The doctor asked if I was suicidal "No, no. Nothing like that. I just think about it all the time." He looked up from his tick sheet and made an indecipherable "Murri-hmmmn" noise. Unburdened by the patience of reasonable people, my intolerance of this professional opinion got dutifully ticked off. He put down his clipboard and we entered a brief staring match. He was an elderly Indian gentleman in a lab coat, and seemed troubled by where our wordless debate took us. He knew just what to say and broke the silence by taking off his glasses and pointing them at me. "You know, a handsome young white man like you should really be full of life." He then put his hand on my knee, tilted his head and smiled sympathetically. As if to say "Cured?"
I wasn’t, though it was the last time I sought professional help. He carried on speaking but my internal monologue drowned out his voice. Usually, I want to listen but I’m too busy playing out various consequences of my not listening to actually listen. This wasn’t that. This was my moral compass polarising at the wee noun the doctor so innocuously slipped in. "Errrr. Ummm. Did he just fakin’ say white?" I tried my best to be offended but it just seemed untenable. And found myself rationalising my new GP’s words for him. What did I expect from a man old enough to have prescribed leaches?
If this story is about anything, it is about how on Earth my doctor's prognosis was validated.
If I were still in Canada, they would have given me a 12 step mental health plan. In Australia, you get told to walk it off, prescribed walkabout. I had to make my own plan, starting with quitting my job at the dump. I had wondered if my mental state was the rational reaction to spending all day flinging used nappies and dead possums into the appropriate bins. And knew whatever I did next must be of genuine interest to me and be essential to my well-being. So I boshed 'ice cream' into the job search engine and found a job delivering the finest gelato Melbourne had to offer.
Slightly manic, I accepted the minimum wage job for the promise of unlimited ice cream. I would need to eat 4 gallons a day to make it financially parable to nappy flinging. Finally, a challenging job. My naive take on fiscal responsibility meant there was a fading dichotomy between eating ice cream and saving money. The plan of quitting as soon as I got sick of this had a giant man-child sized hole in it.
It was during this break from adulthood I gave my mate Keith a call from the driver’s seat of the ice cream van. He was in Bali and in his usual stance of feet up in a hammock. Fresh off a five month tour of India. "Keef, I'm sick of driving this fakin' ice cream van for 14 bucks an hour. Fancy hiring a campervan for a jolly up the East Coast?" "Aye, why not Keithy! (We call eachother Keith, don't ask.) How long is your notice period?" I looked to my boss, who was sitting in the passenger seat, staring at his phone. "See you in a week."
As it happened Keith also had somebody listening to our half-baked scheme. A giant Australian slap-head called Dave. Dave was swinging in the Indonesian Office next to Keith’s. The pair had become acquainted the day before when Keith witnessed Dave being threatened by an angry bar owner, for forgetting his wallet two days running. Keith, who is no stranger to such altercations, bravely offered to cover the poor bastard, not knowing how much he owed. The grand total? $2.40.
“Ya tramping up the Gold Coast with your mate, mate? Take my number. Anything you need, trust me, money’s no problem. I’m only staying in this dump because my wife refuses to stay here." Dave pulled out a wad of business cards and flicked through them, carefully selecting which one to hand over. This didn’t exactly scream ‘trust me’. It’s hard to believe anybody successful might stay in the same place as Keith might frequent. Either way, we would need to be on the precipice of an apocalypse for Keith to actually take Dave up on his offer. Though, unfortunately for us ill-prepared, this was March 2020.
The perfect time to quit my job, cancel my tenancy agreement, move out of the flat and into a hired campervan. I picked Keith up from the airport. Within five hours we were pulled over by the old bill in the capital territory, on our way to Sydney. I was speeding. We rolled down the window and he asked why we were in a rush. "The less spent in Canberra the better." Keith, new to Aus, shot me a look that said "What the bloody fuck you useless stoner." But the copper laughed and said "Well, I can’t exactly blame you for that now, can I? Do me a favour, try to keep it down 'til you get of state there mate" Keith asked me what on Earth that was about. "In a nutshell Keef, we’re white." My doctor would be proud.
We were in a Toyota Hi-ace. It had 1.5 beds, a gas stove and no toilet. The fridge was too hot and loud to leave on at night and the roof started leaking on the first night. The top/child bunk I was on got soaked. Keith asked if it was possible for me to sleep with the cooking pot between my legs. "Only if you can find it in your heart to not blame me when it invariably tips on you." He thought for a moment and answered honestly “Difficult to imagine I won’t.” So we just shared the double, a decision we reached embarrassingly quick. Having sought literally no other alternatives.
We were in Sydney for a day before the pandemic hit. For some strange reason Keith phoned his old dear to check up on her. She tried telling him that the UK was in a full national lockdown but it just sounded ridiculous. "Bloody Daily Mail. Can you phone yours to see what she comes out with?" We knew my mum would play it down and reality would likely sit somewhere in the middle. But my mum was working as a carer and was seeing the worst of it. "Ev’ybodys fucking dying. The country’s gone to shit. How the fuck haven’t you heard about it?" It was a fair question. Australia and NZ were the last places to get it. Plus we figured any adventure might be undermined by updates for news or social media. In our equivocated version of the pandemic, we did not suffer any practical information which might be of use to us. The way we saw it, we were self-isolating. A convenient truth as we had nowhere else to go.
Everywhere became a battleground for sense. At Bondi Beach the police were out in force, forming a line to stop people from reaching the water. People would run past them knowing as soon as they touched the water, they were safe. It was a giant game of British Bulldog. Surfers vs Cops. I hadn't planned on swimming but it was simply too fun to pass up. Such a healthy lack of respect for the fuzz in the face of nonsensical authoritarianism is a protest which speaks to the soul.
We got out the city and headed for the Blue Mountains, in search of restrictions which were a little less restrictive. Or at least, somewhere with less police to enforce them. We overshot it and struggled to find people altogether. When we finally found a wholesalers open, we stocked up on non-perishable goods. Austerity noodles and baked beans so dire the label was printed in black and white. Or so we thought until we opened them up to reveal the beans really were grey. Purchasing these in bulk proved colonically adventurous.
We were wondering where everybody else in our predicament was. Surely, we weren't the only two bogans stupid enough to move into a campervan right before a global travel ban. People who permanently live in their van are residents of campsites. Our problem was campsites weren’t allowed to accept new residents. And camping anywhere else had become illegal. So each morning a copper would bang on our door, if we weren’t well hidden enough. And we would then take it in turns to explain ourselves. It did not take long for a couple of absolute herberts like us to exploit this morning ritual to make the other miscreant laugh.
Bang! Bang! Bang! It wakes us both up but Keith would roll over and insist it's my turn. "Good morning Officer Longbottom, what's the craic." Keef lets off an impossible to ignore giggle at the lack of decorum. We never discussed it, but that was the game. Shouting things like "Quick, hide that dildo!" As the other opened the door in their pants. Culminating in Keith making out he did not speak a word of English, only to have to hand over his UK passport.
We got through more police warnings than shades of grey on toast. "I'll let you off with a warning this time Mr O'Guinnessy but be on your way." Translated as "I don't know what to do with you, please go be some other prick's problem." The rushed-in law simply did not account for people in our situation.
Had we been in any way efficient, then we could have caught a flight out the country but our aversion to adulthood delayed our reasoning. And by the time we realised we should leave, all commercial flights had long stopped. Some immature trace of oppositional defiant disorder meant that because our mums told us it was extremely serious, we decided that it probably wasn't. But even a broken clock is right twice a day.
We had been in the van for longer than planned and we're beginning to miss the feel of hot water on our face or a toilet seat on our bums. We headed for a popular hippy town, thinking some fellow backpackers might have sought refuge there. But as we rolled the campervan down the desolate high-street, people were opening their doors to see what idiots had disrupted their hibernation. We stopped at the only place open: a self-service laundromat. In the time it took to boil-wash our rotten pants; a cop, restaurateur, a drug dealer and two nosey cunts all came to investigate. We'd only ever had locals run up to us like this in some far flung corner of Asia. The restaurateur offered to open up for us. The cop was thoroughly entertained by our collection of warnings. And we're gifted the chance to tell the two nosey cunts to fuck off. It had been so long since we had an opportunity for such a special interaction, we almost cried tears of elation.
We arranged to meet the drug dealer under cover of darkness, slap bang in the middle of the immaculately lit town square. Where we re-upped on weed. She wore a knitted vest and sounded like she worked in a help centre for distressed kittens. She said "Arrr yous are lucky as I've actually got a special on this week." And pulled out two cookies from her crocheted tote bag. No wrapping or anything. Gross, but she was impossible to say no to. If we'd been caught I'd have claimed entrapment by knitwear. With no public restrooms in town open, we headed for the wilderness at first light. Forced to embrace nature in more ways than one.
We were enjoying the ridiculousness of the challenge until Australia started closing state borders. Everyone we knew was in Melbourne, Victoria. If we found ourselves stuck outside Victoria, we'd be in a bad situation. It was a $13,000 fine to unlawfully cross a state border. But we knew they couldn't charge us that because we didn't have $13,000. It's the sort of moronic reasoning you might expect from an 7 year old. We were both 27. Our plan was to keep off the highway and when we're inevitably caught, plead ignorant. "Who wouldn't believe we are ignorant, look at us."
We took the most bastard back route we could find on the map. Dirt roads and mountain passes. But as we rocked up to the border there was a roadblock with two bogans wearing hi-vis get up. We scared the shit out of each other. We must have been the first people to actually try and cross there. Keef said "Look at these two idiots." I respond "That's exactly what they're saying. I got this." I roll down the window and ask "Excuse me squire, would you mind terribly moving this shit out of our way. We happen to be on a schedule." Keith put his head in his hands. The slightly less inbred of the pair pipes up "We can't stop ya bro. We’re just here to make sure the new traffic camera see's ya rego.” And he pointed up to a traffic camera. It was cable tied to a plank of wood that was cemented upright in a barrel. "You two install that?" If they had said yes we might have chanced it.
The more questions Keith asked the more idiotic it seemed to cross. Faced with reality, we wondered what might happen when we’re next questioned by police or next rock up to an Airport with an outstanding fine. Then came the news that the Victoria / New South Wales border would close at midnight. Incredibly, only now did it dawn on us that we were in trouble. We would be stuck in a state where we collectively knew zero people. Living in a van which was becoming increasingly illegal to stay in and overdue for return. Hotels/campsites/toilets/ bloody most of outdoors were all closed. We were a full 15 hour drive from that border and only 13 hours to cross it. Speeding tickets being the last of our problems, we almost made it. As the clock hit midnight, Google maps had us a six minute drive away.
We pulled off the highway to assess. "Do we just cross and hope they ain't set up yet?" Keefy said “Fuck that, I know just what to do. Let me drive.” This wasn't part of the plan because he didn't have an Australian licence but I was too tired to argue. He made the ominous point that you only need a licence if you drive on the road. He'd been studying the map the whole drive and devised a plan. He drove 10 minutes away from the motorway then caned the last bit though a corn field, bouncing crazily and breaking every piece of shit cutlery in the van. We made it. We were of course only back where we started, only we could claim this as progress. But at least we knew people who could help us.
I called everyone I knew but no one could help us. Breaking your housing bubble could lead to a $4,000 fine or an unconscionable 6 months in prison. "Call the fucking dude from the Bali!" Keith was reluctant but we had nothing to lose. To say Dave was happy to help would be a gross understatement. "Anything to get away from the wife!" We ditched the van outside the rental place using the key drop off. Slumped on the curb and waiting for Dave to show up - we lost faith within 45 seconds. After an hour of making plans to live in a tent, Dave rocks up in a Maserati. We cried. Simply, at no point had we accounted for Dave telling the truth.
"You two look like shit. I've got a building site with your names on it. I put in a couple mattresses and a fridge there for yas.” What it lacked in carpet the place made up for in luxuries, like a toilet and space to stand up in. We opened the fridge to find 140 bottles of Corona. Our big bald Australian Jesus. We thought he was being funny but when we asked him he said "Everyone's so scared of the virus they're practically giving the stuff away, fucking idiots."
A week later the UK Government introduced emergency repatriation flights. Bought and paid for by the taxman, providing we pay it back within a year. We thought about staying but there was no work and Keith was on a holiday Visa and we were living on a building site and we had no money and got most of our calories from short dated Corona. So we made the informed decision to jump on one of two flights out of Melbourne. I had to accept we were bailed out the shit for no other reason than we had UK passports. All I could imagine was that doctor putting his hand back on my knee and tilting his head patronisingly. The old bastard was right.
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