Cheating Life

Money was tight this autumn. I had been in a month long tug of war with my immune system and the cost of tissues and amphetamine based flu medication had bled my funds dry. Ordinarily I would have enough money to attempt the Titanic method of curing the flu. All you need is to drink so much alcohol you actually start to die. Once the flu germs realise the vessel they’re on is going down, they abandon ship. By morning your liver will feel slightly sore to the touch, and your urine might be a tad rosier in hue, but your spirits will be particularly buoyant.

I called up Travis, a tall black American who dressed like a jazz bassist and perpetually smelt of weed. I had met Travis at a friend’s art exhibition launch. He walked around the gallery with a small roll of red spot stickers and stuck them next to each painting he hated. When I quizzed him on whether he was buying all that art, he simply replied, “If people think they’re already sold, no one will make the mistake of buying this rubbish”.  We later bonded outside the gallery over our mutual hatred for Oprah and a Turkish cigarette that gave me my first head spin in over a decade.

Every phone conversation with Travis started with him saying “Hold up” and then a series of cavernous coughs. Each heave mined up the sludge of innumerable joints, a practice that occasionally went on for several minutes. When the bark of his lungs eased into an ebbing wheeze, Travis uttered, “Make it quick”. I explained that I was poor, sick, and in need of cheap flu medication. Travis often dealt in a small black market trade of whatever prescription drugs washed up on his dubious shore.

He had a small amount of antiretroviral AIDS medication, but one box of pills would cost more than I make in two months. Plus, it seemed a little extreme for my situation. Travis mentioned an old Milo tin full of night-time flu tablets he’d bought from a bargain bin at a Tasmanian pharmacy in the early two thousands.  He sold the lot to me for ten dollars and an old copy of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More.

As I left his surprisingly normal suburban house Travis said, “You know you could kill two birds with one stone. You’re broke and ill, why not just down a handful of those, and shave the end off the week? Living is expensive, but death is fairly cheap”

A tram ride later and I started to see the logic behind Travis’ suggestion. If I put myself in a thrifty little coma for a weekend, I might actually be able to afford the cost of living in Melbourne. I peeled back the lid on the Milo tin, grabbed a handful of the small neon pebbles and chewed the bitter chemical chalk of the tablets. I felt fairly smug in my plan to cheat life.

A few stops rumbled by and my phone screamed loudly from my breast pocket. The chirpy voice on the other end told me it was Juliette Kringas, the marketing manager for the Melbourne Writers Festival. She asked if I’d be keen on being an official blogger for the festival again. It was to be a paid position. The word paid made my shoulders taut in the same way the word pregnant does. I could afford brand name flu medication with that money, the kind that doesn’t come in a rusty tin.

Juliette asked if I could pop by the Wheeler Centre tomorrow to chat about ideas for the blog. I told her it would be impossible as I would be, quite literally, out for the next few days. You could hear her frown over the phone. “It’s quite urgent. Are you busy today?” My mind raced. I told her I was free right this very minute. After a few moments of hearing her muffled conversation with someone at her office, she agreed and I stumbled off the tram.

I figured I had no more than 30 minutes before I fell into a thrift coma. With a five-minute walk ahead of me and a 20 minute train ride home, I’d have roughly four minutes of conversation before I had to leave, perhaps five if I didn’t mind passing out in my stairwell, which I didn’t. I carved out the most direct route in my mind and with the determined swagger of a man trying to push back the tide of medicated slumber I willed my feet to keep moving forward.

I hadn’t walked more than fifty paces before I noticed the world had turned quite reggae. The shop windows bounced along nonchalantly to the dull gush of my pulse. I could hear my blood flowing all around my head. With every swing of my foot I could feel my leg bones sliding across the cartilage in my kneecaps. I pursed my lips to whistle an accompanying melody to the rhythm of my gait, and promptly urinated in my jeans. My vision started to flicker out just as I let gravity clutch my soft face to her asphalt bosom.

A bright light startled me, and I jerked my head back into consciousness. I squinted through sleep-slicked eyes at a small crowd of elderly Japanese men and women that seemed to be applauding my return to the land of the living. One by one they took turns posing beside me for photographs while I tried to blink some sense into the world. The flash of their cameras caused stains of colours behind my eyes, but I did my best to keep them open. There was a cold wind burning my skin and each breath formed a momentary cloud that slid neatly away from my head.

After every photograph the Japanese pensioners bent over and placed something by my feet. That’s when it occurred to me that I had somehow been standing erect while I was passed out. Somebody must have propped me up while I was out cold. I peered down past my paunch and noticed the dark patch where I had soiled myself was frozen solid. My lower half was encased in an icy scaffold of denim and my hat had fallen off of my head and was filled with small change. “Oh Christ” I thought, “They think I’m busking”.

I tried to move. The ice in my jeans creaked, but my legs wouldn’t budge.  I pleaded with the crowd of Japanese tourists to throw their coffees at my groin. They thought it was part of the performance and put more money into my hat. There was no way my body would thaw unless I heated my crotch up. I would have to pee my way out, but my bladder was dry. You would think it’d be difficult to get a bunch of strangers to pee on you, but when they think you’re a failed arts student who earns money as a living statue, they seem all too happy to oblige.

I never made it to the Wheeler Centre. I had been a living statue for three whole days. Still, I hadn’t spent a cent and I made some decent coin from my accidental busking. On the long cold walk back to my apartment I found the missing Milo tin. Four unconscious junkies were all in a pile on Swanston Street. Each had one hand wedged firmly in the tin. To the casual passer by it looked as though someone had bought one of those novelty can of peanuts that shoot out toy snakes, only someone had gone the extra mile and put some gaunt junkies in instead.

Buyer beware I guess.

We’re he-e-e-e-r-e

Ah, finally we’ve made it to the shiny new premises at the newly entitled Wheeler Centre at the corner of Little Lonsdale and Swanston Streets, in the old museum building. It’s been quite a process to get here, but finally, finally we are esconced in the basement, looking out at builders’ legs as they finalise the lift, and the entrance to our space.

Still living out of boxes and crates of course, but we’re getting there, even though the main question is “Has anyone seen the…..?”.

Our new festival director, Steve Grimwade, is very busy talking to writers, publishers and agents about the 2010 program, and already some exciting news about potential guests for next year. You’ll just have to make sure you subscribe to our e-bulletin for news!

Apart from the lovely building, the brand new computers (bliss after years of elderly equipment and software drag), new furniture and sharing space with fellow writing organisations, there is an absolute plethora of fantastic eating spaces, shops and other vitals of urban living which has been lacking in Southbank. All I need now is to track out my new cycling route!

Helenka
Festival Manager