Anyway, there he was, poor chap, unhappy as a lark, without a cent, and soaked through to the bone.
This is how the dream unravels in my plagiaristic mind — a preemptive attempt at a spot of streetwise narration plundered from the opening monologue for the 1949 classic, The Third Man, read with either the cynical edge of Carol Reed’s racketeer, or the more inanely optimistic offering from Joseph Cotten’s protagonist in the Americanized version.
Your choice.
The words are smeared just a bit into a ramshackle riot that attempts (badly, I must say) to correlate with the mood, the alternative locale, and the entirely crap circumstances of the here and now.
Hell, I don’t know if you’ve ever copped a screening of The Third Man, but if you have it’d put you in solid with me — and would certainly help out with all that descriptive nonsense we otherwise have to indulge in to set the scene hereabouts. Whether or not you’ve seen the flick, or even if you just need a few friendly slaps to remind you, there’s a pivotal scene over an hour into it that perfectly captures my predicament: cue a transient form, a man maybe, skulking in a darkened alcove off the side of a night-time Viennese plaza.
There’s a cat seated at the figure’s feet, preening itself. A light claps on in an overhead window and you get a glimpse of the man’s face, replete with a flirtatious, mocking expression — it’s Orson Welles as the iconic Harry Lime, a character we’ve previously assumed to have been measured up for a concrete kimono. He’s resurrected himself, shades of Lazarus, and — ah, forget it. Who am I kidding?
I’ve nowhere near the smug self-assurance, let alone panache, of Orson Welles when he takes that first visual splash in The Third Man. I’ve more the personality of his co-star Joseph Cotten’s Holly Martins in my B-movie attempt at an opening reel.
Besides, the contemporary location shoot — in Melbourne, Australia — isn’t quite as safe, orderly, or classy as Reed’s post-World War II bombed-out Vienna, Austria.
I apologize for all the confusion — chalk it up to a delusion that should be excised and dumped on the floor of the editing suite to be swept out with the rest of the trash.
So, quickly pull back to a wide shot of the street in an attempt to resuscitate this narrative. Keep it simple — no out-of-focus fade-ins like they employed in the old black-and-whites, or the Salvador Dalí bender in Hitchcock’s Spellbound. Simply diffuse the colour and crinkle-cut the edges of the frame as heavy rain begins to fall.
Someone — that’s me — is leaning against a wall on some second-rate street. Cut to my aged, scuffed, and soaked-through shoe, then pan to where our absent film-noir cat is supposed to be. Damn.
There’s not, it seems, an available tabby or tortoiseshell to be found anywhere within this dream.
Mind you, this all backed by the crackle of a single-channel soundtrack: maybe some guy twanging away on a zither, or a shamisen.
Or wait, perhaps Irving Berlin could rise from the grave to conduct a bunch of dusted-down tuxedos and cocktail-dressed dames. I could go still more self-consciously future schlock here like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle did back in the 1970s, say something into a mic, splice ‘n’ loop the tape, sprinkle in some of my dad’s tortured guitar strumming from when I was little, and then have the sheer audacity to call it this dream’s musical score.
Now that we have that sorted, jump cut, in godawfully hopeful Jean-Luc Godard style, to my own perspective. This is where it all starts, really, with this recurring dream — and I wish to blazes the truth had more pizzazz.
Prologue Thingy
Where to start, where to start… I’m muttering these words; it’s just one of those anxiety-ridden moments, so pay no heed.
Intros.
I mean who really needs ‘em…?
Apart from all those tweed-clad, armchair, fireplace-hovering critics — and their bloody book-toting hounds — who say that prologues’re the most important part of the narrative; that they set the scene, that without an intro the reader has no idea what’s happening; that you’ve gotta reel in the characters, and by extension the reader, blah, blah, blah…oh yeah, and I should use way less semicolons in the process.
Definitely don’t create your own peculiar lexicon.
But after a hundred and one spotted attempts (including sweaty revisions, frantic erasures, crazed scribbling and rancid Dalmatians) to embark upon this unwieldy beast of a story, I’m well and truly washed-up on the fucking introduction front.
Maybe I could skimp from the Tristan Tzara bag of tricks, go all Dadaist here, cut up these paragraphs, stick the words in a knapsack, then take ‘em out again to be reassembled in verbatim hotchpotch style?
Or make it more postmodern, do a Brion Gysin/The Third Mind party-trick twist, and pitchfork deconstruction in the process?
Shake my booty on the same trail that Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle did back in the ‘70s, say something into a mic, splice ‘n’ loop the tape, sprinkle in some of my dad’s terrible guitar strumming, and call it intro muzak…
Am I rambling yet?
The sooner it’s over and done with, the better; invariably intros are just a waste of space anyway — unless it’s something quirky like Richard Basehart uttering “My name is Ishmael” at the beginning of John Huston’s celluloid 1950s latex whale rejig of Melville’s Moby-Dick.
How about a classic-yet-desultory opening line stealer like Bernardo’s “Who’s there?” in Hamlet, or something pompous and gay like the chorus in Henry V that inanely cogitates, “O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention,” ad infinitum, etc, etc. I checked those out on the Internet, just to pretend I’m all literate.
Or even — yeah, sod it all, even something irrepressibly cheesy, like the schlock-scroll spiels at the beginning of all the Star Wars movies.
Man, at least they have something to say, however silly. Shakespeare and Melville waffled on too much. They were like old-school Freud.
And I feel like I’m going in similar psychosomatic circles here.
If I were original enough to be the lame-arse trendsetter who declared, “It was a dark and stormy night”, I’d be halfway towards vaguely chuffed.
Me?
I’ve got Dune on my mind, goddammit.
Just a smidgeon, but that’s enough; it junked up the works in my headspace a moment ago. And I’m talking about the dud moving picture, not the dime-store novel.
Ever copped a dose?
Yeah, yeah — I know. It’s not exactly a knockout and nothing to brag about if you have seen it. But the point here is that if you had, it’d make things a whole lot easier here — putting you in solid with me as a result.
And don’t crack upright and foxy about the book being superior; I wouldn’t have the faintest idea. I’ve never read it. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a copy anywhere. It’s as rare as hen’s teeth these days, like most other dusted-up paperbacks and hard covers.
Anyway, don’t ask me if this part’s in the book, but in the flick Virginia Madsen’s prologue narration kick-starts with the words, “A beginning is a very delicate time.”
…and you know what?
I’d bet a dollar against a dime that more honest, rattle-brained sentiments have rarely been uttered, muttered, elucidated or thrown up for conjecture.
That’s how it figures, because I’m completely aware of it right now: the beginning bit and the delicacy issue chucked together in a hell-for-leather free-for-all. Then maybe gently stirred, definitely not shaken, in a philosophical cocktail replete with stuffed olive — or better yet stuffed with my own waffling verbal horse manure — and run through with one of those wooden toothpicks you find in ramshackle Chinese diners.
Bloody hell.
Now I’m getting all noir and Raymond Chandleresque — even though I have nowhere near the amount of talent possibly found in the mole on the instep of his little left toe.
This wasn’t my intention. Where was I? Oh, yeah.
 
; An introduction. The point of everything, that’ll steer you clear into the story itself. Amen to that.
Oh shit, I’m out of space and over the word limit now, aren’t I?
Bollocks.
Ahem.
At least Headhunter has an interesting history — well, so far as I’m concerned.
It’s actually a chapter of Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat that was excised from the novel. I very much wanted to keep it in there but my editor, Kristopher Young, convinced me it diluted the story.
I decided to dig the blighter back up, change the perspective so it’s Floyd’s former mentor Colman at the centre of things, and we get to find out what happened to Ant Hope after the CPs picked him up in TSMG (on page 106, if you have a copy).
In case you’re wondering (or not), the character of Colman — first name undisclosed — is partially modelled on a great Sydney-based chum of mine, a fellow hack journalist, dad and lover of fine spirits…or any alcohol for that matter. And the gold Krugerrand gossip from TSMG was based on a genuine experience we went through together in Newcastle (Australia) at a crazy arts festival.
This story has a longer history than that, however. It’s part of a novel I’d been pottering over for years, but never came close to finishing, called The Cricketers —set in a dystopic, futuristic society in which cricket is used as the ultimate spectator sport.
Yes, it was very much influenced by Rollerball (1975) as well as the surreal moments of Catch-22 and the sports’ evangelism of The Natural and Field of Dreams. There’s also a nod toward Australian mini-series Bodyline, which starred Hugo Weaving (The Matrix, Captain America, Lord of the Rings) in one of his earliest villainous roles — as English cricket captain Douglas Jardine.
There are probably many reasons I never finished getting beyond the draft stage, including the above-mentioned superior romps — so I slipped my favourite part into TSMG, but then that was removed when my editor (correctly) noticed it didn’t sit well with the rest of the story.
So here it is, anyway, as a bit of a lazy stand-alone.
First up, some unhealthy sporting stats: (1) Whereas in baseball players wear mitts to field, cricketers field barehanded; (2) A cricket ball is of similar construction to a baseball, but slightly harder and denser; (3) The fastest ball bowled by any bowler in cricket is 161.3 km/h or 100.23 mph, and the fastest baseball pitch clocked-in at 162.3km/h or 100.9mph; (4) Batters’ helmets became mandatory in baseball in 1959, but were not in common use in Test cricket until the early 1980s; (5) Cricket fields take up an area the size of about 175,000 square feet or 16,300 m2 , whereas in baseball the fair territory area is about 110,000 square feet or 10,000 m2 ; (6) While a baseball match is usually in the vicinity of three hours, a Test cricket match can go on for up to five days.
Headhunter
Truth to tell, he was more aggrieved than bored.
There had been some bacterial problem with the latest crop — rendering it useless, even after he did some repair work, hacked away the disturbing black growth, cut the plants at the bottom, trimmed off remaining fan leaves, clipped the trim leaves as well, and stuck those in a paper grocery bag for drying and to keep as hash. All of it was spoiled. He could blame the goddamned weather but everyone did that already.
Not that any of this accounted in meaningful way toward the grief.
Instead of wallowing in self-pity he scraped together the remnants of his last stash, rolled these up, sealed them with a kiss and a flick of a match, and got stuck into two bottles of reconstituted rum — a combination that bent his head enough to produce a weird nostalgia for the carefully hidden muses of childhood.
Something to steer away from the news. Of her death. Of the requirement to tell his sister.
The last time Colman paid any sort of heed to the cricket was decades before — when Allan Border was still playing — and in the pickled recesses of his memory he couldn’t revive a bare ten percent of the rules of the game. Who the bollocks really knew them all, anyway? Cricket was such an anachronistic sport.
Aside from escapism, probably it was Ant who subversively motivated his arse to switch on the telly and tune in to the grand final, though he would never let this on to the bugger.
Colman raided the fridge, and then sat back on the couch with about twelve ring-in Coopers Ale beside him, lifted a deep ceramic bowl off the coffee table, poured into it some dried vegetation, and started mulching the remnants of the remnants.
Thoughts of Floyd wafted by. Dog-eaten memories, mostly, a majority fond. He felt his eyes begin to water, pushed the balls of his hands into either temple, pushed hard, forced himself to stop the waterworks and banish the kid from mind. For good.
The ploy was a success.
As he carefully ground away, Colman decided not to care. Josephine could wait. Madeleine was out for an evening’s canasta and here he was, home alone, steadily getting rather off his tree. While doing so he tuned out to the sporting shenanigans on the TV.
It took just a few seconds’ bleary vision to twig that this game had changed significantly.
In fact, calling it a game — or a sport for that matter — was a sham, one surely punishable by a stint in Purgatory. Instead, picture a gladiatorial outing more on par with one of Richard Wagner’s Arthurian operas, Parsifal in particular, the one with a long-winded death scene for Amfortas — the Grail Honcho, or Fishing King, or whoever the hell he was.
A long time ago Maddy had forced him to sit through this ‘80s Kraut film version of Parsifal by some terror called Hans-Jürgen Syberberg. It went on and on in excess of four hours. Towards the end, he’d gone stir-crazy, railing for the guy to sod off and kick the bucket, and swore aloud he’d well-nigh learned the German language.
In return his wife cold-shouldered him, picked up her purse, and left the cinema without a backward glance.
Here — by ‘here’ Colman meant slap-bang on the telly screen — the lead-up pomp and ceremony for this grand final at Hylax Stadium Mk. III in the Dome were bothersome bummer enough. Think ‘rousing’ music and grating performances by awful local rock wannabes. He felt like he might go deaf and blind — or set off on his very own quest in search of a chalice of half-decent entertainment.
Not that there weren’t bonus extras: lazy fireworks and terrible performers, semi-naked cheerleaders in poor-taste, erotically tight threads. A mass exodus of thousands of kids pouring out across the ground carrying different coloured cards that, once coordinated, resembled the Australian flag and, on the reverse side of the placards, a boxing kangaroo.
Then came a scratchy, orchestral dirge of ‘Waltzing Matilda’, distorted over the stadium’s PA — or was it his single functional TV speaker causing that? — hotly pursued by the latest pop starlet sensation warbling the national anthem. She sounded like she might have been deaf as a post, but likely he was getting old and cranky.
The commentators blathered on with disposable inanities throughout, then reported that while 185,000 people were right there in the stadium, the match was being broadcast to an audience of approximately ten million homes in Melbourne. Were there really that many places to suffer in this skip of a city?
They were talking up the stats of both teams and players involved — centred upon the Australians, of course — and it became obvious where bias resided. Bias. Colman’s thoughts wandered. A child. Corinne. The hospital.
No. Desist, he told himself and forced his attention back to the telly.
After an interminable amount of verbal guff, at last some action rolled into view. The World XI was the first team to emerge from the dressing rooms.
They wandered onto the field in a straggling line led by Ant Hope, and the resounding silence surrounding them was, seconds later, followed by boos, hisses and jibes from the crowd, along with a tempest of empty bottles, cans, cups, plates, diapers, shoes, and the proverbial kitchen sink.
When the cameras zoomed up close on the team members rather than the tossed paraphernalia, Colman saw a multicultural col
lection of faces that looked jaded, bitter, morose. Ant’s mug held onto the impassive. Full marks — he covered well.
Meanwhile, the commentators rambled on, forcing Colman to kill the impulse to crank down the volume and escape their monotone excess. He knew this hellish fiasco needed to be ‘enjoyed’ with the vicarious add-ons.
After about five minutes more of the rubbish, the stadium lights dimmed, spectators hushed, and the TV pundits stopped blabbering. Bliss. Then a ring of a dozen huge spotlights lit up the pitch in the centre of the stadium, as well as the ceiling of the Dome far above.
The poignant moment scared the hell out of Colman, mid-puff on his joint.
An inordinate amount of dry ice smoke washed across everything, including a parade of scantily-clad girls marching in Akubra hats and green and gold sequined bikinis, when four noir hover-choppers appeared out of nowhere and descended into the arena to the blaring soundtrack of AC/DC’s Brian Johnson growling out ‘Back in Black’. God, he hated that song — preferred the band’s former lead singer Bon Scott, since the man had died with style, choking on his own vomit.
As soon as the vehicles landed, the Australian players jumped down, clad in tawdry gold and green lamé jumpsuits. They were triumphant smiles, self-confident grins, arms held aloft to soak up the standing ovation and adulation from a mammoth crowd.
The announcers, barely audible above that roar, wet themselves with glee. Relighting his spliff, Colman examined the face of Ray Massey when he was introduced, to thunderous approval, on the stadium PA.
Ant’s arch-nemesis and his ex-girlfriend’s current snog, Massey looked the part of a cocky arsehole — but, then again, most postmodern cricketers did.
The cameras swooped onto every one of the Australian team’s eleven players, predictably via their best angle, and Colman sussed they’d caroused with their fair share of cosmetic enhancements. Each one of them would’ve looked right at home as part of a Mattel action-figure range in some diabolical toyshop.
Statistics, records, favourite food, the size of their stamp collections, shoe measurements, star signs, blood types and marital status flashed up for each. He’d never seen a bigger group of people who thought that ‘driving’ qualified as a worthwhile hobby.