And another thing, I was walking down the road the other day and I smile at this young woman. She’s 17 or 18. Looked liked she fell from the top of the ugly tree and hit every branch with her face on the way down. But we’re all God’s creatures, know what I mean? Forgive and forget. Anyway, I’m old enough to be her grandfather – and she walks right past me, like I’m invisible. Young people. They want the corner office without doing bugger all. So I go in to this bakery and this young guy with long curly hair serves me and he’s got eye liner on. It’s 6.30 in the god damn morning and he’s got eyeliner and rouge on. I take my buttered finger bun and says, ‘can I have the next dance?’ and he looks at me like I’m dog shit on legs and tells me to bugger off back to where I come from. So I grab him by his Bakers Delight collar, pull him two inches from my all-nighter face and say, “have a go douche bag, I need an easy victory.” Christ on a stick, all I want is a little respect. It ain’t much to ask, I tell ya.

I must apologise to readers with refined sensibilities for Royce’s language. He’s unreconstructed and says it’s a badge of honour he’ll proudly wear while society is knee-deep in fuckwits. He’s also off his medication. Royce likes people to call him ‘Rolls’ but we ain’t close. I call him Royce. Remember that Ancient Greece myth how the harpies would steal Phineus’ food and shit all over the place? That’s Royce. A lazy bastard. He’s left tarpaulin, rope, gaffer tape and a spade by the back door for a month now. How we got to share a small two bedroom maisonette in Adelaide, the arse hole of world, is the story. I’ve thought of telling it like William Saroyan or Henry Miller but I can’t, so you’ll just have to put up with me, warts and all.

First of all, I should tell you what this story isn’t about. That way you can decide if you want to read on or take the car for a drive or make tacos. It isn’t about a domestic literary scene where the daughter finds out her father has been having an affair with her mother’s sister and has spawned two children who can read each other’s minds. It’s not about Indigenous people, guilt and their sacred attachment to the land; people with synaesthesia, autism, depression or victims of domestic violence. If I do write about a victim, I will flag it first with flashing red lights, like they used to in horror movies, so you can turn away.

I’m living with Royce because of my divorce. We split the rent. The settlement will be enough to buy a caravan with a big lean-to and a small garden next to a beach on the tropical north coast of New South Wales. Remember when you were a kid and you stayed in caravan parks and the residents had fire pits with mangy dogs roaming about and there was loud music and people were drinking and your Mum said, don’t go near the weird old guy with the grey matted hair? That will be me. But before you get the violins out and machine gun me with pity, I got money. What I don’t have is time. I’m pissing gallons of protein and one day, I’ll wake up dead. So I’m sitting in Adelaide, where ideas come to die, waiting for the money. I got a calendar in my room with pictures of Labrador puppies on it. I’m marking the days. It’s been nine months and I’m pregnant with expectation.

My wife spent a lot of time getting her hair and nails done. That wasn’t the issue. We grew apart, forgot to say sorry, went to bed angry too many times. Contempt set in. I projected my disappointment on to her and she projected her resentment back at me. It was a deadly game of ping pong that went on for years. I moved out, got this two bedroom place and advertised on Gumtree for a flat mate. Royce rolls up. He’s built like a brick shit house, shakes my hand, says the place is perfect and can I lend him $100.00?

What did The Beatles sing? “In the end, the love you make is equal to the love you take.” Bullshit. The love you take is equal to the love you take. Anyway, this shrink I saw said try to put yourself in the other person’s place. Feel what they feel. I said if I did that, I’d feel like a loser, a dickhead, an intellectual dead end. I knew what he meant. Empathise. So I gave it a shot and in the end, it meant compromising every moral and ethical principle I had.

The cracks first started to appear five years in to the marriage. In a drunken moment, I said I did some work for Sinn Fein in the 80s and 90s, working on local elections in Belfast. I told her how blowing up women, kids and horses, wasn’t a winning strategy. I got young people enlisted to vote and said the future lay in a united Ireland. As Catholics breed like Catholics, I figured in 30 years time, the seeds would germinate and they have.

This didn’t go down well with my wife, who was bought up in the Evangelical church of self-taught Buddhism.

“Did you ever kill anyone?” she asked.

“No. I worked the strategy”

“Did you ever associate with people who killed people?”

“Of course”

“And you kept on working for them?”

“Anyone who had a crack at Thatcher can’t be all bad”

“Every life is precious. You worked for trained killers,” she said.

I could have corrected her about ‘trained’ but she was on a roll.

“How about those horses that were killed?” she said. “They had souls, they had feelings”

She dared me to defend the actions of people who couldn’t walk and talk at the same time. I made the mistake of telling her I believed in liberating people from oppression. It sounded too rich. Too sweet.

“Oh, you mean liberating them from their lives,” she hissed, “and putting them in coffins”

I bided my time and sure enough, four months later, as we walked to the cinema to see a film by Herzog or Fassbinder, which I wouldn’t understand, she made a passing comment about an old guy, sitting on the ground, begging for loose change. He had an old pit bull terrier next to him and a grey blanket over his shoulders. Looked liked he’d been reared by wolves.

“Some people’s karma sure is tough,” she said and threw him a $5.00 note.

“So you reckon he’s sitting on the bones of his arse because of karma? Not a lack of education?” I said with a sneer. “Not because he’s got no family or because he’s drinking his body weight in alcohol everyday? Not because he didn’t inherit $3.2 million when his folks croaked. You reckon it was something he did in a past life, that through some transmogrification of the soul, has put him on the curb?”

“He was probably a member of the IRA”

I threw Karl and Groucho Marx at her and she threw Sogyal Rinpoche at me and all the other happy clappers who wore orange, fingered beads and screwed their disciples. As I sat in the theatre staring up at the screen, thinking European screenwriters could learn a thing or two from the Americans, I realised that marriage could be a happy estate but only if you found the right person, otherwise, give it a miss.

Royce is sitting on the couch wallowing in a beef pie and beer fart, watching Richmond kick the shit out of the Adelaide Crows on TV. It’s half time. He’s on a rant about writing and culture. He talks to himself a lot. I have trouble digesting the fact that he taught English Literature at Melbourne University. Sacked. Something about a late night one-on-one session with a young male student. I pour myself a Tullamore Dew with ice and against my better judgement, sit opposite him. He’s been in the pub most of the afternoon. His skin is the colour of colonic irrigation residue.

So I says to the female students because they’re mainly women (fart) look if you want to get published (fart), write middle of the road prose for other women in the AB demographic about how a husband comes home and beats her and she leaves him and takes the kids and moves back in with her parents and discovers that she was adopted and her real Mum is part Aboriginal and lives in Wilcannia (belch). She goes in search of her Mum and need I say more? If you can’t think of anything to write, look at the news agenda: rape, environmental catastrophe, sexual politics, autistic children, a young girl with synaesthesia who uses colour theory to cure schizophrenia. Think what your audience would like to read, not what you’re driven to write and you won’t go far wrong. Soon you’ll be surrounded by bohemian fawning toadies with clear skin and good teeth, at the launch of your book at an inner suburban independent bookshop. You’ll sell 3000 copies and then it will die.

Royce, mate, that’s bullshit, I say. How about what’s her name, the woman who wrote the books about Cromwell and Henry VIII, Tall Wolf or something like that? How about Jane Gardam or Margaret Atwood or Zadie Smith? They’re big sellers. I read Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve, about a man captured by radical feminists, who was surgically transformed into a woman so that he could give birth to the Messiah. Make a great picture book.

Royce didn’t realise I was in the room.

Oh shit, didn’t see you there. Atwood? Why not throw in Joyce Carol Oates and Alice Munro? You’re talking about .5 per cent of published women writers. No. Hang on, it’s .05 per cent. They come up with original plots and have the balls to pull it off. Most domestic fiction is like watching a kettle boil. You watch it and watch it and then your mind wanders and there’s a fly buzzing against the window and it’s a beautiful day outside and the parsley is doing well then like in mediation, you try to bring your mind back to the kettle and watch it and watch it and then it boils. Jesus, I’ve gotta piss. Can I borrow that Carter book?

Royce is not a big fan of my north coast caravan idea. He reckons a man of my standing should have done better. Besides caravan parks across Australia are packed with young people priced out of the housing market. Day and night he reckons it will be doof, doof, doof with young women walking around wearing strategically placed dental floss to cover their genitalia. We sometimes watch a TV soap called Home and Away, which is soft porn for people with IQs south of 70. The women are doe-eyed, neurotic and on speed and the young men are buffed and s-s-t-t-utter their lines because they’re pumped with testosterone and struggle with their five times table. They’re just one reality show away from killing themselves. The plots make The Bold and the Beautiful look like Shakespeare. Timmy is fucking Sandra who is fucking Jimbo, the local cop who might be gay. Rosanna and Portia want to save the Iraqi refugees who have just rolled in to town. R&P organise a trivial pursuit night at the Watersports Club and raise $4000 which goes missing as Jill confesses to her best friend Sky, who can’t hold a secret, that she’s pregnant to Hamid and is thinking of turning Muslim, much to the chagrin of the local priest, Father O’Connell, who is secretly her father.

That’s your neighbours right there, mate, Royce says, pointing a nicotine finger at the TV. They’ll knock on your caravan door and ask for a cup of sugar and before your know it, it will be wall-to-wall Home and Away stars fucking and sucking in every corner of your van. You can Mortein them, let a flea bomb off, but once they’re in, you’ll never get rid of ‘em.

And another thing, how about those Abos? I was walking around Victoria Square the other day and there’s this huge bloody Aboriginal flag flying from the flag pole, right across from the Premier’s office. Some young black kids are refusing to conform to the stereo type of sitting around drinking wine and yelling bro, hey bro, can you lend me a couple of dollars? They’re going kick-to-kick with a footy. The women are mixing it with the men: stab passes, lightening handballs and every now and then, taking a screamer over the pack as three members of the South Australian Police Force armed with a German Shepherd ala Belgians in the Congo, move ‘em on. One black guy has the sheer audacity to point to the Aboriginal flag flying above ‘em in it’s yellow and orange and black glory and before you know it, they’re rounded up and thrown in to the back of paddy wagons. It’s fucking South Africa in the 1950s. I tell ya …

I make myself a ham and tomato toasted sandwich. Royce has fallen asleep in front of the TV. The sink is full of dishes and there’s a weird smell coming from under the floorboards. Something dead. Have to fix that. Night divides the day and day divides the night. Time passes like a snail on a razor’s edge. Sometimes when boredom keel hauls me, I want to run a razor blade across my eye ball. I’d look good with a patch. A black patch and a gold front tooth. An outward display of my vagabond heart.

I check the mail everyday for a letter telling me the money is settled and I can move out of this shit hole. I’ve got half a mind to ring my wife and tell her to pull her finger out but she put an AVO – that’s an Apprehended Violence Order – on me. Bitch. I’m not allowed to contact her or come within 500 metres of her house. I’ll be the first to admit towards the end, some awful things were said but I didn’t hit her. I want to make that perfectly clear. She slowly pushed a metaphorical knife into my heart while trying to saw my balls off with a rusty spoon. Should she be allowed to get away with that?

Royce is trying to muscle in on the cash. He’s as cunning as shit house rat. I’ve been watching him and this is weird. When he stands in front of a mirror, I see me. How can that be? I wish he’d take his medication. Sometimes when I’m wandering around the flat and call his name, he doesn’t answer. But I know he’s there. He’s trying to fuck me up. Playing those mind games together. I’ve been reading about the Vikings and when they wanted to kill someone in a gruesome way, they’d cut open their chest and pull the lungs through the cavity. It’s called the Blood Eagle. I’m watching Royce. I wouldn’t put it past him to try put some moves on my wife. I’ve given him enough background on her: the flowers she likes, her favourite chocolates, the way she does her hair, how she speaks. I bet he’s gone around to see her. Blood Eagle.

He says to me last month in the front bar of the Marryatville Hotel, after he’s sunk a few, you know those five young guys murdered 30 years ago? The killers cut their penises off and stitched them in to their kidneys. The Family Killings. The cops arrested a scrawny accountant for one murder. Put him away for life. But think about this, Caravan Man. Three of those five guys were big lads in the prime of their life. The accountant must have had help. He gives me a wink and I go to the Gents. Royce is unpredictable and of late, his moods have darkened. There’s bound to be a reward for information like that.

There’s a young guy I’ve been talking to at the pub. Can’t be more than 17. Tonight I bought him a schnitzel with chips and beers. He wants to be a writer. A nice looking lad. A male version of a teenage Britney Spears. Pretty. Tim spends a lot of time on his hair. It’s blond and razor cut at the back. He uses skin products. Smells fresh, like apples. I tell him stories about Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell and his eyes widen. He’s read about Paris in the 1930s and read the Alexandria Quartet. He likes Elena Farrante too. Unusual for a young fella. Gay? I tell him I met her by accident in the Piazza Garibaldi in Naples. She was being pestered by African refugees, trying to flog her a pair of shonky runners. I undid my coat, flashed a long filleting knife I carried for protection and they took off. Elena was grateful and we shared some cake and talked about Naples and the villages in the hills. He can’t believe I got her email address.

Tim’s about eight stone in the old language and five foot five high. Long fingers. The little nail on his left hand is painted sky blue. He’s got problems with his Dad who wants him to become an accountant and join the family trucking business. Tim’s got his heart set on writing. There’s friction in the family, I say, but no fiction. He laughs. Nice teeth. I tell him I knew an accountant once. Bevan was good with numbers but he always wanted to be a painter. Follow your dreams, I tell Tim. Follow your dreams.

After closing time, Tim follows me back to my place, where I promise to show him some of my books. He wants to see my first edition signed copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, Tender is the Night. That’s what I tell him. I open the front door. Royce isn’t home.

“Come in, Tim”

He sticks his head in and looks around like a timid border collie, unsure whether to enter. I close the door behind him, take his jacket and usher him in to the lounge.

“Wow, what a great book collection,” he says, eyeing the colour spines. “You’ve got JG Ballard’s Miracles of Life. Can I borrow that?”

“Of course. I love people borrowing my books. Take a seat and I’ll get us some drinks”.

The tarpaulin, rope and gaffer tape sits by the fridge. Here’s a flashing RED light for readers, which says, ‘warning’, gory bit coming up.

“You been livin’ here long?” Tim asks from the lounge.

“About nine months. I’m waiting on a settlement from my wife,” as I crush two Rohypnol in his beer.

“Do you live alone?” Tim asks.

“Yes, quite alone,” and I walk in to the lounge.

“Here’s to literature,” I say as we clink glasses.

“And to Tender is the Night,” he says looking up at the books.