HUNTING WOMBAT

By Denny Prussian

My mini-moke's left rear tyre caught a nail, so I left my job, stuck out my thumb and hitched to the desert. My father had warned me against the car, my turbulent muse had warned me against my job, and my mother had warned me against hitchhiking. I ignored all three; until the nail warned me against driving any further toward anything that I might have imagined I was destined for. Emptiness called, muse agreed, and parental guidance had no opportunity to apply. I arrived at nowhere, from nowhere, with nothing in mind - that's when I met the Cooniba Mission boys. I'd been propped roadside, flyblown and wind-burned for two scorching days, my thumb like a fat wax candle, my mouth primed for the next expletive when I first saw the Cooniba Mission Boys. They approached from the East in an old Holden utility, some barely clinging to precarious perches in the rear bed, all waving Emu Bitter stubbies and laughing (presumably at the fly-blown roadside city-boy with the sunburned thumb). When the ute pulled up next to my shrivelled, pissed-off lost-boy body, the happy fellow in the passenger seat leaned out and shook his beer at me. 'Wanna beer, blok?' I really wanted a bourbon, a bath, a brand new Cadillac and twelve hours in a five-star hotel with a svelte black-haired Spanish Flamenco dancer, but I settled for the beer. I thanked him and took it. 'Goin' up dat Nundroo. You comin'?' I gulped Emu, belched, nodded and climbed into the back of the ute, barely settling my weary rump before the maniac driver put his foot to the floor. After the obligatory 'How ya goin's' and 'You puckin' crazy blok's', I asked: 'Where's Nundroo?' My saviours laughed and pointed vaguely West. 'Nundroo dat way.' 'Bout tree hour.' 'Local pub, cus.' The maniac driver drove, we drank. I managed to uphold my end of the conversation until the end of the second beer, but the boys' treble-heavy phonetics finally got the better of me, and by the end of the journey, I had lapsed into the persona of idiot foreigner, blithely trusting in my hosts good will and the notion that whatever was being said, it was probably not at my expense. After two-parts beer, one-part dust for three swerving hours we arrived at Nundroo. Nundroo is indeed a pub, it is also a service station, motel and truck stop. It squats wanly on a patch of desert at the edge of the Nullarbor Plain, but there is no obvious reason for Nundroo's being built where it is. Believe me, after I'd lost all feeling in the left side of my body, I was wishing that Nundroo had been built a little closer to where I used to be. I guess that's the 'true' nature of place in long-distance travel - if a place is a long way from the place we're at, it's romantic. But it's a pain having to make the journey. The utility's maniac driver decided to add a little drama to our laughing, shouting, and obscenity swapping entrance by fishtailing the vehicle through the dust of the truck parking area. There were no casualties, save an unsecured six-pack, which flew out into the saltbush and was never seen again. We rolled from the vehicle as soon as it stopped, having little faith in the driver's ability to cease and desist from his four-wheeled merrymaking. If you're riding the back of a lunatic dragon and it stops to drink, it's usually best to get off, run to the nearest bush and hide. We got off and ran towards Nundroo's Bushman's Bar instead. The driver went the way of the six-pack and the last we saw of him was red dust (flames of the lunatic dragon) heading North into the desert. The caring barman of the Nundroo Bushman's Bar cared just long enough - about five minutes - to relieve us of our combined resources. We invested well, procuring our recommended daily allowances of Emu Bitter, Champion Ruby and Arnotts Monte-Carlo biscuits, the items and elements guaranteed to provide profound spiritual experiences and suspicious personal growths. With the money spent, supplies replenished, the flash images of sneering Port Augustan truckie expressions imprinted on our retinas and the atonal echo of the barman's last 'Fuck off' receding in our skulls, we tumbled back out into the real world. Behind the modern facade of Nundroo's service station cum restaurant cum Euro-centric bar lies a dirt track (the low road) to instant freedom, a tine of the fork in the road of choice. The low road leads to the mulga ring - a stand of mulga scrub that forms a natural circle around a fairly non-descript patch of dirt. The second tine (the high road) of the fork in the road of choice leads to the Nundroo and Districts Unofficial Rubbish Tip. We took the low road, leaving the high road for those who could stand the smell. It does not matter which perspective one chooses, the mulga ring is a singularly unimpressive natural phenomenon, and no amount of descriptive narrative could ever imbue it with romantic or preternatural properties. It is a gnarly stand of pathetic, desperate scrub that just happens to form a ring, so those readers who were getting all moist at the idea of tribal spirit places (or Kahuna magic or painted National Geographic types bounding around carved idols circumcising each other or whatever silliness people choose to get moist over) should really go and take a severe reality check. It was not the mulga that made the magic; the mulga just sort of squatted there. We made the party, we created the almighty piss-up and to this day I remain uncircumcised. For the first time in my life, I felt secure. I was in the company of strangers, all of whom were rejected by the inhabitants of the brick-and-tile, drink-from-a-glass, fear-the-dark reality I had previously struggled within. I suddenly saw my own difference through the differences I saw. The Cooniba Boys were not intent on pulling me apart to see if I was valid or valuable, weak or strong, smart or totally gormless. They were simply existing because they could, and whether they recognised that proclivity in me or not, they happily accepted my existence alongside theirs. I was part of an organism incapable of understanding the concept of limitations. I was, finally, involved in a society. I could have cried with joy, and pissed as I was, I'm not sure I didn't. So there we were, doing the same things young people do whenever they get the opportunity, but I know I still carried the western mentality virus throughout the entire experience. I know it because I remember wishing the party would last forever, which suggests that I thought it couldn't, which implies that I knew my future was doomed to be another shadow in the infinity of western shadows. Still, I partied hard, virus notwithstanding. We all partied hard, then we all fell down. I don't remember falling down, but I must have because I woke up and the party was definitely over. I opened my eyes to the guttural obscenity that is the crow call. Dried mucus prevented me from fully recognising my place, but my fungoid tongue, throbbing head and roiling gut certainly helped me remember what I had accomplished there. I did not comprehend the vague form squatting across from me; at first I thought it might be just another misshapen growth of mulga. When it spoke: 'C'mon pella. Goin' up det Yeleta', I was still unconvinced that it wasn't some strange, rather noisy desert-thing best left unexplored by misplaced brown boys like me. I finally accepted its humanity when it challenged mine: 'You like a puckin' goombi lizid. Layin' up dat sun. Git up, goombi, pore dem puckin crows git ya.' Wanting to see Mulga-Man in his full, offensive glory, I tried to rip the dried crusts from my eyes, but only succeeded in adding two fingers full of desert dust to the revolting concoction already entrenched therein. In pain and to the tune of Mulga-Man's cackle, I groped around for any magical item that might restore my sight. Imagine my relief when I touched upon the sun-warmed glass of an Emu Bitter stubby. Still blind, I tipped the contents of the nearly three-quarters full desert gourd into my right hand, rubbed the potent brew into my scummy eyes and let out an almighty yell. I have never liked wasting alcohol and if my faculties had been intact I would have realised that there would have to be a pretty good reason for me to have left a beer so obviously unfinished. I remembered too late that the night before, for some obscure, civilisation-inspired reason, I had put one of my cigarette butts into my unfinished beer. I was now rubbing the offending butt into my eyes. Mulga-Man thought it was hilarious. I thought of all the nifty things I could do with Mulga-Man and a can of petrol and a box of matches. When I finally saw the world (albeit through beer, dust and Champion Ruby coloured lenses), I realised that apart from the rotten bastard squatting and laughing at my expense, I was alone in the mulga ring. The Cooniba Mission Boys had gone - probably back to the particular heaven that sent them to me - and I was once again bereft of spiritual family. I cannot adequately describe how barren I felt at that moment. The desert was a perfect representation of my inner place - sad, tired, desperate for sustenance and, well - angry. I felt truly deserted. Mulga-Man interrupted my self-indulgent musings: 'You comin'? I stood angrily, deliberately not bothering to dust myself, as if this lack of concern over my presentation would somehow offend him. He stood casually, not bothering to dust himself. His lack of concern deeply offended me. 'Where are we going?' I asked, for want of a more succinctly cutting remark. He grinned maliciously. 'Up Yeleta.' Either my ears were clogged with dust, or my mind was clogged with the febrile imaginings of the true paranoid. 'Yeah? Well up your arse too, mate!' I gritted. I think he understood me about as well as I understood him. 'C'mon den,' he said, and walked away. You have to understand that my options were exceedingly limited, and even if this insulting lunatic did think I was a lizard, he might just have been able to re-unite me with my adopted brotherhood. Confused, hung-over, saddened by the loss of my newfound friends and wondering how the hell he knew my name, I followed. We walked straight out into the desert, away from the relatively secure (if somewhat constrained) reality that constituted The Nundroo Service Station and Bushman's Bar, away from The Nundroo and District's Unofficial Rubbish Tip- the last destructive trappings of my own culture and away from my precious, bottle-ridden, butt-free mulga ring. We walked for half an hour, until my mouth was as cracked as the landscape and my head held the thumping of a thousand migrating kangaroos. When we finally reached our destination, Mulga-Man deigned to speak again. 'You gotta push. Dat starta mota pucked.' For the first time in our unusual relationship, I understood what he was saying. We stood beside yet another Holden Utility, parked (for reasons I will never fathom) precisely in the middle of absolute nowhere. Mulga-Man had dragged me halfway to Darwin just to push his damned car. I was not amused. 'Water,' I croaked. He grinned. 'No worry. Git dat Jerry up out da beck.' 'Huh?' I asked cleverly. He laughed and shook his dusty head. 'Puckin goombi lizid.' He walked to the rear of the ute and pointed to a large, battered Jerry can. 'Warda.' To this day I don't know what was in that Jerry can; suffice to say that I empathise with those poor misguided individuals who think its healthy to drink their own urine. I do not understand the reasoning, but I comprehend the taste. As I poisoned myself Mulga-Man settled into the drivers seat of the vehicle. 'Push 'im,' he said as I gagged. Some people believe that our stratosphere is sort of a staging area for alien activity, a hovering zone from which our highly evolved inter-galactic neighbours can observe our various and nefarious doings. If this is the actuality, then I am sure that the little big-eyed, baldy being lucky enough to watch me pushing that ute around the Nullarbor was absolutely cacking itself (assuming, of course, that big-eyed, baldy beings are enlightened enough to cack themselves). Allow me to explain what the big-eyed, baldy being would have witnessed, recorded and entered into the Andromedan equivalent of Funniest Home Videos. Dusty, staggering brown human pushes vehicle. Dusty, relaxed blue-black human laughs. Dusty, staggering brown human distorts face, emits loud rude noise and falls on face. Dusty, relaxed blue-black human laughs. Dusty, staggering, facially distorted, rude-noise making brown human pushes vehicle. Dusty, relaxed blue-black human laughs. I pushed. Mulga-Man laughed. 'Put the fucking clutch in!' I yelled, unaware of how distorted my dusty, brown face had become. 'No puckin clutch!' Mulga-Man yelled back, laughing. I heaved and miraculously the engine fired - but it didn't quite catch. 'Keep puckin' pushin',' Mulga-Man giggled, yelling. I kept puckin' pushin' and our modern equivalent of the reverse angle beast-drawn buggy began to move. The first explosion was very convincing. I thought the evil little gnome had let loose with a couple of barrels, deciding I'd make good twelve-gauge bait. I hit the deck and covered my head as the now mobile utility bunny-hopped a few more metres. The second explosion covered my prostrate form in a cloud of white, oily smoke (I now appreciate the valour shown by chemical warfare victims of the Gulf war) and I realised that, at least for now, I was not to become just another murder statistic. 'Keep puckin' pushin',' screamed the bastard, howling with glee. I rose from my grave and stumbled after Skippy the Bush Kanga-ute. As I reached for the pushin' position, Skippy farted again, tremendously, and took off without me. Mulga-Man just had to comment: 'Puckin bewdy.' Again I thought I would die. Alone, unloved, deserted, with the fading resonance of my murderers final 'puckin bewdy' as my ode. For the first time in my life I discovered my sub-conscious capacity for racial discrimination. 'Black bastard!' I screamed. It is amazing how much one can learn about oneself in a single moment of epiphany - I have spent the years since that precious, horrific moment of self-understanding analysing my responses to humanity in all its forms and hues. At times, I still find myself sadly wanting, bereft of compassion, devoid of appreciation for difference. Even as I abused him, Mulga-Man had been turning the ute. I never apologised. As Skippy approached, my thoughts turned from self-examination to self-interest. I realised that if Skippy stopped, the whole puckin' pushin' process would have to be repeated; therefore I was required to mount the monster in motion. Mulga-Man sped past and yelled 'No puckin' clutch.' I took stock of the situation. Mulga-Man sped past again. 'No puckin clutch.' I weighed my options. Mulga-Man urged Skippy into a fast turn and started his third pass. I ran beside Skippy, placed my hands on her rusty flank, tripped over a saltbush and fell flat on my face. Skippy farted, Mulga-Man giggled and a certain little big-eyed, baldy alien went down somewhere over Borneo, cacking as it crashed. I succeeded on the sixth pass. I was still recovering on the fourth and refuse to describe the fifth. The entire alien fleet went down over that one. It is relatively simple to climb from the back of a moving ute into its front cab, if the ute is gliding smoothly along a freshly tarred super-highway and the climbee is a five-hundred-thousand-dollar a year Hollywood stuntman named Cliff, or Rock, or Granite - whatever. Try it from the back of a farting Kanga-ute, driven by a giggling lunatic. Try it dehydrated, with a shocking hangover, covered in dust, beer and mucus, and recovering from two falls, smoke inhalation and the after effects of urine-consumption. I succeeded where so many lesser mortals would have failed. I succeeded for the simplest reason of all. Self-interest. The back of a ute is metal; the back of a desert ute is hot metal; the back of Skippy the Bush Kanga-ute was hot, rusty, bounding metal with gaping holes where the floor should have been. I climbed into the cab with Mulga-Man. After I removed the seat spring from my general anus area, I actually felt a moment of contentment. Then I made the mistake of checking my new environment. Skippy's dash was awash with dead blowflies, the windshield looked ready to cave in and the needle on the petrol gauge pointed below the E. 'You're nearly out of petrol,' I remarked sagely. Mulga-Man grinned, but I was used to that. 'Dat gauge pucked,' he said, 'tanks pull.' Imagine my relief. 'Where are we going?' I asked, actually far too exhausted to care anyway. 'Gern up Yeleta,' smiled Mulga-Man, 'gern up ma place. You blok sing dat one 'Yestiday'?' I had an inkling, which became an idea, which became an understanding. At the mulga ring party I had let my voice soar with the spirits (the Emu Bitter spirits - let's not get too moist now) and run the gamut of my Beatles lore. The Cooniba Mission Boys had a particular attachment to Beatles songs and I know them all (I don't like them much, but will sing them if the party demands it). Although I hadn't noticed Mulga-Man at the party, he must have been there, listening, absorbing the Lennon-McCartney magic. Now, bounding across the desert in our own private, dusty little reality he wanted 'Yesterday', so I gave it to him. 'Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, Now I need a place to hide away, Oh, I believe in Yesterday' Mulga-Man joined in, and accompanied by intermittent Skippy farts we sang the Beatles all the way to Mulga-Man's mansion at Yalata. Surrounded by the scrubby forest that differentiates the Yalata area from the 'true' Nullarbor, Mulga-Man's home was an alloy-shelled oasis, a caravan with no wheels that once belonged to the South Australian Main Roads Department. It contained a gas fridge, a chipboard chest of drawers and an old kapok mattress- the striped kind with the irritating buttons. We arrived in the early afternoon and Mulga-Man offered tea. I nodded gratefully, but winced when I realised where the water was coming from. The ubiquitous Jerry can. I shrugged - to the dehydrated, Skippy pushing, Beatles crooner, urine tea is better than no tea at all. We sat on a pair of suspicious looking car seats propped against the van, drank unsweetened, ghastly black tea and talked about race. 'You not puckin' white pella, ay?' 'No. I'm brown.' Mulga-Man laughed. 'Goombi lizid pella.' I finally relaxed and laughed with him. 'Yeah mate, but you're the one who likes the fucking Beatles.' For a second he looked confused, then he got it and laughed louder. 'You bleck pella?' I shrugged. 'A bit. My Dad's Grandad, Mum's Great-Grandmother.' He nodded, as if that explained everything. 'Not real bleck pella, not real white pella.' 'Like I said,' I said, 'I'm brown.' He contemplated. 'Dat black snake, he don't hang round long when pellas comin'. He piss right off. Smart bugger.' He raised his eyebrows and nodded once in my direction. 'Dat brown snake, he wait round all puckin' day jes' to grab a chunk outta ya. Nasty bugger.' 'What about white snakes?' I queried. Mulga-Man cackled evilly. 'Out here? Dat white snake gunna last two minutes. Crows git 'im. Dingo git 'im. Bleckpella eat 'im and brownpella step on 'im just for puckin pun.' I laughed. 'And he'll burn red.' Mulga-Man nodded soberly 'Like a roo dog's dick.' 'Remember that,' I said seriously, 'next time a white fella calls you a black bastard.' Mulga-Man roared and fell off the car-seat. We spent the entire afternoon that way - barely comprehending each other, but finding humour in the cracks of our mutual misunderstanding. When the Nullarbor sky performed its amazing red/orange sundown ritual, Mulga-Man pointed out towards the desert and said: 'Show ya how blackpella ketch wombat. Tradishnul.' This intrigued me and I admit to a little personal moistness at the prospect of seeing some traditional indigenous hunting. I imagined spears or boomerangs, quiet stalking through the saltbush and the victory of the food chains finest over the lesser beast. 'Gotta push dat puckin ute pirst.' I pushed dat puckin ute. We drove through the dusk, west into the fading glory of the setting sun. Mulga-Man seemed pre-occupied, as if he was working on an idea that he could not or would not articulate. Suddenly a wombat appeared in front of Skippy, loping unbelievably quickly across the desert floor. 'Wombat!' I screamed. 'Puckin' bewdy!' Mulga-Man screamed back. Mulga-Man put his foot to the floor, pushing Skippy to her greatest speed. 'Now,' I thought, 'now we stop and the hunt begins. Now I get to see the 'real' Australian native in action.' The wombat ran on, completely panicked. Mulga-Man turned to me and smiled. 'Hold on, goombi.' I grabbed the dash, sinking my nails into the dried red vinyl. The wombat veered left and Mulga-Man spun Skippy's wheel. We slid around in a storm of dust, lost speed and the wombat gained a few precious yards. Mulga-Man floored the accelerator again and Skippy surged forward straight over the terrified animal. Skippy and the wombat connected at 45 miles per hour, an easily stoppable force meeting a virtually immoveable object. It was like hitting a large lump of granite and I remember wishing that we'd remembered to bring seatbelts. Skippy stalled, Mulga-Man leapt from the cab, reached into the back of the ute and grabbed the Jerry can. The wombat grunted and growled as Mulga-Man approached and raised the can above his head. 'What are you doing?' I whispered. I sat stunned as I watched him beat the wounded wombat to death with the can. 'This isn't how it's supposed to be,' fumed my outraged inner-whitesnake. Mulga-Man dragged the bloody wombat carcass to the rear of the vehicle and heaved the murdered mess into the ute's rusty bed. 'I bet he doesn't even own a fucking boomerang,' I thought petulantly. Mulga-Man took his position behind Skippy's steering wheel, turned to me and smiled. 'Dat how blackpella ketch wombat. Tradishnul.' He looked at my face and giggled gleefully. 'Gotta push dat puckin ute.' Denny Prussian