The Big Whatever Read Free Page A

started.” She moved forward again. “Forget him. He’ll be all right.” She nuzzled into my neck and whispered, “Let’s go home and fuck.”
    I looked at the cover again. The author’s name was given as ‘Mel Parker.’ The blurb on the back said, They live for thrills – drugs, sex, music and MURDER. The shocking truth about Australia’s freaked-out generation .
    There was a hesitant tap on my window. A man in a suit, leaning forward, said politely, “Excuse me. Are you free?”
    I shook my head, switched on the NOT FOR HIRE sign, started the cab and drove away. I could see him in the rear-view mirror, standing in the street staring after me.
    I drove back to Five Dock and filled up at the Victoria Road Shell. Dave asked if I was going to pop into the game out the back. I shook my head. The petrol bill was high for the miles I’d done. Another short fill.
    I left the cab back outside the Professor’s place, quietly slipped the pay-in under his door and hailed a cab back to Balmain. I knew the driver slightly, and he tried to chat. I was having none of it.
    His two-way was turned down low, but like any proper taxi driver I was never not conscious of what was happening on the radio, even if I was talking to a passenger. So I distinctly heard Steve call me in. “Car 370 on this channel? Message for 370.”
    The driver looked at me. “That’s you isn’t it? You’re Bill, right? Bill Glasheen?”
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” I said, but the bloke already had the mic in his hand. “22 in. Got him right here with me, basey.”
    â€œHaving an early one?”
    â€œApparently.”
    â€œTell him there’s a message here. Ring his mother.”
    The driver turned to me again. “Get that?”
    I said nothing, so he shut up. We rode in silence until I asked him to stop in Darling Street, two blocks from Duke Street. I paid and walked the rest of the way home.
    Lights were on downstairs, sounds of carousing came from the big front room. The Forth and Clyde crowd, smoking the stuff I’d brought over earlier.
    I walked quietly down the side of the house to my room above the garage, drew the blinds before turning on the light, sat down at the small table and took the paperback out of my bag.
    So Cathy and I went back to the Castle. We made love. Crazy acid love. Cathy knew everything and did anything. Mad sweet bad Cathy, who’d gone to Vietnam as a nurse, become a go-go dancer, made a pile as a booking agent, yet somehow come back to Australia stony broke. Cathy who’d smoked opium with soul brothers in the fleshpots of Saigon, who’d spent 1966 in Paris with the anarchists. Cathy who knew everything. Cathy who RUINED MY GODDAMNED LIFE. The sad truth, my young hellions.
    But back on that night, all was warm and soft and dark, and I was the most blissed-out cat in the world.
    We slept until two the next day, made love again – slooooooowly – then slept some more. I woke up with the sun low in the sky. Whoa – bad, weird, too bright, wrong-time late afternoon vibe!
    I lit a slim joint and got my head nearly right. I was sitting there propped up in bed, slowly coming to, grooving on the early evening sounds when the phone rang downstairs and I heard Cathy’s voice.
    Half an hour later, Dutch Harry was waiting for me in the lounge room, listening to a Miles Davis record, drinking white wine from a flagon. Big, red-faced, long-haired, wild-eyed.
    â€œAt last!”
    â€œHiya Harry. Where’s Cathy?”
    â€œOut there. I’m here with money, my friend.”
    â€œOh yeah?”
    â€œ Fucking yeah!” He waved a roll of notes in front of me. “You got weed? Like, a pound.”
    I scratched my head. The phone in the kitchen went off again. Cathy picked it up on the first ring
    â€œIt’s for this guy I know,” Harry said. “He might even go for two pounds