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Anton grabbed the rest and they both ran out the back of the building. Throwing the tools on the rear of the ute, they jumped in and John drove off as fast as he could without making too much noise. Luckily there was a series of narrow lanes nearby and they managed to turn a few corners before the cops got to where they'd been.
"Fuck! That was a narrow escape..." John rested his head on the steering wheel when they stopped at some traffic lights a few blocks away. "Good job you spotted them or we'd be in deep shit now!"
"Yeah, it was just luck i stopped and had a look out that window." Anton replied, feeling mildly shaken, but nothing like as bad as John looked.
"I can't handle this sort of stuff any more!" John said. "After a while, your nerves begin to go on you. I'm getting too fucking old! Let's go and have a beer..." "I've got to get out." he said when they were sitting in the pub. "I've had enough ... I need a break." He looked really depressed and much more shaken than an almost-brush with the cops should have made him. He was obviously getting towards the total burnout stage, Anton thought, that some older junkies seem to go through. The combination of too much smack and the stress of constantly having to take risks to get the money for it, seems to get to them quite severely sometimes.
"Where are you going to go?" Anton asked, with mixed feel ings about John leaving. He'd enjoyed working with him and he realized he now had a bit of a habit to support. It would either mean stopping using or finding some other source of income. Either way would be a drag.
"Up the coast." John replied. "I've got a mate who lives on a hippy commune up there, who i can go and stay with. Do you want to come? It would be good to have someone else to drive."
"I dunno..." Anton pondered this new alternative. "Maybe. When are you going to go?"
"Tonight. I don't want to stay in this shit hole of a city any more!"
"It doesn't take much to get you going, does it?" Anton laughed. "A,small encounter with the cops and you're Off ..."
"I've been thinking about going away for a while now. Sydney's been giving me the shits. This is just the last straw really. It's and evil disgusting place He paused. "Are you going to come or not? I'm going now, i just want to get the fuck out of here!"
Despite John's urgent need to get out of Sydney, they didn't end up driving across the Harbour Bridge till well after midnight. There was all sorts of things to do - the most important being selling some doors and scoring enough dope for the trip. Once they'd scored and John was stoned again, a lot of the urgency went out of his need to leave. Then he decided they should sell some of the deal they'd bought, as they had a chance of making some profit on it. This meant going back to score again and then, of course, having another small taste. By the time they left, Anton was beginning to wonder if they were really going to go at all.
But as he watched the lights of Sydney disappearing behind them on the other side of the bridge, he realized he was actually getting out of the place.. He wasn't even sure how long he'd been there. Was it three weeks? No, must be more than that, he'd been working with John longer than that. Four then? Five maybe ... Oh well, it didn't really matter anyway. "I'm going to Goonabah." he said, the decision slowly forming itself in his mind. "I've been away a long time now... I think!" He laughed.
"I wouldn't mind going there." John said. "I've heard a bit about the place but i've never been there."
They drove past the tv towers and on, out into the featureless expanse of the northern suburbs, which seemed to go on endlessly. But finally, Hornsby was behind them and they really were out of Sydney at last. The expressway shot quickly by under their wheels as they drove through what must have been a really spectacular landscape before that tar-and-concrete scar was mercillesly carved across its face. They drove past great cliffs and vast expanses of forest that they couldn't see at all because it was dark. And on and on and on into the night.
Anton took over driving about halfway to Newcastle, but he was so stoned and tired that at first he felt worried about whether he could do it or not. He eventually got the hang of it and by the time they'd stopped and had a cup of coffee, somewhere near Kurri Kurri, he wasn't feeling too bad. But it didn't last long. Lack of sleep and the drug got the better of him, so they stopped at Coolongolook and slept in the car.
John was still asleep when Anton started driving again, about an hour after it got light. He didn't wake up till Anton stopped at Taree for breakfast.
"Let's go and have a shower." John said, after they'd eaten and drunk a couple of strong coffees."There's a caravan park up the road. We can have a hit there too."
"Jeezus! You're a fiend for the stuff!" Anton laughed. "I 'm still stoned from the last one." But he had another blast anyway - it's hard not to when you've got some on you.
"Your turn to drive." he said quietly to John, as they sat on the wooden bench in the shower block, feeling the rush from the smack wash over them like waves in the ocean.
Kempsey crept slowly closer, the kilometres on the signs dropping gradually as they drove. The distance fell from triple to double figures, and then gradually to zero. Time seemed to stand still for Anton. He still wasn't used to the vast distances between towns in australia. A long journey seemed to be just one endless stretch of road, broken every hour or so by a small country town. But by Kempsey, they'd made five hundred kilometres since leaving Sydney, so they were obviously getting somewhere. Coffs Harbour was next up on the road signs, and their destination wasn't very far past there.
*-*-*
"Where ya going" to mate?" John asked as the hitch hiker climbed in.
"Grafton." the man replied quietly.
"Uh! I hate even hearing that name!" John said, pulling away from the side of the road. "Why's that?" Anton asked, surprised at the strength of the feelings John obviously had about the place. "I spent six months in the 'tracks' in Grafton jail." he answered bitterly. "It's a fucking nightmare of a place."
"What's the tracks?"
"Intractables' Section. Where they put you if you won't play their fucking petty games. They've closed it now, thank god, but i was in there for six months before they did. They don't let you have anything, no clothes, no bed, no blankets and it's freezing fucking cold. And they come in every day and give you a real good flogging ... Bastards ...".
No wonder you're a bit of a mess! Anton thought, but he said nothing and they just drove on in silence for a while. All absorbed in their own thoughts, and watching the cars and trucks fly past.
The hitch hiker seemed a little spun out by what John had said but he just sat there, staring ahead of him through the windscreen.
*-*-*
The "hippy commune", as John had called it, seemed a bit like an alternative suburbia, compared with the rough and ready style of living of most people in Mainline. But it was pleasant enough, and the people were friendly. Most of them didn't seem to be hippies at all, although they could have been once, Anton thought. It was quite a big place, and only a short walk away from the beach. That was where they went almost straight away, to wash off the dust and sweat of the long journey and to finally get the city out of their heads.
Anton walked along the beach naked, amazed at how long, clean and deserted it was. There was nothing to be seen for miles, except sand, ocean and trees. He'd never been anywhere quite like it before in his life. There, you could really believe you were out of the mind-numbing, energy-sapping clutches of civilization. There wasn't a building to be seen anywhere. Not a sound to be heard but the crashing of the waves on the shore. He was still spun out from the journey, the drugs and the last few crazy weeks in the city. But he felt a relaxed calmness quickly entering his body and mind.
After a while lying in the sun on the warm sand, they walked back to where the houses were to try and find John's friend, who hadn't been around when they arrived. But she still wasn't there, so they decided to wait in her house till she came back. "House" isn't, perhaps, the best description of where she lived. It had a roof and walls - five of them - but it was more like a shed than a house.
"I gave her most of these windows." John said, putting a pot of water on the bottled-gas cooker to make some tea.
"There's enough of them!" Anton replied, looking around at the inside of the place. At least half of each wall was made from old windows, all different types and sizes. Some were curved at the top, others were made up of lots of little panes of glass and a couple even had stained glass in them.
"I found the stained glass ones in a half derelict house." John continued, seeing Anton looking at them. " I could have got a bit of money for them, selling them. But Lorraine wanted them, so i let her have them. She was down in Sydney at the time. That was before she started building this place."
"Have you known her long?"
"Yeah, a few years. We used to live together, but she stopped using and decided to get out of the city. So she came to live up here. She definitely didn't want to stay with me when she wasn't using!" The expression on his face was half smile, half grimace.
They waited around for a few hours, but she still didn't show up. Eventually John decided to go for a walk around the community and see a few people he knew. And maybe track down Lorraine. Anton couldn't be bothered going with him. He wasn't feeling in a particularly sociable mood. And, anyway, he felt like a break from John as he'd spent well over twenty four hours contiuously in his company.
Once he was on his own, he relaxed a bit more. He picked up a book and started to read. It had a brightly coloured cover and looked interesting, but he couldn't concentrate on what he was reading so he put it down and walked outside.
It was a beautiful evening. A gigantic orange sun was just going down behind a clump of banana trees with big bunches of fruit on them. He could just faintly hear the sound of the ocean in the distance, when the cicadas had a break from their loud, demented chirping. It was one of those rare moments of peace and calm, when you can feel close to nature and a long way.away from the material worries of the world. A kind of meditation takes over your consciousness and the usual uncontrollable stream of thoughts stops racing around inside your head.
It had been like that sometimes in Mainline. But Anton didn't remember ever experiencing anything of the sort in england. In spain, maybe. Sitting on a hillside in the Sierra Nevada mountains outside Granada, at this time of day, he'd felt a similar feeling. And maybe in an isolated spot on a greek island too. Possibly Paros, he couldn't remember now. But so far in his life, they were rare and isolated occasions.
Smack could have the same effect sometimes though. Maybe that was part of its attraction - and alcohol too. For most people who live in the city, it's the closest they get to this type of feeling. Anton realized then, that survival in the city without some kind of drug was virtually impossible. He felt glad he'd left Sydney. Maybe when he got back to Goonabah, he'd stop using. For a while at least...
And that was a strange thought for Anton. In the past, whenever he'd thought of stopping using, it had always been for ever. And he'd failed so many times. Maybe this way he was being a bit more realistic. Stop for a while and if you don't start again, great. But if you do, at least you won't give yourself a hard time and feel bad about it.
Lorraine didn't come back that evening, or the next day either. No one else knew where she was, but they all thought she wouldn't be away for long. John and Anton made themselves at home in her house and enjoyed the relaxation of being out in the bush. They went to the beach a lot and just generally wandered around doing nothing. They had almost finished the smack they'd brought with them and were trying to spin it out as long as they could to put off the inevitable withdrawal.
It had to come soon, as there was no possibility of getting any more around there and neither of them had any intention of going back to the city just yet. Of course, Goonabah was only three hundred kilometres away, but they both felt it was time to dry out - and near the ocean was a good place to do it.
They'd just had their last hit, on the morning of their third day there, when Lorraine walked in. Although they'd barely felt it, because there hadn't been much left, she knew straight away what they'd been up to. And she didn't seem too pleased.
"I've asked you before not to bring junk here, John!" she said, after she'd been introduced to Anton. "You know what it's like when you're not using'..."
"Yeah ... We just had a last little bit. That's the end of it now.
"So i suppose you've come here to make my life a misery while you hang out, have you?" she added, a bit less seriously. "Lorraine's rehab clinic, is it?"
John shrugged. "Got to do it somewhere. And i'm sure it'll give you pleasure, watching us suffer!"
"You're dead right mate! I can't wait!" She laughed now, the tension broken.
*-*-*
Although the fresh air, the ocean and the beautiful surroundings helped to lessen the effects of drying out, Anton was still surprised by the severity of the sickness he went through. It's not until you stop, that you realize how much of a habit you've got and Anton wasn't expecting it to be so bad. He was lucky really, as he didn't usually suffer from the depression that withdrawal often brings. That didn't come till later. But the physical symptoms were bad enough without it.
It had been a long time since he'd experienced this particular sickness and he'd forgotten how much he hated it. He was totally exhausted for several days, unable to even walk to the beach without having to stop a couple of times for a rest. His guts were painful, and shitting half a dozen times a day didn't help them. But night time was the worst. He would have happily accepted double the daytime sickness in exchange for the night's agonies. He barely slept partly because he just couldn't and partly because when he did manage to start dropping off, his legs kicking violently of their own accord would bring him fully back to consciousness. He would lie awake at night feeling total insanity coming rapidly towards him. But in the morning, after finally getting to sleep for a few hours, he felt much better - partly from relief that the night had ended.
John seemed to be suffering severely from depression. Mainly, he just lay in bed, sleeping or reading, and not getting up till late afternoon. When he did get up, he wasn't in a a good mood and just walked from place to place in an agitated manner most of the time. Anton didn't have very much to do with him over those few days. They were both happier to go through it on their own and not be reminded constantly by each other of how they felt.
But it didn't last long - about four or five days really and it wasn't all bad. Anton enjoyed the time he spent on the beach and swimming in the ocean. He met a few people he liked, and spent a lot of time sitting around drinking cups of tea and talking to them. It was an interesting place, although for, some reason he didn't feel like putting much energy into getting to know it. And there were a lot of interesting people there - who it didn't take much energy to get to know. Soon after the sickness was over, he decided it was time to move on. He'd begun to miss Sally - and Goonabah too, surprisingly and it felt like time to carry on with his journey back there. John, almost grudgingly, restated his interest in going with him and Anton hung around for a couple of days, waiting for him to make a firm decision. It seemed to be taking him longer to dry out and his depression didn't appear to be lifting at all, so Anton didn't want to put any pressure on him to move. But eventually, he began to get frustrated and one day he told John he was going to go.
"If you want to come, come. But i'm getting itchy feet and i'm heading off tomorrow anyway." he said one evening as the sun went down behind the beach. It was windy and the crashing of the waves was louder than ever.
The next day, John decided he would go. He seemed to cheer up a bit at the prospect of leaving and Anton was glad he wouldn't have to hitch after all. But, as usual, it took John most of the day to get moving. He had to see people. And do this and that. And just wander vaguely, aimlessly around in between times. They got away before dark though, and the first thing they did was stop at a pub.
*-*-*
"Where is everyone?" Anton asked Zara when he finally walked into the house in Mainline. "Phil's gone to Sydney." she replied, "And Sally's gone to Happy Christmas. She left this morning with Julie."
"Where?"
"Happy Christmas. It's some sort of commune out west of here."
"And Phil's in Sydney? That's funny. When did he go?"
"A couple of days ago. I think it was partly to see you, as no one had heard from you for so long. Didn't he find you'?"
"No, we left over a week ago." Anton answered.
What a drag! he thought, feeling a bit confused now Sally wasn't there. He hadn't been expecting her to go anywhere. Hadn't really thought about it in fact. He was glad though that she hadn't been just sitting around in Mainline waiting for him to come back or something. He hadn't particularly wanted to see her until recently Sally and smack didn't seem to go together very well, and he'd been more interested in the drug than in her. But now he wasn't using any more, he really wanted to see her. And she'd gone. Fair enough, he thought, but what bad timing, just missing each other like that. They spent the next couple of days in Mainline, just sitting around the house or outside on the verandah. They spent most of the time talking - to each other and to Zara and Alien. John told Anton about his time in prison, which sounded to Anton like a pretty horrific experience all in all. Although it seemed to have had its funny moments. He spoke about his days as a bank robber and the times when he had more money than he knew what to do with.
Zara and Alien were still doing the pirate radio and Anton and John went with them a couple of times to change the tape in the transmitter. But apart from that, nothing much was happening.
Anton didn't feel very inclined to go into town though. He knew if he did, he'd see at least a few stoned people around and he was worried about it making him want to use again. He also didn't want to encourage John to get back into it, partly for his sake and partly because he knew that once John started using again, he'd start too. But going into town was inevitable and he couldn't put it off for ever. So it was with feelings of unease that he climbed into the back of the ute, a couple of days later, for the trip to town.
As well as his worries about drugs, he was also vaguely nervous about seeing Muz again. Their relationship had been quite intense in Sydney, but he didn't know what it was going to be like here. They'd never spoken about it before Muz left and he wondered if she'd want to carry on with it the same way as it was there. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about it now, here. He really liked her, but he didn't know if he'd be able to handle relationships with two women - especially at the moment. And he didn't know how Sally would feel about it. They'd both had relationships with other people since they'd been together, but that was in London, where they'd both felt more together generally. He knew Sally had been feeling a bit lost at times since they'd been here, and he felt pretty disorientated a lot of the time too - when he wasn't stoned, anyway. It was just too complicated.
They drove back down through the hills, along sections of road that were in much worse condition than they'd been in before he left. Zara had mentioned there'd been a couple of heavy floods, which made the road to town totally impassable - both at a time when there was not a speck of food left in the house. Presumably that was what had ripped the surface apart. Eventually the hills began to draw back, away from the road, and they came into the valley where the town lay. Along the last straight section, past a few farms and then the sign saying "Goonabah. Population 1635. Elevation 125 metres." Then the town began and from there on, the road was lined with houses right the way to the main street.
There weren't many people in town that day, for some reason. It seemed much quieter than usual. But Anton remembered that some days were like that. Strangely, it was never the same day of the week, so it was hard to work out why it was. John parked in the main street and Anton and Zara jumped off the back and walked into the Starlight.
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