Radelaide...

I'm sitting in the truck on a suburban Adelaide street.

The back door is open and the sun is still sweet-morning warm but heading for pounding-sticky-hot by this afternoon. Last night I sat on this doorstep and swung my feet above the bitumen, brushing my teeth and looking out at the dark and the streetlights.

Christy, curled up on her bed, said, “I like you sitting there.”

We drove here yesterday. Luke and Christy have been planning and packing the truck for a week and Saturday night the back door was closed and the four bikes stacked on the back

Three shows, including a mini circus tent, a set of bunk beds and a freestanding spinning stripper pole; all of it packed into what is usually Luke and Christy’s bedroom.

We left Melbourne at six in the morning and drove all day. The bouncing old truck-cabin seats, the rattle of the windows, the v8 engine rolling us away.

We pulled over near Murray Bridge. 2 weeks ago Juchie drove into a b-double semi trailor there. I sat on the aluminium bench looking at the highway trying to capture for a moment that this is where he stopped.

me with Juchie who I was saying goodbye to

Cried. Sat silent. Cried again while Luke and Christy stayed with me. That last 70 ks to Adelaide I curled into Christy in the truck cabin looking out at the road and there was a silence that ignored the bumble of the engine.

We arrived in the late afternoon: The Garden of Unearthly Delights, still under construction. High viz vests, stacks of chairs, bright tents reaching up through curling, pale barked gum trees. A massive ferris wheel in pieces on a semi, paint being rolled onto pieces of staging, tattoos and biceps and complicit smiles.

We checked out the venues for the various shows, measuring stages with our eyes, looking at entry points for props and talking with techies. Unloaded everything into a storage container, ducking poles and the huge ratchet straps that hold up our tent as we lugged all our props from the truck.

And then we found our street. Outside Marion’s house where Dogalogue the jack russell lives and the rainwater is sweet in the back of my throat.