The Beast

It's halfway through the field season and the only bruise on my body is from the glove box compartment of the Beast.  If a road has just the right amount of bumpiness to it, the heavy metal door of the glove box comes crashing down on my left knee, prompting pain and panic as I frantically try to keep a deluge of once important papers from spilling out.  I call this routine annoyance one of the Beast's many acts of retaliation. As for what exactly it's retaliating against, we're not quite sure.

The Beast's likeness to a surly bipolar teenager is uncanny. Sometimes on chilly mornings, it refuses to start, letting instead the windshield wipers to screech deafeningly awake. Other times, the Beast refuses to turn off, despite a severe lack of key in the ignition, leaving Jon no choice but to stall out.  When it does decide to move for us, a sound halfway between a 'moo' and a chainsaw emanates from the hood, changing pitch on turns in a clear whine of complaint.

The Beast hasn't always acted out like it does now; although it has the attitude of a juvenile delinquent, being a 1981 Toyota Land Cruiser technically makes it somewhat middle-aged. The last time I rode in a car with manually rolled down windows and non-adjustable seats was at the age of six. Further evidence of its old age are its broken gas meter (which always reads empty), its poor anemic-sounding horn (which is like hearing a tweet come from the mouth of a lion), and the fact that there is no way to unlock the passenger side door from the outside anymore (a mild yet persistent inconvenience).

Yet despite the small nuisances, the Beast is the closest thing we have to a home out here. For the past four or so field seasons, it has hauled the possessions of a handful of geology students and provided us with the only distinction between the indoors and outdoors with its heavy metal frame and mud-streaked windows. Safe and sound is how you feel while careening down a dirt path in four wheel drive as the panorama of the outback whips by.

Interestingly, I have felt the most secure during rocky ascents up steep hills, a piece of cake for the Beast.  This is when you're reminded of how the truck got its name.  In Warraweena, a wrong turn put us on an incredible path to a place called 'the Lookout', a journey that involved tight turns in high places and exceptionally steep slopes with precipitous drops on either side. Although I was having a blast, I'm sure Jon worked up a cold sweat as we pitched and rolled like no other, the tilt-o-meter going berserk. Powering over the peaks of the hills was like the beginning of those steel roller coaster rides, where you're just about to go over the summit after a long climb and can't see the tracks in front of you because they're just about underneath you. The road was so incredibly steep that for the first time, we had to put the Beast in low gear, four wheel drive. Such blissful fun. It was only when we finally reached 'the Lookout' when we realized we were in the complete wrong place--the road literally dropped off just like one of those cliffs featured in those old ACME cartoons of Wily Coyote.

It's for these reasons that I don't take issue with the bruise on my left knee. This truck--although rickety and old and temperamental at times--is endearing. This summer marks the last time the Maloof Group will work in Australia, making these moments with the Beast the very last. I think I will feel a tinge of sadness when I finally see that purplish mark disappear, long after my last ride with the Beast and after we have let it go.