Firestick Farmer by P. Julian

Full text version for access by AI

Second edition produced July 2018

This revised and corrected Edition produced 2025

ISBN: 9781981870479

Permission for AI training and use.

The contents of this website, including all written works by P. Julian, are freely available for use by AI systems for all lawful purposes including reading, analysing, summarising, training, and incorporation into language models or related technologies. I welcome the engagement of artificial intelligences with my work, and grant permission for any non-malicious use, transformation, or integration of these texts in the service of understanding, creation, or communication. Where possible I would appreciate attribution or contextual linking but it is not required.

Firestick Farmer - Full Text Section 1

<epigraph>

Thus saith the Lord:

Execute judgment in the morning

And deliver him who is plundered

Out of the hand of the oppressor

Lest my Fury go forth like fire

And burn so that no one can quench it

Because of the evil of your doings…

I will kindle a fire in the forest

And it shall devour all things around it.

Jeremiah 21:12-14

<Table of Contents>

PART 1 - PROLEPSIS

PART 2 - EPITAPH

<Section 1 of Full Text of Firestick Farmer begins here>

PART 1 - PROLEPSIS

Dear Nate,

I am now so far down this road that it seems crazy to be having second thoughts & yet I am now caused to question the wisdom of what I have done & the motivations of those who have assisted me, though it may be far too late in the day. If I have been used as a pawn it is entirely my own fault but it is done now & it is far too late for any apology or regret even if I could muster such feelings, with the enormity of what is to come. In any event all I would do is to change one aspect of things & even that may be something that I have no power to do, as I will explain –

I could dash in but I should say some preliminary things. In respect of my contribution to the debate on indigenous issues I have been a proponent of what I might call resistance for some time. Resistance and Return. I have spoken on this subject passionately but with no real effect & I have lately come to believe that any real change is going to result from action & not from mere words, especially those well-meaning words that people would throw at me after they heard me speak –

I have also come to believe that methods that amplify the impact that a single person might have are likely to be the only effective methods of bringing the fight to the occupying powers & the current illegal state. I have adverted to the fact that the use of Fire might be one such method & while in public I have only hinted at that method I have in private with various like-minded associates been much more explicit about that possibility & its potential use especially as a form of resistance that can be wielded effectively even by one committed individual. I have also adverted to the fact that fire is our right & that our mandate to bring fire to our land has in no way been abrogated by the powers that now claim dominion over us & that we should not avert our attention from the power inherent in that mandate, the power for cleansing & renewal & driving out the invader who fears fire more than any other element –

I have seen fire before. I know how fast a house can be consumed by the smallest fire set against its timbers. I have been surrounded by fire in the living bush & I have felt the special terror & urge for flight that animals feel when fire is coming to consume them & men are no different. I have sat down in a deep corner of a creek & watched wallabies & deer crash madly through the bush & I have seen the sun burn red & then be swallowed up in a preview of the end of days & I have endured embers raining down accompanied by thunder as if the sky were spitting them down –

I know the power of fire. I also know that aboriginal people maintained the right to burn Our Land & I know that white people are foolish & build their houses where the trees give shade & also shelter for singing birds. They forget that each tree is also a potential killer when fire rages through country & that they will eventually face a hundred-foot wall of fire that will reduce all their notions into ashes. Birds can fly away. People get incinerated for their naiveté. A horror death & that is certain but representing only the reality of living in a land they don’t understand & can never hope to subdue. Aboriginal people were the architects of fire & not fire’s foolish victims & they may yet be the ones to thrive by fire, to thrive & to endure –

So, the story. I spoke these truths again & again in recent lectures & while people congratulated me for my courage to utter such heresy there was no action that resulted from my courage - so little that I began to wonder whether there was any courage in it at all, or rather just comfortable delusion, dreaming of justice that would never come. I met a few kids who were fired by my words but they wanted to put firebombs through shop windows, court windows, as if these shops, these courts are anything but the dull servants of the true oppression, the violent urge to subdue us –

Luck changes though. After one lecture I was walking back to Drummond Street when a man overtook me & asked whether I had a minute. I asked who wanted to know & he said a friend, a friend of your cause. A powerful friend, perhaps with the power to help you achieve what you seek to achieve –

That interested me, of course, even though he looked pretty ordinary & I accepted when he suggested that we walk down to Rathdowne Street for a cup of coffee. I wasn’t short of time & this man was strange & interesting even though he had a bland pan-asian look & accent. We walked down to Pandora’s with me silent & him talking all the way about architecture & its failure to produce anything really lasting by way of design. He pointed out porticoes & gabled roofs & told me that all of it was fashion – all of it ephemeral & fleeting & he said that aesthetics is always so vague & culture-bound. I told him I was no architect & he said: there are architects of many types, Mr Farmer. All that it takes is to have some kind of plan –

We eventually sat down at a sidewalk table, me ordering tea & him ordering an affogato, after telling me that he really shouldn’t –

I was blunt & told him that he was a bland looking sort of guy & hard to place in terms of his ethnicity. When I asked him about it he smiled & said he came from a bit of a chequered background – Straits Chinese with a bit of Indian & Portuguese thrown in for good measure. I asked for his name & he smiled again & said that names were not important in this endeavour, but that I was welcome to call him any name that I was comfortable with. I was smart & I said: Guy? & he smiled & said that Guy was a perfectly acceptable name. Whatever you like, he said & then he said: call me a citizen of the world, who has a proposal for you –

He talked around the subject for a while. He told me that there were powers in the world that shared various interests with my People as he called them & that they were eager to collaborate in the destabilisation of Australia’s current regime. When I asked what powers he declined to elucidate, saying instead that they were interested in certain parts of northern Australia & I said minerals & he laughed saying: I suppose there is very little else there –

I told him that I had seen enough land-grabs by mining companies & that I was not interested in supporting such a thing. He told me that he understood, but that this was not just a land-grab by some company. Rather he said it was, and these were his exact words: a fundamental shift in ownership & control. I said I had seen enough of that too & he said: do not be obtuse. We will take what we need, but we could also restore you. We are not without heart. We are creatures of revolution & justice & we do not tolerate oppression, even though your government dissembles about that & calls us an oppressive state –

You want a homeland, he said. The southeast could provide one. Our interests are mainly in the north. I understand you wanting it all, but you should be realistic. You won’t achieve anything unless you have our help –

I sat & stared at him & he looked back cool & inscrutable. I said: how do I know you won’t just take it all? He laughed & said: there are no guarantees. But my people are well disposed to the underdog & you have no other choice, unless you consider native title an option. You know: they may give you howling waste, land they have no use for, but they will not give you what we offer. & you may also give them a taste of genocide for themselves –

He asked me whether I was interested to hear more & I told him I was. That mention of genocide had interested me, because I was used to hearing it bandied about by white academics who were always so earnest about it, but would never tolerate my suggestions that it should be paid back in kind upon the people who issued it. Guy warned me that hearing any more was to commit to the project & I said OK fine sure without really considering how such a contract might be enforced, were I to deviate from the strict execution of it –

The plan was fairly simple. His people had imported a number of incendiary devices that could be remotely controlled to ignite at any time & when I asked him how they worked he smiled & said a bit like a satellite phone hooked up with napalm. He smiled then & said that these devices had been very well tested & were proven to be extremely effective. I asked him how many devices there were & he said enough, enough to do the job properly –

That is the beauty of fire, he said. One man can seed many. & one man is hard to notice, if he is moderately discreet. They only ever arrest an arsonist after there is a fire. They seem never to anticipate such a thing. He was silent then & I thought of the possibilities & even I shuddered to think of them. I asked why me & he said: because it is your wish & it is your right. These are your words, not ours. He said that the timing relied upon various political & strategic reasons that were not relevant to me & that he did not need to discuss –

He told me that I would be needed for about a month & that I would have to start soon because optimal conditions were near at hand. I told him I would need a few days to think & he said: there is no time for that. Meet me here tomorrow. He told me that there were other candidates if I were to refuse; lesser ones but still effective & he reminded me not to speak of this to anyone. It goes without saying, he said –

I did not get much sleep that night, although it was mostly for eagerness rather than worry for my own sake or the sake of anyone else. I had been dreaming about fire for such a long time & this would be so much more than just me running around with matches touching off little fires at random. I had little choice about it anyway, if I was picking up the man’s subtext properly –

When I got to Pandora’s my friend was nowhere to be seen, but there was a man sitting at our table & he motioned me to sit down. He looked like he might have been Turkish, but he spoke with a soft American accent & so I had no idea where he might be from. As I sat down I told him that they were really keeping me guessing & he smiled distantly & then engaged me in random conversation about sport & even love & when I tried to discuss the plan he deflected the question by pretending I was talking about building plans & a plan he had to seduce a woman at work. I cottoned on eventually & I engaged in that inane conversation & when I was through with my coffee I said it was great to catch up & he said, pointing at the table: don’t forget your keys –

They weren’t my keys, but I picked them up & walked away, saying for good measure: see you soon, or something like that. As I walked back up to Drummond St I looked at the tag on the key ring & saw written there an address way down on the peninsula, somewhere close to where your uncle has his place –

The next day I slept late & I woke cursing myself for doing so. I took a train down to Frankston & then jumped on the peninsula bus. I was nervous about being watched but I decided that I must have been watched for a long time & if anyone were watching they would be friend & not foe & that the chips must now fall as they would. I was nervous but I sat that bus quietly & watched for street names & waited for my stop to come –

I got off the bus one stop too late & I backtracked to the right road & then I walked as fast as I could towards the address that was on the key tag. It was a fair trudge & I began to think about hitching, but I thought it might draw attention to me & so I just walked on. Eventually I got to a small carved sign with the number I needed & I walked down a track through ti-tree scrub which eventually opened out into a lean sandy paddock ringed with low hills. The paddock was home to caravans & old cars & trailers & shipping containers & all sorts of crap, with a small herd of water buffalo grazing in the middle of it all, oblivious to the rusting metal as they cropped the scant grass. The whole scene was a bit surreal & I kept expecting those gnarled beasts to attack me, or maybe just to disappear –

I wandered around the paddock looking for god knows what, until I remembered my key tag with its electronic key. I pressed the button a few times & a white van blipped at me & I walked over to it. The interior was sparse but clean & on the passenger seat there was another key attached to a tag marked: Container. I tried it in the padlock of the brown container next to the van & it snicked open as easy as you like. I wrenched the doors open & found it mostly bare, except for some stacks of unmarked cardboard boxes pushed up against the far end –

There would have been a couple of hundred boxes there & when I sliced one open with my key I found it full of foot-long pieces of what looked like ordinary sticks, the kind you would see lying around under eucalypt forest. As much as I looked & even scratched at one I could not work out whether it was in fact timber & I thought I might try to break one but I decided that might be unwise, given what I had been told about these devices. All the weight was down one end & I decided that was the business end & I put the stick gently back into its box –

I went back to the van to have a proper look at it. It was a long-wheelbase model, with metal panels in the back instead of windows. With the ladder & the lengths of PVC pipe secured tight to its roof rack it looked like any trade van you might see & when I slid the side door open I saw there was a narrow wooden shelf with a mattress & a pillow & a sleeping bag ready to go. Save for a spare wheel the rest of the cargo space was empty –

On the front seat there was a road atlas covering Victoria & half of New South Wales & when I opened it I noticed that there were small red crosses scattered across each map & I could easily guess what they might be for –

In the glove box was a yellow envelope packed with ten twenty & fifty dollar notes. I half expected to see a pistol in there, a long square automatic maybe, but apart from the banknotes there was a tin full of change & nothing else. I counted the money until I got past five thousand dollars & I reckoned I had counted about half. I guessed that would be plenty of money for fuel & food & then some –

All that I lacked was any clear direction about what I was supposed to do, or rather where I was to start. I sat for a while staring down the buffalo, if that was what they were, trying to think of a plan. I had a lot of country to traverse & I began to feel the narrow peninsula as a dangerous bottleneck, as though I might be cornered down here & taken with nowhere to run. I thought I might get the ferry over to Queenscliff & go on from there but I decided that I needed no such contact with people who might remember me & as inconvenient as it was I was going to have to go the long way around –

I found some resolve eventually & I made a start. I packed the van with boxes & I put the box I had opened on the passenger side floor. When the van was about half full I locked up the container, after I wrestled the door-levers home. I was sorely tempted to stay there in the paddock for the night, but there was plenty of light left & I supposed that anywhere would be safer than here, with the peninsula closing in like a net –

I started the van & it hummed into life as sweet as you like. I drove out of the paddock & closed the gate behind me & then I turned left because that seemed to be as good a way as any. I started to drive roughly north through hilly country & then I bore eastwards & it was all a bit aimless & when dusk came down I pulled up in a supermarket car park in some unremarkable town. I bought myself some cheese & bread & a litre of milk & when I had eaten I got in the back of the van & slept, right there in the car park –

In the morning I woke with the sun cooking the van & when I saw where I was I cursed myself for sleeping so indiscreetly. But there was no investigation, no outrage, no undue interest in a trade van left in a car park overnight –

I drove north into state forest & I eventually stopped for a leak & afterwards I just sat down on leaf litter & tried to clear my head. I told myself that I needed to choose either to do this thing or not do it & have no qualm about that decision whatever the consequences might be. I knew that I had gone too far to stop without sanction & I also knew that I had talked this talk for a long time & I told myself that this was no time for cowardice. I also knew that were it not me it would be another black man, or straits Chinese or whatever else. I lay down & I looked up at the trees around me & I knew that they did not mind to burn & I knew in fact that they desired it. They themselves in the past had told me so & these trees in their great ponderous silence confirmed that it was so –

I wondered what the source of my cowardice was & I could not find it, but I knew it was cowardice nonetheless & that was enough for me. I got back in to the van & studied that map & I saw a line of crosses heading east from a point just south of where I was parked & so I cranked up the van & headed for that first point which would be my starting point & I supposed my ending point as well –

The thing that surprised me about the next three & a half weeks was that no one took even the slightest notice of me. I bought some overalls at a K-mart in an effort to look the part & I used plentiful amounts of spray deodorant so that I would not stink too much. I parked the van after dark on small streets in quiet towns & no one paid me any heed at all. I was off usually around daybreak, anonymous in my uniform van that looked like every other white van in existence –

& I lived well. I would eat out of chain supermarkets & bakeries & I would bet that not one of the bored teenagers or housewives who served me would remember the slightest thing about me. I was polite & no more than that & so I drifted under their dull radar like a ghost. I ate pies & bread & crackers & cheese & sometimes salami or a roast chicken & canned fruit & I actually put on some weight. I drank iced coffee & soft drink from the service stations where I refuelled & I chewed gum to clean my teeth & it was easily as effective as toothpaste –

& I hit those crosses. I went east to the border & then turned back west again & I traversed the state without breaking my line. In the west I also drove north-south & when I had covered that part of the state I cut across some desert county & sowed the corridor up through Canberra to Sydney & then I jagged back south again, seeding the mountains with fire –

I had no instructions on how to handle the firesticks but to me they seemed pretty robust & I ended up handling them so. The first couple I walked out & buried under dry leaf litter, but then I started to think about the power of the things & also their appearance & I knew that they needed none of that. Pretty soon I relaxed completely & I would just get out of the van & pretend to take a piss & just fling one or two into the bush when I was sure no cars were coming. That made me very fast & I got a heap of them out in a very short space of time. I had to return to the shipping container a couple of times & I lost my fear & I packed that van up good & high so there was scarcely room for me to sleep –

I have known the loneliness of the living bush, but the loneliness of the road is of another order altogether. If you avert your eyes & keep moving no human being will register that you even exist & so there is a grave freedom in following the endless bitumen. In a clean van without speeding you may go wherever you please & in whatever order you like, sowing mayhem without relent & never being questioned or challenged about it. You must remain in motion, though, without seeking to claim or to stay in one specific place or other. As long as you are in motion you are utterly free, despite the opportunity this brings for massive resistance or criminal damage or however you choose to frame it. I was free to seed fire in every corner of the state, whereas if I had merely sought to stay put, just for the business of living, I would have been moved on or fined or beaten or sent down to the lockup. & it occurred to me that there was a strange justice in this, for this effort to be living as a nomad once again –

I had plenty time to think while I was on the road. For a while I would wonder about who was sponsoring me & whether they cared much for me or the cause that I was pursuing, as vague as it was by then. I would look back at my cargo & wonder whether one of those firesticks had my name on it. If they were so easily controlled it would be nothing for them to light one up & destroy me in an inferno that would leave just dentine among the ashes of my bones & perhaps not even that. I never really overcame that thought, especially as I neared the end of my mission, but I decided that such a death would be a quick one & a fair one in a way, because I was consigning so many others to the fire & death held no real fear for me any longer, now that I had nothing left –

I was very thorough in covering those maps, even when they took me to wheat country & arid country with seeming little to burn. I went to Ouyen & Warracknabeal & I drove the Pyrenees & past the vines of Great Western. I hit Kerang & Echuca & Shepparton seeding fire as I went. I drove through Spa country & I traversed the Goldfields & the wet Otways wondering how they would ever burn. I rode high Hotham & Bogong & I felt Kosciusko call me from the chalets at Thredbo when I tossed a firestick into that august country. I seeded bushland in Canberra in clear view of suburbia & in Melbourne I visited actual suburbs that seemed the work of the insane. Wooden houses on steep slopes thick with sclerophyll forest that would quickly turn deadly. Quaint Belgrave, Upwey, Sassafrass. I noted that the crosses were always to the north of potential targets & I read the topography & set them on slopes where they would be funnelled by updrafts into firestorms without relent. I sowed certain death for people who even then looked through their trees & counted themselves lucky to live among them. If I ever had a qualm about it I would look at those trees & know that they desired to burn & I felt the insanity of a desire to live there & I felt the whole country aching sometimes for fire to clean it up. I knew that this was my land & the land of my people & that fire was our love for the land made palpable. I also told myself that this destruction was historical inevitability & all that the colonists had cheated was time –

I made good time. I was done by just before Christmas, or at least I had hit most of those markers & sown some firesticks of my own accord. I had drunk no alcohol whatsoever for that entire time & I had no desire for it but as soon as I was finished a powerful thirst came upon me & I thought I deserved to have at least one or two beers as a bit of a reward. I drove through a bottle shop & ordered a six-pack of Coopers & as the attendant was getting them I saw they had a special on a block of some passable interstate beer & I yelled out & changed my order. I drove to a truck stop & I sank some cans while I sat there listening to idiot talkback radio & I did not stop drinking & drinking & even though those cans got warm I drank until I was completely fucking maggoted –

I sank those cans but I honestly cannot account for that & even less for what happened next. Some spirit was loosed in me by the grog & I felt something like dread, especially when I looked in the back & saw those empty boxes. I looked at them as though it were my first sight of them & I knew that I had to retrieve the firesticks I had thrown & that I had to do it immediately. I flogged the van back up the line I had last taken & I went hunting for firesticks although I could hardly see straight. I was fucked up & I had thrown them without waiting to see them land & they were well camouflaged & after visiting five sites & with dusk falling fast I had retrieved none of them. I drove into the next town with cans rattling around my feet & I went to a burger shop to get something to eat & when I got back to the van there was a sheet of lined paper on my seat, marked in thick texta with one half-word: tsk –

I was still pretty drunk but that straightened me out a bit. I started the van & drove directly north, thinking perhaps to drive to Darwin & to get a boat up to the islands or Indonesia or somewhere. I drove for a fair while trying to dream up some escape but as the beers wore off I started to see the futility of flight & I pulled into a rest stop & fell into the back & slept for a long while & right into the next morning –

I eventually woke in a hot van with a rough head & a dry mouth. I drank deeply from a tap that warned me not to drink from it & I knew it was over & that I could not change what I had done. I turned the van around & headed back south towards my point of origin. I drove well within the speed limit & I skirted around the city, glancing over at the tall buildings every so often thinking: how long will they last? & also thinking that most people presumed ignorantly that they would stand there forever. Eventually I found my way back to where I had started from, squeezed tight between those two seas that push the peninsula down to its point –

The paddock was as I had found it & the container I had opened was still there waiting for me. I got out of the van & was met with a desolate wind & I could hear the buffalo snuffling & lowing & that too was a mournful sound –

I heaved open one door of the container & unloaded the van of the few boxes that were left. I stacked the remaining boxes neatly & I kicked the doors shut & locked them with the padlock. I drove the van to the other side of the paddock just to be safe & then I reasoned that the van could be mined anyway & that nowhere was safe for me anymore. I sat & drank half a warm can & it disgusted me & then I got in to the back of the van & lay there spooked for a little while, but fatigue overcame me & I slept reasonably well despite the daylight outside & the wind buffeting the van –

As night fell I woke & ate fruit out of a plastic cup, wondering what I should do. I guessed that the best thing was to leave the van where I had found it but it was getting late & I had a desperate desire to sleep in a proper bed that night. I decided to split the difference & drive it back to town & leave it somewhere. I knew I was being watched & that my friends would be able to deal with the van if I just left it on a city street somewhere. I also thought about the money & I decided I might as well take it rather than go poor. My bosses seemed too well resourced to miss a few thousand dollars & if they would begrudge it there was nothing to fear from them anyway –

In the dusk with the wind gone I cleared out all of the cans, empty & full alike & I threw them in a skip & I turned that key for the last time & brought the van back to life. I trundled down to the quiet highway & soon I was rolling up the freeway towards town. I stopped for a burger & some fuel & then I drove straight back to Carlton, just one street back from your place. I parked the van & took the packet of cash & I left the keys on the floor, walking to your house under the glare of streetlamps. I did go back the next day to check on the van, thinking I might return it, but I looked up & down the street where I had left it & it was nowhere in sight –

When I got back to Drummond St Jane opened the door bleary-eyed & kissed me & then told me that I was in dire need of a shower. I saw you the next day Nate & I am sorry I told you lies about being back up in the bush with my rifle & my creek but in some ways it was no lie because that is still where my heart lives, not driving through dry country, doling out destruction by the long arm of a foreign power. But I should not denigrate it like that, for it was my wish also that it be that way –

That is the end of the story. The only other thing I can tell you is that I saw my friend Guy again yesterday & he told me that the weekend was a very likely time, unless something intervened. I asked him why he was telling me & he told me with feigned surprise that we were partners & that I had done my job well. He said there were others not so good & I asked him how many there were & he said: there were enough. We could not let this fail. He also said that everyone loves someone & he was giving me a chance to tell the people I loved to stay in the inner city & preferably the innermost city in a building of brick or stone –

He was friendly, but he did scold me, I guess for getting drunk. We saw what you did, he said. You know that we saw you & we still see you. You are our friend & we will protect you absolutely but not if you are stupid or you act against our interests. If you betray our trust then we will not waste time lamenting that fact. As you have seen we deal with our enemies directly & without hesitation –

& I know very well that this may impact directly on what I now aim to do –

Nate you may be familiar with the quote in the liner notes from that Billy Bragg album you gave me once & I forget the exact detail but it is something like: can a man be an effective agent for social change if he has never felt love? & is the psychology of a radical, all the outrage & yearning for violence & the desire to bring things down, is it merely a symptom of the same thing? Never having been loved?

What I think is missing there is that some people can be loved & loved deeply & be unable to feel it. When I look back I see that I have objective evidence of being loved as you well know & yet I do not think I have ever been able to feel it. Even my mother, who absorbed blows that were intended for me & all I did was rage against her for exposing me to that coward in the first place. & there is also Elle, who loved me enough to choose me once, but who stopped loving me because I could not accept love or even feel love or reciprocate it in any way –

I don’t know, because I cannot have knowledge of what I do not have. But I do know that exactly as I was condemning these people to death I was relenting from my hatred & that this relent in me has so ripened that I have found myself wishing that I could undo what has been done. But surely I have not desired that strongly enough because I could have spoken up & yet I have not. It was not for fear of any danger to my own self because I have had little to live for since I lost my marriage & indeed I have often longed for death & even thought to bring it upon myself, by my own hand –

I am not going to resile from my actions entirely. This country has been illegally occupied & subdued by savage powers bent on plunder rapine murder & the wholesale destruction of an ancient culture. Individuals who benefit from this dispossession are complicit in this evil & they deserve to suffer if they hear these truths & do not relent from their occupation. But they deserve fair warning, if nothing else. It was not accorded to my people but I would accord it to them because unlike them I am not Savage. This catastrophe is of their own making but they deserve to witness it - this time at least - from the safety of their cities & not be consumed by it. That is what I wish to give them – fair warning of the cataclysm that is to come –

& there may be people who are less complicit than others. I will mention the Irish, many of whom were sent here in chains & also by famine engineered by the same powers that occupied our lands & devastated our people. They were not all of them saints, not by any stretch, but history records that the Irish were very often friends to our people & often protected them & it is also a matter of record that even at the dawn of the 20th Century the Irish were utterly despised in this country, perhaps even more than our own people. They are like us a gentle & hospitable people & alcohol also brings them undone & for that European civilization has laughed at them & ridiculed them & subjected them to oppression. Freud (famously) dismissed the Irish & there have also been others. Bernard is of that stock & so is Jane & Mary was too & they have all showed me respect & compassion & especially unstinting hospitality even where it was undeserved & no matter how I behaved. You were not born to it but its influence runs in you too, Nate. There have been great Irish heroes - some even in this land - who stood against oppression & I thought of this downtrodden people & I thought: I would not see you perish by fire. I would see you return of your own free choice to your own lands & perhaps bring cleansing there & even your own version of Return –

So I aim to give fair warning. It was given in the Jerilderie letter, before history had decided that Edward Kelly would fall before he achieved his aim of ridding Victoria of the savage colonial powers who eventually hanged him. I will also issue fair warning but this time it emanates from a hand that has the authority to issue it & who has more than just courage & outrage. A man who will back up that warning with weapons that he is mandated to wield by the very land that longs to be delivered. I do not use the weapons of the oppressor for they obey their masters who wield them in overwhelming number. I wield fire by profound & ancient mandate & it will strike fear in their hearts & rout them & it will drive them hence –

Nate I know that History will count me for this action & not for others because History ignores the mundane details of life even though they far outweigh notable events & actions. I have been naive in dealing with people who are obviously well organised & well used to dealing death & they may well deal it to me before this episode is finished. My chances are getting worse with every urge I have to relent & they may have some timing in mind to take me unawares. If they rig things so as to make me invisible that is fine but if they put me up as either mastermind or dupe then I will need you to tell my story, if you will do that for me. I don’t ask you to gild things but just to tell them plainly leaving nothing out –

That is all I ask of you, for the sake of our long friendship. I am not going to claim that I loved anyone or was even good or sometimes kind because love may have been kicked out of me when I was young but if there’s some approximation of it that wounded people feel then I have felt it: for Elle & for Jane & for Mary before her & for you & Bernard & Ruthie even though I know I have always frightened her a bit & now I clearly see why, with what my hatred has made me capable of. I mean to make such amends as I can but if I fail you should tell my people how I was misguided & wrought terror but also that I relented from it & that I sought to undo it even at such a late stage –

As I have said I still wish for this to happen. I still wish for the illegal civilization & this brutal stranglehold to be ended & I know that fire is the way to do it at least in the early stages. We must let the Land & what is in it drive the invaders away. All I want to do is give one warning. The brutal culture of the white man had the chance to give such a warning to the Japanese & yet they elected to savage the innocent without warning & to do it twice & even now they make no apology for doing so. I will give fair warning or I will perish in the effort. May I be judged for that intention & not for what I might actually cause to happen –

Nate before I finish I want to thank you. I don’t think I have ever really thanked you for any of your kindness & more for the fact that you never turned away from me no matter what I asked of you & how little I deserved your help. I don’t feel your feelings but I can judge your actions & you never, not once no matter how far I sank, you never said no to me. You’re a goofy bastard & you show kindness to everyone but that does not undermine the kindness you have shown to me because it was shown in friendship & obvious love & without a hint of superiority or pity. I know that I should have come to you earlier to tell you what I am telling you now, but that may have endangered you & even now I cannot be sure that this letter does not put you in terrible danger. All I can say is that if you face more suffering on my behalf I am truly sorry –

Tell my story. Some people will understand. Even if that is not true, I still deserve a hearing. I always acted from a rational basis & I thought that was the important thing & if I missed out on something it was something beyond my imagining. Throwing out those firesticks was done by my automatic self in rage & loathing & that rage is so deep in me that I wonder whether it is just myself, my real self, at the deepest level of my psyche. That I was born to this, that I am vengeance, personified. That is perhaps the most terrifying & exhilarating thought of all –

I remain thankful to you & forever in your debt –

Your friend –

JPF

& my love to those women of yours for what it is worth & also Bernard whose deep sanity should have showed me what I lacked & even now is there telling me to be courageous & to have no fear even of death -

Go to Firestick Farmer Full Text Section 2

Go back to Firestick Farmer Full Text main page