Did I tell you that I slipped in for the last of the cooked breakfast? Back at the hotel, yesterday, after I nearly cried? The courtesy car delivered me across the arid waste lands of Dubbo in time, for it's last hurrah. I remember the lights were being turned off as I walked in.
Well, this morning, when I wasn't crying and could eat the whole breakfast menu, don't you think I scampered my arse down there by 7.15. I'd left the car at the dealer, I didn't have to go anywhere. I was met with a note stuck to the door crookedly and darkness.
Dear customers, due to a family emergency, Carol, our cook, has had to leave town and as we were unable to find a replacement. I'm sorry but we won't be able to serve breakfast this morning.
I was hoping for death, otherwise Carol should been in that kitchen cooking for me.
Did I tell you that yesterday morning I stood first thing at the toilet and pissed and farted and diarrhea spilt down the back of my leg, before all of my faculties were anywhere near awake. That chicken chow mien? This is not going well, I thought.
I had the same thought this morning, as I read the note stuck to the door.
"Oh, well, I see," I said as I turned towards somewhere else.
I've got everything with me, being a Virgo and not trusting of the cleaners, so I head outside to a cafe.
OMG! Coffee the perpetual drama. I don't know what you think this is, but please don't call it coffee, was so often my reaction. Swill, water with a strange taste, hot water... a hot beverage, I don't know. I can't describe some of them. Thank god I'm back in Fitzroy.
The thick, hot sun light was already threatening to go to bake when I stepped out into the street. Not yet 7.30 the landscape had the eerie feeling of once having catered for humans, but for some reason they had all disappeared. There is always the hint of threat with early morning, the threat that very soon the unnatural silence is about to be spoiled.
To my surprise the nearest cafe/bakery served a passable coffee. She didn't catch the small, but she brewed a long black from the machine, no added water. I didn't know what to call it when I went inside for my second, but she said that I had the black coffee, answering my suspicions about the state of her hearing.
I sat outside, one of the tables was still in the relative shade of the high peak of one of the few heritage builds still standing in the street.
As luck would have, there appeared two cute, obvious, brothers, the genetic gift apparent. Long shorts, t-shirts. They walked up with the older one's mousey girlfriend and some shopping. They all got coffees. Now, if it had just been the older brother with the girlfriend, I would have been just as happy to gaze across my coffee at him, but the younger brother, woof. Too cute. Especially when he leant across the table, which he did at varying times, and the black elastic band of his jocks showed and the top half of his black jocks hugging his cheeks slid out of his shorts.
There's gonna be a jail break, said the back of his t-shirt. And I reckon he could just about cause one.
Soldier on with Codral soldier on, I thought.
Somewhere before 9.30, the dealership rang to say the car was ready. The courtesy bus picked me up ten minutes later. The price was good. The manager was his smiling, efficient self. No trouble, he said, after I thanked him. The GTI sounded like his normal self, as I started the engine. His tail wagged and we were off.
I drove in two hour blocks, that way I didn't get too tired.
I went back to a coffee shop in Narrandera, Cafe G, because I reckon the two boys who run it are gay. Oh, they have to be gay.
Narrandera is pretty. I sat out side and had a short black and a muffin to break the trip. The sun was shining down brightly, it was hot, I had a tree for shade. I was right by the pedestrian crossing. The morning glided gently into afternoon.
This big, blond, overalled hunk, the type you get only when there is wide open spaces and their mother's feed them lots of whole milk and beef, came across the crossing.
Messy hair, stubble on his face, blue eyes, tanned and handsome.
He caught my gaze, he saw me looking at him.
Oops, I thought. Maybe, too obvious for a country town?
Big country smile. "G'day."
"Hi, how are you?" I replied.
"I'm hot," he said.
"Yeah..." I quickly glanced to the sky, then looked back at him. You certainly are. "It's hot."
I watched him go. Would I say he swaggered or sauntered? I'm not sure. He headed to a blue ute with a Kelpie waiting patiently on the tray back.
West Wyalong. Findley. Both pretty. Tocumwal looked scenic by the lake. The country side changes from mountainous at Tenterfield, colourful through Armadale right through to Dubbo. After that it is farmland, paddocks, sheep. It was scorching hot by Shepparton, my right arm is burnt. To what were rolling green hills down the Hume, which are now, of course, rolling brown hills.
How many speed cameras are there on the Hume Hwy? That's ridiculous! Do the police, actually, do any work anymore, you know like policing dangerous drivers? Or is it just machines now?
What the hell happened to the Hume Hwy? It's completely changed. It's a freeway into Melbourne, with Blue Sticks as the entrance. Gone are the miles of barren wasteland, the industry, the ugliness. The gazillion sets of traffic lights. Talk about cosmetic surgery. When the hell did all that happen?
Remember, I left for Lismore from Bolago. I haven't driven up the Hume from Melbourne for years.
You know poor old Carol, I feel mean. When I did arrive at the last minute, when she had turned off all the lights, she still went and got me an orange juice, some milk and a spoon. And put the lights back on. She even sympathised with my car troubles. Oh yes, I gave her the full sob story, curled bottom lip, the works.
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