These stories, that have been available on
Blogspot for 10 years for free, will now only be available on Amazon at the
address above. They are contained in “Vagabon Freak”, the 1st volume
of a trilogy titled “The 7 Lives of the Punk Poofy Cats”. I have been the
archetypal starving artist in his garret, painting, drawing and writing,
writing, writing as if I were some waif crying out in the wilderness. Now I
need you, dear reader, to hear my cries and go to Amazon and buy a copy of my
book and keep me alive. There you will find my complete tale, from beginning to
end, in one place, for you to hold in your hot little hands. When you read it
straight through, I assure you, it will blow your mind.
Below are introductory paragraphs and some pictures that I still retain to illustrate this story, hopefully to give you a come-on to get my book. Thanks for giving me a go, TZ.
In the ‘nuclear alert’, ‘yellow peril’, ‘red menace’ era of the ‘Fifties it
was de rigueur to give boys lethal slug-guns to play with, and Arthur’s gang
roamed the wilds shooting everything in sight, birds, mammals and especially
each other. They often had mock battles with the “Pommie” migrants from the
hostel across the creek in their weird half-water-tank, mission houses, the
Aussies standing upon the opposing cliff-top of “Devil’s Canyon” waving their
slug-guns and yelling, “Go back to Pommie Land ya smelly wogs, ya live in shit,
go back to shit” and the Brits waving broom-stick weapons and screaming in
return, “Go fuck sheep ya Aussie bastards, we’ll kill ya if ya coom near us!”
One day they caught a little British boy wandering amidst the boulders of
Devil’s Canyon and, pretending to be benevolent, told him to run back on home
to mummy. As he ran through the red sandstone rocks, one particularly stupid
mate aimed his gun at the receding, helpless lad. Artie, realizing his purpose,
shouted, “No! Let him go!” But the little bastard sneered at his softness and
callously shot the small child point blank in the bum with the most powerful of
air-guns available.
This sickened Arthur, it was a regression to the same bully behavior that
had always demeaned him and a betrayal of his honor, for he’d promised the kid
nothing would happen to him. It was so mean, so vicious, he hated that most
boys were cruel, expecting him also to be cruel, and often submitting him to
just as much pain. He was loathe to admit to the same hard-wiring of boys that
led them to be pitiless and violent, always testing the limits of their
endurance, courage, machismo and brutality, as if they were proto-warriors
built to battle at the borders of their territory, mimicking the soldiers they
admired in World War 2 movies.
The next day, to return the insult, the Brits caught Arthur’s brother, John
and, standing him atop the opposite cliff of Devil’s Canyon, threatened to beat
the life out of him with bunches of purple thistles. Arthur marched bravely
into their alien tin-can camp to hand himself over in replacement of his
brother. He was appalled by the threadbare conditions in which the immigrants
lived, whole families squeezed into a room made out of a corrugated-iron
water-tank cut in half, with kitchens and bathrooms communal.
(If you want to read the rest of this story and more, please go to the WEB address above and buy "Vagabond Freak.")
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| Tom Roberts, Heidelberg School of Painters. |
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| Olympic Village 1956 |
