＂Pushing Rubber Downhill＂ by Adam Piggot： Chapter 1 Audiobook Teaser
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
212.9679
Summary
A short story about a man who sets out to move across Australia on his motorbike, to find a woman who thinks she's God's gift to the world. Pushing Rubber Downhill is written by Adam Piggott, and the audiobook is recorded by Davis M.J. Arrini.
Transcript
00:00:06.360
1. To transport paying customers down a treacherous passage of inland water in a rubber raft.
00:00:12.440
2. An activity that is done with a bigger reward in mind.
00:00:17.640
Pushing Rubber Downhill is written by Adam Piggott, and the audiobook is recorded by Davis M. J. Arrini.
00:00:32.920
Sex is power. That's all there is to it. Particularly if you're a 23-year-old male.
00:00:41.660
As in, you have no power and it runs roughshod over you.
00:00:45.300
You spend most of your time thinking about how to get it, any way you can, and preferably with the most beautiful girl possible.
00:00:50.840
So when you actually do stumble across a stunningly beautiful woman a few years your senior who thinks you're God's gift to women, well, you're in serious trouble.
00:01:01.020
I should know. When I met Jody and we hooked up, I was elevated to another plane on the social scale.
00:01:06.700
I was that guy who went out with her. The two of us arrived at parties and people stared at her with open mouths.
00:01:12.840
Then they looked at me and tried to work out what the fuck was going on.
00:01:16.220
Hell, I didn't know what the fuck was going on. All I knew was that I was in love with the most beautiful woman in the world.
00:01:22.360
But a few weeks into our intense relationship, she dropped a bombshell on me.
00:01:26.320
She was moving to Sydney to become a model, and nothing could change her mind.
00:01:30.520
She had purchased her plane ticket and given notice at her job before the two of us had even met.
00:01:34.620
I tried to reason with her. I tried to make her see that something as special as what we had was so rare that it couldn't be tossed aside.
00:01:40.260
At least, it was rare for me. Thinking back, maybe it hadn't been that rare for her at all.
00:01:46.640
And then she blew my mind with the suggestion that I move to Sydney as well.
00:01:50.520
This was a pretty big deal, and something which I had never considered before.
00:01:53.740
My entire life was in Perth, an oversized town perched in complete isolation on the left side of Australia.
00:01:59.400
I had a job in a chic bar. I rented a groovy inner-city apartment.
00:02:03.240
But the most important thing in my life was my band.
00:02:05.600
And we had worked hard to get to a point where we stood a chance of actually making it.
00:02:09.880
And now this girl just blithely suggested that I chuck all of this and head on across to the other side of the continent.
00:02:17.620
It took me about a day to make the decision to go.
00:02:20.000
I told my bandmates on the night of what turned out to be both our most successful and final gig.
00:02:27.820
I couldn't believe it. I thought they could keep going with someone else,
00:02:30.760
but apparently I was the glue that bound everything together.
00:02:33.000
But I didn't want to be glue. I wanted to be with Jody.
00:02:37.380
And so I sat on my overloaded bike at the top of the low, scraggy hills above Perth.
00:02:42.060
Jody had already left over a month ago after the most obscene make-out session ever seen at a boarding gate.
00:02:47.040
I'd divided the rest of the time between phone sex with her and packing up my entire life.
00:02:53.980
I should have felt excited to be finally on my way.
00:02:56.440
But the truth was that I was nervous and scared.
00:02:58.940
Not just because I was about to ride my motorbike all the way across Australia.
00:03:02.020
I had no idea what my reception in Sydney would be like.
00:03:05.380
Jody had hung up on me on our last phone conversation
00:03:07.800
after I made the dreadful mistake of drunk-dialing her to confess my undying love.
00:03:15.100
But I was still going because, hey, love conquers all, right?
00:03:20.260
you really need to find these things out for yourself.
00:03:23.120
And the only way to do that is to make terrible decisions like I was about to do.
00:03:26.480
So I kick-started the bike's old engine and, after waiting for a break in the traffic,
00:03:34.340
There's probably an optimal way to ride a 20-year-old motorbike alone across Australia,
00:03:40.760
First of all, you don't ride a bike that's almost as old as you are.
00:03:44.260
In the desert, if you break down, you can die waiting for someone to turn up.
00:03:50.820
So do Australians, though you think we'd know better.
00:03:53.000
They'll be driving their vehicle down a lonely desert road and something will go wrong.
00:03:57.280
Then they'll sit there for an hour or so, wondering what to do,
00:03:59.840
until finally they make the deadly mistake that is common to all of these unfortunate deaths.
00:04:04.420
They'll leave their vehicle and walk off looking for help.
00:04:07.620
15 kilometers is usually about as far as they get, depending on the time of year.
00:04:11.800
And then they find a little tree, and they sit down, and they die.
00:04:15.420
So if you're riding across Australia, you need to have some sort of backup plan.
00:04:21.820
And you need to carry a lot of water, assuming you don't want to die.
00:04:25.840
Call in points at prearranged intervals to someone back home is also a very good idea,
00:04:29.960
but neither myself or any of my friends or family thought about this one.
00:04:34.220
A first aid kit in case you get bitten by a scorpion that was sleeping in your boot,
00:04:37.740
or a snake crawls into your tent and snuggles up for warmth is also highly desirable.
00:04:44.800
I had a vague idea to travel 800 kilometers a day,
00:04:47.160
I had a map, and my dad had given me a contact from one of his childhood buddies who now lived in Adelaide.
00:04:52.260
I figured I would be okay because I was staying on the main highway.
00:04:55.940
Well, after I loaded my tent, sleeping bag, inflatable mat, cooking stove, and a bag of clothes,
00:05:01.220
I didn't really have that much room for things like water.
00:05:05.940
Some tools would be good in case my bike broke down,
00:05:08.360
but I was mechanically illiterate, so what was the point?
00:05:11.200
On the evening of the second day, when I was well into the desert section of the trip,
00:05:16.500
I began to worry about camping on the main road.
00:05:18.780
I was concerned about being run over by swerving road trains,
00:05:21.440
driven by speed-addicted drivers, their eyes popping from lack of sleep.
00:05:25.200
I also wanted to avoid the chance of an unwelcome visit
00:05:27.380
from any of the potential lunatics who roamed this sparse land,
00:05:30.260
bored out of their minds and hoping to stumble across a lone traveler
00:05:33.060
whom they could debase with unspeakable acts of savagery.
00:05:36.640
In other words, I wanted to keep my white honky ass in pristine condition.
00:05:42.920
I spotted a track, and I followed it slowly for a few hundred meters
00:05:45.560
as it wound its way through the desert scrub and became a small, sheltered clearing.
00:05:50.440
It was out of sight from the highway, and there was a flat area to pitch my tent.
00:05:58.600
Then I waited for the sound of a passing vehicle.
00:06:00.920
This spot was only good if they couldn't see me,
00:06:02.980
and that meant a fire at night, which would stand out like...
00:06:05.780
Well, like a fire at night in the middle of the fucking desert.
00:06:08.080
After a time, I caught a faint, dull sound from a far distance.
00:06:13.680
and then it was a loud roar as it hurtled away on the flat desert road,
00:06:20.740
and then I stepped back down into the little hollow and began to set up my camp.
00:06:24.800
I didn't need an alarm clock, as, the following morning,
00:06:27.700
the tent became a furnace as soon as the sun hit.
00:06:30.560
After making a coffee and packing up my little camp,
00:06:32.740
I sat on my bike and pressed the starter button.
00:06:45.560
Do you think I'm going to be able to push my bike on a sandy track all the way to the main road?
00:06:50.840
I would have to walk back to the road and hail a passing car.
00:06:53.600
And it's probably over 500 kilometers to the nearest mechanic.
00:06:58.380
They would lick their lips and take me for everything I had.
00:07:01.780
That's if the bike was still there when we got back to it.
00:07:07.440
And I motorcycled slowly back to the harsh asphalt strip.
00:07:10.420
And then I rode off into the new day in a state of blissful ignorance to how lucky I was.
00:07:18.740
By the time I arrived, I desperately needed a wash and a decent bowel movement.
00:07:26.680
Alone on roads that stretched for 146 kilometers at a time without curve or undulation.
00:07:31.280
Alone at night in front of a fire that struggled in the evening wind.
00:07:35.380
Alone when I woke in the morning, not knowing where I was or even why.
00:07:39.300
Alone with my thoughts and with my doubts and insecurities.
00:07:42.480
I'd realized early on that I'd put myself in this paradox.
00:07:45.340
The closer I got to Jody, the further we were actually apart.
00:07:48.980
But there was still a small chance it would work out.
00:07:53.100
Hope and sex are a gloriously self-deceiving combination.
00:07:56.080
And nothing seems to make much sense when you're in the middle of doing it.
00:08:00.260
So I arrived in Adelaide and I negotiated the streets and found the address of my father's friend.
00:08:04.860
The couple and their three young children came out to greet me.
00:08:07.580
The kids looked at me as if I were an astronaut.
00:08:09.900
I shooed them away from the hot exhaust pipes as I didn't think giving them third degree burns would make me very popular.
00:08:15.520
My host gave me a wash and a beer and for that I was truly grateful.
00:08:19.780
After dinner, I answered questions about the trip.
00:08:22.000
It was good to take my mind off my immediate problems.
00:08:24.320
Did you meet any pirates? One of the little boys asked.
00:08:33.000
I stayed for a couple of days and explored the city,
00:08:35.100
but I was eager to be on my way and aware that every guest is intriguing for only a very short time.
00:08:40.420
The morning of my departure, the kids helped me bring out my gear.
00:08:43.560
I explained to them how to load a bike and then they each posed for photos,
00:08:46.600
sitting on the seat and straining forward over the gas tank to reach the handlebars.
00:08:50.500
Then I shook hands with my hosts, thanked them for their kindness,
00:08:55.040
With a final wave to the kids, I gave it a dramatic kickstart.
00:09:01.160
I looked at the controls and saw that none of the lights were on.
00:09:03.920
The bike refused to respond to my increasingly desperate attempts to start it.
00:09:07.740
My hostess had a look of distress on her face and...
00:09:13.080
The kids ran around, excited that I could stay longer.
00:09:15.140
My bike had decided to die in the middle of a large city while I was a guest at someone's home,
00:09:21.740
which in the possible circumstances was very fortunate indeed.
00:09:25.560
As usual, I didn't realize at the time how lucky I was.
00:09:29.440
I asked if I could use their phone and they rushed me into the house.
00:09:32.200
I didn't know who I was going to call until I picked up the receiver and dialed my father's number.
00:09:41.320
Between the two of us, we worked out that my uncle knew a bike mechanic in Adelaide.
00:09:46.040
Uncle Billy was a bit of a live wire and accepting his help was fraught with unknown risks,
00:09:52.900
I called his Perth number and explained the situation.
00:10:01.380
Oh, that's great, Uncle Bill. How'd you manage to do that?
00:10:08.200
Like, if you went to see him, he'd probably do you over, but...
00:10:12.000
Cause you're associated with me, it'll be righty.
00:10:16.740
You call him up and he'll be able to get you sorted, but remember...
00:10:24.500
The words hung like danger in the phone line between us.
00:10:30.580
I rang the mechanic with no little trepidation.
00:10:33.800
Uncle Billy had briefed him, but I still needed to explain the specific details.
00:10:36.940
I followed his instructions and the bike coughed and sputtered.
00:10:40.240
I coaxed the throttle with careful desperation.
00:10:42.760
It caught, almost died, caught again, and then it finally roared into life.
00:10:47.480
I saw my hostess catch herself as she clapped her hands.
00:10:52.420
The shop was in a battered structure of corrugated iron on the other side of the city.
00:10:56.380
A cheap radio struggled to be heard above the sounds of a young apprentice bashing a hammer
00:11:04.840
The man behind the desk had greasy hair that matched the stains on his overalls.
00:11:09.100
I caught sight of faded tattoos on his hands and knuckles.
00:11:11.980
I had visions of him asking me if I wanted to go out with him to rob a bank.
00:11:16.140
He spent half an hour looking over the bike while I kept a respectful distance.
00:11:41.300
From that point, I was confident that the trip would be much easier than the nightmarish
00:11:46.640
There were even parts of countryside that looked vaguely green, as opposed to the death-rattle
00:11:50.460
brown which had been the hallmark of the journey to date.
00:11:53.320
I pulled into a clean-looking truck stop for lunch, where I spotted an old bike loaded up
00:12:02.060
A new bike, even loaded to the gunwales, meant the rider was older than me, wealthier than
00:12:08.660
But this old piece of scrap metal signified that the owner was a fellow member in the
00:12:14.440
I pushed open the door with a little ding-a-ling from the bell and walked inside.
00:12:18.240
There was a young guy standing at the counter, dressed in riding leathers.
00:12:21.220
He had long straight hair that almost reached down to his waist.
00:12:25.940
The lady behind the counter wrote my order with a laugh.
00:12:29.620
You two are a pair, she said as she walked back to the kitchen.
00:12:34.280
He had a friendly face and was about my own age.
00:12:36.680
We stood in silence for a little longer, and then I decided to take a chance.
00:12:49.440
I'm heading to Sydney, planning on taking the Great Ocean Road.
00:12:55.060
I got the bike there, and I, too, am going to Sydney.
00:13:01.840
It would be good to have some company, he said.
00:13:06.840
So now I had a traveling companion, and I'd found one in the best way possible.
00:13:11.020
It's usually not a good idea to begin a long journey with someone you know,
00:13:13.920
the reason being that you'll probably be at each other's throats in a matter of days.
00:13:17.680
You're thinking that's probably a rare case for best friends not to travel well together.
00:13:23.580
It's a rare case if things don't turn into a giant clusterfuck.
00:13:27.520
When you travel with someone, you have to agree on everything.
00:13:30.660
Where to go, where to stop, what to do, where to stay, what to eat, what time to start, what time to finish.
00:13:38.760
Pick the wrong traveling partner, and not only do you risk ruining the trip,
00:13:44.200
And you won't be able to fix your mistake during the trip.
00:13:46.380
How do you say to your best friend that you don't want to travel with them anymore because they're making your life miserable?
00:13:52.580
But someone you find on the way, like I had just done?
00:13:55.460
This is the perfect situation because it's easy to ditch them if they turn out to be a flake.
00:14:01.040
Oh, what a pity because I have to go to this other place.
00:14:09.500
You can't just pick up any old potential freak that stumbles across your path.
00:14:16.620
And most importantly, we shared the same travel budget.
00:14:23.720
Towards the end of the day, we stopped at a town for supplies.
00:14:26.640
And after a bit of searching, we found a good camp on the edge of some fields shaded by large river gums.
00:14:32.040
The road curved away behind the trees, and we were out of sight of a small farmhouse sitting in the distance.
00:14:36.740
I went into the trees and found some dead branches while the Frenchman picked out some large stones from a weedy area.
00:14:42.880
We cracked open some beers, and I sat down by the fire and smoked a cigarette.
00:14:47.600
Then we prepared some hot food and opened a bottle of red wine.
00:14:58.520
It's not so hard to find dope in a backpacker hostel in Darwin.
00:15:25.720
His poor attempt at humor made me suspect that I could be traveling with a moron.
00:15:43.580
Well, this is a little hard to believe, I said.
00:15:46.520
Adam and Eve traveling around Australia together?
00:15:49.980
The world is always strange, or, we are the strange ones, and it is the world who is normal.
00:15:56.840
We laughed, and he refilled the glasses, and we smoked some more weed as the night grew
00:16:00.680
dark at our little camp beneath the stand of river gums.
00:16:04.480
So why are you riding all the way across Australia?
00:16:22.240
Apparently Sydney is where you go if you want to make it big.
00:16:32.940
She lives a few hours up the coast, but I suppose that doesn't count.
00:16:44.400
To tell the truth, I'm not even sure about my girlfriend.
00:16:50.360
I was drunk, so I suppose it was stupid to call her and express my undying love at the time.
00:16:55.620
My companion winced as I went into more detail, and I told him how I hadn't spoken to her since then.
00:17:12.020
The really bad thing is that now, riding across Australia, the closer I get to her in a physical sense, the more I feel we're getting further apart.
00:17:20.380
I ride all day, and then I sit at night and try not to think about it.
00:17:24.000
About that moment when I get to Sydney, and either way, I'll know for sure.
00:17:31.460
I lit a cigarette and savored the harsh smoke in my lungs.
00:17:40.440
Then you are in Sydney, and then you must look at your problem.
00:17:44.280
But here we have the wine, and the smoke, and the company, and tomorrow we can ride again to new places.
00:17:53.300
No thinking of problems, otherwise you cannot see.
00:18:16.980
I didn't know what to do, and I was monumentally annoyed.
00:18:20.520
I figured I had to do something, so lacking any better ideas,
00:18:23.620
I walked off towards the distant farmhouse with a vague idea of asking for help,
00:18:27.300
but halfway there my courage failed me and I turned back towards our little camp behind the stand of trees.
00:18:34.600
He nodded his head at me while he fiddled around with his own bike.
00:18:39.560
I felt stupid asking the question, but sometimes curiosity gets the best of you.
00:19:01.180
Lucky I bumped into you yesterday or I would have been stuck out here on my own.
00:19:05.100
He gave me a Gaelic shrug and then we finished loading our bikes and headed back to the main road.
00:19:09.360
We were close to Mount Gambier, a large town located just before the next state border.
00:19:13.500
The plan was to get a real mechanic to find out what was wrong with my bike.
00:19:19.580
There were two mechanics working out the front in the early morning sun.
00:19:22.480
They stopped work as we arrived and came over to look at our bikes.
00:19:43.040
I assured them that I had and then I explained the problem.
00:19:45.580
They told me to leave it with them for an hour so we walked down the main street until
00:19:49.120
we found a nice place for breakfast where we leafed through the morning papers and watched
00:19:56.800
The mechanics explained that the alternator had burned out, ruining my battery on the
00:20:01.800
I thanked them and asked how much I had to pay.
00:20:07.640
I must have had a confused expression on my face.
00:20:11.640
You get a lot of respect for this trip on that bike.
00:20:16.440
I was blown away by this unexpected generosity, but I was careful not to make a fuss, as I
00:20:22.340
We all shook hands, and then Eve and I rode on.
00:20:25.980
Over the next two days, Eve proved to be a boon-traveling companion.
00:20:37.140
And he didn't crawl into my tent in the middle of the night and murder me.
00:20:39.940
But I had a dilemma that needed to be resolved.
00:20:44.000
On our third night together, we stopped on the Omeo Highway in the Alpine National Park
00:20:47.940
after a nightmare few hours spent negotiating rutted gravel roads that was made even more
00:20:52.740
frightening by the frequent invasion of large groups of suicidal rabbits that sprang from
00:20:57.120
the forest and darted between the wheels of our bikes.
00:21:02.980
A small river thundered over smooth boulders, and the mountains formed a protective bowl around
00:21:08.040
We placed some beer in the cold-running water, set up camp, and prepared a meal.
00:21:12.020
The light began to fade, and the clear water reflected the purple sky.
00:21:15.740
You could kayak that, I said to Eve, and he nodded and handed me a beer.
00:21:19.820
We drank sitting at a rough picnic table, but my thoughts strayed back to the mountain stream,
00:21:23.620
and I imagined the line I would take if I had a kayak handy.
00:21:30.180
I took a sip of my beer and peered at the rapids, growing fainter in the evening light.
00:21:34.000
What time do you think we can arrive there, he said.
00:21:38.160
I'm thinking of taking a detour for a day or so, I said.
00:21:43.400
She'd probably be upset if I didn't stop in to say hello, and it's a sure bet that my mother
00:21:51.600
It would be great if you could come, but I don't know if it'd be cool, me turning up
00:22:03.200
It's probably best that I arrive in Sydney soon.
00:22:08.160
I don't want you to think that I'm ditching you.
00:22:16.520
The ride today was crazy with all those little rabbits.
00:22:19.740
And we still have a good day's riding together tomorrow.
00:22:21.900
We can track through Tumut and up towards Gundagai.
00:22:27.520
I got out the map and we plotted the route of our last day together.
00:22:31.360
And all the while, I was aware that these last few days with Eve for company had been
00:22:35.340
a great distraction from the unwelcome reality that I was about to face in Sydney.
00:22:43.220
From there, Eve's route was a direct run to Sydney, while mine was a confusing weave of
00:22:48.260
I gave Eve Jody's address and we made plans to meet up in the next few weeks.
00:22:51.600
Thank you for taking the chance to ask me to ride with you, he said.
00:23:02.880
I held my hand in the air as he rode away, and I wondered if I had made the right decision.
00:23:08.480
After numerous stops to consult my map, I reached the farmhouse at Cherry Tree Hill Farm
00:23:13.820
My aunt and cousins welcomed me with open arms.
00:23:16.020
I enjoyed the luxury of a shower, and then we sat in deep lounge chairs and I told them of
00:23:21.120
My aunt was incredulous at my decision not to bring Eve, and I felt a deep regret at
00:23:27.900
With my arrival in Sydney due the following day, I knew I could no longer avoid calling
00:23:34.900
I had a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach as I dialed the number.
00:23:38.980
Jody answered and my breath grew short at the sound of her voice.
00:23:42.400
I tried to keep myself calm as I gave her the news that I was due to arrive the next day.
00:23:46.040
Her reaction was noncommittal, and her voice was cold.
00:23:54.760
In my head, I began to scream into the phone, demanding and pleading with her to tell me
00:24:01.360
As I said, I would see her tomorrow, and then I replaced the phone on the empty line.
00:24:05.240
The weather was foul, and the long run into Sydney unpleasant.
00:24:10.200
It took me hours to find her address in the convoluted streets and steep hills of Paddington.
00:24:14.960
Finally, I lucked upon it, and I pulled up outside a stylish terrace house.
00:24:18.960
I had completed the physical journey all the way across Australia, and now I was going to
00:24:22.880
know the result of my emotional odyssey one way or another.
00:24:28.860
It was mid-afternoon, about the time I told her to expect me.
00:24:33.440
At this point, you would have thought that I might have gotten the message, but there
00:24:39.280
My clothes were still damp, and a chill wind was blowing.
00:24:42.020
I walked back to my bike and sat on the wet seat.
00:24:46.600
Some people came out of the house next door and cautiously asked if they could help.
00:24:49.860
I told them I had just arrived from Perth, and one of them walked inside and emerged
00:24:53.440
a few minutes later with a large mug of hot tea.
00:24:55.660
I wrapped my hands around the cup and spoke with them about my trip as I kept an eye out
00:25:02.060
I think this is your group now, one of them said.
00:25:04.900
I turned to look, and one member of the group broke and ran unseeing me, and she launched
00:25:08.880
herself into my arms, and I gave her a big hug.
00:25:21.440
I smiled at her joke, but my attention was fixed on the rest of the group.
00:25:24.380
as Jody detached herself and walked over and touched me lightly on the arm.
00:25:30.480
And then she turned and walked to the door, and Susie looked at me and bit her lip, and
00:25:34.460
I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was well and truly fucked.