Put your back into it, mate
Being on the road with a mob of Australian tent boxers takes a brute strength I do not possess. I learned that even before we set off.
TULLAMORE, New South Wales – For the first few days of my stay here in this rural Australian town, my host asked me each evening if I wanted to take a shower.
I didn’t of course, but he did.
Michael Karaitiana is a hard-working, hands-on bloke who knows how to make things run. He can take apart machinery and put it back together again. He spends his days on his knees and on his back. He lifts heavy things like some longhaired Sampson.
When he gets home each winter afternoon at dusk, he’s often covered with the grime of his trade. Dirty and weary, he’ll ask one of his granddaughters to draw him a bath to soak off the strain. Then, before dinner, he may lie down on top of an electric blanket to soothe his aching back.
This is the toll a truly honest day’s work takes on a man.
Me? Well, I have spent my days twirling a pen, taking walks, pecking a few sentences onto a computer keyboard – nothing to break a sweat about. What the bloody hell did I need a shower for? I could probably go a week or more between scrub downs.
That is, until today.
You see, in a few days, we are embarking on a long trip – driving some 2,000 miles north to a wild, untamed region of Australia. We’ll take a converted city bus, a few trailers, a runabout truck and lots of heavy equipment.
And today was loading day.
Michael has spent the last week welding trailers, stopping only to chase wild goats, doing what’s necessary to make his caravan ready for the road ahead. I knew this day was coming, finally, a day of lifting heavy things, using your hands.
I worried about my back.
About 9 a.m. on a cold winter morning, I showed up at Michael’s workshop, shivering without a jacket.
He tossed me a sturdy black workshop coat.
“Here, wear this,” he grunted. “And don’t get it dirty.”
I was a journalist allowed to tag along on this epic journey into the Australian Outback. But before that, I also felt a duty to do what I could to help my host, this indefatigable man with his endless preparations.
But to put it bluntly, I am unskilled. I have no trade to speak of. I can’t wield a hammer or a drill, let alone a soldering gun.
My back is all I have.
Such as it is.
Luckily, there were a couple of other mates there with me to handle the job. Dylan is 13, Lawrence 14. Dennis, a longtime friend of Michael’s, is a few years older than me. Together, we were a May-December work team – two energetic teens and a couple of geezers.
And then there Michael: our boss man, our demanding taskmaster.
Usually, Michael does everything himself – it's the only way he knows to get things done right. And yet on this day, there was simply too much to do.
So he brought in the Four Stooges.
Our first job was to unload a trailer impossibly stacked with heavy iron bars, pegs and poles that could only be hoisted one by one. I bent over to deal with the first cruel bastard.
I pulled. It didn’t move. So I pulled harder, and felt my back respond with a sickening twitch, like a piano string that needed tuning.
Metal soon clanked onto the pavement. We were messy, careless day laborers. I smashed my thumb but said nothing. Michael would wander away to tend to another job, but quickly return to remind us that we were doing things wrong.
He was always there -- vigilant, looking over our shoulders, on the watch for a job done lamely and half-assed.
The only one not working his buttocks off was Michael’s hunting dog, Pepper, who lounged in the sun in the middle of the street.
For we four, this was the goal of the day: You did the job right and you did it quickly. You did not fuck it up. Or else, you would yet again be reminded of your failure as a man – as a bloke who could do things himself, who never called a plumber or a carpenter in his life.
One thing I realized: I was a 210-pound weakling. In the gym, I rush through my cardio and get the hell out of there. I haven’t lifted a weight in more than a decade, and it showed. When heavy lifting was required – every minute or so – my arms drooped like rubber bands.
In my entire life, I have done very little physical labor – and nothing like this. I had no clue just how heavy – and unwieldy – an iron bar could be.
And another thing: I was not used to getting dirty. I could now see how clothes could just give out from the wear and tear of hard work. We Four Stooges wallowed in dirt and grease; there was no way to avoid it. My clothes were quickly grimy. And it was only 10 a.m.
Each job seemed harder than the next, required more lifting. But you could not take much initiative, because Michael knew where on the trailer he wanted each peg and barbell-heavy peg to go. So you waited to be told what to do. You didn’t lift anything until you knew where it was going.
At one point, 14-year-old Lawrence, who has endured this drill before, joked, “Don’t finish too fast. You’ll just get another job.”
Maybe it was me who said that.
(Michael, if you’re reading this, it was Lawrence!)
We rolled and packed canvas, lights, and countless other bulky clanking things. When Michael wandered by, I announced that I had been elected union steward and that we needed hourly breaks – and a raise to boot.
Michael ignored me – our raise would be extra slice of bread at dinner -- maybe, he said, walking away.
But Michael had his own zingers up his sleeve. Every time a friend or neighbor rolled by, people who knew why I was in town, he would yell my way for effect, “C’mon, ya bloody Yank! Put your back into it! Hurry up now, or ya won’t get any dinner!”
People laughed.
No American could match the Aussie work ethic, we all know that.
Throughout the day, one by one, me and my fellow manual labor stooges would attempt to slip away from our labors on some ruse, looking for a short break from the drudgery.
But Michael was too quick for us: Before we could get away, he would call out: “Boys, come on over here a minute.”
And we would hustle to the spot.
Another job was ready for us.
As the day wore on, we carried old poles and taped them up so the asbestos stopped flaking. We sanded metal bars. We painted. We lifted truck axels, rolled mammoth tires.
My back screamed. But nothing is too heavy for Michael.
“C’mon mate, put your back into it,” he’d say. “And watch your fingers.”
As I painted, I looked down to see – to my complete horror – that I’d smeared greasy gray paint all over the front of Michael’s coat.
Doh!
At 5 p.m., the sun vanished. There was no more light – our reprieve from the prison rock pile. We were finally given permission to leave the work site. Michael stayed on, of course – there were a few more jobs to do.
Lawrence and I staggered up the road, our hands stinging from the turpentine used to wash away the sticky oil-based paint.
I took a shower tonight. When I came out, I felt weary from as honest a day’s work as I have done in years.
I felt 100 years old.
Tomorrow, we’ll lift a truck onto the top of the trailer. The plan: Michael will drive the ute up a ramp as far as it will go.
And then we’ll push it the rest of the way.
Yep, that's right, push. A frigging small truck.
At least that’s what Michael says.
You know, put our backs into it.