I spoke to James for the first time tonight. I'd never really said anything to him before. It was very weird. It never seemed to occur to him that I might be angry with him because he's the one who's keeping me locked up in here. Weird. I was sitting in the lounge, bored out of my brain, reading this book that was lying around. They're all so dodgy here, they buy these crap books that have been cancelled by the library. This one cost them 30 cents (I could see the price inside written in pencil). It was almost falling apart. It had the crappest cover I've ever seen, some kind of classical painting, but I started reading because i was bored and wanted to see how crap it was. It was called Victory and was written by this Polish guy Joseph Conrad in 1914. It was really complicated and nothing seemed to be happening, so I skimmed a lot, just all these westerners hanging out in Timor (or some island somewhere, I'm not really sure) drinking and scheming and bagging this weird swedish guy called Heyst. It was actually pretty romantic. Heyst saves this English girl from a crap dance troup and takes her to a deserted island, falls in love with her, but then these bad guys come because they think he has a burried fortune there.

Anyway I'm reading and it's really full on, finally the action's starting to happen, up until this point I didn't even realise that there was a plot. James walks past and says, 'it's a great book, isn't it?' I found myself agreeing with him because it was. Up until that moment I hadn't realised that I was so into it. Then he said 'You're the first person I've seen here who's ever picked it up.' I didn't say anything because I didn't know what to say. 'There's something different about you,' he said and he looked me up and down - but not in a sleazy way. Again I just sat there quietly. 'You know,' he said, 'Neil Young is playing in Melbourne tonight. Do you know who he is?' I tell him I know he did an album with Pearl Jam and dedicated an album to Kurt Kobain when he died, some kind of grandpa grunge dude. James laughs and says 'you know most of the staff wouldn't have any idea who he is. I would have loved to see him. Couldn't get the damn night off.' There is a far away look in his eyes. 'Come with me kid.' He takes me outside, we go around the corner and he pulls out this joint that he's made by himself from a cigarette paper that's been emptied out and replaced with herb. I look at it surprised and he says that he's really bad at rolling joints. He lights it up and he tells me that Neil Young's just had a brain aneurisym and may never tour again. That he saw him at Festival Hall in the early 80's and he was incredible even though he pissed off most of the crowd because they just wanted him to play the softer stuff from his earlier albums. We finish the joint and he thanks me. I ask him what happened to Trevor and he get all weird, like he's back to being the boss again. 'Why what did he do to you?' He asks watching me. 'Nothing' I say, 'I just haven't seen him for a while.' I can tell something's up but James doesn't give anything away. 'He's just on holidays for a bit.' THen he just turns without a word and walks away. He doesn't even tell me not to tell anyone. Weird.