DUKE AND THE SWAGGIE
“ … I travelled here in a space ship… “
Of all the weird and wonderful characters I have met along the lonely stretches of our Northern Territory highways and by-ways, perhaps the most memorable was a swaggie and his dog: David Clements and Duke, his three-year-old labrador, who were heading for no-where in particular and did not seem overly concerned about the time it might take to get there.
The swagman said, nonchalantly: “I suppose I’ve walked around this country about seven or eight times.”
This was uttered as he munched a plate of Corn Flakes at an isolated roadhouse cafe, fortifying himself for the long tramp ahead into the Top End country, a seemingly endless road of shimmering heat and a million pestering flies.
I am not really of this world,” the bush battler explained with an enigmatic glint in his eye. “I come from another place in the universe and I travelled here in a space ship.”
The eyes and mannerisms were perfectly normal. Eccentricity was not to be detected anywhere in his behaviour.
Only the words were strange.
Having revealed this stunning information, the swaggie confessed that during this segment of his earthly span he was searching only for the peace and serenity of the outback: the legendary serenity immortalised by the old bush poets.
“I don’t care what people think of me,” he said with a sunburnt grin. “I travel around and try to do the right thing by everybody I meet. I feel at home in the bush. It really suits me during this life time. I intend to enjoy it, really, because soon I must go away to another world and live another kind of life.”
David’s swag cover had his name printed in black across the canvas, followed by the word ‘Sickiatrist’ and other messages of dubious import.
The swaggie was asked where he was born.
“What is birth?” he responded. “It’s not really a beginning. I have been around and seen all of history. You can’t say that birth is a beginning and death is an end. No, we are here forever, or some of us are. I know I am.”
In an attempt to bring the subject back to mundane matters, David Clements was requested to provide an outline of the lifestyle he preferred as he and Duke wandered the backblocks of Australia in their mutual quest for elusive objectives.
“Well,” he said through his Corn Flakes, “in the cities I go to the Salvos for a feed, if I need one, but out in the country I can look after myself.
“No, the Aborigines haven’t taught me anything about living off the land, but I could teach them a thing or two.”
Self-righteously, he queried: “Would they know how to make a soup out of gum leaves? Not likely, eh? But I know. It’s a nice clear soup when it’s cooked, with a eucalyptus taste. You put into it bush onions and wild honey and other stuff.”
Although his pup, Duke, might chase a rabbit or cat from time to time, he would not hurt them; such violence was contrary to his nature, David assured me.
Lean-gutted and bubbling with energy, Duke seemed an ordinary, unpretentious mutt; he could gobble down a can of dog food in three gulps and he still had enough optimism to cock his leg over every tree he passed.
“Duke is accompanied by other spirit dogs,” confided his master. “They are trying to perfect his spirit during this life time. He has a wonderful nature.
“Some people might think I’m a bit religious the way I talk at times,” the swagman said. “Some of my beliefs fit in with religion. Only here and there, mind you. If they don’t fit in, I turn a deaf ear – as simple as that.”
Gloom and doom hung over the man’s head like an angry, black cloud in odd pessimistic moments. He warned that men in their unemployed thousands would one day be forced back on to the road, trudging with swags on their backs.
It was inevitable.
Pre-destined.
Cars would vanish …
Riches diminish …
Governments crumble …
“Man goes through a cycle,” he brooded. “From poor to rich. Then he corrupts himself and goes back to being poor again. That’s happening to us now. We’re degenerating, being corrupted …
“It’s just an illusion …
“Everything will fall apart …”
Before shouldering his bluey and taking Duke’s chain in hand, David said that in all his terrestrial existences throughout the infinity of time he had only grown to hate one aspect of humanity.
“That’s poofters,” he grunted distastefully. “I can’t stand them …
“Neither can Duke …”
-T. Farley.
