It’s 9pm and I’ve just left a networking event in Thornbury.
“Have you been waiting long?”
“No, just around 5 minutes.”
“These trams are bloody confusing, why are there so many different columns of the same hour?”
“It just means there’s different days of the week. The next tram is in 4 minutes.”
“Thanks for that. My name’s Ferret. What’s yours?”
This is the true story of how I met Ferret.
He smells of rotten egg-lettuce sandwiches and offers me peanuts he’s bought from the local Indian spices shop in Thornbury because it was the only one still open. He has recently moved to Melbourne after living for thirty years in the Dandenongs. I think he’s over 6 feet tall by the way he leans his head down to avoid hitting the overhead handhold, and has long bleached-blonde hair with re-growth showing. He adorns a pair of dusty, black velvet pants and a scruffy red jacket with numerous badges pinned on including “On The Piss”, “I Don’t Give a F*** and “Wanker”. They match his dishevelled face and his seeming inability to walk or talk straight.
As we jump on the 86 tram he tells me that he’s been scouting out gigs for his bands tonight but he had a few too many drinks with his agent beforehand and is heading home in Ashwood. He has no concept of what a socially appropriate volume is and so proceeds to speak to the whole world without care for the numerous on-lookers watch our conversation continue. He plays in three bands: Monsteria, Aminal and Glamazon. Glamazon is glam-rock: think make-up, heels & intense hair, or Bowie-esque as Ferret says whereas Monsteria and Aminal are intense rock’n’roll. They’re the same four people in each of the bands but with different outfits and different song subjects.
“What instrument do you play?”
“I’m a vocallist.”
“So you’re a singer?”
“No I do ‘ooos’ and ‘ah-ahhs’ really well but the singers do the singing. I’m a vocallist.”
Who even is this guy. Part of me feels a little uncomfortable but I feel more obliged to see this gentleman arrive home safe and sound, even if it means spending an extended period of time in a somewhat uncomfortable situation.
“Is your name actually Ferret?”
“My actual name is ‘Bolwerk’.”
“Volverk?”
“BOLWERK. B-O-L-W-E-R-K. IT’S NORWEGIAN BUT MY MATES CALL ME FERRET; IT’S A TURKISH WORD… IT MEANS FORGETFUL.”
Sure.
“Do you study Tom?”
“Yeah, I study at Melbourne just across the road from Lygon.”
“I studied too you know. I did it for thirty years, not at university though. All these guys were coming out with their degrees but I studied in the bush… bush management is what I knew… I knew every plant and every patch of grass growing from the Dandenongs down to the Southern Peninsula. That’s why I had to move down to Melbourne though, because government funding went out the window so my job no longer exists.”
I was half-confused, half-fascinated.
“Finding gigs is tough work though. Melbourne is just full-on and I’m just not used to it yet… it’s just all up in my face and I just get really anxious.”
I really felt for the guy. New city. New environment. New people. But the only words I could muster were: “This is our stop. I’m going to run for our train, will you be okay getting home?” “Yeah, I’ll be right, nice to meet you Tom.”
And so off I dashed down the two elongated escalators of Parliament and onto the train, confident that Ferret had sobered up and would get home safe. I’m still very confused about what happened but I hope he is safe and I am glad I spent 40 minutes of my Wednesday night learning about the life of an urban Ferret.
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