Part 111
Posted by Barbanne on September 11, 2003 at 00:35:06:
PART ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN
DEAD INDIAN
Travelling in a van across Australia is like being an ant crossing a tennis court. It's vast, flat, hot and boring. I yearned for the hustle and bustle of the city. I'm a city girl and all this nature sort of daunts me. The towns come and go, rarely more frequent than at least fifty kilometres apart. A small white sign announces the name, another advises the speed limit and then the vastness bleeds into scattered houses and then, there you are, a main street, shops, a pub, a petrol station, stuff like that, maybe two pubs if its big enough and then the houses start to disappear and there you are back in nowhere. If the folks in town are really civic minded then a community service board might tell you the population, rainfall, and height above sea level. (all insignificant)
Sometimes, as in Tenterfield NSW, a board may announce someone of significance actually came from this no account place. (Home of Peter Allen)
But where we were nothing too much had happened worth mentioning.
I did my share of driving on most days, although for three days I was laid low with a bout of dysmenorrhoea worse than I'd had in almost for ever and I just lay in the back of the van, sweating and moaning and being a pain in the ass to the others and wishing that I'd either die or we'd get somewhere real.
Then finally one day, just on dusk, there we were. Less nothing and more and more houses and here was the town. More than one street in the business centre would you believe!! But then this was once the centre of a mining empire that straddled this country and strutted on the world stage.
We were still cashed up from working back there in the high country town and so straight to a motel near the park. Not over flash, but not cockroach heaven either.
We took three rooms this time, one each for the two loving couples and one for Jade on her own. Lucky babe but then we'd probably be shooting plenty of Playdead stuff in her room so she'd have to live with that. We'd be staying around here for a while so the first thing on the morning after we arrived, finding Alex, Dave and Loreen in heavy conference about the doco shooting schedule, Jade and I went looking for work and landed waitressing jobs at the first pub we tried. This town had plenty of pubs so that wasn't all that surprising and, emboldened by our success, we told the lady who gave us the work about our Frankie and Johnnie turn and she said she reckoned we could be a support act on their cabaret nights which were Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
That fixed we had three hours before our shift began, (yes we started right there that day!) so we went and placed our ad in the big newsagent's window in the middle of town. Alex and the gang had gone off so I left a note saying we'd be late home as we were working again and after a quick bash in font of the bathroom mirror it was Hi Ho, Hi Ho, its off to work we go.
Well that was pretty much how it played out in that town so I won't bore you with endless repeats of what our working days were like. We got the spot doing Frankie and Johnnie and they agreed to pay us a hundred and fifty a show.
Jade and I were keeping the others in petty cash.
We also got another girl for our photo sets. She was the only answer to our ad and her name was Jay and she was, hmmmm, how do I put this, she was pretty average for looks and figure and had a scrappy tan (all over) that made her look dirty (which she wasn't) and mousey brown shoulder length hair and she was good fun and up for anything. I took an instant liking to her and so did Jade. She was out of work and unattached and a bit down in the dumps about that and I talked the pub lady into giving her some casual work with us.
That was good for two reasons, one it allowed us to really get to know each other, and two, when we had a day off, so did Jay and those days were our filming days.
Our first day off and we were going to do Indians, cowboy and Indians. Dave was available to operate the camera and Loreen was helping and Alex was working on editing stuff he had done so far.
We took the van and motored out to an area I had seen on the way into town. A really remote sort of place and a track off the main road lead into a stoney flat area with a small grove of trees. Looked perfect.
Before work the day previous, Jade, Jay and I had gone to the Big W in town and had bought g-strings, some cheap chamois to make loin cloths out of, elastic head bands, beaded necklaces and el cheapo moccasins and for Jade a fringed shirt. We'd also hit the toy section and got a couple of reasonable looking six guns and some bows and arrows and some feathers.
Me and Jay were going to be injuns and Jade was going to be the seventh cavalry, or a frontierswoman, or rancher or whatever. One day when it all came together everything would be explained.
I hope.
I have to apologise to any true Native Americans. When Barbanne and Playdead did cowboys and injuns it was a barely adult version of kids playing cowboys and injuns and our characters were based on those sort of total stereotypes as kids make them out to be or as per old Hollywood westerns of the type no longer seen unless you're like me and seek them out in the dusty back shelves of the video stores.
Sorry dudes, Barb's chance to (half) dress up and get sexy.
So, here was Jade in jeans and her fringed shirt and boots and hat and packing that six gun.
And here was Barb and Jay in loincloths (chamois cut down and trimmed and affixed to g-string to hang down front and back) and neckaces and headbands with feathers sticking up and Chinese made moccasins and bare tits and toting bow and arrows.
(not the leanest looking warriors I must admit, Jay had a girlish softness and I looked like I said before, small tits, largish bum and prominent ribs.)
Still.
What can you do?
Its a fantasy eh?
We sort of did some circling of each other and then Jay and me whooped it up and came steaming in for the attack.
Jade slapped leather (I love that talk) and started shooting.
Jay got off a couple of arrows and both missed and she looked like, "Oooops," and then Jade got a bead on her (see what I mean?) and BAMMO!
Then BAMMO again.
Jay scored two stick on bullet holes, one above the other in the valley between her breasts and started staggering around and did a great job of dying, rolling her eyes and gagging and staggering this way and then that and then a huge groan and kerunch over she went and landed flat on her back, arms and legs outflung and lying there dead as a dodo, her feet splayed apart and her fingers curled and her wide brown eyes studying the sky as though it mattered.
"Eeeeeaaggghhhhh," enraged at my lodge sister's demise I loosed off an arrow but I was as crap a shot as Jay had been and it went way wide and then I leaped on Jade and grappled with her. Down in the stoney dust we went whaling away at each other and my loin cloth whipped around exposing butt cheeks from every angle.
Jay lay where she had fallen and it was just me and Jade to the death.
She tried to bring her gun to bear but I bashed it away and we struggled like two fighting cats. (pussies eh????)
Only one problem for Barbanne the warrior squaw.
Jade was way fitter than me and in little time flat she had her hands around my throat.
"Gotcha now Injun," hissed Jade.
"Eeeagggh," said I.
"No way Injun," said Jade.
"Ugghhh," said I.
Then Jade got her hands right around my throat and her thumbs dug in deep under my jaw bone crushing flesh and closing windpipe.
"This'll teach ya Injun slut."
"Errccchhh...."
Shoulda stayed home today squaw girl."
"Eeeeeeeeeechhhhh....."
"Cop this babe."
"EeeeAaaarrkkkkk................."
"Time for ya to join ya mate over there in the happy hunting grounds."
"UUUK!!!"
Twist, dig, gouge, snaaap."
Eeeeaaaaaaaa.........................................," said I and did an eye roll and tongue flop and went limp in Jade's hands. She shook me once more and my head flapped to and fro and my hair swished and she let me go and I slid down and collapsed onto Jay.
"Whew," said Jade.
(cornball dialogue eh??")
Jay was stretched out as she had been ever since being shot dead. I was draped across her, my wampum bead necklace looking like a nice counterpoint to my blackly strangled neck, my eyes unfocussed and half lidded staring fascinated at Jay's belly button and my hair straggling in a loose curtain over my head and her tummy.
Us Injun gals was dead!
"I dunno," said Jade, "youse savages can't stand in the way of progress. When will you ever learn?"
Then she sat down and wiped her brow and said, "Guess I better clean up."
She half lifted me, still face down, and dragged me over to the trees, my toes scoring the dirt where they dragged behind me. She dumped me down and then went and grabbed Jay's heels and dragged her over too and laid her out beside me.
"Better get them naked," she said to the camera, "its what the customers want."
Me first and Jay next she stripped off our moccasins, out loincloths and our beads and headbands. Then she laid us out side by side, stark naked and on our backs and spread legged and she hummed to herself while she stroked our slackly submissive breasts and our wetly gaping and defenceless pussies.
These two red indians were two dead indians.
End of scene.
Dave got it all and we got dressed and piled into the van for the short ride back to town and a much needed bath. Well for Jay and me it was much needed having been dragged around in the dirt for the last hour.
Alex was waiting for us when we returned.
"How'd it go?"
"Good," I said.
"Well Jay what did you think of that?"
"Yeah I had fun and you guys are paying me."
"Be careful of what our Barbanne gets you into."
"You mean bare assed naked in the dirt with cars going by a half kilometre away isn't it?"
"Nah, she can think up some wierd stuff."
"Cut it out," I said.
"Its all uphill from here Barb?" said Jay.
"Well ummmm............."
"You mean it gets worse?"
Alex and Dave and Loreen and Jade were all now watching and listening."
"Mmmmmm, how'd you like to be staked out on the rocks, naked as naked can be."
I grinned and the others smiled. Jay looked at me all serious for a moment.
"Sounds great."
Then she laughed and the others joined in and I grinned slyly.
They all thought I was joking.