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
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?
