Stark (24 page)

113: THE SALT OF THE EARTH

R
achel apologized to CD and he nearly had to take a cold shower. None of them knew what was going on out in the desert, but it had to be something pretty bad. Either intimidation or deceit had marked every move in the game.

‘Like I said,’ said Walter, ‘we might as well go and have a look.’

‘All right, don’t rub it in,’ replied Rachel.

So they loaded up the Holden in preparation for the trip. Sleeping bags, food, cassettes — you cannot after all, drive five hundred miles without vibes — and they headed on up the highway.

There is an old expression, ‘the salt of the earth’. This expression has always implied approval and goodwill. Someone who is the salt of the earth is considered honest and trustworthy, even noble, in a rough and ready sort of way. They are always good company, reasonable, kind and considerate. They are unpretentious, quick to see the other person’s point of view…in fact ‘maddening bastard’ would probably sum them up just as well.

Probably the reason the term ‘salt of the earth’ is used is because salt is an honest, wholesome, natural thing, traditionally in short supply. And this is the point; you could not want too much of it, just as one would not want to get caught in a room full of ‘salt of the earth’ type people. Such an abundance of hearty, straight-talkers, saying things like ‘I’m a simple man, and I don’t know much, but I do know this…‘ would drive anyone to the vom bucket.

As the little red Holden headed up through WA, its passengers could not help noticing that salt was no longer in short supply and was certainly no longer being viewed with such friendly eyes. There was salt all over the place, and wherever it was, it meant barren, parched and useless land. Land where no crop can grow and no animal can feed. Salt of the earth had come to mean complete ecological and economic breakdown.

The problem is called salinization and it means that too much salt is concentrated in the top-soil, attacking the vegetation that grows there. It occurs when the water-table rises, bringing more and more salt to the surface. The water then evaporates, leaving the minerals behind and the land becomes useless. Why is it that the water-table rises? The answer is simple; because all the trees have been cut down. The trees, with their deep roots, used to absorb the water before it could rise, leaving the salt far down below and allowing the water to continue its cycle harmlessly through their leaves hanging high above the ground. Now the trees are gone and Western Australia — like many hot parts of the world where surface evaporation is speedy and the forests have been cleared — faces a terrible problem with the salt of the earth.

This is the avalanche factor. Who would have thought that cutting down trees to create agricultural land, would render that land terminally poisoned by salt within a few short years? These days, of course, the cause and effect are well- established, but the trees keep falling.

114: ENCOUNTER AND DISCOVERY IN THE DESERT

O
n the afternoon that Rachel, CD, Walter and Zimmerman reached Bullens Creek, the crash was only a few weeks old. But, during that time, the whole world seemed to have grown a little poorer. It had been shocking how quickly the depression took a grip. The Social Welfare became the only growth industry. Well-heeled philanthropists were beginning to think about making soup.

Not in Bullens Creek though. Here it was boom time. The whole town was buzzing, there was work and money everywhere. This was because only a few miles away a vast new development was under construction — a development that was going to bring wealth and prosperity to the town, for time immemorial. The Silvester Moorcock Group, it seemed, was building the ultimate space-age leisure complex. The Oasis, an enormous and completely self-contained city haven, constructed around six massive underground hotels called the Arks. All to be made ready in treble-quick time, because when the depression ended, as at sometime it surely must, people were going to want a holiday.

No townsfolk were actually directly employed on the project but what with the hundreds of foreign workers, living in hastily constructed dormitories, plus the endless flow of traffic up and down the one highway, there were plenty of spin-offs.

‘Well, if he is building hotels,’ said Rachel, sitting stoically at the wheel, ‘they’re extremely big ones.’

They had hit the traffic jam at least ten kilometres out of Bullens. Earth movers, mobile drills, articulated road trains; it was as if somebody was going to rebuild the world from scratch, and had decided to start the operation in Western Australia.

‘Whoever heard of a traffic jam in the middle of the desert?’ moaned CD. Tempers inside the car were beginning to fray, as indeed they would, stuck in a jam with knackered air- conditioning and a relentless, blazing sun turning up the heat degree by degree.

‘Man, we have to accept the situation,’ said Walter, ‘that is the only way to deal with it. We are stuck, and we are hot. You know man? I mean, that’s the way it is, all we have to do is educate ourselves to dig it. It’s a Zen thing really.’

For a minute or two Rachel and CD tried to educate themselves to dig it. At least that is what Walter thought they were doing. In fact they were wondering whether they had the energy to tell Walter to go fuck himself or not. They both knew it was utterly unreasonable to blame him for his size but it was galling for the person taking up at least half the room to start preaching tolerance.

Zimmerman was thinking about something else. He got out of the car and stared about him, blackened into a silhouette by the blazing sun. The desert seemed to make him look taller and stronger. He was wearing his usual singlet and shorts and both Rachel and CD found themselves thinking more than ever that he looked extremely impressive. Such was Walter’s ridiculous size that it was easy to ignore how well set-up crazy Zimm was. He was muscular and tanned. There were scars on his shoulders but they did not disfigure him. He had an expression of intense concentration on his lean, creased face. The beard, flecked with grey, was neatly trimmed — a contrast to his straggly hair and headband. Gone was his bored lope, now he moved amongst the stationary cars with an athletic grace that suggested a tremendous latent strength. Of course, Walter had told them that Zimm was a black belt Akido, a weapons and survival expert, but what can you tell sitting in a coffee bar? With a distant horizon stretching out all round them, and a huge empty sky overhead, Zimm grew more than ever to look like what he really was. Trouble.

CD thought to himself that it was a shame that Zimm was out of his mind. Rachel thought that it was a shame that he hadn’t got any love tackle.

‘Yo, Zimm,’ called Walter, ‘keep it together, you dig? Don’t go eating any cars, we’re on a mission here man. The last thing we want is to draw the heat.’

Zimmerman ignored him. He knew he was on a mission, he did not need reminding. That was why he was standing in the middle of a snarled highway in the burning sun, sniffing intently. It was so difficult to be sure. If you want to get a bearing on a trace smell it’s best not to do it on a flat windless plain along with a thousand belching pipes.

‘Do you think you should be shouting about us being on a mission then?’ CD gently rebuked Walter.

‘Oh yeah, man, that’s true, you’re right. Yeah.’ CD had clearly given Walter cause for thought. He leant out of the window again and shouted at Zimm. ‘Yo, Zimm man, like what I said about the mission, that was just a gas, OK? Like, as you know, we are not actually on a mission but just hanging out and digging things, right?’ Walter turned to CD. ‘I guess that pretty much makes things cool,’ he said and CD could not work out whether he was taking the piss or not.

115: CONFRONTATION

Z
immerman walked about fifty feet up between the two rows of huge, idling engines. The truckies stared down at him from their cabs. Zimmerman sniffed at the cargo of a lorry. He strolled on and sniffed at the back of a tanker.

‘Hey, long-hair. Get your dumb face out of my cargo,’ drawled a huge, mean-looking truckie through teeth clenched on a nasty, thin, little roll-up — a black one, made with liquorice papers. Zimmerman looked up at him. The man was driving a huge articulated double-fuel tanker, carrying the Murdoch Petroleum logo. His cab was about ten feet off the ground. ‘You know something, fat man?’ Zimm replied. He wasn’t particularly anxious to be rude but this fellow appeared to address people by a single distinguishing characteristic so Zimm was simply falling into line. ‘You know something, fat man — ’ he was about to continue with what he had intended to say but events overtook him.

‘All right boy, don’t say another word, just you keep quiet because you’re going to need what breath you got.’

The big driver was very bored and he was very pleased indeed that this hippy had provided him with such a clear justification for some diversion. He climbed down from his cab. Unquestionably he was a big chap; as big as Walter but without the benign aura.

‘I guess the best thing you could do is to give up smoking.’ This had been what Zimm wanted to say, and he said it. He was a person who had dedicated himself to the preservation of life on earth and, within limits, this included enormous violent looking truckies. Therefore, he felt obliged to issue this warning. ‘Because that ain’t petrol you’ve got in the second tanker.’

But the truckie wasn’t listening. He jumped down onto the tarmac, slightly denting it. ‘How much money you got on you boy?’ he asked, flexing his great heavy arms. ‘Because these are your options, you hear? You’ve been sniffing round my load like some kind of damn thief, right? Then you march up and call me fat man, OK? Now you can’t deny it, because I heard you. On top of that you start giving me that lung cancer shit — ’

‘It’s got nothing to do with lung cancer,’ replied Zimm.

‘Don’t you interrupt me, boy! Don’t you fucking talk back on me!!’ This fellow just loved being a bully. He smiled and continued. ‘Now, the way I see it, all the things you done kind of makes you my property boy. You belong to me. Now, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I am the top man, main moose- head charity organizer to raise money for the truck drivers’ orphanage.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Zimmerman, quickly treading on the cigarette butt end that the man dropped. ‘Well, long-hair?’ the truckie continued, clearly feeling the need to explain the softer side of his nature. ‘Me and the boys reckon we leave so many fucking kids behind us on the road the least we can do is get them somewhere to stay.’ He laughed coarsely at this.

Zimmerman’s eyes narrowed with loathing. If there was one thing which bored and irritated Zimmerman, it was crude comments about sexual prowess.

‘So, Mister,’ the truckie continued, prodding Zimm hard. ‘Either you hand over all you got, so’s I can give it to the kids. Or, I’m afraid I shall be forced to flatten you.’

‘I hates dudes who are like, terminal bastards, but lay some token charity trip on you because that makes it all right being pigs the rest of the time,’ said Zimmerman.

The truckie reminded Zimm of the landlord of a pub in Carlo, who wouldn’t serve Aboriginals. This same fellow proudly had a huge whiskey bottle on his bar which his customers were supposed to fill with money. Then he would have himself photographed handing it over to the local hospital. This guy had chucked out Zimm because of his hair and jeans. He had a sign up demanding ‘smart dress’ which means he would have served Hitler, but Jesus would have been barred for wearing sandals and a dress. The truckie didn’t know of Zimm’s aversion to self-serving charity, but he knew he had been called a bastard and a pig. He grabbed his Citizens Band radio.

‘Ten four, brown bear, rubber duck, twice as nice, sex dog calling all rigs,’ he barked into it, by way of an introduction. ‘I got a long-hair here wants a pounding. I’d say six foot two, maybe twelve and a half, thirteen stone. There’s a hundred bucks says I can knock him cold in under half a minute.’ The traffic had been completely stationary for about an hour and so the prospect of a little diversion was most welcome. Word spread fast and pretty soon there were over a hundred hard- looking sports lovers crammed in amongst the trucks, waving money around.

Rachel, CD and Walter had also hurried along. They had had a suspicion that the commotion might be something to do with Zimmerman and were most disconcerted to discover that they were right. Despite their earlier reflections on how hard Zimmerman had been looking, CD and Rachel had only to take one look at his opponent for their hearts to sink.

This was also the consensus attitude of the crowd. Nobody was offering money on the long-hair to win. The best CD heard was an offer to back Zimm to last forty-five seconds.

Then Walter spoke up. ‘I’ll take any bets on the hippy to win!’ he shouted and was nearly crushed in the rush.

When everyone had finished their betting, a space was cleared, for what everyone expected to be a short fight. As the two opponents squared up to each other, Walter shouted to Zimm that Zimm was to forget for a moment that he was into love and a peace freak because it was important for him to win the fight. This was because if he didn’t they would be over four hundred dollars in debt.

‘OK,’ said Zimm, ‘but I want you to know that I don’t really approve of this type of profiteering, Walter.’ Everyone had expected a short fight, but not as short as it turned out to be.

An old fellow who had been elected referee, informed the protagonists that he expected a clean fight and then Zimmerman hit the truck driver and the truck driver sat on the ground with a surprised expression and rolled over dead to the world.

There was a momentary pause and then pandemonium broke out. The crowd was convinced that the whole thing was a set up and that the big truckie had taken a fall. CD and Rachel could understand this. Zimm’s victory had been so complete and so unlikely that even though they knew that it wasn’t a set up, they almost believed that it was.

Walter stood on the bonnet of a cab, a disappointed expression on his face, and addressed the crowd.

‘You know, man, like, uhm, I am speechless, I am just like totally, like…lost for words man. That anybody should feel, like that they have the right to lay this unbelievably heavy scene on us. I mean, you guys must all have some very bad shit in your heads, you know that? Very bad shit indeed. I think maybe you should look at your diets, maybe it’s a diet thing and you should all go macrobiotic. Too much Ying, not enough Yang…or sometimes it’s the other way around. Either way, it is one bad mother-fucker of a heavy trip, you dig?’

For the first time in his life, Walter found himself in the fairly unique position of having over one hundred truck drivers hating him all at once. They had not the faintest idea what he had been talking about, but some of them vaguely thought that he might have been suggesting that they go fuck their mothers, which was unacceptable. Truckies love their mothers. Mother-love, like some charity, is another of those catch-all excuses for unpleasant attitudes and behaviour.

‘All right, so he shoots his business rivals and beats his wife…but he’s wonderful to his mother.’

‘Of course he is, and gives the earth to charity.’

Anyway, what with apparently trying to cheat them, and topping it with making improper and incestuous suggestions, Walter’s life expectancy was now being computed in seconds…Zimmerman spoke up:

‘I didn’t do any fucking cheating, you red-neck slimes!’ he barked. And even with their sensibilities dulled by spending twelve hours a day staring at a completely straight road through a desert, the assembled drivers could see that Zimmerman’s feelings were hurt.

‘So pick your best man!’ he shouted. ‘Pick your best three men,’ he corrected himself, ‘and let’s do the thing again. Ref’, shift the debris.’ Zimm kicked the prostrate form of his defeated opponent. ‘Start a pile.’

It would have taken about sixteen ref s to shift the sleeping beauty, but it wasn’t necessary because Zimmerman’s speech had succeeded where Walter’s had failed. Nobody felt like picking up Zimmerman’s challenge and so Walter started to pick up the winnings.

Back in the car, as the traffic started to move, Walter announced that they now had over a thousand dollars. They crawled past the stricken double tanker which someone had driven to the side of the road. The still unconscious form of the driver had been propped up in the cab. He woke up in the middle of the night and started trying to think up a story that would cover the facts as he remembered them. How do you explain being beaten up by a hippy in front of a hundred of your peers?