Radio star

The days are getting shorter and the nights are growing cooler so I've moved my writing set-up indoors, and then enjoyed a late burst of perfect weather.

My winter writing set up ....

It's not really cold enough for it yet, but I couldn't resist because if there's one thing I really enjoy, it's setting fire to things:

Perfect for warming me and neighbourhood stray cats if only they'd come closer ...

A writing exercise: Radio Star

Goodmorning all – how’s your day so far – it’s cold, that’s what it is. Here’s three in a row to get you up, get you moving, get you into the day…

If he brings you happiness….

Mmmm I love the smell of disenfectant in the morning. Using the key on the chain to unlock the luxury items – liquid soap, cheap spray & wipe and of most value, perfumed, soft as a cloud, patterned, two-ply, name brand toilet paper.

No one wanted to be the radio station cleaner, but it didn’t worry me, I can breath through my mouth when need be. And I was the only one on site that time of the day so no one slowed me down.

Loading up my waistband like a gun slinger with spray & wipe and a cleaning rag, I propped all the doors open as Freddy promised to tend to my tears in English and Spanish.

Mother of god, what the hell does this woman eat? Nose wrinkled and scrubbing with arm fully extended as George Jones invited me to walk through this world with him. As long as the receptionist thought I needed taking down a peg or two, she’d be making that known in the ladies, and I’d be paying back by repositioning my Deadly Award on the front desk so it’s shiny surface hit her right in her face every day she came to work.

Another deep breath in the corridor – yes George, I’ll go where you go – into the men’s, cheeks bulging with air. They wondered why I used so much of the bright pink candy coloured liquid – you would too if you stood as far away as possible while bucketing porcelain. The paint was starting to peel above the tiles but no one could argue every surface hadn’t been swabbed down.

Running now, up and down the corridor with the carpet sweeper.

…every gambler knows the secret to survivin’…

Oh yes, true that Kenny.

Throwing everything back in the vault, locking it tight. Then stirring the last drops of milk from the tiny fridge into my coffee.

…I found an ace that I could keep…

I fished out a milk coffee biscuit – woohoo - and legs moving fast while I balanced the chipped mug I made it back to the mike just in time.

...There’ll be time enough for countin', when the dealin's done.

Some good advice there from The Gambler, Kenny Rogers, then along came Jones, that’s Mr George Jones, Walk Through This World With Me, and kicking off the breakfast show this morning, Before the Next Teardrop Falls from 1975, the legend Freddy Fender.

___________________________

Polite society

The view from my window. [Northern Rivers]

Working in the Northern Territory is a much different experience to travelling there for a holiday.

 I count myself fortunate to have worked up there years ago. The land claimants I got to know were elderly, and many were in poor health. It gave us a purpose that kept the blood pumping, driving on dirt roads for 16 hours a day and sleeping beside croc infested waterways. 

...

I was finally heading home, looking forward to a proper shower and a fresh bed, tired and hungry with my only accompaniment a blinking reserve fuel tank light. I hadn’t seen my son for a week. So I combined the two things on my mind, thinking I’ll refuel and get him a treat, and I pulled into a Katherine roadhouse.

In those days there weren’t as many people you see nowadays crossing the streets and the footpaths, that you would now keep your eyes peeled for as they come out of the darkness. It was a quiet, starlit, temperate Dry evening.

The roadhouse worker had taken the opportunity to get the mop out, and I’d tippy-toed across the floor. I could see my reflection in the fridge door – it wasn’t even worth smoothing my hair down.

And somewhere during my payment for roadhouse food I heard the door open behind me, and in seconds the woman on the till looks over my shoulder and says, in a conversational tone,

‘Nancy, don’t walk there, I just mopped’.

Just an everyday comment you might hear anywhere. But I glanced over my shoulder. There were four behind me but I could take a guess at who was Nancy – and her blood was dripping onto the freshly washed floor. I didn’t work in Indigenous health for another ten years, and not as a health practitioner, but to my untrained eye, Nancy appeared to have sustained an injury to the face and was holding her jaw together with both hands. She dropped her head and someone stood aside as she exited.

By the time I got outside she was being attended to, and I sat in my dusty 4wd and watched the night patrol help her into the back of their wagon, telling her to keep the pressure on the wadding. 

On the state of Indigenous health in the NT, most stats are not pretty and you have to look for them, and then put your mind to thinking ‘how exactly do people get those types of injuries’. Broken eye sockets, shattered jaws, traumatic brain injuries, scalds to the entire head. Being stabbed in the heart would be a clean death.

When people lament the breakdown of social cohesion and the unpalatable nature of today’s public discourse, I would have to agree. People say and write some ugly things these days. 

Every Dry, when tourists and nomads roll through the spectacualr landscape, public drunkenness in the NT became a hot issue as alcohol management measures became embedded and mandatory rehabilitation orders were proposed.

A busy time for roadhouses.  I saw a roadhouse attendant politely and with friendly eye contact make what was to her, a reasonable request that a woman not drip blood on her floor. And this hospitality was with barely a break between serving customers, the tourists and town-based locals who barely seemed to notice. How quickly they become blind in both eyes.

A writing exercise – Tex & Nellie

When people say they speak English, yes some remote people do. And when you get an ear for it, you should expect to be able to be having exchanges in English in about 3 months. Up till then I identified myself as ‘sorry?’ with a head tilt.

But I always understood Tex and Nellie because they had perfect missionary English.

They wanted to go see one of their sites – they hadn’t been there for years, they kept asking me, so one day I agreed to take them for a drive. Three hours later and we are driving down a dirt road, me gingerly as there was still a lot of water around even though we were a month into the Dry. It would be weeks before it was completely dried out. 

And we came to a section where to my eye it looked to be a foot or so under water.

Even though I wasnt a local, I know what rain does to the fine grade red dirt up that way.  “I’m not sure about this.”

They both looked at my snorkel, then at me, then back ahead.

I could see by the state of edges where water had receded, indicated the water had laid there for some time. “That looks like it’ll be real soft.”

“Go, go” said Nellie helpfully, sitting forward in the middle of the front bench.

Old Tex tightened his grip on the ceiling hand grip.

So I edged a little closer.

“No! Faster, faster girl”.

So I went slower, then stopped. I had no 2-way, no sat phone, just thousands of miles of empty country and two elderly traditional owners.“I’m checking it”, I said and hopped out.

Two, three paces in and I was stuck, my boots encased in mud concrete. Tex and Nellie laughed as I staggered out of the mud, then walked wide legged back to the 4wd.

I said ‘no way’.

They laughed good naturedly. Then I did a 17- point turn on a narrow track and headed back to town.

At some point I said to the two old people, ‘we wouldn’t have made it through.’

Tex agreed, ‘too soft.'

Nellie backed him up,’ But we know the short cut, we could have walked out.’

‘How long to walk out?’ I asked, not knowing the country having only moved from down south less than three months before.

‘Six weeks,’ said Tex.

Nellie nodded in agreement,”We know where all the tucker is.”

Six weeks. Oh, funny.