Part one of Cunningham Dan’s funeral.
Cunningham Dan was dead. Smashed to pieces by his own belief.
I was in Adeladie getting smashed myself out on Hindly Street when Copper box Sally gave me the news.
She said Tourvill had told her last night as she was giving him her twenty dollar special. Said he was catching the train that morning to Parachilna siding. Or at least that’s what she thought he said.
Tourvill was Cunningham’s brother and was, well let’s just say, special.
I cut short my drinking bing, found a pay phone and called up my favourite party girl and a good friend of Cunningham and gave her the news.
Callisa, that’s her name, said that she had just scored a bag of the finest speed this side of Mount Gambier and was keen on a road trip to the foot hills of the North Flinders Rangers if I had any wheels.
Indeed I did have wheels, a trusty HQ ute I picked up for 200 bucks in Bunderburg. It had got me this far and I’m sure as hell it would drag us 600 kilometres north.
I picked her up at Christies Beach from her hippy share house. We snorted a few lines in the bathroom with fat Swampy Jane banging on the door and telling us to get a fucking room.
She had the wrong impression we weren’t rooting we were tooting. Besides Callisa didn’t have a room as she slept in the lounge behind a sofa on a cum stained mattress.
So at ten fifteen on a sweaty January night sometime back in 1986 we hit the track for a blistering road trip to Cunningham Dans funeral.
Near 20 kilometres from Hawker at around three in the morning we blew a rear tire.
This seemed like a good time to roll the swag out in the back of the ute and to get down to the hot and nasty.
Fortunately the speed had worn down to a buzzing hum and a throbbing erection took the place of my amphetamine induced pin dick.
In the middle of Callisa pounding my pelvic bone to mush from above a roar and a tremor shuddered through my body and it took me awhile to realise the train heading north was rumbling past.
I looked skyward to see its windows flashing by and swear I saw the face of the one and only Tourvill staring at me, recognising me as he whizzed past, our mayhap it was my own whizzing mind.
I lay naked and spent with Callisa happily yakking in my ear as the sky lightened and the flys started dropping on every orifice, exploring the deep, dark crevices of my inner being.
We dressed, I put on the spare tyre and we took another couple of lines before hitting the white lines on our way to Cunningham Dans funeral.
We pulled up at the dusty Para hotel just after ten and the place was a buzz with more then flies.
We sauntered up to the bar amongst silent nods and solemn hand shakes from the locals for me and hugs of silent despair from the burly railway workers and miners for Callisa.
Dobby the publican was pouring beers at a hectic pace but took the time to slide two over in our direction with nod of recognition and a “On the house.”
We found a corner that was not shoulder to shoulder and smirked with the inane delight that only those spinning off their nut can appreciate.
Amongst the hum and throb of activity we gathered that Cunningham had got into an altercation at the bar, punched a disagreeable sort in the mouth and decided to walk along the railway tracks the same time as the number 7 coal hauler from Leigh Creek was coming in the other direction.
The funeral itself was to be held in the Parachilna hall at three with the body being placed onto a train at 4:30 to be buried in some paupers grave in Adelaide.
Douse the cameleer sidled up to our side after our third beer and offered to blow us out on some supremo pot and we gratefully accepted. We did offer a line of speed but he never touched chemicals. That didn’t stop us from having a little line ourselves to help battle the stone, more beers and the lethargy of the drive.