Nelson Street

Welcome to Adelaide, South Australia. Drive south down Marion road, then take your first left after the Raglan street lights and turn onto Nelson St. It's a long, straight suburban stretch with the local football oval down the far end. As you drive the required 50kph you really get to take in the feel of the neighbourhood, there are plenty of nice old houses, with nice old people looking after them, and the occasional brand spanking new town house, built by young couples looking to settle into nice, quiet suburban streets. You almost make it to the football oval before the perfect street reveals its perfect blemish. I lived at number 49 for five years in my early twenties; the biggest and best eye sore of South Plympton. Most of the houses on Nelson St have very open, inviting front yards with well kept lawns and nice little gardens. There's barely a fence down the whole stretch. Then, this enormous, wild, half-alive, half-dead hedge hits you like a brick through your windscreen. There's a tiny timber fence with some rusty chicken wire that once contained the beast, but eventually lost the battle, you nearly had to walk on the street to get around it. We'd regularly get little notes from our mailman stating that he wouldn't deliver our mail until we trimmed it for better access. Sometimes you couldn't even see the mailbox. But we were renting and we only ever got bills in the mail, so naturally, we ignored it. It wasn't until the council sent us a more formal letter stating that if we didn't take care of it, they'd take care of it for us and send us the invoice. The mailman delivered that one with no problem.

The front yard was quite big. You could fit three cars just on the stretch of lawn off to the right, and three more down the gravel driveway running along the left fence. We were usually at full capacity, and there was always at least one broken down vehicle that had grass growing up into its under-carriage. The best thing about the hedge was not only privacy, but security. Our cars were never tampered with and our house never robbed. Nobody would mess with this property, you'd think it was a Hells Angels safe house if you didn't see all the scruffy twenty-something’s coming in and out of the house at all hours of the day and night. At the end of the driveway was the garage that also housed an old broken down car, but this kept us from filling it to the brim with rubbish, recycling and anything else we were too lazy to throw away. In front of the garage up against the fence were the remains of a few old television sets. One was broken flying down a home made skateboard ramp; the other took a trip off the roof. In front of the porch was a little garden area that once upon a time probably looked very attractive, but it now looked like a scene from Jurassic Park; big ferns, thorny bushes, and bits of debris and broken bottles. It never would've surprised me to see a dinosaur leap out of there!

The porch, to us, was legendary. It wasn’t anything special, and it wasn’t very big, it was fairly shallow and only slightly raised, with some funky 70's tiles, but this is where the party started up and where it wound down. There was usually a couch permanently up against the massive six panel front window, and more furniture was dragged from the lounge room if needed. I've seen some crazy shit going down on that porch, some of which I swore I'd never speak of again. The hedge, along with all the parked cars, made it close to invisible from the street, so we had our own little amphitheatre between Jurassic Park and the front of the house. The front door was a big bulky monster, and closing it was a skill. You had to really slam it and pull it up at the same time (you get the hang of it after a few years though). As soon as you open the door there's a wall just three feet from your face, and on that wall was an innocent little hook. Over the years that hook had hundreds of things hung from it, everything from street signs to stuffed animals, and my favourite; the KFC excellence award complete with melted stuffed animal.

There were two bedrooms to the right of the front door. When I first came to look at the house they were patching up massive holes that had been drilled through the wall between the two. The previous tenant apparently never lived there; he just used the place to grow his 'plants'. These holes were to run power cables through to the main hydroponics room. When the mailman did deliver the mail, letters and summons were still arriving for him five years later. We never opened any of them, but they did made good kindling for the fire. We even had a few visits from the boys in blue. Everyone was looking for this guy. The story was that he'd packed up and moved to the UK. He must've known they were onto him and skipped the country (thanks for the house buddy). So the landlords patched up the holes, threw a bit of paint around, but didn't go to too much effort. They knew it was being rented out to three twenty-something's. They said when we moved out, they were going to tear the house down and build three units. I wish they hadn't told me that. They only came to inspect the property twice in five years. I wish they'd come more often. And when I drive past the place now, it's still there, only being looked after by a nice couple. Now it looks like every other house on the street. I wish they'd torn it down.

The bedrooms were all carpeted but the rest of the house had this weird imitation wood linoleum which was cheap and nasty, curling up in every corner and splitting upwards at the joins. From the end bedroom it lined a long hallway right through to the kitchen (a perfect little strip for skateboarding). Right in the middle it widened where the doors to the toilet, bathroom, third bedroom and living room were. There was a built-in linen cupboard next to the bathroom that was filled with more toys than linen; funny little things to smash or melt, stupid presents we’d given each other for Christmas and things that ‘might come in handy one day’.

The bathroom wasn't that exciting, just a simple mouldy sink on top of a rotting cabinet next to a scum covered bath and shower with disgusting tiles that used to be white (I think). There’s nothing else to mention except that if you really need to, you can fit twenty five people in there. The wallpaper in the toilet was incredible; I've never seen another pattern like it. It was mesmerising enough to take your mind off wondering if the toilet was actually going to flush. It was a tiny victory every time it did and not much fun when it didn't. For a while there the bathroom would flood too. If you took too long in the shower the drain in the middle of the bathroom floor would start to overflow and run into the hallway (the up-side was that it forced us to do our part for water restrictions). I never take functioning plumbing for granted now. It's so amazing when it works.

Across the hall from the bathroom and toilet was a large 'L' shaped room which was the lounge and dining room. We never really had a dining table and even if we did we'd still eat dinner on the couch watching TV. There was a small coffee table that I'd made in high school right in the centre of the room, and a very old, very uncomfortable couch. It was a horrible faded green and the wooden frame was held up in place by a few old phone books. There were two matching arm chairs that were equally uncomfortable and the idiot box in the corner (TV). The ceiling fan was functional but it wobbled and buckled when it span. This had everything to do with how we treated it. On our very first party it received a Pavlova as a house warming gift that showered the walls with white goo. From then on it was always sending small objects off in all directions, mainly colourful little plastic balls. I always thought it was going to fall down and kill someone, but it was still spinning off axis when I left. There was a small combustion fire which made the house habitable in winter, but we rarely had any wood. If we didn’t have a fire going you could see your breath leave your mouth as thick as cigarette smoke, like the walls of the house were merely imaginary. A large 70’s style mirror constantly had new 'art' fingered into its dust, mostly vulgar phrases or depictions of male genitalia. The mantle mostly held loose change, and an array of small junky items. But the centre-piece was the large vase we painstakingly filled with beer bottle caps. To quell boredom we would empty it out onto the table, then sit around for hours trying to fill it back up again from all angles of the room. The 'dining' room was either completely empty or filled with guitars, amps, and drum kits, depending on what day of the week it was. There once was a small white chest of drawers in the corner but it took a trip out the front door in mid air. That particular party was getting out of hand and we'd decided that if the house was going to be trashed, we weren’t missing out on the fun. Some of it kept us warm that winter and the rest remained a feature in our prehistoric patch.

The kitchen was long but not very wide. The sink, oven and fridge lined one side and the counter and pantry down the other. We had ant problems, mouse problems and even maggot on the ceiling problems. There were always dishes flowing over from both sides of the sink that were only washed when they were needed to be used again. But above the oven, was the masterpiece. Every time we cooked spaghetti (which was at least once or twice a week) we'd test the pasta by throwing it at the wall. If it bounced off it needed more cooking, and if it stuck then it was ready. I blame the scene in the movie 'The Big Chill' for teaching me this trick. I guess we forgot to clean the first couple of strands down off the wall, and it just grew into the modern Picasso that it was; long wiggly pieces of pasta weaving through-out each other, from linguini to spaghetti in all thicknesses and colours. I personally thought it was hilarious. Our first inspection came round about a year into our stay and some disrespectful person cleaned it off, I was devastated. But it took the paint off the wall in exactly the same patterns as the old pasta, so it still looked cool, and even better when the next generation of fresh pasta was flung. The fridge was always icing over and freezing everything. It usually had a very offensive smell coming from the rotting vegetables or spilled beer pooling beneath the crisper. I think we only defrosted it once and that was to see if I could fit inside it with the door closed. Check. There were two power points in the kitchen that were both broken and had exposed wiring (apparently that’s not the safest way to life). It's not like we were sticking forks in there, but I've heard stories of what could've happened to us on many occasions, I'll be fixing any broken ones from now on. The microwave worked despite our best attempts to break it with either lightning-inducing CD's or exploding apples. Above the kitchen cupboards were scores of empty spirit and wine bottles. We recycled the beer and soft drink cans/bottles only because once a month I'd load up my wagon, and we'd make enough money to buy another carton of beer. Every bottle or can is worth ten cents in South Australia and I think every state in the world should adopt this scheme; free beer is the perfect incentive to get lazy youths working for the environment. The parties definitely started and ended on the porch, but there was always a good sized crowd that would set up camp in the kitchen. 'Why party in the kitchen?' someone once asked. I thought it was for the food, or the close proximity to the fridge and its mind numbing beverages, but some genius chimed in before I had a chance to: 'Because, the kitchen… is bitchin'.

Between the kitchen and the back door there was a small, awkward little room. It housed a second fridge which broke shortly after installation, the bins (that were always overflowing), bikes, drum kits, golf clubs, and whatever else was popular that month. The laundry-room was at the opposite end next to the back door and was easily the worst room in the house. There was no natural light and the sink was always blocked and full of black repulsive water from the washing machine. Whenever you wanted to do a load of washing you'd first have to spoon out someone else's clothes that had been there for god knows how long, they were usually dumped on the floor while the new load went in, and then needed to be rewashed. That wet mouldy clothes smell is up there with one of my least favourites in the world! I'm convinced the fuse box behind the laundry door got most of the action in that room. Something was always tripping and blowing the fuses. We could never figure out if it was the toaster or the DVD player. All in all, the laundry-room was a good enough reason to wear that t-shirt an extra couple of days to avoid doing a load of washing.

The back yard was enormous; you could've fit another house in there, easily. There was a decent sized veranda across the back, with a tin roof that was really just a launching pad (for broken appliances or ourselves). It was twice the size of the front porch but just didn't have the right vibe. It was made from these horrible thick red tiles that were always crumbling and falling off the edge. There was a BBQ, a weight bench and a few fold-up chairs, but it was obvious that the spiders spent more time out there than we did. Next to the entrance of the garage was the water tank, it was contaminated before we moved in, so it was never used. One of our friends drank from it unknowingly at a party one time and to my knowledge he's still alive. The rest of the yard belonged to a hefty stretch of lawn, parted down the centre by a small concrete path. If it was kept at a decent length it would only take an hour or two to push the mower round it, but when it got out of control you could say goodbye to the entire afternoon. The Hills Hoist (clothes line) was dead in the centre of the path, and ruined every angle we had for backyard cricket or kicking the footy. Maybe it was an accident when it became permanently bent from a game of 'Goon of Fortune', but then again, maybe it wasn't. At the end of the path lay a very poorly constructed shed. It was on a slight lean with thin plywood walls and an iron roof. One night during a storm a fierce wind blew over one of the walls, but the structure remained standing. We figured we'd save the landlords the phone call and tear it down ourselves. To this day it's still one of my favourite Nelson St memories. That random Monday all three of us were home off work, we started drinking just before lunchtime and watched our housemate put on a stack-hat (helmet) and run right through the front wall leaving a perfect man sized hole. A real-life Looney Tunes moment. He finished off the job with his head and a baseball bat. The ruins lay there for at least a year or two until an amateur film-maker took it away for a film set.

Next to the 'former' shed was a very menacing looking cactus. The landlords tried to get rid of it before we moved in but as they there hacking it down they both broke out in a very painful red rash. None of us ever went near it after that. That cactus summed up the house perfectly for me. It was completely out of place in its surroundings, it was unsightly, and dangerous, yet you couldn't get rid of it. It fell over and died one day of its own accord. Just like us moving out, moving on, growing up and testing spaghetti with a fork and our mouths. We'll always need the dirty, disgusting and dangerous elements to make the beautiful, pure, and wondrous things shine brighter. That was what number 49 was to the rest of Nelson St. The same as, that's what my time in number 49 was to the rest of my life, I've been there, done that, now I don't ever have to go back. Sometimes I wake up in the night or early mornings and I think I'm back there, in my old room. But then my vision sharpens and I'm here in Melbourne. I look over and I know the name of the girl sleeping next to me, my room is fairly orderly, a few papers and clothes scattered about, but nothing broken, smashed or spilled.

The cactus is dead.