chasing ranbows

Chasing Rainbows



Colourful mum would say. Cultural dad calls him. But I call him a hippy. He lives down the street from us in his VW Kombi covered in peace symbols. He’s got rainbow dreads all the way down to his knees. He smokes god knows what out the back of his Kombi where no one can see him. I have a suspicion that he most probably has the biggest collection of bongs ever know to mankind! He wears, that is when he can be bothered to where anything, a small tight pair of shorts that are way to exposing for my liking and a tie dye singlet that has a slogan printed across it reading GO NUDE, IT’S NOT RUDE. Sometimes I see him down the beach walking up and down talking to him self. Everyone thinks he’s a high drunken freak that smokes a weed plantation a day. But secretly I thought he was pretty amazing. He was probably normal once, probably lived in a house and led a normal life. One day I finally had the courage to ask him. It was raining the day I walked over to his Kombi. I slowly made my way up to the small door, and, holding my breath, I knocked. There was no answer so I knocked a second time. “If you’re one of those dickheads from the counsel trying to get me to move, boy have I got some shit for you”. It wasn’t exactly the politest greeting, and I fought the temptation to run as I heard him stumbling towards the door. It slowly opened and there he was, rainbow dreads and all. He looked at me with his blurry eyes. “What do you want?” he said, talking to me in a rather gruff manner. “Um, well, I just wanted to ask you your life story” I stammered, “that’s all”. “Ok ,then come inside, I haven’t had company for a while now”. And so it began to unfold, his life story.
Born in America, he was abandoned at birth as he was born with a full head of dreads, rainbows and all (or so he wished me to believe) an orphanage where he grew up until the age of 6 took him in. The orphanage worked beyond the call of duty to find him an adoptive family, probably fuelled by the fact he wouldn’t stop drawing rainbows on everything. He was then abdoted by a family he stayed with until he left home at the age of 15, and that, he informed me, was when his ‘hippyness’ started. A conservative family, my hippy friend felt like the missing piece of a jigsaw. While his new family would gather around the television, he would gather under the stars, staring into that endless space, full of questions that a new 42-inch screen did not hold the answers to. At 15 he had enough of modern society and decided to escape it. He bought a Kombi, the same one he was living in now, and travelled around America seeing all the sites he could. Time passed, as time does. People came and went, then one day he heard the call of Australia “I then came to Australia” said this man with the rainbow dreads all the way down to his knees, “to just retire and hide away for the rest of my life. But unfortunately I got mixed up with the wrong crowd. Free loving they called it, fuck it’s free all right, by the time they all moved on I was flat broke and broken. I became addicted to alcohol. At first it wasn’t that bad, but soon I just couldn’t stop drinking and one night those bastards we call the cops, caught me breaking into a shop whilst I was drunk. And so I was sentenced to 1 year in jail. But I couldn’t stand the confined cell, so after 6 months I broke out and got caught again by the cops and resentenced to 5 years. It was the worst time in my whole life. After seeking freedom my whole life, then being so close it finding it, only to have it all taken away.” At that point the hippy leaned forward and shook me as he stifled back a sob. This was obviously a very bad memory for him. I gingerly patted him on the back “It’s all right” I said. After he was composed enough, he continued. “One I was out again ‘on the other side’ I knew I had another chance, afterall, all I wanted was peace man! So I hit the road again in search of my little bit of paradise. And here I am, happy to be alone with nature, growing a few ‘herbs’ bathing in Mother Ocean (Umm, I thought, we’ve all witnessed that!) not bothering anyone, and no one bothering me”! With that he shot me a glance, that signalled to me it was time to leave. I thanked him for his time, explaining the school project I was working on, then left. Once outside his little world, I stood back and glanced over this interesting man’s ‘paradise’. A wave of sadness washed over me, no one should be totally alone I thought. I knocked on the door once more. “You like to come over for dinner?” I said
He seemed taken aback, almost fearful, “Oh, don’t know if I should man, haven’t been around people for a while”
“All the more reason to come” I replied.

I rushed home to tell Mum the news, “Mum, expect company for tea, and colourful company at that”!