joe's organics

new car. well not new, but from 1993 and not 1983. i drive it home from camberwell with both hands clamped on the wheel, thinking about geography, the cover note on my insurance and how bright lights are when you look into them.

stop off to get some organic bubbles and veggies for dinner. joe asks me if there is some reason to celebrate. ordinarily, there's no special reason for bubbles. but tonight ... maybe my grin betrays me. the same grin as with Nessie, and she ended up parched, smoking, towed and scrapped after three weeks and 400,000kms.

so joe says, 'i wish someone had told me this when i first started to drive. you must look in the distance as well as in front of you.' He repeats it over and over in different ways. 

i'm pawing the potatoes. thumbing the tomatoes. i repeat after him each time, the same way i nod when people give directions, hoping they'll stop talking soon so i can work it out myself. someone else taught me that. i pay. he donates a bunch of goddamn mouldy bananas that'll have to be baked before they liquify, and takes me out on the street. i have the box in arms, and he is pointing at the traffic lights about three blocks away. they're green. 

'you see?' he says, making a sweeping gesture that forces me to take in the entire horizon. victoria street northcote and everything above and beyond it. 'look at what's close, but also at what's far away.'

i go home, cook up the tomatoes, watch the last of madmen series three and fight with my girlfriend.