TRAVEL No 1.
On Time
Benito Mussolini is famous for the punctuality of Italian trains, but apart from being a genius with timetables, building a few roads and commemorating his shitty existence by erecting monumental buildings, nobody really remembers anything else he’s done. He ended his life as a hated man, was executed by partisans in Milan and strung upside in a city piazza with piano strings. No statues. No celebrations.
Milan, as with most cities in Italy, rejoiced, and it wasn’t too long before obsessive locomotive punctuality faded into history. Trains, however, weren't forgotten, and the Italian rail network is now up there with the best in the world. Fast trains. Reliable trains. Comfortable trains. Well organised stations where passengers can easily find their bearings. Electronics boards everywhere. Signs pointing to crowded shops and public facilities. Places to spend a penny so to speak….
But it’s not pennies it Italy. It Euros. And that’s what it costs to relieve oneself in one of their magnificent railway dunnies. It’s not the cost that’s the issue. It’s the absurd amount of money being made out of the natural process taking a leak. Big bucks, indeed….
In Milan, for instance, 320,000 passengers on 500 trains pass through the station’s terminal per day. That’s a lot of people, and with only one toilet facility available, the business model is a sure winner. In layman’s terms, its called cornering the market, and means that if only one percent of the travellers are caught short on arrival or departure, the guaranteed income would be E32,000 per day. That's over E11.5 million per year, a figure far higher than maintenance and money collection costs. Even with a quarter percent usage, the annual take would be almost E3 million. It leaves the banks for dead. Meanwhile, a couple of hours away, on the concourse of Padua’s train station, there’s a mini-grand piano. Anybody can play. Its free.
TRAVEL No 2.
Fidel's Party
Fidel's Party
Early evening,
probably about seven o’clock, I walked the streets of Havana, looking for
somewhere to buy a beer when a bloke approached from pavement shadows. He carried a transparent plastic bag which
contained a carrot, a couple of onions and a few other vegetables I couldn’t
recognise in the dark. I carried a shoulder bag with a camera and a few odds
and sods for travelling use.
He smiled, and in perfect English said,
“Where are you from?”
I answered and he introduced himself a Geraldo. “Are you going to Fidel’s party?” he asked.
I answered and he introduced himself a Geraldo. “Are you going to Fidel’s party?” he asked.
I had no idea Fidel was having a party.
“No,” I said. “Where’s that?”
He pointed south. “The baseball stadium.”
He told me the occasion, some anniversary
of the revolution. “Everybody will be there,’” he said. “There’ll be lots of
music and dancing.”
I’d
seen the stadium on way into town from the airport. On a big hill. Quite a
hike. “Not tonight,” I said. “It’s a long way away.”
“Yes,” he said. ‘I have a bad leg and
cannot walk too far.” He held up his plastic bag. “I have just gone down to
collect my rations. And I will be aching when I reached my home.”
I again looked at the bag’s contents but
said nothing, not wanting to politically intrude. In turn he looked at mine.
“Can I have that bag?” he said, rattling
his plastic. “This is the only one I own”
I thought it a strange request. “No,” I
said. “This is only bag I’ve got, as well.”
He was persistent. “But I’m sure you have a bigger bag in your room.”
He was persistent. “But I’m sure you have a bigger bag in your room.”
“Yes, but it’s too big to carry around.
This is the one I use during the day.”
Trying harder, he said, “But you can get
another one when you return home. I will never have a bag like that.”
His voice in no way suggested violence or
pleading. He was presenting a matter-of-fact argument. An unemotional request.
“I’m sorry Geraldo but I do need this
bag.”
“Yes,” he said. “But so do I.”
That part
of the conversation ended and after twenty minutes of
exchanging
biographical stories we were ready to go our separate ways.
Geraldo smiled. “Sure you don’t want to give me
that bag?”
I smiled
back. “Yes, I’m sure.”
He wandered up the street, the plastic
bag of vegetables dangling from his hand and bouncing against his limp leg.
(PS.
Fidel’s party was filmed. I glimpsed it on a bar room TV a couple of nights
later and was glad I didn’t climb the hill. Eurodisco and awful Latino pop with Cuba’s
version of Kylie Minogue…)
TRAVEL NO 3.
Once Upon A Time
Approaching early middle age and getting busted smoking cigarettes on a train made me feel delightfully young again. Bought back glorious memories of post-pubescent weather shed recalcitrance.
Christmas Eve and I was heading from sticky Sydney to a dry Griffith, the train, probably called The Irrigator or something, leaving Central about eight in the morning and touching down late in the afternoon. It was a long time to go without a nicotine spike but, in holiday mood, I thought I could make the distance by piling off and getting a fag in to me at the half dozen whistle stops along the way. It turned out much better, an empty carriage at there back of the train providing a prefect hiding hole where I could carry out my chosen piece of nastiness. Best of all, it didn’t disturb anyone and allowed me to stay in my allocate seat and slip back for a surreptitious drag when the need arose.
By Goulburn (famous for the jail) I’d read the newspaper, finished what I could of the crossword and was fully into the rhythm of long-distance travel. Even started burying myself in the middle of a new book. By Yass Junction (fine wool and Rupert Murdoch), the dream ended when when a fat-gutted excuse for a conductor made a urgent announcement over the PA system.
Crackle, crackle. Tap, tap. Cough, cough. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, a nasty sting in his voice. “I’ve found signs of somebody smoking at the back of the train. If I catch the person responsible the penalties for illegal tobacco use will apply. Thank you for your co-operation.”
Like all bad criminals I’d left evidence behind, my empty cardboard take- away tea cup being used as an ashtray and stashed beside my part-time seat. I thought it was hidden but the Mainline Maigret thought otherwise, his powers of observation and deductive reasoning suggesting there was an enormous amount of skulduggery and anti-social behaviour going on around the place. His initial surveillance skills, on the other hand, were pretty ordinary and allowed me to sneak back for at least two more by Cootamundra. (Don Bradman)
Another investigative prowl and another announcement came soon afterwards. “There’s still somebody smoking on the train. And this is my final warning. Penalties will apply if they are caught.”
In need of a pie, I headed to the food bar, Steamtrain Sherlock talking to the aftershave-smothered young chap behind the counter and noticing my cigarette packet poking from my shirt pocket. He said nothing but his face brightened. Thought he’d caught the villain. I just laughed at the silly prick. Silently, of course.
He moved in for the kill then, gave me a hard once-over as he moved past, and took over a seat in the empty carriage. Maybe he was dumb enough to think I’d return to the scene of the crime so he could catch me red-handed. I didn’t. Waited for asylum on the platform at Junee. (Laurie Daley).
His chance for immortality came then, too, but as he stood looking down from the carriage doorway he realised he had a problem. I wasn’t the only one smoking. Fifteen other passengers were doing the same and making his very short list of suspects quite long all of a sudden.
Nah nana nah nah.
I gave myself another legal blast on the platform at Narrandera (Lake Talbot water slide) and with only an hour to Griffith (Al Grassby) I thought I could hold out, but a ten minute stop at Yanco, (Gateway to the MIA) gave me a chance to lean out an open doorway and light up again.
Murrumbidgee Marlowe crept up from behind. “You can’t smoke here, mate. Put it out now”
“It’s not affecting anybody,” I said. “I’m smoking in the fresh air.”
He rolled his eyes. “No you’re not. You’re legally standing in the train. You can get fined for that. It’s not a smoking carriage, you know.”
I took a final drag, crushed the butt under my shoe and returned to my allocated seat. “Maybe it should be,” I said. “It’d save us both a lot of trouble. Maybe even get a few people back on the trains.”
(Published in Strewth Magazine, January 1999)
(NB. I am now a committed non-smoker but believe that remaining addicts should be able to satisfy their habits in specified areas. If gamblers are allowed to smoke in poker machine rooms of some pubs, smokers should also be given the same rights. Just get a big exhaust fan in the place.)
TRAVEL No 4.
A Brush With The Law
Darlinghurst pub, The Tradesman's Arms never attracted me for many reasons, and I wasn’t surprised when it underwent the usual renovations and become an even bigger shit hole called The East Village. Before the makeover, (a horrible word that deserves to be used just too point out what a horrible word it is) the establishment was known by the locals as the Heroin Dealer’s Arms.
History suggests it was a very suitable moniker, so unless you wanted to score smack, man, it was never the place to take your mother for quiet drink. Consequently, I only visited the place about half a dozen times, all of them coinciding with washing days at the laundry up the street run by a cranky woman with big black eyes and a long-fingered hand wrapped around a glass of white wine.
She was never much company, and not wanting to wait in the tropical heat of the place, I’d usually pinch a magazine from her rack and fill in a hour or so at the Tradesman’s. The visits were pretty dull but the memory of a couple of personal encounters always brings back a smile whenever I walk past the once infamous and now salubrious establishment.
The first happened mid-afternoon when, except for the woman at the bar, the place was empty. She was sitting with her back turned and didn’t see me enter, the smell of reefer smoke stronger than the odour of stale beer in the sticky carpet. Money in hand I waited for service, the reefer smoke stronger now as the woman stood and turned.
“You right, love?”
She smiled and drew hard on the reefer, the smell of her perfume now breaking through the smoke and reminding of garden pesticide. Handing me the reefer, she said, “Hold this. I’m not allowed to smoke behind the bar.”
Joint in hand, I watched her pour my Reschs.
“Have some if you like” she continued. “Nobody else is going to mind.”
I followed orders, paid the bill and waited for her to return to the drinking side of the bar. I then took my beer and handed her back the joint.
“Thanks.” she said.
Nothing more was spoken. She just sat, smoked with her back turned and pretended I didn’t exist.
The second memory that raises a bigger chuckle was a visit by the well-known cop Roger Robertson. I was on my second schooner, reading a 12-month out-of-date horoscope in a cranky laundry woman’s magazine, when he walked in with a group of people I guessed were his office staff.
Dressed in a very ordinary brown suit, Rog gave me the once-over as soon as he came through the door. It was mad glare really, and it wasn't until a friend, up-to date in in underworld matters, later pointed out that I resembled the late Christopher Dale Flannery, that I guessed Roger probably thought I a ghost on a revenge mission. Realising I wasn’t, he then took a twenty from his wallet and bought his colleagues a round of drinks, the cowering bloke behind the bar sycophantic with his service and delivering to their table in near record time.
A joke session followed, Rog first off the block with a real cracker. An absolute doozy of an ice-breaker he probably heard at the Doyalson RSL Sunday morning smoko.
“Do you know why the secretary wore a tampon behind her ear?” he asked.
One of his colleagues responded in the usual manner. “No, Roger. Why did the secretary wear a tampon behind her ear?
Rog laughed now. “To remind her of the cunt who stole her pencil.”
I’m sure they all laughed. I can’t remember. I was too busy wondering if bad jokes could be grounds for holding a Royal commission. If they were I couldn't see much future for Roger in the police force. Years later, as it turned out, there wasn’t much future anyway. Bad sense of humour included.
(Published in Strewth Magazine - April 2000)
(* Roger Rogerson was a rogue Sydney cop who is now doing life for murder. He’ll die in jail. At the time the above article was written scuttlebutt existed of his involvement in other murders and criminal activity.
*Christopher Dale Flannery is a deceased underworld hitman. His body has never been found but he is believed to have been murdered by fellow criminals who were also associates of Rogerson.)
DREAMS
The Red Scooter
Walking through backstreets of Surry Hills, and carrying a red child’s scooter, I reached a dead end and an open a door. Behind the door were three opaque windows and below them another small door. I leant down and crawled through the opening only to be confronted by another door which I negotiated by contorting my body and wiggling through to the other side where I found another street. . Realising now I’d left the scooter behind I attempted to retrace my journey but couldn't bend my body at the correct angle. I then asked a passer-by if there was another way around. She said it could be done, but the person who owned the house was very argumentative and probably wouldn’t allow me to enter. I decided to leave the scooter behind and continue my walk…
The Train Station
Running Late
Selected for a game of cricket at the Domain, I scampered off through the morning for the big event. I was dressed in beige trousers, red flannelette shirt and wearing a baseball hat with “America” embroidered on the brim. Reaching Woolloomooloo I started running for some reason. It felt good. In rhythm. Not out of breath. On a pedestrian crossing in William Street weeds grew in pavement cracks and an antique bus passed on the roadway. Late now, I realised I’d probably miss my chance to bat or not be given a bowl as punishment for my tardiness. At the train viaduct in Bourke Street, I passed a second hand furniture store where timber slab tables were displayed for sale on the lawn. I bought a small table and continued my journey. On reaching a hill, and struggling with my load, a stranger offered to help. The alarm rang.
Easy Bucks
Drinking in an unknown pub I was asked by manager to move a badly parked Cadillac El Dorado convertible from the middle of the street. The keys were still in the ignition but when I started up and couldn't control the steering I tried to glide it towards to kerb but was thwarted by a white delivery van which backed into the space where I was heading. I then let the El Dorado roll backwards into al illegal parking space on the other side of the street and tried to turn off the engine which was ticking over in a V8 rumble and refusing to stop. There was a $100 bill folded into the key hole area so, with that in hand, I returned to the pub where there'd been a shift change and the person who'd requested my assistance was gone. There was nobody there I recognised. I kept the money.
 |
| Cienfuegas, Cuba (2010) |
TRAVEL NO 3.
Once Upon A Time
Approaching early middle age and getting busted smoking cigarettes on a train made me feel delightfully young again. Bought back glorious memories of post-pubescent weather shed recalcitrance.
Christmas Eve and I was heading from sticky Sydney to a dry Griffith, the train, probably called The Irrigator or something, leaving Central about eight in the morning and touching down late in the afternoon. It was a long time to go without a nicotine spike but, in holiday mood, I thought I could make the distance by piling off and getting a fag in to me at the half dozen whistle stops along the way. It turned out much better, an empty carriage at there back of the train providing a prefect hiding hole where I could carry out my chosen piece of nastiness. Best of all, it didn’t disturb anyone and allowed me to stay in my allocate seat and slip back for a surreptitious drag when the need arose.
By Goulburn (famous for the jail) I’d read the newspaper, finished what I could of the crossword and was fully into the rhythm of long-distance travel. Even started burying myself in the middle of a new book. By Yass Junction (fine wool and Rupert Murdoch), the dream ended when when a fat-gutted excuse for a conductor made a urgent announcement over the PA system.
Crackle, crackle. Tap, tap. Cough, cough. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, a nasty sting in his voice. “I’ve found signs of somebody smoking at the back of the train. If I catch the person responsible the penalties for illegal tobacco use will apply. Thank you for your co-operation.”
Like all bad criminals I’d left evidence behind, my empty cardboard take- away tea cup being used as an ashtray and stashed beside my part-time seat. I thought it was hidden but the Mainline Maigret thought otherwise, his powers of observation and deductive reasoning suggesting there was an enormous amount of skulduggery and anti-social behaviour going on around the place. His initial surveillance skills, on the other hand, were pretty ordinary and allowed me to sneak back for at least two more by Cootamundra. (Don Bradman)
Another investigative prowl and another announcement came soon afterwards. “There’s still somebody smoking on the train. And this is my final warning. Penalties will apply if they are caught.”
In need of a pie, I headed to the food bar, Steamtrain Sherlock talking to the aftershave-smothered young chap behind the counter and noticing my cigarette packet poking from my shirt pocket. He said nothing but his face brightened. Thought he’d caught the villain. I just laughed at the silly prick. Silently, of course.
He moved in for the kill then, gave me a hard once-over as he moved past, and took over a seat in the empty carriage. Maybe he was dumb enough to think I’d return to the scene of the crime so he could catch me red-handed. I didn’t. Waited for asylum on the platform at Junee. (Laurie Daley).
His chance for immortality came then, too, but as he stood looking down from the carriage doorway he realised he had a problem. I wasn’t the only one smoking. Fifteen other passengers were doing the same and making his very short list of suspects quite long all of a sudden.
Nah nana nah nah.
I gave myself another legal blast on the platform at Narrandera (Lake Talbot water slide) and with only an hour to Griffith (Al Grassby) I thought I could hold out, but a ten minute stop at Yanco, (Gateway to the MIA) gave me a chance to lean out an open doorway and light up again.
Murrumbidgee Marlowe crept up from behind. “You can’t smoke here, mate. Put it out now”
“It’s not affecting anybody,” I said. “I’m smoking in the fresh air.”
He rolled his eyes. “No you’re not. You’re legally standing in the train. You can get fined for that. It’s not a smoking carriage, you know.”
I took a final drag, crushed the butt under my shoe and returned to my allocated seat. “Maybe it should be,” I said. “It’d save us both a lot of trouble. Maybe even get a few people back on the trains.”
(Published in Strewth Magazine, January 1999)
(NB. I am now a committed non-smoker but believe that remaining addicts should be able to satisfy their habits in specified areas. If gamblers are allowed to smoke in poker machine rooms of some pubs, smokers should also be given the same rights. Just get a big exhaust fan in the place.)
TRAVEL No 4.
A Brush With The Law
Darlinghurst pub, The Tradesman's Arms never attracted me for many reasons, and I wasn’t surprised when it underwent the usual renovations and become an even bigger shit hole called The East Village. Before the makeover, (a horrible word that deserves to be used just too point out what a horrible word it is) the establishment was known by the locals as the Heroin Dealer’s Arms.
History suggests it was a very suitable moniker, so unless you wanted to score smack, man, it was never the place to take your mother for quiet drink. Consequently, I only visited the place about half a dozen times, all of them coinciding with washing days at the laundry up the street run by a cranky woman with big black eyes and a long-fingered hand wrapped around a glass of white wine.
She was never much company, and not wanting to wait in the tropical heat of the place, I’d usually pinch a magazine from her rack and fill in a hour or so at the Tradesman’s. The visits were pretty dull but the memory of a couple of personal encounters always brings back a smile whenever I walk past the once infamous and now salubrious establishment.
The first happened mid-afternoon when, except for the woman at the bar, the place was empty. She was sitting with her back turned and didn’t see me enter, the smell of reefer smoke stronger than the odour of stale beer in the sticky carpet. Money in hand I waited for service, the reefer smoke stronger now as the woman stood and turned.
“You right, love?”
She smiled and drew hard on the reefer, the smell of her perfume now breaking through the smoke and reminding of garden pesticide. Handing me the reefer, she said, “Hold this. I’m not allowed to smoke behind the bar.”
Joint in hand, I watched her pour my Reschs.
“Have some if you like” she continued. “Nobody else is going to mind.”
I followed orders, paid the bill and waited for her to return to the drinking side of the bar. I then took my beer and handed her back the joint.
“Thanks.” she said.
Nothing more was spoken. She just sat, smoked with her back turned and pretended I didn’t exist.
The second memory that raises a bigger chuckle was a visit by the well-known cop Roger Robertson. I was on my second schooner, reading a 12-month out-of-date horoscope in a cranky laundry woman’s magazine, when he walked in with a group of people I guessed were his office staff.
Dressed in a very ordinary brown suit, Rog gave me the once-over as soon as he came through the door. It was mad glare really, and it wasn't until a friend, up-to date in in underworld matters, later pointed out that I resembled the late Christopher Dale Flannery, that I guessed Roger probably thought I a ghost on a revenge mission. Realising I wasn’t, he then took a twenty from his wallet and bought his colleagues a round of drinks, the cowering bloke behind the bar sycophantic with his service and delivering to their table in near record time.
A joke session followed, Rog first off the block with a real cracker. An absolute doozy of an ice-breaker he probably heard at the Doyalson RSL Sunday morning smoko.
“Do you know why the secretary wore a tampon behind her ear?” he asked.
One of his colleagues responded in the usual manner. “No, Roger. Why did the secretary wear a tampon behind her ear?
Rog laughed now. “To remind her of the cunt who stole her pencil.”
I’m sure they all laughed. I can’t remember. I was too busy wondering if bad jokes could be grounds for holding a Royal commission. If they were I couldn't see much future for Roger in the police force. Years later, as it turned out, there wasn’t much future anyway. Bad sense of humour included.
(Published in Strewth Magazine - April 2000)
(* Roger Rogerson was a rogue Sydney cop who is now doing life for murder. He’ll die in jail. At the time the above article was written scuttlebutt existed of his involvement in other murders and criminal activity.
*Christopher Dale Flannery is a deceased underworld hitman. His body has never been found but he is believed to have been murdered by fellow criminals who were also associates of Rogerson.)
DREAMS
The Red Scooter
Walking through backstreets of Surry Hills, and carrying a red child’s scooter, I reached a dead end and an open a door. Behind the door were three opaque windows and below them another small door. I leant down and crawled through the opening only to be confronted by another door which I negotiated by contorting my body and wiggling through to the other side where I found another street. . Realising now I’d left the scooter behind I attempted to retrace my journey but couldn't bend my body at the correct angle. I then asked a passer-by if there was another way around. She said it could be done, but the person who owned the house was very argumentative and probably wouldn’t allow me to enter. I decided to leave the scooter behind and continue my walk…
The Rabbit
The
camping ground was nondescript and I found myself in the back of a stranger’s van
tying up my bootlaces mat watching
a caravan disappear down the road. Crows followed in the dust cloud. A friendly
kangaroo rested by my side. Its fur was soft and warm against my leg. It spoke English in a deep masculine voice. I assumed
it was a male.
I can’t recall the initial conversation, but I do remember saying,
“You’re a rabbit.”
It laughed but didn’t respond.
“You’re a rabbit,” I repeated.
“No,”
it replied, “I’m a dog.”
When it barked I woke and made my way and to
Centennial Park where I enjoyed a lunchtime barbecue with a friend. We ate
porterhouse steak and salad. The Train Station
Somebody mentioned
there a job going at Mittagong railway station for a gardener. Excited about the prospect and a change of work location I set out in a car
with no floor pedals, using the hand break to control my speed as I roared down
narrow mountain roads. It was a scary drive.
On
arrival, a big but beautiful black
rain cloud floated above a verdant hill where sheep grazed on the lush
pasture. I approached without care, and on the far side of the train
tracks,
my cloak fell to the ground and, just like in a Spanish movie, I stood
alone in
my underpants. I wasn’t embarrassed. Just cold.
A woman approached, I asked directions,
and as she answered, her head separated from her body and settled on the ground
surrounded by a collar of autumn leaves. She smiled
and said goodbye, and I glided featherlike, down the cliff face
towards the station master’s office. I knocked on the door just as everybody
was leaving for the day and I didn’t get a chance to apply for the job.
I woke happy.
Running Late
Selected for a game of cricket at the Domain, I scampered off through the morning for the big event. I was dressed in beige trousers, red flannelette shirt and wearing a baseball hat with “America” embroidered on the brim. Reaching Woolloomooloo I started running for some reason. It felt good. In rhythm. Not out of breath. On a pedestrian crossing in William Street weeds grew in pavement cracks and an antique bus passed on the roadway. Late now, I realised I’d probably miss my chance to bat or not be given a bowl as punishment for my tardiness. At the train viaduct in Bourke Street, I passed a second hand furniture store where timber slab tables were displayed for sale on the lawn. I bought a small table and continued my journey. On reaching a hill, and struggling with my load, a stranger offered to help. The alarm rang.
Easy Bucks
Drinking in an unknown pub I was asked by manager to move a badly parked Cadillac El Dorado convertible from the middle of the street. The keys were still in the ignition but when I started up and couldn't control the steering I tried to glide it towards to kerb but was thwarted by a white delivery van which backed into the space where I was heading. I then let the El Dorado roll backwards into al illegal parking space on the other side of the street and tried to turn off the engine which was ticking over in a V8 rumble and refusing to stop. There was a $100 bill folded into the key hole area so, with that in hand, I returned to the pub where there'd been a shift change and the person who'd requested my assistance was gone. There was nobody there I recognised. I kept the money.
