ALLAN JURD
I MUST'VE BEEN MORALLY AND BLINDLY RED
I found myself in that void: the area of the mind where the red
rag bull rages. The movie was finished and the big lights were
on, making Buddha eyes of the cattle behind the fences. I could
not feel myself walking across to the car, but I was.
The youths were skylarking around the car, bipping the
horn, dropping the speakers on the asphalt and playing the high
beam across the credits. The usual yahoo behaviour. By now I
was swearing and yelling and I didn't know what I was saying
and had no control over what I was doing.
The nearest one was standing beside the car with the back
door open behind him. I hit him in the stomach with a tightsprung right then brought it back up to the side of his head. He
fell back into the car as if swallowed up. And with the red dyed
in my mind I back-pedalled three quick paces in anticipation of
his friends coming at me. I bent my thong back in the process,
snapping the strap and feeling the hard gravel cut into my foot.
But they did not come at me; it anti-climaxed. Perhaps the
element of surprise and my madness numbed them. Or had they
sensed the fire up there in the kiln of my head, flickering at the
world through the vents of my eyes? I could partly feel myself
walking back to the car. My head was clearing, air coming back
in, extinguishing the lightning. I got in the passenger side of the
car. My wife said nothing, and later I learned she hadn't seen
what happened. I don't know why. Perhaps she discreetly
looked away. Catching the watching eyes in the wet windows of
cars, the rabbit-eyed kids and their parents secretly praising my
act: live action and assault at the drive-in with a topping of the
flavour of self-righteousness. And all after the main movie.
With a squawk the rage drained out through my ears. They
filled with the roar of cold cars being revved, the exhaust fumes
tickled up my nose. With this return of logic I memorized the
number plate in front of us in case of retaliation. We drove five
miles before I took the pen from the glovebox and wrote it
down, finding it difficult to put much faith in my mind.
'I,]
The window was down and the wind rushed into my face.
It would be hard from here. I'd spend weeks wrestling with
myself and my temper. Trying to justify what I had done. Even
though these red rages were rare and random, they left me with
an intense feeling of guilt. One moment thinking it a cowardly
act, and next that I was the champion of everything pure.
Back home my wife doused the headlights and we waited a
few minutes in the cool area under the house, watching for car
beams, a sign we'd been followed; but we hadn't. Their surprise
must have lasted longer than my zealoted exhibition.
I was a purist and believed if you were morally right you
would win. I've since learnt it's more technical than that. I was
working hard then too; brickies' labouring. Again believing in
the morality of a good day's work, which left my head full of
temperamental lightning. I was punishing myself at the job, not,
as I liked to say, to pay the bills, but in a masochistic selftorture, hurting myself for the cushy jobs I missed out on. I was
very conscious of my outbursts and often ashamed, and would
discipline myself for months between, becoming subdued and
timid. A silent type, not saying much, beating the tiger back
inside every time he rattled the cane on the edge of the undergrowth. The rest is just destiny. The car load of youths happened
to be where the lightning struck.
What worried me a lot was the one I hit. He may have only
been the back seat passenger; a pawn in the game, little brother
tagging along and a victim of circumstance. How many times do
you see it - looking at a stranger in the crowd, while you laugh
at a friend's joke, and then being accused of laughing at the
stranger's conversation? Unfair and blind justice, sulk sulk in
the schoolyard. But can it be divine intervention? The salvation
of one in a carload. Was the one I hit innocent but the only one
worth saving? I liked to think so. I'd been in the same sorts of
situations in my own youth and at the time I brooded and
thought I was wronged, but now I see it as a saving grace of
sorts.
The movie that influenced this whole live act was Ode to
Billy Joe, recommended for general viewing the paper had said.
Bobby Gentry sang the title song at the beginning; the same
song she would be singing over the credits when I found myself
in the red void. It was a movie of real family stuff. Innocent
love in the backwoods for two fifteen year olds, and ends with
Billy Joe McAllister jumping off the Talahasee Bridge.
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The ads on the radio brought back youth and love to the
women at the sinks. This culminated in wife and kids, along
with roped-in husband, parked along the curving rounds at a
Friday night drive-in show.
So what brought in this outside element, this misplaced
and misdirected carload of youths? The moment I saw them
drive in after lights out, I knew a collision course was crisscrossing like a plague of locusts across the screen. They represented the two things I hate most: hot cars and smart arses. I'm
easy when it comes to black or white, or catholic or communist;
but when it comes to smart arses in hot cars . . . well it does
nothing to help the red void. I am completely biased and oneeyed, terribly bigotted. I am the redneck in the crowd being
blindly led. This carload of wild oats and enthusiasm represented
a threat to everything I held sacred: love, family, christmas, and
blue tongue lizards trying to beat the radials.
They parked a row in front of us. It was a Torana that gave
out a blue luminous light, assisted by the smouldering lights of
the canteen. Down near the brakelights was taped the obvious
red P plate. A kind of crude symbol for the male debutant.
It contained four or five figures, all male. I detected this as
they moved around the car and spread out to the toilets and
canteen.
During the movie they started yelling out remarks. These
were harmless at first; typical yahoo behaviour. But they quickly
took on a lewd context. Real buck party stuff; natural in a main
bar or the Sunday night "R" rated shows. I could accept that
easy enough and often have. But this was general viewing, a
family night out, not even the contents of the movie fuelled
these remarks. My red void began to emerge like a fat vein
running across my temple. Jekyll and Hyde enter.
The movie was ruined for many people. It was a wonder
nothing was done or said; people are often so easily bluffed. By
the time it finished I was pretty worked up, but was prepared to
forget everything. But it was here fate bumped me; grabbed me
by the shoulders and steered me across the asphalt. I'd been
sitting in the driver's seat and my wife now said she wanted to
drive home, but I think she sensed my anger and wanted to
drive for a safety reason rather than any other. As I passed the
grill of our car and my wife was sliding across behind the wheel,
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one of the youths yelled out another remark. I don't even
remember what it was. It was the proverbial straw. I entered the
red void proper and found myself walking across to the car.
It is now dawn. I've written this through the early hours
and my legs are shaking from too much coffee. The years of
debating within me culminated last night and now it is all out
on the open page.
I look forward to a couple of hours sleep. With highly
charged dreams sticking like broken glass because of my tiredness and my still active mind. My wife stirs as I lift back the
sheets.
"You haven't been writing all this time, have you? What
time is it?" she asks blurrily.
"A quarter to five. Remember when I hit that bloke at the
drive-in years ago, well, I finally got it down."
"Yeah, they were real bastards, they deserved every bit of
it. ,,
She is asleep before I can answer.
Town Hall, Bowen, N.Q. 1909
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