Bellarine Bigfoot by Ross Palmer (Shortlisted)
At 8:00 a.m. it’s already warm in Oakdene. Stan is waiting for me out the front of his brick veneer house. After some small talk, standing on the footpath, he ushers me into the garage where he shows me his collection of framed photos on the wall.
There’s something in the way he wears a running singlet and shorts above bare feet that makes me think it’s his chosen retirement uniform, no matter the weather. He’s squat, with a sag to the deeply tanned muscle of his shoulders, arms, legs.
‘This one’s from Utah.’ Stan points to a figure trudging towards the camera, along a heat hazed highway. I’ve seen similar landscapes in American movies about road trips gone wrong.
‘That’s me in the nineties – when I was first getting into it – back here in Oz… See my hair’s still black.’ Stan pauses. ‘And this one,’ he lifts a frame off the wall and brushes a thick hand across the surface, ‘This one is special.’ He hands me the frame. ‘Take a look.’
At first, I can’t find Stan. I see a landscape almost Australian, but not quite. Then I spot an animal, peeking its head up from long grass within a clearing of sparsely leaved trees that branch broadly from a single trunk. It’s a lion. Then I see Stan, glancing at the lion from the edge of the clearing, in full running gear, captured mid-stride and looking surprised.
‘Probably my scariest moment doing ultra-marathons. I was too buggered to do anything about it. I reckon it might have stopped him from having a go. If I’d stopped, or run away, might have been a different story.’ He gives me a wink as I hand back the photo frame.
‘We went all sorts of places in those days: Africa, South America, even places like Russia and Tibet.’
After a while, looking at memorabilia in Stan’s garage, we get onto why I’m really there. The week before, I was alerted to an unusual story by a friend of a friend. Their son knows a boy who works at the McDonald’s in Kingston. This boy had claimed to have seen an oversized man, naked, but extremely hairy, rummaging through bins out the back of the McDonald’s. The hairy man had run across Grubb Rd, clutching stale burger buns, dropping some of them, then had slung his huge frame over the wire fence and into the nature reserve.
After hearing this story, I had entered the McDonald’s drivethru the following day, ordered a soft serve, and asked the girl in the speaker if Gavin was there.
Five minutes later, a blonde teenager, looking like every other surfer kid on the Bellarine – wild salted hair, bloodshot eyes and a mid-neck tan line – arrived near the waiting bays, carrying a large paper cup of coke.
‘Gavin?’
He looked either side of himself as he took a sip of coke. ‘You the detective guy?’
‘I’m just writing an article. I’m not a detective.’
Gavin nodded but said nothing. I could hear the ice knocking in his drink. A Ford Territory coughed smoke as it went past.
‘You saw something strange?’ I prompted. ‘Back in winter?’
Gavin told me that for a few weeks, he’d been hearing something, on occasion, when he’d visited the bins at the start of his shift. He took me to the bins and pointed out how he’d been standing, just so – that nobody from the road or the store could see him. He toed some hand-rolled cigarette butts in the concrete gutter as he spoke. He’d been standing there, he said, when an enormous figure had pushed the lid off the dumpster and leapt out.
‘And you think it was Bigfoot?’
Gavin looked up from the gutter and cocked his head. His vague bloodshot eyes cleared as he looked directly at me for the first time.
‘You think you saw Bigfoot?’ I asked again. ‘It ran across the road. Into the nature reserve.’
Gavin searched my face with his eyes. ‘I’m pretty sure it was some homeless guy,’ he said and looked away. ‘Besides, there’s always another guy around at that time. The old guy, running, and carrying those plastic bags. If there was anything to see, he would have.’
So, after questioning a chain of business owners in Kingston Village, I tracked down Stan, who agreed to “show me something”.
Now I’m wondering why we’re in Stan’s garage, looking at memorabilia, and not at the nature reserve.
‘I want to show you something,’ he says. ‘Nature reserve. Meet you there in five.’
Just then, his wife, Maureen, opens the garage door to the interior of their home, pushes a fist of laden plastic shopping bags into Stan’s hands.
‘I’ll see you there,’ I say.
Stan doesn’t hear me. The couple are talking low as Stan edges past his wife, into the house. I just catch him say, ‘Not yet. Keep them in the fridge, I’ll come back for them.’ He closes the door behind them.
I park at the north end of the nature reserve, near the asbestos-filled building, yellow-ribboned for eventual demolition.
While I wait for Stan, I think about the late night deep dive I took into online yowie forums. Most of the forum stories followed a similar pattern: a nearly-seen creature, crunch, crunch, crunching as a shadow through trees; footprints marked by distinctive toes and wide feet; a blood-curdling midnight scream that’s all too human-like, yet not. A dozen tales, recycled with accents of subtly different flavours. What format will Stan’s take?
With a shock, I realise he’s stretching in front of my car. The windscreen frames him like he’s giving a television aerobics class.
‘I gave up waiting for you at the other carpark so I figured you might have come here.’
When I apologise, he shrugs. As he holds open the spring-hinged wire gate for me, he looks me up and down. ‘You okay to walk a bit?’
Instead of answering, I ask him about his ultra-marathons.
‘That’s a funny one,’ he says. ‘I was working at the factory. Ford. Sometimes I’d join the boys at the pub – this is when me and Maureen were going through a patch.’ He glances at me, another flick of the eyes up and down. ‘Maybe this time I’d had a bit much, kind of collected a supermarket trolley. Cop pulled me over on the highway. Young fella was nice enough. Says I’d been trailing sparks since Newcomb.’
We leave one of the access tracks onto a single track. Stan walks ahead.
‘So, when they took my licence, I had to find a way of getting to work without Maureen knowing, didn’t I?’
‘You ran to work? To Norlane? That’s got to be—’
‘Thirty kilometres there; thirty kilometres back.’
I can only see the back of Stan’s head. His voice is deadpan.
‘I’d already started running, occasionally. Deeks had won the Games in Brisbane. Rob de Castella? Back then we lived near the quarry – you know the lake used to be a quarry, right? – well, each day I’d cut through Wallington, Leopold, past the Botanic Gardens, around the bay. Straight as I could.’
Stan holds a branch back for me, our eyes meet. I know he’s not making this up.
‘That first week was a killer. I was getting up before Maureen, slipping out. Eating dinner, on the way back, somewhere around Leopold. A whole chook! My body just needed it. But it adds up, eating like that. So, I started eating from a plastic bag that I’d take with me from work. Me and Maureen weren’t really talking so it was mostly eggs I’d boil at work. Almost turned into a chook myself. I’d arrive back after Maureen was in bed and collapse on the couch. Get up next day and do it all again. The living dead, I was.’
A pair of Black Cockatoos hinge their way overhead, squeaking like rusty gates.
‘I worked my way through that tough patch, both with the running and with the wife. Learned to love again and the rest is history.’ He barks a laugh. ‘Now I can’t stop running.’
But the laugh vanishes. His shoulders hunch and, even though there are no clouds around, it’s like a shadow cools our conversation. We walk in silence for a while. I can see Stan’s ears. I can tell he has something he wants to say, just by his ears. It’s weird, but I can tell from his ears.
We walk on. Stan’s immaculately combed deep silver hair shivers with each step. On and on, we walk.
‘You wanted to show me something?’ I ask.
‘Nearly there.’
We’re a long way from the carpark. I feel Stan is leading me downwards, to some place I may not find my way back.
‘My cousin Ned thought he saw a Tasmanian Tiger once,’ I say.
Stan grunts.
‘It was the year after school. Him and some mates took the Abel Tasman over for a week. Always said he’d go back and find it, take a photo to—’
‘Bet he never did.’
‘Well, no. He passed away, not long after.’
Stan stumbles, then looks piercingly over his shoulder. I stop because he’s stopped.
‘You miss him?’
‘Of course.’
After a moment he turns, walks again.
Sharp tea tree leaves dominate eye-level here. We reach another access track. Stan turns west. I’m walking beside Stan. He’s following one wheel track; I’m following the other. I’m aware of him next to me. The indirect companionship seems to have loosened something. When he speaks, I’ve no idea what he’s talking about.
‘Our pa was a prick. Used to get rough. Some people can take it, you know? Harder. But Jarek, he was sensitive. Used to do these drawings of birds. He loved birds, nature, really. Anyway, people just handle things different. Jarek couldn’t, got himself in trouble. Eventually drugs.’
I look sideways at Stan. I feel uncomfortable. Even though I didn’t exactly lie, I never knew my cousin all that well. I’d only heard about the Tasmanian Tiger story through my Auntie.
‘He’d been living on the streets of Geelong, I heard, much later. Probably drove past him twice a day on my way to work. Hell, I probably ran past him. Was probably begging for food when I had my dinner bag. Could have literally handed him my dinner, no skin off my nose, would have been right there. Right there!’ A Bronzewing bursts from the shrubs and crashes into strappy grass.
We follow the access track in silence. When Stan pauses by shrubs to one side, he looks at me with an opaque expression and bends a branch back for me to follow onto a barely-there path. His tone is conversational when he begins talking again.
‘I eventually got my licence back. But I was hooked. When you’re in pain, all the rest falls away. Just one foot in front of the other. This place,’ he flings a loose hand to the side, ‘became my training ground.’
I wonder how many laps it would take to reach ultra-marathon distance.
We tramp through shrubs, then arrive at a small reservoir of water with a shelter beside it. Stan stops outside the doorless entry. He gazes west, through trees and across the distant paddocks.
‘Is this what you wanted to show me?’
He waves my question away with his arm.
‘This one time, I should have known better. I’d been running along the coast. Got as far as Anglesea, but stupid me, I headed back through Freshwater. Wanted to see if I could do a triangle to Geelong. Well, I misjudged it. It was a hot day, like thirty-two or something. I nearly made it. I was heading down Wallington Road and thought I’d short-cut it through here. We lived in Collendina in those days. Well, I cooked myself and didn’t make it. I found this thing – just been built – and collapsed.’
We stand there and look at the bird hide before us. It’s like a small timber viewing cubicle you’d find at the zoo. It has a glassless, narrow rectangular window which frames a gloomy water hole. There’s a couple of Gould’s bird posters pinned to an interior wall. A wood bench runs from one side to the other. I catch a waft of odour, animal muskiness.
‘I guess I’d been taking it too far back then. Finding my limits. I wanted the pain. That’s when you know you’re alive.’
Stan ignores a Spotted Pardalote that hops from branch to branch near his head. Its feathers are vivid black and orange, the white dots across its back and over its head look artificially applied. I wonder if Stan is ever going to show me whatever it is he’s brought me here for.
‘Woke up to pain something awful. My head jackhammering. Could hardly open my eyes. I was dehydrated and needed a drink, even though the sun was down and it was cold.’
The Pardalote hops to another branch. I can’t stop myself following the hyperactive movements. The way it shifts its head in screen-capture poses is fascinating.
‘That’s when I saw Big Fella.’
I look at Stan.
‘Almost didn’t see him at first. Just blended in with the edge. Must’ve been thirsty too. Had a long arm, bent like an Orangutan’s, kind of like a backhoe, scooping water to its mouth.’
Stan shakes his head slightly.
‘Must’ve sensed my heart racing ‘cause, next second, he’s staring straight into my eyes as if he’d heard it pounding. No fear in that look, just dead certainty. Stands up and steps, like he’s walking on a pair of cranes, vanishes into the bush over there.’
I look at the thick wall of trees and shrubs. I try to visualise a large creature pushing its way through. The place has a feel of age to it. A time detached from the present.
I turn towards Stan and realise he’s left. I take a quick look around then follow up the overgrown path.
We wander towards the carpark, along one of the main access tracks, side by side. I’m burning to ask Stan about his encounter. When I glance at him, his jaw is clamped shut and his eyes are hard. I wait for him to tell me more, but he diverts onto a single track, walks with purpose ahead of me. I keep up silently.
We pass grasstrees which look a little worse for wear. The trees bristle with thin, dense branches. Strappy grass fills any gaps beneath. I wonder again how a large creature could move through them.
We arrive at another access track. This one’s muddy and the mozzies attack the second Stan stops walking and faces me. His eyes drill into mine. He seems breathless.
‘I keep thinking I’ve seen him again, you know.’
A mozzie bites me, but I don’t dare slap it.
‘I’ll be out in the car, going somewhere at night. Be in my own head and then something makes me look, and there he is crumpled in a bus stop shelter. This one time I thought I saw him cross right in front of the car while I was driving up Maddens Lane. Just stride into the bush. But when I stopped and backed the car, it was some hobby farmer looking for firewood. And overseas, I even thought I saw him when running through a village in… India… Russia? I forget. Sometimes…’ Stan breaks eye contact and looks at his feet. ‘I’ll be with Maureen at the shops and there’ll be someone in front of us at the checkout, and just by the way they’re standing, even if it’s clearly not him…’ Stan looks away. He blinks rapidly and touches the corner of his eye. ‘Even if it’s not him, it reminds me of him.’
We stand there for a long while. The mozzies are merciless, and I surreptitiously brush and squash some, knowing I’ll be covered with bites later.
‘I didn’t go to ID him. Maureen had to go. Just couldn’t do it. They’d fished the body out of the bay, a real mess. But I don’t know anymore. Even Maureen says she has her doubts. I’d heard that he was in Geelong. I knew he was living rough. I knew. People had told me, and I did nothing.’
Before I can say anything, Stan turns and walks up the track. I give him distance as I follow and only catch up once we’re on the packed-sand path near the exit.
I sit in the car a long while before leaving.
Eventually I start the engine and bump along to Grubb Road. I turn left, then left again at Rhinds Road.
As I’m turning into Wallington Road, a kilometre or so before the primary school, I catch sight of something threading the shadows of the large pine trees opposite, dodging the direct sunlight.
When it turns perpendicular and leaps the farm fence to the side, I recognise Stan, his running singlet and shorts. He’s crossing the paddock under the full sun, clutching a bunches of heavily-swinging plastic shopping bags in each fist. He’s cutting a straight line towards Geelong.
I look for him after I turn onto Wallington Road and just see him pass over a rise. Then I’m too far away, taking the dip down to the traffic lights at the highway.
While I sit at the lights, I recall the last thing he said to me at the nature reserve. We’d said our goodbyes and I’d turned to leave.
‘I saw him one time, in Geelong, before we lost him.’
I had turned back.
‘Jarek. Saw him in the doorway of a shop on Gheringhap Street, sitting in the late morning sun. My baby brother. I was close enough to speak his name and he would have heard me.’
Stan had looked to the canopy beyond my head, drawn breath.
‘I didn’t.’
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