the way I badly want to
because I know Biggie
will be left behind... for good.
We pull in to fuel up
and use the phone.
Biggie decides
he's not calling home,
so he sits in the VW
while I reverse the charges
and get an earful.
I hang up and find Biggie
talking to a chick
with a backpack
the size of an elephant saddle.
She's tall
and not very beautiful
and big knees.
She thinks
she's on the coast road north
and she's mortified
to discover otherwise.
I can see Biggie falling in love
with her moment by moment.
There isn't really
even much consultation.
We just pull out
with this chick in the back.
Meg is her name.
Meg is as thick
as a box of hammers.
It's alarming to see
how enthralled Biggie is.
And I just drive and try
to avoid the rear-view mirror.
While I'm thinking
about all of this,
Biggie's gone
and climbed over into the back
and Meg's lit up a number
and they're toking away on it
with their feet up
like I'm some kind of chauffeur.
Biggie's never had much luck
with girls.
I should be glad for him.
We come upon a maze
of salt lakes
in the sun.
I begin to have
the panicky feeling
that the land and this very
afternoon might go on forever.
Biggie's really enjoying himself
back there.
I slowly understand why.
There's the obvious thing,
of course -
the fact that he's in with a big
chance with Meg come nightfall.
But something else -
the thing that eats at me -
is the way he's enjoying
being brighter than her,
being a step ahead.
Feeling somehow senior
and secure in himself.
It's me all over.
It's how I am with him.
And it's not pretty.
with smoke again.
But this time
it's bitter and metallic
and I understand we're on fire.
Without an extinguisher,
there's not much we can do,
once we're standing out there
in the litter of our belongings,
waiting for the VW to explode.
But it just smoulders
and hisses awhile
In the end,
and the wiring cooked,
it's obvious
we're not going anywhere.
We turn our attention
to the sunset.
We don't say anything.
The sun flattens itself against
the salt pan and disappears.
The sky goes all acid-blue
and there's
just this huge silence.
It's like the world's stopped.
Right then, I can't imagine
an end to the quiet.
The horizon fades.
Everything looks
impossibly far off.
In two hours, I'll hear Biggie
and Meg in his sleeping bag.
She'll cry out like a bird
and become so beautiful,
so desirable in the total dark
that I'll begin to cry.
In a week,
Biggie and Meg
will blow me off in Broome
and I'll be on the bus south
for a second chance
at the exams.
In a year,
Biggie will be dead in a
mining accident in the Pilbara
and I'll be reading
Robert Louis Stevenson
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