Curious along King William

From Victoria Square at 5:20pm I waited to cross Franklin St to work my way up King William. A man of about 25 was dancing at the traffic lights with earphones dangling from his head while waiting for the green light for pedestrians. In the hot summer Adelaide afternoon, he was wearing a brown leather jacket, black denim pants, and a red wide-brimmed hat with the words "The Big Issue" in front. As the green light came on, he walked across with his MP3 player and his music and his grey Caribee rucksack and a black swag. At stop V2 on King William St he sat under the bus shelter and dumped his swag on the floor, swaying back and forth, back and forth to the distraction of the man beside him. In a minute Bus 182 came bound for Blair Athol. The dancing cowboy boarded this bus, away from my curious surreptitious gaze.

It's good that we can have simple things like music that can make us happy, make us forget the harshness of life, the vagaries of relationships, the uncertainties of life. It's good that we all have the freedom to express our emotions, even in public, as long as we don't hurt anybody. I appreciated this swagman and his MP3 player and his party attitude even if he's the only one dancing to the tunes. With this attitude, every place can be a happy place, every weather is good weather regardless of the heat, or the wet, or the cold, every trip can be pleasant.

At 5:25pm I crossed Waymouth. On the left was the Bean Bar which boasted "Great Coffee Guaranteed". Hey that's great, I'd have some of that, I thought. But their closing time was 4:30pm. Now that's cruel but I moved on and tried to forget the depressing feeling of being deprived something I felt I deserved at that moment. Near the Ambassadors Marble Bar, a stubby-bearded man sporting a white T-shirt and grey pants and a white plastic shopping bag was fiddling with the vending machine, feeling the slots for coins left over by a previous customer. Not finding any, he turned back towards my direction and planted himself on the steps of No. 87, the offices of Nicholls Gervasi Lawyers, right in front of stop Currie/Grenfell Bus Stop.

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” Henry David Thoreau (American Essayist, Poet and Philosopher, 1817-1862). We all have our moments of desperation, moments of sadness, moments when we wished we were somewhere else, moments we would rather forget, moments we wanted to flee from. Even the rich have their lives of desperation, for happiness has nothing to do with possessions but with percepion.

I entered the Fitness First Building at 5:35pm and sat myself on an armchair on the right. There were two ladies at the counter desk, both looking healthy and fit. They were both wearing black singlets. One had a small tattoo on her back below the right shoulder, her hair tied into a pony tail. The other had blonde shoulder-length hair, wondering what I might be doing there, but didn't bother me as I continued writing. From this armchair I could see the signs by the door: Give yourself the gift of fitness this Christmas. I could see a 5-foot tall Christmas tree by the turnstiled entrance to the gym proper and the people in their shorts and shirts on the treadmills walking or running to the beat of music and the flashes of moving images from the video screens. I got up and went to the brochure corner on the right side of the counter desk. I picked up a brochure and went out of the place.

I lost about 25 kilos the last time I put some attention towards my health. Three years ago, I frequented a gym at Blacktown Workers. I combined gym work with the Paleo diet of lean meat and vegetables and fruits, no cereals, no fat, no sugar. Combined with exercise, this was great and I was never fitter in my life. But then old habits take over. They have a sneaky way of regaining influence.

I crossed Currie and walked across the other side of King William and entered Book Stars, a book discount shop. There were lines of books, art supplies, cards, stationery. I flipped through the pages of some books that might interest me. In the end, I decided I didn't really want anything and got out.

I caught a BeeLine 99B to Victoria Square Tram Stop. There I waited. An old couple were looking at the map of the City on a board. They looked like they might be lost. I thought that they might be reading the map the wrong way, so I came to the rescue and pointed out that "North is that way," pointing to the North, "if you want to go that way. " They looked at me askance and continue to talked to each other. "It's that way, that way, if you want to go there", I said, feeling proud like somebody who knew the city. Later I found out that they were just wondering about the extension to the tramway which would go all the way up to the casino at North Terrace. They were tracing on the map the route the extension would take. I found out later on that they actually live in Adelaide. I on the other hand was just visiting. I should feel embarrassed with that little incident but there was some callous character that was in me that rejected that embarrassment and made me just move on to the next page.

The Glenelg Tram finally came. I stood there in my blue long-sleeved shirt and black vest. I got my wallet out and took out a Metro ticket. A woman in her sixties in a pink dress, standing by her beige-shirted husband, asked me, "Do you sell tram tickets?" I gave her and her husband a silly look, and blurted out, "Do I look like a ticket vendor in this get-up?", and started laughing. Then they both laughed. I then said, "No, there's somebody who goes around there inside the tram to sell you tickets." The husband then said, "Now you have an interesting story to tell." And we all laughed again. They said they were visiting from Brisbane. I said I was visiting from Sydney.


29 December 2005