Me and Max did a fair few jobs together (for a couple of years) and we felt like a bit of a change. One arvo after work we were at my place having a joint when Max suddenly said “lets go to Melbourne”. I said yeh ok, thinking he was joking, and he said he’d go home, pack a bag and be back in an hour or so. Sure enuff, an hour or two later he turns up with a bag and wants to know if I’m ready. Shit, thought it was a joke, hang on I’ll pack a bag. Walked out on a fair bit of stuff and we headed off to catch a train from Sydney to Melbourne.
We were almost at Melbourne and it was then that we got off in Seymour so I could show him my old hometown. That was when I had the run in with the old headmaster that I mentioned in another story. We got to Melbourne after a while but were only there a few days, we didn’t like it much so, “let’s go to Adelaide” was the next sensible plan. We had bugger all money and were just winging it.
Adelaide wasn’t good at first, didn’t know anyone, didn’t have contacts for work or whatever. The only money we made for awhile was whatever I won playing snooker for money. We were crashing at night on the banks of the river Torrens in the heart of Adelaide. We would stash all our sleeping bags and stuff under the bushes in the day to wander around the city. One day we came back and all our shit was gone, sleeping bags, clothes, me snooker cue (sob), the lot. Max got depressed about it all. I looked up me grandma in town and she said we could stay with her. Max was too down tho and wired his folks for money and went back home to Sydney.
My grandma introduced me to this thing I had never heard of. The Dole!
No work, no money, no food, didn’t even know the dole existed lol. Damn!
Went for a job as a labourer in a brand new factory. New concept called “plastic injection moulding”. Yes folks, many plastics were still pretty new lol lol. Two jobs available, a labourer and afternoon shift leading hand. I’m being interviewed by the factory foreman and he sees my name and says, “you know a guy called Russell”?. I’m like yeah man that’s me brother. Awesome he says, take the leading hand job. I was in Vietnam with your brother and we are good mates. No experience didn’t matter as it was a whole new manufacturing process, and even the factory owner didn’t know anything. We would learn as we went from a dude from Germany who had sent the machinery out. Cool as, leading hand plus shift work was good money. Actually it was awesome money, they paid really well.
After a while the factory started, I was on afternoons and they wanted to start full night shift and be 24/7. I said we should make the night shift production only the automatic jobs not needing labour and therefore be run by two guys only. Big saving on nightshift wages. I said the dude I lived with was a good worker and he could start Monday. Cool they said awesome idea. I rang Max in Sydney and he raced down on his bike to start work. We ended up sharing house with the foreman who was moving out with his girlfriend shortly. Big turn around, good job, good bucks, got a house, all was sweet!
We would get all the machines set up to run all night, pull out 2 foam mattresses and ghetto blaster, strap up some joints and end up sleeping most the night. Coolidge.
One night at home we had got super wasted and were laying down in the lounge room in front of a speaker each tripping out to music. We had gone way past worktime without realising it. The factory afternoon shift had rung the factory boss cos they could’nt knock off till we got there. We were blitzed out.
Suddenly the boss was poking his head thru the window in the night trying to get our attention, he’d been banging on the door but to no avail. What the fuck,get to work!!
We were like “sorry, sorry, we’re off right away”, jumped on Max’s bike and took off. We were in no state to ride tho. We were cruising down the road but were both having real perception problems with distance. We would see red traffic lights, panic, trundle down thru the gears and hit the brakes and stop, then realise the lights were still 200 metres away. We would take off, hit the brakes again and stop, and realise they were still 50 metres away Ha ha. Worse to come.
We took off again riding down this road when we saw like a roadblock on the road in front of us, some sort of barrier with red lights strung out across the lane. Perceptional problems with distance again, we thought we would slam into it. We were yelling to each other “fuck, fuck look out, we’re gonna hit” Max screamed “fuck I’ll have to drop it, get ready”. We dropped the bike in a nasty crash, sliding and spinning down the road, sparx goin everywhere, screamin our heads off. We ground to a halt to look up and see the “roadblock” was the row of red lights on the back of a semi trailer, not only that but it was like 200 meters away anyway and nowhere near us, and was turning a corner!!! We were a total wreck by the time we got to work, so spun out and wasted we didn’t know what the fuck was happening. The afternoon shift was pissed off big time waiting to knock of. We came in wild eyed and spinning out badly lol. I think the boss was onto us after that night. He did a surprise visit to work one night, found us asleep, machinery jammed and producing nothing, beds and blankets, music going, ashtrays and joints, drinks and food everywhere etc. Seeya boys, damn!
Was shortly after that we joined the Army eh.
2008-09-13, 13:39