The RAZZ

Chapter 9

Music that Soothes Savages

We got home - to my home, that is -  two days later. To be fair on Hughie, who was still dumbstruck over the events on that occurred on the Nullarbor crossing, I stopped the car on the main road to Melbourne rather than drive it to where I lived and expect Hughie to find his way out. Hughie had improved slightly since the incident that freaked out both him and his fat dogs but, even by now, he was only one degree above a vegetable and had barely been able to find his way back to the car whenever we stopped for a pee.  

Leaving the motor on, I went around to the passenger side and pushed Hughie across to the driver’s side. The fat dogs did not try to stop me. In fact, I suspected they were only fit for the taxidermists now. Their eyes were glassy and fixed into a stare that hadn’t altered in two days. They hadn’t moved for two days either but that was no concern of mine -  at least I got to ride inside the car. Drive it, actually, as Hughie had shown no sign of motor skills above dribbling and quivering his bottom jaw. But, I was home now, and Hughie had onions to plant in Victoria. So I went back to the driver’s side and fixed Hughie’s hands on the wheel, his foot on the pedal and pressed it down a couple of times to rev the engine and help him remember what to do, and pointed in the direction forward. ‘Melbourne’ I said, but nothing registered in Hughie’s eyes. ‘Horse shit and onions,’ I said firmer. That seemed to get through; his head jerked back a quarter of an inch.

‘Horse shit,’ he answered, in a sort of long ago, far away voice. ‘Onions,’ he said, in a dream-like trance. ‘Melbourne.’

‘That way,’ I said gently, pointing up the road. ‘Bye-bye, Hughie,’ I sang as I waved bye-bye to him. Hughie gently put the car in gear, engaged the clutch with a thud and slowly pulled away at about 10km/h. Traffic coming from behind quickly caught up with Hughie’s car and angrily overtook him, horns furiously beeping, which must have spooked him because he swerved the car away from the main stream and into the curb....  I winced and grimaced, but he just kept the car going slowly ahead, like a zombie.

I felt a little uneasy about things and, as I watched Hughie’s car nervously edge its way back onto the road and crawl forward, I began to wonder if I had done the right thing - had I been a bit  irresponsible? Perhaps I shouldn’t have given away all of Hughie’s horse shit. He was obviously in no fit state to shovel another trailer load.

I had expected to have to tell my story to Tats and his mates a dozen times to amuse them but that was not the case - Tats had already done it for me, and updated it as though I had been phoning in a comedy serial every day. Little of what he said was true, of course, but it was very funny, and I now prefer his version of that part of my history. My only addition to the tale was to relate the Nullarbor story but Tats and his mates just picked at the labels on their stubbies and said things like: ‘Pretty weird, eh?’, and ‘Yeah, well the Nullarbor can do that to yer...’ so I let it drop.

Almost from the very moment I got home, my life became frantically busy. This was mainly because Tats couldn't do any work around the house — he'd broken his hand in a motoring accident. It seems that some bloke in a bit of a hurry had cut off Tats in the traffic, so, when the line of cars was stopped by a red traffic light and Tats saw that the bloke was just three cars in front, he jumped out of his car, hell-bent on punching the guy's lights out. Tats caught up to him but, when he went to biff the bloke through the open car window, the traffic lights changed to green and someone behind blew a horn. This distracted Tats for a second and when returned his attention to the object of his anger and tried to deliver the thump to its ear, he found - too late to stop - that the cagey bastard had wound his window up. Tats and his broken hand were out of action for about five weeks.

Time flitted by on the wings of a 747. But some good things did actually happen. First, by a chancy but relatively easy method of deduction and detection, I located the girl... The girl. I went downtown to the scene of our first meeting, and at the risk of being spotted (with blood) by her muscle-bound beefcake, skulked around the gym having assumed that she might possibly work out there or go there to meet people like the gorilla - heaven knows why! Anyway, as I was standing on a bench seat outside the gym, trying to peer into the windows, she walked out the door. I grinned like a sheepish pervert caught in the act and she gave me a severe glare that accused me of watching grandmas getting undressed, until a little spark of recognition cleared her brow and made her tilt her chin towards me, just a little.

‘How's the knees?’ she asked, as I hopped off the bench.

‘Oh, they're OK,’ I stammered, rubbing my right knee in a vague sort of way as if it still troubled me after all these months ‘Actually, I was thinking of going to the gym to exercise them, you know, to er.... ‘ It was the only thing I could think of to explain why I was loitering around the place.

‘Well, don't go to this one,’ she replied in a serious but friendly tone. ‘It'll cost you a fortune for the same stuff you can get at my local gym for half the fees.’

The sun shone on bright on dear ol’ Razzaboo. ‘Oh really, which gym is that? Could I go to it? Being a male... er, man... -ish... bloke, you know?…’ I stammerd on.

And so I managed to discover that her name was Veronica, Ronnie to her friends, and that the driver of the red sports car was one Damien Fassaard, a long-time family acquaintance through her father's business - Fassaard was the son of one of her father's wealthiest associates - and that their relationship had once been close but was now only friendly (How "friendly" I wasn't sure of but was determined to find out - later). I also found out, right there and then, where she lived before she excused herself and left me standing alone once more, still vaguely rubbing my knee.

Like Enrico Fermi, who should have had a cold shiver of premonition, when he discovered how to split the atom, I should have had warning bells clanging in my ears when Veronica told me where she lived - Poshville. I had done it again: I was lusting above my station and - had I not been rod -ard in the brain - I should have realised that no good would come of it. But, as I said, I was rod-hard - and dribbling - in the brain, and had shut the doors and windows of my mind to any dark thoughts of doom, much  like leaving a parking ticket wrapped around the wiper believing that it can’t hurt you if you don’t look at it.

So, I had found her, and much easier than I thought. Now, all I had to do was the hard work of getting acquainted - and, as I said earlier, I’m not afraid of hard work, as long as it’s work I want to do!

The second good thing that happened was that I discovered music! Not in the way that caveman discovered fire but more like the way Captain Cook discovered Australia - he bumped into it while looking for a place to dump some rabbits that were making too much mess at home. I discovered music while searching for a way to make myself better known to Veronica. Allow me to elucidate upon the cultural awakening that acquainted me with the creative thrill of playing music, with my very own hands.

Meeting Veronica and getting so close that I could see a tiny chicken-pox scar on her beautiful forehead - I tend to notice those kinds of things first - I resumed nocturnal emissions and started down the road to obsessing about her.  Now that I knew where she lived, I tried to keep track of her and was making mammoth efforts to double guess where she was going so that I may casually appear at same places. This was in the vague hope that she would grow accustomed to my face although I was aware that there was also the risk the she might throw a custard in it instead. However, I was undeterred and justified my machinations with the old adage that says: "Familiarity breeds content"? If that’s not how you remember that old adage don’t tell me about your problems. My plan was to get familiar with Veronica, then I would be content!

Romance aside, I was following her. Or, trying to, at the least.

One Friday night, by watching her and her friends standing around bus stops, studying bus routes and street magazines and then getting on buses, I successfully stalked – I mean…followed — Veronica to a suburban rock show.  Taking note of what I had learnt not to do from TV cop shows, I put some creditable distance between me and them and managed to turn up at the show unobserved, a bit late, but before all the action had started. I bought a ticket in the foyer and made my way to the auditorium doors which were closed. I was just about to push them open when my wrist was seized in a hot, sweaty, vice-like grip. I got a whiff of sewage, and as I blinked in the direction of the smell, out of the curtained shadows beside the doorway oozed none other than Piggy Sullivan, looking and smelling grottier than ever.

‘Ticket, dogsbody,’ he demanded. I could detect the aroma of onion, garlic, pepperoni and cheese rising on a hot wave of yeasty halitosis. I remember thinking how it was that things that smelled so yummy on a pizza could stink like a hot bag of composting dog turds in Piggy's gob.

Despite my best intentions to be cool and together I panicked and couldn't locate the ticket. I swore that I had it with me when I arrived at the doors but do you think I could find it then? No way! Piggy's ugly dial gaped in half with a broad, brown-toothed, gloating grin that made me even more nervous. Then he started to giggle and let go of my wrist, giving me both hands free to search for the ticket. Next, he began to laugh so much his guts were wobbling and he had to bend over keep them under control. I took the chance to make a dash for door and got inside before Piggy could grab me again.

I slammed the door behind me, took the ticket out from in between my clenched teeth and... Blast that Piggy — he knew the friggin’ ticket was there all the time! He could have told me, the prick, but he’d rather see me shit myself over nothing. People who do those sorts of things should be kicked to death by a duck with a wooden leg. I had a good mind at the time to go back outside and thrash Piggy within a centimetre of his life when the door swung open, catching me in the back of the head and admitted Piggy's ugly face, grinning stupidly at me while sniggering little balloons of snot out of its nostrils. I turned away before I was ill.

The room was packed. I couldn't see Ronnie anywhere so I sought out a better vantage point. The band hadn't started playing as yet so I made my way to the stage and tried to climb up to get a look over the crowd. There were speaker boxes piled higher than the Empire State Building right up to the very front of the stage, preventing me from getting a good foothold, so I just gave them a bit of a shove.

Honestly, it was only a little push. It's not my fault if the roadies can't secure these things properly. About three tonnes of sound equipment fell on top of some poor bugger who was fiddling about on the stage and squashed him flat as a five dollar note, and, by the look of his one protruding arm, about the same colour. I clambered up to help him but things looked a bit beyond a jolly “sorry ‘bout that, mate!” Quite frankly, from the bits of him that I could see, he looked unwell. His tongue was kind of blackish which could have been a very serious symptom of something pretty bad or, he could have just eaten a Choo-Choo bar. In his quivering outstretched hand was a bass guitar which he seemed to be offering it to me. Going for the “Choo-Choo bar and generous nature” diagnosis of his condition, I took the bass guitar that was obviously proffered to me, telling myself that my response to his simple gesture probably meant a lot to him at this first meeting.

Suddenly, I was surrounded by people. Then someone wearing orange overalls came forward and said to me, ‘What's the problem here. Anyone dead?’

I must have sounded pretty guilty as I stammered, ‘Dead? Er...  ahrrrmm…Not sure…might be… just a little bit… dead-ish…’

‘Wasser madder wiv you? You look a wonky,’ he said, looking at the jumble on the floor. ‘Sorry about those boxes toppling over,’ he said briskly. ‘We pile them up like that so we can hide behind them. The roadies should be more careful or somebody might get hurt. I'll see they get a thorough tongue-lashing over this. Anyway, you look like the new bass player we advertised for? Yes? No? Yes? Maybe? Well, you must be because you’ve got a bass guitar in your claw so, welcome to the Hitless Wonders. There's two rules — don't play quiet and don't start any fires in your stage act. I think we all play in the same key – E demolished — so it shouldn't take you long to fit in. We're on in five. Nice nerdy outfit — don't go changing.’

I was a bit overwhelmed by the speech and stood transfixed until they'd all gone backstage. Before the roadies came out, I moved some of the boxes and tried to revive the victim but he didn’t seem terribly interested in doing much more than softly and painfully moaning. I got him on his feet but it was a bit like trying to stand a rug up on its end. It was hopeless. And when he looked at me through his big, round, flat eyes and whimpered...’Mummy...’, guilt flubbed my bottom lip with its finger. With a tear in my eye, I said I was sorry, and carefully rolled him up and stashed him behind the curtain, just in time to hear the announcement...’Ladies and gentlemen, the Hitless Wonders!!’

Things happened very quickly from that moment and I didn't get much time to think. There were people rushing around me, amplifiers were squealing and sparking, and the drummer jabbed me in the throat with a drum stick, growling...’Don't let 'em get to ya. We wanna win this one!’

I didn't want anyone to get to me and I didn’t want to win anything but the X-lotto Jackpot and the love and respect of the girl of my dreams. I actually only wanted her to notice me, at this stage of our relationship, and I certainly didn't want to do what I thought I was going to have to do. But, before I had time to shit myself, I was bathed in megawatts of hot light. Well, I thought, if she didn't notice me now she'd better buy a white cane.

The bloke in the orange suit yelled out 1..2..3..4, and then all hell was let loose. I think the drummer unloaded six cannon in my back — I was nearly pushed off the stage with the impact of his thunderous attack on the drum kit. The guitar roared like jet engine at 1 metre and the piano sounded like I had my head stuck in Big Ben’s bell at midnight.  The noise of the band was absolutely overpowering,  like a tidal wave that was sweeping me along with it. Choosing to go with, and not against the massive sonic Tsunami, I flogged the strings on the guitar with both hands, and when the sound of the band surged around me, threatening to stop my breathing, I started bashing the thing with a piece of wood that had fallen from the ceiling, hoping to contribute something and memorable to their musical opus.

In the middle of all this, I found myself thinking about Veronica, and wondered if she had noticed me up with the band. I glanced up from my work to see if I could find her in the crowd — what a sight! I had never seen so many crazed eyes and bared teeth. Hair, clothes and ears were flapping violently in the sound waves. A couple of anorexic punters had been whipped off their feet and sailed through the air to be pressed flat against the back wall. I could sense the crowd was on the verge of panic. I felt close to the edge myself. I turned every knob I could find all the way up to 10 and beyond and was even yelling into my guitar to make it go louder. Then the bloke in the orange overalls reached over and switched my amplifier on. That made all the difference.

Those members of the crowd that couldn't escape were pushed back by the enormous sonic boom as my amp kicked in at overdrive while I was flogging the bass guitar with the bit of wood. The front wall of the hall was demolished – blown out. The foyer had completely disappeared and the roof was collapsing. I don't think there were any serious injuries as most of the people were blown clear by the force of the bass blast, I hoped.

The band came to a grinding halt, and as I surveyed the ruin in the eerie silence, I could see Ronnie, clinging to a post that was still standing and staring at me, wild-eyed but unharmed.  ‘Hmph,’ I thought smugly, ‘she noticed me now’.

I knew I had discovered something that would set me apart from her musclebody friends; something artistic, creative, gentle and refined - music. My elation was interrupted by a heavy punch the to shoulder-blade from the drummer who said, while laughing excitedly, ‘That fucked ‘em!’

o-0-o