I stopped the rig, which continues to shudder and groan like a truck with piles. I get out and squat behind the first tree for miles, crumpling my boilersuit down past my knees. Steam rises past delicate flesh. I like this desert for its complete absence of certain qualities. Water, for instance. People. And the way the birds mind their own business. The land is a grey billiard table, with a few bushes stacked in one corner. Overhead, a bird clears its throat, flaps away.

‘. . . boundless and bare,’ I recite,

‘The lone and level sands stretch far away.’

– I read that on a Weeties packet. Johnny Cash, I think. I shrug back into a boilersuit, stoop at the tank to drink a palmful of cool sludge.

“Good mor-ning!’

‘Wha. .?!’

‘Continue your drink, please.’

I squint at the figure. He must have come from a hole in the ground. Maybe a nuclear missile silo. ‘Thanks.’

‘This water, I believe, is septic.’

I drink, then stand and salute. We are like two men caught in a lift. A cloth circles his head as if he’s been shot in the brain. Hairs leak from the bottom half of his face. There’s a sixties look about him, of sandals and incense, though he can’t be that old.

‘Not many cars today,’ he observes. At the horizon, a single tree stands scratching itself. ‘Not in the quantities one expects.’ He settles against the tank, arms folded up. ‘It’s like the desert’s another planet.’

In my boilersuit, sweat scurries like fleas. ‘That so?’

‘I think Mars must have gone like this.’

His face is patched with sunburn. I watch a blister of sweat drip from his nose. ‘Want a lift?’

He scrambles up into the cabin. I start the fan, tickle the motor. We lumber out onto tarmac.

The stench. There seems to be rubber burning. Or a dead sheep stinking somewhere (guts thick with maggots and flies). A real reek of decay. I twist the fan at him. ‘Too cool for you?’

‘It’s fine. It’s all relative, anyway.’

He smells, not so much unwashed, as exhumed. Has he crawled here from Perth? I ask, ‘How far you going?’

‘Right through to Adelaide.’

My foot stiffens on the accelerator.

‘But who knows?’ he says. ‘Making plans is a kind of prayer. A prophesy against probabilities.’

For a while the road oozes beneath us. I cram against my door. Maybe I’ll get used to it. Maybe he’ll wash soon. Maybe he doesn’t believe in water. ‘Been waiting long?’

‘Two days.’

‘Tw..?’

‘Could be three.’

I glance across: no sign of gun. ‘You mean, no bastard stopped for you in three days?!”

He smiles a worrying smile. ‘Everyone stopped. Humans have a deep instinct for curiosity.’ He makes a papal gesture. “They’re in search of some desert part of themselves.’ He catches my stare, bounces it back to me like a mirror.

I give the road some attention. They say madmen have extra strength. If it came to a fist fight, I have the fists. In fact, I like a good brawl. it clears the air; brings things out in the open.

More stink wafts across. I check the fan; it’s driving the truck along. ‘Too strong for you?’

He is spread-eagled against his door. Maybe he’d prefer it outside – lots of fresh air. ‘it’s fine.’

‘You on holidays?’

‘”Holidays”?’ He smiles to himself, mutters about some ‘ashram’.

‘What’s that?’

‘Our Earth-Divine Brotherhood. It’s where I belong.’

I glance at his hands – the bubbled skin. He studies the view, but the desert keeps low. Maybe he’s just done forty-days-and-nights in it.

‘I’m taking time to get some paradoxes unscrambled.’ He turns. ‘I mean, the whole theological thing as a subtext to life itself. Like, is it a projection, you know, a platform we call “God” on which everything stands? or like an eclipse, not the sun? Is it all a cosmic narrative in which irony turns on itself, and everyone is the butt of the joke?’ Words froth out; he ripples his fingers on the air. ‘I mean, without this concept, would we all cease to exist?’ He shudders. ‘I really want to commit time to this. For me it’s the bottom line.’

‘Dunno, pal. Could be.’ Out on the road, there’s no sign of Adelaide. I grope under the dash. Somewhere I have tapes – modern stuff, plus some Beatles and Elvis for my old age. ‘Here, choose what you like.’
His stench floats around, almost visible, staining the walls. ‘Any Dvorak?’ he asks. ‘Theolonius Monk?’

‘”Monk”? One of your mob, is he?’

‘Jazz.’

I glance at my rank passenger. Monks should get about in surgical gowns, or black, like Greek widows. Plain-clothed, they could be anyone. Do they carry identification? A hip-flask of communion wine?

‘None of these.’ he punches the tapes away.

‘What?’

‘They’re in a down key. Neanderthal. Wrong chakras.’

I ease forward on the accelerator. The engine stirs and growls. It makes a nice, deafening sound.

He draws a book from his bag. Maybe his stink is in the bag, like a pair of socks. Socks he’s shat in. He folds the book up around his face like a screen. On the cover glares some Indian bloke with eyes and beard. Probably this Dvorak character.

‘I s’pose you wouldn’t hear the radio much in a monastery.’

He slips his finger into the book. ‘The Flying Doctor drops us a list of the Top Ten, sometimes.’

‘Country place, is it?

‘Just out of Perth.’

He abandons the book. Behind him, the sky has a wide-open look that’s no use to anyone. A sky with nothing to hide. Sometimes my eyes search for a bird, a plane – anything. ‘Tell me,’ he says. ‘How do you get it together?

Where do you touch base?’

Oh, Christ. Not even a door to slam. The only way out is to drop him in the middle of nowhere, with only crows and lizards to convert. ‘There’s no mileage in it, sport.’

He twiddles beard hairs. ‘You mean, you’re not conscious of the I-Am. It has no embodiment for you.’

‘Might be.’

‘But if the entire universe is one’s “Self” – something tangible . . .’ he pinches air between thumb and forefinger, ‘yet sublime, isn’t that a more holistic life-view? Isn’t that part of the human condition?’

I swipe at a fly; it tacks away. ‘Some sort of condition.’

he stares out at the desert, sharpening his mental sabre, putting too fine a point on it. Is he paid by the weight of converts? ‘I can’t buy that. It’s too empiricist.’

‘I can manage.’

‘That’s crazy.’

‘So’s living with a crowd of men, champ. Unless you’re in jail.’ I make my shrewd squint. He stares with his eyes full of sky.

‘Listen, I want to suggest. . .’ he holds two imaginary apples in his hands, ‘. . .the agenda here is really. . .’ and away he goes. I notice tiny insects in his beard.

*

Midday, you can smell the heat of the road. Normally. There’s a motel at dusk – perhaps I’ll talk him into a wash. I open my window. The road smears with animals, and dollops of well-picked bones. In all this space, it takes real dedication for something to get itself run over.

‘I dig out my paper bags. ‘Find us a sandwich.’

‘What are they?’

‘Roo.’

He holds one as if he found it blocking a drain. ‘Here, I’m not into killing.’

‘There’s a beer in the esky behind.’

‘Anything soft?’

‘Only the ice.’

He finds the correct end of the can, and manages to break into it. ‘Any glasses?’

‘It’s not champagne, pal.’

He takes a swig, passes it across. ‘Never mind.’

‘Won’t you be excommunicated?’

‘Only if you’re the Pope.’

The heat is beating down. Also up and sideways. Around us, nothing “moves or has its being,” as I read somewhere. ‘What’re you eating?’ I ask.

‘Parsley and sprouts.’

‘Sheep food.’

‘It’s good for your stomach.’

I glance at the load in my lap.

‘I mean wind,’ he says. ‘The stomach is an important chakra. It’s creative.’

‘I’d rather fart than eat sheep food. At least a steak puts a decent weight in your guts.’

His head jerks away. They haven’t told him that in the monastery. Maybe this is his stink: a gutful of parsley. Now, there is just the lapping of mouths and the hum of motor. It sounds like a day at the sea. I glance right; soon we’ll see ocean. It resembles the desert, only blue. Something is growing on the road, waving like a tree, branches out. ‘Close y’ window,’ I say.

‘Why?’

‘Quick!’ Now we see them, spread along the sides/

‘Who. .?’

‘Abos.’

He cranes. ‘Slow down.’

I hit the gears, get us roaring like a herd of bulls. Now you can see their STOP signs, and in their other hands . . . rocks. I squash the throttle.

‘Slower!’

We blast through, engine howling, whipping dust and sticks and, ‘Shit!’ a rock smashes into the cabin; another bangs the door. ‘Wha. .?.!’

In the mirror, clouds of desert billow like a storm of dust. I ease down. He is cradling a rock.

‘Any carvings on it?’

He weighs the thing, takes its temperature, makes a guess at its age.

‘Chuck it out.’

He files it away in his bag.

‘Gold, is it?’

He stares ahead, squeezing his lips into the shape of a chook’s bum.

‘Listen, this happens every day, matey.’

Even through the beard you can see his pout, his scowl of righteousness. An ayatollah face. Off with their hands, their ears!

‘You stop here,’ I say, ‘they’re all over you. Selling you junk, pinching stuff from your load.’

‘Like flies?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Vermin?’

‘Listen, I’ve had stuff pinched. I’m not the only one. You wouldn’t last a week out here, pal, with all your bullshit!’

‘My bullshit?!’ He snorts. ‘At least I’m in harmony with Mother Earth! I touch the land!’

‘You’re “touched”, alright. You’d be robbed blind!’

‘There’s nothing blind in karmic will! The wisdom of the earth!’

I stare. Why doesn’t he speak English? He looks set for another stoning. His own. ‘Better the devil you know,’ I say.

‘What devils do you know?’

‘Not many.’

‘Half your luck.’

Dusk, and the ‘roos are hobbling by the road like they’re learning to walk on crutches. The sun ducks behind the hills. You can tell it plans to circle around and head us off at dawn. ‘There’s a bit of a motel coming. I say. He sits up. ‘Just behind that ‘roo.’

His feet shuffle.

‘Restaurant’s sleazy – but you can get a bed.’ I glance across. ‘And a good bath.’

A neon sign shouts ‘MOTEL’ into the sky, in case we mistake the place for an opera house. I swing across the gravel and in beside a fellow semi. ‘Most drivers stop here for a wash.’

We crunch towards the building. ‘That’s the bathrooms over there.’

He stops, and does his crazy stare. he is nearly my height, but half the volume. Music whines from the motel, a TV drums. ‘Just what are you trying to imply?’

‘”imply”?! Listen, champ, wash the stink off you, or you’re not getting back in my truck.’

‘I stink?!’ his mouth becomes a black hole. ‘You accuse me of stinking! That’s apostate, that is!’

I give him a prod. ‘Don’t swear at me, sport!’

He keeps his feet, blinking like there’s sand in his eyes.

‘Listen, smart-arse,’ I say, fed up. ‘You rabbit on with this “touch the land” crap, but you don’t mind riding in my truck. You eat your bloody sheep-food, but you’re not above drinking my beer!’

He stands there, imitating a tree.

‘You’re like the rest of us, mate. Only less honest.’

I give him a prod, test he’s alive.

‘Yes,’ says a voice from his chest. ‘I see.’ He stands with his hands dangling off his arms. ‘It’s clear; you project what you are. The hostility manifests. Like a script.’

‘What?’

He turns, drops his bag in the dirt. ‘This heavy thing. I can’t identify with this.’ He crunches away.

‘Where y’ going?!’

He bends to flick off his sandals, throws them like boomerangs. ‘The healing of the earth!’ He wades into the dark.

‘Road’s the other way!’ No answer. ‘Bloody drongo.’ I clump up to the washhouse. Some people can dish out the feedback, but can’t take being fed.

In the washhouse, I close the door, undress. Somewhere, there’s a pong. Out of my boilersuit, I find, smeared against my leg, these flat brown droppings. Slick, manmade lumps! I pick at them, and they tear like scars.

I inspect the wreckage of my boilersuit. It stinks beyond redemption, as my passenger would have said. Probably did.

‘Where’s your bin, Stan?’ I ask the caretaker.

He points into the desert. ‘2000 kilometres.’

‘I’ll toss these out.’

Out of my boilersuit, I feel naked, almost invisible. It was my second skin. My very own smell.

***