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back Twelve Bar Blues by Duncan Blair, Paul Garner, Peter Wilson Number of episodes: 12 Words of previous episode revealed to each author: all of story Once upon a merry old time, there was an unlikely hero by the name of Tom. Tom was madly in love with his high school sweet heart Lucy, if only Lucy knew. When they were happy young students together, Tom would always save enough of his lunch money to buy Lucy her favourite snack, a caramel centre chocolate bar. It was his way of showing Lucy what he could never find the courage to say, that he loved her. But, that was almost a year ago now, and both Lucy and Tom were now University students (as any good person would be) after finishing high school. One fine day, Tom had a marvelous idea. He would buy Lucy the same old chocolate she always used to enjoy, then would tell her of his long felt emotions. To improve his chances of sucess, he arranged with his local dairy to purchase an entire box of caramel filled goodness. That Monday, as Lucy was leaving a lecture on behavioural psychology, Tom made his move. He lifted the box of chocolates from his trusty school bag, and began his approach, nervous but excited. Suddenly, Lucy turned, embraced then kissed another student! As Tom came to his senses he recognised the kissee as none other than his arch enemy from high school, Richard Breath! Tom quickly performed an about face and walked away, struggling to hide his sorrow. Tom's dreams of love were shattered. But, worse than that, what could he possibly do with a dozen chocolate bars? He could eat them himself of course, but each one would taste bitter in his mouth, reminding him cruelly of the unrequited love he held for the luscious Lucy. He could throw them away, but ever since taking part in a sponsored '40 hour famine' back in fourth form he had vowed never to waste another morsel of perfectly good food. He could give them to someone else, he supposed, but who? There was no other girl he was sweet on. He had seven friends but he couldn't see any way to divide the twelve chocolate bars between them without either offending at least two friends or leaving himself with five bars that he still didn't know what to do with. What a conundrum! Eventually Tom decided that the only thing he could do was return the chocolate bars to the dairy he had purchased them from. As he stepped through the door to the dairy a motion-sensor detected him and buzzed a nasty-sounding 'nee naah'. He edged his way past the glass-topped ice cream freezer full of 'FruJu's and 'Trumpets' and up to the counter. "Sanjit, I'd like to return this box of chocolate bars I bought the other day. I don't have the receipt, but I'm sure you remember me?" "No returns," replied the dairy owner, pointing to a handwritten sign taped to the front of the till which read 'no returns', just below a plaque advising customers not to ask for credit because a refusal often offends, above another handwritten sign stating that the minimum amount for EFTPOS purchases was $10. "Please Sanjit, I bought them for a girl and then I saw her kissing another guy and now I can't bear to eat them and I can't give them away... I don't know what else to do!" A glint came into the old shopkeeper's eye then. He flipped up the centre of the counter and stepped out. Tom was blocking the narrow aisle past the ice cream freezer so Sanjit had to take a detour around the other side, between the Coca Cola fridges. He reversed the 'open' sign hanging in the window of the front door so that 'open' was facing inwards, then locked the door and hurried back round to the counter, knocking a packet of Burger Rings off a shelf along the way. He didn't bother to pick them up. Without saying a word Sanjit stepped through the bead curtain to the part of the shop which customers never saw, then stuck his arm back through and beckoned silently with one finger for Tom to follow. Clutching his box of chocolate bars, Tom followed through the bead curtain and into the dim corridor beyond. Sanjit led him down a narrow staircase to the basement, which was filled with the flickering light of candles and the heady, thick scent of burning incense. Turning to Tom, he asked: "What do you want, my friend?" "Uh, I wanted a refund for these chocolates, please." "There are no refunds, my friend. If you do not like this life you cannot take it back to the Creator and ask for a new one. You must live out the life you have and accept the consequences of living it." "They're not opened, you could sell them again..." "But I have already sold them to you." "Uh, then, uh, forget the refund, I'll just give them back to you. I don't want them." "I do not want them either, my friend. I have many more boxes of chocolate in my store already." Tom was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable, and wondered why the dairy owner had brought him down here just to tell him there were no refunds. Again that glint in Sanjit's eye, or perhaps it had just caught the light from one of the candles. He smiled a sly smile at Tom. "There is another option, my friend." "Okay..." "But first you must answer my question. What do you want?" "I wanted..." "No refunds! What did you want when you bought the chocolate bars in the first place?" "Oh. I wanted... I wanted this girl to know I like her." "Yes?" "Uh. They're her favourite. I used to buy them for her when we were at school. Now, uh, we're at Uni. I hadn't bought her any for a while or, uh, seen her. We have different classes." Tom looked down at his feet. "What is her name?" "Lucy." "And this girl, she is beautiful?" Tom looked up. "Yeah." "Ah!" cried the dairy owner, "Tell me more!" "Eh? Uh... like what?" "Why did you want her to know that you like her?" "Well, uh, because I do." "But why do you want her to know?" "Uh, to find out if she likes me I guess." "And if she does?" "Eh?" "If she does like you, what then?" Tom frowned. "But she doesn't, I found that out already." "Ah yes. But if you had found out the reverse was true. What then?" "I don't know. Look, um, these chocolates..." Sanjit raised one finger. "First answer my question. If you had found out that she did like you, what then?" "Well, uh, I guess maybe we could have gone out..." "On a date?" "Yeah, I guess." "Ah! So you wanted her to like you and then for her to go out on a date with you." "Yeah, uh, yeah." "But you saw her kissing another boy." "Yeah." Tom looked down again. "That does not mean that she does not like you though." "Uh, but, well... she and Richard, I guess they, uh..." Sanjit eyed him for a moment. "Did you want more than for her to like you then for her to go out on a date with you?" "Uh... well, uh, I guess I kind of wanted..." His voice grew very small and quiet and he stared intensely at his feet, as he continued "...her to be my girlfriend." "Why?" "What?! Look are you going to take these chocolates back or what? I've had enough of these questions! What are we doing down here anyway?" "Patience, my friend. There are no refunds remember, but there is another option. First though, we must have clarity of purpose." "Uh..." "Why did you want her to be your girlfriend?" "Well geez, I dunno..." he shuffled his feet, "so that we could be together, you know, hang out and stuff." "You wanted to spend more time with her?" "Yeah..." "Why?" "Eh?" "Why did you want to spend time with her?" "Uh, well, because I like her." "Ah!" Sanjit looked thoughtful for a moment. "How did you want to spend the time you had together?" "Eh?" "How..." "Uh, well, I dunno. We could talk, and hang out and stuff..." "You have other friends though?" "What? Uh, yeah." "And you talk with them and you hang out with them, yes?" "Yeah but, uh, they're not like..." "Do you buy them chocolate bars?" "Nah..." "What is different about Lucy, that you should do so then?" "Well, uh, she's a girl..." "Ah!" cried Sanjit suddenly, with a wicked grin. "Do you want to have sex with this girl?" Tom looked up sharply. "Uh, well..." His eyes roamed the room, unable to meet his questioner's gaze. "Sure... I mean she's, uh... yeah. Look..." "Ah, my friend," interrupted the dairy owner, "now we have clarity of purpose. Now I shall tell you, or suggest rather, how you can beneficially dispose of your surplus chocolate bars." Tom felt somewhat relieved that the awkward interrogation was over, but also rather apprehensive. Sanjit led him over to a low table where the candles were burning, and handed him a stick of incense. On the table was a small figurine cast from a dark metal, perhaps bronze, which had four arms and the head of an Elephant. Indicating the figurine, he spoke in a low voice: "This, my friend, is Lord Ganesha. There are many forms, but there is only one God. Lord Ganesha is one form. He is the remover of obstacles. He will grant you success in your endeavours." "Uh, right..." "You don't believe my little statue can help you?" "..." "But God is everywhere, and in everything." Suddenly, in the dimly flickering yellow light, he grabbed the figurine and thrust it in Tom's face. When he spoke again his voice was a fervent hiss. "God is in everything, and in all of us. This IS Lord Ganesha right here!" "Uh, okay man, yeah..." Sanjit's calm demeanour returned once more, and he placed the figurine back on the table. "Well anyway, my friend, what I suggest is that you present your chocolate bars not to this girl, nor return them to me, but instead that you offer them to Lord Ganesha and ask for his help, now that you know with clarity what it is that you want." 'What the heck,' thought Tom, since he clearly wasn't going to get any money back off the dairy owner. "Uh, do I... like, shall I just put them down here?" "Yes, place them down there. Now tell him what it is that you want." "Uh, okay... uh," he looked across at Sanjit, feeling a little silly, but figured the only way out of the situation was to plough on, "...Lord Ganesha, uh, I would like for Lucy to like me and, uh, for her to be my, well... for me to be her, uh, for her to be my girlfriend. And for her to, to want to, for... hertohavesexwithme." Sanjit smiled. "Good, good my friend. He of course could hear you even if you didn't speak the words, but good." Glad that this embarassing ordeal was over, Tom started to back towards the stairs, kind of nodding what he hoped seemed sincere thanks as he did so. "Uh, okay... thanks man. I, like, I've got to go but, um, yeah..." "Good luck to you my friend. Oh, and do not forget your chocolates." "What? But I thought, uh..." "You thought what? That my little statue would eat them himself? No, of course not. I have had him for many years and I swear he has never moved so much as a finger!" At this he chuckled. "No. The gift is in the giving, but Ganesha has no taste for chocolate. Here, take them with you." Feeling somewhat defeated, Tom took the chocolates from him. They felt heavy in his hand. Sanjit led him back up to the shop, where he unlocked the door and changed the sign around so that 'open' was facing outwards once more. Tom was eager to leave and tried to keep the goodbyes nice and short, though he trod on the packet of Burger Rings on the way out and Sanjit made him pay for them. Standing outside the dairy, still clutching the box under his arm but with slightly less change in his pocket, Tom wondered once more what he could possibly do with a dozen chocolate bars. Even if they were, perhaps, now blessed by Lord Ganesha, remover of obstacles. He tripped and fell, crushing the box and throughly mushing the dozen chocolate bars. Caramel oozed out of cracks in the cardboard and stuck to his shirt. He was otherwise okay. He wasn't hurt. The box had broken his fall well. "Chocolate saves, in mysterious ways," popped into Tom's head. He laughed and looked down at the broken concrete where he'd tripped. The box was ruined and he didn't much feel like eating twelve mutilated chocolate bars so he threw the lot into a nearby rubbish bin. 'A present for the ants,' he thought. The sun shone down and he felt a lot better, Lucy's teeth would rot and her metabolism would slow. By third or maybe second year at Uni she'd be a real fat ass and be begging for a date from a guy like him. Tom felt his ego, his confidence swell, he wasn't going to let a little thing like unrequited love get him down. He walked along and started to strut, a beat thumping superfly in his head, he was young single and on his way to a degree, why worry, life was sweet. But Tom's relief didn't last for very long. He was still a good distance from home, and as he walked his mind swirled with thoughts of what might have been. Hanging his head as he sank deeper into his own self pity, he was startled by the sound of screeching tyres. He looked left and right, then saw a large sedan accelerating away from a bus-stop. Tom would have normally ignored such a low-grade attempt at hooning, but he was lost in thought over Lucy. Maybe it was time for therapy, because as Tom stared blanky at the bus-stop, he even imagined he could see Lucy, sitting there staring back... "Tom?" What was going on? Tom closed his eyes tight, thought hard about life in a padded cell, then opened his eyes again. There she was, now slightly smiling. Tom quickly stepped into survival mode, this was real, maybe his last and only chance for happiness. "Uh... yeah." "Oh wow, I thought it was you. Come over here!" "Um... O.K" Tom was in a daze. He began to cross the road toward her, trying to look interested, but not desperate. Maybe I'll walk a little faster, he thought. -- How close should I sit to her, or should I stand? Oh crap, here I go. "Hi Lucy. How are you?" "Hi Tom. Um... pretty good. You know." "Good thing that loony driver didn't hit you." "Oh. You saw that. That was... Richard Breath. Do you remember him?" -- Grrrrr, do I ever remember him! He twisted my nipples every time he saw me. "Um, maybe. Was he in our year?" "Yeah, he was kind of a bully. Used to dish out a lot of dead arms..." "Oh that Richard Breath. Yeah I remember dick breath." -- Ooops! Maybe I shouldn't have said that. "Ha hah! I bet no one has called him that for a while. He has changed a little though..." -- She liked the joke! Maybe I should tell her about my nipples. "Yeah, he's taller. Was he dropping you off here or something?" "Uh yeah. Sort of. It wasn't planned. We're sort of going out, by the way." "Oh really..." -- I'll kill him, I will totally kill him! "Well I should say we were going out, that's why he left in such a hurry." -- Yes! Thank you Lord Ganesha! "Oh, um... stink one. Are you alright?" "Yeah I'm O.K. It's easy since he was being such a prick when he left." -- Cha-ching! "REALLY. I mean, really. That's no good at all." "The bastard had the cheek to spell out his policy on dating. He wanted to know right now, whether he was getting some; eventually, or whether he was 'wasting his time'." "That scum-bag!" -- What is she, a nun? "Yeah, but like I said, he lived up to his name, so I'm pretty sweet." "Once a dick, always a dick, I guess..." "You look like you've had a hard day yourself. What's that on your clothes?" "It's, uuuh..." -- Don't lie, you'll jinx yourself. "...caramel. It's kind of a long story." "Maybe you can tell it to me some time." "Yeah, sure" -- Woo hoo! "Do you remember how you used to buy me a caramel filled chocolate bar every day at school?" "Did I? Oh yeah, that's right. I hope that didn't bug you too much." "Are you kidding? I never really thought about it at the time, but no-one treats me like that any more. I always had one good thing to look forward to." -- One good thing. Ahhh. "No shit. I... never, knew." "Well, now you do. So enough about me, what been happening in your world?" "Uh, not much, you know..." -- Lame! Lame! Quick, think of something cool to say! "Uh..." -- What did I do yesterday? "Well, I've mostly just been studying and stuff..." -- Oh yeah, good one Mr Interesting, now wait for her eyes to glaze over... "Oh really? What have you been studying?" She took a step closer, all the while looking up into his eyes. -- Medicine? Law? Astrophysics? Indigenous land-use rights? "Uh, Computer Science..." "Oh cool, a hacker eh?" Tom was about about to say, "No, I've mainly been researching new database sorting algorithms," when Lucy began to run her index finger up his chest, collecting a wad of gooey caramel as she did so. Then she began to lick the caramel off her finger. "Mmm," she moaned, fluttering her eyelashes seductively and pausing only briefly to spit out some pavement grit that had gotten stuck to the caramel where Tom fell on it. "That's sooo good. Want some?" Lucy held out her finger for Tom. He hesitated for a moment (since he knew where it'd been), then Lucy giggled as he licked her finger clean. Tom's heart was racing. He saw a cheerful fat man that he recognised, walking on the other side of the street. "Hey Mr G, how's it going?" he waved. The fat man waved back with all four hands and grinned from tusk to tusk. Lucy ignored the man, as she was still staring intently at Tom. "I like you Tom," she said in sweet little-girl voice. -- Woo hoo! "I like you too Lucy." "Um... I was wondering," flutter, flutter, "Are you seeing anyone at the moment?" -- Woo hoo! "Er, well, no as a matter of fact..." "Oh good, cos I was wondering..." Lucy held her hands behind her back and bounced lightly from foot to foot in a way that was both cutely childish, yet also accentuated her well-developed, womanly chest. "...I was wondering, can I be your girlfriend?" Far off in the distance Tom could just hear the exotic, nasal, whine of a choir of Indian women singing, the faint gloop-gloop of tabla drums, and the drone and twang of a sitar. They were getting closer by the moment. He looked at Lucy - maybe now she couldn't hear them, but he knew that she would, if he just took hold of her hand. "I'd like that very much Lucy," said Tom, and embraced her passionately. A colourful procession came up the street, all dancing and singing and dressed in flowing robes of saffron, emerald, violet and fuschia. Tom and Lucy danced happily amongst the spontaneous troupe, then Lucy pulled him close and whispered in his ear, "You're so sexy..." He kissed her then, and watched as the sun progressed across the sky, its passaged cheered on from either side of the horizon by the beaming faces of a whole Hindu pantheon. They danced some more, then Lucy pulled him close again, explored his ear with her tongue, then whispered to him... "I want to rock your world." "...to rock your world." "...rock your world." "...your world." "...in your world?" "...happening in your world?" "...what's been happening in your world?" Her voice echoed throughout his head, as he continued to dance giddily. Her body felt lighter and lighter in his arms as they spun around and around. "Oh Tom..." "Tom..." "Tom!" "Tom! Are you okay?" "Tom! What's the matter with you?!" Suddenly the music stopped. Tom could feel pain in several places down the side of his body. Everything was dark. He felt disoriented for a moment, then realised he had his eyes closed and he was lying down, in a foetal position. He cracked one eye open and made out what he thought might be Lucy's knee. He slowly rose to his feet, brushing away the leaves and other gutter debris that were stuck to the side of his face. "Tom! Are you okay? ...I didn't know you were epileptic," said Lucy. 'Neither did I,' thought Tom, but said nothing, as he pulled himself together. He tried to brush the last of the compost away, but it some of it was stuck fast to the caramel and he gave up, opting to wipe some drool from the corner of his mouth instead. "You're okay now yeah?" asked Lucy. "Yes, I think so." "You gave me a bit of a fright." "Um yeah, I'm not sure what happened." "Well if you're sure you're okay..." "Yeah I'm fine, I think." "Okay, well it was nice to see you again. Uh, I have to go now. See you around some time. Maybe?" "Yeah, see ya." She walked briskly off up the street, and Tom sadly watched her go, almost too bewildered and confused to appreciate the firm roundness of her buttocks and the sway of her hips as she went. Spitting out some residual pavement grit he turned away, just in time to see the dairy owner peering out between some gaps in his sticker-encrusted shop window. When he saw Tom he pulled back out of sight, but Tom thought he could hear Sanjit laughing inside the dairy. 'What just happened to me?' he wondered. Sanjit was still laughing and suddenly Tom felt very angry. What was that guy laughing about? He had no right to be laughing! Tom stormed in to the dairy, 'nee naah', shouting, "Stop laughing! Why are you laughing?!" When he got inside though, the only person in sight was Sanjit's little nine year old daughter, who sometimes looked after the till in the afternoons. She edged back against the cigarette cabinet, wide-eyed and scared. He couldn't hear any laughing any more. "Um, sorry, uh..." said Tom, then there was another 'nee naah' as he backed out the door. Tom walked home with his head held low, wondering what had happened to him. Had he really had a fit? Was it just an overactive imagination? What had really happened in the basement of Sanjit's dairy? Had anything happened at the dairy? Had he blown it for good with Lucy? "I need a drink," he said to himself. He realised he was shaking. He hit the footpath and started running. Like a time lapse film of a Lotus blossom opening he felt his blood surge and ebb, open/close, open/close, faster, quivering without a centre or familiar roots. Old thoughts and fears were stirred up like sediment, a propeller ripping through once clear water, he felt like he was losing his mind. Words and phrases just started popping into his head, he ran faster, but he couldn't escape them. "Loser!" "Fag!", "Look there's Tom - have you actually ever kissed a girl Tom?" "Ugly! You're digusting, I'd never go out with you!" He felt his arms ache and sink, like they were dead, the air was thick and humid, he was almost home. He made it, stumbled through the door and collapsed on his bed. He curled up and then straightened, reaching for the bottle of 'Count Pushkin' Vodka under his bed. It was luke warm and tasted like soap but he gulped it down, his head spinning. He got up, put the bottle on his desk and put some music on. Yeah. That was better. Listening to Boston always made Tom feel positive in no time. -- More than a feeling, more than a feelliiiinnng! Tom wished that he could sing, but another soapy tasting mouthful soon made that desire melt away. -- What was I thinking? Of course I can sing! "More than a feeeling; more than a feeellliiiaaannng!" Suddenly the neighbour's dog started to bark harshly, sounding as though something had seriously annoyed its sensitive ears. In the distance, other neighbourhood canines could also be heard voicing their disapproval with long, low howls. Tom was preoccupied deciding whether he should finish his bottle of top-shelf happiness in two little gulps, or one big gulp. -- I wish those dogs would shut up, I can hardly hear myself think. At least Boston understand me, here comes that chorus again. "More than a feealin', yeah, more than a feeellaahahaang!" -- I never could understand what he says during this bit, oh wait, here comes my part again. "More than a feeling, more than a feeelliing." -- Holy kumaras. Can this be happening? What's going on? Things were turning from bad to worse for the unfortunate Tom. After paying for and then destroying a full box of chocolate bars, having his childhood dreams of romance shattered twice in one day, and having some kind of involuntary seizure, the worse thing happened. He was half-way through his favourite song of all time, and he had totally lost interest. No sparks. No passion. No excitement. What would Tom have to resort to the next time a relative passed away, or a good friend let him down? Time for that one big gulp. -- Lucy. Another chorus came and went, but a single word was all the Tom could hear. -- Lucy. Cracking his eyes open some time later that word still echoed around Tom's aching head, accompanied by the sound of k'ffwp... k'ffwp... k'ffwp...as the turntable played the run-out groove over and over. Other than that everything was quiet, very quiet, and the lightbulb overhead burned brightly, never so bright as at 4 am. Water was neccessary, that was something that every cell in his body was telling him so he got up and stumbled clumsily to the door, stopping to rip the Boston LP from his stereo on the way. After sculling a couple of glasses at the kitchen sink he returned to his room with the third and sat on the edge of his bed, sipping it and thinking. This whole thing with Lucy had been kind of foolish, he thought to himself, just an adolescent crush. But he was at Uni now, studying for and on the verge of an adult future. Maybe that was why his favourite song had lost it's lustre too; things change, got to move on. Time to grow up a little too perhaps. Put the past behind him. Make new friends. Try new things. It should have been an exciting thought, a rebirth, and yet instead the idea seemed rather depressing. He looked at the Xena: Warrior Princess poster on his wall, and was suddenly galvanised into action. 'That will have to go if I'm to get any sleep tonight,' he thought to himself, tearing it down. The next day Tom hurried from class to class, avoiding the social places and spaces and things, and trying to think of changes he could make to express his new direction in life. Nothing obvious came to mind really. In particular the idea of making new friends in the middle of a semester seemed less promising now than it had last night, and he couldn't really see himself ignoring his old ones for very long. He got home that evening and was still thinking about it as he cooked up a couple of frozen hamburgers for tea. Well, maybe he could go somewhere new. He could start tonight in fact, there were a whole bunch of bars in the centre of town that he'd never been to. He'd felt they weren't 'his kind of place' in fact. Well from now on they would be 'his kind of place'! Tom was in a buoyant mood as he scoffed his burgers down in front of the telly. He'd briefly considered flipping over and watching the news instead of Star Trek, but hey, can't change everything all at once. He got ready to go out, and made a mental note that buying some new clothes would have to be on his list of things to do some time, then headed off into the night. Arriving in town he suddenly felt a little anxious. He'd been running on the idea all day but now here he was, actually on the cusp of new-ness, change in the air, and he found himself a little uncertain about how to proceed. Well, only one thing for it... as it happened the first bar he came to looked like it might fit the bill, so he went inside. The walls were covered with eyes, paintings of eyes in a vaguely japanese animé style. The bar itself was stainless steel, decorated with swirly engraved scratch marks and the lighting was very dim, except for the ultraviolet illumination of cabinets filled with vodka-based alco-pops. 'Time for a drink,' thought Tom and went up to order a beer. "Handle of Lion Red thanks." "We don't have Lion Red," said the be-dreadlocked barmaid, absent-mindedly fingering her belly-button piercing. Tom examined the taps available; there were only two and they both sounded foreign. "Ok then I'll have a..." he squinted at the unfamiliar words through the purple gloom, "a... Star...o... pra... men. Thanks." "Six fifty," said the barmaid, pouring his beer whilst staring off down the other end of the bar. 'Bit steep,' thought Tom, but if that was the price of progress. When his beer came it was in a tall, swoopy-shaped glass rather than a handle, but the new Tom took it all in his stride. He looked around; it seemed like everyone in here either had dreadlocks or dyed hair, or both. He noticed the music for the first time; an aimless electronic keyboard part repeated over and over again as high-pitched, electronically-warped vocals wailed above it. The drums skittered around insistently underneath, but there seemed to be too many beats in each measure, and the whole effect was rather... dark and moody, complex. Completely un-rocking. In truth it sounded like exactly the sort of music his sophisticated, progressive, adult self should be listening to. "Hey," he called to the barmaid. She peered across at him through darkly ringed eyes and flicked her eyebrows up to say 'what?' "What's this music?" "Kid A." "Kid what?" "It's Radiohead." She looked away then, obviously feeling this to have been a sufficient answer. Tom finished his beer quickly, feeling vaguely unwelcome or perhaps just uncomfortable out in unexplored territory by himself. 'Time for the next bar,' he thought and went in search of another. Perhaps he could make a pub crawl of it, that would certainly be an excuse to try a lot of new places. 'Bar number two,' he thought as he pushed his way through the saloon style double doors. He felt a crunching sensation underfoot. Sawdust. Or more like wood-chip really, like the place had just hosted a carpentry convention or perhaps a high school woodwork saw-athon. The whole floor was covered in the yellow ringlets of what he guessed was pine. He crunched his way up to the bar. 'This is more like it,' he thought as he looked at the black-singleted Man's Man behind the bar and the array of Lion Breweries taps. "A jug of Red, please mate," said Tom, his voice deepening. "Six-fifty" was the terse reply. Tom smiled, looking the kiwi icon in the eyes. The bartender squinted and turned to get the jug, then looked down, his attention fixed on the hypnotic pouring procedure. "So much for customer service," thought Tom. This guy had that same disinterested cool manner like the girl at the last place. Tom wanted someone to talk to - why weren't bars in real life more like on T.V.? Like on Cheers, 'Where everybo-o-dy knoows your na-a-ame,' popped into his stream of thought. "Yes!" he said out loud. The bartender looked up, squinted again and then fixed his attention back to the tap. Tom was beginning to think that he should have enlisted a companion for this journey. A quick flash of Lucy smiling came into view, quickly followed by her puzzled expression as she leaned over Tom's twitching body. "Mate!" Tom looked up to find a jug and a glass waiting in front of him, and the bartender shuffling away toward another eager patron. -- Ahhh. Now this combination will fix anything. Tom carefully raised his precious jug of Lion Red, tipping the glass approximately 45 degrees as the jug approached. Tom figured that if anyone was watching, he may as well look like a professional bloke. He filled his glass with the precision of a surgeon, almost counting the bubbles that were slowly increasing above the shallow pool of beer. -- What's going on here? Do they put detergent in their beer or something? Much to Tom's confusion, even with the amount of care he was taking, the head on his glass of beer was getting the better of him. It was like there was a little egg-beater at the bottom of the glass. Frustrated at this point, Tom paused and set his bubbling glass on the bar, as the head flowed over like an erupting volcano. Looking around, the pub had experienced a definite reduction in activity. The bartender was staring at Tom as though he had just transformed into an alien life-form; and perhaps he had. Froth continued to escape from Tom's glass, and a considerable puddle was forming on the bar. Turning his head further, Tom noticed groups of people huddled together, and those that weren't already staring were being gestured to by their companions. -- Uh oh. I guess this doesn't happen to everybody. One more try... Tom took a deep breath, then reached for the jug and glass. More froth overflowed as he tipped the glass to an appropriate angle. "Oi!" The bartender hurried toward Tom looking deeply concerned. Tom jumped and spilt even more froth. Tom set the glass down, and waited. "Look mate, I don't know what you think you're doin', but we can't serve drunks!" "Wh-wh-what? I'm not..." "Look buddy, you've been trying to pour that glass for five minutes. I can give you your money back, and we'll call it evens." "Um, are you serious? I'm not even drunk! I've just had a..." "Now you listen to me mate! You're turning my bar into a bloody swimming pool! I said you can have your money back, so do us all a favour and just leave." The bartender wiped the bar in front of Tom with a small towel, extended his other hand in a fist, then placed 'six-fifty' on the bar. With frightening precision, the glass and jug were removed from Tom's reach as he glanced down to count if he had been refunded correctly. "Hey, all I wanted was one beer!" "Looks like you've had enough for all of us mate. Just do the right thing and walk away, before I have to call the cops. 'Cause neither of us want that, do we?" Tom scuffed out a trail in the woodchips as he left the bar, shamed and confused. Standing outside on the street he was tempted to pack it in and go home, pick up a bottle of Jim Beam on the way, chuck on some Whitesnake and rock himself to sleep... THWACK! Something hit him in the head and clattered to the pavement: an empty Double Brown can. Tom looked up in time to see an old mottled-grey Valiant full of hoons idling off around the corner. He could have sworn there was an elephant in the back seat too. 'Maybe the bartender was right,' he thought, 'maybe I've had too much to drink.' -- Nah! Was this a pub crawl or not? It most certainly was! Time to see how many more pubs he could get thrown out of... With a renewed sense of purpose he strutted into the next bar. Straight away he noticed there were quite a few foxy chicks around. Better still, the only guys in the bar seemed to be tossers in suits. The music was jazzy, with a soft-voiced woman singing in some foreign language, and people were lounging around on expensive leather sofas. Strangely, no one was talking much. Half the people were looking around as if they wanted to be somewhere else - the women self-consciously adjusting their expensively revealing clothes, perhaps feeling they were too revealing after all, and the men nervously fingering their drinks. The other half all seemed to be fiddling around sending messages on their cellphones, or just showing them to one another. Learning quickly, Tom surmised that they might not have Lion Red in here. Besides, that last experience with his favourite drop had been somewhat disasterous. Looking round to see what everyone else was drinking didn't help much as they were mostly sipping white wine. Tom ordered another unfamiliar, overpriced beer and perched himself a little precariously on one of the slippery, excessively-cushioned leather bar stools. "How's it going?" he said to the woman next to him at the bar, choking a little on the cloud of cigar smoke coming from the man on his other side. "Okay," she replied coolly. Just then a bleepy rendition of a contemporary pop tune started emanating from her handbag. "Sorry," she said by way of explanation, fishing the phone from her bag, then retreated to an apparently quieter corner of the bar to take the call. Tom surveyed the bar again, feeling a little out of place and not for the first time that night. God, these people! For a moment he imagined they were all seven-year-olds playing dress-up in ludicrously outsized 'grown up' clothes. The women appeared especially absurd, in their masks and make-up and costumes. It seemed to Tom that they didn't belong in here any more than he did, they were just scared to admit it to themselves. He sculled his beer down and headed for the door, pausing only to trip on a loose block in the parquet flooring. "Easy there mate," said the bouncer at the door, without malice, as he grasped Tom firmly by the elbow and propelled him on his way. 'Onward!' thought Tom. There was a thudding beat coming from a bar a couple of doors down and as he approached it a young woman of pleasing proportions tottered out unsteadily in tight white pants, big hoop earrings and precarious shoes. 'Looks promising,' thought Tom as she spewed in the gutter in front of the bar then took a passing old man by the arm and slurred, "Take me hooome," wiping spittle on the back of her hand and halfway up her slender, pale arm. They were charging a tenner to get in, although Tom couldn't work out quite why as they didn't have a band playing or anything, but he paid up and collected a rubber stamp on his wrist. It was dark but for the disco lights inside and the rhythm thumped all through his body. The bartender's t-shirt was a couple of sizes too small for him and yet again they didn't have Lion Red on tap, but Tom gladly settled for an Export Gold and allowed himself to be briefly mesmerised by the lava lamps behind the bar as his beer was poured. Communicating by sign language alone he ascertained the price was a more reasonable five bucks, and peering into the noisy darkness it certainly looked like there was plenty of pussy on the premises. 'This is alright,' thought Tom and he went and stood by a pillar on the edge of the dancefloor, enjoying the familiar, bland easy-drinking taste of his beer. The track that was playing faded out to a hush which the DJ let hang in the air for a few long moments, as the lithe, sweating, panting bodies on the floor shuffled about, grateful but restless. The sound of a back-tracked sitar solo gradually began to writhe and curl free from the speakers. A rhythmic tinkle of shaken bells followed, before a hyperkinetic drum pattern started up frantically behind. The dancers started to move once more, in synchrony. Tom finished his beer and decided to join them, as they fell into a loose, spiralling formation with ripples and waves of movement flowing between them. The music became more intense and Tom found he had lost himself to the rhythm; there was no thought, only movement - undulating, sensual, yet personal and inner-focused rather than externalised and sexualised. They moved, not so much as one, but as individual cells of a single organism, differentiated but coordinated. The dry ice was heavy in the air, and the strobe lights made it look like everyone was moving in stop-motion animation. A clearing started to emerge in the centre of the room as they danced in concentric rings around the edges, then suddenly, as if between strobes of the light, Tom thought he made out the silhouette of a figure in the clearing. The chalky fog floated around as the lights flashed disorientatingly, and the figure became clearer, until Tom could see its big grey head and multiplicity of limbs. Tom snapped out of his dancing trance then. It was that bloody god of Sanjit's again... Lord Ganesha! 'Am I going mad?' he wondered. It became hard to breathe, the room was so hot and sweaty and foggy. Everyone else kept dancing and jostling past him. 'Got to get out of here!' He ran out of the nightclub on rubbery legs, past a startled bouncer and stood, gasping for air on the pavement outside. A police car cruised past slowly and the officer eyed him suspiciously. Tom straightened up and headed off down the street trying to look purposeful, and sober. 'I've only had four, no, three beers,' he thought to himself. In fairly quick succession, admittedly, but he didn't feel particularly pissed. What with everything that had happened to him tonight, and over the past couple of days, Tom decided he either needed to give up drinking altogether, or have another drink as soon as possible. He crossed the street, having spied what looked like a quiet, cosy little drinkers' pub on the other side. Inside, 'The Boys Are Back In Town' was rattling and buzzing from an overworked jukebox in the corner and the elaborate burgundy pattern of the carpet hid stains from a thousand spilled pints, but not the reassuring and familiar smell. He examined the long row of taps at the bar. "What are you having?" smiled the homely barmaid. "I'll have a Lion Red thanks," replied Tom with relief. "Handle or jug?" "Handle." She seemed to have poured it almost as soon as he'd answered. "Here y'go. That's three-fifty." Tom handed over the change gladly and propped himself up at the bar, sipping his beer, content for the time being. "The boys are back in towowwo-wowowwn," howled a big staunch-looking guy, lumbering exuberantly in Tom's direction. "Yeah yeah yaaa yaaa yeah," he sang, ad-libbing the words he didn't know as he stumbled into Tom, spilling Lion Red over both of them. "Oh, ah sorry bro, didn't see you there eh," he grinned, revealing a couple of broken teeth. "No worries," said Tom, anxious not to upset the big fella. "Nah, nah, nah. Let me get you another one eh?" "Cheers, it was a Lion Red..." The guy went off to the bar and returned, handing Tom an empty handle. "Er, thanks..." said Tom, but the guy interrupted him, "Nah, nah come over here with us, we're drinking jugs tonight man. I'll pour you a glass." It turned out one of his mates was having a birthday pub crawl, and pretty soon they'd invited Tom along with them. Well, after a few more jars Tom was three sheets to the wind, but his new drinking buddies were just getting started. "Where to next?" someone asked... "Dunno bro, but we've still got seven bars to go..." They all got up to go so Tom went with the flow, everything somewhat of a blur, and as they headed out the door the jukebox blared out a new song to him, "Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping... into the future." The next few hours for Tom were a deliciously hazy reverie. Days, weeks later images from the pub crawl would revisit Tom, seeping and flashing into his consciousness. When he was drifting off to sleep during a lecture, or having a quiet pint in the Uni pub, faces and incidents from that night permeated through. It was a wild night, he had the bruises to prove it. And the criminal record. He remembered bits, his memory a film edited by a blind man. After leaving the cozy classic rock bar they went to a bit of a bogan place, where the girls dressed in black with easy smiles. The boys filled up a table with jugs. Tom attempted to ride the birthday booze-up wave and did for a while, staying up-right and moshing with the best of them. He ended up grinding on, or being ground on, (he couldn't discern such complexities as the origins or source of stimuli by this stage) by a cute blond of around 5' 6". The only thing was she had a scar on her left cheek, which detracted somewhat from her beauty, making her only cute instead of spectacular. He forgot all about it as he kissed her tobacco mouth. Lost in the sensation of her tongue, all his thoughts became as significant as a drop of saliva. It didn't last. The song changed and she broke away to sit down, significantly, with a group of guys, all of whom didn't look like fellas you'd want to mess with. All bar one were bald-shaven and worryingly had what looked to be jail tatt's on their arms and faces. Tom sought solace with his new found buddies, sculling down half a jug. "Woooeeeee!" broken-tooth yelled out, following it up with some manly back slapping. What happened next was at best a montage, with jump cuts to black and some crazy camera angles. Again that blind man was in control as chief record-maker in Toms pickled head. From what he could remember, he revisted the bars he'd already been to. He writhed and sweated to a frenetic disco beat, swayed arm in arm with his new friends on three a.m. streets, 'til eventually he made it back to the woodwork saloon. There were bouncers on now, they weren't there earlier. A pang of fear bubbled up inside Tom. Would they let him in? Surely not, he was blitzed. Luckily, it turned out that his new mates were the bouncers' mates, they were in fact in the same rugby team. More manly back-slaps followed, Tom winced. But... he was in! Relieved, one thought replaced Tom's fading anxiety: 'More beer!' Darker shades of black steadily descended. When he awoke it was around 4:30, he had fallen asleep leaning on the bar. He wiped the drool from his mouth. His Rugby mates were gone, but the place was still pretty lively. He'd dozed off near the glass collection area, so had been largely left alone. He wondered if the boys had put in a good word for him with the management, perhaps this was the Team pub. Surely drunks sleeping on the bar wasn't encouraged usually, he had to be an exception. He looked out on the sea of dancers; they seemed to be breaking up, the mass split by some altercation, perhaps a fight. People were pushing past Tom's bar stool almost in a run to get to the exits. Like an ice-breaker in the Arctic the dark shapes surged forward and became visible. "The cops!" Blue hats and glistening black batons, a malevolent navy adze. "Hey you!" One of the lead cops squarely eyed up Tom. Tom's heart sank. "Show me your I.D.!" the cop barked. Tom riffled around in his pockets, eventually handing him a bank card. The cop wasn't amused, his thick black moustache curling at the edges, in a sour expression of distain and anger. He wasn't happy, he wasn't in the mood for any shit. Tom tried to talk, but the cop cut him off. "How old are you?" "Twen- Twenty-one," Tom spat out rapidly. "Name?" The cop took out a little notebook. Tom froze. Time ticked on, the cop repeated himself, getting visibly pissed-off. He signaled an underling and had an ultra-brief discussion, while taking glances in Tom's direction. Tom couldn't make it out, he was afraid and felt impotent, helpless. The wheels of steel and intolerance rolled on. Some things, once put in motion, once triggered can't be stopped no matter how hard you try. They didn't believe Tom and while searching him found his University I.D. Nineteen years old. The cops' response was quick and well rehearsed, "Right, you're under arrest for..." Tom was forced down on the ground, a knee in his back. He felt the handcuffs bite into his wrists, all the while protesting, screaming. He should have known better. It's never a good idea to call a pig a pig, and "a fuckin' pig" sure isn't too bright an idea. Sure they must have heard it a heap of times but experience hadn't softened or dulled their brutal response. In Tom's case he had definitely pushed the wrong button. The handcuffs got tighter and a boot to the head joined the knee. He lost consciousness. When he woke he was in a cell, he wasn't alone. There was a fairly solid Pacific Islander in there with him. He wasn't old, Tom thought. Maybe sixteen at the most. He looked around. The cell was large, with four wooden tables on high legs and a separate toliet area. Tom was on one of the tables. He propped himself up, one hand on his aching head. The table was covered in fairly choice graffiti with some of the worst spelling he had ever seen. "Hello," Tom called out to the young guy. He was leaning on the far wall, head cupped in hands. He looked up. "He-llo," he said slowly with what Tom thought was an unaturally high voice. He let his hands drop, Tom looked at him. The guy had a large bleeding welt on the side of his face, beside his left eye. Tom now noticed the red-soaked tissue in the guy's left hand. "Fuck," said Tom, "What happened to you?" The young man was silent. "Are you O.K?" Tom asked. This time he got a reply, again in a high pitched whisper. "Yeah, those cops," (sob) "bastards, one of them hit me." Tom looked at the guy. Something was up, other than his injuries and the crying. He seemed way too feminine. Tom listened as he told his story. It was pretty vague, he spoke in short sentences and didn't seem to understand how adjectives were used in English. He was out of it, Tom decided. But he'd never seen drink or weed do this to someone, then it clicked: 'Glue!' The young man was whacked out on solvents. Of course that didn't explain the voice and mannerisms and Tom thought for a while that he was just an extremely camp gay guy, until another memory returned. A fafa'fine! Tom had never met one before, and now he was in a cell with one. He felt sorry for him. 'Crazy custom,' Tom thought; in some Pacific Island cultures, if a family don't have any girls then they make one of the boys fill that role - they turn him into a girl. He didn't really understand how it all worked, he wasn't sure he wanted to. After about half an hour of stilted conversation the cell door opened. Another cop Tom hadn't seen before took the fafa'fine out for processing or something. Tom asked the cop how long he'd be held and got no certain answer, so he sat back down on the Alice in Wonderland table. It was so tall he pretty much had to climb up on it from a standing position. The door shut with a dead metallic 'thud'. 'Click, Click' went the locks. Tom spent what he guessed was fourty-five minutes pacing around and investigating his surroundings. The graffiti didn't make good reading, pretty esoteric stuff: John saying 'Fuck you!' to so and so, (and of course to the cops) then Hemi saying 'Fuck you,' back to John by scratching out his tag. It was like a primitive noticeboard where crims gave each other the shits and made threats. And of course there was a plethora of tags, names and scribbled Marijuana leaves. The door opened, no cop this time, but another guest pushed in, 'Thum-m-m, Click, Click.' He was a lean asian about 5' 7" tall. His face was red, he seemed friendly. "Hello," he said. "Hi," Tom replied. "What you in for?" "Dunno," said Tom. The asian dude swiveled, "Fuck!" and punched the door. Tom stepped back, 'Great,' he thought, 'he probably knows martial arts, and now he's angry.' The guy moved away from the door and paced around. "Sorry," he said smiling. It was a warm smile, he looked Tom in the eyes and held out his hand. It was a firm handshake, they exchanged names. Tom relaxed. Sara-wha seemed like an O.K guy, if a little drunk. Now, following the shock of incarceration and stilted conversation with the fafa'fine, Tom felt dead sober. His head ached, his thoughts returned to Lucy. Sara-wha wanted to chat, but Tom just made terse automatic responses, the appearance of listening, of attention, but inside his mind had returned to retread familiar obsessions of desire. Eventually Sara-wha must have got the idea and decided to entertain himself. It turned out he did know martial arts. 'WHAAACK!' Sara-wha's foot connected to steel. He turned around and paced to the back of the cell, readying himself for another flying kick on the door. Tom watched, musing over the parallel of Sara-wha's escape attempts and his equally futile attempts at love with Lucy. It didn't last. After about ten minutes Sara-wha was dragged kicking and screaming out of the cell, perhaps the cops had had enough, or perhaps it was time for processing. Tom was alone. Left with his thoughts, Tom spiralled into a pool of self-loathing and despair. He rubbed his eyes fervently, then opened them. Silence. The walls were thick. Emptiness. He lay down on the cold wood table. He shut his eyes. Time went by, time ate away at itself. Tom's mind raced: 'Lucy, Lucy, oh Lucy, did she like him? No, she was teasing him. She was probably in the back of Richard's car right now. But what about when they kissed and what she said? It couldn't have been real - what had it been? No, she didn't like him, it couldn't be real. It must be fantasy, like his visions of Ganesha! Hindu processions! Was he mad? Where did it all come from?! How could he think all that up, he'd never even read the Bhagavad Gita... Alone, alone, I'm always alone, Lucy.' "Lu-u-u-c-c-y-y-y!" he yelled, head in hands. He wept. "Ding a, Ding, Dang, Ring-ng-ing, Ting, Tong, Ting." Tom heard a twinkling, a twinkling, ringing sound, it was the sound of bells. He sat up, dropping his hands climbing off the table. He opened his eyes, looking in the direction of the noise. "Lord Ganesha!" he exclaimed. There he was, the elephant-headed god, goose stepping, right there in front of Tom. Tom rubbed his eyes, Ganesha was still there. "Ding a, Ding, Dang, Ring-ng-ing, Ting, Tong, Ting." The remover of obstacles had bells attached by saffron string, on his arms at the elbow, on his wrists and on his ankles. He was also accompanying the melody with a bell on a nose/trunk ring. It was a beautiful sound. Tom blinked dumbly, he should have been getting used to this sort of weird shit. He wasn't. He felt nothing identifiable as emotion, no automatic fear response, just wonder. He was entranced by the unearthly sounds, the bells soothing, as were the movements of Ganesha's celestial dance. Slowly as Tom watched, transfixed, a glow began to emanate from the Hindu god. Empyreal, golden-yellow light, slowly filling, enveloping the cell with other-worldly warmth. At the center of the radiance was the twirling Ganesha. The light grew brighter, and brighter still, until the whole space of the cell seemed to be afire with a white hot but benevolent hue of plasma-glow. Tom stood gazing like a animal in car headlights, unable to move, speak or do anything. The white brilliance engulfed the cell, became the cell, there suddenly was no cell or boundaries, no space, or perhaps there was boundless space, Tom couldn't tell. Tom saw nothing but white. It was like the inverse of shutting your eyes in an underground cave. Complete light, illumination, there were no shapes, shading or walls on which to reflect or contrast. No dimension. Only light, light and slowly, almost imperceptable to Tom, a sound. Tom waited. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the sound. His only sensation in the white-out strengthened. He could definitely make out some sound, slowly a thin whine bathed in a deep drone became clear. It was a Sitar. The sounds formed shapes, a melodic line: "Tww-a-ang, Tin-g, To-n-n-n-n-g-g." The music went on. A melody of extrodinary beauty and completeness. Tom recoginised it, the same tune that Ganesha had played with his bells, transposed to Sitar. As he listened shapes began to phase in, become, in his mind, he opened his eyes - 'No, it isn't just inside my mind's-eye, but the outside world as well, or both,' Tom struggled to understand. The shapes possessed colour. They were flowers, Lotus blossoms rising in a lake of cool blue water. The sky formed with tufts of playful cloud. Tom's surroundings ebbed to become solid, real. Tom felt a warmth inside. Like the warmth from the first glass of red wine, he felt peace. He looked out at the many grazing cattle on the wide vista of hills leading to a paradisiac mountain range. All the colour, it was amazing. All things, even the cows, seemed to have preternatural hue. "Hi Tom, want a ride?" said a voice. Tom almost jumped out of his skin. He thought he had been alone, alone with this vision-world. He looked in the direction of the voice, it came from a nearby stream banked by Lotus blossom. It was Lucy! There she sat, in a white boat with gold trim. Tom moved towards the stream, dumbfounded. She smiled. "Hi Tom, long time no see." "Er-r, er, yeah." "So Tom, do you want a ride?" Tom looked at the boat. It looked sturdy. "In the b-boat?" he said. She nodded a yes. He looked hard at her. She was wearing an orange sari, she looked beautiful, more wonderful than ever. He breathed deep and spoke. "Sure, sure Lucy, I thought you'd never ask." back © All work herein copyright the stated authors.

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