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Every weekday morning Coral, Annie, Sian, Herbert, Cecil and Treebranch met and discussed their drug problem before going to work. (Treebranch had been trying to change his name back to John since he stopped being a hippy, but nobody ever took any notice.)
They talked about how they were heroin addicts and how long it had been since they'd used, and how determined they were to stay off. Occasionally one of them would say they had a craving for the drug and all the rest would get very serious and talk them out of it. But they never took much talking out of it because none of them ever really did want it very much. They were more addicted to being ex-addicts than they'd ever been to the drug itself. In fact, they'd all been quite relieved when they had an excuse to stop sticking needles in their arms, as none of them had enjoyed it very much and they only carried on because they thought the others would think they were wimps if they stopped. And now, being ex-addicts took up more of their time and energy than being junkies ever had.
The big difference of course was that they were now respectable members of society. If, before, they'd left syringes and bent spoons lying around they wouldn't have been acceptable to most people. But now they always made sure visitors to their homes would notice they were ex-addicts. There was always a black book with "NA" embossed on the cover in curved gold letters somewhere in a prominent position, waiting to be noticed. And they spent several hours a week readin approved anti-drug literature, while they poured caffeine into their mouths and sucked highly corrosive, nicotine laden smoke into their tarred-up lungs.
But that was OK. When visitors noticed the "NA" books, they could tell them "i used to be a junkie, but now i'm reformed." And people thought they were interesting and didn't check to see if their wallets were still there. Of course it wasn't quite as satisfyin as having a good big whack of heroin every day, but it was a lot cheaper - as their flashy cars and well furnished homes testified. In short, they were born again yuppies.
Then, when they'd finished their meeting, they'd all go off to work. This wasn't a major effort as they were already there. The six NA members and the six staff of the local paper, the Goonabah Goonah, were the same people. And as no-one else ever came to the meetings, they'd been holding them at their office for the last seven years or so.
So NA had been a major part of their lives for the past eight years. They'd all given up together when the paper they'd started as a joke began to take off and make money. And they'd all stayed off together with the help of their daily ritual. But no-one else had ever been interested. No-one else had ever been to a meeting.
It had made them sad at first, but they'd got used to the idea that in a town where half the population were junkies, they were the only ones who had ever wanted to give up. In fact they'd come to prefer it that way. It made them feel better than the rest. They felt different, special, but most of all superior. Of course, they would never know that in that time a couple of dozen other people had quietly, but succesfully given up heroin, without the need to turn the fact into a religion. And if they had known, they would have dismissed it by saying "oh, they'll be using again. Without NA they never stay off for long."
Anyway, today was different. There was a tense excited feeling hanging over the group of six as they waited for the meeting to start. The excitement was mixed with apprehension at the prospect of a disruption in their cosy eight year old morning ritual. There was going to be somebody else coming today. The first new member ever.
Someone had phoned yesterday to ask about meetings and was due to arrive any minute. This could be their big breakthrough, the start of a mass conversion to NAism. They would be recognised as the leaders, as prophets, as saviours who had led a wayward town back to the path of righteousness by their persistent devotion and never ending dedication to the truth.
And what, you might ask, was that truth? Well, that didn't matter really. It could be something like "NA saves" or "heroin kills" or "you shouldn't take drugs - you might enjoy it" or "respectability is better than being an outcast". Or maybe all those put together. But it didn't really pay to think too much about it or you might come to the conclusion that there was no truth. And that was the sort of realization that makes people take drugs in the first place.
"Here he is!" one of them whispered. And a nervous looking man walked into the office. The nervous-looking people sitting in a circle welcomed him and introduced themselves.
"I'm Anton." the newcomer said, sitting now on the seventh chair, totally throwing the office out of its usual six-person order. "I need help!"
"Well you've come to the right place." Treebranch said with a smile.
"What's the problem?" asked Coral gently.
Anton looked around him, beginning to wonder now why he was here. It was very definitely a newspaper office with front pages of the paper stuck up all around the walls. And it seemed like a very strange setting for an NA meeting.
The three men and three women sitting in a circle staring at him all looked friendly, but the didn't really look like his sort of people. They were too well dressed for a start. And they were obviously middle class - not that he ever held that against anyone, but they did look like the house and two cars type. "Respectable" and probably married. In fact, they looked like three couples at a dinner party. He was right on one thing - the three men were married to the three women. But he wasn't at a dinner party.
He mentally shook himself and got his mind back onto why he was there. "I used to be a heroin addict." he began.
They all frowned. It was well known to NA members that you never USED to be an addict. Once an addict, always an addict. That ridiculous belief was they mainstay of their lives. And their religion. Without it they would have been lost in a purposeless existence. But they were too polite to say anything - it was his first time, after all.
"I've been clean for about three years now." he continued. "But since i've been in Goonabah, i've started feeling the craving again." They all nodded sympathetically, in unison. "This town seems to be full of heroin users!" They smiled, knowingly.
*-*-*
"What does the paper's name mean?" Anton asked before he left. They had just spent an hour sitting around talking about how bad drugs were and all it had done was make him feel more like a hit than he had before.
"Oh..." Treebranch mumbled, as he opened the door for Anton. "We sort of prefer not to talk about that."
"Why?"
"Well, when we started the paper, we were all drugged-out hippies and we chose the name as a joke." He paused, not really wanting to explain, but feeling he had to. "Goonah's an aboriginal word meaning 'shit'. It's where the name 'Goonabah' comes from, but not many people around here realise that. So it sort of seemed appropriate. Unfortunately, once the magazine had really got established and we'd come to our senses, it was a bit late to change the name and now we really regret calling it that in the first place. None of us can stand it. In fact every time we see the name anywhere, we suffer terrible agonies of angst..."
"What?" Anton had never been able to work out what that word meant.
"Angst!" Treebranch repeated impatiently. "But of course there's not much we can do about it."
"Oh well," Anton decided it was definitely time to leave. "see you later."
"See you tomorrow?"
"Er, maybe..."
*-*-*
"Mind if i sit here?" The Starlight was full, as it usually was this time of the morning.
"Nah, help yourself." the man already sitting at the table said.
Sally sat down, frowning slightly, and stared pout the door at the sheet of rain that was still hanging from the awnings. She felt vaguely disturbed, although she wasn't quite sure why. Anton had got up early, mumbled something about having to see someone and gone. It was a bit strange, but she didn't think that was why she felt like this.
Maybe it was the rain. It never seemed to stop. Not even for and hour or two. It had been raining almost non stop since they arrived and it was definitely beginning to get on her nerves. But she didn't really think that was it either. Of course it could have been all sorts of things. She was a very long way from home, after all.
"What's the matter sis? You look worried." She shifted her attention from the rain to the man sitting opposite her, who'd just spoken. He was grinning, and the white of his teeth stood out in contrast to his black skin. He had long dark hair and a beard, and he was wearing a red, black and yellow "land rights" shirt.
"Oh, nothing really." she replied. "I don't know..."
"Jimmy." He held his hand out for her to shake.
"I'm Sally." she said, shaking his had across the table.
"You english?" he asked.
"Yeah, i've only been here a few days. Are you an aborigine?"
"Murries, we're called around here, sis. What you come here for? They're all crazy in this town."
"Yeah, i'm beginning to get that impression!" Sally replied, smiling now.
"I'm from Nurrebil. That's the next town, other side of the hills over there." He gestured towards the north. "Mostly blackfellas there. I come over here now and then to have a laugh at these crazy gubs!"
"What's 'gubs' mean?"
"Gubs... gubbahs... migloo... You know. You fellas."
"Oh." Sally thought she understood, but she wasn't quite sure she got the exact meaning of the word. "Is Nurrebil in queensland?"
"Nah sis, it's in our land! The queen can get fucked. No offence, sis, i know she's your queen and that."
Sally shook her head. "Not mine!" She laughed.
"You english fellas must be sick of that mob eh? The queen and all them. They bin ruling you for two thousand years now eh? They only bin here two hundred. And we've had enough of them already!" He laughed loudly at this. Sally wasn't quite sure how to take it, but she felt comfortable talking to Jimmy, and she laughed too.
"So you reckon everyone here's crazy, do you?" she asked him.
"Yeah, of course, you only got to look around you. They're all on drugs and alcohol all the time. Now my mob, we don't use any of that stuff. We don't need to, we got the dreaming. Alcohol and drugs just cut us off from it and that's no good. Our people never used to drink alcohol like your mob do. Only the old fellas used to drink.
"The trouble with your mob," he continued, "is you've got no connection with the land. You don't know your history and you got no culture." He paused. "I don't mean to offend you or nothing sis."
"No, that's alright, go on." Sally was really interested in what this man had to say. She sensed that from him she was getting a glimpse of another australia, completely different from the one she'd seen so far. The real australia, not just a cheap european imitation.
"The colonizers tried to do that to do that to us too," Jimmy went on, "what they done to you. You know, take our culture away. But the land here is too strong for their european minds, and it didn't work. We've still got that. Sure, it can be hard work keeping it and some of our people have got a few problems and do turn to drink and drugs sometimes. But we know where we're going. That's more than you gubs do!"
*-*-*
"G'day Anton!" Yota looked surprised to see him as he walked along the platform towards her. It wasn't quite so crowded as it had been the day they'd arrived, but it seemed to be filling up rapidly. "What are you up to?" she asked him as he stopped and stood beside her, checking out the rest of the crowd.
"I was looking for you." he said. This wasn't strictly true. He'd really expected to find Rafa here, but it didn't make any difference. He felt a powerful nervous feeling welling up inside him as he stood there surrounded by all those people. It was a feeling he hadn't experienced for a long time and he was beginning to enjoy it.
Yota looked at him questioningly, her blond spikey hair going flat as she stood in the rain. There wasn't enough room under the shelter for everyone on the platform and Yota had been too late to squeeze under it that morning. The pupils in her green eyes were the size of dinner plates and Anton wondered how much of a habit she had.
"I wondered if you could score for me." he asked her nervously.
"Score what?" She thought she knew, although it surprised her, but she wanted to be sure.
"Heroin." He lowered his voice, although he was quite conscious that there probably wasn't anyone on the railway station who didn't use the stuff.
"I thought that was what you meant." She smiled, "I didn't know you used."
"I haven't for three years, but i just went to an NA meeting and it's made me really feel like it!"
Yota laughed. "That lot would make the pope feel like a taste! How much do you want?"
"Oh, i don't know. What quantities does it come in here?" Anton was puzzled. It was a long time since he'd bought any heroin and it had been in a completely different country. He had no idea how it was sold and how much it cost here.
"Tell you what." Yota said, "don't worry about it. It's your lucky day! Me and Rafa'll shout you a taste. Guess what?" She smiled.
"What?"
"Me and Rafa..." She dropped her voice to a whisper, "found a thousand dollars yesterday!"
"Where?"
"Outside the bank." Yota whispered. Just then the bells on the level crossing began to ring. "It was all in twenty cent pieces." She raised her voice above the sound of the bells. "A great big bag of them. Right bang in front of the bank. Just lying there in the gutter. We just grabbed it and ran!"
"Really? That's incredible!" Anton laughed at the vision of those two running down the main street of Goonabah, in the pissing rain, carrying a heavy sack of coins between them, and the bank tellers standing outside scratching their heads.
"Anyway, we weren't going to get on today, but since the money fell from heaven, we thought it would be bad luck not to start spending it. So you can celebrate with us."
The ageing red train chugged into view round the bend in the railway line and Anton stood there watching it, remembering how only a few days ago he'd been arriving on that same train.
So much had happened in that time. He'd gone from a passenger on the train to one of the strange crowd of people that stood huddled in the rain when he arrived. Almost a welcoming party it seemed. He would certainly have paid them much more attention then, if he'd known he'd be one of them now. But things never look the same as the first time you see them. Now he knew what the crowd was there for. He was there for the same reason today. But it still didn't quite make sense. The railway station really was a bizarre place to go to score heroin. But then this was a very bizarre little town!
*-*-*
"I honestly thought i'd never do this again!" Anton said, tearing open the wrapper of a Terumo 1ml disposable syringe.
"Well, we all need some kind of mystical ritual in our life, don't we. Something that shows us there's more to life than what we see around us." Yota was leaning over a blue plastic medicine spoon and mixing some of the white powder with water, using the plunger from one of the syringes. "For some people," she continued, "it's religion. For others it's drugs. Better the needle than the chalice, i reckon! Only certain drug users get persecuted more than others. Got a filter, Phil?" She looked up from what she was doing.
The three of them were sitting around a table in the small dark kitchen where the bus was parked. A stove, a sink and a small blue formica table were crammed in there, with just enough space for an old green-painted cupboard with one door missing. Rafa was waiting in the bus with Rainbow and Caradoc until the other three had their hit. Then he'd come out and have his turn.
Phil pulled out a little strip from the filter of a cigarett and handed it to Yota. They'd met him at the station and Yota invited him back to hit up in the kitchen with her and Anton. She rolled the bit of filter into a little ball and dropped it into the liquid in the spoon. Then she poked the needle of a syringe in it and began to suck up the mixture of smack and water through the filter. Anton felt tense and nervous as he watched her perform this familiar ceremony. It had been a bloody long time.
"Yeah, it makes me sick." Phil took up what Yota was saying."The way alcohol users are not only allowed to do it in public, they're encouraged to. While we have to lock ourselves in this dark little hole so no-one can see us."
"But alcohol's not as bad for you as heroin really, is it?" Anton said, watching Yota divide the liquid up into four syringes.
"Get real mate!" Phil replied emphatically. "Alcohol kills a lot more people than this stuff. And the only reason why this stuff ever kills anyone is because it's illegal and the strength varies so much. Apart from that there's probably not a lot of difference in the side effects."
"I reckon heroin's not actually as bad for you as alcohol. And when did you ever hear of anyone getting aggressive because they'd taken too much smack?" Yota laughed and handed Anton one of the four syringes. "Here you are, i put a bit less in this fit, as you probably won't have much of a tolerance any more."
"Thanks." Anton took the cord from the electric jug and wrapped it twice round the top of his left arm. "I hope i can still do this!" He laughed nervously. The noise of the rain on the tin roof of the kitchen seemed to get louder, and completely engulf the three of them as they concentrated on sticking the small steel spikes in their veins.
"Shee-it!" Anton groaned, as he pulled the needle out of his arm. "That's better!" He felt the rush of the smack hitting his brain and that familiar taste at the back of his nose. And suddenly the world was a different place. It was a place he'd left three years ago, and he'd almost forgotten how much he'd liked it. He closed his eyes and leaned back in the uncomfortable upright chair. Then he leaned forward, putting his arms on the table and resting his head on them, so he could feel more relaxed and enjoy the feeling of being stoned again.
"Sorry Anton." Yota said slowly, in a low voice. "We've got a rule here. No nodding off before you've cleaned up. We don't like leaving used fits lying around. Specially with kids about."
Anton sat up again and smiled a vacant relaxed smile. "Yeah," he said, "sensible."
*-*-*
"Mmmm... This is more like it!" Anton mumbled. They were all slumped on the back seat of the bus, feeling comfortable and relaxed. "What was going on at the station, anyway? I still didn't quite catch the set-up."
"It's simple." Phil answered. "The guard on the train's the local smack dealer. There's actually four of them working together on this line. They bring it up fresh from Sydney every day."
"Oh, the guard, was it? I couldn't quite work out who was dealing..." Anton said slowly, with his eyes shut and his head leaning on the back of the seat.
"Yeah, Goonabah's one of the few places they do actually deal straight off the train. Most other places they supply one person, who sells it to everyone else. The whole thing was set up as a co-operative by half a dozen users around here, years ago. They got sick of the lousy quality of the dope and all got jobs on the railway. We get the cheapest street deals in australia now!"
"It's funny some days," Yota cut in. "If one of their regular customers is late out of bed or something, they'll keep the train waiting till they turn up. One day it stood in Goonabah station for over two hours, waiting for one of their oldest customers, who has to come down from the hills. It turned out she couldn't get to town at all because she was flooded in up there. So they ended up getting the cop to drop it up to her in his four wheel drive, under some pretence that it was an urgent parcel or something! It definitely helps to wear a uniform sometimes, even if it is only an SRA guard's uniform!"
Suddenly Anton's heart began to beat faster. The stoned haze cleared a bit from around his head and he sat up, trying to open his eyes fully. Sally walked up the aisle of the bus with a puzzled smile on her face.
Anton had stopped using smack very soon after they'd met. He'd been thinking about kicking the habit for a while, but falling in love with Sally had made him more determined to get off. He'd never told her he used, but something she'd said one day made him think she was anti heroin, and she was more important to him than the drug at that time. It hadn't been easy, but then it wasn't nearly as hard as he thought it would be, either. And after a month or two, he had no desire to take it at all. Now and then, he'd wondered what it would be like to get stoned again, but it never bothered him enough to find out.
And now here he was, out of his head. How could he handle talking to Sally like this? He was sure she'd notice.
What a drag, he thought, all that worrying about Sally had brought him down severely. That warm cozy glow that had surrounded him before had begun to recede. He still didn't feel straight, but he wasn't quite so outofit any more.
"What have you been up to?" He sounded quite relaxed as she sat down on the seat beside him.
"Oh, not much." Sally replied, putting her feet up on the seat in front and leaning on him. "Just sitting in the Starlight."
Anton began to feel more relaxed again as the pleasant touch of another body was amplified by the heroin in his bloodstream. He put his arm around her and kissed her on the side of her head.
"What about you?" she asked, relaxing into his embrace.
"Oh not much." he told her, feeling a lot less tense about the whole thing now. But then suddenly, without meaning to, he found himself saying "Just hitting up heroin!"
"What?!" Sally sat up straight and put her feet down on the floor. "Are you joking?" She looked hard into his half closed eyes, trying to see if he was bullshitting her or not. But she knew straight away he was telling the truth.
Oh fuck! thought Anton, why did i say that?
*-*-*
Sally was shocked and completely thrown by this new turn of events. First the journey had been a nightmare. Then no Max. And now this. Anton using heroin! She knew all about what junkies were like and there was no way of avoiding becoming one once you started taking the stuff. The thought of being married to a junkie was awful. Before she knew it, he'd be stealing her money, hocking her jewelry... and probably robbing banks. She could just imagine having to visit him in jail. It would be a nightmare.
But why did he have to start now? Why did it have to be here? Life was almost impossible as it was, without this. She suddenly decided to go back to england. It just wasn't worth it, staying here, living in a bus with a group of junkies. She realized now that the other three were junkies too, that was probably why Anton had started taking it. They'd probably pushed it on him. With kids around too! It was enough to make you sick! She couldn't stand being around them ay longer, so she got up and walked out of the bus, leaving Anton staring after her in dumb, stoned surprise.
But she couldn't go back to england, fuck it! She had no way of raising the fare. It wasn't as if it was just a short bus trip away. She really was on the opposite side of the world. There was a whole planet between her and home. She felt like crying, but she didn't. Instead, she stomped angrily along the road. Oblivious to the pouring rain. With no idea at all where she was going.
Maybe she could go and live in Sydney and earn the money to buy a ticket back to england. It wouldn't take long. A couple of months, maybe three.
But the more she thought about it the less attractive the idea seemed. For one thing, what would all her friends say? She'd gone to australia to live. How could she turn up back in england so soon after, because Anton was a junkie? She'd feel really stupid. And anyway what was she going to do there if she did go back? All she'd wanted to do for the last few years was get out! And she knew it would be worse than it had been before. She would find it much harder to handle after escape had been snatched from her grasp like that.
She could always go somehwere else, of course. But where? That's what she had been trying to work out all that time. Where else was there she could live and would be allowed to work, that she'd want to go to. The choice was very limited. There was holland, but she'd tried that. It was too close to england and the climate was too similar. Italy had a better climate, but no hope of getting a job. The south of france was similar. And that really was about the limit of the places she could easily go and work. Anywhere else was all but impossible.
She felt really angry with Anton for having done this to her. Why did he have to fuck up her life like that? Just when things were looking up.
"Well, for a start," Julie said, putting her coffee cup down, "Anton can only fuck up your life if you let him. It's your life, after all. You're the one that has to take responsibility for it."
Sally had walked around in the rain for over an hour, getting more and more upset about the situation. Then she'd bumped into Julie, who'd dragged her into the Starlight and made her talk about what was on her mind.
"And regardless of whether or not Anton taking smack is going to be a problem for him, it can only be a problem for you if you allow it to be. You're not dependent on him. You ccan survive quite well on your own!" Sally didn't look too sure, but she did begin to feel better, having someone sympathetic to talk to.
"And the other thing," Julie continued, "is you're overreacting severely to Anton using heroin. From what you say, he's only done it once, and it's possible that he'll never do it again. He's certainly not an addict! But even if he does carry on using, it's probably not going to cause any problems at all.
"You smoke grass, don't you?" Sally nodded in reply. "And you drink alcohol too. Do those drugs cause you any problems?"
"No." Sally answered, confused. "But heroin's different."
"It's not really that different Sally. Alcohol is probably more dangerous than heroin. It certainly kills thousands more people every year, in this country alone. Millions more all round the world. And grass is certainly not harmless either.
"And this stuff..." She pointed to her coffee cup, "probably does you as much physical damage as smakc does. Maybe more!"
Sally didn't want to accept this, but deep down she knew Julie was right. It didn't make sense. She knew why she felt so strongly about heroin. She knew why she felt it was evil, but at the same time that alcohol, grass and coffee were OK. There was a reason. She just wasn't prepared to give up that belief so easily.
"It's just your conditioning." Julie told her. "It's what THEY want you to think. They want to control you, and one of the oldest and most effective forms of social control is making people believe in the concepts of 'good' and 'evil'. And to do that, you have to have examples of 'good' things and 'evil' things to show them.
"In the old days, it was done by religion. There was 'god' who was 'good' and 'the devil' who was 'evil'. And going to church was good and having sex outside marriage was evil.
"But nowadays people don't go to church. We've finally seen through all the lies and bullshit that comes from the pulpit. So they've had to think of other things instead. Drugs is just one of them. There is no such thing as a 'good' drug and a 'bad' drug. They're all just inanimate chemicals. It's possible to use all drugs in ways that are good for you at a particular time, and in ways that are bad for you at a particular time. And some drugs are good for some people, and some drugs are bad for some people. But universal 'good' and 'bad' are pure lies."
"Hmmm" Sally was finding it very hard rejecting Julie's arguments. "I'll have to think about that one. But it's really good talking to you about it. I feel much better now. I'm sure i can sort it out somehow." She paused. "Fancy a beer?" she felt almost embarrassed asking this after what Julie had just been talking about.
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