Drive Me Crazy

Drive Me Crazy
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday August 1, 2015

I am yet to meet a man who can resist the call of the open road. We are gunning towards Kalgoorlie on a week-long road trip. My husband is enthroned in the driver’s seat of our hired motor home. The kids are strapped in the back, squabbling over a box of Jatz crackers. I’ve eaten an entire packet of Twisties in the sixteen minutes between Meckering and Cunderdin.

The man in the van couldn’t be happier. He croons the backing vocals to Slip Slidin’ Away, then launches into a falsetto for the chorus:

You know the nearer your destination,

The more you’re slip slidin’ away.

A road train roars past, buffeting us sideways. I catch a glimpse of the Hulk Hogan behind the wheel and his sign on the dash: ‘Highway Warrior.’

“Wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him,” I say.

“Yep, we’re a special breed,” replies my smooth-cheeked driver, caressing the plastic wheel of his white Jayco Conquest.

I stifle a snort.

“Driving into the sunset, rising with the dawn,” he intones.

He pauses theatrically, leaning forward to scan the sky before resuming his soliloquy:

“Man and machine at one with the wilderness.”

He eases smugly back into his seat as I shift uncomfortably in mine. I silently beg for an interruption to the treeless view. An unbroken ribbon of grey highway vanishes over the horizon. I study the mallee scrub for signs of life but it refuses to offer up even a crow. I’m momentarily absorbed by a dark lump on the roadside up ahead. Could it be a goanna? As we bear down on it, I realise it’s only a jagged strip of tyre.

“Road alligators,” mutters my wannabe truckie, hanging his arm out the driver’s side window.

I note the succession of coffee drips now staining the front of his favourite mauve polo. His left leg, rendered useless by cruise control, flops in the footwell. A camel-brown ugg boot ensures against holiday frostbite. He wears a roomy pair of elasticated trousers to keep himself nice.

A speck appears on the horizon: bigger than a car, smaller than a road train. It grows a high roof cab, a boxy body and becomes a shimmering mirage of white. It’s another Jayco Conquest! As we close the gap, my husband slides one hand to the top of the steering wheel and casually extends his index finger in a passing salute. The other driver reciprocates the gesture as he zooms past.

“The brotherhood of the road is alive and well,” my husband says with a satisfied sigh.

The next four hours of driving stretch eastwards with barely a bend in the road. The kids have settled down and are watching a movie with shared headphones. After Burracoppin, the salmon gums return, shading the highway with their green parachute canopies. By Bodallin, a flotilla of flat-bottomed clouds has gathered on the horizon.

Periodically, my wheatbelt tour-guide waves vaguely towards some feature of the landscape requiring my attention. “Sheep?” I offer, having no clue what he’s pointing at.

“Wheat silo,” he says flatly, now that I’ve missed it.

Minutes later, he signals towards the window again.

“Shed?” I attempt, as we whizz past a humpy of rusted tin.

“Windmill,” he corrects.

I give up and examine the gnat flapping frantically against the windscreen. I marvel at its staying power, four tiny wings a blur of desperation. And then I twig. It’s our slipstream that’s powering those wings. The gnat’s splattered innards have glued his body to the glass. He’s probably been dead since Walgoolin. I hope my flying friend never knew what hit him.

I while away the next ten kilometres classifying the streaks and smears dotting the windshield, but the impact of bug versus van has obliterated most victims. After identifying one wasp and a cicada, I lose interest. I practice my powers of perception instead, using each insect splodge as a Rorschach test. In the dark stain of a flattened mosquito, I see the delicate wings of a miniaturised butterfly. Who knew bug juice could give such artistic pleasure?

We pass through Southern Cross as the sun dips behind us. The last shafts of daylight drench the cab in golden light, giving my husband the tan he always wanted. The hairs in his left nostril are aglow. So are the bristles in his ear. The setting sun turns the thicket of hair on his forearm the colour of beer.

The monotony of the darkening highway is broken by another motor home barrelling towards us.

My husband delivers his customary one-finger salute but the van’s grey-haired occupants stare stonily ahead. They pass us without acknowledgment.

“They didn’t wave at you, honey,” I say, feeling miffed on my man’s behalf. “How dare they ignore the brotherhood of the road?”

“Foreigners,” he says matter-of-factly. “Any Twisties left?”

Along for the Ride

Along for the Ride
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday September 20, 2014

A green speck appeared on the crest of the hill. “Bus!” I shouted to the kids, Small daughter and her brother (plus 4-year-old Finlay on loan from up the road) hopped down from the park bench and teetered on the kerb, desperate to be first to recognise the bus numbers.

“That’ll be the 107,” said a spry fellow who was leaning against the bus-stop, dressed like a man who hasn’t cared about fashion since 1970. Beneath his herringbone flat-cap I noticed the bulbous nose of a man prone to thirstiness. His polyester Bermudas were as short as his socks were long. His cable-knit socks were folded just under his knees, insured against gravity by a pair of elastic garters. I could see the indent where his garters gripped the top of his calves. I hadn’t seen socks like that in years.

“We want the 99,” I said.

“That’s the express. You just missed it.” The kids groaned. He stepped forward to hail the 107. My bus-stop companion hitched up his shorts, inadvertently advertising the contours of his cobblers as he plumbed his pockets for change. He withdrew a handful of coins and the contents of his shorts sank back into obscurity.

He climbed aboard bus 107. In its wake, another green blur appeared up the hill. “Here comes the 99!” I shouted. The kids capered on the footpath as the driver swung the bus in, doors parting with a hiss. Leaping aboard, my charges tore up the aisle, scrambling onto the high bench seats up the back.

“Three under-seven’s and me to Freo please.”

“$2.90” said the driver, an arithmetical prodigy.

He gazed into his side mirror as I hurriedly counted out a palmful of 10 and 20-cent pieces, plonking them down in two small stacks. He raked the coins into his till and pulled out sharply into the heavy traffic leaving me to stumble up the aisle.

Propped against the rear window, we four had an elevated view of our fellow passengers. Half a dozen students, heads bowed over their smart phones, would not have noticed if a gorilla boarded. A white-haired woman in a blue sunhat was nursing a shopping cart on the seat next to her. In front of us, three biker-types with black straggly hair were squabbling about where to get off. “I tell you, jackass!” one remarked. “It’s only a five minute walk from Adelaide Street to the pub.”

My seven-year-old jumped to his feet. “You’re next!” he shouted at the bikers.

I grabbed him by the arm. “For goodness sake sit down! What are you doing?!”

He pointed at the biker sitting alone directly behind his two mates. The bloke was leaning forward, gripping the seat in front. I could vaguely see that his knuckles were inked with blue capitals.

“See Mum! That hand spells Y-O-U-R and that one says N-E-X-T!”

The guy with the scary knuckles swivelled to take us in, then held up both his hands. “Read that can ya mate?” he said to my boy, flashing the gaps in his teeth. “Done some good work, they ‘ave,” and he balled his fingers into fists and mimed a couple of uppercuts.

My son turned to me with eyes like saucers. I patted his thigh: “Not so loud, hey?” Suddenly, the driver jumped on the brakes and my neighbour’s 4-year-old shot off the back seat, landing clumsily in the aisle. l scrambled down just as a technicoloured arm scooped him up and set him back on his feet. “There you go little fella,” said tattoo-man (who’d clearly blown a few pay cheques on his body art). “Evil Knievel’s driving the bus today.”

“Are you okay, Finny?” I said, lifting small boy onto my lap and wrapping my arms around him. The bus surged forward.

Our bus cruised along the highway, the late sun hanging low over Leighton beach. I looked around for a window latch to let in some fresh air but the glass was slick. When did they take the latches off bus windows, I wondered. Over the old rail bridge we went, depositing the old woman and her shopping cart on the other side.

Up the back, pitching and swaying across the traffic lanes was making me queasy but the kids were squealing their appreciation. Up ahead, I saw the Queen Street roundabout. “Almost there, Finny” I said, wedging my knee against the seat in front as we swung clockwise. The kids slid sideways, banging shoulders and giggling. The bus pulled into the bay and the doors sprang open. I gathered up our belongings and ushered three small bodies towards the exit.

“I got kids too, said Mr Knuckles. “At least, I use-ter.”

“Well, you can’t have mine,” I said, friendly-fashion.

Driven to Distraction

Driven to Distraction
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday June 7, 2014

My first car was a 1976 custard-coloured Datsun 200B. I bought it from my Uncle Andy for $800. Aged 19, I was now free to explore my Perth universe.

My car had no air-conditioning, no wing mirrors and often no petrol. After a week of crunching the gears to locate reverse, I snapped off the gearstick knob into my hand.  “Knobs don’t like rough treatment,” Mum sighed. I rammed a squash ball onto the gearstick and drove it like that for the next four years.

My Datsun boasted six ashtrays – we teenagers didn’t let driving inconvenience our smoking. The flip-down trays in each door panel blew ash in our faces as soon as we wound down a window. Two larger ashtrays slid side by side out of the dashboard, side by side, in case driver and passenger didn’t want to share.

After another month of rough treatment, my driver’s side window jammed down inside the door. On frosty mornings, I’d arrive at work numb with cold. Parked at the beach in February, however, my car would be roasting. The vinyl seats heated up like a George Foreman grill and seared the backs of my thighs. I’d leap out of the car and throw my towel over the seat only to have the steering wheel scorch my palms. Wrapping the towel around my legs, I steered with my knees until I could grip the wheel.

The cassette player slyly chewed up my favourite tapes. The eject button seldom did what it promised. Instead I would prise loose my beloved John Farnham from the slot, only to discover he’d been disemboweled. I’d gather up the intestinal tangle of tape and reach for the Bic Biro I kept in the glove box for emergency repairs. That biro gripped the cogs of the cassette perfectly, so I could wind back the messy entrails. But John Farnham, with his innards wrinkled and flabby, never sounded the same.

My Datsun was no looker. But my neighbour had a canary yellow Datsun Stanza – how I envied its sporty brown stripe! Datsun also had models called Sunny, Cherry, Fair Lady and Bluebird. (The Bluebird-U series launched in 1971 using the short-lived slogan: Bluebird U- Up You!)

My girlfriends acquired their first cars in various states of dilapidation. Stephanie’s Honda Civic was a rusty shade of burnt-orange. We named it The Baked Bean. It shook violently if asked to go faster than 60kph. When Steph’s mum gave her some chocolate-brown seat covers for Christmas, we re-named it The Jaffa.

Another bestie had a Ford Laser Ghia. A pale blue one. Three out of four door handles had broken off. To get out of it, we wound down the windows and flipped up the handles from the outside. We called it The Man Trap.

I had friends with cars named Black Beauty, Bertha, the Red Rocket and Mertle (yes, with two “e’s”). Mertle was a Morris Minor with a tartan interior, whose driver’s door would fly open if she was forced to take a right hand turn in third. She’d happily take a fast turn left.

I can’t remember the last time I drove a car with gears. But I can recall my fear of the dreaded hill-start. I panicked if the cars in front and behind were parked dangerously close, because my clutch-riding abilities were dangerously unpredictable.

I jammed the clutch to the floor and roared the accelerator. Then I snapped off the handbrake and let the car lurch forward. Slamming on the brakes, I stalled the engine. Humiliated and defeated, I abandoned the car and caught the bus home.

Mum decided I should do a car maintenance course. If I got into trouble, at least I’d know how to check the dipstick or change a tyre.

But no-one told me what a flat feels like. Driving on the left rear rim, I thought the road was uneven. At the lights, a nice lady shouted through her window “Flat tyre!” I gave her a wave and pulled over halfway down a hill.

Fresh from car maintenance 101, I prized the jack free and wedged it under the rear axle. I began cranking the lever and was surprised to see how easily the car lifted off the ground. A truck grated to a halt behind me.

“Stop!” yelled the driver, jumping down from his cab and waving his arms.

“You can’t jack up your car here! It’ll roll down the hill! He snatched two bricks from his tray and shoved them under the front wheels.

“For pete’s sake, where’s your chocks?!”

“What’s a chock?” I asked.

Twenty years later, my live-in grease monkey says I still don’t know the difference between a sump and a hump. But I know a car with character when I see one. New cars don’t have personalities. They have names like Spark and Volt. Cars with grunt. No Datsun Fair Lady driver would climb daintily into one of those.