moe

Sunday afternoon I drive to MM’s Collingwood office, snug the Jazz in the basement car park, ascend the empty building to the second floor. I set up a trolley, load it with materials for tomorrow’s professional learning workshops in Moe.

Comrade C’s hire car arrives at the front door. We drive round to the rear of the building, load up in the basement. I take the wheel, pilot us through the grey afternoon to Moe, arriving at dusk. We check in, ask about the best place to eat. Comrade C is ravenous, missing the lunch that didn’t eventuate on her Q flight from Adelaide.

We sign up as temporary members of Moe RSL for a couple of hours, slide into a booth, examine the menu. Comrade C order the meals, exercises the corporate credit card. She returns with a lemon, lime and bitters, looks dubiously at her glass.

The waitress calls everyone darlin’ or lovey, delivers four substantial pieces of garlic bread with cheese as thick as the bread underneath, the garlic not evident. Comrade C’s chicken parmi is submerged under a glutinous lake of bright yellow cheese.

My plate overflows with not one, not two, but three large pieces of snapper. The batter is both crisp and oily, the side vegetables rubbery. I lean on the cauliflower with my knife, leave no impression.

Only one light in my room works back at the DisComfort Motor Inn. In the gloom I try to find the satellite TV station with the soccer, work for hours on my presentation while The Arsenal play another nil-all draw, this time away to Stoke City. Some time after one I sleep.

A swollen bladder disturbs me at five and sleep fails me. I lie in the dark, rehearse the coming day’s lines over the truck noise. The DisComfort Inn lies in a natural amphitheatre, the truck roar from the highway half a kilometre away funnels straight into my room. I empty my unhappy bowels into the pan soon after and again an hour later.

It’s one degree outside at seven when Comrade C enter Moe’s Coff Central café for breakfast. She chats to the English proprietor about his coffee while a girl with multiple facial piercings and red dreadlocks conjures up scrambled eggs and mushrooms in the galley.

Breakfast is the highlight of my 24 hours here. Moe always had a crap reputation. The Jaidyn Leskie murder 15 years ago buried the town. It remains a drab place.

  

Rock on.