The Last Night on the Ghan

Wednesday February 2nd, 2000 @ 8:45 PM

Filed under: Everything, Tales Told Well

(Many will find the following tale far-fetched. That’s O.K. with me, as long as you enjoy it and learn from it. However, the story is as true as I can remember it, given my long removal from the details. I have a couple of composite passages, and I’m not sure if some names are quite right, but the essence of what happened is certainly there and I tried not to add or subtract from events as I remember them. I know it is long, but I think you’ll find it worthwhile. Carl)

Mr. Shag had an elbow like the railroad couplings holding together the train that crossed the desert vastness of Australia that night. Framed in the window behind his beastly head was what remained of a red sun still boiling below the horizon. The elbow was planted heavy on the table and joined together the fore and upper parts of an arm wrenched and twisted from a lifetime of bending iron. It looked like a swamp log. His dark eyes limned into view over the great fist. A voice crawled out from somewhere within his dense beard, “If I win mate, you know what you got to do?”

I nodded and asked with a tremor, “If I win, will you keep your word?”

The English dwarf beat him to the answer, “A course he be keepin’ ‘is word, arsehole, he can give it freely. Nobody ever beat ‘im. And you ain’t to be the first and I’ll wager you or any man.”

No one took the wager. I placed my arm on the table, measured it against his, then took it back. I placed a Gideon Bible beneath my elbow and still I came up short, but it would have to do. As we gripped each others hands and leaned in I could smell the Yukon Jack and Tabasco juice that sloshed in his tremendous belly. He grinned with clean, fine, teeth belying his ogreish appearance. I felt panic shiver through me as my hand felt the crush of his bulging knuckles. My God Almighty how I wanted to win!

The train jostled back and forth as only a glow remained of the sun, and silhouettes of shrub trees passed quietly by the moving windows. The interior of the lounge car became suddenly quiet. The eyes of all the onlookers focused intensely on the knotted hands. I took several rapid breaths and tensed every muscle I could consciously command. I could see the tattoo of a Harley chopper behind the strings of hair that covered his forehead. It glistened in sweat.

The dwarf stood on a chair and held our hands. I was surprised to notice that he had long and well-shaped fingers attached to his diminutive arms. The wee referee puffed a thick cigar and the smoke hung in my face. Then suddenly my fear was replaced with focus and I had never felt more ready in my life. The dwarf lifted his hands and the car erupted in shouts.

I leaned into my vibrating arm with my entire 225 lbs. and the vessels of my right eye seemed to burst. I could actually hear the torque of the straining biceps tendons. Blood shot from my nose and unto our grip and down the arm of the giant. I could see the veins of his neck gorge with pressure and his mouth turned down at the corners and a husky gasp broke from his lungs. The din was earsplitting now, and for the first time money began to pass and I knew I had a chance. Despite the flood of adrenaline I could feel pain wrack my arm and shoot into my chest and lungs. Even my calves began to cramp. I heard a macabre moan come out of my body, but I could not control it. I could smell the breath of a dozen men screaming in close quarters and flecks of spit landed everywhere.

It is a tale that would end in tragedy. As I look back on it now after thirteen years, the faces of that last night on the Ghan, have faded in my memory. Except for Mr. Shag and the lady with whom he would fall in love for one memorable evening.

The Ghan runs from Adelaide on the south coast of Australia, approximately 1500 miles to Alice Springs, which is in the center of the continent, near the famous Ayers Rock, which serves the country as a hub of sorts. The Ghan was so named for the Afghans who brought their camels to the great interior desert and built the railroad when no one else could. It is a land of red dirt that sports a time zone on the half-hour contrary to the rest of the globe. That year Alice Springs was hosting a dwarf-tossing contest and Mr. Shag brought his own dwarf, Ebenezer Tittes, affectionately dubbed “Little Tits” by his fellows.

Little Tits was not a nice dwarf. He was mean as a badger and always cranky. He cursed in every sentence and was given to kicking people in the Achilles tendon. I didn’t like him then, and I’m sure I wouldn’t like him now. He was to be the best man at Mr. Shag’s wedding. The wedding was slated for Saturday, the dwarf-throwing contest for Sunday. After Mr. Shag won the contest he planned to bike up to Darwin with his bride and his winnings and his motorcycle gang, which accompanied him on the Ghan. He couldn’t have guessed that he would find a new love on the train. It was I who introduced them.

It begin when a two-year old girl toddled by me in the dining car and stopped to stare. Having raised three such darlings myself, I immediately became nostalgic and set the petite cutie on my lap. Of course all such angels have guardian mothers and this one snatched the babe from my grasp and gave me a look of astonishment. “How did you get here,” she exclaimed to the child. “Mama has been looking everywhere. You’re to scare me to death…”

The mom was an attractive girl of twenty-two or so, wearing no ring, and with eyelashes that could dust a doily. I invited her and the little one to my table. Recovering her composure, she asked if the child’s grandmother could join us as well. “Of course” I replied, not wanting an elder’s interference, but knowing there was only one answer to the question.

The Grandma was a handsome woman about my age and showed up in arm with her own mother. The great-grandma was protesting that she was worried about her mother being left alone in the Pullman. “Five generations” I marveled out loud as I pulled out their chairs. “No six.” Replied the first mother, my great, great, great, grandma is going to be one hundred on Tuesday, and she’s taking all of us and her bridge club to Alice Springs for her birthday.

“Why Alice Springs,” I asked.

“Because she wants to be buried there and she plans to die on Tuesday.”

“Why?”

“Because she set a goal as a young girl to live to be a hundred and she will be a hundred on Tuesday, and she’s made up her mind to die. She’s been riding the Ghan up to visit her husband’s grave site for years and this will be her last night on the Ghan. She intends for it to be a good one.”

I found the family to be delightful company, and afterwards was introduced to the queen grandmother. She and her daughter nestled in the Pullman compartment like kittens drawn by a Walt Disney cartoonist. To my astonishment, they still possessed marvelous hair, braided into pigtails, and tied with broad colorful ribbons.

They beamed up at me, delighted that a tall young man such as myself would come to visit. I was immediately charmed by the elder, named Millie, and determined to help make her last night on the Ghan a rewarding one.

“Ladies,” I announced with the boldness of a drill sergeant. “I want to invite you all to the piano bar where I just recently was singing all by myself, accompanied by as versatile a pianist as I have ever personally witnessed. He knows every song you can imagine and can improvise anything. I even had him playing the blues.”

Millie was ever so happy with this invitation and immediately rounded up her bridge club, which consisted of five old ladies in various states of decrepitude. None was as vibrant and vivacious as Millie. Feeling full of self-congratulatory exuberance, I marched off through the railroad cars leading my troop of ancient ladies and Millie’s descendants.

We passed through the lounge just before entering the car containing the piano bar and endured smirks and derision from the gang of bikers playing poker and drinking beer. The dwarf yelled at us, “Are you taking them to slaughter, mate?”

We ignored the gang and settled about the couches surrounding the piano. The car was clean, quiet, and empty when we entered. The pianist was appropriately named “Skinny” and he grinned broadly at his new audience. We sang: “You are my sunshine, Merry Oldsmobile, She’ll be comin’ around the Mountain, Darlin’ Clementine, and some Aussie songs I wasn’t familiar with about Wallabies and Billibongs and the like. We all pretended like we were having great fun, but the ladies weren’t singing very loud and one of them was asleep.

Finally, Millie cried out, “What we need is some booze and some men.” After the shock wore off and much discussion had taken place, it was decided by unanimous vote that I should go next door and invite the biker gang over for a party. By process of elimination, they were the only candidates available on the train.

My proposal to the gang was met with such laughter that more than one man began to gag from it. They all wiped tears and when it would almost subside, somebody would burst out anew and the whole gang would be back in a state of hysteria. I shuffled and rubbed my hands together and felt my face flush a number of times. The dwarf, Little Tits, didn’t laugh. “I vote we should kick his arse,” he announced, and the laughter died out.

I was crestfallen and embarrassed, but I made one more appeal, “The guy plays blues,” I pointed out, appealing to their rough masculinity. “You wouldn’t have to sing old ladies songs.” Little Tits threw his cigar butt at me and ordered me to leave and threatened again to, “…kick my arse…”

The folly of his threat started the whole outfit laughing again, but this time it was mean: sniggers and chortles and such. I raised my eyes and looked at Mr. Shag who was studying me intensely. “How bad you want us to sing with the old lassies, mate?”

“She’s gonna be a hundred on Tuesday,” I explained. “She’s going to Alice Springs to be buried by her husband. It wouldn’t be so bad…” my voice trailed off into a silent shrug of the shoulders and I awaited my fate.

“Tell you what, laddie,” said Mr. Shag, who hailed from Scotland and Ireland, before coming to Australia to blacksmith in the outback. “We’ll all come a singin’ if you can beat me at arm wrestling.” A collective complaint went up from the gang, then the dwarf waved his arms and hushed the complainers, “You fuckin’ idiots,” he said, “You know nobody can beat Mr. Shag, what the hell ya’ thinkin’?” Then he looked at Mr. Shag and asked, “If he loses, the penalty is to hold him for me while I kick ‘is arse.”

Mr. Shag looked at me for agreement to terms. He had befriended Little Tits somewhere in Europe long before coming to Australia and enjoyed the mischief the dwarf liked to stir up. I focused on Mr. Shag, who I figured to be about six five and in the realm of 350 pounds and covered with hair. Although his hair was raven black, his beard was red like a brick. I had no doubt that he was brutish in his strength.

I was an experienced arm wrestler and knew several tricks. I was in the prime of life and in great shape, sober as a judge, and getting angry. Still the thought of having my “arse” kicked by a dwarf in front of this band of jacklegs had me seriously worried. Mr. Shag also added that after my whipping, I had to stay and play cards with them all night so they could win my money as well. But waiting in the other room were the sweetest little old ladies in Australia and I could sense serendipity hanging in the atmosphere like the smell of fresh baked apple pie. I agreed to terms.

I tasted the blood from my nose and felt his grip tighten as his eyes sparkled in the thrill of battle. He took a deep breath and roared into the smoky air. I surged against his massive arm and dove deep into black concentration. I no longer knew where my arm was. His roar broke of a sudden and he yanked his arm loose grimacing in pain and holding his elbow.

Again, the room went completely quiet. Everyone stared at Mr. Shag and waited. “You lost,” I quietly pointed out. Everyone looked at me, then back at Mr. Shag. “Shuddup you cheatin’ prick,” ordered the dwarf. “Mr. Shag tore something in ‘is arm, the bet is off.”

“I won fair and square, injury or not,” I asserted. “Mr. Shag, are you a man of your word?”

His gang didn’t seem to be taking my point of view and I received some threatening looks–the way a cat looks at a bird that just shit in his food tray. Little Tits walked over and kicked me in the Achilles tendon. I can’t describe how badly that dwarf irritated me. I turned on him and the gang moved in and grabbed my shirt.

“Let ‘im go laddies,” said Mr. Shag. “He’s right ya’ know? We’ll be goin’ to sing with the old lassies. Buy up some beer and wine and whiskey and let’s be doin’ what we promised.” He rubbed his sore elbow and bit his lip. “A man ain’t for nothin’ if he goes back on ‘is word.”

Well, they didn’t like it, not one little bit, and Little Tits refused to go at all and marched off to the bar. Mr. Shag went over and snatched the dwarf with one great paw and hauled him off the way a man carries a bucket.

So there we sat: old ladies on one side of the piano and bikers on the other, with Little Tits pouting in the corner. It was quiet. Mr. Shag sat in the middle next to Millie and it was a sight to see. She stared up at him like he was a mountain. He peered down at her like a dog discovering a bug. The air was tense.

“So let’s get her going mates,” Skinny blurted out. “With a few rounds of Row, row, row your boat.”

“Fuck off, dork,” ordered one of the gang.

“What about Mannish Boy?” I asked. “It’s an old Muddy Waters blues. We can make up verses. I’ll go first,” I suggested.

“Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, dunt,” said the piano, and I started singing, “I once met a dwarf while riding a train, his head contained horseshit instead of a brain, ‘duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, dunt’, I met his mama and asked what ever did happen, he stuck his head up a horses arse when it was crappin’.

When the laughing stopped and Little Tits was calmned down, Mr. Shag enthusiastically joined in with a booming voice, not in key, but booming nonetheless: “When I was a young man, not yet twenty-one, I shoed wild horses for money and fun, I come to Australia to get a new start, I left behind Ireland, bullet in me heart”

“It’s true,” said Little Tits from his corner. “Mr. Shag has a bullet in his heart. The doctors won’t operate for fear of killin’ ‘im, I say. If the bullet didn’t get ‘im, nothin’ will.”

We talked about the bullet awhile, then the song started back up, this time with Millie, who had been drinking from a bottle of White wine. “When I was a young girl, not yet twenty-one, I smiled at the boys but turned down my thumb, Now I’m an old gal, my breasts are all saggy, but I could go through these bikers and still do Mr. Shaggy”

That’s all it took. The night leapt into the twilight zone. Within a couple of hours everyone was drunk and singing arm in arm. Old ladies sat on the laps of hardass bikers and then the dancing began. Mr. Shag did the Shoddish with Millie and tenderly moved her about while waving off anyone who came near her. He was so aware of her fragile old bones. He took tiny steps to match hers and therein a 350-lb. man became cute as a child.

Somewhere in the early morning hours the grumpy dwarf mooned everyone from atop the piano, hoping to scare the old ladies and ruin the party. Instead, they were absolutely delighted at his tiny derrire and began to pat it and giggle, saying “Isn’t that just the cutest little butt you ever did see?”

Mr. Shag and Millie hit it off like the oddest version of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire that one could imagine. She repeatedly sat on his knee and fed him cookies that she had baked for her great, great, great, grandkids who lived in Alice Springs. He finally resorted to lifting her up when they danced and he waltzed around the room to the music. He wouldn’t let anyone else dance with her. He was afraid they’d accidentally hurt her. I heard him say, “Miss Millie, If you just wouldn’t die on Tuesday, I’d marry you instead of me betrothed.” She said, “If I’d known you was going to come a courting, I’d have waited eighty years to be born.”

When the sun shot a beam across the flat red earth and pierced the windows to the east, everything stopped inside the piano bar. It was an unspoken sign that the last night on the Ghan was at its denouement. The first mom and her little girl had long since retired. I looked around the room. Bottles and potato chips were strewn about the floor. An attendant, bright eyed from a fresh nights sleep, was picking things up. Most of the bridge club had fallen asleep, a couple of them in the laps of the biker gang members. Somewhere in the night, Mr. Shag had tossed Little Tits into a corner and he had passed out. He looked so tiny in the morning light.

Skinny had passed out around four A.M. and later recovered enough to go to his quarters. One of the bikers took over the piano and it was bad, but no one cared. Two of the gang joined in with harmonicas in two different keys. I had spent my time with the my-age mom who was a widow and quite fun. She promised to write.

Mr. Shag made Millie promise to come to his wedding. She made him promise to come to her funeral. They shook hands and kissed cheeks. He walked her to her bedroom and patted her head as he said good-bye. She put her head affectionately on his tummy and beamed up at him once again before waddling into her room. “You’re a good man, Mr. Shag,” she whispered. “I hope your wife will feed you the way I would if I was her.”

I stood at the next door with the my-age mother and watched Mr. Shag cry like a baby. Sure he was drunk, but he was a sentimental rascal as well. Everybody loved him that last night on the Ghan, but most of all Millie.

I was sitting at an outdoor restaurant in Alice Springs, writing in my journal the things you have just read, when Mr. Shag barged in with a grin, “Ah, there ya’ be, me laddie, I was meaning to find ya’ now.” We were alone but for one tourist and the waiter.

“I’ll miss you, Mr. Shag,” I said. “Why do they call you Mr. Shag, anyway?”

“Back when I just went by me nickname of Shaggy, (due to me haircut and beard) I was introduced to a nose-in-the-air gentlemen who was announced to me as “Doctor Wellburton.” I looked about at those in attendance and stood up tall, lifted my nose, and said, “How do you do Doctor Wellburton, I’m Mister Shag” I got a good laugh and the name stuck.

We made some small talk and then he smiled at me and said, “Carl, me boy, I got me pride. We got something to settle.” Nervously, I began to shake my head. He pointed at my arm and said, “There’s no bet this time, it’s just between us.” I groaned at the thought. “Hell, Mr. Shag, I’ll just forfeit. The concept of tangling with that big arm of yours makes me want to throw up.”

There it was again: that swamp log of an arm, standing at attention on my table ready to rumble. I reached deep inside and mustered my competitive juices. He had pulled something before, maybe it would re-injure and I could get away without too much stress and pain. We spent a couple of minutes securing the grip we wanted and then with a nod we attacked with mutual fury. I could hear the awful sound of torqued tendons again, but to my amazement my arm was slammed to the table like it had broken off at the shoulder. The contest hadn’t lasted two seconds. Mr. Shag held my arm down for effect and stared into my eyes. “You’re a good man, Carl, you did a fine thing last night.”

Puzzled still, I looked down at my arm in dismay, then back up at Mr. Shag.
As I stared at this crazy character I could feel the immense power in his body until he released my hand. I knew that there was never a chance that I could have beaten him. He knew what I was thinking. A slight smile formed on his mouth, and he winked at me, “I wanted to sing with the old lassies, but I had to find a way to save face with me laddies.” He patted my limp arm and said, “But like I said, I got me pride.”

Weeks later, back in the United States, I received a letter from the my-age mom. The letter, along with some other journal entries, was stolen from our Blinddog Van in 1995 in Oklahoma City. I will paraphrase its contents for you and I’m sure my memory won’t be too far off the mark.

Dear Carl,

My great, great grandmother Millie did attend the wedding of Mr. Shag that Saturday. It was at a small lake and he took his bride and preacher out in a rowboat near sunset. The gang, Millie, and others stood on the shore and watched. It was very romantic as the sun glistened across the still water.

Mr. Shag was drunk as was his bride. They stood up in the boat to take their vows and lost their balance. Mr. Shags great weight capsized the boat. His bride could not swim. Neither could the preacher, but he managed to dog-paddle back to shore. The wedding couple was wearing their riding leathers and Mr. Shag had a Harley chain around his waist as well. He struggled mightily in the water to save his bride. He did, but the effort on his bullet bearing heart was too much and it quit beating right there in the water. We could all see that something had gone very wrong. He collapsed and when they pulled him to shore he was dead.

Everyone was gathered about trying to revive him. Millie knew she could not get to him and she just turned and walked over to me and put her head on my breast and sobbed quietly. She didn’t die on that Tuesday, instead she attended the funeral of Mr. Shag who was buried on a ranch sitting on his motorcycle. I know it sounds fantastic, but it is true. The grave was enormous and was plowed out with a dozer. Everyone in attendance threw momentos and sentiments in the great hole. Millie wrote him a poem and threw in a bag of cookies. We humans can do silly things at funerals, but somehow it made a weird sort of sense, I guess.

Millie flew back to Adelaide. She is so very healthy. Who knows how long she will live. She vowed, however, never to take the railroad again. That was her last night on the Gahn.

I felt as though a great light had gone out or a grand tree had been uprooted–such a life force was Mr. Shag. I learned that it doesn’t matter how old you are, or how healthy, you never know which ride will be your last night on the Ghan. We always think there are many days to live and to love and to fulfill our dreams, yet you just never know. It behooves us to make our days count and to give what we have to give to this world.

The matrix that allowed the whole episode to take place was music. Music drew the diverse souls with its call. It provided a common ground for the strangest of gatherings, and does every single day of our lives. It makes people share feelings and emotions and fantastic thoughts together. It crosses all boundaries and races and ages. There is quite simply nothing like it to quickly bond disparate mankind.

I think of the last night on the Ghan often in my life, especially when Blinddog Smokin’ comes to perform. Whether for a new audience of strangers, or old friends and fans whom we have come to love. “Play with your might,” I think to myself. “Give the people your energy, your talent, your affection. Take them somewhere above and beyond the mundane. Let them exhilarate. Let them feel it together. Make a memory. Do it tonight, because for someone in the band or the audience, it may be the final show.”

I think of Mr. Shag in his huge grave, a grinning skeleton riding his Harley, the mighty arm bones that pinned me to the table, still grasping the bike handles. I have always felt that I owed him something for what he did to help me and the old ones with that clever sacrificial move of his. So here is what I did. I went back to my journal and resurrected his story, and now tonight, for 372 subscribers from all states and many countries, I allowed him to live out in your minds, his last night on the Ghan.

Posted by Carl