The Magic of Dusty McFookit

I have a confession to make about Dusty Gulch.

It was always political.

Not party political, necessarily, although there has been plenty of that wandering around in the undergrowth.

But from the beginning, the stories have been my way of looking at what is happening in the real world and then turning it into a fable.

A rather odd fable, admittedly.

I take something happening in Australia, or elsewhere, put it through the Dusty Gulch machine, add a rat, several cats, an emu, a camel, a wallaby with titanium knees, a rolling pin and an alarming amount of gold, and see what comes out the other end.

Sometimes what goes into the Dusty Gulch machine isn't funny at all.

It might be the price of diesel. The cost of feeding a family. Trying to get medical care. Trying to find somewhere to live.

And that last one has become particularly bloody strange.

You can have a job. You can have children. You can be doing everything you were told you were supposed to do, and still find yourself looking at a rental queue and wondering where the hell you're going to live.

So what does my brain do with that?

Apparently, it sends a rat out of an abandoned wombat burrow to go to work.

It is easier to say some things when you're pretending you're talking about a camel. Or a mountain. Or a mayor in a burka. Or a rather talented rat journalist wearing a fedora. The real world is still there underneath it all.

Much like McFookit Peak. The mountain is there. It is simply hidden beneath a concealment shield. 

I always knew that.

What I didn't know was how many of you were going to see through the bloody thing.

Apparently, you have been watching Dusty

The comments on the latest Ratty News adventure have surprised me.

Not because people noticed the politics. I expected that.

What surprised me was what people noticed about Dusty McFookit.

I created Dusty as a bush mayor, a bloke with a Hilux, a pair of thongs and a willingness to get involved when something needs doing. I didn't sit down and write a character analysis of him. I certainly didn't decide that he was going to become some sort of philosophical representation of the ordinary Australian bloke.

He just sort of... became Dusty.

Then the readers started explaining him to me.

One person pointed out that the mountain, the gold, the black gold, the Whiskers Dynamic Propulsion unit, the concealment shield, the cameras, the rolling pin and the Feline Force Five don't actually work without somebody who will simply do the thing.

Dusty loads the camel. Starts the Hilux. Drives.

He doesn't need the full briefing.

Another reader put it even more simply:

He does not wait for a committee.

Well. Just a bunch of mates. 

There is something very Australian about that.

There is a particular sort of person who sees that something isn't working and doesn't immediately ask who is responsible for fixing it.

They fix it. The gate is broken. Fix the gate. The ute won't start. Have a look. The neighbour is in trouble. Go and help. 

There will be time for the paperwork later. Or perhaps there won't.

Either way, the job gets done.

Dusty isn't disposable

Another reader noticed something I had never really put into words.

Dusty isn't being sent into danger because he is expendable. He is being protected because he is trusted. That distinction matters.

Mrs McFookit's order is explicit: protect Dusty at all costs. Why? 

Nobody looks twice when Dusty McFookit drives past.

Why would they? It's Dusty.

He isn't a conspirator. He isn't a shapeshifter. He isn't a rat with a secret brief. 

He is the bloke who takes the ute. And that makes him extraordinarily useful to people who cannot move openly.

There is something rather lovely in that.

Dusty doesn't need to understand every secret beneath McFookit Peak.

He needs to be the man everyone knows he is.

Reliable. Visible. Trusted.

And prepared to do the job. 

Then there is Maureen

And if Dusty has surprised me, Mrs McFookit has surprised me even more.

Maureen was never entirely invented.

She came partly from my own Mum, who is ninety-four, and mostly from the real Asian wife of one of our bushie readers.

Both women have that quality I recognise immediately. Competence. You don't necessarily notice it when everything is going well. You notice it when something goes wrong. 

Then suddenly you realise that somebody has been keeping an eye on things all along. One of our readers described Maureen as the town's "quiet general."

I rather like that. My late Dad would too. 

But beneath that quiet confidence there is a great enthusiasm for life. When things go well, they are cheering and unashamedly joyful. Yet somehow, there is always that underyling knowledge that it will " be back to business " when the need arises. 

Another described her as a domestic strategist, covert operative, former Cat Force Five, calm, competent and terrifying.

That also seems about right. Her kitchen is not merely decor. And the rolling pin is not merely a rolling pin.

Although I suspect Dusty would be wise not to forget that.

One older woman reader wrote that she likes to think all real women have a bit of Mrs McFookit in them.

She sees the woman who tucks Dusty in, puts the rolling pin within reach and keeps watch.

Then, every now and again, Maureen flickers back into that earlier form -  all elegance and danger -  before thumping Dusty about the leaky tap and the fitted-sheet parachute.

I laughed.

Because that is Maureen.

And perhaps there is a bit of her in more women than we realise.

And then a comment stopped me

One of our bush copper readers was badly injured some months ago when a newly rescued horse kicked him. The horse was named Trevor. Of course it was. He nearly lost his spleen and has had a bloody tough recovery.

Then he wrote this:

"Mrs Bushie has been like Mrs McFookit since my accident. I am so grateful for what she did when she stepped in with her rolling pin. I had not thought about it like that until now."

That got me.

Because his wife didn't become Mrs McFookit because I wrote a story. She was already doing what Mrs McFookit does. She stepped in. She looked after him. She took charge when she needed to. She kept things moving while he was injured.

The story simply gave him another way of seeing it.

And perhaps that is what stories are supposed to do.

Not tell people what to think.

Sometimes just give them a different window through which to look at something they already know.

The ordinary people underneath the fable

This is where Dusty Gulch has surprised me.

I thought I was hiding the real world under a veil of allegory.

Instead, the readers have started lifting the veil and finding themselves underneath it. The bloke who turns up. The woman who quietly keeps everything together. The neighbour who fixes the gate. The person who doesn't wait for somebody else to take responsibility.

The person who doesn't need to be told the whole story before helping. The people who simply do "the thing."

It is about how we live together.

Governments can make laws. Institutions can make policies. Committees can write reports. Experts can explain problems. Leaders can make speeches.

But eventually somebody still has to get out of the chair and do the right bloody "  thing."

A country is not held together only by the people whose names we know.

It is held together by millions of people doing things that will never make the news.

They turn up. They care for somebody. They fix something. They lend a hand. They take responsibility. They keep watch. They get on with it. And most of the time they don't think they're doing anything particularly remarkable. They're just doing what needs doing.

Perhaps that's why Dusty works

Dusty isn't the smartest man in the Gulch. He doesn't have all the answers. He doesn't even have all the information. But he can be trusted.

That may be more important. He doesn't need to be the hero. He doesn't need to give a speech. He doesn't need to tell us how patriotic he is.

He just gets in the Hilux.

And goes.

Maureen doesn't need to stand on a platform either. She watches. She knows. She prepares. She keeps Dusty alive. And occasionally she thumps him about the plumbing.

It is a partnership.

Not because they are identical.

Because they know what the other is good at. Dusty is visible. Maureen is often hidden. Dusty goes out into the world. Maureen makes sure the world doesn't swallow him.

And somehow, between the two of them, Dusty Gulch keeps going.

The concealment shield

I suppose that brings me back to McFookit Peak.

I have always liked the idea of the mountain being hidden beneath a concealment shield. Because that is more or less what I have been doing with Dusty Gulch all along.

Something happens in the real world.

I look at it.

I think, Well, that's bloody ridiculous.

Then I turn it into a story. The politics goes under the shield. The argument goes under the shield. The absurdity goes under the shield. And out come Dusty, Maureen, Whiskers, Trevor, the cats, the camel and the rest of the gang.

And somehow, the  chaos works. 

You laugh. I laugh. And hopefully somewhere in there, somebody thinks:

Hang on.

That sounds familiar.

I always knew there was something underneath the shield.

What I hadn't realised was that so many of you would be able to see it.

Or that you would see things underneath it that I hadn't quite noticed myself.

Perhaps that is the magic of Dusty McFookit.

I thought I created a bloke who would get into a Hilux and do whatever ridiculous thing the plot required. But somewhere along the way, you lot found a man you recognise. And then you found a woman you recognise.

And then you started finding your fathers, your mothers, your husbands, your wives, your neighbours and perhaps a little bit of yourselves. Maybe that is what makes a fable work.

You put a veil over the mountain. You hide the gold. You send a camel down the road. You give a rat a fedora.

And somehow, underneath all the nonsense, the truth is still sitting there.

Dusty has the keys. Maureen has the rolling pin. The mountain is still there.

And somewhere in the distance, somebody has probably found another bloody job that needs doing.

So Dusty will sigh, find his thongs, climb into the Hilux and say:

"Righto."

And off he'll go.