Shrimped in the Vortex

They say fortune favours the brave but try telling him that having plucked up the courage to talk to the festival goddess only for her to turn out to be the best friend of the girl he was with the night before. With The Killers providing the soundtrack (they’re actually still alright), the boy they called Dag was banished from Molly’s chamber to the dank reality of a festival escaping him. We plodded back to our camp deflated, resigned to an anti-climactic return to Dublin and a hangover capable of taking the whole plane down with us.  We’d saturated our WhatsApp group in preparation but all the Rice Crispy bars in the world couldn’t save us now. We were doomed… and then the musically inclined freaks and geeks convention threw us a doggy life.

From nowhere the sanctity of our circle was invaded by balloons- hundreds of them, our marquee threatening to launch into space at the hands of a Pixar fanatic claiming to be a Balloonatic. Transfixed, we clung to the coat tails of euphoria in vain, our intruder less stimulating than we’d hoped. But as the old saying goes, don’t judge a Balloonatic until you’ve told him to leave. Grasping a knife from a mystery pocket, he slashed the dreams of every helium balloon hoping to fly that night and oddly, we fed off it. I looked to the Dag with a glint in my eye as I could see the strength in his paw returning. There was no need to say anything. We were going on an adventure.

In the distance an illuminated tree growing from the sunroof of a Volkswagen Beetle caught our eye. We knew our cars. The thud of the base shot the lights from leaf to leaf as a rave emerged at the foot of the evergreen. There was life in this festival yet. From the trippers to those that couldn’t get up again, we’d stumbled across an apocalypse. A body of a girl rose from the abyss peering up at us through her conjunctivitis. She was Irish, and you could tell she was excited to see us by the way her head bobbled. As words failed her, our eyes focussed. Like zombies to fire the crowd gathered by the insufferable beat box, motionless and dribbling. If this was a nursery rhyme, then this porridge was long passed overcooked and our meal lay elsewhere.

We walked for miles yet nothing seemed to get closer. We never questioned the way because we didn’t know where we were going. At least that was my story, until we arrived. Greeted by Mike and his bag of brown crystals, we had found Wiggle’s friend Natalie’s camp.  No Natalie here, a guy dressed as a lion tried to introduce himself but his best efforts were hampered by an evacuation of the mind. Out from his lap perked up a blonde astronomer, keen to assemble our star signs before we went any further. Blatantly ignoring her we moved on to SteveO from Jackass dressed like he was auditioning for The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. It was hard to tell if he was smiling or suffering but I reckon he liked us. Beside him, Mitch from Modern Family and his fictitious nearby girlfriend. We swapped nonsensical blabbering that seemed important at the time and shared an American Pie style fraternal nod as if to say we’d found our people. And then came the Australian with the elephant.

He appeared from the darkness like Steve Irwin reincarnate carrying the lifeless beast on his shoulder.  I bet you boys have never seen anyone fist an elephant before? He was right. Staged like an Amsterdam sex show (or so I’ve heard), the lights came down on a violent act of anal jackhammering. The elephant’s trunk seemed to perform a satisfactory Mexican wave as we split our sides laughing in disbelief. I’m bloody shrimped after that fellas. He sat down beside us as we extended our olive bag but despite his infectious laugh it was hard to ignore the elephant in the room. Before we could pry, an Indian with a bathmat for a cape came to save the day. Brown Batman, the Aussie yelled, and so it stuck. The more we licked our palms clean of the brown dust the better it seemed to get. The elephant grew bigger, the Aussie louder, even Mike developed a voice. What do you call an Irishman sitting outside? Paddy O’Furniture. SteveO’s brain was visibly melting, Mitch was up and down to his imaginary girlfriend and Brown Batman’s facial expression had frozen in time.

Missed a spot.

Things reached a momentary lull as we looked to each other to establish some sense of reality. I bet you boys have never seen anyone head an elephant before? Hold off on the reality. Taking rectal examinations to unseen new levels, the crocodile hunter drove his head up that elephant’s arse like you would a firework to a helpless cat on Halloween. He pulled out sweaty and satisfied and sat back down among us as if nothing had happened. That would’ve made more sense. At this stage we’d given up on Mitch, only spotting him dancing like a spastic hawk long after the heading. He returned in denial, stuck with the ball and chain don’t you know. He’s shrimped. As verbal assaults gathered pace, SteveO nonchalantly took centre stage. Anyone have any toilet paper? I just shit myself. As the boy in the striped pyjamas walked off into the moonlight with a hand full of his own shite, Brown Batman had been promoted to Black Batman and we needed to get the fuck out of there before our situation became permanent. We said our goodbyes, much to the dismay of Aussie Steve. You can’t leave me with these cunts! We had to.

When we got back to our camp our attempts to tell everyone about Narnia seemed to make it all the more improbable. Like retired soccer players harping on about the glory days, all we wanted was to get back in the dressing room. So as if just to prove to ourselves that all this weird shit actually happened, we went back. And there they were, shrimping more than ever. The elephant. Roscco ride the elephant. He approached it tentatively, not wanting to startle it but as he went to mount it the dumb brute collapsed from under him. He’s fucked man. In fact he was Styrofoam, revealed to us by an enemy camper who literally tore the hole off it minutes later, much to Mitch’s horror.  I don’t even want you guys to meet her. You’re animals. We were certainly something alright.

As the sun rose Natalie popped her head out from the tent. Turns out we were in the right place, but our time had come to leave. We walked back in silence trying to process it all. Each of us had front row seats to the freak show. If we thought a little less of ourselves, maybe we’d admit we were part of it. Played leading roles even? We left the theatre behind wondering if any of it were real, facing down the barrel of a daunting clean up. Amongst the carnage we found the popped balloons, and for the first time in a long time, we were normal.

 

12 WEEKS A LOW PAID COTTON WORKER

I discovered through film that I was quite impressionable. Forrest Gump convinced me to stay loyal to the Snickers for fear of chocolate related disappointments. The Lord of the Rings taught me that even when you have the perfect ring, marriage is not the answer. Inception had me following my dreams. Then waking up a lot, only still to be dreaming and so forth until… hang on. Maybe that was Groundhog Day? But the film that resonated with me most was 12 Years a Slave. I remember watching it and thinking, that’s the life for me. My quest for a second year in Australia coincided with my cotton picking ambitions and so to Emerald, up in the Central Highlands of Queensland. Not quite the Mississippi Delta but still hot enough to burn a hole in the most frugal pockets.  

I was to stay with Margaret, a family friend fresh off a double knee replacement, and her brother Pat, a former rodeo champion and my country mentor. They lived in an old, quaint timber-framed cottage. Think ‘The Notebook’, but on stilts. Well Pat dwelled between the stilts and that’s where I found him. An aroma of bacon and cabbage hit my nostrils like a local anaesthetic. IRISH, he yelled. I presumed that wasn’t the dog’s name.  Over dinner we sunk Golds chased by Stone’s Ginger Wine. He shared with me his epic tales of musters gone by whilst I sat there trying to think of a story that didn’t reveal my feminine side. I stumbled up the stairs and into what would be my palace for the next twelve weeks, and boy was I shitting myself.

Rocking up for work on day one having never been whipped was quite intimidating. Farmer Mike decided to forego all pleasantries, ushering me into a Ute and barking at me to follow. It took an eternity to find first gear and Mike wasn’t waiting, hooning up the paddock in a cloud of merciless dust. Having rallied through the 7,000 hectare farm, I caught up to him as he pointed me to a rusty, old excuse for a tractor being operated by an old cobber named Steve. My hand sizzled on the cabin door as I hopped in. Christ it was intimate, and worse still, there was no air con. Trying to avoid him like a child playing Operation, I contorted my body with all my might, but only achieved the feeling of a lap dancer in a sauna. He didn’t seem to mind me dripping all over him, but before I could panic, an unforgettable waft of must landed on my tongue. Slipping away into the afterlife seemed like the only option, when suddenly, Steve was gone. If he’d just confessed to his wife’s murder I was none the wiser, but realistically it was probably something to do with farming and getting the tractor to move.

They were the best of times, they were the worst of times. A fellow picker coined that term. Anyway, the first time the tractor decided to cut out was twenty minutes into my solo shift, day one. I sent for Mike. He arrived like a bull in heat but luckily I wasn’t his type. With a screw driver in either hand, he pierced the side of the engine, sparking her up like a defibrillator would a Chinaman on Bondi Rescue. He looked at me as if I didn’t have a degree in journalism and I smiled back at him like I didn’t think he was the killer from Wolf Creek. As he grunted back to his Ute, I cursed him from high heaven (under my breath so not even I could hear). It cut out again almost immediately but this time I called Steve. Turns out we shared a common enemy, but not much more. He had a girlfriend in the Philippines whom he’d never met and Steve was in the process of selling his car to put her kids through college. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that long distance relationships can be difficult, because who was I to deny true love?

Upon sunset I parked the tractor up and hopped in my Ute. With no phone signal and no clue how to get home, I was pretty anxious already, but when I bogged the two rear wheels of the jeep in black dirt, I was already writing my own obituary. The stars lit up the road, coming at me two by two. Must be the Southern Cross. Turns out a herd of cattle had heard it was my first day and decided to surround the jeep for some devilment. Four wheel drive, front wheel drive, I even got a cow to give me a push, but to no avail. I was proper stuck. Left for dead on a cotton farm, I said to a cow with a wry smile. Like I hadn’t been warned by the film.  But instead of answering me, the cow took off. They all did. Beeping in the distance had created a Lion King style stampede. Farmer Mike had come to the rescue. I knew he loved me. He looked me up and down with more disgust than pity. You’re supposed to be out there for another hour. I should’ve ran away with the cattle. 

Yet as my picking improved, so did our relationship. Let me tell you about the art behind cotton farming. It’s all about efficiency and straight lines. In a 100 hectare field that’s roughly 1.2km in length and at a speed of 10kmph, the time lost missing one row on a cut could be reasonably punished by death. With only a few inches to play with on either side of the mulcher, I’d be driving down the pivot like a spectator at the most intense table tennis encounter imaginable. Fortunately, I drove her straight and through. After a couple of weeks in the hotbed on wheels, I was promoted to a 2013 John Deere. It was as if I’d made the leap from paper airplane manufacturer to commercial pilot.  Chilling air-con, a booming stereo and a Sat Nav that rendered me redundant. One push of a button and her internal map set her on her way. All I had to do was sit back, relax, and video document my mind slowly unravelling for all my friends on Facebook. At one point I questioned the very need for cotton. How many people even use cotton buds these days? Not me anyway, the trauma after all this would be too much to take.

Tbc…

The One That Flew From His Mother’s Nest

Planning and my life have never gone hand in hand. Brought into this world mistakenly nine years after my parents last did the deed, a potentially faulty baby was born a pleasant surprise and things have worked out nicely since. That said, instead of diving into the endless pit of career opportunities a degree in journalism offers here in Ireland, I decided to avoid the stress of ‘real life’ and head to Australia a little over two years ago.

The timing of my decision coincided with the British and Irish Lions tour and with friends heading over for rugby mania it was only natural to join the sea of red and ease into my new environment. My plan? Follow the lads until they went home and hopefully stumble across some potential mates along the way.  My insurance policy? My darling sister married and living in Brisbane. The tour is a hazy memory at this stage. O’Driscoll was dropped. Gatland is the devil and I think we won. It was a whirlwind and to unwind after a liver damaging few weeks with ‘LIONS’ still echoing in our ears, we headed to Indonesia. Definitely a financially irresponsible decision on my part as it was a long way to go for a massage.

There wasn’t much to love about our first stop in Bali. Kuta was a pothole of a city. A feeding ground for the Australian mining population, it was a sleazy cesspit of corruption. Don’t get me wrong, the roulette players amongst you might find it delightful. Did he just spike my drink or was that sugar? Does this girl I’m dancing with have a penis or just really big hands? Is this taxi taking a short cut to my hostel or am I going to be raped in a lane by a nunchuck swinging midget in a cape?  Hitting nothing but double zeros, we cashed in our chips and headed to the Gili Islands in search of solace.

The people there were most welcoming, the island was free from motor vehicles and the food barely gave you the shits. If it wasn’t for the deeply depressed chap wailing over the intercoms in the middle of the night it was paradise. Ah yes, Ramadan. How could we forget the ninth month of the Islamic calendar observed by Muslims globally as a month of fasting to commemorate the first revelation of the Quran to Mohammad? Sure what better time of year for a gang of Irish pissheads to arrive? Luckily for us, the island’s natives were about as Muslim as we were Catholic. It was easy to get around the midnight noise curfew with silent discos and it seemed even easier to get around fasting by eating.

In fact, everything was accessible. The night before we were due to leave for the forests of Ubud, a couple of us discovered another stimulant in large supply and despite being warned against such activity, our willpower had been compromised. I woke the next morning contorted in a cold ball of suffering regretting the night before, and was in no state to take our early morning voyage to visit the monkeys. Like a selfless soldier on the front line I implored my troops to leave me behind as eventually our paths would separate anyway. Without needing much convincing, they were gone.  For three days I fended for myself. Each morning I’d allow the workers at my lodgings to secretly smoke up in my room while I scaled their banana trees foraging for the ingredients for homemade banana pancakes.

Miraculously I had recovered from my hangover in record time and powered through my first night alone. The last stop on the island’s pub crawl was a fair trek but the beach fire alone there was worth the hike. En route I bumped into two dishevelled souls unknowingly walking away from the party. Between insults we found some common ground and a few shots later we had known each other our whole lives.  We partied together for a couple of nights and coincidentally they were from Brisbane.  It’s incredible the people you meet when you’re forced to put yourself out there. Admittedly for every great person I met there were the few social recluses that I’d immediately regret introducing myself to, but sure who gets along with everybody?  These fellas were spot on though. A good knowledge of sport complimented by a good taste in music and they could throw some banter over a few beers to boot. What more could you want? Well maybe for them to hang around a bit longer because before you knew it, they were on a boat out of my life. One minute you’re necking whiskeys revelling in bromance at sunrise, the next you’re walking home haggard and shoeless pleading for directions to a hotel you can’t remember.

I got back to my sister in Brisbane in one piece physically but my mind was in a thousand places. Suddenly things were real. I had very little money, no real friends in Brisbane and no obvious job prospects. I had no intention of going straight into a fruit picking job on some desolate farm and I was beginning to question whether I would last any length of time in Australia at all. Thankfully my sister’s husband invited me to an AFL game in the Gabba to watch his beloved Brisbane Lions and it was a much needed escape from pondering life. The stadium was rocking as the Western Bulldogs had come to town. 40,000 seater stadium packed to capacity. Beer in each hand. This was more like it.  I hadn’t taken my seat 5 minutes before I was tipped on the shoulder. ‘In the wrong seat no doubt’, I thought to myself. Not even close. As fate would have it, it was one of the Brisbane boys from Gili Trawangan one row back. I don’t know if he was as surprised as I was but inside I was bursting with excitement while obviously trying to play it as cool as possible. Suddenly things were looking up.