ernest ragman chapter 1 (2003)

Don't Call Me Dude


Twenty years old.
Twenty years old and climbing off a bus somewhere on the east coast of Australia. Byron Bay to be exact. All the guidebooks told me to come here, everyone I met. I simply had to come.
The coach pulled away, the tourists scattered. I crossed the road and went into the ticket centre, which had some chirpy name designed to hook travellers, backpackers and other fools. Bearing in mind the likely disappointment to come, I wanted to find out when the last bus left town.
Inside, between posters advising me to 'Go for it with a Greyhound 60-day pass!' and 'Climb aboard the Byron Express for the ride of a lifetime!', the desk was manned by a good-time blonde in a crisp white T-shirt. I stood with my rucksack dragging my shoulders and waited for her to finish on the phone. It was hard not to eavesdrop on her Anzac twang. The conversation was split between last night and tonight. I pretended to study the deals screaming at me from the walls. Shafts of sunlight hit the tile floor like blinding glimpses of heaven.
Eventually she put the phone down and directed her enthusiasm towards me.
"How can I help you?"
"When's the last bus out of here?"
"Which direction?"
"North I guess."
I'd been travelling north so far. If it ain't broke.
She scanned her computer screen.
"The night bus to Cairns leaves at quarter past midnight." She looked at me and her lips exploded into a smile. "But once you've seen Byron Bay, you'll never wanna leave!"
I stowed my backpack with the freakish cult member and headed into town. Towards the ocean.
You arrive in these places, on your way from nowhere to nowhere, and you don't really know what to do with yourself. You end up following a formula, finding jobs to fill your time. Little chores: sort out bus ticket, stash bag, get bearings, change currency, eat. Like travelling was supposed to be about spontaneity, sucking at the marrow of life. In between the jobs you create for yourself, your relaxation follows set patterns too. Find the ocean, drink coffee and observe it, swim in it, drink beer and observe it. So the days pass. And you crawl up the side of Australia.
You begin to wonder why you even came. I remember my father as he saw me off at Heathrow. His wave as I disappeared towards customs. Half way between a victorious fist in the air for the young man beginning an exciting journey and a final farewell to someone taking a long walk into the woods.
"Have a good time over there," he said, almost imploringly, as we shook hands. We didn't talk about how it was him who'd bought me the one-way plane ticket out here. We'd already discussed it, at length, and presumably I was meant to give it some thought during the 24-hour flight to Sydney.
I stopped outside a money change place. Chore number two. I went inside and slapped a wad of tenners down on the counter. The man picked them up and counted, teasing and shuffling with a well-practised fluidity. I eyeballed him: side parting, white shirt open at the collar. As formal as it gets in a beach town on the Pacific. He looked up, his eyes full of the strange joy Australians seem to derive from communication.
"Won't get many dollars for your pound today I'm afraid," he said. "The Aussie dollar's been on the rise for days. It's gone from being worth 60 American cents to 70 in just a week. It's ripping along!"
He beamed at me. How was I supposed to respond to this?
I managed to string something vaguely appropriate together. "Harsh. I mean good for you but… so how much will I get for this 50 pounds?"
"Let's see, the rate's 2.41, so that's double plus a bit: 120.50. Would've been a good 130 last week you see. Then take away our seven dollar charge: 113.50. Okay?"
His eyes lifted from his calculator and flooded with confusion when they confronted the frown that had crept across my face.
I took the meagre bills and returned to the bright street. Put my sunglasses on, resumed my forward trudge.
The dollar is ripping along, the pound is crumbling. Doesn't that just sum it all up? The Aussies: the happy-go-lucky beach people with their fine lifestyle and their healthy bodies. And the Brits: losers in the rain. But fuck it, I'll stick with the Brits anytime. Call me wilfully obtuse, an inbred product of the old world. But I know what I believe.
You could almost taste the heat on the street. It tasted of dust and sea salt. The town was in its grip. The place seemed stifled, like its people had abandoned everything they were doing when summer sleepily rolled in.
I paused outside one of the shops with the glare of the sky bouncing off their windows. The line of neighbouring stores also giving out glassy reflections continued as far as I could see. I imagined their progress beyond that: coiling around corners and over hills in a quest to reach the ocean. The shops' proprietors and all their wares reaching for the cool sea. In the thrift store, the unnaturally long Gola trainers in an outdated style want nothing more than to run through the surf. Next door, the '60s records in the hippyish music emporium would love to be skimmed across the glittering waves by a firm hand, not to rest until they reach deep waters and sink. The yearning lessens as you head along the line, until you reach the very last shop. Not only does that shopkeeper have the commercial boon of a seafront location, but his blue salvation is always in sight.
My vision was blurred and the sweat swam on my forehead. I was beginning to worry about my own salvation. Without further thought, I ducked through the nearest door.
It was an Aboriginal art shop. The place could've been a kebab joint for all I'd cared in my desperation to escape the sun. But as my eyes became accustomed to the shadowy interior, I picked out the strange designs I'd previously only seen in books. There were stacks of thick bright rugs, tables of wooden musical instruments, shelves of photo-journals about whiteys' forays into the desert, piles of pointillist paintings, baskets of boomerangs.
A voice came from the back of the shop.
"How y'goin? Can I help you there?"
I tensed. Here comes another individual with a pathological need for conversation, I thought.
The woman came round the desk and glided down the shop towards me, sandals swishing below long skirt. Beneath her mousy hair and lively eyes in one of those female faces that seem impossibly small, a beaded necklace hung above a loose shirt. She was too old for me, maybe in her late twenties, but you could tell she had a good body beneath her gyppo gear. Probably a pillar of the local yoga class.
She smiled inquiringly and tried to catch my eye. "You just browsin', or lookin' for somethin' in particular?"
I was tempted to ask for a donna with extra chilli sauce. Instead I waved at the bleached light outside and said, "It's a more a question of what I'm escaping from."
She laughed. "That's okay. You can take refuge in here."
Of course, it would be okay. It would be, like, totally cool. I picked up a boomerang and examined the turquoise lizard painted on its side. It was flat and simple but full of personality.
"So what's with this stuff?" I asked.
"What's with it? Well… the Aborigines believe in the spirits of nature. The Australian landscape and its animals are important spiritual symbols to them, which is why you get designs like the one you're holding there. It all relates back to the Dreamtime. They believe their ancestors walked across Australia on the Songlines, singing the world into existence. They can look at a rocky outcrop in northern Queensland or a grassy hillock in Victoria and tell you what song, what story, lies behind it."
She looked at me expectantly. I dropped the boomerang back in the wicker basket with a clatter. Her sales speel had clearly just skimmed the surface of a deep subject. In the same way, this shop was obviously a cynical exploitation of an ancient culture.
"I bet you pay them a pittance for their work don't you?" I said. "I bet your mark-up after you've bunged them some beer money is a good couple of thousand percent."
"No," she replied, an earnest expression wrinkling her features. "This is a co-operative, which means we sell the art on their behalf and take a commission. I can understand your concern though. Some dealers have treated the Aboriginal artists very unfairly, but those days are over now."
Would nothing phase this woman? She must either have been brainwashed by her yoga guru, or be lacing her herbal tea with valium. I gave up on baiting the new ager and made a bid for the exit, before she could hit me with another well-rounded opinion.
As the door swung behind me she called, "Enjoy your stay in Australia. I hope you find your own Songline!" Not a trace of irritation. Surely pickled with valium.
Squinting in the sun again, I lit myself a cigarette to help me to the beach. I had a whole stack of death sticks in my bag. So many shop monkeys here insisted on humiliating me by demanding ID, I'd eventually splashed out with the first person who'd had the decency to just serve me.
I dragged my feet along the pavement. Finally the sea came into view, a flat clean expanse at the end of Byron's jutting buildings. I stubbed out my cigarette on the wall of a homeopathic remedies centre and continued along the street, which began to slope towards the beach.
The Dreamtime. The Songlines. Kind of interesting. Maybe I would find something to sink my teeth into there, away from the Anglicised havens on the east coast. That woman though. I walked past a café called Peace & Latté. This town though.
I hit the beach. No one there was over 25. No one there had over 25 brain cells. It was like a Billabong catalogue, or a poster for The Chippendales. Young men played soccer on the sand, dreads swinging in the sea breeze and tanned six-packs circling each other in the physical game. Their floozies lounged nearby, all languorous cigarettes, aloof expressions behind sunglasses and pert breasts on show. Out at sea, a surfer was towed through the churning waves by a blue kite arcing in the even bluer sky. Fuck knows what that sport's called. Another surfer, a character with a blond goatee and unnecessarily long orange shorts, brushed past me as he hurried towards the tide line grasping his board. He had to work in Peace & Latté and this had to be his lunch break. That would be too perfect not to be true. In most places it would be too good to be true, but I could see this town was uncommonly blessed. These people's dreams had all come true. They were living out the wild fantasies of a 25 brain cell wonder.
I backed away from the sea, fearing I would be forced to undergo some kind of cool-test to be allowed in the surf. Up at the wind breaker running between the beach and the dune grass I spotted one of the few punters breaking the under-25 rule. The unevenly shaved old boy in a floppy hat lay furtively against the ramshackle wooden fence and eyed the platter of topless bodies around him. He had the look of a child checking out his presents on Christmas morning, almost confused that the world could offer such excruciating joy.
He and I were kindred spirits, I realised with a shock. We were both outsiders here. The difference was he wanted to belong - to do more than look on from the sidelines - whereas I didn't care.
I thought about it as I continued along the sand, blocking out the clichéd cries of the bare-footed soccer stars and making for the emptier end of the beach. There was a lighthouse dead ahead, standing fresh and white above the thick swathe of forest covering the hills. Australia's most easterly point according to my guidebook.
Suddenly my thoughts, echoing around my head like the sun bouncing off the ground, were interrupted by a chirpy call. "No need to look so serious mate. It'll probably never happen. Nothing round here ever does." The shrill gag had come from a brunette sitting on the near edge of a circle of people with a lager-laden esky in the middle. I diverted my course towards where she sat genially waving the neck of her Tooheys New at me. Maybe it would be okay to find some temporary acceptance here. Just to taste it. Though I knew I'd cleanse my mouth of it the following morning, when I drank from a cold stream and resumed my solitary pilgrimage into the mountains.
I smiled.
"You're right, I was lost in thought there. It's too easy to space out under a sky like this," I said, gesturing at the blue heavens. My arm looked very white in comparison with the ring of bronzed shoulders below me. "So does nothing really ever happen here?"
"Oh we make our own entertainment," she said, and raised a feline eyebrow. "What's a man with an interesting accent like you doing here anyway?"
I told her all about it, embellishing everything that'd happened since Sydney and leaving out the bit before I stepped on the plane. A few of the neighbouring bodies swivelled their heads to listen to my tale, then returned to the easy comfort of the familiar faces around them. But she listened intently, watching my profile as I turned to face her or to consider the sunny view with the distant look of someone recalling great memories. She contemplatively brushed back a strand of brown hair that had fallen down her face and on to her breasts. The sand squeaked as she shifted her weight. The rest of the circle seemed like distant islands in an ocean of conversations.
"… He ended up chasing me round town demanding I pay back the Gin I'd drunk. I gave him the slip and jumped the next Greyhound out of there. Which is more or less how I arrived here," I concluded, with just the right air of modest understatement. I was crouching beside her now. I waited for her to speak, although I knew her story would be a lot simpler. You could read it in the smile hanging between her dimpled cheeks.
"Well well," she said, then pointed at my straining knees. "You can sit down if you like."
It was going so well it had to take a sudden, rapid turn for the worse. Even in Byron. Hearing the girl's invitation, one of the characters who'd listened briefly to my anecdotes turned to us. A self-satisfied surf moron with spiky hair and an accent like a dustbin lid in a storm, he quipped, "Hey you might as well give the guy a beer and a cushion as well."
His tone was sarcastic and his voice hammered my ears like rocks thrown by an angry mob. All the girl could do was betray her embarrassment with a chuckle. I rose to my feet and bid her a cursory goodbye. As I walked away I heard her splutter, "Wait… come back…" while he murmured, "Touchy bastard."
I didn't stop though. I kept on ploughing up that white sand.
They were just a distraction anyway. I wasn't looking for company. I mean, hanging out with them would have defeated the only good thing about being in this stinking country: not having to answer to anybody but myself. If I wanted to split, I could. And I could do it in the way I chose, which was lucky because I had stuff to do. I had to… to take a look at Australia's most easterly point. Yes, that was it, Australia's most easterly point. That lighthouse on the cliff with the empty Pacific stretching away below.
I left the beach and headed up the hill towards the forest, crossing a car park where the odd person milled around a dusty car preparing to hit the sea. A guy with hair like moss hanging by a waterfall sat on the back bumper of his camper van pulling on a wet suit.
"G'day mate," he slurred.
I showed him the fire bombs in my eyes.
On into the forest. I picked up a path shimmying around the thick trunks. Apart from the occasional shriek of a cockatoo, a thick canopy of late afternoon silence covered the wood. Dust particles and shards of leaf span lazily in the beige beams filtering between the trees. It felt good to be away from the hot beach and the people on it.
I reached the top of the headland and stopped at a look out point to catch my breath. You could see around the corner and down another section of the coast from here. It looked how Thailand appears in glossy tourist brochures, as if reality had been photo-shopped. Endless beaches drifted away to the south-west, arcing like gangly crescent moons between the turquoise ocean and the dense forest. I lit a cigarette and coughed as the first mouthful of exhaled smoke spiralled away in the cliff-top wind. Another solitary observer stood nearby drinking in the scene. A beatific expression had spread across his weathered, pierced face like sunshine warming a landscape. The lobotomy: one moment of pain for a lifetime of bliss. "Join us, it's so painless," these people seemed to whisper.
Over at the lighthouse, tourists eagerly recorded the scene with a variety of lenses. The heavy clicks and smooth whirrs of optical and digital cameras echoed up and down the footpaths at the base of the silently towering building. I sat on a freshly mown patch of grass covered in conservation notices and looked on. One of the signs said you could see Dolphins leaping in the waves from there, but I was busy watching the diverse passers-by. Asian families sauntered along the walkways, English couples climbed the wooden steps, local fishermen with serious-looking rods strode towards the rocks below, a European hiker with reflective shades stopped and glugged on his water bottle. All could add ticks to their identical lists of things to see and do: Australia's eastern-most point, consumed. A middle aged Japanese man brandishing a Canon caught my eye and timidly looked away. I wondered what he thought of this land, whether it was as alien to him as it was to me.
Then, just as I was starting to relax, the girl from the beach reappeared. She was heading down the track towards me. What did she want? Would she try to make me join them? She hadn't clocked me yet but she would soon. It was seconds away. I considered diving into a bush but figured that would just draw attention. Instead I sat tight and self-consciously tried to pretend I hadn't spotted her. Seconds later she spotted me.
"Hey it's the mystery man from the beach," she exclaimed, with what was surely feigned surprise.
She flopped down next to me, all tanned arms and legs for a second.
"Sorry about Aaron earlier," she said. "He can be a bit of a wise-arse but he's okay really."
"Nah nah it was fine," I assured her, with what was surely icy politeness. "I wanted to get down here anyway."
She looked at me for a moment before shifting her gaze out to sea. The sunset light show was beginning and we had prime seats.
"I always come up here in the evening. I'm meant to be organising for a house party we're throwing tonight, but I had to come up for a few minutes. It's so beautiful," she sighed.
She was right, I had to admit. "You wouldn't see a view like this back home."
"Unless you climbed one of the mountains on Skye."
I darted her a surprised glance and she laughed. "I lived in Britain for a year, in Brighton and Glasgow."
"You avoided the usual London-Edinburgh cliché then."
"Well, I wanted to do something different…"
She trailed off and seemed to consider the fiery canvas before us for inspiration. Then added, "So I've done the whole cultural exchange the other way round I guess."
So that meant she could empathise I suppose. She knew what I was going through. Join us. I laughed.
"So do you have any plans for while you're in Byron?" she asked.
"Nope."
"Do you have any plans at all?"
"Nope."
We just sat there for another few minutes. The silence was uncomfortable now. I found myself trying to think of something to say. Why did people foist these situations on you?
She got up to leave. "Well, I guess I better get back home to help the girls set up for the party."
She looked down at me and hesitated. She seemed to be about to say something but to think better of it.
"See you then," she said. "I hope you find what you're looking for out here."
"Oh I'm sure I will. Good luck."
I watched the gentle wave of her hips as she walked away. The fires in my eyes had gone out.
Back into the forest. I charged down a steep path leading to the encroaching tide below. The trees were black lines against the flaring sky. The flaming panorama that had so mesmerised the girl and I was settling into a subtler mix of pastel shades. My thoughts were dwelling on my recent encounter and the realisations popping into my brain drove my feet forward. Before she came along I was perfectly content. All I achieved by speaking to her was doubt in my heart. The only conclusion was that other people were prison sentences. The man who could escape them, who could embrace solitude, would be happy and free.
I emerged on to a rocky part of the shore. The water crashed and fizzed at my feet. I took off my shoes and socks and leapt between the larger stones. The smaller rocks gave a tumbling crackle as the retreating waves dragged them sea-wards. Then, as I rounded a corner, I spied the beach again: a place where I would indeed be happy by myself. It was empty, apart from a few surfing silhouettes and a handful of sunset-watchers at the far end near town. The sand seemed to glow with the day's heat, and the evening tide rushed to cool and cover it for the long night ahead. I quickened my pace and soon reached the beginning of the beach, which felt like a warm, smooth blanket after the spiky rocks. There was a slight breeze, which freshened my sun-baked skin without bringing on a chill. And no one around. Once again, I seemed to have stepped into a photo-shopped postcard.
I had to go for a swim. There was no question about it, despite the advice scrawled in marker pen on the back of a signpost: "Warning! Beach becomes very crowded here. Be prepared to be super-cool!" I tend to disregard anything telling me to be "super-cool" and in any case, the scene before me was far from crowded. The nearest surfer was surely a safe distance away. I stripped down to my boxer shorts, dumped my clothes above the glistening tide line and streaked into the sighing waves.
The water had the warmth of the sub-tropics, a far cry from the sub-zero Atlantic I'd forced myself into on holidays in Britain. It calmed me like a bedtime bath and washed the prickly sweat from my body. I could feel badness leaving and goodness entering. It was that simple. I lay on my back kicking water for a time, staring at the pink-tinged clouds above and enjoying the feel of the cool depths heaving against my underside. Then I turned over and swam beneath the surface. It was too gloomy to see anything down there, so I closed my eyes and sank into the sense of floating in the dark; alone. The only feeling in my body came from the pull of the waves. I felt like a brain placed in suspended animation, while mankind awaited the scientific leap that would allow my mighty thinking machine to be shackled to a lucky new body.
All was as it should have been. Soon my lungs began to protest and I drifted up through the swish and soak to the surface. My damp head broke back into the world and I gulped the air. I decided not to open my eyes for a second so I could absorb this moment through every sense. It had to be the best moment of the many I'd found myself living through these last months. I smelt the tang of the sea, I heard the heavy racket of crickets in the bush back on land. I heard the breeze skimming the tops of the waves, I heard… a new noise. The sound of something rapidly cutting through the surf.
I was just opening my eyes when the thing, whatever it was, smashed into the side of my head, into the right side of my temple. The impact sent me whirling through the water, downing a lung-full before emerging spluttering to the surface. My system was haemorrhaging with panic. The outside world reeled in front of me, sky dashing against sand against sea. I felt like I was seeing it all through a telescope. When I gathered myself I found I was lying in the shallow water with a dull pain pulsating like an electric current in the side of my head.
I climbed unsteadily to my feet. A surfer stood nearby, his board bobbing at his feet. The obvious culprit. He unfastened the strap from his tattooed ankle and walked over, trailing his logo-covered weapon behind him.
"You okay dude?" he asked.
I realised it was the guy who'd wished me "G'day" in the car park, his thick moss hair now pasted against his skull. Despite the fact he'd just brained me, his voice was as syrup-slow as before.
"Why the fuck don't you look where you're going?" I snapped.
"Sorry dude. I tried to warn you. I yelled out but you'd gone under. Then I changed my course, but I didn't know where you'd come up. When you did come up you were so close I didn't even have time to shout."
"That's bollocks. You were more concerned with 'riding a break' or 'rolling a carpet' or whatever it is you twats call it. Do you think you own this ocean or something?"
He tried to interrupt but I ranted on.
"Just because you scribble fatuous things on the backs of signs, does that give you the right not to watch the fuck out?"
I felt dizzy and I paused to catch my breath. Silence fell for a second as he watched me gasping and guerning with his dead eyes. The shallows lapped at our feet, gently rocking the offending board lying between us.
Eventually he spoke. "Like I said dude, I'm sorry. It was a bad accident and it sounded like you took a nasty crack to the head. But you seem to be alive and in one piece, and you're saying some pretty heavy shit, so I'm gonna go back to the surf now."
He leant down to pick up his board, which lurked at his feet like the silent menace it was.
"Listen, you hippy in a wetsuit, you think you can fob me off that easily?" I stormed. "You damn nearly killed me. Most people have brains in their heads you know, and they're delicate organs."
He froze with his hand reaching downwards, then slowly bent back up and looked me in the eye.
"No you listen to me, you rude son of a bitch. It was an accident okay."
He walked towards me, his chest straining against his tight wetsuit.
"And, quite honestly dude, you have a responsibility to look where you're going as well. This is primarily a surfing spot and swimmers have to watch out for the surfers. If you don't know the rules of the water you should stay out of it. Next time stick to the beach eh dude, and work on tanning that pasty skin."
It was the final insult. Before I knew what I was doing, I'd snatched his board and I was swinging it at his head with the full force of unleashed rage.
"I don't want a tan," I cried as the torpedo hit home. "And stop calling me dude."
He staggered backwards with his head in his hands, too shocked to come out with an arrogant retort now. In a split second I was on him again. I turned the board round and used the blunt, wide end to drop him properly. He collapsed face downwards in the surf. I kept pounding and bludgeoning, thrashing and crushing. To begin with he groaned and even managed to say, "Stop, please" at one point, his words choked by water and blood. But then he seemed to just give in, and his body relaxed. I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment he became an ex-surfer, but eventually I realised there were no more air bubbles worrying the water around his mouth. My screaming blows had become methodical afterthoughts by then anyway. I was out of breath. I turned the board around again, so I was clutching the back end of the white weapon, and I threw my remaining energy into a grand finale. Standing strong like a workman and driving the board like a crowbar, I made sure his cranium would never forget me. The white nose cracked into his temple, near the point where it had hit me all that time ago. All the momentum in the blow was channelled through that narrow point. It let out a sky-splitting "crack" as the rushing hammer found its hard target. I stood back panting and looked at the object at my feet. Streaks of blood ran from its mouth, which was half buried in the seabed, and produced a growing red cloud. The long blond hair fanned out from its traumatised roots and lay atop the bloody mess, reaching into the darkening sea like fingers of coral.
I dropped the board beside the limp, useless form and looked around. The beach was empty. I hurried over to my clothes and got dressed, then started towards town. The only trace of evening left in the curdled sky was the scarlet streaks between the cool grey clouds. The night was bringing a strong wind and the seagulls screeched as they tried to hold steady above the bending palms.
Obviously it was best to leave, which was fine by me. I didn't want to stay here anyway. There were a few hours to kill before the midnight coach. I wandered up and down the three or four main streets, which were as empty in the night as they had been in the midday heat. The occasional person rushed past, pulling their hemp shirt closed against the incoming sou' wester like it was the worst disaster Byron had ever known. A drunken Aborigine sat on a bench slurring.
Deciding to follow suit and knock myself out for the long journey ahead, I went into a hotel bar. Poppy indie bounced off the wood panelled walls and buxom serving wenches dodged between the crowded tables. I sat at the bar and gazed vacantly at the music video flashing from a screen on the wall. I tapped my foot to the dishevelled band's angsty choruses - I owned one of their less commercial albums - but at the same time I found their music to be a shallow, stunted reflection of the world.
A barmaid approached.
I waved a ten dollar note at the taps. "I'll have a beer please."
"I'm going to need to see some ID first."
I groaned and reached for my wallet. It didn't matter. None of it did. It was all rather funny actually.
She handed my driving licence back. "Sorry about that…"
"It's okay. I'll have a beer, any beer."
A few lagers later, I staggered to the coach station. The steam-pressed chick was still there, her inane grin still in place after a day on the job. She was just finishing a phone call when I stepped up to the desk to get my bag back.
"You gonna tear yerself away from Byron then?" she quipped, as I placed my rucksack with the rest of the luggage waiting to be loaded on to the Greyhound.
I stopped at the door. "That's right," I said. "I guess it just wasn't my kind of place."
I continued outside and climbed on to the silently waiting night bus.