Heartbreaker, Dream maker
It’s August and Melbourne is in lockdown number SIX! I managed to escape number four as you might have read in the last newsletter, but the nightmare continues! You cannot escape lockdown in Australia. For lockdown five I was moving house, which was a welcome distraction even with the normal muck around of moving house. I’m settled in my new place with my mate Luke and loving the place so far.
This month is one big story about when I lived in Warrnambool briefly. It was a weird little chapter of my life and this is a little slice of it. Enjoy!
Warrnambool
A Fresh Start
In 2010 I was 22 and I was about to move to Warrnambool for uni. I’d just got back from 8 months overseas, I’d taken a gap year of sorts after finishing my apprenticeship in Graphic Prepress (it’s in the printing trade, currently on the up). I wanted to change direction so decided to enrol in a Bachelor of Primary Teaching and Deakin Warrnambool had a pathway program for those who hadn’t completed high school that counted towards the first year.
I went to Warrnambool a month before Uni started to check out rooms to rent; most of them were pretty bad, but I looked at one place that was great. It was not far from the ocean and at the height of summer, it was light-filled, had this awesome breeze flowing through the house, and a back deck leading out to the yard. The couple living there were Mark and Elli, they seemed cool, kinda hippy indie couple from the country, and seemed really nice. They offered me one room and the other was going to be filled with another student, my new housemate Laura.
Trouble in Paradise
After a couple of weeks, it became apparent the Mark and Elli weren’t as chill as they let on and were constantly fighting, but I became used to it. Most weekends I was catching the V-line back to Melbourne to see my friends and watch bands; it was easily ignored. I arrive back on Sunday to see that Elli had moved out. My housemate Laura told me Mark and Elli had a big blow-up over the weekend and it was over. I felt awful for Elli, in one weekend there was barely a trace of her in the house. She had taken all her stuff, including the Wii where I had high scores on Pat Benatar’s Heartbreaker in Guitar Hero; we were all reeling from the break-up.
I hadn’t really got to know Mark, he worked a lot and I was either at uni, or I stayed in my room studying. In a classic break-up move, Mark started drinking and partying pretty hard. He was a nice enough guy, but something was off about him. Just one of those people you can tell is putting on an act, you never really felt like you were getting the full story from him. Mark told me he had been living in London and the only reason he came back was that he had a pretty serious coke addition and needed to detox. I think he had the life he wanted over there and was pretty crushed having to come back to Warrnambool for him.
The Incident
I didn’t make many friends in Warrnambool, but I did become mates with a guy in my course, Sam. We enjoyed a lot of the same comedy and ended up doing a radio show at the local community station for a couple of hours each week. One Friday night, Sam and I went to the Comedy Festival Roadshow. It wrapped up by 10pm so I was home earlier than expected. I walked into the lounge room and Mark is hanging with a mate I’ve never met. The bloke jumps up and enthusiastically introduces himself, ‘hey man, I’m Dan, do you want to drink?’ arm outstretched with an opened big 440mil can of Woodstock; I declined. I had an assignment due on Monday I hadn’t started so I went to my room and started working away with my headphones on.
An hour passes and Dan bursts into my room and says ‘hey bro, we’re calling hookers, do you want in?’ - Pretty full-on sentence for someone to bust into your room and say; I politely declined again. I attempted to keep studying, but it’s hard to focus when something like that happens. Headphones off now, I hear them calling different places. About 45 minutes later there’s a knock at the door, they open up the door and hear a woman’s voice down the hall. Thinking about that now, 45 minutes is pretty efficient.
I heard them all talking in the lounge, I guess sussing out the money and who was going to go first? I don’t know. Mark excuses himself and heads down the hallway to his bedroom to let Dan have sex with the woman in our lounge room. I guess in sort of weirdly polite gesture, but somehow worse than them both having sex with her. Just Mark hiding out in his room while his friend has at it in the lounge. I couldn’t help but think about what they planned my part to be in all this had I taken up the offer.
Dan proceeds to just go full force into it. Just absolutely giving the performance of a lifetime in the lounge room. Living in share houses, you’re going to hear people have sex, but this had a different feel to it. The main problem was that I had to walk through the lounge room to get to the bathroom. I had the urge to pee really bad. I’d been smashing coffee to get this assignment done that was due Monday. I thought I can hold it, how long can this go on for? Dan just kept going, the more I needed to pee, the more I heard him going for it. Dan just kept going; the stamina on this guy.
Eventually got too much for me, I lifted up the window in my bedroom and pissed out the window. While I was pissing, I heard Dan finishing, both of us relieving ourselves at the same time; poetic. It all wraps up, the woman leaves, and the next day nothing is said about what happened the night before.
The Aftermath
My housemate Laura had been away for the weekend and as soon as she got back on Sunday afternoon I told her all about what happened. About a week later it got back to Elli and she was fuming about it as Mark had been trying to get back with her and I think the main source of their break-up was Mark slipping back into a few of his old London ways. Mark confronts me about it and just rambles at me about how it’s a dog act to tell people about it and I need to find a solution. I don’t know, I think if you let your mate have sex with someone in our lounge room it’s pretty fair game. Mark says I need to call Elli and tell her I made it all up. I tell him I will, but he doesn’t believe me and then makes me call her on loudspeaker while he listens in to make sure all the details of my ‘lie’ are dissolved. Turns out Dan is Elli’s brother as well, bizarre.
As you can imagine, Mark and I weren’t on great terms after all that, but we were civil. A few weeks go by and Mark comes to Laura and me to tell us we all need to move out as the owner is moving back in. What can you do? I find a new place and a couple of weeks later I’m out. I’d left a few things in the house, so went back with Sam one evening to grab my stuff. Mark let me know that I can just go to the garage as he’d had to move my stuff in there for the owner. Sam had stayed with us for a couple of days and left some tea in the house so he was going to duck inside to grab that off Mark. I load my stuff from the garage and Sam returns to tell me that the house is full of new furniture and two new people are living in the house. Mark got one last blow in, the fake move out. I was pissed off, by you have to respect it. A true dirtbag until the end.
I saw Elli a couple of years later at of all places a Luca Brasi Show at the corner hotel. She was pretty drunk but stopped to tell me how she couldn’t thank me enough for letting her know what Mark was doing behind her back, and she’d just believe him for so long and hearing about what happened in the house then Mark making me call her to lie about it opened her eyes up to the type of person he really was. It’s not often you get to put a nice little bow on a story like that, but I was glad to hear it helped her out.
Content Corner
Some content I’ve been enjoying.
Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar
As mentioned above, this song rips so hard.
Hacks
New HBO show about a young writer working for an older Joan River’s type comic. I’m about halfway through this and I’m loving it. Some very funny moments and a bit of heart in there for you too. Highly recommend. It’s all on Stan as of today I believe, I used magic to watch it.
Peter Cat Recording Company - Bismillah
Pretty late to the party on these guys, but this album is flawless. Based in Delhi, India; this article I read describes them as Gypsy Jazz, Bossa nova, Bollywood, and Space Disco. Super Fun, but with some really drawn-out upbeat melancholic parts. A lot to love here. Check out the song Memory Box.
Thanks!
I’ve received some really nice messages from people over the last couple of months since I started putting these out (infrequently). It’s nice to know some of what I’m writing is resonating with people and I appreciate people taking the time to say so.
Love you lots!
Searlo xo