Scoundrel Days by Brentley Frazer

Author:Brentley Frazer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Published: 2016-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

2

We packed up our stuff this morning, left it in the bungalow and hung out on the beach all day. As night tripped over the kerb of the ocean, we returned, grabbed our bags and caught a bus to the ferry. No one chased us or anything. Six weeks of free accommodation – what a bargain. At midnight we boarded this Greyhound bus to Cairns. The green electric clock above the driver says 3.43 am.

Rumbling to Cairns. We roll through banana plantations and sugar-cane farms and fig trees on the beach in Cardwell. The rainforest fans up the ranges in a mist. After staring into space through rain-streaked glass, I get out my journal and write down some of the Magnetic Island adventures. Reuben watches me, scribbling away under the reading bulb. He grows curious when I get a flow on, don’t stop writing for half an hour or so. Leans in.

—Writin an epic?

—A novel.

—What about?

—A true story about smut and crime and poetry and life. About running from Love.

—Groovy … You writing me in?

—Nope.

—You gonna do anything pretentious with your grammar?

—What do you mean?

—Ya know. Pretentious. He shrugs down in his seat: Like fucken Joyce … I can barely read that shit. He breaks the rules of written language … like, imagine if a guitarist said, Nah, fuck using established musical notes, don’t fucken expect me to tune my instrument.

—I might try something like that. Have you heard that album Psychocandy by The Mary Chain? They don’t even know how to play guitar.

—Yeah, they bend the rules. I don’t mind writers who bend the rules.

Reuben goes through his jacket and produces a decayed soft-looking copy of Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night:

—Listen to this, man … just listen to this, my favourite passage from my favourite book in the world: In the corners of all parks there lie forgotten any number of little coffins garlanded with dreams, thickets charged with promises, handkerchiefs full of everything. All a big joke.

—Wow! Can I borrow that?

—No. Never leaves my person, bro.

Strange, I’ve never seen him with it before. That doesn’t surprise me, though; he has all sorts of shit secreted away in his hustler’s jacket. Reuben slumps right down in his shoulders then. He has on a pork-pie hat that he can’t quite get over his eyes, but he tries to anyway. I drift off somewhere and dream of the Aboriginals standing on the beach in 1770, watching the British ships gliding like Irukandji up the coast. Terra nullius, ownership by occupation, to the victor the spoils. I write:

Australia, land of brazen scum.

Come one, come all and get a sunburned bum.

I chuckle out loud.

—You laughing at yourself again, man? Reuben tries to get deeper into his seat.

—Yeah.

Shakes his head, stretches out.

——

Australia. Most times I hate this island. I’ve spent ages figuring out ways to get deported. I wouldn’t mind if they sent me back to Denmark or Prussia – or Wales or Scotland or France, or wherever the hell my ancestors hail from.

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