The Bastard from the Bush: An Australian Life

by Jarratt, John

  I was sitting out on the grass looking south towards Island Bend, feeling chronically homesick. I was planning to run away, which happened often at All Souls. Out of nowhere my pop started talking to me, giving me advice. ‘Talk to your Mum and Dad and tell them you want to leave and come home.’

  ‘I can’t. Dad’ll get mad at me and call me a girl.’

  ‘You don’t know if you don’t try.’

  This has never happened to me before or since. I swear he said it to me, I can hear it clear as day right now. I wasn’t even thinking about Pop, it just came out of the blue.

  It was August 1966 and my family had just moved to Aramac in central Queensland to be closer to All Souls School. Another frightening reason not to tell Dad I wanted to leave. He’d taken a lesser job as overseer for Aramac council, a big step down from being an inspector for the Snowy Mountains Scheme. My family drove up to the school and took me to Magnetic Island, off the coast of Townsville, for the August holiday.

  We went fishing off the rocks at Nelly Bay. Dad wasn’t with us, so I took the coward’s way out and told Mum I hated the school.

  Her mouth dropped open and she paused. I thought it was going badly. Finally she blurted out, ‘Why didn’t you say something? We thought you liked the school. I’ve been crying for a year and a half wanting you to come home.’

  What! I’d been in hell for eighteen months and I didn’t have to be there? That was one hell of a way to learn to speak up. I have, ever since.

  Aramac

  Aramac, central Queensland. If you put your finger in the centre of a map of Queensland, it’ll probably rest on Aramac. If you travel 70 km due north of Barcaldine, you’ll come to Aramac. You can’t go any further than that unless you want to travel on a goat track over 350 km through thirty gates. So Aramac is at the end of a road to nowhere. The future premier of Queensland, Robert Ramsay MacKenzie, travelled through the district in the 1850s. He blazed R R Mac on a tree and that became Aramac. It was surveyed as a town in 1875.

  The town had 750 residents when I lived there (now 340). It basically consisted of the Dicksons, the Kingstons and the Storches. If you had a go at a Storch in front of a Kingston, you might be in trouble as they could be cousins. The Kingstons versus the Dicksons was an annual football match. What a crazy town. Dad, my brothers and I loved it. Mum hated it.

  Girls

  Off to high school. It only went to Junior, so I ended up going to Longreach to do Senior. I’d just turned fourteen, I had pubic hair and a bit of bum fluff emerging on my cheeks. This school had girls, beautiful girls: ‘Heaven, I’m in heaven.’ I love girls, I still do; I’m living with the most beautiful woman in the world, it doesn’t get better than that. I describe myself as a chronic heterosexual. I can’t imagine having sex with a man. They’re so hard, it’d be like making love to a door. I don’t even know how women can do it, but I’m glad they do. I’m not at all homophobic. I understand emphatically that people of the same sex can love each other. I’m in the entertainment business and I’ve seen it first-hand. It’s been happening since Adam was a poof. One of my heroes is Stephen Fry. Love QI. His doco on exploring homophobia around the world is sensational.

  Any chance of me paying attention on any subject at school disappeared with my coming of age. I was interested in one subject at school from then on: women.

  Aramac had three places you could take a girl on Saturday night: the outdoor picture theatre, the pool or a dance, if there was one on. Either ballroom dancing or rock ’n’ roll. If it was rock, a band from Barcaldine turned up called the Rubber Band. They were pretty good, playing covers, the Beatles, Elvis, the Stones. We loved them. For ballroom we had a big-bummed country girl on piano and a skinny old drunk on drums who never used drumsticks, just the brushes. One of the highlights of the evening was the drunk falling off his stool and into his drum kit at around eleven o’clock.

  I loved the outdoor cinema. It had no roof (because it never rained), sway canvas seats, two to a seat. We took a rug to that cinema, summer and winter. Mum said, ‘What do you want a rug for, it’s hot as hell!’ We did everything except intercourse under those rugs. If you weren’t sitting with a girl, you’d wait for a couple to be going hammer and tongs and slice the canvas with a pocket knife. They’d fall through the split and onto the dirt floor with dresses up and pants down. Good for a laugh.

  I lost my virginity at the Aramac pool. It was open nights on the weekend, because it was so bloody hot. One of us would go out to the fusebox, pull the fuse and cause a blackout. The pool guy would take about twenty minutes to fix it. In that time we were heavy-petting in the dark. I’d been going with this girl for a few months. Well, that night the heavy petting led to the loss of my virginity. Clouded by the pool experience, I thought after that she was the one.

  I went to Sydney for the school holidays in 1967. I got a job and bought my girl a friendship ring. It wasn’t cheap. As soon as I got back, I gave it to her. She accepted it, although she seemed a bit sheepish. I met her at the pictures, only to find her on the arm of another boy. I was crushed. She gave me back the friendship ring, I dropped it on the footpath and stomped on it until it was flat. Her new boyfriend told me to take it easy and I threatened to do to him what I’d just done to the ring and to please make my night by throwing the first punch. He didn’t, and I went home.

  My God, the pain you go through at fifteen when you lose ‘that girl’. The bastards had to walk past my place to get to hers. They made out under the streetlight just outside my house. I wanted to kill him. You can kind of understand how young men from bad homes go nuts and do something crazy. They’re usually from bad homes. It makes you realise the importance of good parenting in this world. We’re taught reading, writing and arithmetic at school, but they don’t teach you the most important thing – how to live.

  Hunting

  When in Aramac, do as the Aramacians do.

  Run, jump, fuck, fight.

  Wheel a barrow, ride a bike.

  That’s what real Aussie blokes do. All the teenage boys in Aramac ‘shot shit’. Mainly feral pigs and kangaroos. I’ve changed since and, unlike the guy in Wolf Creek I’m famous for, I no longer want to shoot things. But I couldn’t wait when I was a young bloke in Aramac.

  Dad bought Brian and me single-shot twenty-twos. They didn’t have mags or scopes. You could only have one bullet at a time ‘in the spout’. This was to prevent me accidentally shooting my brother as we went through a fence or something. We hunted on foot. We’d go down to Aramac Creek and start walking along its banks in search of roos or pigs, whatever came first. Our Labrador–Great Dane cross, Rumples, would join us. He wasn’t a hunting dog, just a fun dog. We could only shoot two small roos at a time, because you had to carry the carcasses back. Pigs were easier. You’d cut off the snout and tail and you’d get a few bucks for that. They were much easier to carry, so we preferred pigs when we were on foot. A twenty-two wasn’t the best weapon for the job. I remember Brian and I once took half an hour to bring down an old sow. We shot her in the arse and she ran to the next thicket, so we waited for her to emerge. Each time she took off, all we could shoot was her arse. When she went down, we counted nine shots in and around her arse.

  We came across a big old man red kangaroo one day. He was about 1.8 metres tall and had muscles on his forearms like Big Arnie. He was too big to shoot, as we could never carry him 10 km back to town. Bloody Rumples decided to chase him. He never attacked, just ran up to them and wanted to play. There was a bit of rain around and the creek had a big pond. The big red jumped into the water to try to shake Rumples. Rumples just dived in and started swimming around this big roo. Next thing, the roo grabbed Rumples in a headlock with these big forearms and started to drown him. Brian and I waded in with a big stick. The roo was growling and grumping, as mad as hell. We started belting the roo in the head with the stick. It didn’t seem to have any effect. Brian kept belting him and I tried to release his grip on Rumples. The bloody thing was so stron
g, I couldn’t budge him. Finally the roo started to flake out from Brian’s blows to the head. He let Rumples go and sort of floated off. He found his feet finally, got to the shore and jumped off like a drunk. We got Rumples onto the bank and he coughed up about 3 litres of water, got his breath back and came good, thank Christ. We needed a car.

  Cars

  As soon as our feet could touch the pedals, Dad started to teach us to drive. It was a bit spasmodic for me as I was in boarding school for a year and a half. Not any more. Dad had a unique way of teaching us. He took us to the racecourse (Aramac races were an annual event) and we had to drive in reverse around the track.

  Only when we could drive in reverse at 70 k’s without fishtailing were we allowed to drive forward. ‘Any silly bugger can drive forward’ – and he’s right. Driving forward was a piece of piss.

  After that we were encouraged to drive everywhere, mainly on rough-as-guts dirt roads. Finally Dad trusted us to take the car shooting. We were a bit older and we’d acquired much better rifles with scopes and mags: 222s, 243s, and a year or so later Brian bought a 3025, a bored-out 303. Dad let us take his 1963 nipple-pink EJ Holden station wagon shooting. ‘As long as you stay on the road.’ Yes, Dad. Off we went. If we spotted some roos off the road, off the road we went. Over holes, stumps, antbeds, you name it.

  We went spotlighting at night. It was a rough set-up. We wired the spotlight up off the battery and trailed the lead through to the back seat, on the passenger side. I’d wind down the window and sit out of it, hanging onto the roof rack with one hand and panning the spotlight with the other. Brian drove and two mates would be hanging out the other windows with rifles, not on the road of course. One night we were spotlighting and Brian hit a big bump. I fell backwards, I was hanging on with my knees, and my head and shoulders were bouncing on the ground. Brian was yelling out, ‘Where’s the fuckin’ spotlight, has it shorted out?’ and kept driving. I could hear the back tyre cutting through the dirt. I thought if he didn’t stop my head was going under that tyre. He stopped. It was only twenty seconds or so, but it felt like half an hour.

  Dad always serviced his car. Across the road from us was Kevie Karl’s Service Station. Dad and Kevie were mates and he let Dad use the hoist. Next thing Dad’s big bull elephant bellow rang through our ears at home.

  ‘Joohhn, Briaaan, git over here nooow!’

  Over we went. We knew what was coming. He was standing under the car looking up. The car floor, especially in the back, looked like it had been attacked by a sledge hammer and an axe. ‘I thought I told you mongrels not to go off the road? That’s it, no more car. You’ll have some work to do next weekend.’

  He’d eased up on the beltings. We still got them occasionally, and usually when he had a brain snap you’d cop it on the spot. We still got a belt across the back of the head on a regular basis.

  He was far from a bastard, just a hard-headed, short-tempered mongrel. He felt sorry for us and about a month later he gave us an old Prefect. A crappy, under-powered, Pommy-built Ford. It was long and narrow. We took it down a creek bed one day and it fell on its side. Luckily we had about eight boys in the car (which is probably why it rolled in the first place), so we righted it and went on our way.

  I could write a separate book called Bad Boys of Aramac Go Hunting. There are so many stories, so I’ll give you two more.

  My best mate at school was Greg Wright; sadly he died young in a truck accident, he was a top bloke. Greg’s dad was a dogger (shot dingoes), so Greg was a very good shooter (that’s Aussie for hunter).

  Greg had enough money from shooting to buy a Mini Moke. He was sixteen at the time, and at this stage we mixed shooting and beer, unbeknownst to our parents. We had one hell of a night. We knocked over thirteen roos. We were heading home at about three in the morning, drunk as skunks. There were five of us and thirteen roo carcasses stacked onto the Moke. Billy Storch was sitting on the back with his legs dangling, looking back at the road. Next minute, I looked over and Billy’s not there. We turned around and went looking for him. We found him staggering up the road scratched, bruised and bloody. Nothing broken, nothing snapped, just a very sore shoulder. He reckons he fell asleep and woke up when he hit the road. We figured his drunkenness saved him. He hit the road totally relaxed.

  Brian had a 3025, like an elephant gun. He was up at Lake Galilee, a huge salt lake. He looked out across the dry lake and noticed this small dot way out. He brought his rifle to his shoulder and looked towards the dot through the scope. He discovered a big red old man roo. The chance of hitting a target that far away was extremely thin. So he aimed at its head, rose the rifle up a bit to allow for the trajectory of the bullet falling. The roo dropped dead, shot in the chest, arsey shot.

  The Eromanga Sea existed about 100 million years ago. It was an inland sea stemming from the Gulf of Carpentaria, taking up about a third of Queensland. The old shoreline of this sea was close to Aramac. In places it could be seen as a small rise, the line of which extended off towards the horizon of this flat semi-desert landscape. We’d jump out of the car and go exploring. You’d find evidence of seashells and at this location there were small caves where Aboriginals would camp. We were in one of these small caves looking for signs of ancient soot from fires, when we noticed a little natural shelf higher up near the roof. We scrambled up, got a hand to it and felt around. To our surprise we found an old club, a nulla-nulla, which could have been there for hundreds of years for all we knew. It was made of a heavy, hard wood with a pattern carved down two sides of it. We kind of took it for granted, for some reason. We just threw it in our messy bedroom along with a lot of other teenage junk. Years later when I was in Sydney in my twenties, it suddenly occurred to me. ‘What did we do with that bloody nulla-nulla? It could be worth a fortune.’ I asked Brian, but he couldn’t remember what happened to it either.

  I never really liked killing animals. I didn’t ever feel comfortable about it. I didn’t let on or I’d be ‘a big girl’. I loved the chase and I loved hitting the animal, but if the bullet didn’t kill it? I hated turning up and looking into the eyes of a fellow living thing, then having to coldly put it to death. That’s why I haven’t hunted since I was seventeen. I’m not against it, I’m from the bush, I know it’s necessary. I’m as green as anybody, but I’m sensibly green. When something reaches plague proportions, you need to cull. With animals, you shoot them; with humans, you let them slowly starve to death.

  Fighting

  Johnny Marks was an Australian amateur boxing champion. He was also the Aramac baker. Every Wednesday night we’d go to boxing training. As you can imagine, the Jarratt boys took to this like ducks to water. Barry was nine, Brian was thirteen and I was a few months off fifteen.

  Most of the boxing tournaments were held at the Aramac community hall. What a night. It’d start with the kids and slowly move to weight divisions. For instance, I could find myself in the ring with a skinny bloke in his late twenties (still not as scary as Bruce). We won most of our fights. Brian was phenomenal. Three three-minute rounds doesn’t sound like much, but if you have a tough fight, you’re looking around for a coffin afterwards. I had one such fight; it was the toughest. I slugged it out with this guy from Muttaburra; we were evenly matched and we punched the shit out of each other. It was called a draw and people threw money into the ring for me and my opponent.

  The last four or five fights were the best. Middle, light heavyweight and heavyweight. These were all men, cowboys, tough-arsed, hard as nails. They could ride anything, shoot anything, drive anything, fight anything, drink anything and then try to fuck something. They were solid, young, muscular. They hit so hard it’d echo. There’d be sweat, snot and blood flying everywhere.

  I had more fights in Aramac than anywhere else. It’s what happened in small outback towns. Every weekend there’d be punch-ups outside the pub. The town had a small group of late-teen thugs lead by Vaughny Boland. At a dance one night I got in an argument with one of them and I asked him t
o step outside. He stepped outside, along with the gang and me. I don’t think they were all going to get into me; I think they came to watch the fight. Dad caught sight of us leaving and he followed us outside. He took one look and single-handedly spread the gang all over the footpath and took me back inside. I was so humiliated and the gang kept at me after that, threatening, ‘We’re gonna get you.’

  One Sunday, one of Vaughny’s minions found me and informed me that Vaughny wanted to see me in the park. I’d had a gutful by this time, so I grabbed Brian and went to confront them. If we had to, we’d take them all on. I found them in the park, about six of them including the bloke I was going to fight at the dance. I said I wanted a fair fight with him only, and may the best man win. Vaughny agreed. This bloke couldn’t fight to save himself. I easily set him up with my left and belted him with my best weapon, a right cross. By the third right I nearly knocked him out and it was over. I turned to the rest of them. ‘Anyone else wanna go?’ None of them did. They never bothered me again. Brian and I walked home glowing with victory. ‘Once you got that right goin’ he was fucked!’

  Dad stopped hitting us in Aramac. Both of us had to front him though. I was sixteen and all my mates were allowed to smoke at home. I decided I wanted to as well. After all, Dad smoked.

  I was sitting at the dining room table talking to Dad and he lit up a smoke, so I thought, This is the moment. So I took my cigarette packet out, pulled a ciggy out, tapped it on the table and put it to my lips. Next instant I copped a backhander across the side of my head that sent me off the chair and into a wall. I looked up from the floor.

  ‘Spose that means I can’t smoke in the house?’

  ‘You got it in one, boy.’

  I wanted to hit him back there and then. A few weeks later, he stormed into my room, arm raised ready to belt me for something, I can’t remember what. I spat out, ‘If you hit me, Dad, I’m gonna have to hit you back.’ It stopped him in his tracks. We were almost nose to nose, and by this stage I was a lot taller. After a long stare-off he said, ‘Fair enough.’ And he never hit me again.