Midwest Depravity - Carnarvon Part 1

It’s been some time on the road; I’ve been drifting in and out of a restless slumber, the scenery slowly changes, getting sparse now. Colby motions his head conscious to the music blasting from the stereo, keeping his eye’s fixated on the long straight barren job ahead.. Kyriss’s heavy percussions vibrate through the small cab of the diesel Hilux 4x4. A painstaking slow piece of Japanese engineering by any standard, but today I don’t feel in a rush, and I drift off again.

The rig starts to slow down some hours after departing Perth City, and I open my eyes to see what’s going on as the change of rhythm disturbs my sleep. It’s a lot lighter outside I notice then when we first departed.

“Piss stop chief”, Colby announces as he swings out the door and proceeds to piss just off the side of the hot desolate road edge. I’m still busy clumsily finding my dick, when he’s already jumping back in the cab..

“Time to go chief”, He informs me, “we got’ a keep moving if we wanna get there today”.

I cut the piss short, and shake twice. Any more then two shakes is just plain fooling around and I don’t have time to be fooling around apparently. I’m not so sure that’s a good thing though as I feel a dribble of urine run down the side of my leg. Some friendly ants have also decided to claw up my feet, better keep moving. The Ute’s already rolling when I turn back around and I quickly clamber along the sharp stone under foot making short painful steps, while struggling to climb the tall awkward side of the moving car.

“You have any water?” I ask weakly
“Yeah sure do chief”, he say’s as he gazes at me with a ‘why haven’t you got your own bottle of water’ look...
“You can use the bottle on the floor”.

Colby points to a beaten up old juice container which looks like something his grand-dad might have found on the side of the road during the great depression. I gather he’s fond of the old bottle. Inside is what I can only describe as a somewhat translucent liquid which swishes around as the car jerks violently on rough bumps of the road, which is many. It’s hard to tell though if it’s because of the beat-up exterior of the bottle or just the opaque bits that float within that make it so unclear. I twist the lid, and the smell hit’s me instantly, old wet boots have been hidden inside I reckon, and I peer down the nozzle to be sure they’re not still there.

“Toughen up princess” Colby jokes noticing my discomfort and I notice he’s got a big grim thick across his face. I look at him, then the bottle and back at him… His grin growing bigger at my hesitation, and he’s bursting for a laugh.
“It’s just water” he stresses, knowing I’m desperate as hell to squish this hangover and have little other options.

Looking concerned at the bottle I take a swig trying my best not to come in contact with the area around the lid, it’s absolutely vile and the smell and the taste are even more rotten. Looking around the cab I try to find somewhere to regurgitate the mess, but I’m stuck. The car pulls along at a steady 90 clicks, I’ll have to keep it down I decide as I do my best to swallow it.

Colby chuckles, shakes his head and settles his eye’s on the road again.

“What the hell is wrong with this bottle”, I blurt as I look at its trashed exterior, “why don’t you get a new one”.
“Arh well, ‘ya know”, He starts, “I like seeing how long I can use the same bottle for”.
“Have you ever cleaned it”, I ask intrigued.
“Arrrh no”, he turns and gives me a slightly queer look.

Shaking my head I look at him and he laughs a little more and then it all goes quiet again except for the sound of the road under the heavy wheels, and the gentle clutter of a smoking 2.8 litre diesel. This is good driving country.

I notice a little later down the road, somewhere around the other side of Geraldton he has another, much cleaner bottle in which he drinks from. He hints a snide smile every time he brings it to his lips as I watch inconspicuously. I sense I’m sucking at the emergency radiator water, but I’m grateful for anything and keep quiet. Anyway I’ll buy drink at the next road house.

The next road house, on the West Coast is generally spaced about every two hundred odd clicks up the road, but when you’re hauling the Northern Coast Highway you try stretching the stops to a minimum… You’ll run a reserve tank seventy to one hundred odd clicks if it means you don’t need to stop so soon, and even sometimes you’ll keep a spare twenty litres on the back in a jerry as insurance. In this case, where about six hundred kilometres north when the tired old Ute finally comes to a deserving stop. My legs are aching from the tight space inside the cab and we still have roughly four hundred to go. It’s still mid morning I think to myself, looks like we’re making good time.

Colby jumped out and is filling the car by the time I’ve found my wallet in the bag on the back seat.

“Come’ on chief” he says as he makes for the door, “time to get moving”.
I’m still busily looking through the selection of beverages in the road house. I quickly snatch up a bottle of Powerade and some water, throw the money on the counter and rush after the Ute which is already rolling.

It’s been awhile sense I came this far north. We used to make the trip regularly with folks when I was younger on fishing trips and what not. Mainly we went fishing around here. Turn off at Northampton we would head to the coast at Horrick’s Beach. Big choppers the usual fair from the beach, but there was one time we snatched a decent Mulloway.

Since starting full time work though, four odd years ago I’d only been up here once, and that was early on in the piece. Work, I thought about it as I watch the scene go by through the dirty window. The land turned red, and the tree’s smaller. Feral goats chewed leisurely at short clippings as roo’s lay lifeless on the hot bitumen road. Lizards and snakes all kinds of reptiles licked profusely at the air, and the big fat wheels speed on past with an audible ‘whoosh’, and then it fell into a ghostly silence, just the air, the dirt and the sparse surroundings.

I’d started work back home and now the first time in four years I was finally free from the tiresome obligations. It was a good feeling, and I was glad to be doing this trip with Colby. He worked up here in an Oyster farm, he told me. Growing pearl oyster spat for exportation to some other farms out at Sexmouth Gulf as he affectionately referred to it, and another at Monte Bello Islands.

He’d be working the next two weeks, and I’d keep out of his hair and just explore the surrounding salt flats and creek system we agreed. Might head out to scratch up some Cray’s (Clawless lobster) off the Quobba coast we also decided. It really all depended on the weather though.

“It’s always hot”, Colby informs me, “It was forty eight the other day”.
“It was almost to hot to work, so Richard the lazy prick’s hiding in the lab and I’m out sweating my box off”
“Had to get a spare tank, fill ‘er up with water and sit around drinking Corries” he continues.

I smiled reaffirming his toughness… No doubt he’s a workaholic. Actually he is the complete opposite to me. He is dark, well tanned, fit and generally healthy. His cloths are old and well worn. Holes in his favourite ‘wife beater’s’ match his equally holey double pluggers. I on the other hand was fat. Swollen from endless nights boozing in dingy lit pubs well into the late hours of the night and I couldn’t even tell you the last time I did a decent days work. This is what I liked about Colby, his outgoing ‘nowness’ persona - rip the bull by the horns and tackle the motha’ to the ground even if it was just a show. He had good intentions.

The day drifted into pm, and the ground got hotter and the shrubs shorter. Not much out here other then an open road and desert for as far as you cared to look. Arid nothingness.. Just you and the desert to think of what ever you feel like thinking about. This is usually just thoughtful nothingness itself. It’s beautiful beyond description.

It was around 3:00pm when we finally hit Carnarvon, turning off onto the HMAS Sydney Memorial Drive.. Plaques lined both sides of the road every few meter’s and above every couple of plaques loomed a tall coconut palm.

“The Council’s out here planting new tree’s all the time”, he asserts, “But they usually just die in the heat and lack of water”.

It would be a glorious drive I think to myself, if all the palms were healthy and green and there was some grass to cover the relentlessly dry red dust and dirt, but like all of Carnarvon as I would soon learn, fails to be anything more then a dreary old dirty fishing town.

Half way up the road, Colby stoves the wheel into a quick left turn sending the Ute sliding out across the gravel road. He smiles,

“We’re here”, he confirms, “It’s just up ahead, eight clicks”

I look down the open dirt track, there is nothing other then small shrub on either side of the road and an over head powerlines which lead off into the distance..

“We’re here” I mutter softly taking it all in…

There is nothing.