Don’t be bent, don’t be bad, take it slow
Oh, this straight ahead blues, straight ahead
The sun is shining and my eyes are bleeding (light)
Oh, yeah this highway got the straight ahead blues
No bends, no curves, no corners, straight, yeah
Don’t be bent, don’t be crooked, hold the wheel (straight)
Oh yeah, the goal lies straight ahead, no crookedness now
For this is the right time, the right time, straight (ahead)
Yeah, straight, oh straight ahead (no curve) blues.
Ross’s car was one of those newish FB Holdens but seeing it had made the distance from Sydney most likely it would make it back without breaking down.
‘Take it straight north along any old road and that should get us to the Hume highway,’ Balga said not sure of how to get out of the city.
‘Yeah, Coburg and Sydney road,’ Ross replied sure of the route. She swung around in a smart v and drove off keeping to the speed limit. She obviously didn’t want to hang around Melbourne.
Balga fiddled with the radio and found a station playing, oh, the blues. He smiled and listened until the news cut into the music. Australian soldiers were in a country called Vietnam, but he wanted some sounds and got top forty as the city suddenly gave way. The country opened up through which the Hume Highway extended north.
Ross swung into a petrol station to fill the tank and Balga dutifully forked over the cash. He felt good to be on the road; great to be moving after long months in Melbourne. Now he had the country around him; but, and it hurt a little, no Grass Trees, just, well, farms and roadside trees and whizzing cars and trucks and soon he was one of them. He was behind the wheel, coaching out what power was in the engine. He managed to sit on seventy.
‘Australia’s own car isn’t a Ford,’ he commented dryly as the speed dropped below seventy.
‘Well, my husband’s a bit like that. No get up and go,’ commented Ross as she fiddled with the radio to tune in on some strange music.
‘Pablo Casals playing Bach,’ Ross observed.
‘Nice, sounds a bit Churchy like they had in the orphanage,’ Balga replied. ‘I actually was in the choir and sung some of that stuff slow and steady just like the car eh?’
The motor hummed, the wheels rolled and the wonderful cello played the wonderful music that Balga had never really dug. It fitted in well with the movement through the open countryside. He slowed, saw a side road and swerved into it.
‘Where are you going,’ Ross asked a little anxiously, Balga thought, as if he was about to kidnap her or dump her and steal the car.
‘Just want to dig the bush. That music is sending me into peace,’ Balga assured her as he pulled up under a tall spreading gum tree.
He got out and Ross joined him. The music from the car stopped. Cicadas sounded and a Kookaburra laughed. Balga whooped back and even did a little stamping dance. It sure felt good to be part of the land again; but, no, it wasn’t West Aussie and he got back into the car in the passenger seat. Ross drove them along and along until at long last they reached a river, a wide river which could only be the Murray.
‘Hey, a swim,’ Ross screeched and turned along a road that went along the river bank.
They came to a nice indented spot surrounded on three sides by trees and Ross jumped out of the car, pulled off her jeans and shirt and leaped into the water. Balga watched the current suddenly take her. He panicked. He wasn’t much of a swimmer and she could drown.
Ross angled to the bank some yards downstream. ‘Come on, come on,’ she urged the lad.
‘No, that current looks too strong,’ Balga answered afraid to trust his self to the river.
‘Come on, jump in. I’ve done life saving. Just reach out when you are swept to me and I’ll grab you. We can have a hug,’ she urged him’
Balga took off his clothes slowly then quickly jumped into the Murray River before he could draw back. The current swept him out and along. He tried to paddle closer to the shore. The current clutched him and then so did arms which held him and guided him along. They went on and on until about a hundred yards along Ross had angled them successfully to the bank.
‘There,’ she said, ‘that’s all there is to it.’
‘Ah yes,’ Balga said still unsure of his self and holding on to an apprehensive mood.
They walked back to their car and dressed. The sun was going down and both were hungry. They crossed the border over into Albury in New South Wales and Balga’s mood persisted. He suddenly realized as his identity returned with a rush that he was an Aborigine. He didn’t know what laws might confine him in that state. Why, he might even end up on a reservation. He hadn’t even thought of this.
‘Cheer up, the water wasn’t all that bad,’ Ross said easing the car into a service station and parking in front of a restaurant. ‘Come on, let’s eat,’ she said and Balga reluctantly followed her. Were Aborigines allowed to eat in a restaurant? He didn’t know; but it couldn’t be as bad as Perth where they were only banned from hotels. So he forced a smile as he accompanied the white girl into the place. A few men glanced at them and one hard faced bloke examined him carefully. Balga guessed he was a copper; and so he straightened up. He hid his weaknesses and put a Bodgie swagger in his walk as he went to the toilet. When he finished pissing, he turned to find the bloke there. ‘You passing through,’ he stated.
‘Yeah, just passing through, boss,’ Balga replied his head hanging.
‘Yeah, see that you do,’ the bloke said and left.
Ross was tucking into a hamburger and chips. Balga glanced at his and ate a few chips.
‘You want that,’ Ross said gesturing at his burger.
She scoffed it down and then they had coffee. Finished they went to the counter to pay and Balga saw a poster advertising a movie he had heard about, but never seen. It was Rebel without a Cause. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘I want to see that. James Dean’s in it.’
‘Yeah, the James Dean,’ the woman that was ringing up their bill spoke. ‘It’s showing at the Drive In and the show starts as soon as it’s dark enough.’
‘Well, if we drove all night we would be in Sydney early in the morning,’ Ross said.
‘No hurry, let’s see the movie and then go along a bit and sleep in the car. I haven’t been ever in a Drive In and I want to dig it.’
‘Why not, yes, I’m a bit tired at that.’
The Drive In was a new experience for both of them. They drove through a gateway in a metal sheet fence to stop at a building containing the ticket office, toilets and a snack bar. It was only a pound and after they got ice creams they continued and parked right in front of a large screen. There was a small speaker hooked on a post and they brought that inside the car and then got out and settled in the back seat.
The movie was in Cinemascope and began slowly. Balga decided that it wasn’t The Wild One, but Ross liked it enough to take his hand. The lad decided that she looked a bit like Nathalie Wood and whispered to her: ‘You know I had this friend. He used to name his girls after film actresses.’
‘Girls?’
‘Well, he would have called you Nathalie, uhuh,’ replied Balga edging away from her question. ‘Hey look,’ he called and their attention returned to the film which was a bit slow.
It was about high school students to which Balga couldn’t relate. He watched them go on a trip to the Griffith Park Observatory. The subject was “The End of Man” and the lecturer described the sun growing larger until it exploded and wiped out all trace of mankind. “The Earth will not be missed,” the lecturer informed the students. “Through the infinite reaches of space, the problems of man seem trivial and naive indeed, and man existing alone seems himself an episode of little consequence.” This was not the note of optimism Balga wanted when he was with a girl in a car and on the road.
And the film reached the scene of a deadly game of chicken in which the hip guy, Buzz challenged the main character, Jim to a chicken run. A really dumb charge at a cliff edge at which he went over and that was enough Balga fell asleep to be followed by Ross.
The lad woke up to the sounds of cars starting and revving. ‘Okay movie,’ Balga commented, ‘but not enough action. Well, now that we’ve had a sleep we can drive to Sydney tonight. You drive us out of town and then I’ll take the wheel.’
Before they left they stopped at the toilets and when Balga came out, he found a bloke talking to his girl. He came up and the young bloke glanced at him and sneered, ‘Don’t worry, but you have to wash before…’ It was then that Balga hit him. Down the man went and he stayed down.
‘We better get away before we get the Aussie fair,’ he grinned clenching his fists and feeling his knuckles.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He goes and gets his mates and they beat me all to hell and who knows what they’ll do to you. Let’s cut out right now, hurry!’
No one came after them as they escaped the town. Balga was at the wheel and it was with the night closed about them and the headlamps thrusting the darkness away that he finally felt he was a James Dean with a Nathalie Wood sleeping beside him. Life sure was great what with the vehicle burning away the night and with a chick breathing easily at his side. Yes, Sydney would be an adventure, he knew it, he knew it. Life was there for the living and the taking. He knew it; he knew it.