I've Never Known

"I've never known anybody who knows as many dead people as you."

Anon.


There were weaknesses in the argument; he suddenly felt fragile and older, didn't know where the time had gone; why Rip van Winkle like he'd suddenly woken up decades later still alive. Tom was dead, the last in a long line of pretty boys and great talents, when the heart ache took over and he wanted to say things that should never be revealed; bare all, waking up wasted in public toilets; the ambulances coming, coming, these weren't cries for help; they were beyond help.

Yesterday I met up with David, one of the bananas in pyjamas arrested for misbehaviour in first class on a flight to Abu Dabi, after suddenly finding myself with some hours free and they were ringing me, come over, come over. Him and Todd were getting pissed in the Lord Dudley in Jersey Road, Woollahra, full of rich young moisturised divorcees and preening middle aged men; all the talk of shake downs and millions and a party which never stopped; secret negotiations and complex scams; oh sorry, business transactions. Meanwhile I, and most everybody else, gets up and goes to work and can barely make ends meet in this rotten, expensive town.

You haven't been to the centre? I asked of a young colleague from England; Sydney's just a pile of arseholes on the coast, crawling all over each other. You can't understand the country without going to the centre. And as part of yesterday, I walked past Elizabeth Street, which has always resonated with me as the place where it all began; the house third in from the left where John Bygate lived; and where I was as a 16 year old was utterly in awe. He was fabulously handsome; fabulously talented; had the best record collection and the best access to drugs; he was everything I wanted to be and I made my first money as a writer with a story I wrote about him, which was co-winner of the Adelaide Festival Short Story competition, way back in 1974. Way back, brokeback, the house a gift from one of his sugar daddy's; scribbling furiously on his latest musical composition, for they were all a gang, Richard Meale and that coterie of Australian composers; they all knew each other, got drunk together; and I was just a kid absolutely in awe, jail bait.

All these years later and they're all dead; almost everyone who hung out in that house; who partied all night; vibrating on the stairs; the acid shooting through us in frantic sheets of life and diamond edged light. Things would never be the same again; we knew that. The future was unknowable and would be nothing like the present, we knew that. But even so, somehow, it felt it would never end.

And the heirs of our parties, the children of another time, the Toms of this world; God hoovers them up to keep the world tidy; and while we all felt a raging sadness at the futility and waste; it didn't matter what we felt. God and the world and the enemy conservatives; they all knew better than us; the orphan souls.



THE BIGGER STORY:

ABC:

US President George W Bush has toured the highway bridge that crumbled into the Mississippi River, as officials scrambled to inspect other spans and reassure the public that the country's bridges are safe.

After a helicopter survey of the site, Mr Bush met with and praised survivors and rescue workers and promised a rapid rebuilding of the span.

"I have been impressed by not only their determination but I've been impressed by their compassion," he said.

"We want to get this bridge rebuilt as quick as possible.

"Out of these tragedies can come a better life."

In Missouri, home to the largest number of river bridges in the country, totalling 55, Governor Matt Blunt ordered an immediate inspection of 11 arch truss bridges.

The eight-lane interstate highway bridge feeding into Minneapolis broke up into the Mississippi River on Wednesday afternoon (local time) as some 100 cars and trucks were lined up on it in rush hour traffic.

Five people have been confirmed dead and eight are still reported missing from the disaster, with vehicles still submerged in the vast river.

Around 100 people were injured.

The missing included a pregnant woman and her infant, and a van with four Somali immigrants, local media reported.