I was still hanging around the Elizabeth shops with the gang. Drinking way too much and taking drugs four or five nights a week, while working days at the railways. When I say working days, I was sleeping at least half of the morning and recovering the other half. I was pouring molten metal during the day and tearing Adelaide apart by night. And singing in the band whenever we could get together.
Life at the railways was going downhill. Not the work really. I could cope with that once I’d straightened up. But actually wanting to be there was getting more difficult. I had known from the start that moulding wasn’t my calling, but by this point it was starting to become an anchor around my neck.
If I wanted to stay out all night watching bands, I couldn’t turn up for work. If I didn’t turn up for work, I was in trouble and I had no money. Sooner or later I would have to make a choice between work and music.
There were more girls than I can remember. And more nights I couldn’t remember. The band was getting better with every rehearsal and I was getting more and more out of control with every day that passed. I was living the rock-and-roll lifestyle and we had only done two gigs. I wanted to live fast and die young and leave a good-looking corpse, but surely I needed to make a record before that. Besides, dying seemed to be a much harder thing to do than I thought. It was going to take a long time and I would probably leave a trail of destruction in my wake. Even back then I would sit and look at myself in the mirror some nights and wonder what it would take to kill me. How much could I take before I reached breaking point? Maybe I had already passed that point years before.
I was finding it harder and harder to get up for work every day and it was getting more and more dangerous while I was there. It was an accident waiting to happen. Something had to give.
One day Don said to us all, ‘I need to tell you blokes something important.’
We all sat around listening.
‘I’m taking a year off to finish my master’s degree at Armidale University.’
‘What the fuck are we going to do?’ I thought to myself.
Then one of the band had a brainwave. ‘Why don’t we go to Armidale and while Don’s at university we can still get together and write some songs.’
‘I’m going to be working a hell of a lot, but yeah, we could get together I guess,’ Don said hesitantly.
But we had already decided. We were going to Armidale.
‘We’re coming with you, Don.’ The rest of us by this time saw Don as the leader. He must have thought we were like puppies, following him around.
‘Are you sure, guys? I’ll be back in a year. You guys could just keep –’
‘No, we’re coming with you.’ I cut him off mid-sentence. It was a done deal. The idea of leaving Adelaide appealed to me. In fact, I would have left right that moment if I could have. ‘I’m ready. When do we leave?’
Don was the first to leave. He flew to Armidale to get ready for university. We were going to follow in the truck a little later.
But first I had to quit my job at the railways. I went in and talked to old Tony. ‘Tony, I’m not good at this. I can’t do it anymore. Music is what I want to do.’
‘Don’t be a bloody larrikin all your life, Jim. You’ve got a bloody good job here. If you just knuckle down a bit and do some bloody work, you could end up as the boss of the floor like me.’
I looked at Tony. He was a broken, tired, old man. Every day I worked with him I heard him complain about how bad his back was and how damaged his lungs were from smoke and gas. He had a coughing fit every time he laughed but he’d just light up another fag and keep working. This was not what I wanted.
‘I’d love to do that, Tony, but I’m not as good as you,’ I lied.
‘Don’t be a bloody idiot. You’re potentially as good as I am or even better.’ He was lying too. ‘All you’ve got to do is keep your bloody head down and don’t cause so much trouble. Your problem is that bloody boogie-woogie music you listen to. It’s all just a load of rubbish, lad. This here is a real bloody job. Not prancing around the bloody stage in your bloody tight jeans. That’s not a job for a man.’
‘I’ve got to quit, Tony. We’re moving interstate. You wait and see. We’re going to be a big band.’
‘Yeah, yeah, and I’m the fucking Prime Minister. You’re a bloody idiot.’ Tony’s eyes were watering as he walked away. He hardly talked to me again. I hadn’t lived up to his expectations.
Next I had to tell Reg. He wouldn’t be happy either. I went to Mum and Reg’s house in Smithfield, just on the outskirts of Elizabeth, to let him know.
‘Dad, I’m quitting the railways and moving to Armidale with the band.’
‘Oh Jim, son, have you thought about this at all? You can’t run away from everything in life, mate. You have to settle down and finish your apprenticeship. Then you can do whatever you want. And you’ll still have something to fall back on if it doesn’t work out.’
But if I was going to fall, I didn’t want a safety net. It was do or die for me.
‘You’re an eejit, Jim. You had a chance tae dae somethin’ with yer life but no, you just want tae run away like yer dad. Off ye go then.’ Mum never approved of anything.
Now I could drink and party all night and get paid for it. Or that was the theory. In fact, it appeared to me that the more I partied the more people liked me. And the harder rock-androll bands went, the bigger they would get. I’d read about them. That’s what I was going to do. Go hard.
This was what I had dreamed about when I sat on the pier at Semaphore as a child, looking out to sea. This was what I had dreamed about listening to the rhythm of the train as I escaped my home to the sea. This was what I had dreamed about when I was hiding in the paddock across from our house. This was what I had wanted when we hid in the cupboards crying, trying to drown out the sounds of people fighting in our home. This was everything I had wanted for as long as I could remember. I was leaving and I was never coming back. I would miss my brothers and sisters but they had to save themselves, I couldn’t help them. I’d made it this far and I’d be fucked if I was going to die in Elizabeth. If Cold Chisel hadn’t come along I would have hitched a ride in a truck or jumped on a freight train or walked if I had to, but I would have left somehow.
I’m going to take this denim jacket with me. I reckon it’ll be cold up there. I know it’s not mine but I like it. Anyway, fuck it. John won’t miss it. He left. If it’s still here he obviously doesn’t want it. I doubt he even knows he had one. He left it with the rest of the rubbish. The shit he didn’t want to see anymore. I was part of that rubbish, now that I think of it. So were the rest of the family. I don’t blame him. I don’t want to see him or any of this again either.
Even if I didn’t listen I could hear Mum shouting at Reg while I packed. That voice that sounded like an open razor, slashing everything it came close to.
Mum’s house held a lot of secrets. It always looked so clean. Everything she didn’t want to see she swept under the carpet and pretended it didn’t exist. Or she burned it. Everything that ever caused her pain. The past, our childhoods, Dad, the mistakes we all made. Pushed into a pile somewhere and burned. If she didn’t see it, it never happened.
I sang to myself to block out the sounds of the house. I couldn’t sing loud enough. This time I was leaving before I got thrown away again. The truck would be here soon. I was just about packed. I didn’t have much. Fuck it, I didn’t need much. I would go out to the front of the house and wait for the band to arrive. The sooner I was out of here the better.
Yeah. I’m taking this denim jacket with me.
I climbed into the back of the band’s truck. It was an old Tip Top baker’s truck that had done way too many miles delivering bread to be carrying a band’s equipment all over the country. It didn’t look very flash but I had a feeling it would get us to where we were going. There were no lights in the back. I could see the outline of the guys sitting around in the dark. I threw my bag on top of the gear and sat down on the floor.
Steve was as happy to get out of there as me. He was singing at the top of his voice in his broad Liverpudlian accent, prodding Ian, trying to get him to join in. Ian sat quietly, looking down. He was always quiet. I knew this wasn’t the first place he’d left behind and I got the feeling he felt all right anywhere. Les, on the other hand, looked worried. Like he really wasn’t ready to leave the safety of his mum and dad’s home.
A strange sense of freedom came over me. It was just the band and Michael the roadie and me. No family, no friends. A new start. Michael shut the door; suddenly it was pitch black. I felt around for the bottle of cheap whisky I had in my bag and pulled it out. Opened it up and closed my eyes and breathed in. Tilted my head back and swallowed down as much as I could without throwing up. It tasted like fire. As we left Elizabeth I wanted to feel sad but I didn’t. I wasn’t scared anymore. In fact, I felt nothing at all.