Shady Places

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don’t know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels

Jackson Browne

South Atlantic to Australia – August to October 2003

That in my moment of deliverance I gave a false identity might seem like a strange decision, but hear me out. If I had admitted who I was, I doubt the crew of the Supporter would have believed me. If I had told them I had been shanghaied, I would not have been able to prove it. And if told them I was on the run from a jealous husband’s friends, I may have discovered that he had a few more on board the Supporter. No, I had friends in high places, but they could not protect me here on board a pirate ship in the South Atlantic. My last gambit would have to wait until I reached home, however long that would take.

While Cabrera cooperated, Perez fumed, all the time claiming to only be the first mate, even though he had scattered his belongings about the best cabin of our ship. When grilled, he alternately claimed not to speak English or that he could not hear the questions. The rest of us were interrogated briefly but the lack of a Spanish interpreter on board the Supporter meant it was perfunctory at best.

When they talked to me, I gave my name as señor Gonzalez and my nationality as Paraguayan. My choice of flag was quite deliberate. Australia had never been as big a hitter on the world stage as the US or even Great Britain in its heyday. Our foreign affairs budget had to be spread judiciously, so where we placed our embassies required frugality. And to my knowledge – and still to this day- we have never had a post in Paraguay. How could that help me, you ask? Well, the minute I gave a name and address in a country Australia cared about, they would start making calls to that nation’s snoops and busybodies. Before I could have played my trump card, I would be unmasked as a fraud, and that wasn’t what I had in mind. No, better let the bureaucrats chase a ghost until we were home, while I made other plans.

By the time we reached South Africa in early September, a sizable contingent of Royal Australian Navy sailors took over from the security contractors. They boarded and set about ordering everyone about as they whined endlessly about the smell of rotting fish. It took almost another month before we sighted the Western Australian coast and, by that stage, I estimated that had been out of contact with everyone I knew for almost four months.

We had a decent enough rapport with our gaolers by then, so they had no complaints about us crowding the decks to look upon the sight of a new city from a faraway kangarooland. Western Australia is huge and rich in mineral deposits-like warmer version of Siberia-and all of its wealth funnelled down to Perth. The Kimberly and Pilbara regions may have riches and magnificent sunsets, but no one in their right mind would ever choose to live there. So the mining rich built their mansions and glass skyscrapers in Perth and the home sick pirates of the Virasa gawked at the newness and unlimited sunshine that drenched the place seemingly 365 days a year. All bar me. I was looking at something else entirely.

For it had only been two years since I had been in Perth and its port of Fremantle. Then I departed by ship, an ill-fated Norwegian CO-RO called the Tampa. I had another date with destiny that trip, along with an actual date with the ship’s junior officer, the very comely and tall Anna Bergman. If the fate of the Tampa had been only a gentle passage to Singapore, I still would have no more vivid memory of that voyage than the shape of Anna’s teardrop breasts. And it was while the Virasa passed the middle mole and I was dreaming about the first time that I saw, and felt, those perfect orbs that the impossible happened. An even more beautiful sight came into view; the means of my salvation.

When the Virasa finally docked, the press and the usual officials with their clipboards and ballpoint pens greeted us. My Paraguayan ancestry made their heads spin and my fluent sailor’s Spanish completed my ruse. I pretended I could not understand English and acted as discourteous as I thought I could get away with. By the end of the first few days, the officials had had enough of my attitude and put my interrogation and processing at the bottom of the pile. As far as they were concerned, my lack of cooperation would inconvenience only me. Little did they know I had other plans.

After two days they let us off the ship and sent us to live that the Flying Angels Club, a sailor’s guesthouse, in Fremantle. As we were all supposedly penniless foreigners, a long way from home, the authorities saw no reason to guard us and left us to our own devices. They provided us with clean clothes, toiletries and a little money. It was at that moment that I finally enacted my escape plan. Armed with a towel and a razor, I went to the bathroom and took off my Francisco Gonzalez disguise.

I never liked beards, as after a week I found they irritated my skin and caused me to itch endlessly. And even though the Virasa’s bathroom had been kept in pristine condition thanks to the labours of yours truly, I never shaved. First, because the beard and my long hair were additional protection from the bitter cold of the Southern Ocean. And second, because they were my only record of what had happened to me. Alone on a ship with nothing in common with my crewmates other than the crime I didn’t know we were committing, my beard was my link to my past and my home. Every day it grew reminded me I was not the man in the mirror; I was somebody else. 

It may have taken an hour, or maybe two, but by the end, the beard and my hair were back to something that I remembered. Clean shaven, short back and sides. A soldier who had forgotten himself and was now trying to make amends. From there, I donned my fresh, cheap clothes, picked up the Virasa’s logbooks and my passport and, just like those German sailors from the Graf Spee, walked out the Flying Angels Club front door and vanished.

With the small amount of money we had been given, I caught a train into the middle of Perth. From the station, it took me less than twenty minutes to walk to Hay Street and my destination; the Perth Mint.

With no fanfare, I entered the Mint and found an official and asked them who I needed to see to talk about my gold. They directed me to a side room and moments later, a bullion dealer was assisting me.

“Good morning sir,” he said. “How may I help you today?”

“I want to sell some gold.”

“Do you have it with you?”

“No, you have it here in your vault.”

“Very well. I will need to see identification.”

“Will a passport suffice?” I replied.

That I had a ready source of money in Perth was not a coincidence. I had driven there two years earlier with the specific goal of buying some gold and silver and taking it home. I had done this as insurance against the crash of the dollar, which politicians worldwide seemed hell bent on inflating into thin air. But when I saw how much I had to carry back with me, I halved my risk and left a portion in the vaults of the Mint. And it was with some satisfaction that also learned the spot price of gold had increased by fifty percent in only two years.

With my cash in hand, I wandered to the station and caught a train back to Fremantle. I took a risk by heading back to where I may be spotted by the authorities or my former crewmates, but my plan required it. However, instead of getting off at Fremantle station, I alighted one stop earlier and walked. Not back to the Flying Angels club, but the Rottnest Island Ferry Terminal on the middle mole.

From the station it was an almost five kilometre walk to the terminal, but the weather was pleasant and I felt a long walk may do me the world of good. I had spent the last few months stuck on a fishing boat and if my plan worked, I wouldn’t get to do much walking in the week. I wanted to streak my legs.

I arrived at the terminal thirty minutes later and, as it was mid-week, the place was practically deserted. I scanned about for signs of life and, other than a flock of seagulls and windblown garbage, I had the place to myself. I stepped over a small chain linked fence and into the carpark. There were a few cars there, but I was only interest in one. The one I had seen a few days earlier from the deck of the incoming Virasa; my 1982 BMW 323i.

I’d abandoned it there two years earlier after declaring that I would never drive across the country again, then climbed aboard the Tampa and into the pages of history. Expecting that it would be stolen within a week, I’d left the keys on the floor of the driving compartment and only turned back to take one last photo of the old girl. But it seemed like I had done the good people of Western Australia a disservice when I expected one of them to steal it. A disservice because, two years later, here it was an untouched bar from the damage caused by the endless gull droppings. The tires were low and would need some attention, but once I flagged down a local and got them to jump start my battery, the Beemer spluttered to life and I rumbled slowly out of town. When I reached the outer suburbs of Perth, I put air in the tyres, filled up with fuel and bought supplies at a local shop. Without looking back, I pointed my car toward Canberra and started driving home.

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