[Transcribed from the dictaphone of Flynn VanDeBerg, during his investigation into a murder of a man who's body was dumped in the mangroves of a rural Australian Town]
Chapter four - ‘The gateway. 9 rifles.’
I'm thinking more and more about documents; hidden in the dark of the basement, down the stairs, behind the green door in the courtyard at the back of Archbishop Raymond Gubbel's house.
I'm convinced there's some piece of information there which holds the explanation of these awful going's on. Tommorrow I will break the lock, search for the answer, today I must lie here in my own bed; reflect, record...then sleep.
It's been two weeks since my last recorded journal. It's a Thursday. A great deal has happened in the last fortnight. I can only guess where to begin filling in my readers.
I don't know what it was that possessed me to concede to Pheobe, my prejudices against heroine had always been strong. She'd always been civil to me, and I couldn't be cold towards her when she invited me in, confiding in me that the others were out in Oper Bodie for the night. Maybe it was her melancholy loneliness that I understood, or the creepy weather, the eerie sounds and my aching thumb which persuaded me to accept a drink, then stay for a several others. Yeah maybe it was loneliness, or maybe it was something more ; unavoidable attraction, of flames, and moths and.... As I was gathering up the tarot Pheobe had innocently asked me if I was able to do a reading with the dummy cards. Of course I'd told her it was possible, obviously I was keen to try out the new deck in any capacity I could. The wine was flowing steadily again; dangerously. She'd asked me first, if I could do my own reading while she watched, so she knew what she was getting herself in for. I told her that it was considered a dangerous omen to read your own fortune, and that cultured practitioners avoided it; she'd then nervously taken the role of client.
'Shuffle the deck, and think over some predicament', I told her authoritatively. There was a heavy tension between us, not least since the subject of heroin had not yet been broached. We avoided eye contact as she contemplatively allowed the cards to slide around in her slender hands, half closing her eyes.
I had an uneasiness doing the reading which wasn't typical of my temperament. I'd never interfered with a layout before, but as soon as she placed down the first card, and I read with terror 'The pointer of the bone' something inside me had triggered, and I slammed my hand over hers. 'Wait!' I said hesitantly, 'I'm supposed to shuffle first.' As I quickly lifted and flicked the cards in casino style my brain was racing delicately, Why had I just felt the need to lie? That wasn't like me. Because of my research today? Because I didn't want to deal Pheobe a bad omen? The second time Pheobe dealt, I didn't interfere; even though once more, something about the arrangement of cards had me siphoning dread. The first card I laid out was the 'Milky Way' card, then Criss crossed on top of it, 'Judgement'. Why the repetition of these two cards again? What could it mean?
Pheobe stared at me now, sensing the anxiety in my eyes; 'What does it mean?' She stammered, echoing my thoughts, 'Is it bad?' 'No! Not at all.' I replied recovering, trying to create a more superficial answer than the one I sensed in my terror filled heart, 'It's a metaphysical question you are asking.' I didn't say the words that were truly on my tongue, the words I feared; 'It tells me your question is a broad one, about life, you're seeking ...an answer ...to something profoundly deep, or perhaps you are trying to grapple with the random processes of the universe.' She looked at me, cynical but yearning, as if she knew I was right, but pondered the vagueness of the answer, couldn't any question be considered in that vain? No, not all questions. I laid out four more cards, then flipped them over one by one; Star cross'd lovers, the unlucky bushman. The rainbow serpent, the corroboree.
I didn't like the thoughts coming into my mind. But it felt impossible not to play them out now. 'Well?' She asked impatiently. I rubbed my face with apprehensive tenseness; 'The lovers in the past tense, to some degree I feel your question is about yourself, about fate?' 'Don't teeter around' she snapped, 'Obviously it's a question about love. I don't need your interpretation to see that the cards at least are on the ball.' 'Right' I said, wishing I could somehow move backwards in time, instead of forwards to the inevitable pitfall ahead; 'The unlucky bushman rising ...is in direct relationship with your fears.' I said avoiding what I read there, 'But what does it mean?' she hissed. I sighed heavily; 'Uh...it could mean, that there is a male figure who has recently entered your life. A man...a man who is...' 'Is what?' 'Doomed... Perhaps... Doomed...To some unpredictable fate.' Pheobe went silent. I read on, afraid to dwell for too long.
'The rainbow serpent and the corroboree in the future tense...' I said thoughtfully, (as this part at least hadn't clarified completely in my mind); 'There's a meeting place. An event in the future. A perilous meeting...' Pheobe leapt in here, trying to interpret the cards herself; 'A meeting on serpentine road,' she said; 'The man of my affection is fated to a fateful meeting on Serpentine road?' 'No..' I stopped her, my heart pounding, not liking the insinuation; 'I don't think the cards would suggest anything so literal.' 'So what then?' 'I...uh...' I stammered, 'Let me look at the final cards to put it in perspective.' I flipped the final four cards in a vertical row. 'The Gateway', '9 Rifles', 'Fall of the outlaw', 'Ye olde hangman'.
Some incalculable misery ran through my blood as I digested the cards before me. First, the uncanny and unwholesome fear came; that in spite of my best efforts and protestation, I was in some sense reading my own fortune, and even more, that there wasn't just the slightest of a hint of the tragic about it. Pheobe just looked at me silently now, her eyes demanded an explanation of the cards dealt. 'To the immediate future, and the conclusion of your fortune,' I said gulping in the back of my throat. 'There is something...something...' 'What?' She said, 'Something bad isn't it?' 'I don't know. Cards can be ambiguous. But the meeting referred to seems to be fated to some foreseeable ill.' 'What do you see?' She persisted. 'I....uh...the gateway. The gateway implies the opening up of some new...' 'Barry's Gateway! That's a place. It's a plateau up in Oper Bodie!' Pheobe yelled, 'Something about Barry's gateway.' 'No. I think you're being too literal. 9 rifles is a force of negativity, something surmounting against you ...or ...the male figure. There is a definite descent, an end to the narrative. A tragic decline to the romance, something....' 'What's the hangman mean?' She asked, 'what's the fall of the outlaw?.' I went quiet, feeling green, I backed away from the cards. Pheobe had sensed it in me.
I hadn't resisted at all, happy to take on any escape. She dove towards me and our lips met, the wine was heavy on both our lips, but the heat was irresistible, I felt my eyes close. Before I knew it she had pulled off her loose fitting top, and my hands were running over her soft flesh.
What impulse had so overpowered me? I wasn't a creature of such simple persuasion. In the frolicking of our passionate embrace, moving to Pheobe's bedroom; anything had seemed plausible, and with a sense of foreboding on the horizon I so desperately wanted to escape into the present. My pants had been around my ankles as she had thus straddled me. For a long time we warmly melded, thrusting toward nothing but a chemical bliss.
When she'd sidled off for a moment I had appreciate the tease, continuing to stroke my hard cock. I hadn't even registered negative emotion as I watched her tie the strap around her arm, and push the syringe over the bubbling spoon. The intoxication was all over me, I'd only asked ; 'Why do you need it?' To which she had seductively whispered; 'Try it. Try it.' And somehow all will power and resistance within me had absconded. I tied the black leather strap on myself, pulling until it was taught and my arm throbbed with lack of blood flow, the pain in my blackened thumb increased and I welcomed the sharp piercing dullness of the needle which heralded a christ-like relief from burden. The instant the chemicals hit my bloodstream I felt the warm thrill of incalculable ecstasy which I had avoided my entire life. The screaming apathy of utter release from the pain of life.
I don't recall at what stage in our love-making the hallucinations begun. It all sits fresh in my memory like a dream I've just awoken from. I remember kissing her neck, when I'd noticed something unusual about the birthmark below her collar bone. It pulsed. I'd calmly watched it grow, the laceration glowing like pink neon, as the lips of the wound, pursed and opened up like a budding rose petal. Emitting light. I vaguely remember looking inside that gaping pink hole, and inside the periscope of pink ribbon: viewing objectively a thousand sexual fantasies, bodies writhing over each other in a glorious bright-pink mardigras of lust and life. Cocks sliding in and out of cunts like pistons. Platforms of tits. I must have lost time.
It could've been hours later for all I know, as I recall coming to a relative degree of consciousness, slumped against the grimy bedroom wall. The walls were textured like leaves. Wet leaves. Pheobe was not in sight, but I was hallucinating twice as much now. I remember feeling like my body was submerged in water. That the room was filled with ecstasy, like a bath tub, but through some unseen sinkhole --joy was slowly draining.
Something had alerted me to the sensation in my penis, and I had looked down, initially seeing Pheobe's dainty hand rubbing furiously up and down. But then I'd looked, surprised by the change; and what I saw when I looked down first succeeded the paranoid half of the trip. Instead of a dick, all I could see when I looked beneath was a wet, muddy mangrove stalk, pulsating wildly and dribbling at the end. The floor was all mud now. That was all I could see from wall to wall, my mangrove stalk throbbed and gibbered. The mud bubbled and spluttered.
I sat there, like a tree submerged in the water for I don't know how long. I knew that all joy had fled, but still there was something darker that permeated everything. I remember my black hand, behind like tree roots that wound down into the earth. Thumb was like the night sky. The pain was mere being. There was a laptop on the dressing table. I stared at it for half an hour at least. The light of the screen, wavy digital lines warped by my viewpoint. There was a meaning I couldn't grasp. The plant thing stumbled back into the room now. Wet branches for legs, it rustled with leaves, slinking like a dragging branch. The plant lady straddled me, rubbing itself over my trunk. I don't remember how I got home. I know that I lay in bed for hours before the trip subsided. I know that the peak terror came traversing the dark path from Pheobe's house to mine. I still can't think over it clearly as I lay here in bed. Was any of it real?
Pheobe and I have continued casual encounters. I may be mildly addicted to heroin. I've spent a great deal of time with Norah and David, we are becoming good friends, though the whole group's foundations appear to be built upon quicksand, in some ways we are all tip-toeing around glass, aware of some inevitable looming catastrophe in our self funded addictions. I believe David and Pheobe may have had previous sexual relations. There is a tension there, although I sense that their passion was extinguished some time ago. We've had some intense and deep conversations as a group ; about the meaning of life, the nature of reality, love, existentialism and death. I see something in David that I failed to recognise in myself previously, now I can't help but sense it constantly. He is looking for something, the same thing I've always been seeking myself, some grand join the dots; a map of information to collate the puzzle pieces of history, philosophy, science, psychology, art, knowledge, the world and the self ; somehow unite it all under a colossal shadow. To recognise a faceless demon of truth who haunts the living with its indescribable yet terrible form. Something... something...
More abrasive run-ins with the locals. There is a constant threatening air amidst their kin; only mildly masked by passive aggressive mockery. David and Pheobe have given me deeper information about the local fraternities but that puzzle may have to wait till later. Pheobe told me the truth about how she got her 'birthmark'; I don't know if I'm ready to share that information yet either.
My agent called me last Wednesday. That was an odd conversation. I only met Jaycen Briars once, but he seemed like a nice gentleman. Jaycen was the artist who was supposed to be working on the tarot project. It would have been, if successful, referred to as the Briars/VanDeBerg deck I suppose. I can't pretend I wasn't shocked when Vicki told me that Briars had shot himself in his home; and wouldn't be working on the project anymore, I didn't know the man well enough to be devastated, but it certainly had an effect on me. Jaycen and I had brief conversations online via snap chat. I'll probably miss his funeral, which is a shame. It's a tragic waste of a rare talent. I hope there is nothing correct in my suspicious nature which wants to see something more in this tragic event than a horrid, but accidental, waste of life.
It seemed to pass very quickly and conveniently that Davo would subsume the role of artist. Actually it had partially been my idea. The agent thoroughly embraced it. David has also jumped at the opportunity. He was already painting large images of the tarot cards on the walls of the old hospital-- last I left him --on Monday. His picture of 'The unlucky bushman' is quite haunting, taking all the qualities of the rider Waite 'fool' card and adding some unique Australian menace, he perfectly captured the crackled bushland, in that arid cruelty, something akin to Sydney Nolan's outback and drought series. Weeks in the library have gotten me no closer to revelation. Chelsea has curiously not been working, her replacement is a sullen old man who never says a word, and watches me with his squinty eyes; through cloudy spectacles. I dare say I have grown extremely paranoid.
I never leave the house without taking Gubbel's shotgun from the wall above the fireplace. I've taken to hiding ammunition in random places; my bag, the car. I took the gun out just last Tuesday, determined to see more of the sacred indigenous sites. I have already seen 'The crown of the shadow King' and a great many other remarkable artworks in the surrounding caves. The usual congregation of hard boiled men collect themselves up town. They stare at my car, going to and from the sacred places, of course. I've taken to clutching the old double barrel, even as I wander around the sun damaged bushland near the cave sites. Sometimes I sense men tracking me. I have seen men with suits and fedoras congregating at odd locations during my walks. Often I've cocked my gun, pointed it nervously, as the sound of twigs breaking under hard shoes pursues me. The paths to and from the cave sites are almost always second rate, overgrown, and clearly neglected by men for some time. I've often had to bushwhack through hard scrub, sometimes hacking my way through miles of dry wood, in the surrounding fields of ash grey, burnt out banksia trees, the crackling fingers snap off at the touch. Surreal towers of rounded red stone, mark the indigenous defensive spiritual barrier towers. There appears to be a parasite or virus affecting the gum trees on the northern end of town. Most are ridden with a thick purple moss, the insides often festering, mulched leaves rotting in piles upon the dirt. I have also had to endure chastisement from stinging nettles, and heavy set briars which pierce through the flimsy material of my pants.
The rewards have been supple. The sacred art suggests an intricate paranoia to the Warriwul not usually allowed 'primitive' societies. The painterly mathematical diagrams at different locations around the valley form a complex equation about the slow degradation of the Warriwul way of life. It's almost as if they saw the downfall of their culture before it happened, and though they knew the presence of white man marked their extinction; their calculations are much more aligned with the terror of whatever spiritual threat they perceive as occupying or emanating from the mangroves. Most disturbing.
More disturbing still, was today as I was wandering down the trail between the library and Aviary paddock; I had been petrified by a gun shot. Diving onto the lumpy, gum-nut covered dirt and clutching the shotgun, I couldn't see a damned thing through the walls of twisting bushland on either side of me. I know the gunshot had been fired nearby; above my head from the sound of it. I don't think the shot had been fired at me, but I do believe it had been intended to threaten me. It had been my object to explore Oper Bodie and Murro vale sometime in the coming week, and the morning gunshot had been enough to fast track the idea.
I returned home to get the car. Pheobe was there on my verandah with Norah, getting high, I didn't tell them about the gunshot; staving off chit chat, and explaining my intention to travel to Murro Vale. No, I didn't want Pheobe to come, I told her, it would be too distracting to my important work.
An odd feeling returned to me as I drove uptown. Ever since the fateful tarot reading with Pheobe; the night before we first made love, I have been afraid of Pheobe's curious over intellectualisation of the cards. Her predictions of her lovers downfall, a fateful meeting at Serpentine Road, and some mystery at Barry's Gateway ; all had me over analysing everything. Was I the lover who had been foretold of in Phoebe's cards? Had I predicted my own doom? Serpentine road was the only way in and out of Town, and knowing I had to traverse it to get to Murro Vale ...had already made me cautious to go. What if this grave foretold meeting ...came true?
As usual, the townsmen were all gathered around the shops on Prime Street. Today they had seemed particularly testosterone fueled. With their backs to the street, they were mobbing raucously around the doctors surgery for some reason, obviously clammering to look at something inside. I could hear Bruce laughing boisterously from within. Keen to get out of this suffocating town for a few hours, yet highly curious as to what the men were doing, I cautiously slowed down my car to suss out the brouhaha. I had never paid attention to the surgery previously and now found myself analysing the strange building, with its archaic blue communist-style logo, and deco trimmings. There was an old style sign near the side alley which read; 'Cameron Bane and A. Tasman.' Who I suppose were the town surgeons. But then, to my utter perplexity I observed their specialist titles beneath - 'bio-sculptor' ; 'skin resurfacer'.. Now... What on earth was a bio-sculptor? And why would a small town like this need anyone remotely aligned with that profession?
Two of the men had noticed me now, and turned to face the car, walking towards me. I was tempted to drive off but didn't want to draw excess attention to myself. I recognised the men, they were men I had been aquainted with in the last couple of weeks. One was Clancy Digston, he was a hired muscle man from out of town, I believe he worked for Banjo, (the town figurehead). The other was Gazza AKA ‘mudslide’. The other men apparently referred to Gary as 'mudslide' because he comes from Murro-vale, and near ties to an aboriginal lineage 'through a rape'. 'Hello Flynn,' said Digston threateningly, 'Come to hang around some real men 'av ya? Sick of your dead beat junkie mates already? It's the dogsballs isn't it, being a no good nick, eh?' 'You better get out of this town VanDeBerg if you know what's good for you. ' Gazza re-affirmed like a ten dollar lackey. 'Even mudslide wants you gone you old coon. What do you think of that?' 'I'm already on my way,' I said firmly, '...off to Murro Vale. Sightseeing'. 'Snoopin' around again? You've got some nose on ya mate. Be careful where you go stickin' your nose into around here. We don't want no snoop Dogg in these parts. Here me matey-o? That's the sort of mutt --ought to be send straight to the pound. Ya git me? Now. Piss off ya dog.'
A feeling of loathing burrowed into me as I slowly drove away, as Digston came at me with a few more slurs of encouragement, his face red with hatred; yelling at the carboot. The winding bends of Serpentine road were not as ominous as I feared. At least they were clear of human life, dumb cows in fields; anything seemed soothing after you were out of the presence of those rednecks up town. It wasn't a long drive into Murrovale, and it occurred to me I really had no plan of where to visit. There weren't many sacred sites in Murro Vale, and I wandered if my reason to explore wasn't entirely based on getting out of Bishop's Valley for a day. As I drove into town, those familiar dull factories and industrial warehouses came into view. It wasn't as ugly as the first time I viewed it. With the big purple mountain behind it...It was difficult for the scene to be made completely ugly. Even with all the wasteland of industrial ambition.
The town seemed busier than last time I had driven through it, the hustle and bustle of rusted country cars surrounded. The men who peered from car windows looked no less sinister than the brawny men who hung around Bishop's Valley shops all day.
In my rear view mirror I received another uneasy jolt. I recognised the car behind me. It was the grey Nissan Pulsar that had been parked at the library two weeks ago. It was definitely the same car, I remembered the licence number; TYZ 999. What was the car doing out here in Murro Vale? Was somebody following me? I couldn't get a clear image of the driver. He had scrappy brown hair, maybe a hair-piece, and he was wearing dark sunglasses.
He was trailing me at a distance, moving out of sight whenever I slowed or parked. I wanted to get out of sight for a while, see if the man in the pulsar would give up, so I stopped at a public observation area. There was a steep incline through a bush path which led up to the observation green. Some kind of viewing spot. I figured if I blew some time here the guy in the car might lose interest in my tourist activities. Quickly I staggered along the trail, a pile of twisted broken wood, a dead tree, a pagan essence following me up, I stopped on the flat, overgrown grass, out of breath. I hadn't expected anything eventful to occur up the hill, however, the view point gave an excellent vantage to see Murro Vale. A sprawl of tin roofs, brick houses and smoking factory chimney's ; lay over the horizon like an oversized industrial cemetery. But my eye was drawn particularly to one area of interest in the bushland beside a nearby factory.
There was a procession of men engaged in apparently sinister activity. About twenty men in suits, labouring in a way their attire didn't necessitate. They were moving some type of goods, dragging heavy sacks from one place to another, loading the giant brown mesh bags into a commercial truck whilst others looked on and directed. There was a large hall nearby their location, I could tell by its architecture it was a niche hall, not a corporate place. Some of the men were leaving the lodge, whilst others loaded the trucks. For some reason I resolved to investigate, sliding carefully down the grassy hill, being careful to stay behind the bushes, out of sight. I think I could just make out what the men had been loading into the bags, because there was a mound of something not quite right to the far side of the grass clearing. From the looks of things, the men were cleaning up from an event which had occurred earlier. Clambering over the shrubbery, I continued my descent to comprehend the strange scene.
I had to tread carefully. Since I'd been taking the junk, I'd noticed some odd side effects. I'd never hallucinated sober, but I had starting getting a hazy, purple discolouration to my vision sometimes of late. Occasionally my eyes blurred, and I couldn't see well. I still couldn't tell what the light brown mound was. The men carrying bags had all but left now, and one of the big trucks had started up its engine. Something convinced me it was safe to enter the open field. Bile rose in my throat as I realised what the pile of fresh bodies was, of the same matter as those dangling slabs of meat nailed to the trees. Massacred kangaroos. I'd hopefully assumed some sort of butchery for consumption, but the dressing of the men, and the way they loaded the carcasses in brown bags into trucks. Something was not at all right in this arrangement. I quickly scaled the walls of the hall, in case the men returned to retrieve more kangaroo corpses. I wonder where the trucks were taking the corpses? I could hear male voices talking now; but one of the trucks was definitely departing along the road, out front. Slowly moving along the other side of the building, I tried to examine what the strange hall was.
The building had an almost religious quality. Like a modern Protestant church in its functionality, but with more trimmings. Almost an air of Scientology about it. Ominous closure of a kind was brought when I noticed the strange symbol of a chess bishop upon the balustrade. The same one imprinted on the old library book I had borrowed.
Moving stealthily like a jaded private investigator, I made my way further around the side of the lodge; hoping to find some more useful clues as to the buildings purpose. There was a partition of the building, which extended out, upon which was an open window. Maintaining a low altitude I strafed along the wall until I could get a narrow view inside. Slowly raising my head, I found myself looking into a room, empty of people ; lights off. In the darkness, I could only vaguely deduce the shapes of a filing cabinet, a safe, and metal shelves. The voices out the front of the building made me hesitant to break and enter, but with a little optimism, I noticed a bound leather folio on the table just below the window. With a small bit of flexibility and cunning, I was sure I could reach it through the opening. Red in the face from flexing muscles; on tip toes, my arm stretched as far is it could, the hard wooden frame dug into my under arm, but successfully I grasped the book and retrieved it.
I fled, hurriedly, back into thick foliage, paranoid I might be seen. Not stoping to read the book, I concealed it beneath my coat, then with wilderness cunning; I hurriedly ascended the hill I had come down, maintaining in the shadows of the shrubbery, scarpering to return to the viewing plateau. Top of the hill. Scanning the horizon, and convinced I had gotten away with my theft, I returned to the path that led back down to my car.
At the bottom. I couldn't see the man in the grey Nissan Pulsar, and eager to keep it that way, I placed the book on the passenger seat of my car and engaged the throttle. Within a minute I was back on the road, uncertain of my destination, heart beating in my chest from the thrill of my crime, but moreover from the brash red iconography that stared up at me. There it was again. shining blasphemously; the all too familiar, 'red seal'. On the cover of the book.
I knew i had to pull over and browse the book somewhere. But no sheltered parking spot seemed to reach out. I drove in through the industrial end of Murro Vale, until I reached a quiet street, with an odd assortment of run down shops. There was an out of the way parking spot, behind a tall, twisting blue-gum. Turning the ignition key off, I immediately grabbed the leather journal and flipped through it. It was another odd corporate record of some kind. For the most part it was nothing more than a list of names and numbers, my lungs collapsed in a disappointed exhalation of warm air. Flipping from page to page, I was daunted by the mundane cryptically vacant notes. Then I stopped and shuddered. I recognised some of these names. There! J. Briars. What was Jaycen doing listed in this curious account keeping book? I searched the listing under his name. 'Termination of employment'. Then another! P. Rimbaud. That was Pheobe's name. There was a tick next to her name under the title 'Bishop's Head'. N. James. D. Arnesto. That could be Pheobe and David! C. Hersch. I'll bet a million dollars that's Chelsea, the librarian. She said herself she was employed by an agency named RedSealRecruit, though I only just now made the correlation. I wondered how the 'Red Seal' corporation were linked to Blacklab, my publisher. My name was in the book too. 'F. VanDeBerg. Scheduled for Relocation.'
This had given me much to think about. Hiding the book in my glove box, I exited the vehicle, choosing to browse the quaint old antique store opposite; to give my brain space to think, and to keep looking natural, just in case I was still being observed. The shop was called 'Alderman's little junk shop', in the window were various vintage anomalies; a giant polyester statue of 'Blinky Bill' the classic Australian cartoon koala, A cardboard cut out of Ned Kelly (legendary Austrslian bush ranger). An array of vintage police rifles. Unavoidably, my eyes scanned, counting them. Four. Eight. Nine. There were nine rifles.
My thoughts were racing as I entered the store. Primarily in regards to what Pheobe had told me about how she had gotten the mark on her neck. All the input of my senses suggested that there was something sinister happening, orchestrated by this red seal company. But what?
Rows of colonial pottery, jolly men's faces with pink noses, governor's hats and whiskey bottles in hand. Then there were Asian and Pacific Islander masks, Tikki and tribal sculptures. Some authentic indigenous spears. None of this did anything to sedate my fears, or provide me answers.
I started to feel altogether queasy. Claustrophobic in Murrovale, my resolve was to quickly drive up the ridge and scope out Oper Bodie before sunset.
The owner of the antique store scowled menacingly as I left through the strings of hanging beads, a ringing bell marking my exit. But before long I was back out on the road, leaving the putrid pollution and slums of Murrovale, and winding back into the stark country road North Westwards, into the humble mining town. The view towards Oper Bodie was altogether beautiful, rich bushland skirting the lower half of the other ranges of the valley. Blue's and purples and reds collected in a moving impressionist painting as the sun slowly rested its head against the mountain, ready for sleep.
I'm ashamed to admit, but certain urges had begun to take afternoon liberties with me, right now I was stinging for relief. For a fix. As I scanned the tattered map on the passenger seat beside me, looking for a more uninhabited region of Oper Bodie to take a quick pit stop, one particular landmark stood out to me, impressed upon my brain; 'Barry's Gateway.' It was only five minutes down the road from where I was, and before I knew it -- I'd arrived at the remarkable bushland reserve; lush native banksia trees furtively lined the outskirts of the park. Further up on the hillside, the quaint rooftops of residential properties were observable, but there was no sign of life in Barry's Gateway except for the old Barn on the far side of the park. I looked nervously around, to make sure I was alone, then untying the ribbon on the black velvet purse, I removed the syringe and a small saddie. It's amazing how quickly habit becomes second nature, before long I had a lighter burning under a used stainless steel spoon. The tension of the strap was jubilation. I felt my heart accelerate as the point of the needle pierced my vein. Then, my memory fogs somewhat.
There was the part where I stumbled out of the car to look at the sunset. Orgasm running through my blood, and heat in my pink cheeks, I'm quite sure I stood on the grass at The gateway for a long time. The hallucinations had come to me again in droves. They were positive at first. It was almost like a 70's musical, in the pastel colours of the sunset, I'd envisioned thousands of naked, dancing bodies. Life celebrating itself, dancing in an orange heaven; happy memories waltzed around in the refracting light whilst I'm quite sure ; 'Let the sunshine in' had begun to play on invisible loud speakers inside my ears. But as the coloured disk of daylight had actively fell behind the mountain, as heat dissipated and night stretched out it's arms... Panic and sorrow returned to me.
I felt that sensation again, of joy slowly draining away with the night sky. I began to think too much, the story of the massacre at Barry's gateway began to occupy my thoughts. The slaughter of the indigenous population here was horrible enough, but there was something about the murder of 2000 convicts by the gentry of Bishop's Valley that disturbed me even more. Racism could at least be negated to bigotry, ignorance, scape goating. But who were these men ; who so loathed humanity, race, class, gender ; meant nothing to them. These men scared me more than all others. Men who were colourblind, yet homocidal, psychopathic, having no empathy, yet desiring power, dominion over other men.
I think I fell asleep on the grass. Merging with paranoid dreams of flowing interconnected serpents of nature, art nouveau tentacles stretching through everything, life and nature, a patchwork quilt of an unknown yet sinister design.
I believe I reached some sort of spiritual endarkenment, out there on the grass at Barry's gateway, Oper Bodie. Gazing up at the stars. My consciousness became one with the valley. I became Bishop's head.
All the time, I felt the ego conflict with tomorrow, as though the place itself wanted to erase my new memories, so it could awake to some purer daylight tomorrow morning. In the car, a procession of hallucinations followed me home. Flying along beside the car. It was as though invisible alien life forms had always been occupying dimensional spaces beside me, but only now had I been able to grasp their function in the ecosystem of time, weaving destiny, inhabiting separate dimensions like reality amphibians. The strange orbs, with skin textured like testacles, may have been the ones digging those holes, I thought, insanely. Their spindly appendages seemed well acquainted to cutting and digging.
Eventually I accepted that nothing was actually there outside the car, as I sobered up and arrived home. The hallucinations had abated but my troubled mind had not.
I've been laying in bed for hours now, unable to sleep or calm my racing thoughts. I need to know what happened to the Honi line of bishops and to what extent the Gubbel men were involved. There must be some explanation, some link between the red seal company and the replacement of local figureheads. I can still hear the trucks, driving in and out of town, and parking down on the Southern boat ramp. I know what they are doing. I know that they are dumping that kangaroo meat down on the mangroves, but I still can't understand why.
The answers are in Gubbel's basement. They must be. Tomorrow I'll have the answers.
Audiobook available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVWQ8g_1tSw&feature=youtu.be Chapter Five -
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