Today, tomorrow, Timaru

I've been thinking about leaving this town
Saying goodbye to Caroline Bay
Since you left me how can I be happy here
I've gotta go away
So I get in my car pointing it north
Heading straight up State Highway One
Maybe tomorrow I'll come round but for now I'm leaving this town
- Deja Voodoo, 2004

I mentioned the guts of the run to Christchurch is on the dull side. It’s dead fucking straight forever and a day. It’s also almost entirely two-lane and criminally short of overtaking lanes. Seriously, there’s like two overtaking zones in the 90 kays from Oamaru to Timaru (one of which sounds like, and is, the retarded cousin of the other. Trouble is, I’ve never been able to tell which is which.) On an average day, you spend half your time stuck behind slow-moving traffic looking for a place to pass, and the other half of your time swearing about being stuck behind slow-moving traffic looking for a place to pass. Of course, today wasn’t an average day, and Barry’s Pacer wasn’t an average car. Kicking down the five-speed Mercedes auto, it disposed of the 80-120 km/h sprint in barely a second, meaning you were out, past and safely back in your own lane before the dithering munter in the campervan had even noticed you existed. You’d have thought a bright orange and black Valiant with a sonic signature like Thor farting through a megaphone would have attracted their attention in some form, but clearly there were certain NZ road users whose ignorance was matched only by their self-absorption.

Of course, we didn’t go entirely unnoticed by the rest of the traffic on the national highway. From the occasional blast of salute from truckies’ horns to the carload of teenage munters who hung themselves out the window at an intersection in Oamaru to bellow ‘Fucken awesome Charger dude!’, and even the tosser in the infection-yellow FPV Falcon F6 who decided blasting past us at 140km/h was an appropriate response to the slur on his character that was our overtaking him at 115 in the previous overtaking lane. His error was continuing at the same rate of knots past the unremarkable-looking VZ Commodore in the distance in front of us. Which suddenly grew red-and-blue lights and ushered him into a gravel lay-by.

“Old taxi 1, new taxi 0,” reported Hollywood with a smirk, as the pair of them disappeared behind us.

And, of course, we couldn’t escape the attention of the Fuzzy Muff. Not for long, anyway. The Timaru coppers had a checkpoint at a set of roadworks on the southern approaches, not apparently looking for anything in particular other than something to do. They were randomly pulling cars out of the queue, though we always knew that with our rescue-flare paintjob, our chances ref. selection weren’t particularly random. I’d had much the same experience with the Atomic Mandarin back in the day, and the same (though less so) with the black Monaro. Funnily enough that Magna hadn’t attracted Constable Care’s attention in anything like the same way. In any case the young copper poked his head in the window, immediately got star-struck, asked a couple of petrolhead questions about our ride, waved a breathalyser in front of D for procedure’s sake, then sent us on our way with a smile and a wave. And much chuntering from the cheap seats about victimization and waste of resources and not ever catching the real crooks and typical Labour government nanny-state attitudes. I think Nick had forgotten his Nats had been in power for a good six months or so.

He should have been happy, at least his stage record (2h32) looked pretty safe. Just to make sure we parked up on Timaru’s grandly named ‘Piazza’ and wandered into a pub-restaurant which turned out to be the local Monteiths bar, the sister joint to Craft in the Octagon in Dunedin where we’d gone for some ales when I was over in December. We had a feed and a beer – those of us who weren’t immediately driving – and set about solving the rest of the world’s problems for it, such as whether campervan drivers would be aware if their arses were on fire, or whether thirty-two year old men should be wearing skate shoes in public. To which my response was fuck off, they’re comfy, and best of all they’ll look great with the sole print on YOUR ARSE. Being the grown-up of the group wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, but these bastards were now nearing the wrong side of thirty themselves and could afford to be a lot less smug about it all.

I’m all about efficiency, and I reckon there were massive gains to be made in the area of efficiency regarding the roadworks sites on State Highway 1 north of Timaru.

“Why don’t they just turn the entire fucking highway into one single roadworks from here to Christchurch, and save us the fucking trouble?”

There’d been three halts for digging stuff up and/or putting it back in the ground already just in the short sprint between Timaru and Temuka. Another one on the outskirts of Hinds, maybe 40 kays out of the 160 from Timaru to Christchurch, and it wasn’t just the Pacer which was starting to overheat. That big race-derived radiator wasn’t much use at idling speeds. To be fair, Barry was aware of the potential problem and had a fix in mind (an external electric fan run off the engine’s thermostat) if it turned out to be one. And at least we’d managed to find ourselves in a queue under a 3G network hotspot, so I could browse flight options for later in the afternoon. There was an Emirates flight leaving mid-afternoon to Sydney – not ideal, but there were plenty of flights from there to Brisbane later in the day. It wasn’t going to be cheap, but that said it wasn’t going to be any cheaper buying online rather than at the counter in the terminal, so rather than depend on the specious interwebs out here I decided to buy on spec when I got to the airport.

Meanwhile, Hollywood was still chuntering away to himself about various injustices, real and perceived – pleece harassment, idiot road users, the shortcomings of the old Valiant, and what he hated more than anything, our continual stuffing around, wasting time when we should be arcing towards the horizon like a ground-bound ballistic missile, like he was accustomed to on his own trans-island roadtrips. He’d lobbied hard to get Bear to concede the driving stint through Kaikoura which he’d effectively given up through opening his big mouth and sticking both his feet in, but to no avail. Pleading, cajoling, vague threats, even offers of bribery – nothing was getting him behind that wheel for the sought-after leg. I figured D wasn’t that keen on having a wannabe tarmac-rally driver – a few years back Hollywood and his old 968 ClubSport trackday car had given one of the north island Targa events a bash, quite literally as the exercise had ended upside-down in a drainage culvert – at the wheel for the twisty bits to come, and Bear was just being Bear – a wind-up merchant, when it came to Hollywood anyway. In the end we’d let him sit in the front because he reckoned he was getting carsick. Which was fine by me as I got to watch the extras at the end of the Foo Fighters live DVD while he stared out the window at the backs of the other cars in the roadworks queue. It was actually a surprisingly decent car to sit in the back of. Seats were comfy, legroom was just about adequate, vision was good, and the sound quality was excellent. Four stars. What did you think, Margaret?

The Fooies were doing Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street live as the Pacer broke stride on the long run into the next town. “Ashvegas,” D noted.

“Fuck that,” declared Bear. “Lock the doors, crank the windows…”

Most people thought Ashburton was a bit of a hole, and to be fair, it was. Apart from Bear, of course. He thought it was the greatest hell-hole in the history of the universe and should have been razed to the ground and salt ploughed into the ashes to prevent another settlement ever being established there.

“What do you have against Ashburton?”

“Jenny Shipley,” he said.

Hollywood snorted.

“What, you weren’t a uni student in the late ‘90s too?... oh yeah, Mummy and Daddy paid for you didn’t they.”

It was an old argument, one which tiptoed around the real reason for Bear’s having a set against the place: the Psycho was from Ashburton, along with the benefit-slashing former NZ PM. Most fullahs of a certain age have a psycho in their previous entanglements collection, but Bear’s Psycho was different. Hence the Capitalization. Let’s just say it involved restraining orders, changing locks, sleeping with weapons under pillows, and all manner of fun and games. Which was the reason everyone tiptoed around it.

“I call bullshit, the Psycho was from there wasn’t she?”

Everyone but Hollywood of course.

“Mate, if you love the joint so much, maybe you should move here. Who’s the Member for Ashburton now?”

“Rangitata.”

“What?”

“The electorate. Called Rangitata now.”

“Shit, done your research then? Given Johnny Key the big phone call yet? Sign me up big boy, I’m all yours?”

“Well fuck me for taking an interest…”

“Seems unlikely,” he laughed, “but I’m sure there’s someone who’d get off on it. Got to be election night groupies out there somewhere.”

If so, the ABC’s resident election geek Antony Green would be getting more than Errol in his heyday.

“Not that bad a place,” remarked D. “Decent pie shop.” But on noting Bear’s pained expression in the mirror, and the irritation in Hollywood’s eyes at the prospect of yet another delay, he added, “Not worth stopping for though.”

One of Ashburton’s crappier qualities is that it goes on, and on, and ON. It may be the longest town in New Zealand, given the length of highway it seems to have sprawled along and across, and the subsequent amount of speed-restricted frustration inflicted on the poor unfortunates who just wanted to get from one side of this benighted shithole to the other and safely on their way north. Yet we crawled through, hemmed in by a tour bus of grey people which seemed to be unfamiliar with the concept of personal space – particularly ref. lane occupation on roundabouts – and trapped behind a dodgy old Toyota Dyna three-tonne truck that belched thick black diesel smoke into our vent inlets at every gearchange. By the time we hit the 100 signs I was staunchly in Bear’s camp: level the fuckin’ joint.

Some of that frustration was blasted out in the overtaking lane leading out of town. D, whose road-rage fuse was longer than most, planted his fat right foot and the big Hemi reared like its balls had been seared with a branding iron, then took off like a Saturn V rocket. The Grey Power coach and soot-powered truck vaulted backwards towards us along with the horizon as the big Hemi revved right out in second, then lunged into third as the industrial-strength ‘box did its best to cope with the surge of torque. D got out of the throttle abruptly as the retro Charger-replica instrumentation indicated the metric ton, guiding the beast into the left lane. He’d vented. He was good. A blue VZ Commodore SV6 followed our lead, whipping past the two mobile chicanes than ducking back into our slipstream in the left lane. It was always handy to come across a wingman out here – someone who had the same idea of a safe cruising speed as yourself.

“Found a friend, D?” I noted, glancing over my shoulder.

“No mate of mine,” he deadpanned. “High-vis jacket’s a bit of a giveaway bro.”

“Ah yeah,” I nodded. “Hello orificer.”

“Drinkstable, I haven’t had a cunt all night…”

“I smell bacon. Do you smell bacon? Definitely a pork product of some description…”

And so on, and so on, until about twenty kays of up-our-jacksie tailgating later, having failed in his attempt to compel D over his self-set comfort limit of just-over-a-hundy, the lights went on and the siren started wailing, just as we’d been hemmed in by a long, narrow concrete-lined bridge over one of the multitude of rocky, snow-fed rivers that criss-crossed the Canterbury Plains. D knew the drill. He was from South Auckland after all. He gently trundled the big old Valiant onto the side of the road – but not too far off the road, because it never did to be too far out of the public eye whilst in the care of the constabulary – pulled up, killed the ignition and stretched his arms out in front of him, fingers intertwined, flexing them backwards.

The copper knew the drill, too. He took his time – a good five minutes at least – before ambling out of his car and making his way along the gravelled shoulder of SH1 towards us. He had a touch of the Brad Toogoods to him – pants too tight, shoes too shiny, sunglasses too big, moustache too gay (not that I was convinced young Bradley could actually grow facial hair) – but then again, highway patrol cops always seem like that to me. D had thoughtfully parked not quite far enough off the road such that the copper would feel comfortable about standing next to the drivers’ door with B-doubles and stock trucks whizzing past (literally, in the latter case – don’t get caught behind a stock truck on a NZ highway if you value your duco or you’re out of windscreen washer fluid), but far enough off so that he couldn’t be accused of deliberately doing so. Anyway, he was fine. He had his high-vis vest to protect him.

“Afternoon, sir.”

“Officer,” said D. The rest of us stayed quiet. Hollywood was itching to get involved, but Bear had already threatened to kick his kidneys in through the back of the seat if he started up. The copper asked to see D’s licence, which D produced. Then:

“Sir, this isn’t where I wanted you to pull over.”

D noted the ‘Rest Area’ signs in the distance, and replied, “I stopped as soon as it was safe.”

“My lights were on before the bridge. You had plenty of opportunity to pull over before the bridge.”

“That’s not how I saw it, Officer.”

“That’s how it was, sir.”

“I think you’ll find, officer,” responded D with quiet steel, “that there are several witnesses in this car who would be prepared to testify otherwise.”

Great, this was doing downhill faster than the prestige property market. About which the less said the better. As we’d waited for Constable Care, D had predicted a big brown face behind the wheel of a car like this wouldn’t win us too many friends in this part of the country. “Fucking Cantabs,” had been Bear’s comment.

“In any case,” D added, “what can I do for you this afternoon, officer?”

“I observed you driving dangerously in an overtaking lane approximately twenty kilometres back,” he noted.

“I’m sorry,” D said, as sincere as a gameshow host’s smile. As I understood it you never apologised and you never acknowledged when dealing with this lot, as admitting fault got them off the hook for procedural fuckups, for instance if the radar was later proven to be a crock of shit or something. Still, D knew the game as played in this part of the world. “Was I speeding?” he asked.

“You were driving dangerously,” the copper reiterated, clearly getting just a tad pissed off at this charade.

“But not speeding.”

“You accelerated violently and broke traction with the rear wheels,” the copper said. “As I’m sure you’re aware, given your lifestyle choice, that’s enough to have this car impounded under current legislation.”

What the fuck?

“This is your car, is it sir?”

“No it’s not,” D replied coolly. “It’s…”

“A company vehicle,” interceded Hollywood. “Owned by the three of us, not including the gentleman in the back, as directors of the company.”

“And you are, sir...?”

“Not stupid enough to give you my name, that’s for certain,” Hollywood responded. “You’re damn lucky if I don’t report you for harassment.”

The copper looked D in the eye. “Your friend’s attitude isn’t going to be helpful in this situation. I’d like to see the registration details for the car, sir.” For a moment I thought the stunt was going to go horribly wrong – did we even have the paperwork? And why did he need it given the fucking rego sticker was practically under his nose? He toddled off and left us to stew while he processed something or other, possibly a large and noxious fart. Meantime Bear explained hurriedly that under a bunch of laws brought in to curb a perceived problem with ‘boy racers’, particularly in Christchurch, various hoon behaviours had been outlawed, including doing burnouts. Some rich business type had lost his AMG Mercedes for dropping a mild burnout at a set of traffic lights up in the north island somewhere. He got it back after he lawyered-up and went after them. The funniest shit was the bit about our ‘lifestyle choice’. Clearly he thought we were the target demographic.

“Didn’t feel the back end go,” I muttered, “and I’m sitting directly in front of the fucking rear axle.”

“There’s a reason for that,” reported D. “It didn’t go.”

“Fucking shakedown,” Hollywood spat. It might not surprise you to know that his lawyer was in his cellphone’s frequent contacts folder. He had already pulled it out and was barking instructions into it for the voice recognition app to do its thing, before D planted a big brown hand over the phone, slapping it into the footwell.

“Later,” D directed. “That’s not gonna help.”

The copper came back with the news that wasn’t news to us, or even to him, since he presumably ran the plate through the system when he first pulled us over: the car wasn’t registered in the name of a company. Any company. It was registered in the name of a Mr Daniel Maxwell of Sandymount Rd, RD2, Otago Peninsula.

“Who’s dead,” snapped Hollywood. “We buried him yesterday. Do you live with your head up your backside, pal? Do you know who the hell Dan Maxwell is? Do you know who the hell we are? Sure, go on. Call up Dan’s widow Aroha. I’ll even give you the number, save you a bit of ‘detective’ work, Inspector Morse. Ask her who we are and why we’re driving his car. Harass a grieving widow over a ficticious dangerous driving charge. Classy, very classy. Just remember when you do that, that [Police Minister] Judith Collins lives in my street, pal. And is always looking for feedback on how her officers are interacting with the general public.”

Hollywood would have had plenty of material for Ms Collins, had she actually lived in his street, by the close of business. Six hours later they released him without charge, though with a couple of almighty bollockings from the senior officer at the Ashburton cop shop. We also got the keys to the Pacer back, along with a lecture about updating registration details more promptly in future. Then we walked out of the Ashburton police station into the looming dusk with every intention never to set foot in the place ever again.

“Love this fuckin’ town,” Bear grimaced, extracting a parking ticket from under the Pacer’s wiper. “Love it.”

“Has its charms,” I remarked sourly. “The road out for instance.”

“Get to see it a second time in six hours, lucky us,” Bear grinned.

We were doing all the talking, it seemed. D had retreated into a zen state of calm, lest he go all Ice-T ‘Cop Killa’ on the entire staffing content of the Ashburton police station, while Hollywood had turned a fetching shade of purple and was barking incoherent Hitlerian rage down his phone to his legal counsel.

“Fucked your flights of course?”

“You reckon?” I nodded sardonically. “Emirates left hours ago. They all did, last trans-Tasman departure was Pac Blue to Brisbane at half four. Could get a flight to Auckland and try my luck there. Think there’s a late Air NZ flight. Triple-seven from LA, continues through to Brisbane.”

“Long way out of your way,” Bear observed.

“It’d still get me home tonight,” I replied. “And get fucking Maddy off my case.” The texts and emails I was getting from dB were not overwhelmingly positive, let’s just say. It’d work, I figured. I’d get into Auckland by ten, with an hour to clear customs and get onto the Brisbane flight – tighter than a fish, but I basically only had carry-on, so that aided my case significantly.

The only issue was, I needed to be in Christchurch by 8.15, for a half-eight departure. Which meant being there in 45 minutes. And I wasn’t going to be anywhere in 45 minutes, because the fucking car wouldn’t start.

Well, that’s not quite true. I was going to be somewhere. I was going to be on a darkening street in Ashvegas with my head under the bonnet of an attention-seeking Chrysler Valiant VH Pacer stuffed full of race-derived innards, swearing in unison with my friend the Bear about the obtuse electrical system Barry had cooked up on his first attempt to run an EFI motor in one of his cars. While Hollywood chuntered impotently about the R&D spend of East Coast Bays Speed Shop vis a vis that of Porsche Cars AG, and D went in search of a SuperCheapAuto that was open.

“See, we should've just joined the fucken AA,” Bear observed ironically, after we’d traced everything obvious, run out of swear words and given up.

“I’m in the RACQ,” I mentioned. “Would that help?”

I couldn’t tell whether Bear wanted to punch me or kiss me, so I got out of arm’s reach just in case of either.

“You drive decent distances, why aren’t you in the fucken AA?”

“I drive Subies, mate,” he grinned. “The fuck am I gonna do with a breakdown service?”

We rang up the AA to come rescue the poor stupid Australian tourist (that’d be me folks) stranded outside the cop shop in Ashvegas in his flash new locally-bought hot rod that he was touring around in then taking home (lame back story but it’d do), then rang up Domino’s to come bring us cheesy goodness with processed animal on top. One plus mark for the town: their Domino’s delivery dude had no problem with (a) delivering to a car parked on the side of the road or (b) stopping off at the bottle-o en route to pick us up a dozen cold Speights, for a suitable procurement fee. After the craptastic day we’d had, standing outside the cop shop drinking beers and eating pizza was about all the Fuck-The-Man civil disobedience we could come up with. Just as well we’d checked whether it was a liquor restriction zone first. Yeaahhh, we is ROCK AND ROLL, yon homies.

The AA bloke rocked up in his yellow Hilux around nine, well after my gots-to-go time had come and gone. Took one look at the engine, one look at the reading the battery sent through his voltmeter, dropped a new battery into it, and fuck me if the bastard didn’t fire up as lustily as ever I’d heard it. Now Bear wanted to kiss him; I just wanted to punch something. Anything. Instead we thanked him, left our empties by the bin outside Ashburton Police, piled into the Pacer, flipped the town the bird and got the fuck out of there as quickly as possible. Without infringing any laws resulting from boy racer legislation, of course.

Rolleston, Town Of The Future, declared the highway signage. “If that’s the case, I’m living in the past,” declared Bear, and given he’d been right about Ashburton, I wasn’t gonna question him. It was apparently a soulless pre-planned, pre-fabricated ‘designer community’ – think Milton Keynes, Canberra or on a smaller scale, any number of identikit Stockland developments – which was remarkable only for its crapness, its large maximum security prison (not sure THAT had featured in the original ‘design’) and a large 24 hour BP Service Centre on the side of the highway. That was remarkable only because we needed to fill up. We could have done so in Ashburton, but that would have involved spending another five minutes in Ashburton. Probably could have waited for Christchurch, but Hollywood reckoned there wasn’t a BP handy to the highway which bypassed the city around its western fringe. And besides, I would have killed for a decent flat white at that stage. What I got was a barely decent flat brown, but compared to standard issue Road Coffee it was a cautious thumbs-up to the Wild Bean Café concept and all who sailed in her.

“So, remarked Bear, “what are we gonna do with you then?”

I shrugged. “Tonight’s a bust. There’s flights out at six tomorrow morning, I suppose I could kick around the airport or crash at some dodgy motel nearby…”

“Not keen?”

“I’m fucking over it,” I conceded with a laugh. “It’s getting ridiculous. Fly out tomorrow morning and I only have to turn around and fly back the day after. And for what? A couple of fucking interviews and a TV appearance. It’s my own fault, I know, but seriously. Jesus suffering fuck.”

D nodded. “Well, simple, bro. Come with.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean,” he grinned, “someone’s got to keep this fullah honest on the run into Auckland. Gets lost without sat-nav eh.”

This fullah was returning from the slashers, hair still immaculate, sunnies perched atop his forehead in case of sudden solar flares or something. Dammit he was a tosser. But today, at least, he’d suffered for his art. Problem was, we all had.

“Well, lads,” he chirped. “That’s officially a new stage record. Tuesday, January 13, 2009. Dunedin to Rolleston. 1971 Valiant Pacer… Thirteen hours, twenty-six minutes…”

At which point he broke up into giggles, and we burst into laughter along with him. Then threw shit at him until they asked us to leave.

Bear had taken the wheel of the Pacer from Ashburton. His approach to tunes was much less cutting edge than those who brought their iPod playlists to bear on the Pacer’s high-tech stereo: let the two nationally-syndicated rock FM stations argue it out amongst themselves. Hauraki and The Rock were they, the former biased more towards classic rock, the latter new stuff. Both were pretty good – made Triple M look pretty MOR, to be fair. Put it this way, it wasn’t often they were both playing crap at the same time.

I was Bear’s 2IC while the other two kicked back in the Presidential Seats (as Hollywood had tagged them.) Just needed the flag for the bonnet like our old Flange Gasket diplomatic-corps Statesman. Kinda apt as Hayabusa’s logo, which was originally the cover for their second album Competition Proven, was a pair of crossed flags a little like the Corvette badge – a chequered flag crossed with a skull-and-crossbones Jolly Roger. I could see one of each flying from the front corners of the Pacer, adding a little imperial grace and gravitas to the thunder and lightning of the thing, ripping open the night air like cutting corrugated iron with an oxy-torch.

It was just past eleven when we finally broke free of the endless succession of roundabouts and 80 zones that marked the Christchurch bypass and set off on the second half of the journey – not as far as we’d already come in distance, but given the trickiness of the terrain and the sinuousness of the road, at least as much in driving time. Though hopefully without the eight or so hours in Ashburton this time. Bear would take it to Kaikoura, or beyond, depending on how he felt – not that there was much beyond Kaikoura until you got to Blenheim – but there was an understanding there that if we got in trouble, if that 6am appointment with the Interislander (which actually meant 5am given check-in requirements) was endangered by any further delays along the way, we still had Hollywood left in the shed to bust out some of his early-morning SH1 demolition skills, which were Competition Proven in their own way. Still, we had six hours left, and a drive ahead of us that normal people could do in five. All going well, we’d be fine.

And, as if to reassure us it would, just as the 100 signs flashed up on the northern motorway out of Christchurch, Hayabusa’s own Heat Exchanger came over the airwaves.

She’s a heat exchanger, don’t want to change her
Hottest girl on record since the pink Power Ranger
Heat exchanger, so damn seductive
Never known a woman who's as thermally conductive...

They didn’t write ‘em like that any more. Nor were they ever likely to write ‘em like that again, either.