MIND EXPANDING AQUAINTENCES
MIND EXPANDING ACQUAINTANCES.
After just three days of being back
on the farm and dependant on my family I was ready to pull my hair out. Before the smash the rural heartland had been
a new and exciting gateway to the world I intended to explore. I was riding high on the power of youthful
optimism and each new sunrise offered unexpected delights. I had been swept away on a happy farmkids,
adventure and the wheatbelt was my red dirt, teenage playground. I was in the prime of life and I felt like the
star in some kind of rags to riches Hollywood dream.
Me and my girl on a Saturday
night
American top forty and
Wolf man Jack
A belly full of beer and
a head full of stupid dreams
Tomorrow ... maybe never.
Time as I was to discover does not stand still in your absence. Things change from what they were and a place
that once held such magic can become just another patch of ground where one
unexceptional day follows another. In
less than twelve months what had been the setting for so much fun and vitality
became just another form of painfully dull imprisonment. I sat glued to the telly from morning till
night as I had barely enough strength to lift myself out of the chair. I wasn’t inspired in the slightest to engage
in any creative pursuits and I couldn’t shake the nagging thought that the
world was passing me by. With the
devastation of Darwin by Cyclone Tracy most of the lads went off to work on the
massive reconstruction project. Once
active and mud splattered trail bikes lay forgotten and gathering dust in
farmsheds as disillusioned fathers scratched their heads and sighed. The promise of big money and adventure in the
top end had enticed most of their adolescent sons to greener pastures leaving
the wheatbelt to plod along in it’s normal uneventful way. Life in the grip of pain can rob you of the
confidence and lighthearted abandon that is required to maintain a proper
romantic affair. Through my ordeals I
had hit an all time emotional low and I was not in a fit state to shower
affection on anyone. Anna Maria made as
many trips from the city as she could but her intense dislike of my mother made
the much awaited visits rare. Her final
stay on the farm ended in a desperate weeping drama which was caused by my
blind, stupid temper. So we could be
alone for a while we set off to take a
stroll among the ripening wheat pastures. One of my crutches got stuck in some
weeds among the stubble which caused me to lose my balance and fall. Anna came to my aid as I struggled to get up
and I barked at her like a schitzed out madman for the last acceptable
time.
The fall accentuated the oppressive weight of helplessness I was
feeling and I took it out on Anna Maria in a barrage of unintended abuse. The underlining cause for my outburst was
nothing to do with her but I had no success trying to make things right. With little hope of reconciliation between us
she kept to herself in the spare bedroom for the remainder of her stay. The next morning she refused a ride from
Bryant and walked defiantly into Owen to catch the southbound train. I left it a couple of days before I attempted
to make contact ever hopeful she might have got over her huff. Every time I tried to call her number the
phone was engaged and when I finally got through I was greeted by the voice of
her younger sister Kathy.
When the youngster realized it
was me on the line she promptly handed the phone to her mother. I received a
scathing onslaught in a mix of english and greek and there was little chance of
getting a word in edgeways. She said her
daughter never wanted to see me again and not to bother calling in future. I was pleading desperately with her to let me
speak with Anna as the phone was slammed down on the hook. In that final moment the harsh reality set in
that I had fucked up big time through an out of control temper. An act of unbridled rage had scared my
Grecian princess away and I was left to deal with the utter loneliness it
brought. I made regular train trips from Owen to the Royal Adelaide Hospital
and almost three years after my prang the final plaster cast and pins were removed. At last I could slip into my Levi’s without
having to worry about protruding, stainless steel rods. Still on crutches but growing more
independent by the day my strength began to return and I was able to accomplish
the basics without the aid of another person.
Discarding the final cast helped no end to restore my self esteem and a
big bonus was the fact I could get back behind the wheel of a car. Hanging around the farm was sending me
delirious and the front bar of the Owen pub was a far more inviting
alternative. In the time I was incapacitated alcohol earned it’s place as a
trusted allie to help me through recovery.
It’s the anesthetic you can pick up across the counter, self administer
and then savior to oblivion as you take on a healthy 'who gives a flying fuck'
attitude. I had no social life to speak
of other than the bar at the local boozer and without the lads around that was
about as much fun as a saturday night in prison.
Quite unannounced and much to my relief the two Robert’s blew into town
on a three week leave from Darwin. After
toiling in the tropical sun for months on end they were as in need of some fun
as myself. The local farmgirls had been
badly neglected since the crew split up, so in our old haunts we got legless
drunk, laid and left for dead at every available opportunity. By the time their hometown escapades had come
to a close we were all hungover, penniless broke and restless as caged
lions. My buddies eventually left Owen
for their new home in the territory and I returned to my well worn position by
the idiot box. After the boundless stimulation of hanging out with the lads my
long dormant lust for life had been given a healthy kickstart. Within a week of their departure I decided
escape the dull pace of the farm and move back to the city. It was certainly going to be a trip into the
great unknown because the only friends I had in Adelaide besides a host of
snooping relatives were Jack and Kitty or Fred Steel and his brother. My old room at Ayers House had long since
been rented out and besides I didn't really feel like being around old Jack's
constant misery gutsing. Fred was my
last possible option and he gladly offered up his bumpy old couch until I could
find somewhere better. Freds lounge room
offered no privacy and the settee was about as comfortable as wheatbags, but it
was better by far than having to depend on my relations. I needed a whole new range of experience that
didn't include family involvement or restrictions.
My second smoke of pot was the first thing to happen after I hobbled in
Fred’s front door. I was in much better
spirits than the first time I sampled the devil weed and I found it a lot
easier to get into the warped sense of humour of he and his brother. The herb superb was consumed constantly in
the time I stayed at the house and as the days turned into weeks I became just
another stoned and babbling, big city ‘Pot head’. It was a most agreeable initiation into the
realms of cannabis elevated consciousness. For about three and a half years
after I got out of hospital I received workers compensation payments from my
previous employer. The police report had
stated that I was 100% free of blame as I had been hit by a car coming through
a red light on my left. The incident
took place while I was riding home from work which entitled me to weekly compo
payments and a lump sum settlement after the matter was heard in court. I used to go to the factory each week to pick
up the compo cheques rather than waiting for them to arrive through the mail
and my ex-boss would just leave me standing at the counter while he did the
paperwork. The mean old fart wouldn’t
piss on a man if he was on fire let alone offer a cripple a chair. The superior acting shit would have a little
winge each week about the fact he had to cough up the money. He acted as if the cash was coming out of his
own pocket even after I made mention of reimbursement through the workers
compensation scheme. Sometimes I popped out the back to say hi to my old
workmates and they were just as preoccupied by my weekly payments as the
boss. Quite often they would drop smart
arse remarks like,“Fuck!, I’d stick my
head in a vice if I didn’t have to come to work in this shithole”. Much to the relief of the boss my
weekly compo payments came to an end and I went onto sickness benefits. Then just one week into my new financial
arrangement I was informed I had to become a live in patient at a Government
Re-habilitation Center. The desk official at the Department of Social Security sang great
praise of the re-habilitation center that would get me back in,“Ship shape condition” and ready to
re-enter the workforce. He even had the
hide to suggest I would once again be a,“Worthwhile
member of the community”. I took his
remarks to mean if you are rendered disabled and incapable of working you are
no longer considered of any value to society. The insensitive remarks made by
that drone were the final straw in making me feel I had landed on the scrap
heap of civilization. And they wonder
why people lose faith in the system.
Just like
ants in the
sugarbowl.
As things turned out my new living arrangements were a blessing in
disguise. I’d been feeling that I had
over stayed my welcome at Fred’s place and an inner city address would be quite
convenient. Saint Margaret’s
Rehabilitation centre became my new place of residence and it was home to a
host of displaced individuals. The
majority of them were in wheelchairs or on crutches and other forms of physical
support. There were people with brain
damage, Saint Vitus dance, epilepsy and any other ailment you care to
imagine. Unified by a host of common
afflictions this assembly of outcasts cared for and supported each other and
they were a good lot to know. At Saint
Margaret’s I soon fell in with the most hardline of the rebels and trouble
makers. These were the ones the strict,
draconian Administrator had blacklisted for unruly or unsociable
behavior. The ring leaders of this
segregated minority were Graham a university graduate who’s throat had been
ripped out in a car smash and Nick a gay body builder who had sustained brain
damage from a falling gym weight. There
was Joy the red haired and highly emotional English girl who was studying for a
higher school certificate and Trevor, a wheelchair bound intellectual who took
pleasure in laughing at his own frailty.
Graham was a spooky little urchin who wore really thick bi-focal
glasses. They magnified his intense and
intelligent eyes to twice their actual size and protruded from his face like
television monitors to the soul. Because
of the injuries he had received to his throat he spoke in a low and barely
audible, forced whisper.
Graham was a button pushing jester who seized every opportunity to
nudge at the masks of those around him.
On the second day after my arrival at the centre he walked right up
close and put his face in mine. In a
highly theatrical manner and for all to hear, he hit me with a question that
demanded a reply. “Is your name ‘really’, ... Steven Trip?” Caught completely off guard I became
defensive and informed him that it was, but the correct spelling was with a
double ‘P’. I elaborated further to let
him know my high school nickname was ‘TRIPPPA’ which I preferred to spell with
three P’s and an ‘A’ on the end. He had
a conceding little chuckle at my quick response but he was not completely
convinced. He wanted to know the in’s and
out’s of my family history to narrow down the details of how I got that name. It seemed ridiculous that he was placing so
much importance on my given title so I just laughed it off. At that stage in the game I could blurt out
most of the hip pot head jargon of the day but I was yet to venture into the
‘Psycho-tropic playground’.
Joy the English girl was well at home among the rebels because of a
healthy resistance to the dictates of the Administrator. She would kick up a stink at the smallest
infringement of her personal rights and come to the aid of others in need. Joy and I hit it off from the word go and
within a month we were lovers. Unknown
to anyone Graham had been nurturing a secret crush on Joy which came bubbling
to the surface the moment she and I teamed up.
From then on Graham started referring to me as,“Mr. Ego-Tripper” but it was always conveyed in the spirit of newly
acquired friendship. Daily I attended
excruciating therapy sessions and when they were over I couldn’t do much at all
but lay down and recover. I had my own
pokey, little cubicle as did all of the other patients nestled among a tower of
cheaply painted besser blocks. There
was hardly enough room to swing a cat and I’ve seen bigger prison cells. The center had a fully equipped Art facility
which was stocked with high quality materials.
When I had enough energy I would indulge to my hearts content and make
good use of the free materials.
Prolonged sketching sessions produced the framework for surrealistic
dreamscapes which were eventually finished in oils. I got into sculpture seriously for the first
time in my life in clay, plaster and wood blocks. If ever I made an irreparable mistake with
anything I was working on I simply ditched it and started again, happy in the
knowledge it wasn’t costing me a brass razoo.
Weird Man, ...
I turned around at the speed of a wounded snail to find Graham’s larger
than life eyeballs an inch from my nose and bulging like a couple of newly
sprouted puff balls. I think he was
speaking to me but it might have been a psychic transmission. Whatever it was I knew he wanted to know if I
was enjoying the ride. What came
hemorrhaging out of the gaping hole in my head was a slimy and foul tasting
ectoplasm of Cinzano, vomit and the tortured attempts at an answer. I was leaning on Nick at the time who had
long since surrendered to the sparkling wonders of the jukebox. My reconstituted hospital dinner seriously
detracted from the luminescent majesty of the music machine and Nicks reaction
at being puked on was over the top.
Daffy Duck came fluttering over and kicked us all out as the Dancing
Queen by ABBA was filling the smoky airwaves. Our happy little gang left the
insects to their feeding frenzy and returned to the center. Once in the men’s
dormitory we were packed into Graham’s tiny room like a womb full of embryonic
monkeys. Joy and Ruby didn’t drop any
acid so they had some difficulty in relating to our tripped out antics. There was so little room to move that it came
as a welcomed relief when they decided to leave us to it and retire for the
night. I had been laying on the bed next
to Graham with Joy sitting on my stomach but her constant attempts to get
smoochy were blowing my mind. In that
highly elevated state the sensation of kissing was like being sucked through a
fleshy wet maze inhabited by a dancing sea cucumber.
On the departure of the girls Graham, myself, Trevor and Nick switched
on to a common psychic frequency and blasted off for the outer limits. Being the demanding little control freak he
was Graham insisted that the musical mood for our experience should be his
Leonard Cohen collection. He had every
album the man ever made and as each new song commenced he gave a muffled yet
passionate interpretation of what he thought they meant. Nick was lost in an Asterix comic that he
discovered under the bed. Every now and
again he would give a little ‘Sylvester the Cat’ type of chuckle but other than
that he was gone. Trevor and Graham were
involved in a long intellectual rave that meant absolutely nothing to me. Trev tried to engage me in the less intricate
aspects of the conversation which would always be met by Graham’s scorn. “Cut the friggin small talk you guys” The only decoration in Graham’s room
beside a large woven mandala was a color poster of Janis Joplin straddling a
Harley chopper and giving the camera a privately amused ‘Big Mamma’ smile. My body had long since demoleculized and I
was becoming totally immersed in the picture when my view was obstructed by
Graham’s face.
“Don’t look
at the pretty
colors Fuckwit”
The Mind
The mind is an intricate maze
of rooms
with interconnecting doors.
Doors on all the walls and
ceilings, doors on all the floors.
Each door leads to a new
dimension
in which we store our thoughts
and the more we search the
more we discover
remembering the things we’re taught.
In the house of the human
mind
not all of the rooms are lit
the area known as subconscious
is a dark foreboding pit.
Only the brave explore this
world
prepared that they might fall
they’re groping through the
darkness
for the switch upon the wall.
Only a handful find that
switch
and when the light is turned
on
they see in the middle
of their new awareness
old misconceptions are gone.
It’s here they look themselves
in the eye
to find out if they are
friends
in the rooms of the mind we
live alone
and those mirrors will never
end.
There’s an exit sign
above he door,
but that exit
won’t set you free.
Beyond that door
there’s another door
in the maze
of
infinity.
Leonard Cohen sang the night into the morning and Nick eventually
conked out on the floor like a beached whale.
Graham thought it was hilarious because the rest of us were so zinged
up. Trevor gave a detailed account of
what was happening inside of Nick’s poor brain damaged head, which triggered
muted, high pitched screams of delight from Graham. After hours of contributing his wisdom to the
collective frenzy Trevor said he wanted to go to bed so he could get back into
his book. He was reading a complex
instruction manual on how to construct an anti-gravity machine and he
maintained it was the way of the future for the physically impaired. Someday he declared with a chuckle, people
would be able to fly to the moon in their wheelchairs. Trev used to keep the book in a leather,
studded pouch on his chair and it received his undivided attention most of the
time. Getting our comrade settled into
his cot turned out to be the biggest laugh of the evening. The transition from his wheel chair to the
bed was assisted by a hydraulic hoist which quite often seized up without
warning. The mechanical arm managed to
get him half way there then it cut out with a nasty little hiss. Trevor’s frail and shriveled body was suspended
in mid air and he was spinning around slowly like a kid on a swing. He was laughing louder than anyone as we
banged away at the connections and tried to free him. When he was finally tucked in with his book
he told us that he loved getting stuck mid way in the hoist because it reminded
him of happier days before he lost the use of his legs. Leaving Trev to his astrophysical pursuits we
said goodnight and wandered off . As I
was closing the door Graham grabbed my arm with unnecessary force and said, “Come with me, ... Goof Ball and keep your
gob shut”. We moved up the dormitory
hallway like free floating astronauts and departed through a laundry door
into the crisp chill of the approaching dawn.
Once outside Graham said, ... “Don’t ride
the trip, Tripppa!, let the
trip ride you”.
I followed Graham through the floodlit grounds of Saint Margaret’s
until we came to a stop on the mounds near the hockey field. Like feathers falling from the heavens we
came to rest on the neatly trimmed lawn and were silent. Laying flat and looking up the starscape was
shimmering like a million firefly’s caught in a big glass ball. As we surveyed
infinity two shooting stars sliced through the night sky at lightening
speed. Not a word was spoken. In time a grey and ominous cloud bank came
billowing into view and engulfed the stars like a school of krill being
swallowed by a gigantic whale. The
silence of the dawn was suddenly broken when Graham started chanting the word, ”DESIRE” in a repetitive and almost
menacing tone. He rolled away from me
down the slope of the mound as the first tiny droplets of rain started to fall
and it looked like fun so I joined him.
We rolled side by side for about thirty feet chanting … DESIRE! … DESIRE! then we both jumped
up laughing. That mad moment was my
first attempt at any kind of physical gymnastic since the prang and it felt
great. It was probably the same
sensation Trevor felt swinging around in his hoist. I was in real pain after my psychedelic
exertions, but it felt good to push it a little past my limitations. I stretched a tendon in my knee as a result
of our late night theatrics and I had to sit around with the afflicted limb
suspended on a cushion for days. I
decided to wait until I was completely healed before I played with any more
mind altering substances.
Life at Saint Margaret’s was so much like being at school it was
scary. The Administrator fit the role of
the classic Headmaster from Hell and he would use any excuse to restrict
peoples freedom. He actually tried to
forbid the romance that was blossoming between Joy and myself saying it was not
the centers policy to allow this kind of thing.
He was promptly told to fuck off by both Joy and I which earned us a
shared position at the top of his black list.
It wasn’t that easy for the interfering old fart to kick us out however
as we were patients in recovery who were diagnosed with a number of physical
and psychological problems. One day in
the art room while I was up to my elbows in clay the Administrator walked in
and pulled up a stool beside my work bench.
He tried to come across like some kind of long lost uncle as he informed
me that my outstanding works had not gone un-noticed. In a confiding yet calculated tone he said the
Director of the of Adelaide School of Fine Arts was one of his old buddies from
the university days. They were having
the annual entrance examinations in the coming weeks and if it was alright by
me he would submit my name for consideration.
I was under age by about six months and they weren’t taking any more
applicants, but in some cases he said with a knowing chuckle, they would make
exceptions. I arrived at the Art school only to find the Director was running
late for the entrance examinations. I had
been told he was going to assess me personally, so while the other young
hopefuls were attacking their practical exam I passed the time by gazing out of
a window.
After a while a rather cool looking, elderly gentleman rolled into the outdoors carpark on a beat up old BMW motorcycle. He was wearing a beret and a striped sailors shirt with a bright red neck scarf. I remember thinking if this is the Director of the Art school, how did he ever become friends with our anal retentive Administrator. I confirmed it was in fact the Director when he walked into the room looking like he owned the place. The Director and I got straight down to the business of finding out if I was talented enough to enter his Art school. I completed the practical examination in record time to catch up with the others then I was presented a theoretical question sheet. I filled it out as best I could then put it on his desk next to a pile of other sheets. In his assessment the Director said I leaned a little too close to ‘Dali’ and I needed to further examine the theory of art. He said however that I held great promise and if I wanted to enrol at the Art School I was more than welcome. I felt about a million feet tall at having been accepted, but an inner instinct was telling me not to rush in blindly. I was about to tell him I felt my true calling was somehow connected to music as he leaned in close and said, “Can I be completely honest with you?”. I was a little taken back but I said, “Sure, Be my guest” “Most of the young people who have come here today will end up designing tooth paste packets and the labels on soft drink bottles. Take some friendly advice if you want to be a ‘Real Artist’. Forget this place. Get out into the real world and do something important”. I politely thanked the Director for his advice and the invitation to enrol then I hobbled off back to the real world to think of something important to do.
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