I was woken at 6.30 in the morning to the sound of a car door slamming. Not a car door. MY DOOR! I sat up! It was him! DISASTER CHEF. Back again. Fuelled by booze for my Early morning wake up call. Pushing his massive weight into my lock. Me on the other side. Hands against the door. Body low to the ground in plank position. Every muscle in my body screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
If he had have got in he would have bashed me. And he would have got away with it. Bless me Father I have not sinned what is happening to me? how did I get here? A world where cops protect the predators as the shrinks conspire to have you sedated instead of backing you up. Nobody would have questioned him. They would have questioned me.
'Were you having sex with him?
NO
My Therapist asked me 3 times if I wanted an AIDS test after I told her I did not have sex with that man so WHY would I need an AIDS test ? Nobody was listening to me? The Cops laughed when they took the camera from my hands and asked me to hand over my other computer to him. The cops wiped my report about him bashing my door in. I kept the lock.
Insert Photo.
Thank God for the chain. So much happened that week. He came back again. He chased me from from the Piccolo Bar to the Fountain and everyone laughed in horror at the sight of a pig in a bow tie chasing the lobster who escaped his pot. Vito turned his back on me after that day. I can't believe I gave the Piccolo a chapter in my book. My whole life was a furphy. I was surrounded by Assassins and treacherous sluts. My Psychologist was Lesbian and in the old days you would assume that meant feminist but she didn't seem to believe anything I said. The masks were falling off and the hands were showing all around me. The Hidden Hand. The Midnight men and women who had baited me into their pot for a dip and then slowly turned the heat up had pre arranged their back up on the home front in my absence. Absence doesn't always make the heart grow fonder, sometimes it just allows time to water the seeds of contempt. What you don't know you can always imagine especially if she's not around to defend herself. Oh dear! I always wake up too late The Psychologists were in on it too. It was a Network. That's the only thing that can could possibly explain the stupid questions that I kept being asked by so called Professionals.
Shall I book you in for an AIDS test ?
If you ask me that again I will slap you.
'What did you do to make him so angry?'.
I said No to him. That's what I did. I said NO. NO THANKYOU. I don't want to go to a family picnic with the head of the XXX bank. I would rather mow my father's lawn.' God told me to refuse his generous offer to bring me in to his palace of glass ceilings and Opera glasses. I don't know what made me think of my Father's lawn? I never mowed his lawn and Mum didn't want me near the house because she could feel the danger. This White Brotherhood of bastards had turned me into social poison but even as I was falling down the chasm in my schism I knew I what I wanted. Disaster Chef could bait me with performance dreams but as soon as I worked out that dream was a ruse then he lost me. He had a plan for me. Even my Mum could smell a plan underway and she has Alzheimer's. He was going to unveil that plan in the car on the way to the picnic. It had nothing to do with sex. I was the decoy. His Mistress was Asian but I was the bbq duck with a bar code around my leg. There was a poster going around the FAMILY and it said AUSTRALIA"S MOST WANTED MONARCH BUTTERFLY> A slippery fish from OFF THE DISH. Big Tips for SIGHTING. REWARD FOR CAPTURE. There were all sorts of jobs going at this point of the game, you didn't even need to be qualified. It was only the best for my programming to begin with but by 2006 anyone could apply. The more the merrier.
They still wanted me alive so they could put me to work. SCHAPPELLE CORBY DREAMING. I wrote it in my book. I knew before I knew but at the same time I didn't. I didn't know I was the Great Great Grand daughter of Emille Coulon and the Octavia Hamilton. The Butterfly in me knew though. She knew when she called her book 21st Century Showgirl. It was the 19th Century Showgirl in her blood that was speaking through her. This is why they called me Moon Child. But I didn't know that either. They erased my Maternal history and used it against me. They made a fool out of my deepest knowing and made her dance for them. I didn't know this then. I only knew that I was hurting and hungry and desperate after decades of false starts for something finally happen. He did look like some sort of god when he floated into my life via facebook.
He carried a magic spatula and everything he touched took its top off and started spouting poetry. Either literally or metaphorically. I was an emotional strip tease artist turned tight rope walker in a circus that was becoming increasingly perverse. People go into the Arts for Love but they end up being taken hostage and having to hand over their souls and then they are meant to sing praises to the thief sorta like Jennifer Connelly praising David Bowie for his part in why her eyes are so dead and she looks like a smackie. It's not like you sell your soul, it just gets molested by the Sand Man when you're sleeping. You think you're in heaven but it's actually just a cool room and you don't wanna be opening any of those barrels. Jesus Mary and Joseph stay close now so I can get to the end of the story.
The man in the white coat ends up with the gig and you end up with a hook and a tag on your leg and no matter where you fly you never leave. It's worse than the Hotel California when you're captured on the Fatal Shore. My life was always too good to be true before it ended up to torturous to tell. No wonder I fled in my head. You would have done the same but at least I was co conscious so I remember the dream
I must have dreamt up the God Father of Australian Cuisine on Paradise Street in buggy Brisbane when I was flatting with that no star Chef with the homely apprentice who told me straight up. Í DON"T CARE ABOUT YOUR BOOKS> I DON"T CARE ABOUT YOUR STORIES. Ouch. That hurt a lot. That cut me up and when ever I got cut up I'd make some Performance Art.
That's how I dealt with hurt. I made Art so at least I felt productive. It was my only active form of resistance. They may kill my life but not my soul expression and I was right because now my soul expression leads me back to the scene of the crime. I may have been somewhere over the parle vous vo but at least I had both hands on the table and wasn't hiding anything.
So put yourself in my shoes which won't hurt too much because my legs are great although I seem to have lost my head. I've already been bagged if you know how to read video and if you don't then just slip under my skin for a minute and tell me what you'd do if you'd just returned from this Journey looking for the Heart of Australia only to be handed its Liver and when you finally escape home to Sydney with your heart in your throat and your pockets both empty this major league FEEDER that you've known all your life (from a distance anyway) turns up like an apparition on your facebook page to welcome you home and give you a role to play and DINNER. Did I mention the glass of red. It was very nice and to this day I still appreciate it even though know I know I was actually being fattened up for the spit at the time I was so hungry and so beat up and lost and wounded all I could think of was to be grateful for the moment and scream We're HOME TOTO!!! Yippppeeeeee.
Are you in my shoes yet are you feeling my deliriousness ? After decades of exile The Digital Diva had finally come home. Joseph Campbell would be proud of me. I had gone through the entire Heroes Journey and now I was ready to take my place in my community.
My City of Sydney had handed me the key and put out the Welcome Mat.
Well that's how it felt anyway. It felt dreamy and miraculous and familiar and such a deep relief after so many whacks and nicks and lock outs. I was the Artist in Residence at Number One no less. He came with a track record and references. He was on a last name basis with Christopher just call me Hitch ins.
All my dreams seemed to line up like ducks. Disaster Chef was a Master Chef. Lover of Writers and Funder of Song Companies and Uncle to some black fellas needing a bit of corporate sponsorship. He gave more free meals away than the Soup Kitchen when I think about it, he certainly kept me in lamb shanks and crème brulee so you could say he was everyone's Daddy Warbucks. On New Years Eve he was known to pay Musicians a thousand bucks a piece and throw good Champagne in as well. He made things happen. He'd been making things happen since I was a twinkle in this dirty city's eye. So it wasn't that I was imagining his track record. I wasn't totally delusional. He was the lovable buffoon of gold encrusted eggs and degustation delusion. He was the Wizard of Oxford Street. When he said he was opening the Bayswater Brasserie that didn't seem out of the question but his Wife looked very worried. She said 'Where are you going to get the money from Dizzy?' She called him Dizzy for short. She looked worn out after years of his bullshit. I was still somewhere over the rainbow so he looked like Santa Claus to me. I was decked out in Green and feeling like Top Elf.
Top Shelf more like it but who can imagine that a lie could be laid out so elaborately.
He took us to the Bayswater with full staff and his Architect to decide the layout for this Dream Venue. I realise now that was all a charade because he hadn't signed the contract on the building but he was creating an illusion of full steam ahead. Of course I used that momentum to contact everyone I knew and offer them a spot at the Upcoming Supper Club which I was Producing. That was the deal although nothing was signed. Nothing is ever signed. Once I'm Somewhere Over the Rainbow I'll write you an Opera for nothing and Iron your skirt just for the love of it. I'm a Theatre slave if the truth be known and some do because they were part of it. Theatre Slave is my imprint and tradition.
It's in my blood.
He thought I was a fool but I knew his wife saw my fool as a danger. They were both right I was not in control. I was Doll on fire with one eye short of a hypothesis. It's not like he didn't tell me who he was. He quoted some slutty author from the Writer's Festival in the car 'One must learn to embrace hypocrisy'. I remember feeling vaguely repulsed. I'm only ever vaguely something when I'm somewhere over the rainbow. I'm never outraged and I remember 'telling him I cannot afford to embrace hypocrisy. All I have in my hands is my through line, without that I have nothing. I told him this. He told me who he was and I told him who I was. But just as I had a blind spot about him, he had a blind spot about me. He just saw me as a Monarch slave and in this way under estimated me. Although maybe not. 'One must learn to embrace hypocrisy'. It was then I should have RUN
but I was still wound up in the dream even though the dream was already beginning to curdle I couldn't let go of it. It was all I had. It was a dream that promised me work and usefulness and a place in my city. It was an art dream, a love dream, a dream of creativity. It was a dream that had been starved for so long it was eating itself. The Supper Club Dream would pay the bills and vindicate me in one shot. He sold himself as a humble cook, a patron and philanthropist, a man who believed in civil rights and why wouldn't I believe him? Everyone else did. I had seen them share his table and stare lovingly at him after their stomachs were full. I understood it. It is normal to love those that feed us. I loved NOW he's bashing my door in. When my lock was hanging by a string but he couldn't break my chain he ran out of puff and went to get the Police. He told the police I WAS DRUNK. They asked me 'Have you been drinking'. I told them 'I've been sleeping. It was a SHOCK he's
he's got my computer. He took it/he's got it/ He's read all the contents/he's been through my letters, he's looked at my photos, he would have gone through every file searching for ways he could frame me/my documents/my passwords/ he would have read my manuscript on him/ it would have given him narcissistic injury/ it was a ripper read/ a black comedy/ now it's a horror movie/and it's all in my head/i told him i was going to write a story about him/i saw the god in him/ i saw the signs/he had a dream/i had a role/ the city opened up for me/he painted pictures/i saw shows/i saw stories/i saw videos/he told me his secrets/i don't know why he told me his secrets/he wanted to weigh me down with them/ he wanted to get my eye off the prize and to gage my corruption/it's all about intention/his intention was hidden/and all i could see was the prize so i kept racing/i kept working/kept my eye on the prize/making deadlines/he kept moving/kept moving the goal post/I kept running/kept talking/kept working/he kept moving the goal post/ I kept running/ I kept making deadlines/he kept moving the goalpost/moving/he kept/i kept/he kept/i kept/i got dizzy and tired/he got tired of me/game was over/no finish line/there's someone at my door/stop.
don't say anything/you'll never work again/he knows everyone/he has reputation/he'll shut you down/you think it's bad now just wait to see how much more you can lose/be positive/the present is a present/merry christmas/let go/start again/you'll never get any justice/it isn't the psychos that fall/it's their victims/you already know this/you set yourself up by writing that book/he knows you've been bullied before/you're the girl who cried wolf he's the fox/feeds the pack/no one would believe you/no one could imagine/people only like to see violence on crime shows/not real life/not to someone they know/chinese whispers//shut your mouth/shut it tight sew it up put on some lipstick/you can't discuss wounds while still bleeding/something stinks/it was him now it's you stench is infectious/who is watching/the neighbors will see/they will pull down their blinds/they won't ring you/it's the holiday season/a time to be joyful/if you speak fear takes over hush/now hush hush close your eyes/close them tight/no escape/he's still there/you can see him/fat fingers curling around your door trying to unlock the chain/6.45 in the morning/ my back gave out for the whole week after. My back was in shock too I think. It's been five years and I still wake up at about 5am with a jolt just to make sure I am ready if it ever happens again.
That was my Mother's Birthday.
