The Gulp

by Alan Baxter

  Torsten and Simone came back from the bar, carrying beers. The brother and sister had turned out to be excellent travelling companions, the four of them sharing the costs and the driving of a small camper van. It was a little cramped inside, but not too bad. To take a break from the confines they planned to book into a motel for a couple of nights in Monkton. Warm showers, comfortable beds, and other home comforts every few days made the whole thing more bearable. They were backpacking, but not slumming it.

  Having driven from Darwin, down through Alice Springs to Adelaide and then along the coast to Melbourne on their own, Patrick and Ciara had welcomed the team up with the German siblings, for financial reasons if nothing else. Two weeks road tripping along the coast from Melbourne to Sydney together was proving to be good fun.

  “Took so long to get drinks!” Torsten said, sitting down and sliding a beer across. “They’re four or five deep at the bar.”

  “Lucky we got a table,” Patrick said.

  Ciara returned from the bathroom, took her seat. The four of them raised their glasses and clinked them together.

  “I talked to a girl in the bathroom who said Blind Eye Moon are the best band in the world,” Ciara said with a laugh.

  “So good we’ve never heard of them before,” Patrick said.

  “Maybe big only in Australia?” Simone asked. Her accent was strong, her English not as good as Torsten, who spoke almost fluently.

  “Maybe,” Ciara said. “But we’ve been here two months already and never heard of them before. We’ve been catching as many local acts as possible. Honestly, I think they’re something of a local phenomenon with a bit of a cult following. Lots of folks here seem really into them. You see all the t-shirts?”

  Patrick nodded, gestured with his glass. “Yeah, look at this place. It’s big enough, and heaving, but there can only be, what? Five hundred people, tops? If they were as big as all that, they wouldn’t still be playing pub gigs in small towns, would they?”

  The Monkton Tavern was a long building with a high A-frame roof and slate floor. Patrick had begun to recognise a few features of Australian architecture and knew this was a little different to anything he’d seen before. It was old, built down near Monkton harbour, in the oldest part of the town, so it had to be colonial. Regardless, it was a good space with a long bar and a raised stage at the far end with an impressive looking PA stack and light array. For a small town, it seemed the Monkton Tavern was a hub for entertainment. They’d got there early, hence the luck with a table, and were already a few beers deep. The booze buzz was settling in, the crowds were reminding him of Dublin’s busier nightspots, and Patrick thought they were in for a good night. At least, they would be if the band were half as good as their numerous groupies seemed to think they were.

  “Yo, Monkton!”

  The crowd roared and surged forward, the space around the tables opening as people thickened towards the stage. Patrick hopped up, stood on his chair for a better look.

  “Stage is still dark,” he said.

  The instruments were in place, two dull red spotlights reflecting weakly off the polished wood of the guitars and drum kit.

  The crowd began to chant. “Blind Eye Moon! Blind Eye Moon!”

  “Heeeey, Monkton.” The man’s voice was cajoling now, full of humour.

  “No support band?” Patrick asked, looking down. His friends smiled and shrugged.

  The chant grew louder. This band had really ardent fans, Patrick thought. The red spots winked out, plunging the stage into total darkness. The crowd began cheering and baying, feet stamped in a one-two, one-two-three rhythm. People began clapping the same rhythm. Voices rose with it. “Blind Eye! Blind Eye Moon! Blind Eye! Blind Eye Moon!”

  A massive distorted guitar chord slammed out through the PA and the crowd exploded. Patrick winced against the combined volume as the stage burst into view from the multicoloured array in the ceiling. Three men stood across the front of the stage, each with a guitar, the one on the left the bass player. All three wore black clothes, black sleeveless t-shirts, their arms a mass of colourful tattoos. Their faces were pale with heavily kohled eyes, long hair, two black, the one in the centre blond. Behind them a woman stood behind her drum kit, also in black, also heavily kohled around her eyes. Her lips were painted blood red and her hair was long and straight as vibrantly scarlet as her lipstick. The guitar chord rang on, then the woman raised her sticks, struck them together one-two-three-four, then attacked her skins. The guitars all kicked in together, tight as hell, and the roaring of the crowd was lost in a powerful, thundering riff, galloping along with double kick drums underneath like a machine gun.

  “Holy shit!” Patrick said to himself, dropping back into his seat, nodding his head along with the music. “This is instantly brilliant!”

  The riff pounded on for a minute or more, then the blond guy in the centre started to sing over his rhythm guitar. His voice was powerful, reminded Patrick of Layne Staley in tone, but with more gusto. The woman at the drums provided backing vocals, their style something like a super-thrashy Led Zeppelin. Big riffs, complex bass runs, relentless drums. The lead guitarist frequently broke into solos that were intricate but never too long. After the first couple of tracks the band showed some diversity of talent by dropping to a low, slow ballad about the difficulty of love in the modern world. Then the pace increased again.

  During a lull between tracks, Ciara said, “I think the locals are right. Blind Eye Moon might be one of the best bands in the world!”

  “Are there any out of towners in tonight?” the lead singer called out.

  The crowd booed and hissed, and the singer laughed. Ciara stood up, and Patrick grabbed her forearm. “Don’t, love! Let’s just enjoy the band.”

  Ciara smiled down at him, began to sit, then the singer said, “I see you up the back there, with the brown hair and red t-shirt! Where are you from?”

  “Ireland!” Ciara called out. She pointed to the siblings. “And Germany.”

  “I can’t hear you, what was that?”

  Voices rang through the crowd, people passing the message on.

  “Ireland and Germany?” the singer said. “Wow, that’s a long way from Monkton! Get down here, this next song is for you.”

  The crowd parted, most people smiling, warm gestures to come on, get forward. Patrick shook his head, embarrassed to look in any eyes, but he enjoyed how excited Ciara was as she bounced up and trotted away.

  “Coming?” he asked Torsten and Simone.

  “Sure, let’s go.”

  They made their way towards the stage, the crowd patting them on the back and shoulders, laughing and coaxing them along. Right at the front, among a group of sweating, grinning superfans, the lead singer put his guitar around behind his back and crouched to be at eye level with them.

  “What are your names, mates?” He held the mic out to Ciara. Patrick noticed his fingernails were painted blood red. In fact, all the band had blood red nails. And the deep black makeup around their eyes wasn’t just smudged kohl, but jet black with dozens of thin filaments, like capillaries, spreading out around the orbit of the eye and over the cheekbone. They had to be wearing contacts too, because their irises were all a deep crimson. The overall effect was quite stunning.

  “Ciara, Patrick, Torsten and Simone,” Ciara said. “We’re from Dublin, they’re from Frankfurt.”

  “And don’t you both make lovely couples!”

  “We’re a couple. They’re brother and sister.”

  The crowd laughed and jeered, and the singer grinned. “Sorry, I shouldn’t make assumptions. Well, I’m glad you’re here tonight. I’m Edgar, on bass is Howard, on lead guitar is Clarke, and our lady of the skins is Shirley.” The crowd whooped and cheered again. Edgar stood up, swung his guitar around to the front. “It’s good to meet you, Ciara and friends. Enjoying the show so far?”

  “Are you kidding?” Ciara said with a laugh. “You guys fucking rock!”

  Edgar grinned again.
He was handsome, beguiling. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, we fucking do.” He clipped the mic back into its stand. “And this one’s for you. It’s called Far From Home.”

  Clarke began a lead guitar melody, haunting in a minor key. The hairs along Patrick’s forearms bristled. Shirley tapped a single beat on the closed hi-hat, the effect with the guitar hypnotic. It reminded Patrick of early Metallica, like the opening to a track from Master of Puppets. Edgar picked a counter melody, the whole tune rising, swelling. Howard began soft bass runs.

  The crowd swayed like ocean seaweed, forcing Patrick and his friends to move with them. The music filled the venue, and Patrick’s mind. They were so tight, so technically perfect, yet emotionally charged. The melody ground its way deep under his skin. Then Edgar hit a power chord that thumped into Patrick’s chest, made his heart race. Then another, as the melody and the ticking of the hi-hat continued. When Edgar hit the third power chord, Shirley matched her hi-hat with a bass drum, doubled like a heartbeat.

  Then Edgar leaned into the mic and roared, “When you’re far from hoooooome!” and sound exploded like a supernova. The drums were furious, the bass raced, the guitars ground a sonic attack, the best riff Patrick could ever remember hearing. The rest of the words, the song, the rest of the gig, was lost in a maelstrom of powerful music and physical exertion. The four of them stayed at the front, immersed in the crowd, dancing, leaping, sweat-soaked and euphoric.

  This is the best gig I have ever been to in my life, Patrick thought to himself as he danced.

  And all too soon, it was over. Edgar had announced it was their last song, but Patrick didn’t want to believe it. When they finished, thanked the crowd, entreated them to come back again next time, Patrick was devastated. Loss clawed a hole in his chest.

  The crowd thinned, but the four of them stayed up near the stage. The house lights went half up and the spell was broken. They were in a pub in a country town, somewhere on the south coast of New South Wales, miles from anywhere.

  Edgar grinned at them as he put his guitar into a case, handed it to a roadie. “You have fun?”

  Patrick could only nod, but Ciara couldn’t stop talking. She told them how much she loved the music, their energy, the lyrics were just so true, such universal truths.

  “I love your accent,” Edgar said, head tilted to one side. “Hey, you want to come back to the Manor?”

  “What’s the Manor?” Patrick asked.

  “It’s our place. We have a little party there after gigs. In The Gulp.”

  “In the what?”

  “The Gulp.”

  Patrick grinned, shrugged.

  Edgar laughed. “I forgot, you’re not from around here. Next town up the coast, it’s called Gulpepper. But everyone calls it The Gulp. We live there.”

  Patrick checked his watch. “It’s nearly midnight. Probably a little late–”

  “Pat, are you mad?” Ciara said. “What, you have to get up early? Let’s go and party!”

  “We’ve all been drinking. Who can drive?”

  “You can drive,” Edgar said. “You want to know how many cops there are around here at this time?” He held up his thumb and forefinger to make a zero, and grinned.

  “Is it far?”

  “It’s about a thirty-minute drive. Everywhere is far around here, but thirty minutes is nothing by our reckoning.”

  Ciara punched his arm. “Let’s go, Pat!”

  Patrick looked at Torsten and Simone and they both nodded, smiling. It did sound kinda fun, and there wasn’t much more of a local cultural experience than a house party. He noticed the rest of the band chatting to a few of the other fans, people nodding, bumping fists, heading off.

  “There’ll be a bunch of people there,” Edgar said. “But we don’t invite everybody. Our van is parked in the alley outside. Why don’t you go and get your car, then pull up behind us. You can follow us back.”

  “We’ll know which is your van?”

  Edgar laughed. “It’s the only one with Blind Eye Moon painted on the sides.”

  Twenty minutes later they followed a large black van out of Monkton. It had a beautifully air-brushed band logo of a red eye superimposed over a full moon on the side, set against stormy clouds in a night sky. They took the main road to the north, but instead of joining the main freeway, signposted to Enden and other places, including Sydney a ridiculous number of kilometres further on, Edgar pointed the van down a narrow turnoff from a roundabout that looked like it wouldn’t go anywhere much at all. The sign only had two names on it: Gulpepper and Enden.

  A little buzzed from the beers, a lot buzzed from the gig, Patrick drove with a grin on his face. He felt like a naughty kid, staying out late, sticking it to the man, hanging with a real life rock’n’roll band. It was mystifying that Blind Eye Moon played such parochial venues.

  The small road led past an industrial area on the edge of Monkton, large metal sheds and cement loading bays, then became a straight line, one lane each way through thick vegetation that came right up to the road on either side. Sometimes the tops of the trees met above the bitumen.

  “This is old forest,” Torsten said from behind. He and Simone sat at the campervan’s small table in the back, while Patrick drove, Ciara beside him in the passenger seat.

  Patrick glanced into the rear view mirror, saw Torsten looking out the side window, nose pressed to the glass. “Old?”

  “Yeah, I’ve studied a bit.”

  “He’s a tree nerd,” Simone said with a laugh.

  “Hey, I like nature. Australia has what they call old growth forest, but not much left. Mostly in Tasmania, I think? Not sure. Anyway, this region is supposed to be dry sclerophyll forest, but here it looks way older than most of the coast around.”

  “Dry what now?” Ciara asked.

  “Sclerophyll. Wait a minute, I can’t remember the details.”

  Patrick glanced up again, saw Torsten tapping at his phone. “Here it is. Dry sclerophyll forests are characterised by their scenic landscapes and diverse flora and represent south-east Australia’s last remaining areas of wilderness. Typically eucalypts, wattles and banksias... associated with low soil fertility... blah blah blah. Low fertility also makes soils undesirable for agriculture and native vegetation has, therefore, remained relatively intact.” He looked out of the window again and shook his head. “But this seems much older than dry sclerophyll should look.” He scrolled his phone again and read aloud. “Plants grow slowly in nutrient-deficient conditions and some species have developed symbiotic relationships with nutrient-fixing bacteria and fungi to enhance nutrient availability.”

  “Booooring!” Simone said.

  “Bushfires play a vital role in regeneration of dry sclerophyll forests. Many species are able to resprout from buds protected beneath soils or within the trunk or branches. Other species have seeds that are protected by a hard seed-coat or woody fruit, which are stimulated to open or germinate by fire.” Torsten stopped, eyes scanning. “Let me just look... oh.”

  “What is it?” Ciara asked.

  Torsten looked up with a shrug and a smile. “No more signal, must be a dead spot for reception.”

  “Thanks fuck for this, yes?” Simone said.

  “So whatever,” Patrick said, laughing along. “It’s old and weird looking. We don’t need Google to know that. Look how dense it is! And this place, Gulpepper, must be miles from anywhere. How much further, you think?”

  “Everyone calls it The Gulp, remember?” Ciara said.

  “Yeah. Sounds delightful.”

  After twenty minutes along the straight road through strangely old and thick bush, Edgar indicated and they turned right onto Gulpepper Road. Another ten minutes and they started to see farms and other properties, then came over a hill to a large roundabout and a decent sized town spread out before them.

  “Jaysus, I didn’t expect that,” Patrick said.

  “There’s a harbour and everything,” Ciara pointed, then the view was lost as they descended
the other side of the hill.

  “The sign said ‘Gulpepper, population 8,000’,” Torsten said. “That’s not a tiny hamlet.”

  “Did you saw the bit underneath?” Simone asked. “Someone writed it on.”

  “What bit?”

  “It said ‘But the dead outnumber the living’.”

  Patrick laughed. “Well, isn’t that cheery.”

  They drove on, past a large Woolworths supermarket on the left, lit up white and green, and then Edgar indicated again and turned right up a steep hill. They followed, engine whining. Houses lined either side, some clearly older, with more modern buildings in between. Patrick imagined the place when it was first settled and everyone had plenty of space, until they began selling the land, subdividing as the town grew. They reached the top of the large hill, the town spread out below them, then went around a tight S-bend and along further. More houses, these a little more spaced out, and then a huge building on a corner block.

  The block was thick with old trees, huge with high, wavy buttress roots, and well-established garden beds of shrubs and flowers. A stone wall stood all around it, and in the middle a large two-storey stone block house. Big bay windows, verandas with curlicued metal fencing all around both floors, a steep tiled roof with intricate chimney stacks. Behind the house, on the far side of the big garden, was nothing but bush. The road turned left and went back down the other side of the hill. More houses lined that street. Edgar drove his black van into the driveway of the big house. A stone sign carved with the words “The Manor” marked the entrance to the driveway.

  “Far out,” Patrick said. “He wasn’t joking.”

  The driveway curved around behind the house, several other cars already there. Some were empty, others had people inside, waiting. Edgar drove the van past them all and into a large three car garage, the door on the left open to receive him. Patrick parked up behind the other cars. When the band emerged, people poured out of their vehicles and crowded around.

  “Time to party!” Edgar said, and everyone cheered.