Doug knows about road rage.
He has spent the best part of the last ten years driving, a time that changed him both physically and emotionally. For the first five years he drove buses and taxis, then he got his truck license and shifted from driving people to driving chickens. It was during the chicken years that his body reinvented itself (something he thought only happened to famous people). Up until this time he was the shape of an average Joe Blow and then in the space of six months, he blew out! He blamed it on stress, the long hours sitting and driving. Then, what with the extra weight he was carrying and some hot spells, he sweated so much through his scalp, he developed and itchy rash and Meg had to shave off his hair and paint his head with soothing calamine lotion.
Driving a truck loaded with poultry through Melbourne every day, in a body that had reinvented itself, was the trigger that released his repressed anger. And once released, he quickly habituated to the aggression. What really got up his nose, like a fork, were those people who insisted on taking the right of way when doing a right hand turn. His response to this road rudeness was ruthless intimidation. It was a terrifying sight for the thoughtless turner – looking in their rear view mirror they saw a massive poultry truck driving up their exhaust and a fat, bald noggin, painted pink sticking out of the window yelling stuff about left and right. But what mesmerised people, was the sign propped against the windscreen for all to read. It said ‘CHOOK’ in bold capitals. But of course people read it in their mirrors, backwards. It was amazing how many who experienced Doug’s rage, reported to the police that the offender had an ethnic name that they couldn’t pronounce.
Things came to a head around Christmas. It was hot and the traffic was free-associating, as it does in the festive season. Doug had been driving longer hours than usual (what with the Christmas rush for poultry), when it happened – in Footscray. He’d finally made it through the city when a woman in an agapanthus blue Hyundai Excel, turned in front of him. He lost it in a big way – he was out of control – he was going to give her a piece of his mind – he was so close, he could see the demister strips on the rear window. And then he saw it. A bumper sticker. He couldn’t help but read it because once you are literate, you have no choice. It said, PRACTISE RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS AND SENSELESS BEAUTY.
That night, while Meg was painting his head with calamine, Doug was lost in thought. Meg was thinking too. She’d inherited some money and for a while she’d wanted to invest in retail but she’d been waiting for the right moment to introduce the idea because with Doug, rejection is usually final, so timing is critical.
Her hand gently squeezing his shoulder roused him; she spoke softly in his ear. ‘What say you quit driving and we use Auntie Mi Mi’s money to set ourselves up in business? What say … we open a shop?’
They went into it with eyes wide open. They did a correspondence course in small business management and graduated with a detailed business plan and a lot of optimism. Meg said, ‘I want to sell the sorts of thing that I like to buy.’ So they brainstormed the things Meg liked to buy. She liked flowers, holographic wrapping paper, pithy sayings you can stick on the wall or the bumper, like: REALITY LIES IN THE WAY YOU SEE THINGS and THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE INEVITABLE AS LONG AS THERE IS A WILLINGNESS TO THINK. And she like fairy tooth keepers. After the brainstorm, Doug got Meg to lie on the couch and close her eyes. Then he asked in a serious and low voice, ‘What do you want to achieve through your business?’ Meg answered, ‘I want to make a positive difference in people’s lives.’
Having workshopped the ideas in this way, they then set about getting themselves seriously organised. Meg found a vacant shop in Brunswick Street and signed the lease.
Three weeks later and the place is transformed. It’s a terrific time of year for flowers. June: purple and yellow time: daffodils, jonquils, violets and Dutch iris.
Doug’s body has changed again. Its slimmed down; he appears taller and he has hair on his head. And he has been charged with the task of searching for bumper stickers with profound and pithy sayings.
Meanwhile, in another part of Melbourne, Ooshmo is living out her story and has struck a difficult patch. Try, as she does, she hasn’t been able to nail the problem and then it comes to her in a flash. She’s had a sense of unease for some time and then passing her son’s bedroom, she sees him lying on his back with his legs bent over his head, trying to light a fart. She stands in the doorway watching, frozen. A blue flame shoots from his trousers. She feels gutted, cleaned out like a fish. Then it comes to her: her life lacks beauty.
Ooshmo has tried so hard in so many ways to fill her life with beauty. She’s changed her name from Geraldine Clutterbuck, she fills the house with fresh flowers, she has music playing softly, she’s painted the walls in lavender and lemon, had a home birth, breast fed the baby and sent him to the Steiner school.
But it has been in vain. She’s sensed the tide turning against her for some time. It’s the little things she can’t control, they’ve been mounting: the MacDonald’s parties, the skateboard with the melting skulls in iridescent green, Oz kick … Then one day her son came home and announced, ‘I hate circle dance, I hate myth and I want to go to an ordinary school.’ He then stomped off to his bedroom and in a final burst yelled, ‘and I HATE my name.’
Efil is life spelled backwards. Ooshmo gave birth at 43. She felt this baby was an unexpected gift and she decided, from the start, that her baby would be called Efil.
He was conceived eleven years ago at a conference in Freemantle – Ear Infections in Early Childhood: Causes and Prevention. Ooscmo, who was Geraldine Clutterbuck back then, was giving a paper, Naturopathy: the Healthy Choice. It was at the conference, she met Ralph, a cranial osteopath from Darwin. Efil was conceived in room 208 of the Ozone Hotel to the sounds of ambient music.
Ooshmo never saw Ralph again; she never told him that he’d become a father. She wanted to do it alone; she’s always been a loner. As her he body swelled, she grew in power and felt more beautiful than she’d ever felt in her life. She changed her name, found a midwife and asked Beth to support her during the birth and be the baby’s ‘spirit mother’. It all went to plan and Efil came into the world smiling. Ooshmo felt strong, in control – creative, like a goddess. She grew back the hair she’d cropped, believing at the time that long hair tied her to an archaic and patriarchal view of femininity. She bagged up her jeans and sensible shoes and took them to the brotherhood. She rejoiced in the feel of long, soft, loose dresses. And Efil thrived. Every night he slept beside her: her breasts full of milk, her great body protective and warm.
But time has passed; that was all years ago. Ooshmo no longer feels beautiful, nor does she feel powerful and she rarely feels in control. Sometimes she feels like an anachronism in her own house!
She needs to get away. She needs time to think. She’s sliding. She has to get a grip. She feels that the light inside her is slowly being extinguished.
She arranges for Efil to spend a few days with the neighbours, throws some things into the Hyundai and sets out for Daylesford to stay with Beth. Beth had said, ‘You are not alone Oosh, It’s the winter solstice. Come and stay with me and we will acknowledge what we wish to lose in the dark. We will light fires and invoke the coming light, feast and share stories.’
Doug is also on the Daylesford road; he’s off to meet a bloke called Simon. He was wearing himself ragged trying to find quality bumper stickers. On the point of despair, he just happened to be talking to a mate who has a mate who has just landed a job putting a tent together for the Road Safety Council of Victoria at the Royal Agricultural Show in September. ‘You want bumper stickers Dougie? Simmo’s got boxes of the bloody things.’
Simon certainly does have stickers: SPEED KILLS, WEARY DRIVERS DIE, IDIOTS DRINK AND DRIVE. ‘You don’t have anything a bit witty do you Simon?’ Doug asks, thinking that the trip has been a waste of time.
Simon rips open another box and pulls out MUM’S TAXI and BABY ON BOARD. He can tell by the look on Doug’s face that he’s disappointed. ‘Look mate, I’ve got a couple of boxes you can have, no charge.
The box is open and Doug glimpses, LAND RIGHTS FOR GAY WHALES. They’re yellow with age.
He loads the boxes into the back of the van. The two men exchange hearty masculine handshakes. Doug remembers he has some fairy tooth keepers in the glove box. He slips one into Simon’s hand and signals that like the stickers, it’s a freebie.
By the time he’s driven out of Daylesford, its dark and raining. It isn’t that it’s so late but it’s the shortest day of the year and bloody freezing. The van rattles and whistles; it’s like driving a tin can. He has a growing awareness that the temperature in the van is dropping; it must be close to freezing and there’s too much fresh air circulating. The back is open. Mustn’t have shut it properly. He glances over his shoulder to the back and sees that there are only two boxes where there had been three. He pulls over to the side and with a hefty slam, mutters, ‘Good’. He was wondering how he was going to dispose of the gay whales. You’re not supposed to put things like that in the recycle bin.
And he drives off thinking how good it will be to walk through the front door into a warm house smelling of food.
Ooshmo is navigating a dark wet road. She has a crystal fixed on her dash – ten centimetres tall. She has secured it with a lump of blue tac. As car lights come towards her, it splits the beams and rainbows dance inside her car.
Suddenly, out of the black, she sees a shape; an animal, she thinks - stepping onto the road. She slams on the brakes and the car takes on a life of its own. It swerves and dances, it does a 360 and then comes to rest as if nothing has happened. She sits, eyes unblinking, in a state of calm. Her breath is steady and her heart beat regular. She feels a sticky wetness, a trickle down the side of her nose and mouth. It’s blood. The crystal and lump of blue tac are gone. The sudden force when she slammed on the brake has sent it hurtling through space where it’s caught her neatly between the eyes.
Leaving the engine running and the light on, Ooshmo slides out of her seat and crosses in front of the car. She stands, caught in the lights and for just a moment, she sees herself as if she were looking from outside of herself. She sees a tall, handsome middle-aged woman, her dress blowing against her breasts and her belly, long hair swirling about a strong face that is divided by a line of blood – like a Picasso woman. And in that moment, she feels the power of her maternal nature. She walks slowly, silently towards the animal huddled by the verge and slowly, slowly, reaches out a hand.
It’s a cardboard box. A gust of wind gives it a nudge and the lid flips open. Peering inside she sees bundles of bumper stickers. She picks one up, holds it in the light and reads, THE GODDESS IS ALIVE.
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