suburban tours
Suburban Tours is a contemporary fiction novel. A limited edition print edition was released in 2009. It has been heavily revised for the 2016 edition.
SYNOPSIS:
Aimless young Ben ‘One’ Kester and gruff drifter Ben ‘Two’ Markham combine to run a minibus tour of Melbourne underworld sites. The customers are coming, the unlikely friendship is growing: this could be the making of both of them.
But both men hold secrets which could prove as deadly as the most murderous gangster.
Set amongst the pub sub-culture of inner Melbourne, and the savage fringes of the outer suburbs, Suburban Tours explores whether your tormentor can also be your mentor.
It also probes the significance of Bryan Adams, the wisdom of punting on aged geldings and the terrors of lint.
75,628 words
Combiner Publishing
Second edition 2016 (expurgated and revised)
First published in 2009 by Freeform Press
ISBN: 978-0-9942446-1-1
But both men hold secrets which could prove as deadly as the most murderous gangster.
Set amongst the pub sub-culture of inner Melbourne, and the savage fringes of the outer suburbs, Suburban Tours explores whether your tormentor can also be your mentor.
It also probes the significance of Bryan Adams, the wisdom of punting on aged geldings and the terrors of lint.
75,628 words
Combiner Publishing
Second edition 2016 (expurgated and revised)
First published in 2009 by Freeform Press
ISBN: 978-0-9942446-1-1
SUBURBAN TOURS IMAGES
SUBURBAN TOURS EXCERPT 1
THE FENCE
At Thornbury's limit there was a dark-bricked anomaly of conjoined townhouses moated by speed humps and signs.
Emboldened by the darkness and quiet, and his endless voyage through the ordinary, One searched for a way through. Townhouses planted in concrete, no yard, no lawn. The quiet made it seem like an abandoned display village, a failed concept preserved as a cautionary relic.
Either side, a cyclone fence stretched up and across, guarding the darkness beyond. There was no way in, no way over—the thing was twenty metres high, and leant in and over Thornbury. Merri Creek was off-limits.
One yearned to leave streetlights behind and commune with wilderness, see how it fared so close to kerbs. He wandered, exasperated, finally gaining access near some humble two-storey factories. No lighting on that unofficial path, created by hundreds of scuffing journeys into the weedy verge of the bushland. He stumbled down feeling rebellious and triumphant. What could be so dangerous about Merri Creek that it required such an oppressive fence? Was it even legal for them to make it so inaccessible? This wasn’t the bloody Amazon.
After a dozen sliding steps, One couldn't see a scuffing of pathway, or anything else. He could hear a drip and splash that must have been the creek, but he couldn’t tell how far away it was. He was getting brushed by hanging stickyscratchy... His steps became a hesitant shuffle, and he recoiled as if attacked when he walked into another spider web.
So then he walked with his hands raised in front of his face, which made him feel unbalanced, meaning he overreacted when he tripped, and he stumbled into a crouch to activate his night vision. Which didn't work, so he resorted to small shuffles forward with eyes closed. Which delivered him into a tree.
Nature, at least at night, was too interesting by half—an ostentatious minefield, a commando course set to test every phobia and self-doubt of the senses. It was no tour of wonders, no passive spectacle, but an active perversity out to humiliate. Thirteen metres from civilisation, One needed helicopter rescue. He was already appreciating praise for his survival common sense: ‘Let the experts do what they do best. Do not try to walk out—you will just get more lost’.
Good thing he'd paid attention during all those survival-in-the-wilds docos. Such musings lasted a couple of minutes. The two minutes after that he thought about cold, and hunger.
It was four minutes and ten seconds, then, before he stumbled on, eyes open, trying to take proper, bold, daylight steps... But his elongated stride touched on something squishy, which caused an alarmed leap, which laid him on his back.
In his prone moment, One realised he was thirsty as well as cold and hungry, but Merri Creek, metres away, was surely deadly despite the gallant labours of greenies.
As a matter of urgency, One moved uphill, away from temptress Merri, towards the lights of civilisation. He went at it low and fast, with eyes closed, and ran into only three trees with his shoulders, and one with his head. Triumph came after another bruising minute, when trees stopped attacking.
But returning to streets and lights proved almost impossible. He couldn't find the makeshift path. One traversed The Fence from the wild side, gazing with yearning upon the little boxes of ticky tacky that would contain cheap microwaveable victuals, unending cool, clear, safe water, a bed, a TV, a ceiling and a shared wall that could sustain the illusion that everything was under control.
It took him some time to register the smooth, open space to his left, and the sign proclaiming it to be the Northcote Golf Course, green fees payable at the clubhouse. The sheer wonder of it, all that landscape altered and tamed for a game, kept him going until Normanby Road, and he was back in the world without having ever conquered the Fence, without ever having learnt how to abseil, use bolt-cutters or oxy-welding to get through it and break down the barriers between the suburb and its sliver of hinterland.
At Thornbury's limit there was a dark-bricked anomaly of conjoined townhouses moated by speed humps and signs.
Emboldened by the darkness and quiet, and his endless voyage through the ordinary, One searched for a way through. Townhouses planted in concrete, no yard, no lawn. The quiet made it seem like an abandoned display village, a failed concept preserved as a cautionary relic.
Either side, a cyclone fence stretched up and across, guarding the darkness beyond. There was no way in, no way over—the thing was twenty metres high, and leant in and over Thornbury. Merri Creek was off-limits.
One yearned to leave streetlights behind and commune with wilderness, see how it fared so close to kerbs. He wandered, exasperated, finally gaining access near some humble two-storey factories. No lighting on that unofficial path, created by hundreds of scuffing journeys into the weedy verge of the bushland. He stumbled down feeling rebellious and triumphant. What could be so dangerous about Merri Creek that it required such an oppressive fence? Was it even legal for them to make it so inaccessible? This wasn’t the bloody Amazon.
After a dozen sliding steps, One couldn't see a scuffing of pathway, or anything else. He could hear a drip and splash that must have been the creek, but he couldn’t tell how far away it was. He was getting brushed by hanging stickyscratchy... His steps became a hesitant shuffle, and he recoiled as if attacked when he walked into another spider web.
So then he walked with his hands raised in front of his face, which made him feel unbalanced, meaning he overreacted when he tripped, and he stumbled into a crouch to activate his night vision. Which didn't work, so he resorted to small shuffles forward with eyes closed. Which delivered him into a tree.
Nature, at least at night, was too interesting by half—an ostentatious minefield, a commando course set to test every phobia and self-doubt of the senses. It was no tour of wonders, no passive spectacle, but an active perversity out to humiliate. Thirteen metres from civilisation, One needed helicopter rescue. He was already appreciating praise for his survival common sense: ‘Let the experts do what they do best. Do not try to walk out—you will just get more lost’.
Good thing he'd paid attention during all those survival-in-the-wilds docos. Such musings lasted a couple of minutes. The two minutes after that he thought about cold, and hunger.
It was four minutes and ten seconds, then, before he stumbled on, eyes open, trying to take proper, bold, daylight steps... But his elongated stride touched on something squishy, which caused an alarmed leap, which laid him on his back.
In his prone moment, One realised he was thirsty as well as cold and hungry, but Merri Creek, metres away, was surely deadly despite the gallant labours of greenies.
As a matter of urgency, One moved uphill, away from temptress Merri, towards the lights of civilisation. He went at it low and fast, with eyes closed, and ran into only three trees with his shoulders, and one with his head. Triumph came after another bruising minute, when trees stopped attacking.
But returning to streets and lights proved almost impossible. He couldn't find the makeshift path. One traversed The Fence from the wild side, gazing with yearning upon the little boxes of ticky tacky that would contain cheap microwaveable victuals, unending cool, clear, safe water, a bed, a TV, a ceiling and a shared wall that could sustain the illusion that everything was under control.
It took him some time to register the smooth, open space to his left, and the sign proclaiming it to be the Northcote Golf Course, green fees payable at the clubhouse. The sheer wonder of it, all that landscape altered and tamed for a game, kept him going until Normanby Road, and he was back in the world without having ever conquered the Fence, without ever having learnt how to abseil, use bolt-cutters or oxy-welding to get through it and break down the barriers between the suburb and its sliver of hinterland.
SUBURBAN TOURS EXCERPT TWO
MURDER TOURS BEGIN
This trip wasn’t the same. This was official. This was business. Two was timing everything and demanding the inclusions of basic underworld story points, and generally making it feel like a military rather than creative exercise.
They had discussed the Norm Alley outfit, and the Suburban Tours logo and Murder Tour signage, but it hadn’t been idle dreaming beer talk, as One had thought. A week later, Two had knocked at One’s door and tossed a box on his bed. One felt like a kidnapped ingénue in an old Hollywood movie, it was that sort of glossy box, inlaid with tissue paper.
Putting on the powder blue shorts and short-sleeved safari shirt, the cream knee-length socks and the brown, brown sandals, One didn’t giggle the way he had when ‘designing’ them on the back of a bar coaster. He, Ben Kester, was going to be the one to make a fool of himself in this get-up. And, oh Jesus, there was a light blue pilot’s cap embroidered with a dark blue ‘ST’, in the jolly font of the Springfield house sign. And a thick fake seventies moustache. And a strap-on paunch. It made him look like a themed entrant for Sydney’s Mardi Gras parade. One didn’t feel the slightest bit funny. In the mornings he never felt amused.
But the ‘uniform’ worked immediately. Gawped at, he had no choice but to revert to character, as if by an uncatalogued mammalian reflex.
It felt ridiculous, even criminal, converting to Norm Alley. He could do whatever he wanted and this is what he chose? Any moment now a parent or teacher or cop or a sensible friend would materialise and sit One down and ask what had happened to Ben Kester, ordinary guy. Where had he gone wrong?
He'd never felt more alert. Storm clouds and sunshine over Johnston Street. Frankie having a beer before noon. Abbie looking different, a little apprehensive, and fuller in the face. Janie and Rolly’s body language more affectionate. Chloe sizing up Norm’s get-up like an industry insider. The soak and stain of the pub's surfaces waging odour war with cloying disinfectant.
Two’s haranguing had affected One—his preparation had been thorough and he didn't often turn to his notes. He could tell when attention was lagging and when to sustain a poignant or uproarious moment. He could tell when to let up on the gore and when they wanted more. Afterwards, he retreated upstairs and slumped on his bed with the weariness of a veteran.
Abbie knocked soon after.
“You were great.”
“Thanks, but it wasn’t me—it was Norm.”
One pointed at his removed moustache.
“You’ve got a real talent.”
“Thanks.”
One was a fast car out of water and oil.
“You’re a bit tired.”
She would have said ‘a bit stuffed’ not long ago.
He forced himself to sit up on his mattress and take off the pilot’s cap.
This was the woman he was in love with recently. He tried to size her up as if he’d never met her and failed. The afternoon's window-concentrated light was falling on her chunky loveliness as she leant against the door frame.
“You look different.”
“Yeah.”
He kept looking at her, appraising. He was allowed to, he was the one who'd been left.
“You look good.”
“I…”
He knew there was something he should be doing. Standing up? Offering a place for her on his salubrious bed on the floor?
“I’m pregnant—it’s Frankie’s. It will be Frankie’s… baby. And Frankie and I are getting married.”
“You call him ‘Frankie’?”
Abbie was contorting with discomfort, like a little girl waiting for the toilet.
“You always called him Frank.”
Frankie had been a matter-of-fact guy, not cutesy. But what did One know about anything?
“Things are different now.”
A tidal wave of self-pity swamped One. There were no tremors or changes to the water surface before such deadly waves curled down their slamming weight. Dispassionate naysayers on shore shaking their satisfied heads, vindicated yet again.
One had so many questions to ask, but he had saltwater in his throat and eyes and ears. Abbie’s sentence had brought on a Eustachian calamity.
This was as ‘over’ as it got. There was no prospect of anything good happening between them. There was no chance of anything good happening in the next thirty seconds, which was horrifying because they would be spent in a drowning panic on the assaulting seabed.
“I’m so sorry Ben. The way this has all happened…”
Ben, who was ‘Ben’? What was a ‘Ben’? His real name was One. And where was Norm when you needed him?
If you could drown in water why couldn’t you swim in air?
This trip wasn’t the same. This was official. This was business. Two was timing everything and demanding the inclusions of basic underworld story points, and generally making it feel like a military rather than creative exercise.
They had discussed the Norm Alley outfit, and the Suburban Tours logo and Murder Tour signage, but it hadn’t been idle dreaming beer talk, as One had thought. A week later, Two had knocked at One’s door and tossed a box on his bed. One felt like a kidnapped ingénue in an old Hollywood movie, it was that sort of glossy box, inlaid with tissue paper.
Putting on the powder blue shorts and short-sleeved safari shirt, the cream knee-length socks and the brown, brown sandals, One didn’t giggle the way he had when ‘designing’ them on the back of a bar coaster. He, Ben Kester, was going to be the one to make a fool of himself in this get-up. And, oh Jesus, there was a light blue pilot’s cap embroidered with a dark blue ‘ST’, in the jolly font of the Springfield house sign. And a thick fake seventies moustache. And a strap-on paunch. It made him look like a themed entrant for Sydney’s Mardi Gras parade. One didn’t feel the slightest bit funny. In the mornings he never felt amused.
But the ‘uniform’ worked immediately. Gawped at, he had no choice but to revert to character, as if by an uncatalogued mammalian reflex.
It felt ridiculous, even criminal, converting to Norm Alley. He could do whatever he wanted and this is what he chose? Any moment now a parent or teacher or cop or a sensible friend would materialise and sit One down and ask what had happened to Ben Kester, ordinary guy. Where had he gone wrong?
He'd never felt more alert. Storm clouds and sunshine over Johnston Street. Frankie having a beer before noon. Abbie looking different, a little apprehensive, and fuller in the face. Janie and Rolly’s body language more affectionate. Chloe sizing up Norm’s get-up like an industry insider. The soak and stain of the pub's surfaces waging odour war with cloying disinfectant.
Two’s haranguing had affected One—his preparation had been thorough and he didn't often turn to his notes. He could tell when attention was lagging and when to sustain a poignant or uproarious moment. He could tell when to let up on the gore and when they wanted more. Afterwards, he retreated upstairs and slumped on his bed with the weariness of a veteran.
Abbie knocked soon after.
“You were great.”
“Thanks, but it wasn’t me—it was Norm.”
One pointed at his removed moustache.
“You’ve got a real talent.”
“Thanks.”
One was a fast car out of water and oil.
“You’re a bit tired.”
She would have said ‘a bit stuffed’ not long ago.
He forced himself to sit up on his mattress and take off the pilot’s cap.
This was the woman he was in love with recently. He tried to size her up as if he’d never met her and failed. The afternoon's window-concentrated light was falling on her chunky loveliness as she leant against the door frame.
“You look different.”
“Yeah.”
He kept looking at her, appraising. He was allowed to, he was the one who'd been left.
“You look good.”
“I…”
He knew there was something he should be doing. Standing up? Offering a place for her on his salubrious bed on the floor?
“I’m pregnant—it’s Frankie’s. It will be Frankie’s… baby. And Frankie and I are getting married.”
“You call him ‘Frankie’?”
Abbie was contorting with discomfort, like a little girl waiting for the toilet.
“You always called him Frank.”
Frankie had been a matter-of-fact guy, not cutesy. But what did One know about anything?
“Things are different now.”
A tidal wave of self-pity swamped One. There were no tremors or changes to the water surface before such deadly waves curled down their slamming weight. Dispassionate naysayers on shore shaking their satisfied heads, vindicated yet again.
One had so many questions to ask, but he had saltwater in his throat and eyes and ears. Abbie’s sentence had brought on a Eustachian calamity.
This was as ‘over’ as it got. There was no prospect of anything good happening between them. There was no chance of anything good happening in the next thirty seconds, which was horrifying because they would be spent in a drowning panic on the assaulting seabed.
“I’m so sorry Ben. The way this has all happened…”
Ben, who was ‘Ben’? What was a ‘Ben’? His real name was One. And where was Norm when you needed him?
If you could drown in water why couldn’t you swim in air?
