maylands - kirkham field
in 2018-19 i lived with tim and alex in a big beautiful house along the swan river. together we lived a huck finn existence. the best thing was the big backyard, an overgrown field of bright green grass and a place for various huck finn projects. i will relay some stories below.
1. the bottle wall
i built this wall with cement and beer bottles, bottles i had found in people's bins. its hard to believe, but before Containers for Change, bottles and cans were worth Jack Ship. you couldnt even give an empty bottle away.
my bottle wall was very beautiful. at certain times of the day, it glittered like magic.
i wish i had done some research before i started. i had built the foundation with mortar mixed with sand because i thought mortar sounded more masculine than cement and therefore stronger, but as a result of this latent chauvinism, my wall collapsed as soon as someone leaned on it.
for a while i let the chunks decorate my yard which looked even more mysterious.
we ended up having to milkshake the bottle wall fragments into the dumpster across the road.
2. the hut
tim has read the Dangerous Book for Boys so many times that he knows it by heart. tim knows how to weave plucked grass into an unbreakable rope. tim knows how to construct a shelter from the basest materials. tim know how to use his imagination to pretend his shelter is a car.
one day in spring, tim decided to pass on his knowledge to a small group of me and our friends.
- jeff
we had an neighbour called jeff who was always hanging round the field to watch us work. he always disapproved of our architectural pursuits, but he was equally disruptive to the equilibrium of the field.
he once built a painted target for axe throwing practice. it was made of polystyrene and immediately shattered on the first throw. chunks of the stuff blew around for weeks and probably ended up in the river.
he also hired a bobcat and moved about the earth to make bike jumps for his nephew's annual visit. on the day of the occasion, it was 45 degrees and the sullen nephew got halfway up the jump, ran out of speed, turned around, threw his bike down and escaped back into the air conditioning.
jeff also liked to spray blue weedkiller along the fence and go into the reserve and cut down the invasive non-native pepper trees. the jungle became a wasteland of stumps. a few weeks later, the council errected a 3 metre billboard reading "this vegetation has been illegally vandalised". i thought about dobbing in my weed-wacking neighbour, and even dialled the number, but chickened out. thatd be a dog act, and hopefully the sign, which remained there for three years and blocked our view of the river, would teach him a lesson about fussing with nature.
- the tyre
one night our friend alister came over to find that our house was occupied by our housemate alex who had a date staying over. they were sitting on the couch in the darkened living room, watching a vhs of david attenborough's the planets. we thought we should give them some space, so went out to the yard. we wanted to play the playstation, but now had to find something else to do.
earlier that week, tim had found a car tyre on the side of the road and wheeled it back to our house. now tim had a fun idea for a game. our driveway was really steep. two of us would stand at the bottom and tim would roll it down at the top. then when it was about to smash into us, we would jump out the way. it took a couple tries for the tyre to not veer off into the side. but once we realised which side it leaned towards, it was easy to get it straight.
the first time it came down, gaining heavy speed. then when it was about to hit, i jumped out the way and BSSSHHHHHHH. it smashed into the portable fence at the end of our driveway, makign a sound that could be heard across the suburb. we picked up the tyre, tried it again and BSSHHHHHH. the sound was incredible.
alex and his date had come out of the house and were standing on the balcony. the young woman was very confused and frightened by our tyre rolling. she hugged alex good night and called herself an uber. i would have been sorry but it was a really cool game, so the enjoyment outweighed the remorse.
COMPASS:
TO THE NORTH: the gym
TO THE EAST: matt, my musical neighbour
TO THE SOUTH: the reserve
TO THE WEST: yacht club hologram