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

are no longer wings to fly

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,

the final November arrives

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.

And then Christmas comes and

so do the dreaded exam results.

The news is not good.

A few of our classmates

pack their bags for university

and shoot through,

and suddenly there we are -

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

has bigger things to fear.

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

a salmon netting license

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,

and mostly I don't regret it.

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.

Well, maybe she kisses me.

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

with long, shiny brown hair

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.

But I'm totally pissed off.

We come upon a maze

of salt lakes

that blaze silver and pearly

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.

The kombi fills up

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

as the sun sinks behind us.

In the end,

with the smoke almost gone

and the wiring cooked,

it's obvious

we're not going anywhere.

We turn our attention

to the sunset.

Meg rolls another spliff.

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

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes