Chapter 1
October 2013.
The man exited the bus, pillow under arm, with an array of other motely passengers blinking into the dawn of a perfect Northern Territory dry season day. The air fresh and clean, the sound of tiny Katherine a mere background hum of slow vehicle traffic and slower pedestrians.
Waiting, the bus driver hastily pulled from the buses entrails a collection of disarrayed oversized packages that passed for Territory folks suit cases. A large over stuffed, striped, plastic, zippered bag commonly found in dollar stores, a sports bag bound with octopus’ straps, a box barely held together with brown packaging tape, a bundle of rags surrounded by a colorful but dirty quilt held together by nylon string and finally the mans oversized swag that contained everything required for a return trip back to Pennant Creek, his home town 750 clicks back down the highway.
This trip being necessitated by the family van breaking down six weeks’ prior while the man’s family was traveling the 1000k to Darwin for a sporting event. Fortunately, the family was offered a vehicle from another family heading up “The Track” for the same reason and the destination was reached, the event happened and the family arrived back home in the borrowed car leaving the van stranded at Katherine; hence the man’s reason for being there.
Checking the map on his phones GPS he realized the distance to the mechanics was far greater then he was willing to walk. With a quick call to his wife to let her know that he had arrived safe, sound and rested he quickly found a taxi to take him on the last, short leg to his destination, the Toyota dealership on the road heading out of town.
While in the cab he pondered the freedom afforded him on this impromptu trip. It was rare indeed for him to be able to escape the confines of his domestic life unless of course it was travel associated with his past working life. Past referring to yesterday as that was his last day of a four-year foray into the NT Aboriginal music industry that had found him travelling from the remote desserts of the NT, WA and SA to the booming metropolises of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Darwin.
A recent change of management and the disagreeable alignment of thought between him and the higher up’s produced in the man a desire to forsake his dream job for piece of mind and an opportunity to close doors so that others may open.
Little did he know that at that moment he was standing at the threshold of a door to an unknown hell.
He arrived at the dealership, all glass, steel and waving flags and noticed his van standing alongside other vehicles in a fenced off yard at the side of what was obviously the garage where they had replaced the blown motor with a second hand one. He walked through the sliding door into the air-conditioned interior and up to the attractive young receptionist smiling and waiting behind her glossy, marble black laminated counter.
He explained what he was doing there and she presented him with the bill only to discover that the card containing his promised holiday pay was declined due to lack of funds. He immediately phoned his recently departed place of employment and was promised by his former employer that he would look into it straight away and find out what the trouble was but in the meantime his wife, also employed with the same arts collective that the man had recently vacated, wished to speak with him and that he would transfer the call.
With concerned tone his wife informed him that the police had just called with a search warrant for the house they occupied in Pennant Creek and that she was just leaving to meet them there. She asked if he had anything in the house that they might find and he answered in the negative. He understood that her concern lay in his ex-Marijuana use but he had not smoked or had any pot since his 47th birthday three month’s back. He had recently received a call from a predominate dealer around town and thought that they might have been tracing phone calls and following up on those suspected of holding. Fortunately, he was not one.
His old boss phoned back to let him know that his holiday pay had been stuffed up and that he had only received payment from the beginning of this financial year meaning that they had only payed him for working the past four months instead of the twelve he had worked. Frustrated by the call from his wife and the thought of being stranded in Katherine he bullied his former employee into helping out. Reluctantly his ex-boss said that he would pay for the repairs on the car and take the money out of the man’s holiday pay when he received it. Relived, he thanked him for doing that and handed the phone over to the receptionist for the payment to be finalized.
While waiting for confirmation of payment the man received a phone call back from his wife. In obvious distress she said that the police were indeed at the house and that they were confiscating all of the electronic equipment, including phones and storage devices. The local police had been informed by the federal police that the man had written and posted child abuse material on the internet. A police officer at the house had stated that a well written story about an underage child had been placed on line and that whoever had done so had broken Australian law.
The man replied to his wife saying that he knew what story they were talking about. She said that the police officer wanted a word with him on the phone. The acting superintendent of the Pennant Creek police force introduced himself asking the man to produce himself to the police station on arrival back home. The man started to explain his innocence when the officer announced sternly that anything he said would be used against him in a court of law. Stupidly he thanked the police officer who handed the phone back to his wife.
My god, she said to him; what have you done.