Cotton Ward

C arrived after taking a detour to get some pot. “How did the building adventures go? Did you walk by and a door fell open?”
“Haha! Yeah!”
“It was a good idea to put red cellophane around the torch.”
“Yeah, really dimmed the light.”
“Did any dogs bark?”
“Nah. We had two people as lookouts. We headed off about 1am and finished about 4am. It took two hours to undo the screws in the window. We couldn’t be seen from the street cos we had to scale a 10ft wall to get there. Getting up was easy – we just lifted each other, but landing was bad. F injured his ankle on the way out. We used a trolley on one side, but the other side was steep.
“We got to a point when we had no choice but to make a lot of noise, so we did. Nobody noticed. We were surprised at 4am when a bloke with a torch arrived at the service station next door to open up.
“We hadn’t realised it was so late!
“Noone can see we’ve broken in – there’s a piece of corrugated iron over the window. There was no electricity, but the water was working.
“It’s close to the Imperial and King Street. If people leave the squat to hang out there, we’re dead.”

“We need everyone to turn up together on Wednesday. If they’re all straggling and hanging about on the street, the neighbours will complain.
-“Too bad there’s no outside area – people will have to stand in the street to smoke.
“We’ll use an airhorn to summon everyone – Morse code to indicate ‘Rush to the door cos there are undesirables coming in” or “Rush to the exits – there’s a fire”.
-“We should use a megaphone instead so we can just say what’s happening.”
-“Who owns the building?”
“We don’t know yet. It’s recently been sold and the new owner hasn’t registered the title deeds yet. We’re hoping to contact the owner to try and get permission. Everyone’s guessing it will be demolished so prestige flats can be built.”

“I’ve done a draft letter to give to the neighbours. It has contact numbers for any noise complaints and invites them to come in and say hello, have free meals, get a program and attend the workshops.”
“Yeah, we want them to contact us direct if they have any complaints.”
“Should we spell out we’re only having two big party nites – the band nite and the dance party? So they won’t think we’ll be noisy every nite?”
“And that the police will tell lies about us if they want to close us down?”
-“One of the cops donated $10 at the RTS rally. He gave me $20 and I said I didn’t have change. But he said: ‘I can see you’ve got heaps of change in the bucket!’, so I had to give him $10 back. I still hate cops, though.”

“We might have to lock everyone in.
-“What if there’s a fire?”
“We’ll all die.”
-“Make sure the bands are good, then. I don’t want to be incinerated to the strains of shit music.”

Went to R’s place. He cooked a veggie dinner for an ever-increasing number of guests, including his three flatmates – some people didn’t like certain ingredients and he coped with it all, making it look easi peasi.

“I can’t eat a thing cos I’ve been eating all day. My flatmate went dumpster diving and now we’ve got a year’s worth of crumpets!”

“So you’ve brought some passion pop along?”
“Yeah, in my Holden stubby holder.”
“Oooh – culture jamming it!”

We read through a comprehensive outline on “What to do if the cops turn up” and went over the “Letter to Neighbours” again.

“First, close the door, slip a note under it that explains our objectives and tells them we’re only staying there for a week.
“If they try to ram the door down, we’ll say we’ve got someone chained to the back of it.”
-“Could we try to divert them by saying we’re going to blow up the Harbour Bridge?”
“Nah – we’d need to have someone standing at a public phone box for hours so they couldn’t trace the calls.”
“They have enough resources to send the TRG to several places at once.”

“We’re not to spell out that the building’s squatted – we’re still trying to contact the new owner to get permission to hold the conference there.”

“Do we need to warn everyone about how the surrounding streets sometimes have homophobic people hanging around?”
“Yeah – a bloke got killed by gay bashers just a block away.”

R showed us where he had earlier lopped off the tip of his finger.
“You should get it treated quickly cos there’s an angry red line running down your arm – it could be a creeping infection.”
This lead to a discussion about whether or not to stamp everyone’s arms when they arrive at the dance party.
“If we do, we can question them about whether they support our ideals.”
“But if we stamp them and then realise they’re inappropriate later, they could use the stamped arm to try to get back in again.”
“Better not stamp, then.”
“Just check if they’re wearing a watch – if they are, we could ask a few questions.”
[But several of us are wearing watches and others have their mobiles on the table with the time displayed.]
“We could stick a list of our ideals up on the wall.”

A bloke who’s a fireman suggested we should nick fire blankets from institutions.
-“I have a moral problem with that. It endangers lives.”
“We could do it at unis now while the students are on holidays.”

K’s article in the QR conference zine describes the Legal Group [us] as being “the coolest people to hang out with”.
“What??!! That just tells us you were stoned when you wrote it.”

B had brought about 500 euros from the Amsterdam QR and we need it as part of our total budget of about $6000.

“We would only squat buildings that are abandoned while a company decides when to demolish them. We wouldn’t squat a house my Mum was going to sell with new owners moving in a week later. It’s not worth it.”

“Don’t you resent the fact the government can dictate when and where we can gather?”

“I’ve contacted all the indigenous people I know and they’re not interested in coming. Why apologise [because no queer indigenous people are coming]?”
-“I can’t argue with you about that now – I’m brain-dead from doing 10-hr days. I can argue about it in two weeks’.”

“I’m sick of hydroponic. Wish I could get some North Coast.”

“I went crazy – licking, rimming, fucking everyone I could. I turned yellow. Felt like I was going to die for six weeks. It was Hep A. The good thing is you can’t get it twice.”

”This bloke, he didn’t do any drugs. Then he went wild. Began selling drugs. Gave up his medical degree. Disappeared for a year. Then turned up again as an ASIO informer.”

“I won’t be able to DJ – I’ll be too tired.”
-“You need pills.”
“I can’t if I want to be responsible.”

“I want to get a tattoo – a rose. But I want something a bit unique about it.”
-“Get a dagger through it.”
“Yeah, that’s original. Not!”

”Does anyone know where I can get a clown outfit?”
-“Clown outfits aren’t sexy!”
“Yes they are!! I’m on drunkclownz.com – check it out, but not at work.”

“Let’s meet at Camperdown Park so we can chat openly away from the body-saturated licensed pleasure prisons [pubs].”
Nt suggests we also play a “big bad ‘n’ mad” game of queer catch ‘n’ kiss to celebrate Lupercalia – the original pagan holiday which was replaced by St Valentine’s Day.
“It was celebrated by people clad in leather and loin-cloths running around flogging others with leather whips. You need an attitude of intense silliness and a willingness to make a spectacle,” Nt wrote in his invite.

“I spent the last two nights breaking into nine buildings, but we couldn’t find anything suitable. I needed crutches after kicking in a church door the other night.”
– “That’s GOT to be a mortal sin. You’ll have to do heaps of penance for the next 40 days. Eat fish on Fridays.”
“I can’t – we’re eating vegan all week. No real protein – my bones will go all floppy!”

“We all have to converge tomorrow at 9.30amBT [Bourgeois Time] at Belmore Park, opposite Central Railway Station, then catch a train or walk to the destination. We need at least 100 of us to secure the building. There aren’t many local cops, so they won’t be able to overpower us. They’ll leave us alone if there’s a big crowd.”
“Bring your camping stuff – untensils, sleeping bags.”
“If the police ask us to leave, we’ll make that clear so you can make a choice on whether to stay or go.”
“It’s best not to bring any drugs. If you’re going on Shitty Rail, hide drugs under cayenne pepper or within coffee – the police can take sniffer dogs on trains.”

“I’ll be arriving at the venue with a van, so I can smuggle any drugs. I won’t consume them beforehand. Remember to clearly label them with your name and address!
“We’ll have a PA sound system pumping out music by 1pm and we’ll definitely have disco by 6pm.”

Me and Nt played Catch ‘n’ Kiss.
“Catch me! Catch me!” I screamed, as Nt leisurely ran after me. He grabbed me by the waist, lifted me off the ground and swirled me round in a circle. “Kiss me! Kiss me!” I screamed. And he did again and again!