A hot, Canberra, November day.
The AIDEX arms fair is due to open in two days.
The scramble to give the protest some semblence of coherence has already shattered several nerves in the bodies of its organisers. If chaos had meaning we had meaningful perfection.
"She'll be right mate," met with dismissal responses.
But it was Saturday and the march was on. From Parliament House to City Centre then out to the National Exhibition Centre, ten K north and alongside the racecourse. About two thousand tramped a hot highway and our maybe mutual relationship with the uniforms was a sweet background to the festive gaity of the peaceniks.
Early afternoon found us in a mad scramble from entrance to entrance around the extensive perimeter of the complex. A whisper in the air seemed rumour enough to send bodies helter skelter in every direction.
On Flemington (or was it Randwick) Road, at gate 2, some canvas awning gave a small respite from a now stinker of a day. The hippie with the drum ceaselessly weaved, ceaselessly tapped her ceaseless monotones. Local coppers lined our side of the cyclone fence gate. A few barricading bodies lay torpor-like in the drive entrance.
One of the private security hoons sweeps in off the road and stops short - just stops just short, of the human barrier.
Yelling and altercation changed to screams of pain and rage as the animal reengaged gear and drove at the pickets. A leg crunched under a wheel, bodies leapt or were hit sideways as the coppers forced open the twin gates then finally managed to close and bar them behind the assassin.
Dennis was at his livid best.
"I demand you arrest that man. You should charge him with attempted murder. You are accessories" and lots more with jutting jaw, bristling beard and a fine spray of outraged spittle over the nearest coppers now ensconced behind the gate.
To which his addressees replied not a whit. And all the time the hippie shiela circled in and out, drumming, adding to the weirdness of an uneasy truce.
The redhaired punk leant against the gate. He was an ear, lip, eyebrow and nostril man. I shuddered a bit at what the coppers would do to his rings in a blue. Big lump of a feller he was. Tough face, a bit battered. His other rings were on his fingers. Some big. Like knuckledusters. I warmed to what he might do in a useful stoush. And he says to the copper on the other side of the cyclone a foot away.
"Long time since I seen you."
"Yair. I remember you from somewhere. What're you up to these days?"
"Well I was down the Franklin a while back to give you bastards a bit of swish. Then up in Brisbane fer a bit of the same. Been hangin out with the forest mob lately and I thought I'd come down here for a bit more carryon. How about yerself ?"
"Well I was at (so and so) for a while. Got transferred to (somewhere) now I'm here. Been keepin yer nose clean?"
"As much as you dickheads will let me."
"Look at yerself, I say. Didn't I bust you at (somewhere else)?" The far away fairy kept blotting out key parts with her tap tap tap.
"Nah," said the punk, you did me (elsewhere).
More mutually abusive pleasantries and Big Red shuffles off.
The only time I saw him again was after the dust had settled and AIDEX had disappeared up its own arse with us pushing.
It was after the last mass rally, beautifully disguised as the wedding (genuine) of Jan and Jacob and which gave pretext for another road occupation. After the TRG and local police had done their repetitious road cleaning act he walked towards me past the burnt out car body and other barricade material.
He was wheeling a battered stroller and at his side stepped a small, slender, young woman, who apart from the many rings and shock of red hair, seemed just about his antithesis.
In the stroller was an enormous baby.
His face, his red blaze of hair, his fatness oozing in rolls from the skimpy clothing, was carbon copy of his dad.
Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantegruel.
The AIDEX arms fair is due to open in two days.
The scramble to give the protest some semblence of coherence has already shattered several nerves in the bodies of its organisers. If chaos had meaning we had meaningful perfection.
"She'll be right mate," met with dismissal responses.
But it was Saturday and the march was on. From Parliament House to City Centre then out to the National Exhibition Centre, ten K north and alongside the racecourse. About two thousand tramped a hot highway and our maybe mutual relationship with the uniforms was a sweet background to the festive gaity of the peaceniks.
Early afternoon found us in a mad scramble from entrance to entrance around the extensive perimeter of the complex. A whisper in the air seemed rumour enough to send bodies helter skelter in every direction.
On Flemington (or was it Randwick) Road, at gate 2, some canvas awning gave a small respite from a now stinker of a day. The hippie with the drum ceaselessly weaved, ceaselessly tapped her ceaseless monotones. Local coppers lined our side of the cyclone fence gate. A few barricading bodies lay torpor-like in the drive entrance.
One of the private security hoons sweeps in off the road and stops short - just stops just short, of the human barrier.
Yelling and altercation changed to screams of pain and rage as the animal reengaged gear and drove at the pickets. A leg crunched under a wheel, bodies leapt or were hit sideways as the coppers forced open the twin gates then finally managed to close and bar them behind the assassin.
Dennis was at his livid best.
"I demand you arrest that man. You should charge him with attempted murder. You are accessories" and lots more with jutting jaw, bristling beard and a fine spray of outraged spittle over the nearest coppers now ensconced behind the gate.
To which his addressees replied not a whit. And all the time the hippie shiela circled in and out, drumming, adding to the weirdness of an uneasy truce.
The redhaired punk leant against the gate. He was an ear, lip, eyebrow and nostril man. I shuddered a bit at what the coppers would do to his rings in a blue. Big lump of a feller he was. Tough face, a bit battered. His other rings were on his fingers. Some big. Like knuckledusters. I warmed to what he might do in a useful stoush. And he says to the copper on the other side of the cyclone a foot away.
"Long time since I seen you."
"Yair. I remember you from somewhere. What're you up to these days?"
"Well I was down the Franklin a while back to give you bastards a bit of swish. Then up in Brisbane fer a bit of the same. Been hangin out with the forest mob lately and I thought I'd come down here for a bit more carryon. How about yerself ?"
"Well I was at (so and so) for a while. Got transferred to (somewhere) now I'm here. Been keepin yer nose clean?"
"As much as you dickheads will let me."
"Look at yerself, I say. Didn't I bust you at (somewhere else)?" The far away fairy kept blotting out key parts with her tap tap tap.
"Nah," said the punk, you did me (elsewhere).
More mutually abusive pleasantries and Big Red shuffles off.
The only time I saw him again was after the dust had settled and AIDEX had disappeared up its own arse with us pushing.
It was after the last mass rally, beautifully disguised as the wedding (genuine) of Jan and Jacob and which gave pretext for another road occupation. After the TRG and local police had done their repetitious road cleaning act he walked towards me past the burnt out car body and other barricade material.
He was wheeling a battered stroller and at his side stepped a small, slender, young woman, who apart from the many rings and shock of red hair, seemed just about his antithesis.
In the stroller was an enormous baby.
His face, his red blaze of hair, his fatness oozing in rolls from the skimpy clothing, was carbon copy of his dad.
Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantegruel.
