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Sheena was fairly tall with long multicoloured dreadlocks and a crazy kind of stare that came into her eyes now and then. She'd just sort of drift off - sometimes in the middle of a conversation and stare, wide-eyed into the distance, maybe through a wall or a person. Then, suddenly, with a slight shake of her head, she'd be back again and involved in what was going on. She could drink like a fish when the mood took her, although some days she didn't touch a drop. But when she did drink, she got completely smashed and she always went out wandering around the city late at night.
Gaz was more boring. He was short, with cropped dark hair and a constant three or four days beard growth. His brown eyes darted back and forth, all over the place when he spoke to you, occasionally meeting your gaze for the odd second here and there. He was into politics, which he took seriously - too seriously for my liking. He called himself an anarchist and he was constantly out doing poster runs and fuckknowswhat. And when he wasn't, he was sitting at home talking about politics to anyone who'd listen. If you could drag his attention away from the subject he was quite alright, but it wasn't easy, and he usually came back round to it sooner or later.
Apart from them, there were Linda, James and Mary. I'd met all three of them when they came to stay in Mainline one time, and again in Sydney a few months later. All three of them had been quite heavily into junk then, but nowadays they hardly ever touched it. They played together in a band called Desecration - a sort of modern punk band, with strong reggae and hiphop influences. We went to see them one night when they played at a pub just down the road from the Lost City, and they were really good.
So these five were the ones that were around most in the house. But there always seemed to be at least three or four other people kicking around the place. Friends, lovers, political activists, musicians - some almost permanent fixtures, some just popping in and out. There were also occasional visitors who seemed to be lost. They'd just wander in the open back door and sit in a corner. Maybe they'd talk a bit if they could get someone's attention, maybe not. They never really seemed to be visiting anyone in particular and nobody seemed to know who they were, but no-one hassled them and eventually they'd just wander away. I found it a bit disturbing sometimes, but the others hardly seemed to notice.
One amazing thing about the Lost City was the number of bicycles that were crammed into the hallway sometimes. Bike riding had reached such epidemic proportions that the front room had been totally abandoned to storage of the things. It looked like someone was holding a bike auction in there. But still, at the times when this mechanical invasion was at its peak, they would overflow into the hall, almost blocking access to the rest of the house. You had to be really careful if you came in after dark - there was barely enough space to squeeze through sometimes and your ankles could get very sore from kicking the pedals. It had its benefits though - if you wanted to go anywhere in a hurry, there was always a bike to borrow. I don't think i've ever been anywhere else, apart from Amsterdam, where so many people ride bikes.
The house itself was great. You know the way some places feel comfortable and others feel distinctly disturbing? Well the Lost City was definitely on the comfortable side of disturbing - although it did have a bit of a strange atmosphere now and then. It was a good place to stay - despite the crazy road junction outside the door, with its heavy traffic day and night. Being just on the edge of the city, it was handy for pretty well everything. A short walk down Elizabeth Street and you were at Bourke Street, which is more or less the centre of Melbourne. About the same distance got you to Lygon Street, where you could sit at one of the dozens of tables lining the pavements and have a strong cup of good coffee. I never really liked Lygon Street too much though. Everyone's always too well dressed and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Probably the best thing about the area was having Victoria Market so close. There you could get fresh fruit and vegetables cheaply most days. So there was never a shortage of food in the house.
The first few days - until the novelty wore off - i spent quite a bit of time sitting on the grass in the middle of the roundabout. I liked to really feel the shock of being back in the city after spending a while in the bush. And sitting there, it was about as strong as you could get. There was a constant stream of cars roaring round, from Flemington Road to Elizabeth Street, from Royal Parade to Peel Street, coming from whoknowswhere, on their way to somewhere else for whoknowswhatreason. Every now and then this would be broken up by the heavy metallic rumble of a tram on its way to Coburg or Airport West, taking its exclusive route through the middle of the roundabout.
Sitting there, i could look straight down Elizabeth Street and virtually see the whole of the city spread out in front of me. The tall buildings, anyway. Melbourne from this angle mysteriously takes on a very strange character. There's something weirdly disturbing about being that close to the city centre and just sitting there looking at it. It doesn't look real any more - it suddenly seems like a set from a low budget science fiction film. Like it's meant to be a city on Mars or something. This effect is really exaggereated on those days - which come a bit too frequently in that city - when the smog concentrates and drops a thick haze over the whole place.
So i sat there for hours staring at that hideous concrete growth, with cranes and half finished towers, trying to make sense of the strange feeling it produced in me. Trying to work out why it looks so bizarre. But it never really made any sense and i gave up even thinking about it after a while. Then i turned my gaze the other way, and spent some hours sitting and staring up Flemington Road. There's something almost artistic about four parallel tram tracks running down the centre of a long staight road, flowing in waves over the small hills on the way. Not quite artistic, but almost.
It's sad really, eh? But that's about as close as you get to that sort of feeling in Melbourne. It must be the least visually interesting city i've ever been in. And i've been in a lot of cities in my time! There's absolutely nothing eye-catching about anywhere i've ever been to in Melbourne - with two possible exceptions.
St Kilda is pretty well Melbourne's city beach area and it has got a certain charm. Maybe charm isn't quite the right word, but it's got something. The view over Port Philip Bay is interesting - it's almost a lake, but it's a bloody big one and the first time i saw it i thought it was the ocean. The palms are a nice tacky seaside touch too, i suppose.
And then there's the view from the Westgate Bridge. Nothing particularly exciting to see, except the hills in the distance, but anything viewed from that height looks different and interesting.
And that's it, i'm afraid. That's all Melbourne's got to offer in the way of things to see!
But if Melbourne's completely lacking in character as a city, its people are quite the opposite. They're all crazy - but in a good way. They're usually good for a laugh - unlike Sydneysiders, who take themselves much too seriously. And the Lost City mob were no exception. It was just like being back in London sometimes, everyone just sitting around abusing each other and really enjoying it. I hadn't laughed so much in ages. It was like a competition sometimes, to see who could come up with the best insult. Leaving your victim lost for words, with no insult to top your last one, was the height of good manners in this crowd.
*-*-*
Cab driving in Melbourne is a particularly crazy occupation. I was working twelve-hour night shifts, five nights a week, which didn't leave much time to do much else apart from sleep! And score, of course. For this, i was making a bit over five hundred dollars a week.
It took about a fortnight to get into the swing of the job, as it's not quite as simple as it might seem. Firstly there's the radio to get used to - this was where about half my work came from. Along with this, you have to learn where the radio ranks are - these are taxi ranks dotted around Melbourne, which your particular company calls work off for the local area. If you're the first car on that rank, you get the first job in that area. Then, of course, when the radio goes dead - about midnight or one o'clock - you've got to know where to go to find a few fares to keep you busy for the rest of the night.
I always started off in the city at the beginning of my shift, as that's where all the work is at that time of day. And after the first job, i'd go straight back there again for a second one. This was the worst part of the shift. It was generally fairly boring as you're taking office workers and businesspeople home from work - and they're not the most exciting people around, specially at the end of a days work. This was also the time when the traffic was worst and a taxi driver stuck in a traffic jam can easily turn into a derangedd monster. On top of this, up till eight o'clock, you're charging the lowest tariff, so it's the worst paid part of the shift too.
But the magic hour of eight o'clock comes round quick enough and you flick your meter over to tariff two. Suddenly the job seems to take on a whole different perspective. You're moving faster, your meter's moving faster and most of your fares are on their way out for the evening. They're happy, they feel like talking - and, surprisingly enough, they've often got interesting things to talk about.
This is the most unpredictable part of the shift as well. You never know where you're going to end up. Well, i suppose that goes for the whole shift really, but after about midnight, most of the work tends to be in certain areas. While the radio was still fairly active though, i'd always go and sit on the nearest radio rank to where i dropped off the last fare. Unless this was Toorak (i won't take passengers from rich areas if i can help it), Doncaster or Chadstone (both of these are in big shopping centres and i can't handle the mindless panic those places seem to produce in people - mainly me!) So this way, over the course of an evening, i could follow a route that might go something like: City to Mount Waverley, Glen Waverley to Malvern, Glen Iris to Rosanna, Heidelberg to Thornbury, Thornbury to Preston, Preston to Essendon, Niddrie to the City, City to St Kilda and so on. A totally formless, wandering route all around Melbourne. Other times, i'd end up in a particular suburb and work around there for hours, doing local jobs. Or maybe i'd find myself unexpectedly coming back to the same place again and again, as if by some gravitational pull - and then the next night it would happen again, only with somewhere quite different.
That's the great thing about taxi driving, it's totallly unpredictable. And you certainly get about a bit. As well as that, i got to meet a lot of really good people. I suppose i'd always felt at heart that ninety percent of the population are fuckwits - don't ask me why, but i think a lot of people feel like that. So it came as a bit of a shock when i started driving a cab and found that i liked almost all of my passengers. Of course, you get the odd bigot, racist or bore now and then, but on the whole i was stunned to discover that-so many people ar really alright. I had a lot of interesting conversations with people and sometimes i was sorry to see them got out of the cab. I got invited in for a beer a few times and every couple of days a passenger would give me a stubby or a can - funnily enough, it was always VB!
Tipping is genuinely optional in cabs in Melbourne, unlike most places. Although the pay's not great, and a tip is always welcome most cabbies seem quite unconcerned one way or the other. It really just depends on how the passenger feels. I've had a couple of big tips as gestures of appreciation. I've had tips from people who don't normally give them - and no doubt i've missed out on a few from people who normally DO tip ... Most nights the tips just about paid for my food drinks and cigarettes during the shift.
Cigarettes ... I got through a few of them over a twelve hour shift. And the passengers helped me smoke them. I reckon i gave away about a quarter of what i bought! But you have to be careful smoking in a cab in Melbourne - it's a $200 fine if you get caught.
"Mind if i smoke?" they'd say, glancing at my soft pack of Stuyvos.
"No, not at all. But keep it down if you see any cops."
"Yeah, I know..."
One passenger, knocking off after a night shift on one of Melbourne's daily papers, asked me if i smoked. When i said yes, he gave me a newspaper and said: "All smoking cabbies get a paper!"
Another one told me he always asks drivers straight away if he can smoke and if they say no he tells them to fuck off.
It's got to be the most widely broken law in Victoria. And the most disliked - by everyone except the police that is. I was sitting on the rank in Hawthorn very early one morning, resting my eyes and brain, and hoping for a radio job, when a police car comes slowly towards me on the other side of the raod. The filth in the driver's seat stares straight at me and takes a long drag on his cigarette. Prick! I couldn't help laughing at him though.
There's a kind of natural enmity between taxi drivers and the police. On their part, i think it's because they'd like to be the only ones driving around aimlessly with a two-way radio to play with, and they don't like us doing it too. Also, if your car gets stolen, don't go to the law, they'll never find it. Ask a taxi driver - there's cabs all over the place, all the time, and all linked by radio, somebody's sure to see it sooner or later.
From our point of view, the police are a pain in the arse. Not just because we have to keep a sharp eye out for them when we want a cigarette But at four in the morning, on a long, straight, empty road, it's almost impossible to keep your speed down to 60kms, specially after ten hours of driving. And a speeding fine means a whole night's work for nothing. But getting nicked for speeding is considered one of the risks of the job by most cabbies. What they really resent is police harrassment outside night clubs.
After midnight, when the radio work gets thin on the ground and there's almost no hope of getting hailed in the street, there's still hundreds of people around who want a taxi home. And luckily, we know where they all are - inside a handfull of night clubs. The biggest concentrations of these clubs are in Prahran and King Street, but there's plenty more dotted around here and there. So, as there's not much else happening and there's usually a constant flow of passengers at most of these places, cabbies flock to them like flies to shit. "Chasers" in High Street Prahran, is where i spent my wednesday nights, along with dozens of other drivers. At any one time, there'd be at least ten cars and possibly up to thirty, queued along the road. The trouble is, there's always cars parked there too, so we'd end up double parked. Although this still leaves more than enough room for two lanes of traffic - and there are no trams at that time of night. But the police don't see it like that. They drive up every now and then and cruise slowly past the line of waiting taxis, shouting: "Move your cabs!" And if we don't, they book us. Of course, we just cruise round the block at a leisurely pace and if we don't find another fare on the way, we come straight back to where we were. But they know this, and sometimes they get sick of it and book everyone anyway, without warning. Bastards!
All we want to do is take the drunks home as soon as they stumble onto the pavement. (For their own protection, of course, nothing to do with the fares they'll pay us.) The police, presumably, would rather see them staggering around in the traffic trying to hail a taxi!
Apart from the police hassles, those nights outside Chasers were good value. The rank always moved quite fast and, although there might be fifteen cars ahead of you, you knew you wouldn't have long to wait for a fare. But you still had time to get out and have a chat with some of the other drivers. And, unlike most other ranks, here you were sure to meet people you'd like. Cab drivers are a funny lot, and the job has more than its fare share of wankers doing it, but late nights outside nightclubs seemed to sort out the jerks from the rest. The jerks wouldn't be able to take the pace. They couldn't handle the drunks, they'd be scared they were going to throw up in their cab. Or do a runner. Or mug them. And of course all these things WOULD happen - because their attitude to their passengers would make it happen. If you treat people like idiots, there's a good chance they'll act that way.
Whenever i've had a car of my own - which hasn't been that often - i've always spent a lot of time driving drunken arseholes around. They're my mates! I'm used to drunks, almost everyone i know gets drunk. And they're more obnoxious than any of my passengers ever were. So, basically, if a driver can handle that sort of people, they'll probably get on alright with me. After all, cab drivers have refused to stop for me on more than one occasion!
So i liked sitting in the rank outside Chasers, because it gave me the opportunity to get to know some of the other drivers. A lot of them were regularly there and i'd see them week after week. Sometimes i'd see them in different places too, but not so often. There's not many times you can really get out of the cab and chat, apart from when you're sitting outside nightclubs. You're always hoping for that job over the radio - and for that you have to be in your car.
I got to know a few people from the Chasers rank, too. Although, strangely, i never knew any of their names. Conversation tends to get broken up into three or four minute segments, as every now and then the front car will move off and everyone has to hop back into their cars and move forward a bit. Under those circumstances, exchanging names becomes a bit superfluous.
One person i spoke to regularly was a woman, one of a very few women drivers i came across that worked nights. She was small and fairly young and at first glance she seemed quite out of place in that situation. But she knew what she was doing, had her wits about her and had never had any trouble in the four months she'd been driving. I was impressed. I knew how vulnerable i felt at times, and women are conditioned to feel a bit more vulnerable than men. She was quite a lot smaller than me too, but of course that's got nothing whatever to do with it really. When you've got four large men in your taxi, taking you to fuckknowswhere, it doesn't matter how big you are - you just have to have skill at judging them before you let them get in and a confidence and manner that can head off any trouble that looks like starting once they're in. You've got to be street-smart and charming - and definitely not too scared you won't get paid for the trip - it's only a few dollars, after all, and cabbies have lost their lives for that pathetic handful of coins.
*-*-*
Most of the time i spent out taxi driving, Sally was out fucking. And she did a lot better financially than i did. Of course she deserved to, doing that job. Apart from the obvious aspects of it, it's physically exhausting. I don't think most people realize just what hard physical labour it is, fucking people for a living. Most people think of it as easy money in a way. But working for nine or twelve hours a night leaves you totally fucked at the end of it (excuse the pun!)
Prostitution and taxi driving are quite similar jobs in a way. We were both working similar hours, providing a personal service to strangers both more or less alone and vulnerable to physical attack. We both had a similar sort of choice over a random selection of customers and when one of us had a busy night, or a quiet night, we both did. And we'd swap stories about the previous night's customers when we got home in the morning.
"God! I had this real, weird client last night..." Sally said one morning. "I had to pretend i was a lift operator and we were in a lift. It was a really crowded lift and we had to squash up against each other in the crush! We had to stop at a few different floors, which i had to call out, and then we had to go to my floor and walk along to my room where he wanted me to punish him for being naughty. I had to say 'you've been really naughty, i've got to punish you severely.' Then i had to spank him a couple of times and he came ... And that was it! I wish they were all as easy as that."
"You sure get them!" i said.
"I sure do." she replied, "How was your night?"
Sally had a few smack dealers that came to visit her at work and she'd usually score during the night and bring some home for us in the morning. When i got home from dropping the cab off, Sally would always be home already and usually in bed. Sometimes she would have been home for more than three hours and she'd be asleep. I'd have a hit straight away and then join her in bed, where we'd spend the rest of the day, talking first and then sleeping. We didn't fuck much at that time, not surprisingly really. Sally had probably had quite enough of fucking by then and we were both too tired anyway.
*-*-*
Now and then, we'd both feel like going out in the morning, and then we'd go and get some breakfast and a cup of coffee from an early cafe and maybe have a beer in the early opener near the market. It was great being still up at that time. When most people were at the beginning of their day, we were at the end of ours . I love the early morning - but not to wake up to. It's alright if i'm STILL awake, but i've never been able to handle getting up early. The contrast over those couple of hours was wonderful. Not long before, it had been dark and i'd been driving one of the last nightclubbers home. The whole world was relaxed. Now it was light and the early morning city traffic was zipping speedily through the streets. The trams had started running and everyone seemed to be in a rush. We sat there on the edge of a busy street and watched them all, stoned and totally bemused by the frantic movement all around us.
Of course, during this period, although we were pulling in an incredible ammount of money between us, it was nearly all going up our arms. We were never hard up and always had plenty of money in our pockets, but we spent a ridiculous ammount on smack.
Sally had a bigger habit than i did, by quite a long way. Where i'd only have a couple of hits a day most of the time, she never seemed to stop jabbing away at herself. I guess, in a way, she needed it more than i did - to help her handle the job she was doing. But it was partly just greed also. That and the fact that it was available. Even though i've known quite a few heavy users in my time, it still amazed me how she could stick three hundred dollars up her arm every day. That's more than a week's wages for some people! And she got up to this level of tolerance remarkably quickly.
It was good at first. To be able to use like that, day after day, without going hungry or having to worry about where the price of your next hit was coming from. But after a few weeks, the novelty began to wear off and that kind of smack-induced neurosis began to take hold. The sort that comes in waves after a while of steady using and means you've been stoned too long without a break. Most junkies don't seem to notice it, or if they do they don't talk about it. But i've seen it grip quite a few people by the throat and shake them about a bit - me included.
On top of that, i began to be conscious of the fact that i wasn't doing what i'd intended to do - that is, save money and get out of australia. That was the only reason i'd left Mainline and come to Melbourne in the first place. I started feeling dissatisfied and frustrated. This wasn't what i wanted to be doing. But at the same time, i was happy just being with Sally - even though we didn't see as much of each other as we would have liked, and when we did we were both wrecked from working long hours.
We discussed the situation we were in and talked about stopping using. But talking about it is one thing, actually doing it is something quite different.
Then one morning i came home from work and found Sally dead.
*-*-*
O.D.'d, probably a couple of hours before. Fuck knows how, or why. Her tolerance was so high, it would have taken enough to kill an elephant. But it happened.
I was stunned. Completely fucked. I stopped working. I stopped using. I couldn't use. Just holding a syringe spun me out so much. Thinking of Sally and finding her corpse lying there. I thought she was asleep and i'd already had my morning hit before i realized she was dead. I cracked up completely after that.
Some of the mob came down from Mainline - i can't even remember who now - and they took me back up there with them. But i just sat in the house staring at the walls, or out of the dirty windows into, the rainforest. Not seeing it really, just staring through it. It was all my fault, i thought. I blamed myself for Sally's death. Even though everyone said i shouldn't. I was convinced it was me that had got her using smack. And she certainly wouldn't have ended up in Melbourne if i hadn't gone there - not at that time, anyway. Not under those circumstances. I'd killed her as surely as if i'd given her that last hit. I wished it had been me that died that morning instead.
*-*-*
A day or two after i got back to Mainline, Anton arrived. I was shocked and stunned to see him walk in. He looked pretty stunned himself, but i knew it was Sally's death that had stunned him.
We hugged each other and then just stood there in silence, staring out at the pouring rain falling through the branches of the trees.
"I found Max." he mumbled, after a while. "I met him in London. That's why i changed the date of my flight, so we could come back together and surprise Sally ... "
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