Five.

Saturday June 3rd, 2000.

The morning after the night before.

The light was streaming through the gap in my window curtains. It cut my bed in half and warmed my
face to the point of waking.

The sun filled me with displeasure, I wanted sleep and did not want to face the day. However once
woken sleep did not return.

Defeated in my effort to be lazy, I got up, put on a T-shirt on and slinked into the lounge room.

Jay was curled up on the couch. He was still wearing the same clothes from the previous night. His eyes
were rimmed red. With feverish hands he was underlining and changing typed pages. He made dramatic
grunts as he waved his red pen. Jay Ives on the edit, he looked like a bear counting his honey pots. He
was a slow motion version of frantic activity – consider that as an image.

“Have you been to bed yet?” I asked him. It was obvious he hadn’t.

Without looking up from the page he was stabbing at he coughed an answer. “No, I got Speedy Mark to
fix me up with some gear.”

“Oh, that explains last night then.”

____________________________
Speedy Mark is a minor character in this tale, but he serves as an agent to move on the narrative.

By his nickname, Speedy, and Jay’s lack of sleep and tendency to grind his teeth after meeting with him
you should realise his profession.
He lived in the same street as us. My initial assessment of him was of a neighbour I didn’t want to invite
around for Christmas drinks.

He had a strange relationship with his car. Instead of using his feet and walking he would drive to see
Jay, and then drive back home, or burn off down the street. Can you guess what car he had? He had a
Nissan 180SX.

I apologise to anyone reading this who is not a car buff. All you need to know is, it was silver with a
stupid red stripe down the side. He could make the wheels spin. He was careful not to damage its low
hanging spoiler in the McDonald’s carpark on West Terrace.

He had custom number plates, somewhat of a bad pun, except I can’t remember what they said. Might
have been DUDESX?

Speedy Mark was just wrong.

Jay and I rented a house just off of Fullarton Rd on Adelaide’s other Grenfell Street. Our Grenfell Street
was straight on after the Britannia round-about past the Wesley Church, then on the left just after the
Norwood Parade breaks off. If you know Adelaide it was great except for the chaos of the five-way
round-about and the odd drag race.

Our house was a 1920’s bungalow, with a big semi-enclosed veranda out the front. I spent a night out
there once, when I locked myself out, I wasn’t game to try to break in.

It was a big place. There were three bedrooms counting mine, Jay’s and the junk room. It had a big
lounge yet the most cramped kitchen you could imagine. Two people couldn’t stand shoulder to
shoulder. I called it the galley. It had 1960’s laminex. Cracked laminex.

Also there were cracks in the wall and as if it was a ship the building listed to starboard.

I think they knocked it down two years ago and built two neat strata title units.
____________________________
“Sorry about last night. I was...” Jay tried to apologise to me.

“You were a fucking dickhead.” I had a bit of a hangover. Hence the short fuse. Men have no humour so
they yell, posture and pose.

“I was fine.” He claimed. “You were the one being limp and useless with that girl.”

“Jay, you were less than fine. You laughed at me. On the taxi ride home you told the driver all about it.”

“She was just a girl, Pauly. You were completely bottled up over her, sorry, I went too far... but get a
grip.”

That’s as close as I got to an apology. He wasn’t mean, but empathy was not his strong point.

“She was just some girl.”

“Well, that's the end of the story now.” I fatefully said.

Oh, how wrong I was.

I have the habit of matching music to my mood. I moved over to the CD rack to pick a song to start the
day off. I arrange my music in alphabetical order. I slid my fingers along the spines pausing on The
Beatles, Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. I put it into the stereo and selected Track 10. It was
Good Morning - The Beatles and it began with the recorded cackling of a rooster.

Jay looked up and smiled, “It is actually 12:45, in the afternoon.”

“So then, a little bit of Sunny Afternoon- The Kinks might be more appropriate?” I said.

As if well practised, Jay burst into song. “My girlfriends gone off with my car, gone back to her Ma and
Pa telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty.”
He was off key.

I found my Kink's CD and put that track on as a replacement. It remains a true classic.

I entered the kitchen. Jay’s dishes littered the sink. They sat there as innocent as baby teeth, like baby
teeth they were a pain to me.

“You could have done some dishes.” I bellowed.

“I will do them when I am finished.”

I poured myself an orange juice. Then I fired some bread in the toaster. I used dry toast to settle my
stomach.

“Can I read it?” I called across the corridor. I pressured to read what he was writing.

“It’s fucking ordinary.”

“When does it have to be special?”

“Que? Me speak English very well, Mr Fawlty.” Jay replied doing a fair impression of Manuel from Faulty
Towers. 1970’s English comedy.

“I mean when does it have to go to the paper?”

“Yesterday, but they'll get it in a minute.”

“That reminds me. I need your share of the rent as of Friday 5pm.”

Jay looked up at the ceiling as if I shot him. He silently mouthed swear words.
I went to the kitchen.

I returned to the lounge room with a drink for Jay. I placed it down on the coffee table. Gathering my
feet together I sat cross-legged on the floor.

After a minute of trying to gauge Jay’s mood, he seemed OK, so I posed, “Can I ask a question?”

“Umm?”

“Well, it’s more advice really...” I tapered off not explaining myself well.

“Is it about that girl? The mystery brunette, name unknown. I could help you with some pick up lines.”

He was kidding. Jay wouldn’t use pick up lines.

“No,” I replied. “I'll save myself from further embarrassment.”

“Well?”

“I’m after advice on writing. The craft of it.”

“Advice on writing? I am hardly the most qualified person to ask that.”

“You have a degree, just a few simple tips. I can’t really remember what I was taught.”

“I used to piss my lecturers off. I used to break all the rules. I can’t believe I actually passed. Now, I just
put words on the page and hope they are spelt right.” Jay took a big breath and smiles.

“You must have some idea? I remember all those essays they used to make you do.”

He looked at me all solemn and tough. He picked his teeth with his pen cap. Then he gave his opinion.
“OK advice specific for you - do not put in song lyrics, it marginalises anyone who has not heard the
songs you are quoting. Keep your musical opinions to yourself unless you are writing an album review.
There are two people in a story, the reader and the writer. You do not want to lose the reader by
insulting Ricky Martin when they are a big fan.”

I found that funny, I laughed. “OK. I'll try to remember that. It might be a bit difficult.”

“On the bright side if people can pick your influences you would know they have the same obscure taste.”

“There could be someone out there for me, after all.” I said.

“Do not expect anyone to fall in love with your writing. Do not use poetry and wit to get into girls pants,
use it to get into their heads.”

“You don’t try?” I questioned him.

“Writers oath. I live by it. No pants, only heads.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I said. Then I tried to get him back on track. “I was also after some technical
advice.”

“I’m the least qualified writer in the world. I can’t even spell, let alone correct grammar.'

“Don't go fishing for a compliment.” I said. “You're good, you edit things all the time.”

“All right! What specific advice do you want?”

“Simple things,” I paused and worked out what I wanted to ask first. “Is it best to write short sentences?
When I do a grammar check on Microsoft Word it gives me an error that says I write in fragments.”

“Blah, computers are stupid. Simple can be good.”

“I want my writing to read well.”

“All writing text books instruct the use of short sentences and simple words. It makes text easier to read.
The easier it is to read the better the writer.”

Jay looked up at the ceiling as if he was trying to remember where he left my car keys.

“I think I still have my high school instruction manual,” Jay gestured over to his bookcase.

Along with my record and CD collection, his bookcase was the most impressive thing in the house. Jay
claimed that it is the most impressive. He would often talk of the merits of Homer's: The Iliad, and Nick
Hornby's: High Fidelity.

I know for a fact he hadn’t read all of his books. The bookcase reached the ceiling and he had
paperbacks shoved in cardboard boxes. He was trying to read the classics and tick them off the list. He
read books he didn’t like purely for the satisfaction of another notch in the belt.

“I think it is that blue cover, third shelf on the left.” Doing as he said I got up and went to look for it.

“I can't see it.”

“My left, not your left.”

I found a small blue book and read the title, All I know about writing, by John Marsden.

I rubbed my hands over the well worn paperback cover.

“John Marsden?' I question; “I know that name.”

“You should do, he wrote those teenage Australian invasion books.”

“The one with that Ferris wheel on the cover? Tomorrow when the world began. I remember something
about kids with AK-47s. I think I read that in Year Eight. A girl called Enid.”
________________

Please note we are talking in the year 2000. It would be ten years before they made a movie of
Tomorrow When The War Began. They cast Home and Away actors. It made money. When I watched it
triggered the memory of this conversation.
________________

“The girl was named Ellie. Tomorrow when the war began.”

“War, world, whatever, I remember reading it. What has that got to do with writing?”

“Marsden the author is a noted English teacher. He recommends you write down a sentence. Count the
words. Then take out one or two. Economy of words.”

“Economy.”

“He also recommends that a writer never string sentences together using 'but' or 'and'. Paul, I have to be
honest. You string sentences together.”

“I do? So you write that way?”

“No, but I am not a technical writer. I just rant.” (And cut and paste).

“That's not a good thing?”

“It is self absorbed but then are not we all.” Jay sighed at me. He ran his hand along his jaw and
continued the lesson. “Look, put it this way. All rules can be broken. Write what you feel most
comfortable with. Write like F. Scott Fitzgerald if you want.”

“The Great Gatsby?”

“That is his most famous work. Fitzgerald wrote complex sentences of great length. Very hard to read
and it requires concentration. Still if you take the time he has a lot to say. He starts one short story called
'The Crack Up, with a sentence that contains fifty odd words. As an editor you could break it into five or
six sentences. The beauty of Fitzgerald is that he gets away with it. You read the sentence anyway.”

“Do you have a copy of this Cracking up?”

___________________________

We had a little game. I always made a habit of getting the titles of books wrong. Jay couldn't help but
correct me. He knew that I was winding him up. He gave as good as he got in return. He would get music
titles wrong.

Naturally, I was compelled to correct him about music even though he knew nearly as much as I did, an
example was his claims that Morrissey was the lead singer of The Doors and the Velvet Underground was
another name for a chocolate bar.

The old wind up. Too easy. The buttons we pushed in each other.

We were both really anal about our media of choice. Obsessed with pop-culture. Still, I defend that the
point of being human is taking pleasure in details. At least that justifies caring about it so much. One day
this pleasure in the detail might be useful. The million-dollar question might be how many number one
singles did Kelly Clarkson have? Oh no I'm fucked. I have used up all my lifelines.
_____________________________

“The Crack Up,” Jay said getting up off the couch.

He walked over to the bookcase. He made a giant deal about this. He groaned as if I was asking too
much of him with a huge task. He found the book and threw the copy at me. “The Crack Up. So ends the
lesson.”

“So ends the lesson.”

 _____________________________

I still have the John Marsden book. I never gave it back.

Did you know John Marsden, a man who never read reviews, and didn’t take interest in awards, is one
of Australia's most influential writers and now reaches a wider audience than any other Australian
author? He sold 1.4 million books in English alone.

Then they made the movie.

In text book John Marsden says never believe your own press.

_____________________________

“Now, I have a question for you.” Jay asked. “Why are you interested in writing all of a sudden?”

“Well you were saying last night about wanting to be in a book. It got me thinking.”

“How many times have I told you? Don’t listen to what I say.”

“I thought it was a good idea. I could take real conversation I hear and put them into a story. Cleverly I
would use real dialog and put it into my characters mouths.”

“Stop, it’s a shocking idea. All we ever do is sit round and talk. You need a plot and action. You need
status change. Stories need serial killers, love triangles or supernatural hauntings. When was the last
time anything happened?”

“Well, there was that time you were demonically possessed.”

“Seriously, you shouldn’t directly write about people’s lives. You should take a character you feel is alive
and I place them in situations that are not real. Imagine what your character would do, see and feel. As
much as I hate to say, whoever your main character is, the real you will be a figment of his imagination.”
“Thank you.”

“The point most lives aren’t that exciting. Our general habits do not contain the necessary action to
sustain a story.”

“Some of the stuff I do is interesting.”

“Hanging out at the record store?”

“That’s interesting. High Fidelity takes place in a record store.”

“In part.”

What about the time I found a first pressing Atmosphere – Joy Division single at the St Clair Park record
fair?”

“Are you even listening to what you are saying?”

“I wouldn’t have myself in it very much. To quote; Alone - Custard - the cast of my life; only just includes
me.’ I would write about other people I know. You’re a writer isn’t that interesting?”

“Is typing at a computer for hours at a stretch interesting? Are you joking? It barely keeps me going.”

“I just thought, well, I could write about our lives. Put you as a character in a novel. So you could see
yourself from the outside.

“Morgan would make a good character.”

“No. You can do that to people. Copy them and trap them on paper.”

“Why not? You are contradicting yourself.”

“This is a pointless conversation anyway. Last night I came to the conclusion that a movie would be
better.”

“Yes,” I breathed. “True, but I got the feeling that the main attraction was that you could be an actor.
Your name in lights. A publicist armed with glossy photographs. Gerald Ives linked with starlets and
rumours of an after Oscars hotel trashing. “

“Naturally, I would have to play myself .Who else could play me?”

“Someone who can act,” I shot back. I got him, I stung him with my wit for once.