On the way to my mum's yesterday, driving along the Princes Freeway not too far out of Pakenham, I saw a boot lying beside the road.. A brown Blundstone, in very good nick.. What caught my eye was this.. The boot didn't look as if it had accidentally dropped off the back of a truck, nor did it look as if it had been there for long. No. That boot was a freshly laid egg. It had a purpose about it and I recognized it straight away. That boot was the first art of the trip.
It looked as if it was about to begin a life of its own.. There was some power in the way it lay.. Instead of going off on the exit to Nar Nar Goon, it was coming on.. Heading into traffic..Kicking against the flow.. On a 45 degree angle and in the centre of the bitumen it stood there catching the light on its leather skin.. A bit like the way a man might stand - his back to the sun, drawing strength from the big yellow ball as he waited alone on a road.
I turned the radio down, right down as though that brown boot had slipped through the back window while I was driving by and now was on the seat beside me. I had company for a while. The boot was with me.. I'd picked up a hitch-hiker.
I had to ask-
who are you?
how long were you waiting?
what's yr story?
I drove along smiling. I had a picture. I had a story. I wondered who'd been wearing the boot before i'd met it..
a builder or plumber- who couldn't face going to work?
a youth who missed his mum,
or his girlfriend
or his mates?
a boy who wished so badly he was back at school kicking the footy at recess
or talking to a girl in the corridor?
The boot had what's known as attitude but not something you'd take offence at, not that selfish, boorish stuff that passes for being cool. No. That boot had such a strong individual sense of itself that I wanted to put it on, hold my foot down on the pedal and for just a few kms try out some other life..
.a man's life at half past 11 on a bright winter morning..
