You fucking whackjob.

Ok. So it was a dark and flappy-windy night in St. Kilda and I was astrollin' home from the local supermarket with one of them cartons of wine (2ltrs) cradled in my arm

As I was leaving, I spied a guitarist of the past 30 hippie variety weighed down with booze of his own at the door and we got to talking about how much I missed playing guitar, if there were any stores around here, that sorta gas.

So I decided, fuck it, ask him if he knows where I could get a connection for some buds. He said no, then said, "well, later I probably could..." and sort of trailed off in his weird on too many drugs sort of way. I seized the possibility, like a rat up a drainpipe.

He said his name was Joe. and he lived in like room 104 in a lodging house down a dark alley in st. kilda. about 400 feet from our dark alley in st. kilda.

He told me it was called the Regal. And how well it was named!

The street populated entirely by scary shadows with their head full of drugs (mostly crystal meth). And the Regal, covered in graffiti with its sign proudly displayed.

How fucking Regal.

He said anyway, that I should call back about an hour or so later, you know, to collect some smoo.

So I went home, strumming Joe, 104 and the Regal over and over in my mind so I wouldn't forget it later on.

I went back an hour later looking for John in room 105 and got nowhere, confused befuddlement from people very very on drugs who really didn't want to be bothered, in an I probably am heavily armed and don't want to be bothered sort of way.

So I stood there smoking a fag wondering what to do as a young lady walked right by me and gave this hoodie in the shadows a ferocious hug as he handed her a small brown bag containing narcotics I can only speculate on because the street was completely cast in shadow.

I went up to them and she immediately assumed I was on pills (eckies here) and asked if I wanted a hug or something.

Seriously.

Anyway, I declined in a giggly sort of way (In a street full of scary people on drugs, its generally best to try and also be a scary person on drugs, because if you aren't, you are the person with the target painted on your ass)

I asked if she knew John (cant believe I forgot the name) I was waiting for him, he said he could get me some weed.

"Mike, he wants weed" she roared out to hoodie still in the shadows.

The kind of yell on a dark alley that makes you jump. The kind of yell you really don't want to be about drugs and the kind of yell you definitely don't want to be about you and drugs and you buying drugs right now, with your own money in this dark alley here, as the patrol cars meander by every ten odd minutes or so and slow down as they pass staring at you as all of these people are too drug-riddled to care.

So she told me to wait for 5 minutes. I waited for 7 before a sober looking Regal resident ambled on by and I forgot about her. I asked him if he knew a long haired guitarist named John. He said no, and look confused before the cobwebs lifted. "Joe. You must mean Joe!"

Yeah. Joe. Whatever.

"Hang on, I'll buzz him for you."

He buzzes 104 as I laugh to myself and kick myself for forgetting his name and his room number in under an hour.

Joe comes down, flanked by a burly black dude.

"What?"

Just barked out mono-fucking-syllabic what.

Nothing else, no flame of recognition at all in his eyes, just what.

"Umm.... I'm Nick. We were talking earlier, about guitars, and you said you could sort me out. Bit of smoke remember?"

He points to the dude he came out with and just shuts the door on me and him, leaving us again in the total dark.

I'm really confused by this point. The nice guy who let me in realises I'm looking for drugs and immediately hightails it back into the Regal, regretting his neighbourly behaviour in aiding my score. Joe, that cranky bastard, has fucked off stage left back to his drugroom to be on drugs after mumbling one word at me and pointing so I have no idea where he is, what he is doing or what the hell I am doing there.

The poor guy in 105 is hanging out the window wondering why I kept buzzing his room asking for someone called John and this crackhead is standing next to me, thrusting a rolled up bit of tp into my hand and telling me "that's 15 bucks."

Wait... What's 15?"

I started to unroll the TP.

"Chrissake not here man" says big burly drug dude and he pulls me out of the light of the front door of the falling down Regal lodging house.

He says "You wanted some pot man yeah?"

Yeah

"Well this is a gram, its 15 bucks."

Well actually do you have any more?

His eyes go to heaven.

He is on meth, and full of these visions that he is in fact sober, holding it together, sorting out everything for everyone and being on top of it all, his money, his supply, his dealers and his customers. In reality, he is weaving up and down the street barely able to stand or hold the fag he is huffing on, whilst talking about star wars and cursing and roaring really loudly about all the illegal things he has in his pockets to sell me and how his name is Chucky, but folks call him Sith or Chef (cos he is a meth cook).

I was like a kid in a candy store.

Well, sorta.

Anyway, so I asked him for some more, he says he has none. I took the gram and made to leave but something clicks in his brain and he mumbles hang on, does a john wayne shuffle and grabs me back. I asked him for 2 grams more. I only had 40 bucks on me.

(I decided not to bring out more than 55 because I was pretty certain I would get mugged)

He calls someone who lives, surprise surprise, in the fucking Regal (probably on fire by this stage) and we wait in the fucking alley, as fuck knows who strolls by looking pretty fucking mean and like they could not only beat the shit out of me, but also that they could use me as a toothpick to pick the parts of cars they were just eating whole out of their lack-of-teeth.

So I'm not exactly comfortable as Chucky gets more and more agitated about weed. Then he starts talking about star wars. And I tell him he looks like Boba Fett. (Fuck it, he did, I don't know what to say to these people, but I didn't want there to be an awkward silence between me and the crack addict or anything) he smiled at that.

He asked if I had the change for the rest of the drugs, 40 bucks.

I did.

I gave him 5, a sort of a thank you for the connection. He demanded i take his phone number. By this stage, it was quite difficult for the guy to stand up, talk, and try and unlock his phone, so he falls against the wall, huffing.

I took his phone and got his number to save him the hassle of remembering what he was doing. He took it back and put it in his underpants (don't ask why, I, for once, didn't)

He asks me "Do you wanna go back to my place? We can get totally fucked up on speed! Man I cook the speed. I deal to hells angels you know" And on and on and on, more star wars, whatever his speed addled head remembers until the Regal opens its doors, another silent beardie old dude walks out, does that secret handshake thing with Chucky to get the buds. That secret handshake that of course all police can never see, some blank in their vision, as Chucky roars about how he wants 5 bucks of the deal because he sorted it out and how it's a shitty deal anyway and how he will never deal with him again., Chucky hands over the money, nobody says anything, the Regal closes up again, and again its me in a dark alley in fuck knows where with a drug dealer next to me who can barely stand but really wants me to go home with him. Like a lot. So I made up some shit about girl.... mumble.. waiting on the smoke... blah blah blah. I'll call you again hey thanks for the hook up man blah blah. On and on like this until we both stroll back onto Grey st. and street lights. Thank God.

So I mumble a seeya and make to cross the street hoping Chucky won't follow.

He doesn't, but shouts after me

"24/7 man, I'm open 24/7"

At least I made sure that everyone on the surrounding three block area knows where to score their dope if they fancy some banter with a meth addict.

Cool.

I half-ran half-hopped home in the eerie streetlight that blots out the black empty void of St. Kilda night. The night that comes in low and fast and early, swallowing all stars and moonlight and bathing the toes of Victoria in a total dark in the alleys where the electric hum of civic lighting fails to penetrate.

I made it back quick, quick before I had to think about what I had just done in the light of all the promises to my parents about not taking risks with strange foreign druggies on dodgy streets at night.

Home fast so Sarah wouldn't worry that I was gone too long without giving her a text.

Home fast so my brain wouldn't dilly dally into the whole world I can't seem to mould for myself here.

Home fast to warmth and wine and food and drink and the buzz of unsober tranquil bubbly night.

Home fast so that vast unmalleable ball of St. Kilda didn't crush me down one tiny bit more with the reality of the always real, the fretting for money, the fretting for work and the fretting for the comfortably numb humdrum jazz of mournful ideals. That sun- sinks-to-night rhythm that taps out the rest of our days like a long, ever-louder funeral march.

Words that Joanna said to us before we left were playing on my tongue.

I started counting the letters and letting the sentence flow through my brain until it slowly flooded all other thoughts.

It's a trick of visualisation that I use like a child, to pull that sentence you have just heard, those sentences that you know are important, and take it out in one piece from the aural buffers like a glistening sword. Then you leave it hang in the air for just a second to settle, hovering and glistening in front of your eyes, for just a second before it becomes too clear, then draw it deep into your mind, slowly, from end to end, like you would drain the dregs of a nice Amarone into your mouth, leave it mingle and then pass on into permanent storage for later self-flagellation.

And it wasn't meant as an insult, or to upset, just a piece of sage advice proffered by the universe directly to us.

This time the universe, ever-cunning and always playful Universe, had again morphed its message through the filter of unexpected afterthought. It's chosen form on this occasion was our great friend, sometime house mate and longtime psychiatrist who was possibly largely unaware of the wisdom, the universe's hand in taking over her mind that second or how lasting an effect the Universe's words and it's great ventriloquist trick would have on us before this trip gets done.

“You know, no matter where you go, your problems have a way of following you.”

And it's true, inescapably, wonderfully, terrible true. We packed so much more baggage that day when we first took to the airport than we ever could have known checked in with us, and unpacked it here without delay. And with that sword of truth can be explained so much of the petty, temporary misery I have berated myself with on the path to settling back down here, and maybe, just maybe, with more hidden messages, send us on the path to a kind reality that we can keep up with either here, or somewhere on this big blue coin.