THE JUNGLE BAR was more crowded than Alice had expected. Most of the punters had been at the street rally. For others, it was a regular watering hole. Another reason for the crowd was unemployment: it was at its highest level ever, and an additional cause of public angst and civil unrest. Most of the punters there were on the dole.
The bar could have been designed by the creators of Tarzan, working with a lesser budget but a greater sense of vulgar absurdity. Alice derived a childish delight in its tasteless layering of cargo-cult bamboo and plastic tropical foliage, the simulated hides of exotic animals, and the garishly coloured, concealed mood lighting. Overhead wheeled wooden fans with brass fittings, and digital flaming torches burned in half a dozen braziers along the bar, from which of course no alcohol was allowed to be served. A cultish mishmash of African carvings, Easter Island heads, first nation Australian wooden carved statues and Polynesian Tiki gods stared down from the walls, and there was such an abundance of palms and exotic plants it would have qualified as a small rainforest. At the far end of the room was a stage with four, fold-back speakers at the front, flanked by a small front-of-house PA. Even though it was by definition an ersatz jungle, for members of the Octagon Peace Movement, it was sanctuary.
Studying the room from the entrance Alice suffered a twinge of something akin to stage fright. What am I doing here, and why? He wasn’t feeling quite right, not himself, giddy. He hoped it wasn’t one of those strange turns he’d been having: a trippy hallucination, LSD flash or whatever the stuff it was. But then his self-control reasserted itself as he remembered he was here to see his mates.
Bustling through the crowd he was recognized with plenty of pats on the back. All around him, amid the African tribal music and the general chatter, he could hear cries of: that’s Alice! ... Hey Alice! There was no doubting his popularity. He acknowledged them with a nod and a grunt.
As Alice approached the backstage entrance curtain, the zebra painted backdrop on the stage rippled, and to Alice’s surprise a naked dancer appeared. She had been camouflaged by zebra body paint, and was now dancing to a wild African rhythm juggled by the DJ. When the crowd failed to react to her it confirmed to Alice that the youth of the day were too spoilt to appreciate her talent.
Mumbling condemningly: “Wouldn’t know if your arses were on fire. What a bloody waste of talent,” Alice went through the curtain backstage where he found the members of Units. They were sitting on speaker cabinets and instrument cases, preparing to go on stage.
Alice entered and roared: “Hey, Units! Happening!”
The leader of the band and Alice’s best mate, Mal Function, went quickly to Alice with his big muscular arms opened wide. “Hey, the main man. Hangin? We’ve missed you, Al.” They enacted the Octagon loyalty greeting, chanting “Oct-a-gon!” in unison with mirrored body movements that ended with three hip pumps … all good fun.
Wearing only a G-string, Mal was halfway through putting on his stage make-up. A tall, handsome guy with short-cropped blonde hair, it was obvious from his tattooed physique he wasn’t the sort of bloke to take crap from anyone. He was lean, fit and built like a kickboxer. Alice slapped him affectionately on the back.
“Function, you turd,” he joked. “All’s well, all’s well. Looks like your muscles have atrophied, need a top-up on the ‘roids mate?” Alice nodded to the other two band members. “Red, Blue.”
Blue doubled as the drummer for Alice’s band, while Red was the bass player of the Units. He was dressed in red coveralls.
“Still takin’ ugly pills Red, I see,” Alice went on. “Well, I’m on my way to see the law!”
Red and Blue immediately jumped up and comically stretched their hands up against the wall posing for a pat down. Function’s mood, on the other hand, changed to deadly serious. He fronted Alice. “The law?” he asked. “You’re crazy man. They’ll buttbang yer.”
Alice chuckled. “Alright, alright, I know. So you’re asking: ‘what’s Alice doing mixin’ with the long arm?’ Well, this little black duck doesn’t even know what the mongrels want.”
Before anyone could get another word in, the stage manager’s head appeared around the curtain and called out, “G’day Alice … Mal, guys? Units, you’re on!” The head withdrew. Red and Blue filed past Alice on their way to the stage. “Bup bup, Alice”, said Red, in his native indigenous Australian tongue. “Bup bup, Red,” Alice replied, as he took a cigarette from a pack and lit up. Mal turned, ready to hit the stage, and snatched the cigarette out of Alice’s mouth. He took a drag then stamped it out on the floor.
“Hey!” Alice grumbled in protest.
“I thought you’d quit?”
“I was just keeping in practice in case I start up again.”
Both laughed.
“Mate, I’m sorry about Stain. Must’ve been terrible, think she’d know better than to OD,” Mal said.
“Mate, it wasn’t the smack that got her … She was killed in hospital.”
Mal’s jaw dropped in surprise. “What makes you think that, man?”
“She was fine when the medics picked her up from my gaff. But before then, after the gig that night, I got an anonymous threat that something bad would happen if I didn’t pull out of the Octagon.”
Mal’s face paled. He sat on the edge of a speaker cabinet, running his fingers through his short hair, mind blown. “Hell, mate…” he breathed. “Who do you reckon … Wait, Oceana SSD. Mate, how the stuff can you walk into their trap knowing this?”
“The only way I can find out if they murdered her is to front them,” replied Alice, softly, adding: “I need to put it to bed.”
“You’re a braver man than I,” said Mal, emphatically. “We get the truth we seek mate, but hey, these pricks have a dud reputation. What makes you think it’s not a set-up to take you out?”
“I don’t see how I can get answers any other way mate,” said Alice. “If I can prove these bastards did her in, I’ll use it in every way I can to bring them down.”
Mal saw the evil look in his friend’s eye. He’d known Alice long enough to understand when he meant business. But he also knew what Alice was up against, and didn’t like the odds.
“There’s gotta be a better way mate,” he implored.
“There isn’t,” said Alice. “I’ve thought it through. I’ve gotta front them, that’s it. End of story.”
Mal grinned, “Mate, a bit of diplomacy would go a long way. I hope it’s not the end of the story…” Mal paused and eyeballed Alice worriedly. “I’m not convinced.”
“You worry too much,” Alice said, with a deprecating chuckle. “You'd make a good president Mal.”
“Yeah right, that’d be the day. I can see it now Mal Function for president. Ha! It’d be different if he could be voted out mate, but he changed the law so that can’t happen. Look, you’re a famous dude, a rockstar, with influence, you can’t risk it Al … Mate, I don’t buy this making a hologram of your crap talked about in the press.”
The sound of Blue testing his drums on stage got Mal back on his feet.
“Stay for the gig Al, stuff the heat.”
“Nar mate, I’m going to meet the arm… Gotta put it to bed. If I don’t come back, send flowers. Look mate, you’re on. Time to get up on stage and sing … if you can call it that.”
“Ahhhhh!” Mal screeched an off-key operatic note, appreciating the jibe.
“I’ll catch you later.” Alice gave him an affectionate slap on the shoulder.
Mal stopped at the curtain, turned and walked slowly back to Alice, a concerned look on his face. “Seriously Al, be careful,” he said. “I don’t like you mixing it with the law. You know what they’re saying about that girl who landed on the official and killed him. They’re blaming us. They know we don’t have a permit for the protest tonight, and if they threatened you before, if they had anything to do with what happened to Stain, there’s no telling what they might do when they get their clutches on you.”
Alice took hold of his arm and ushered him towards the curtain. “We don’t need a permit for a bloody harbour cruise, right? Don’t worry about me mate.” He stared his friend in the eyes. “I’ll be okay. Trust me.”
Mal smiled. “I trust you buddy, just don’t trust them … count yer fingers after you shake hands with ’em, won’t ya?” With a grave expression he added: “All jokes aside … be bloody careful mate.”
They paused for a moment with eyes locked, as though it might be the last time they’d ever meet. Then Alice broke the solemn moment. He whipped the 8-ball out of his pocket and tossed it up. Before he could catch it, Mal snapped it out of the air. He disappeared through the curtain with the 8-ball, leaving Alice blinking in surprise. Suddenly, Mal’s head reappeared through the curtain. “Hey Al,” he yelled, and threw the 8-ball. “See you on the ferry tonight!”
Alice caught the ball, staring at it like it was about to explode. His hand began to tremble. A vision of a cobwebbed haze came over his mind, and he could only vaguely hear Mal’s voice on the other side of the curtain, singing: “Tonight, tonight, we’re ferrying tonight…” His mind swirled in a kaleidoscope of mental images. The entire room suddenly distorted into something surreal, otherworldly. Stain was standing naked, covered in mud, holding her hands out to him, beckoning.
“Stain … What? You telling me you were murdered?” he muttered, trance-like. Then his mental screen flipped to the begging hobo, the ten-dollar coin revolving in the air … and then, once again his thoughts were projected into somewhere else entirely. A deathly silent darkness — a tinnitus-like whistle getting louder, and louder — then from out of the pitch black appeared a screaming horrific horned demon with bat wings and claws. Then silence and a shift to a dully-lit room. Protruding from a grey wall of cobwebs at its rear were chrome horns, gleaming among a swirl of dust and smoke. That deep demonic voice he’d heard at the hospital, resounding inside his head, saying: “The Shine!”
A loud chord from the Units onstage snapped him back to reality. He took a deep breath, wondering when, or if, these horrendous hallucinations would end. He was the kind of bloke that only felt comfortable in total control of himself. Nevertheless, he had to ignore it and get on with what he had to do. He went to the backstage door, pulled down the brim of his Fedora, drew his coat closed and turned up the collar, ready to take on the cold night air. Pushing open the door, he was almost blown over by a strong gust of icy wind. With his head down, he powered his way against the wind into the dark alley. As he headed along the footpath to the main street, he could hear the thump of Red’s bass guitar, and Mal’s voice singing Fighting for You. It was one of his songs, and it made him smile. Mal was singing it for him to hear, the lyrics relevant to the conversation they’d just had.
The music faded in his wake into the sound of his own lonely footsteps echoing off the cold high-rise buildings walling the narrow laneway. He stopped at a street corner under a streetlamp, slipped a cigarette between his lips and lit up. With his profile shadowed by the brim of his hat, the light from the match illuminated his face. Holding the flame short of the cigarette he concentrated on the faint sound of approaching footsteps. They suddenly stopped. It was his tail. Alice smirked knowingly and took a deep drag on the cigarette, inhaled, coughed and looked down at the butt with distaste. He flicked it angrily away. He’d quit some time back, but kept a packet in his pocket just in case: it was a hard habit to kick.
He continued to walk, listening to his tail’s footsteps in time with his. Just to stir him up, he skipped once to break rhythm, then walked on. The two sets of footsteps were out of sync, and he heard his tail skip to get in time. In a cynical laugh, a puff of steam fired from Alice’s nostrils like dragon’s breath. He came out of the alley and looked around. To him, that night, the city was strangely beautiful. The darkness successfully concealed the corruption, the crime and the misery that lurked behind the sparkling lights.