No Good At Heart

*
*

Their Christmases came early. Pat called and everybody called. Family matters. He was seeking an end to the story so he could submit it to Hack Writers in time for their deadline; but the end hadn't happened yet and the repeated calls had done nothing but throw him, making him want to drink. Already there was suspicion and changed atmosphere on the home front; and nothing had happened, a couple of calls. An embarrassing incident left him fleeing to the dentist; and there he called back. I miss you. I never do with anyone like you. Same, he said, which was true enough. I just want to meet, talk, Baw said. I have a boy now, he said. I'm glad, Baw replied, happy for you. I just want to talk. We had some good times, and bad, he said; and they both laughed together because they knew how crazy it had all been; all the things they had done; all the places they had been; the bars they had stumbled out of; the nightclubs they had impressed, the clapped out buildings with their Thai karaoke bars and 500 baht hookers; all of that, all of these things. She was no good, Baw would complain, too many customers, sloppy. Well why go there; but nothing would stop these lads, nothing. He learnt a lot about Thai culture from the bottom side up. He learnt a lot about Thais. And when different things came along; well you wouldn't be here if you hadn't been there; that was all there was to say about it.

Pat called and they talked about Henrietta; who had to set up Skype. It takes five minutes, she said. Even my mother, who's tipped 80 now, has Skype. The free internet phone service. Or free for skype to skype calls, anyway. There were forests of bars, their neon signs shining out. The desire to drink was upon him in waves; and he sat through boring meeting after boring meeting with a bunch of utterly self obsessed Americans, and thought: I don't know how anyone gets sober in this environment. But things would pass. Times would change. He printed out a book to work on. He managed to come clean just on the surface, just in the way of things, and made as if to be clear of all they had ever worked for, to take a sip, just one sip, before abandoning his life for ever, heading to the streets of Calcutta, throwing away everything he had built up. Is that what you want? Not really, he answered. I'm happy here. But I just can't believe it. It doesn't seem real. I don't do happy. Well it's time to learn, he was told, to be a normal person, a human amongst humans, not to waste away paradise in some forlorn gesture only you can see. The sweep of the arm, the scattering bottles, the broken glass, stumbling out into the dawn after a night on the tiles. It wasn't heroic. In the end it wasn't even interesting, although he enjoyed some of the characters along the way. Buck up deary, no reason to be dreary, and everything, everything walked away and left him: cold stony sober.

So perhaps that's why the calls so fundamentally disturbed him, like a siren call from a past he never wanted to answer. They had been so drunk together so often; and he drank in a way he hadn't drunk for decades, in the way he drank in his 20s, when he could still physically handle the stuff; before liver disease ate away his confidence and ability to cope. So the fact they were merry, united in a party, united on the home front, two men out prowling with their flashing love and strange level of intimacy, accepted by girls and bartenders alike, was a way of saying: get real. You're just another foreigner and they're just taking your money. Well that they did do. But nothing can happen for that long without other things occurring. So when the calls came it was like a temptress on a rock, a siren call to the dark side; and even the other Baw, the lyrically handsome one who came by bludging money and had frightened both of them, it was easy to come by and easy to be free, who had said immediately they met: I have a new girlfriend, I can get a big bag of ice, you can watch me fuck her, we can have an orgy together; and the new boy responding with horror. Sad he whispered in his ear. Sad. Well that was one way of thinking about it. So the siren call came fast and early; and he wanted to live not just beyond his means but in some strange emotional comfort zone where he had never been before. And when the boy started helping him number the pages of the book he was printing out he just thought: you complete me. That's what it is. I am happy with you. Why risk everything for a flirtation with the dark side? Just because. Ting Tong. Crazy. Because you are insane. Because they're cute with their clothes off. Because you've always been dysfunctional, damaged goods; and this would be living proof, you're no good at heart.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/30/2968356.htm?section=justin

Former Labor leader Mark Latham has launched a vitriolic attack on Kevin Rudd, accusing him of being the source of the latest leak to hit the Gillard Government.

Mr Latham called the former prime minister a "snake" and said he should "be a man" and own up to the leak, which claimed Prime Minister Julia Gillard was opposed to the Government's parental leave scheme and questioned the aged pension rise.

"It's the coward's way to get on the blower with Laurie Oakes and say, 'I'll tell you this but you're not allowed to identify me'. It's the snake's way," he said.

"I challenge Kevin Rudd to be a man, to be honest, to have some honour, and actually if he feels this strongly about it, put his name to his words."

The firebrand former opposition leader told Sky News he was sure Mr Rudd leaked the information to Channel Nine reporter Laurie Oakes.

"When you're lying in bed at night and hear the pitter-patter sound on the roof you don't actually have to see the drops to know that it's raining," he said.

"So too, you don't need to have a wire tap on the conversation between Kevin Rudd and Laurie Oakes to know it was Kevin Rudd.

"It too is one of the laws of nature, that Kevin is a serial leaker."

He said Ms Gillard's decision to leave Mr Rudd on the backbench would have contributed to the leak.

"I think he was insulted when having lost the prime ministership and wanting to go onto the frontbench he wasn't accommodated," Mr Latham said.

"He was really quite humiliated by being left on the backbench by Julia Gillard."

Mr Rudd's spokesman has issued a one-line statement in response: "Mr Rudd has not responded to the substance of anything Mr Latham has said over the past five years. He does not intend to start now."

Previously, Mr Rudd issued a statement saying he never comments on private Cabinet discussions.

Ms Gillard has said she thinks Mr Rudd is "honourable" and is welcome on her frontbench if Labor wins the upcoming election.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/latham-morphs-into-the-hack-he-despised-20100806-11o5c.html

He told any who would listen just how vile and depraved journalists were and now he has become one.

Former Labor leader Mark Latham is working with the Nine Network's 60 Minutes in the lead-up to the federal election campaign.

Mr Latham appeared in Canberra on Friday and interviewed Australian Greens leader Bob Brown before observing a press conference with a TV crew in tow.

n his incendiary diaries, Mr Latham routinely attacked journalists.

Asked by a reporter for his thoughts on the election campaign, Mr Latham said he was not at the press conference to answer questions but rather to observe.

Wearing sunglasses, a dark suit and security clearance card, Mr Latham was a far cry from his former self.

A Nine spokesman confirmed he was working with a news team.

"Yes Mark Latham is working with 60 Minutes," the spokesman told AAP.

"Having been there himself, Mark's intimate knowledge of campaigning will give our viewers an honest, unvarnished insight into what's really happening because for all the talk of realness it's all turned a bit unreal," a statement from the network said.

"It's not a square-up or an exercise in character assassination.

"Mark still has his gall bladder intact but he says it's not about bile."

The story will be aired on August 15.

Picture: Bangkok. Peter Newman.