Mullumbimby Madness #1

Wednesday afternoon we do something called ‘sport’. This consists of being herded into clapped out buses and driven to ovals named after dead councillors where we do things to balls in the rain.

  This week I was playing hockey because it has the intellectual challenge of counting: ‘Hockey one, hockey two, hockey three’. You’d be surprised how many kids around here get it wrong. Some blame the schools. I blame the parents.

  We were engaged in a jolly boisterous game of the old hockers when youthful exuberance degenerated into out-and-out unruliness. Tempers flared, language coarsened and fists flew. Somewhere between a melee and a fracas, Miss Sorenson, our supervising teacher, intervened.

  “Children, children. Where is our spiritual harmony? Where are our mellow little inner beings? Allow your harmonious souls to overwhelm the beast inside. Rejoice in the fullness.......”

  “Thwack!”

  The sound of Miss Sorenson’s mouth copping the action end of Eddie’s hockey stick. (It was his first game but.) We ducked as shattered teeth whistled (for the last time) through the air like shrapnel from an Iraqi bomb blast.

  (I could visualise an archaeological dig on the Mr Blah-hyphen-Blah Oval a thousand years in the future:

  “My God. What do you make of these extraordinary tooth fragments Dr Smith?”

  “Obviously a bloodthirsty and savage ritual of some primitive lower order Dr Jones.”)

  “I knocked that nice lady’s teeth out,” cried Eddie.

  “Don’t worry Eddie,” we reassured him. “You shoulda seen what we did to the last hockey instructor.”

  “Where’th my whithle?” Miss Sorenson’s plaintive cry would have rattled the bones of long dead sailors at the bottom of the Seven Seas.

  “Where’th her whithle? Where’th Mith Thorenthon’s whithle?” we cried as one.

  “I thwallowed my whithle!” Mith Thorenthon pleaded pitifully to the gods.

  “Mith Thorenthon thwallowed her whithle. Mith Thorenthon thwallowed her whithle.” The chorus went up amongst frenzied tearing of hair and beating of breast.

  At this point Duncan intervened with a calming word of reassurance.

  “Don’t worry Mith Thorenthon. You can always get a job as a pothtie.’

  14

  After sport the whole school marched through town to the opening of the new Byron Shire Council Chambers. We carried three huge banners depicting scenes from the agricultural, manufacturing and service sectors of the Shire’s economy.

  The banners were designed by Johnny Jameison who owns the largest collection of war comics in Mullumbimby. The agriculture banners showed a helicopter raid on a marijuana plantation. Machine guns blazed as hippies fought off the Japanese soldiers in the helicopter. Manufacturing was depicted by a mechanic being mangled in some sort of machine. A dog gnawed on a severed arm lying in a pool of blood.

  The service sector banner showed two gay tourists being arrested for nude bathing at Byron main beach by German soldiers in an armoured personnel carrier. There was some debate as to whether the tourists were freakishly well endowed or whether they were fighting back with bazookas.

  The townspeople clapped and cheered as we paraded by. The old war veterans seemed especially appreciative of Johnny’s artwork.

  We assembled at the proud new Council building to listen to uplifting speechifying about ‘past achievements’, ‘dawning of new eras’ and ‘civic responsibility’. Apologies were given for the absence of listed speaker, prominent local dentist CJ Corcoran who was otherwise engaged in emergency reconstructive surgery on Mith Thorenthon. But all and all the speeches provided our questing young minds with edifying food for thought and ponder at sleepybies time.

  The opening ceremony finale didn’t go quite according to plan. The celebrity guest was cabaret singer and star of television bank commercials, Margot Progmore. She was perched high up on the side of the building on one of those hanging scaffolding things window cleaners use. As the newest chum in school, Eddie had been chosen to pull a cord unfurling a huge Australian flag down the side of the building. Margot would then sing ‘The Impossible Dream’.

  But Eddie pulled the wrong cord. The scaffolding went plummeting to earth. The rope it was hanging from wrapped around Margot’s neck. The body twitched for ten, maybe fifteen seconds. Hard to be that accurate really.

  The mayor announced that the sausage sizzle would begin a few minutes earlier than scheduled. The kids all cheered and ran over to the hot plates.

  Eddie stood whimpering and howling, “I killded her. I killded Miss Frogmore.”

  “You sure as hell did,” I said comfortingly. “And did you see the way her neck snapped. Wow.”

  “Never mind,” said the mayor, putting his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “She had a good innings.”

  “No she didn’t,” I butinskied. “She was only thirty-five. She had another four decades of rich and shallow lifestyle – forty more years of lifestyle shows visiting her backyard. What tragic waste.”

  Eddie broke down and started weeping again.

  The mayor and I wandered over to enjoy the sausages, which led to a discussion of local sewerage problems.

  15

  At the newsagent next morning as I watched Eddie roll the papers for my delivery round, I couldn’t help but notice the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald. A banner across the top of the page advertised the inside features: ‘The Lighter Side of Incest’, ‘Tuberculosis - It’s Hip’, and ‘52 Holiday Weekends in Iraq’.

  Beneath this was a large photo of Margot Progmore dangling by the neck on the new Council Chambers. The caption read: ‘Margot Progmore Seen Hanging Around Mullumbimby’. The people coming into the shop were all crowing about how the publicity would boost the image of the town and be a shot in the arm for tourism.

  An article headed ‘Sausage Sizzle Success for Mullumbimby’ praised the courage of the Mullumbimby townspeople for refusing to allow the tragedy to spoil their fun day. A local police sergeant said the body would be cut down in a week or two.

  .”With all the tourists flocking here with their cameras, I’d hate to be a party pooper,” he commented.

  Eddie was proud to see his name in the paper. After knocking out Mith Thorenthon’s teeth and hanging Margot Progmore, Eddie could do with a boost to his self-esteem. Come to think of it, father said I could only keep him if he stayed out of trouble and I guess Eddie was stretching the limits a bit.

  The article continued: ‘Miss Progmore’s husband, film producer Barry Nader said his wife would be buried at Mullumbimby because she had recently decided to retire there and embark on her own spiritual journey.’

  The papers never get it right. I mean was she going to move to Mullumbimby or was she going on some trip?

  This sounded like one golden opportunity for father’s ‘Econo-Casket Funerals - We Leave You With A Hole in the Ground, Not in Your Pocket.’ Sure beat handing out business cards to sugar workers in the hope they got clumsy.

  16

  Later that evening, as I diligently and considerately assisted mumsy with the dishes, there was a knock at the door. Mumsy answered and returned with a sort of semi-human, green-skinned, witch-like figure in a black cape.

  “Son, this is Miss Stanton. She’s a social worker. She says she has something important to talk to us about.”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” cackled Miss Stanton. “Yes Mrs Dobbs. I’m afraid I’ve received many disturbing reports about your son from your neighbours. If I can read from just a few: ‘frequently has food dribbled all over clothes,’ ‘often has fly undone in public,’ ‘has the vocabulary of a three year old,’ ‘walks around with soiled pants and a runny nose,’ ‘steals ice-cream from small children.’

  “So I’m afraid Mrs Dobbs we are going to have to remove your son from this home environment and place him in foster care.”

  “I just can’t believe any of this Miss Stanton.” Mother leapt to my defence with what I considered a highly accurate appraisal of some of my virtuous qualities. “
Why my son is just the perfectest, caringest, well manneredest child a mumsy could wish for. I worship the ground my little Neil tippy toes on.”

  “I think she means my dear little pet dingo boy.” I said quietly, my voice trembling with patheticness. “Please Miss Stanton. You look like a reasonable, caring old slag of a witch.”

  I was really sucking up to her.

  “Please don’t take my Eddie. I know he’s accident prone. I know his toilet habits leave a lot to be desired. I know that his free and easy way with bodily functions is unacceptable in some quarters. I know the school was shut for three days while they fumigated the lice and fleas, but…..”

  My eloquent plea in Eddie’s defence was cut short before I could think of any good things to say about him.

  “These reports don’t mention a ‘Neil’ or an ‘Eddie’,” Miss Stanton explained. “These reports are about a ‘Warren’ Dobbs.”

  “That’s Neil’s father,” Mumsy explained.

  We turned and looked into the lounge. Father was scratching his private parts with one hand, picking his nose and eating it with the other and watching ‘Australia’s Wackiest Beach Babes’ on TV.

  Miss Stanton’s eyes moistened.

  “And I thought I’d seen everything,” she whispered to herself.

  Mother put her arm around Miss Stanton, whose head was bowed and shaking slowly in disbelief, and showed her to the door.

  17

  In the morning I could barely see the front verandahs to toss the newspapers on. A cloud of thick smoke blanketed the town. People at the newsagent said the smoke was drifting in from the ocean. A fishing trawler had reported seeing the smoke pouring out of the water. Everyone was asking what could be burning underneath the sea.

  Old Aunty Alice, walking stick in hand, was waiting for me at her front gate. I handed her The Northern Star.

  “I knew you wouldn’t be able to see me on the front verandah for all this smoke. It’s another omen you know. Like the cobwebby stuff the other morning.”

  “What do these omens means Aunty Alice?”

  “That’s for you to work out Neil.”

  “You mean these omens are a message just for me?”

  “Yes Neil. They are for you and you alone to interpret. This is because you are both the problem and the solution.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I was getting a little confused.

  “I can say no more. My lips are sealed.”

  Aunty Alice turned and hobbled off to be enveloped by the smoke. I peered to where she must have been but I could only hear the shuffle of her slippers and ‘clip, clip’ of the walking stick on the concrete path.

  I felt queezy and dazed - somewhere between and upchuck and a faint. These omens directed at humble little-ol moi. What did I do? Why pick on me? Now I knew how Jesus must have felt.

  18

  On Saturday night I went to the circus with Duncan and Eddie. We walked across Federation Bridge to the showgrounds where the Watson Bros Greatest Show on Earth had set up.

  The billboard at the gate read: ‘As seen on A Current Affair, Four Corners and Sixty Minutes.’ I seem to remember the programs dealt respectively with ticket fraud, cruelty to animals and the abduction of malformed babies. Sill, I’d heard they had a great freak show.

  As we were queuing to buy our tickets, Duncan loudly quipped, “A circus in Mullumbimby is kind of a cultural redundancy don’t you think, Haw, haw, haw.”

  He got a good laugh from the crowd.

  “Quality quip, Duncan,” I observed.

  “Nice alliteration, Neil,” Duncan replied.

  “You guys announcing the wedding in The Echo or The Byron Shire News?” asked Eddie, his cruel sarcasm suggesting he was beginning to acquire basic human characteristics.

  A couple of smelly bouncers in ‘Deathrot Australian Tour’ singlets herded us into a faded and patched tent. Their identical brothers inside squeezed us on to tiers of scaffolding which groaned under the weight and slowly lunged from side to side. Duncan quipped meekly about fires racing through Philippine discos. Nobody laughed.

  During the two-and-a-half hour wait for the show to start, the bouncers came around selling tiny cardboard cups of lime cordial. Eddie kindly offered to shout Duncan and I but then had terrible trouble finding $24 to pay for the three drinks. We probably should have chipped in to help Eddie pay but the bouncer didn’t bend his thumb back all that far and he stopped crying after about half an hour.

  Finally, as condensed sweat dripped on to us from the roof of the tent, Tiny Watson, former heavyweight boxer and our ringmaster, made his appearance. The crowd gave Tiny an extra special cheer because he had recently been acquitted of a charge of murdering his wife when the key witness for the prosecution, Tiny’s son Bertram, was found floating in Sydney Harbour with a bullet in his head.

  Tiny told a few jokes then got serious. He told us what a great family man he is and how it was God who saw him through recent troubles.

  Then it was on with the show.

  A man threw a frisbee to a dog. The dog caught it. Eddie ran into the ring and fought the dog for the frisbee. He brought it back to us, but it was dripping with dog and dingo boy dribble. A girl jumped up and down on a trampoline. Two people in a horse costume jumped over a rusty barrel. For the grand finale, the bouncers wheeled out supermarket trolleys full of balloons which they gave to the kiddies in the front seats. They then went around with long needles and popped all the balloons. The kiddies started crying and squealing. We left as quick as we could to escape the noise.

  Walking home, we tried to view the evening in a positive light.

  “Makes you feel you’ve been witness to a great event,” mused Duncan. “All those fabulous mime artists and magicians. Wild beasts shipped from the four corners of the globe.”

  “Not to mention the stolen freak babies as seen on Sixty Minutes,” I added.

  Eddie was not quite into our upbeat: “God my thumb’s sore.”

  19

  On Sunday morning, father put into operation a plan he had devised to surprise mother for her birthday. He had sent away to one of those dorky fix up your house, renovate your garden and make your own soap shows on tv. The fact sheet showed how to make a bird bath out of old plastic buckets.

  I never realised anyone ever sent in for fact sheets. I always thought that just by watching someone else do all those things from the safety of your couch, you could consider you had actually done it yourself. Maybe father didn’t understand this. Probably when his letter arrived, the people at the tv show were thrown into a total tizz because some jerk had actually written in and they had to go to all the trouble of preparing a solitary fact sheet for some troublesome arsehole in Mullumbimby.

  Anyway, father had a heap of buckets stacked away in the shed. Respecting his right not incriminate himself, I didn’t ask where he had gotten them. The buckets were to be glued together rim to rim then base to base so they alternated: right way up, upside down and so on to form a bird bath totem pole three metres high.

  “And on the top, da da,” announced father, holding up a bed pan. “I found this when I was picking up a stiff from the hospital. Just between you and me, I think your mum’s going to get the surprise of her life when she sees this.”

  “Couldn’t agree more father.”

  Father looked so pleased with himself, it would have been a shame to say anything else and risk spoiling the moment.

  We laid all the buckets out on the ground and glued them together with the bed pan on what would be the top. As father and I watched, Eddie dug a hole to set the bottom two buckets in as a foundation. As he swung the pick I thought I heard it hitting metal but Eddie said not to worry, it was just a rock.

  We finally erected the bird bath and father clambered up a ladder to put water in the bed pan. Father asked me to pass up a rake so he could clean the jacaranda leaves off the chook shed roof while he was up there.

  As he leaned across to do this, the ladder slipped,
father hooked the rake on to the power line which was slung from the street pole to the roof of the house. The power line snapped. A mega electric charge zapped the corrugated iron chook shed. The smell of twenty fried chickens reminded me I was feeling a little peckish.

  As father clung to the top of the bird bath a rumble issued from its base. Suddenly a water spout reminiscent of the whales off Byron Bay launched the NASA bird bath with its crew of one into the jacaranda tree.

  At this point, mother returned.

  “What joy,” she sang. “My boys at play. Daddy playing hidies in the tree. I can seeee you. And the aroma of fried chicken for my birthday lunch. What a pair of sweeties.”

  20

  We had a special music class on Monday. Some guy in a bow tie from ‘The Touring Tribal Music Project’ demonstrated the Zoogoo Islanders’ spirit horn. He held up something looking like a short didgeridoo with bagpipes on the end and told us it was hand made from dried banana leaves and bamboo.

  We all ‘oohed ‘ and ‘aahed’ in the right places so he’d think we were interested. Anything was better than out regular music teacher, Mr Bloom.

  Bow Tie explained that one cavity in the bag bit was believed by the Zoogoo Islanders to contain the last breaths of long dead ancestors. If anyone was foolish enough to suck the pipe instead of blowing, these last breaths would all be released and be a curse upon the sucker.

  When blown however, the air filled the second cavity and made the sweetest music this side of heaven.

  “Now I want someone to have a blow on the horn,” Bow Tie peered through his bi-focals. “You, little boy. What’s your name?”

  “Eddie. But I got picked in Mr Farrer’s class,” quivered a pathetic, frightened voice from the back of the class.

  “What are you talking about? You look just like the miserable sort of creature who could do with the spiritual uplift of this wondrous instrument.”

  Eddie sauntered once again to the front of the class. Talk about déjà vu. He must have felt like the guy in ‘Groundhog Day.’

  A hush fell upon the room. We sensed we were about to witness an event we would speak of in awe in the long years to come. But, given our attention spans, lunchtime might be more realistic.

  “What’s the matter Eddie? Thought you’d had plenty of practice on your own instrument. Haw, haw, haw.”

  A murmur of “poor taste, poor taste’ swept through the class like a Mexican wave.

  “Thank you, thank you,” responded Duncan, who took this as the ultimate compliment.

  “Now young man,” explained Bow Tie, “all you have to do is blow into this bamboo and a sound like the angels’ chorus will emit from this magical instrument. But beware, if you suck and release the last dying breaths of the Zoogoo Islander dead, you will carry a curse to your grave.”

  “But I’m just a dyslexic dingo boy,” pleaded a sweating, shaking Eddie. “I confuse left for right, up for down, the hot tap for the cold tap. If you tell me to blow, I’ll suck. It’s just the way I am. Get somebody else to do it. “

  “I have a simple solution young man,” explained Bow Tie. “I’ll say ‘suck’ and then, according to what you say, you’ll blow. Okay now, go ahead and suck the pipe.”

  Eddie put the pipe to his lips, hesitated, and then......sucked.

  “I’m cured. I’m cured.”

  Eddie jumped on the spot and clapped with excitement.

  “He said suck and I sucked. I’m cured.”

  We all cheered and whistled and stomped our feet.

  Bow Tie raised his arms to quieten us.

  “You seem to have forgotten something,” he whispered.

  Eddie started trembling.

  “The curse, the curse,” he moaned.

  The room went silent. The spirit horn started gurgling and then emitted the smell of a pasteurised, marinated fart.

  “It knows. It knows,” cried Eddie in despair.

  21

  As I walked home with Duncan and Joanna, we heard much raving and ranting and clattering and smashing of stuff coming from Clarrie Hibble’s house. Being the nosey little buggers we are, we went and knocked on the front door.

  Mrs Hibble came to the door looking scared and pale.

  “Come in quick. Clarrie’s having a fit.”

  Clarrie was lying on his back on the lounge room floor with his right leg sticking through a shattered tv screen. He extricated his leg from the tv and slowly stood up.

  “I kicked that idiot box and slipped,” he said. “That rotten bloody ad came on.’Come to Mullumbimby, the biggest little town in Australia.’ Should be ‘biggest pile of crap in Australia.’ I know you’ve all been laughing at me. Even sent all those school kids up to the hospital to laugh at me.”

  “We learned a lot Mr Hibble,” I tried to calm Clarrie.

  “Yeah. Laughter’s the best medicine,” contributed Duncan.

  “Well I’m going to get even with youse bastards,” Clarrie snarled. “The whole damn lot of you.”

  “Surely you mean ‘you bastards’,” Duncan politely suggested.

  “I’m afraid I can’t fully agree with you on that point Duncan,” I observed. “Surely some linguistic latitude must be given to culturally based colloquialisms?”

  Clarrie stormed out, slamming the door.

  Eddie had turned as white as an Albanian.

  22

  When I got home I had to help mother with the catering and entertainment for a children’s party. Mother runs ‘Patty’s Parties’ a complete party provider service. (Mother’s maiden name was Patricia.)

  Mother used to advertise with a jingle on the radio. She taped a class of kindergarten kids singing “have a happy snappy Patty party.” Business dropped off considerably after the ad was played on the radio. Mother now relies on word of mouth.

  I went down the shops to buy some party food. A woman sitting at a table on the footpath asked me if I would like to buy a raffle ticket. I asked her what it was for and she said, “We’re raising money to send Mith Thorenthon to a whithle thurgeon in Than Franthithco.”

  I bought two tickets.

  At the parties mother takes care of the food while I play master of ceremonies in a top hat and cane and organise party games and maybe do a few magic tricks to entertain the kiddies.

  We usually do kids parties but this was an eightieth birthday party for Dorothy Blumdem, mother of Wally Blumden, a lawnmower and rubbish removals guy with thirteen kids. They all live together with assorted aunts and uncles in an asbestos shack near the railway line.

  When we arrived Wally was out in the front yard clipping one of his kids around the ears.

  “Caught the little bugger reading a book,” he explained as his beer gut quivered from the exertion.

  “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” inaned mother.

  “Yeah. My father belted me around the head every day for years and look at me,” Wally boasted.

  We went inside with hampers full of party food. A narrow path through mounds of rubbish piled to the ceiling led to the lounge. Wally wiped his arm across a table, knocking cats and empty beer bottles to the floor.

  Wally pointed at the table.

  “Dump the grub here.”

  The table was covered in some black slimy stuff. Mother bravely touched it with one finger and gave it a sniff.

  “No probs,” beamed Wally. “This is where I fix me mowers.”

  As we put the food out on plates on the table, a low moaning sound came from a darkened corner of the room. Then a “thud, thud.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Wally. “That’s just mum.”

  He switched on the light. An old woman was tied to a chair with ropes in the corner of the room. She was facing into the corner and slowly banging her head against the wall.

  “Is she all right?” mother asked.

  “Sure,” Wally reassured us. “She bangs her head when she wants to go to the dunny. But its less trouble just to clean her up every few days. Just hose her down in the backy
ard.”

  Old Dorothy stopped banging her head against the wall. The ensuing smell was very like the odour of the fish caught in the local river near the sewage outpour.

  Wally did the introductions.

  “I’d like you to meet ‘Dotty Dot’ as we call her. The birthday girl. I’ll round up the kids.”

  Wally hacked his way through piles of rubbish like some guy in a jungle movie. We could hear him whistle loudly in the backyard.

  “What happened to Wally’s wife?” I asked mother.

  “It is said,” explained mother, “that when the wind howls on a winter night, when lightning crashes in a forest, when ocean waves pound against rocky cliffs, there can be heard the last pained gasp of Mrs. Blumden when told she was pregnant for the fourteenth time.”

  “A poetic demise indeed,” I commented.

  “We had spread the food out on the oil -soaked table when Wally returned with a tribe of children, aunts and uncles and assorted hangers-on.

  “Just been playing ‘kick the cat’ in the backyard. This silly little bugger,” he said, twisting a little boy’s ear, “kicked it over the fence. Gunna have to steal another one now.”

  Wally surveyed the food and licked his chops.

  “It’s all there exactly as you requested Mr Blumden,” mother said. “Thick rabbit sausages cooked in batter and sliced with peanut butter filling; triple-decker sponge cake with chunky tomato sauce and cream between each layer; lime jelly with grated liquorice suspended in it. To cop it all off we have Dorothy’s birthday cake: mashed banana and marshmallow with raspberry icing.”

  “Won’t be needing the party games,” Wally said. “Bath’s full of beer and you know how quick kiddies get drunk. Won’t be one standing in half an hour.”

  Wally turned old Dorothy’s chair so she faced into the room. He put the birthday cake with one lit candle on her lap. She remained completely expressionless but a pool of liquid spread from beneath her. Everyone smiled and went “aah - how nice. Dotty likes her birthday cake.”

  23

  Next morning there was a school excursion to Mt Warning, a long extinct volcano which is now just a pointy mountain.

  A teacher told us to be patient with the bus driver. It was his first solo run. He had just obtained his bus driver’s licence as part of a job training program at a local drug rehabilitation clinic.

  The driver began by giving us a stern lecture on bus etiquette.

  “Hi, I’m Tony and I’m like......your driver......you know......and like singing on the bus......well that’s like uncool you see......’cos I’ll be playing Hendrix over the sound system......maybe a bit of Jim Morrison......I know you kids dig that guy......and like no laughing......I’m a bit paranoid......strung out......those tabs at breakfast, wow.”

  Beads of sweat dropped off his forehead and ran down his sunglasses. He trembled and had the odd muscle spasm.

  “And like the dope smokers......well like you sit down the front......of the bus that is......so like I’ll be a passive smoker if I get your drift, hah, hah......that was like......like a joke.”

  He fell over backwards so we picked him up and put him on the driver’s seat and we all set off for Mt Warning.

  On the outskirts of town, Tony stopped the bus and asked over the sound system if we would rather go picking magic mushrooms.

  “No Tony,” we droned.

  We headed up the highway.

  It was an uneventful trip north. Tony had to stop a couple of times to vomit on the roadside. His driving wasn’t too bad, considering. Quite skilful really. The way he overtook a convoy of semi-trailers without the aid of a passing lane. Had to give the guy full marks for courage.

  Tony stopped at a roadside cafe to deal with an attack of the munchies. We waited in the bus. It was a restful couple of hours, though the bus was hot as an oven after the first few minutes. Tony returned, eyes glazed, in a marijuana haze.

  We asked him if he was okay to drive.

  He said, “No probs. She’ll be right.”

  And to give him credit, he was true to his word - except for a tendency to drive on the wrong side of the road. When we mentioned this to him, he said it was because his mother was American and we thought that was fair enough, having recently studied genetics.

  When we arrived at Mt Warning, we went to Tony’s brother’s kiosk just on lunch time. It was o.k., but would have been even better if it had sold food.

  We started the walk up Mt Warning from near the site where a Japanese developer had built the ‘Big Aborigine’ which is even bigger than the ‘Big Prawn’ at Ballina.

  The trek up Mt Warning was no piece of cake for us little Aussie couch potatoes. What with the heat of the day and numerous pests like sand flies, leeches and German tourists, it was tough going.

  Ah! To experience first hand the Australian bush. To commune with nature. It forces one to ponder the truths of one’s existence. To appreciate what is truly important in life - Things like DVDs, air conditioning and those shops where you can buy $2 plastic crap made in China. Someone behind me cried, “I want to go home.”

  We were pretty tuckered by the time we got to the pointy bit. Anna, whose father’s a doctor, whipped out an electronic blood pressure and pulse monitoring unit. For $2 a pop she tested each of us. When we saw the results, we decided to give the pointy bit a miss and head back down the mountain.

  As we walked back down, the ground began to shake and a rumbling noise came from deep down in the mountain.

  “I thought this volcano was extinct,” I said to the others.

  “What are you talking about?” a few of them replied.

  “Those earth tremors a moment ago. What do you think I’m talking about?”

  “What the hell’s he on about?” they muttered and kept on walking.

  What was going on? Nobody else felt it. And they are not smart enough to play such a good trick. Was this another spooky-dook omen for moi and moi alone?

  We went back down the mountain to a camping site. Eddie volunteered to light a fire. We all sat around the camp fire as Eddie regaled us with tales of the dingo life:

  “And then there was the seasonal work at Uluru. The pay wasn’t great but people were always taking photos of you which of course had positive outcomes self-esteem wise.”

  We then sang some hearty, cheery scouting songs about Christianising primitives and showing yellow men the virtues of double-entry bookkeeping.

  Eddie noticed the fire was going out so he said he’d show us how to get it going again the way dingoes do. This required all the boys lining up with their backs to the fire, dropping our pants, bending over and farting at the fire in unison.

  The camp fire really took off and racing away to engulf the Big Aborigine which went up in a whoosh of flames.

  “Gee. I’m sorry,” cried Eddie. “Look what I done.”

  “You really should stop apologising over every little thing,” we told Eddie, revealing the depth of our caring comfort and support when needed.

  When we got back to the bus we slapped Tony into consciousness and headed towards Murwillumbah. The arrangement was we’d pick the teachers up from the front bar of the Drover’s Dog Hotel.

  On the drive back down the highway, the teachers broke Tony’s ‘no singing on the bus’ rule but he didn’t seem to notice and we couldn’t understand a word of it so it was just background noise really.

  When the bus arrived back at school we carried the teachers into the staff room. Tony had fallen asleep over the steering wheel. Someone said it happened about Burringbar.

  24

  I woke up several times during the night feeling earth tremors and hearing rumbling from the bowls of the earth. When it happened at breakfast and mumsy and papa just kept eating their roast like nothing had happened, mother said I should see a doctor. She made an appointment for me to see a brain specialist on the Gold Coast.

  Father drove me up. It’s always a little embarrassing going places with father because he insist
s on taking the hearse for the publicity but everywhere we drive people line the streets holding their hats over their hearts as a sign of respect. That’s until they see the furry dice hanging in the back window.

  The brain specialist’s rooms look like the Taj Mahal. A marble fountain squirted pink champagne in the shape of a giant flamingo. A neon sign flashed: ‘Brain Scans and Transplants - Family Rates Available.’ Wally Blumden should know about this place.

  The doorman looked like Nick Cave gone Goth. In fact he looked more suited for father’s job. Come to think of it, father in his yellow safari jacket, brown shorts, long white socks and plastic sandals, looked like he belonged in a brain repair centre on the Gold Coast.

  “Howdy Nick,” I said the doorman as we went in.

  “Howdy Kidster. Takin’ the old geek in for a transplant?”

  Cool dude.

  We went upstairs in a glass lift from which we could see parrots and cockatoos in the mega indoor aviary. Crocodiles slept in an artificial mangrove swamp below us. A glass lift going up Mt Warning! Now there’s an idea.

  Father let rip with a Tarzan-style “ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah.”

  An elderly woman whispered to her friend, “I’ve heard they’ve been experimenting with chimpanzee brains.”

  We got off the lift on the umpteenth floor and went to a black marble reception desk. Father settled into a leather lounge with his ‘Coffins and Caskets Australia’ magazine swimsuit edition.

  A nurse in an orange toga led me into an enormous cavern of a room with dozens of people strapped to gurneys. Some were moaning and crying. Most were unconscious.

  “Just a little jab with this,” said the nurse as she wacked a needle into my arm so quick I couldn’t stop her. Everything went blurry. I must have blacked out because I woke up strapped to a gurney.

  After a few minutes, a man in a white doctory coat with a clip board came and stood over me. He had that weird artificial, plastic look about him that tv newsreaders have. Like he had a wind-up key in his back. Or he was running on batteries.

  He asked me twenty increasingly difficult general knowledge questions. Of course I answered them all correctly, articulately and without hesitation.

  “Splendid,” he said, “just what we are looking for. All we do now is drill the tiniest of holes through your skull and take an itty bit of your magnificent brain’s tissue. From this we can grow a complete first class brain to transplant into some dim witted private school student. Their parents pay a fortune for grade A grey matter. This project has the approval of state and federal governments you know.”

  He seemed so pleased with himself, I was loathe to spoil his moment of pride by mentioning I wasn’t all that keen on someone mining my wondrous brain. To me it was, well, sort of a sacred site.

  Dr Plastic looked at his clip board.

  “This surname ‘Dobbs.’ You’re not related to one Warren Dobbs by any chance?”

  “Yes sir. He’s my darling papa.”

  Dr Plastic went a deep crimson colour. Maybe he’d melt.

  “Do you have any idea of the havoc your father once wreaked on me?”

  “I only a liddle boy Mistuh.” Well I was feeling vulnerable.

  “Your father was responsible for ‘The Great Brain Scan Disaster of ‘92.’ Your ‘darling papa’ as you call him,” (I detected a hint of sarcasm), “came here for a simple scan. He short circuited our brand new top dollar scanner. You know why? Huh? Your father’s brain has no left and right hemispheres. It has north-south. And we didn’t have ‘Hemispheric Flip-Flop’ coverage.. No insurance. It set me back years.”

  Dr Plastic started weeping as bitter memories flooded back.

  “How can I use brain tissue from the son of ‘no brain.’? Your gene pool is drought stricken boy. Out of here. At once.”

  “’Son of No Brain.’ Wasn’t that one of those 1950s horror movies?” I asked.

  25

  When father and I arrived home from the Gold Coast, a lynch mob with flaming torches surrounded our house.

  “Not again,” said father. “I wonder what they want this time.”

  “Probably just the usual,” I replied with an air of bored indifference as the mob slung a noose over a branch of the jacaranda tree, lit a flaming cross on the front lawn and poured blood all over the bonnet of the hearse.

  “Where’s Dingo Boy. Bring out Dingo Boy,” the mob chanted. “We want the blood of Dingo Boy.”

  “Oh, you must be collecting blood for the Red Cross,” I suggested. “I thought you came to town on the third Tuesday of each month. Little early, shmirly this month aren’t we? Hmmm?”

  “Hand over Dingo Boy. We know he’s hiding in the house,” the mob growled.

  “Pray, good sirs, give me one good reason why I should hand over my dear little pet dingo boy.”

  The head mobster came forward to speak.

  “Well we figure if you let one dingo boy into town, others’ll follow and they’ll start forming dingo boy ghettoes with organised crime and it won’t be safe for women and children and they won’t bother even learning the language and the government gives them all these handouts our own kiddies can’t even scam on to and they’ll become a drain on the government purse and that’ll make it even harder for us to run our little cash economy so we don’t have to pay no taxes and they’re smarter than us and have all that education stuff that makes us feel even more inferior than we really are.”

  “Have you ever met a dingo boy?” I asked them.

  “Hell. Shucks no. Not rightly,” they muttered.

  “Well how would you like to meet one?” I asked.

  “Mutter, mutter,” the mob muttered. “Well gis it couldn’t do no harm. Not rightly.”

  “Come inside,” I invited.

  They extinguished their torches and, holding their hats in hand, shuffled into the house.

  Eddie, my dear little pet dingo boy, was studiously engaged in afternoon Bible studies.

  “How goeth thou?” I inquired of Eddie.

  “Serenely blessed Master Neil for I am studying the Word of the Lord.”

  The mobsters went to their knees as one and crossed themselves.

  “Oh woe is us,” they wailed. “What shame we have brought upon ourselves with our wretched bigotry and ignorance. What purity of soul is witnessed in this young dingo boy.”

  “Yeah. Nothin’ goin’ on here,” yelled someone from the back. “But I hear some chinks have moved in down the street.”

  We were nearly crushed in the stampede.

  26

  That evening mother had a meeting of ‘The Polite Towns Committee’ in the lounge. Every year awards are given to those towns whose citizens have the best manners. Mullumbimby has a proud record on this score with plaques plastered all over the Civic Centre.

  (But then every town in the state seems to win an award every year. I guess this keeps all the town committees motivated. But let’s not get cynical. Manners are just peachy don’t you think?”)

  The judging panel is supposed to arrive in town incognito, in the guise of tourists and travelling sales people. But of course every year word of the impending visit spreads round town the day before. Mullumbimby on Polite Towns judgement day is a sight to behold. No old geezers slagging on the footpath. No ferals with pitbull terriers hassling you for $20 so they can ring their parents in Germany. And tradesmen even refrain from gossiping about how unreasonable their previous clients were.

  Yes, on Polite Towns judgement day Mullumbimby is like a glimpse of the hereafter. The sun shines a little brighter. Birds sing a little twitterier. Gentlemen lift their hats as they pass in the street. Ladies curtsy to their betters. Tradesmen tug their forelocks when they arrive on the job. And, for some reason or other, children show respect to their elders.

  The committee meeting was in full swing when Charity Townsend started spouting forth.

  “All those youths eating on the footpath outside the takeaway shops. It’s disgusting. There’s nothing worse t
han seeing young boys and girls masticating public.”

  “Geeze,” interrupted father. “Masticating in public. That’d be something to see.”

  Charity glared at father and continued.

  Another thing we should look into is doing something about the way the paperboys leave their bicycles all over the footpath.

  I “ah ehmed” and stepped behind father. I didn’t like the direction of this diatribe at all.

  “I don’t know what this town’s coming to,” continued Charity. What with dingo droppings appearing everywhere and some ill-bred hoon blowing up poor Clarrie Hibble. Anyone who knows anything about who did that has a profound moral obligation to report directly to the police.”

  Eddie and I couldn’t work out why we were feeling so uncomfortable.

  “These sheilas who masticate,” interrupted father again. “What do they do it with?”

  27

  The visit to Dr Plastic hadn’t thrown much light on my personalised earth tremors. It wasn’t a complete waste of time though. Dr Plastic sells discount radial tyres from the basement of the Brain Centre so father re-fitted the hearse while he waited. Father had a great old time doing wheelies all the way home. When we got back to Mullumbimby he inspected the tyres and said, “Hey, have you noticed these tyres are getting a bit bald. Have to start thinking about replacing them.”

  Deep down, in my wondrous little heart of hearts, I knew that my individualised earthquakes were really omens for me and me alone. In my brain though, I was in denial.

  There was a knock at my bedroom door. I thought it might be a Shape Shifter, but it was only Eddie. He looked like a bedraggled waif from Oliver Twist. I could just see Eddie asking for “more please, sir.” He’s a regular little asset to the town on Polite Towns judgement day. Only Eddie would be asking for more Triple Decker Mullum Burger. Come to think of it, it was a Triple Decker Mullum Burger fart that began Eddie’s sorry saga in the first place.

  “They’re on to me Neil. They know. They know I blew up Clarrie Hibble. What can I do?”

  Eddie was weeping as he pleaded for help.

  “You think you’ve got problems, “I responded sympathetically, “I have to write 300 words on why people put beetroot in hamburgers for Home Economics.”

  “But you’re the only one who can help me.”

  “Well Eddie, for starters, I’d resist usage of the amorphous ‘they’ in conversation. Remember, lazy language reveals a lazy mind.”

  “True Neil. You’re always so right,” He observed appreciatively. “I’ll be specific. I went to a crazy prayer fest at the Church of Millennium Disciples tonight. Everyone was pogoing up and down and babbling in tongues. Then the pastor started screaming, ‘The devil is among us. The devil is among us.’

  “Everyone formed a circle around me. They were all pointing at me and chanting, ‘The devil is come. The devil is come.’ I was just sitting quietly on the floor minding my own business reading a ‘Lustwoman the Lesbian Flesheater’ comic and they turned on me in a fundamentalist fury.”

  “They must know about Clarrie Hibble,” I suggested, trying not to sound too much like Sherlock Holmes.

  “I reckon,” Eddie agreed. “But what’ll I do?”

  Eddie needed some reassurance, so I slipped into my can-do Agent 86 persona.

  “Well Eddie, as a master of disguise, I could provide wig, moustache and dark glasses so you could get about totally unrecognised. Or, as a master counterfeiter, I could provide a complete set of documents: birth certificate, passport, Video Ezy card, to establish a new life. Or, as a master plastic surgeon, I could give you a new face that would provide you with a new and satisfying path through life, perhaps as an Elvis impersonator.”

  “I’m not sure about any of those Neil, but you do a good Agent 86.”

  “Thanks Eddie. You could always fess up.”

  28

  At breakfast Eddie was reading the newspaper. I believe it is referred to as ‘stretching’ yourself.

  “Why is there always graffiti on the fence in Ginger Meggs?”

  Eddie had that confused puppy like when you hide a matinee jacket behind your back.

  “How come they haven’t caught the person who does it? You’d think they’d at least clean it off before the guy from the paper comes around to do the drawing.”

  “Perhaps he makes surprise visits like the Tuckers always do.” Mother explained.

  “And these little maps of Australia. They have three goes at it every morning and they still can’t get it right. Squiggly black lines all over the place.”

  I think Eddie was referring to the weather maps.

  “Perhaps if you started at the front of the paper,” I suggested. “There’s a pretty coloured photo.”

  “Yeah. Look at this picture. Some inbred freak family. Hey Neillie, maybe they’re the ones that didn’t show up at the Watson Bros Circus. Have a look.”

  “Ah, I think that’s the royal family Eddie,” I explained gently, not wishing to dampen his budding enthusiasm for current events.

  “Well anyway, maybe these Royal people could get a job with the circus,” Eddie suggested.

  “Very astute idea Eddie,” I said.

  Eddie looked pleased as punch to take part in a real grown ups conversation.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” said mother.

  She’s a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to the royals.

  “But I’m so proud Eddie,” she continued, “to have you join Neil and I, if not father, in intelligent table conversation. Some day soon we might just throw away your nasty old high chair and Mr Bib.”

  “Yeah. I want them back,” contributed father at last.

  That was the last time poor dear little Eddie was to dine at our merry table. (It was also actually the first – mother thought it might be easier to wipe down the table rather than mop the laundry floor after Eddie sprayed his food all over the place.)

  Eddie said he would catch up with me on the way to school, but he never did. I guessed he’d returned to the dingoes to escape the hassle of his accident-proneness and of the lynch mobs and for fear of Clarrie Hibble finding out Eddie had devised his blast-off. Either that or he was getting bored with Meaty Bites.

  29

  At school we had another meeting of the ‘Boys By The Bootstrap Program’. This was initiated by the Education Department because girls are doing much better at school than boys. Personally, I think it overlooks our innate stupidity, but like the Zoogoo spirit horn class, it sure beat the alternative woodwork class with Mith Thorenthon’s vengeance seeking fiance Bradley ‘Bull Terrier’ Bullman, former A-grade league player and full of hate. One would be ill-advised to indulge in whithle jokes in ear-shot of Bradley. But, God, the temptation!

  Last week, both boys and girls were asked to think up ways that the boy’s school results could be improved. Our Gender Balance Facilitator was Humphrey Perelman, author of ‘Scrums and Sensitivity.’

  “ First I’d like to hear from one of the girls,’ he began.

  “But that’s the bloody problem,” called out one of the boys.

  “Yeah. You bend over backwards to give the girls the advantage,” shouted another.

  “Reckon with a name like ‘Humphrey’ he does a lot of bending over,” sniggered a third boy.

  “And they always blame us boys with this crap about us being disruptive,” shouted a fourth boy indignantly.

  After several more minutes of male outrage, Mr Perelman finally restored order.

  “All right,” he began again,” would one of the boys like to explain how your results could be improved?”

  There was a minute’s silence which would have done itself proud on Remembrance Day. Then another. And another.

  “In a whole week, not one boy has come up with a single thought on how to improve your level of scholastic achievement?” asked Mr Perelman quietly but with a tone of contempt.

  “No need to come on all high and mighty,” ponced one of the b
oys.

  “Yeah. Just because you’ve got some poofy woofy uni degree, you’re just so, so better than us,” minced another.

  “Maybe if you didn’t ask such girly questions we’d give you an answer,” laughed a third boy.

  “’Scholastic.’ Now that’s just so cool,” mocked a fourth.

  “Sir, sir.” Duncan was putting his hand up with much vigour. “I’ve given this problem the serious consideration it deserves. May I speak?”

  “Certainly young man. You’re a credit to this school for defying such thuggish peer group pressure,” Mr Perelman praised.

  “Well sir. I reckon the best way to even things up is to upgrade the boys’ computers.”

  “But where would we get the money for that?” quizzed Mr. Perelman.

  “Well this is the good bit. We sell all the girls into white slavery. Haw, haw, haw.”

  30

  When I got home, mother and father were waiting excitedly at the front gate to greet me.

  “Guess what?” blurted mother, barely able to contain herself.

  “I’m going to have a little baby brother?” I suggested.

  “No. Your father hasn’t been too active in that realm for quite some time now.”

  “Hum.....no blessed event. Let me see. You’ve sold me into white slavery?” I guessed again.

  “He’s getting warmer,” said father. “Let’s tell him.”

  “Well Neil,” announced mother proudly, “Your father was abducted by aliens.”

  “That jerk standing next to you is doing an awfully good impression of father then.”

  “No Neil,” explained mother. “They let him go.”

  “And I’ve got a certificate to prove it,” said father. “It’s laminated and hanging in the lounge already. I’m a member of the ‘Mars Club.’ You get a ten per cent discount on a wide range of leisure activities and consumer goods. Only on Mars though.”

  “And your father says that they are such nice people. Very well spoken,” added mother.

  We went inside and after admiring the laminated Mars Club certificate with father’s X on the dotted line, father told me the story of his alien abduction.

  “I was parked in the hearse out at Huonbrook near where those nudie hippie chicks swim in the creek.”

  “What were you doing out there?” mother interrupted.

  Father ignored her and continued.

  “A flying saucer swooped and hovered over the creek and lowered a ladder down to the girls. A voice came from the saucer. It said: ‘We need nudie hippie chicks for breeding purposes. If you don’t come on board immediately, we will create a scene of carnage like on one of Johnny Jameison’s banners.’

  “The hippie chicks started climbing up the ladder without even putting their clothes on. I called out, ‘Can I come too. Can I, can I? Huh? Pretty please.’”

  “I thought you were on inactive service breeding-wise,” I said.

  “Don’t be stupid Neillie. I just wanted to watch. Anyway, a voice came from the saucer: ‘Go away geek. We don’t want anyone in a yellow safari jacket clashing with our designer interior.’ So I ripped off the jacket and climbed up the ladder just as the door was closing. Just made it.”

  “So what happened then?” I asked. This was getting pretty exciting.

  “Some guy with a plastic football for a head introduced himself as the Gender Balance Facilitator. Said Mars needs women but they were also going to colonise earth by installing governments made up of secret agents who would enable the extraction of the planet’s wealth.”

  “Too late coming to Australia,” I commented. “That racket’s already up and running.”

  “I’m a little concerned about your politics of anger Neil,” mother said. “It’s just not nice.”

  Father continued his story.

  “Football Head said that seeing as how I was on board, they’d run a few tests on me to establish a profile of a typical earth man. So they put me through some physical tests - heart and lung capacity under exercise, muscle tone. Stuff like that. And then some IQ and dexterity tests. Football Head read through the results of the tests. Then he said he’d have to

  go and see his superiors about something or other.

  “And then the strangest thing happened. Football Head returned and said the Martians had decided to cancel their breeding and colonisation plans for earth. They were going to look for a more suitable species. Funny thing. Came all this way and changed their minds.

  “So they released me and the nudie hippie chicks and flew away. But they gave us all Mars Club discount certificates so we wouldn’t go away empty-handed. Considerate species, those Martians. Sort of blokes you could have a few beers with.”

  Father’s limited attention span allowed him to wax nostalgic about something that happened ninety minutes ago.

  To think - my humble papa saved planet earth from Martian colonisation. What a shame he didn’t realise it.

  31

  Just on sunset, the townspeople gathered at the Council Chambers for the cutting down of Margot Progmore’s corpse. The event was being shown live on television throughout Australia. The one hour program was called ‘Merry Margot: The End of A Lifestyle.’

  Our host was ‘happy, happy, happy’ Andy Starr, host of the eternally popular quiz show ‘Money on the Button.’ He bounded out on to the stage wearing a red and yellow check jacket with a white carnation in the lapel as the band played ‘Fly Me To The Moon.’

  “Hooty-tooty and a hot cha cha. Everybody happy?”

  “Yes Uncle Andy,” we chanted in unison.

  “I bet nobody feels like a quiz.”

  “Of course we do Uncle Andy, you old tease,” we responded.

  Andy coaxed two reluctant quizees out of the audience and asked them a broad range of general knowledge questions like, “Which television network won the ratings last week? Which star of this network has won the most Gold Logies? Why is the owner of this network so loved by ordinary folk? Which quiz show host deserves a better deal in his current contractual negotiations?”

  Legendary fast bowler and network sports commentator Graham Cunningham interviewed legendary batsman and network sports commentator Terry O’Neil about forthcoming network sports programs and did an ad for Terry’s limited edition cricket bat sighed by his Aunty Gwen and available for only $3,500.

  That ‘crafty woman’ Noeline Smith showed the women how to embroider the network logo “so you can hang it in your little lounge rooms as a constant reminder to the whole family of the family fun times in store on network television.”

  Then some dancing girls holding poles with photos of the network stars on top sang the network theme song: “We’re not really rich celebrities - Just think of us as part of the family. We’re not really stars with high strung egos - Just think of us as your humble servants.”

  Finally, the Gold Logie man himself, Mike Brians, bounced on stage to the roar of the crowd. He hushed the crowd, said it was time to remember why we were all here and pay tribute where it was due. First he praised the “unequalled excellence” of the network technical staff and the “troopers” in the publicity office. He then thanked his fellow network stars and paid homage to network owner, Norman Anderson.

  Then it was time to cut down the rotting, putrid, black, bloated, fly-blown corpse of Merry Margot.

  As the guy from the fishing program hacked away at the rope with a rusty fish-scaling knife, the corpse started banging against the brick wall and bits broke off.

  Then, quick as flash, Eddie darted out from behind the Council Chambers, grabbed a piece of rotting, putrid, black, bloated, fly-blown leg in his mouth and ran off into the dark.

  Mike Brians, ever the little Aussie showman, led us in a spontaneous chorus of “nick-nack paddywack give the dog a bone”, but we mucked it up because we were all cackling with laughter after seeing Eddie run off with the rotting, putrid, black, bloated, fly-blown leg.
br />   As the band launched into ‘Advance Australia Fair,’ Mike said, “Goodnight Australia and may God bless network television” and it was all over.

  As we walked home, mother said, “I think Miss Progmore would have been pleased with such a heartfelt tribute.”

  32

  In the morning, mother insisted I see a doctor about my personalised earthquakes. I was still having them.

  “But don’t all liddle boysies have rumble brains mummy?” I bunged on my pathetic persona trying to squirm out of another doctor visit.

  “You can be such a cutie Neil,” said mother. “Just like your father before Dr Forbes sent him to that speech therapist.”

  (Memo:Cut the pathetic act or I’ll end up at the speech therapist like Mith Thorenthon.)

  “I know,” continued mother, “you haven’t been getting on too well with Dr Forbes since your epilepsy prank in the waiting room.”

  “No sense of humour.”

  “But it did get a little out of hand, Neil.”

  “So who’s knocking a free helicopter flight to Brisbane?”

  “Anyway, I thought you might like to try that brand new health clinic down the street. The one with the rainbow painted on the front.”

  “And the astrology signs?”

  “And the wind chimes,” confirmed mother.

  “How about I just give good old Dr Forbes one more chance?”

  “I’m sorry Neil. He’s already given you your last.”

  The only magazines in the waiting room of the Harmony Health Clinic were ‘I’, ‘Me’, and ‘Me, Me, Me’. I should have brought one of father’s ‘Bikers and Boobs’ magazines.

  A poster on the wall advertised the Mullumbimby New Age Film Festival featuring a season of ‘film moi.’

  Ambient music droned from hidden speakers. It sounded like a waterfall.

  A huge guy with a black flowing beard and wearing a white kaftan which must have been made out of a couple of old parachutes, limped from out the back room. He held out his hand.

  “Yeah. I’ve got two of them.”

  Well I was on the defensive after my trip to Dr Plastic.

  “My name’s Hugo Cronenberg. I’m your holistic healer. I’m German.”

  “Well congratulations,” I replied sarcastically. “A holistic heeler. They breed them from blue heelers don’t they?”

  “Walk this way,” he said as he turned around. I limped after him.

  As he shuffled and coughed his way out the back, I said, “You’d be a role model for the healthy life, wouldn’t you?”

  The back room was large and dark with stars twinkling on the ceiling. There was no furniture except for rugs and cushions on the floor. Burning incense was everywhere. A waterfall in the corner made a sound like ambient music.

  “Bet you rent this out for Chamber of Commerce meetings,” I observed

  Hugo eased himself into a pile of cushions. I sat on the floor. “Tell me about your problems,” he said.

  “My father’s the town geek. Not even the Martians want him. There’s only two days a week I don’t have to go school......”

  “No, I mean your health problems.”

  “Oh. I see. I have earthquakes in here.” I pointed at my skull.

  “And what do you think’s causing it?” he asked.

  “What do you think’s causing it?” I mimicked. “Der. Pardon me. But is there a doctor in the house?”

  “I’m not a doctor.”

  “You’re telling me. Medicare wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole.”

  “I’m picking up negative vibes.”

  “Mustn’t leave them lying around Hugo. Mummy wouldn’t like it.”

  “I think we should do a few tests.”

  He groaned as he slowly stood up.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  Twenty-four. Why.”

  “No reason.”

  He wheeled a trolley over next to me. On top it had a thingamewhosit with lots of clear plastic piping and green fluids and gauges.

  “This will measure the harmonic balance of your innermost being. I plug a plastic pipe into each of your ears and this little bubble in the green fluid will be our indicator. This unit is called a ‘spiritual level’.”

  With tubes stuck in each ear, fluids started whizzing around through clear plastic piping. The machine tick, tick, ticked away. Then it went silent. Hugo inspected the bubble indicator.

  “A perfect balance. Perfect harmony. Pure spirituality. This is amazing.”

  “What’s so amazing?” I asked.

  “Well, you’re such a sarcastic little prick.”

  33

  As I crossed over Dalley St, I saw mother running down the street. I gave her a ‘hoi’ and she ran over to me.

  “I’ve done a terrible thing,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve double booked the Snell Memorial Meeting Room at the community centre. I booked both the Feral Heritage League and the Crippled Christians Chess Club for eleven o’clock.

  “And now the ferals have taken the crips hostage Neil. And they’re making demands. Making demands Neil.”

  She started sobbing.

  “I’m on my way to get the police lest there be loss of life or damage to community property. It’s an ugly, ugly scene Neil.”

  “Never fear Mumsikins,” I reassured her. “Let us not bother the overburdened policepersons with this trivial affair. I shall deal with the matter at hand. Why, somewhat propitiously, I happen to have a new model Krowd Kontrolla Model A137 megaphone with fully charged batteries in my school bag.

  “Show me the way mother. Just show me the way.”

  When we arrived, the foremost feral was calling out their demands from a broken window.

  “We want 100 hectares at Upper Wilson’s Creek to establish a spiritual homeland.”

  “You mean a feral farm?” I asked through the megaphone.

  “We need land to connect with our feral forebears.”

  ”You’d be lucky to find one bear in those hills, let alone four,” I replied in my conciliatory negotiation manner.

  “Let me make an offer,” I continued. “Keep three crips for human sacrifice and let the others go.”

  I was trying to be reasonable.

  “No restrictions on the type of sacrifice?” he asked.

  “Fire, water. What the hell do I care?”

  “Okay. But what about the land?”

  “How about,” I suggested, “instead of 100 hectares at Upper Wilson’s Creek, you settle for a building block at Wategoes Beach?”

  I could hear the ferals inside going, “Wow. Wategoes. That’d be cool.”

  The foremost feral came to the window.

  “For a building site at Wategoes we’ll release all the Christian Crips.”

  “You don’t have to,” I replied, trying to conceal my disappointment. “I haven’t been to a decent sacrifice in years.”

  34

  I finally got back to school just in time for Mr Farrer’s science class. We had each been doing individual science projects at home and then presenting them in class.

  Melissa Thorpe had used plants and posters to demonstrate how photosynthesis works. Giles Roundtree had brought along his butterfly collection. Today it was Johnny Jameison’s turn.

  “Mr Farrer.”

  Johnny bowed orientally as a mark of respect.

  “Class.”

  He repeated his Charlie Chan act for us.

  “For my first science project, I present, for your special entertainment the human punching bag – ta-daa.”

  Johnny’s little sister, dressed up in a spangly circus costume, wheeled in a trolley on which was standing my missing pet dingo boy, Eddie, dressed only in silk boxer shorts with little puppies all over them. He was grinning. Probably with embarrassment.

  “I am going to do a scientific experiment,” announced Johnny, “to see if unemployed humans can take the place of the antiquated old punching bag, thereby gaining gainful employment by replacin
g the old antiquated old punching bag, giving people jobs…..as punching bags.”

  Johnny gasped to get his breath back after his long-winded introduction.

  After a bit of a sit down and a nice hot cuppa, Johnny continued.

  “Watch this.”

  He punched Eddie in the nose.

  Eddie’s nose started bleeding. All the blow flies which had been licking his hair oil, moved down face and started licking the blood which dripped everywhere.

  “But Johnny,” we cried. “This punching bag is no good. One punch and it’s leaking all over the floor.”

  “Am I,” balled Eddie in horror. “Johnny I told you I had to go to the toilet. Waa. Waa.”

  Eddie dashed from the room. (On all fours).

  “For my second science project, I detected and isolated the Ebola virus on marsupial mice at Huonbrook. I have some in this test tube.”

  He held the test tube up for us to see. We ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’. This time we were genuinely impressed. Johnny’s painted banners had given the impression he had ‘artistic inclinations’. But now he had ‘come out’ as the Mad Scientist. Cool.

  Johnny held up a cage with what looked like a lump of coal in it.

  “This is a rat,” he explained.

  “But Johnny. It’s just a lump of coal,” we cried in confusion.

  “Today it is. But yesterday I injected it with the godless Ebola virus. Yesterday it was a merry prankster of a rat. Today a lump of coal. Hah, hah, hah.”

  Johnny’s cruel laughter echoed through the room.

  “And if I find out who stole the other test tube.....”

  “You mean to say Jarret,” interrupted Mr Farrer, “you’ve lost a test tube full of the godless

  Ebola virus? Why it could wipe out the entire town of Mullumbimby.”

  “They could always turn it into an open cut coal mine, haw, haw, haw,” suggested Duncan.

  Then we had Australian history. We were taught about how in Australia women were only granted the right to drive cars when the blokes realised they needed someone to drive them home when they got drunk. But we already knew all that.

  At the end of the day an announcement came over the public address system that the Children’s Book Foundation had made a donation to the school library of fourteen books about youth suicide. We all cheered with excitement.

  35

  After school we had a full dress rehearsal of my play about the early settlement of Mullumbimby. Miss Clover introduced a special guest visitor. It was Margot Progmore’s grieving husband, famous film director Barry Nader.

  “Mr Nader’s come along to enjoy our little play as a diversion from the recent spectacle of his wife’s rotting corpse dangling from the Council Chambers amid a cloud of feasting blow flies,” spoke Miss Clover with great sensitivity. I can tell you, some eyes were not dry.

  “Thank you Miss Clover. You’re very kind,” replied Mr Nader in that fake American accent Australians get after six months in Hollywood. “It’s a pleasure to visit with such creative young Aussies.”

  “Why, pleasures all ours Mr Nader,” we chimed in a crude Texan drawl.

  When the play was over, Mr Nader turned around and shook my hand.

  “You’ve got one hell of a hot property there Neil.”

  “Aw shucks, Mr Nader,” I blushed.

  “Just call me Bazzer. Don’t forget, I may be an internationally admired celebrity, a person both loved and envied around the globe, but I’m really just a dinkum Aussie battler. I insist you call me Bazzer.”

  “Sure thing Mr Bazzer,” I said with great humility.

  “There’s a great film lying dormant in the skeleton of your play Neil. We just need to apply some artistic resuscitation to bring it to life.”

  “You mean make changes?” I asked.

  “Well yes Neil. Just minor of course.”

  He spent the next two and a half hours explaining the minor changes.

  Because the American audience would find ‘Mullumbimby’ such a tongue twister, we’d have to change it to something a little more familiar like Springfield or Gotham City.

  And Mr Bazzer thought the wagon train was a little old hat for the “all important youth market.” So that was replaced with a space ship from Venus. Instead of the settler families, the ship was piloted by two “feisty femme” outlaws on the run from the Venutian authorities.

  The aborigines would be replaced by a tribe of large breasted Amazon women. Mr Bazzer said this was “tossing a bone to the hairy feminists to stop them barking.”

  In the film, the Venutian outlaws would lead the Amazon women in the conquest of planet earth. This would take about 120 minutes of M 15+ rated death, destruction and the sort of behaviour not tolerated on polite towns judgement day.

  All in all, and considering the sum of money Mr Bazzer was offering me, I considered the essential integrity of my play had been retained.

  36

  I was walking home from school past Palm Park when I saw a colourful little creature scurrying among the shrubs. Being a curious young fellow, I pursued post haste lest not to miss the strange visual feast at hand.

  “Pray tell,” I hear my readers clammering. “What strange beast disturbs the placid perambulation of Master Neil?”

  Oh shock and surprise! Said strange beast be none but young Edward Patterson, my runaway dear little pet dingo boy.

  “What’s with all the poofy talk Neil?” he said.

  “Shit. Was I thinking out loud again?” I asked.

  “I’ll show you my new home,” Eddie offered as he beat his way through the bushes down to the bank of the creek. I followed.

  Eddie was wearing something like a court jester’s outfit with rainbow coloured tights and a cap with bells on it. As we walked, the bells tinkled out a medley of Christmas carols.

  “Great cap Eddie.”

  “Bought it at one of those shops full of $2 plastic crap made in China.”

  “Two dollars. Incredible.” I was impressed.

  “It’s the child slave labour of course,” Eddie explained.

  “Yeah. You can do wonders with that,” I said, trying not to sound too envious of the more advanced nations. We had studied all this in economics.

  We came to a little hut in a clearing. The hut was a shambles of old corrugated iron, bits of timber and stolen supermarket trolleys.

  “Quite a sculpture Eddie,” I observed. “The supermarket trolleys imply a critique of rampant consumerism.”

  “It’s me home Neil.”

  “Of course Eddie. It’s not a sculpture at all. It’s a mosquito ridden hovel.” I backtracked trying not to hurt his feelings. “In fact, it’s a rodent infested shack anyone would be proud to call home.”

  “I made the curtains myself,” Eddie said with pride.

  I could only admire the way he had nailed up a painter’s drop cloth. Quite the homemaker, our Eddie.

  “But Eddie, why leave the warmth, security, moral guidance and love of the family home?”

  “Why not?”

  I must admit he had me floundering on that one.

  “I have to hide Neil. They all know I blew up Clarrie Hibble.”

  “No they don’t,” I tried to reassure him.”

  “They all know. Mr Farrer. The Zoogoo dead rels. The Millennium Disciples. What if King Dingo finds out?”

  “You’re one of us Eddie. It doesn’t matter what King Dingo thinks.”

  “But Neil, he comes in my dreams. He tells me I’ve mucked up rool bad. He reckons if I can’t live with humans they’ll have to take me back. I want to stay with you and Mamakins Dobbs and Papakins Dobbs but I don’t deserve to. I’m not good enough. I just a naughty little dingo boy.”

  Here was someone claiming the Dobbs family was in some way or other superior to them and not a witness in sight. Drat.

  “It’s only a dream Eddie.”

  “But dingoes reckon if something happens in your mind it’s as rooly rool as something that rooly rooly
happens.”

  “You mean like when you dream you’re having a piss and you wake up and you really are?”

  “Sorta, but not sorta.”

  37

  When mother, father and I were eating our dins dins, Barry Nader arrived to discuss the funeral arrangements for his much grieved life partner, Margot.

  He had a bottle of champagne in each hand.

  “Noel and I got a little celebrating to do. Us two gunna make a film.”

  He must have been a bit drunk because he had dropped his fake American accent.

  “That’s Neil sir, Mr Bazzer,” I corrected

  “Whoever the hell you are. It’s party time in Mullumbimby.”

  “I think Mr Nader is upset Neil,” said mother. “The grief process requires immense strength of character.”

  “Know where we can find some party chicks in this town?” asked Mr Nader.

  “As you can see Neil,” explained mother, “grieving can plunge a person into despair and depression. Mr Nader’s loss of his beloved Margot......”

  “Margot shmargo. Let’s work out how to bury the bitch.”

  “Well, after a week on the side of the Council Chambers,” said father, “the corpse is so shrivelled up and eaten away by blowies, not to mention missing the best part of a leg, I thought we could use the baby coffin.”

  “Aw gees Father,” I whined. “Where are we going to keep the Mr Jolly Pringle ice-cream?”

  “That’s right Neil,” said Father. “And come to think of it, where would I keep my bait?”

  “I think an adult coffin might be more fitting for such an important celebrity,” suggested mother in her wisdom. “Perhaps you could save the baby coffin for the body parts of the next careless sugar worker.”

  “There’s a few more details we’ll have to sort out Barry,” said father, looking at his note book.

  “That’s ‘Mr Nader’ to you, geek.”

  “How would you like her made up for the viewing?”

  “As a tart would be appropriate.”

  “How sweet,” sang mother. “Apple or jam?”

  “Is she for real?” asked Mr Nader.

  “I remember,” continued mother, “ one year when the tiny-tots dressed up as bananas for the Chincogan Fiesta parade. They were so cute Mr Nader. I’m sure Warren can make Miss Progmore look just as cute.”

  “What’s that trophy on the mantelpiece? It’s not an Oscar is it?”

  Mr Nader was now drinking his champagne straight from the bottle.

  “No deary me, of course not,” giggled mother. “It’s a special award presented to Warren for his contribution to the local tourism industry. Let me, if I may, bore you with the details.

  “You see, Neil’s papa used to be chief of the local rural fire brigade. One day he organised a burn-off of that nasty undergrowth which fuels bad old Mr Fire. But it was a total fire ban day and nobody had seen fit to tell poor Warren.

  “The fire raged out of control for three days and destroyed the entire rural economy. So the plucky Mullumbimbyites turned to tourism. And the richly deserved award sits there to this day, pride of place, on our humble mantelpiece.”

  “And what’s that on the fridge door?” Mr Nader asked.

  “That is a record of Neil’s major life milestones,” continued mother. “Like the first time he wagged school and got pewkingly sick on cigarettes at Heritage Park. And the time he took his little sister for a swim at the river and learned that not all little Australians can swim like fish. And of course there’s the night Warren and I decided to see what all this marijuana fuss was about and Neil rang the police. What a civic minded little charmer he was.”

  The Dobbs family history had sent Mr Nader off to sleepybies on the sofa. The two bottles of champagne may also have helped. We left him snoring away and went to bed.

  About 3 am I was woken up by a guy wearing a balaclava who had a gun shoved in my ear. He told me to go into the lounge where two more men in balaclavas were standing over mother and father who were tied up with rope and lying on the floor.

  “Where’s Nader?” asked one of the men.

  “He’s not here,” replied mother.

  “He owes us big,” said another man.

  “We didn’t do anything,” pleaded father. “Take the boy but leave us alone.”

  (Note: When it comes to the crunch, father doesn’t really regard me as part of the family. How was I to know she couldn’t swim?)

  “Take her as well,” cried father as he pointed at mother, “but leave me alone.”

  (Note: Disregard previous note. Reinstate former, long-held opinion of father.)

  “What’s that trophy on the mantelpiece?” asked the third balaclavad man.

  “You see, Neil’s papa used to be chief of the local rural fire brigade,” began mother, ever proud of our family history.

  38

  At 4 am mother woke me up.

  “Come Neil. Come quick. Your father has had a wondrous and spooky experience. He’s had a near death experience.”

  We settled around the kitchen table in our jammies and father began his yarn.

  “I was being drawn towards a bright light. I felt a warm feeling of security.”

  “A ‘warm feeling of security’?” I asked. “You didn’t piss in bed again?”

  “No, this was different. It was like I was floating through a tunnel.”

  “You mean,” I suggested, “like a tired turd wafting its way to the river outfall at the charming little fishing spot.”

  “Took the words right out of my mouth Neil. And at the end of the tunnel - guess what? Generations of dead Dobbs rels.

  “The first to greet me was old grandpa Albert. His words were exactly as follows: ‘Not that little Wozza prick who burned down my chook shed playing fireman.’

  “The next to embrace me from the other side was grandma Mary. I recall her words exactly so they may be passed down through Neil to his children and then to their children. She said: ‘Yeah. It’s that little bastard all right. Used to come home from school, steal my ice cream and sell it to the other kids from out of uncle Bill’s bait box. Disgusting child.’

  “They all started chanting: ‘Piss off you useless mongrel.’ And I woke up.”

  “Clearly the Lord did not yet want you at his side,” said mother.

  “I reckon,” said father.

  39

  Before I did my paper round in the morning, I rode down to Palm Park to ask Eddie to return home. I missed him. I’d just gotten used to the pleasure of having someone do my homework. But his shack had disappeared. Vanished as if by alien abduction. And I’d already planned a trip to the local rubbish tip to get him a house warming present.

  As I delivered the papers, Mullumbimby was shrouded in a weird orange glow. Like somebody had scrunched the sun up in cellophane. The spooky thing was that if you held your hand up to the sun, you could see the bones like in an x-ray.

  But the air was still fresh like it is every morning. Except when I ride past the primary school which, even at this time of day, emits a stench of Vegemite sandwich, squashed banana and stale piss. Still, it’s better than going past after lunch, when you can add fart to the concoction.

  I rode past the brand new bus shelter which is very effectively designed to keep the rain off thirty school children, which is fine except the other two hundred and seventy get pretty pissed off.

  As I rode past the bus depot, I could see the bus cleaner dragging one of our teachers out of a bus. We must have missed him when we got back from Mt Warning.

  Down at the horse paddocks, a couple of members of the East Mullumbimby Pony Club were saddling up for an early ride. There used to be only one pony club in Mullumbimby but back in the day a split occurred over the OJ Simpson verdict. Now there’s an ‘East’ and a ‘West’ club. The kids in the East club thought the jury should have returned a guilty verdict. The kids from the West Mullumbimby Pony Club said: “That nice black man in the Naked Gun films couldn’t po
ssibly do something so icky.”

  Old Aunty Alice was sitting on her front verandah. She beckoned me (kind of in slow motion) to come in and see her.

  “You’re looking well this morning Neil.”

  “Thanks Aunty Alice. You’re not looking a day over 110 yourself.”

  “What do you think of this spooky orange glow Neil?”

  “Well personally, I’d prefer it in a purple.”

  “Neil, you’d have to be as stupid as your father.”

  “Aw gee Aunty Alice,” I moaned. “That’s a bit below the belt.”

  “You’re right Neil. Comparing your father with any living creature be it fungal slime, blood parasite or single-cell amoeba is a profound and unforgivable insult.”

  “Thanks Aunty Alice.”

  “The cobwebby stuff. The smoke coming out of the sea. Now this eerie strange glow.”

  “Don’t forget my personal earthquakes.”

  “Do these omens mean anything to you at all Neil?”

  Wish she’d go back to asking me if I thought it was going to rain. My self esteem was on a tightrope here.

  “Been kinda busy lately Aunty Alice. What with near brain transplants, home invasions and stuff. Haven’t had much time to think about it.”

  “What kind of crappy answer is that? Don’t you have any self esteem?”

  “Not now Aunty Alice.”

  “I suppose you want me to explain the omens.”

  “Only if you doubt my ability to work it out myself.”

  “The omens,” she began without hesitation, “are the voice of this town.”

 

  “You mean wacky old Mullumbimby?”

  “Yes Neil. Our jolly little village is speaking to us. Or more precisely, to you.”

  “You mean humble little moi? Pray tell - the message?”

  “Our beloved little town is angry because you are telling lies about it Neil.”

  “What lies?” I asked innocently.

  “I think you know Neil. I think you know.”

  As Aunty Alice stood up, her bones creaked like the rusty door on father’s chook shed. The sound evoked the smell of fried chicken.

  She walked into the house. I got back on my bike to continue my deliveries in the weird orange glow.

  As I pedalled along, I realised that ‘Venutian Chicks Meet The Amazon Babes’ (for which I had been offered mega bucks) may have been playing a little loose with the truth of the town’s history. Could this be causing the town so much hurt?

  I knew then, like a character in an earnestly dull novel for young adults, I was facing a formative crisis of conscience, a moral dilemma which could only have one resolution - that which was spiritually and morally uplifting for my unformed, guidance seeking little readers.

  I knew I must see Mr Nader at once to cancel our deal. Only then could I right my terrible wrongs and find peace again with my lovely little township. To be at one with Mullum.

  I rode quickly as my pumping pins would propel me. A voice inside me cried: “Go Neil, go, for you have a moral crisis to resolve as an example to your serious young readers.”

  I flew like the very wind.

  Mr Nader’s motel room door was open. I went in. He was kneeling in front of the toilet bowl pewking up a storm. Retching like it was going out of style. You’d have to have been there to appreciate it. A regular Niagara Falls of carrot, banana, even some blood.

  He paused from his fun, looked up at me and croaked: “Just had a call from LA. They want to double the payments for the rights to your play. What do you think?”

  “Want a newspaper?” I asked. “Nobody’ll miss it.”

  40

  I found Eddie trying to hitch a lift on the outskirts of town.

  “Where d’ya head Ed?”

  “Thought I’d try the Gold Coast Neil.”

  “Dunno about that Eddie. In the world of the downwardly mobile, the Gold Coast is strictly for over-achievers. How long you been waiting?”

  “Coupla hours.”

  “You’d think drivers’d be falling over themselves to pick up a dingo boy in rainbow tights and a belled cap.”

  “Reckon.”

  “How about coming home Eddie,” I begged, remembering I’d forgotten to do my homework. “Give our ‘umble ‘ome one more chance.”

  Eddie held his hands behind his back, looked at the ground, bent his right knee a bit, twirled his right foot around on his big toe and said, “Aw shucks, golly-gosh. Seein’ as how ya asked so purdy.”

  When I brought Eddie back home, mother sat us all down at the kitchen table.

  “I think it’s time we had a family conference. I want to apologise to you young Eddie. I think we Dobbsikins have expected you grow up too fast. So, inspired by ‘Oprah: Cut It Out Mom – I’ll Grow Up When I Feel Like It’, I’ve decided to give our young Eddie The Bargain Channel’s ‘Kiddikins Makeover Kit’. Follow me young Eddie.”

  Mother took Eddie by the hand and led him to the bathroom.

  Father and I used the couple of hours waiting at the kitchen table to engage in quality time father-son shared feelings conversation. At least we wooda. Cept we couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Mother finally returned with a juvenated Eddie. He was a sight to behold.

  Eddie was wearing the cutest little white sailor’s suit with shorty short pants and long socks and a white hat with a blue ribbon dangling off the back. His hair had been curled and dyed blonde.

  Mother took Eddie’s hat off to proudly display his luscious locks.

  “The Shirley Temple look,” boasted mother. “I always feel that classic style is timeless.”

  Eddie was sucking a lollipop and dribbling green snot from his nose which he sucked in with the chemically lollipop juice.

  “I cute, huh Neil?”

  “Just dandy kiddo.”

  I like to think I’m as tolerant as the next man.

  “No more rough and tumble school for our Eddie,” said mother. “From now on you can enjoy kinder with mummy in the safety and security of cute little cottage.”

  There was a semi-spooky knock at the front door. (Only ‘semi’ because it was a bit light on dookness.)

  Mumsy answered and returned with a sort of semi-human, green-skinned, witch-like figure in a black cape.

  “This is Miss Rogers. She’s a social worker. She says she has something important to talk to us about.”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” cackled Miss Rogers. “Yes Mrs Dobbs. I’m afraid we’ve heard rumours of a child sex-change operation ring operating in this area. What’s your name little girl?”

  “Eddie.”

  “Short for Edwina?”

  “No. I a boy, but I just been made over in the bathroom.”

  “You’ll have to come with me sweetie. We’ll either place you in foster care with a nice family like the Atkinsons or, failing that, in a cage.”

  Eddie disappeared out the back door. Bolted like a dingo.

  41

  Next morning, as mother splashed roast vegetables on my plate, I couldn’t help but have fond memories of Barry Nader’s power pewking.

  “Could we have baked carrots and bananas sometime?”

  “Certainly Neil,” she replied, “but that’s an odd combination to have with roast.”

  “Just thought it’d be cool.”

  “Actually Neil, it’ll be hot.”

  In the local paper, I read that Clarrie Hibble had gone beserk and had been arrested. He had grabbed a supermarket check-out woman by the throat and started screaming something about the bar code scanner being able to read people’s minds. He said it was part of the conspiracy of international Jewish bankers which had planted the fart in his milk bottle. I hoped the scanner hadn’t read Clarrie Hibble’s mind before its bedtime.

  Clarrie had been locked up at Prison World, the successful dual purpose theme park

  He had been put on display for the tourists in the ‘Wombat Man Cage’ which was named after its former inmate who had
gone missing the weekend the Watson Bros Circus came to town.

  The report said Clarrie was banging his head against the bars of the cage when a little German tourist boy gave him the finger. Clarrie bit the finger off and swallowed it. Micro-surgeons said the only way to preserve the finger was to feed Clarrie a constant diet of ice until he “dropped the digit” as they quaintly expressed it.

  The problem was, Clarrie was demanding whisky to go with the ice. His drunken tantrums were attracting tourists by the busload.

  Charity Townsend of the Polite Towns Committee was quoted as saying, “Clarrie’s behaviour is even more vulgar than those American cartoon characters like that disgusting Homer Simmons.” She demanded he be removed to the dungeon.

  A local police sergeant said Clarrie would stay on display in the cage. “With all the tourists flocking here with their cameras, I’d hate to be a party-pooper,” he commented.

  When the newspaper asked Clarrie for a statement, he defiantly responded, “I’ll crap in a bucket for no man.”

  42

  At school we had the final session of the ‘Boys By The Bootstrap’ program with Humphrey Perelman. The girls had requested that it be a boys only class.

  Humphy (as we called him) explained that the purpose of the lesson was to develop in us a sense of respect for our fathers as role models.

  “Reckon your sister was your role model Humphy,” someone sniggered.

  “I also don’t think it would hurt to show a little respect for your teachers,” Humphy whined.

  “I agree,” said Duncan. “That was a very hurtful comment about Mr Perelman’s sister. I’m sure she isn’t a whingeing girly-swat at all. Haw, haw, haw.”

  Humphy said that fathers had become figures of ridicule in popular culture but we shouldn’t identify our own fathers with these negative caricatures. He went on to say that in most Australian families, the father was hard working, responsible and a worthy role model. If we set our sights high and saw our fathers as figures worthy of emulation, we would be sure to achieve better results at school and have a rewarding adult life.

  “Neilly, Neilly. Where are you Neilly?”

  I turned around and said, “Howdy Pops. How you doing?”

  “Fine thanks Neilly,” slurred father.

  I think he had had a few too many drinks, but still, it was nearly lunchtime.

  “Could you lend me $20? I’ve had a bad run at the TAB.”

  “Not the usual fifty?” I offered.

  “Twenty’d be fine. I just borrowed fifty from old Aunty Alice. She can’t remember I haven’t paid her back from last time”

  The boys all laughed knowingly about one way ‘loans’ from Aunty Alice. All their fathers did it.

  “Quick. Where’s the dunny?” asked father urgently. “I gotta pewk.”

  “Can’t remember,” we said, anxious to see the results.

  The results weren’t long coming. Father heaved all over Duncan. When we finally stopped laughing and turned to the front of the class, Humphy had gone.

  Several months later, mother was watching a documentary on SBS television about Tibetan monks.

  “That’s odd,” she called out. “One of them’s Australian. I think they said his name was Perelman.”

  43

  The school encourages us to do volunteer work in the community. Mid-morning, Duncan and I went around to the local retirement village to entertain the oldsters. Duncan did a stand-up comedy routine. I was the compere. We dressed up in our best night club performers’ outfits.

  “And now, direct from Las Vegas,” I announced in a fake American Barry Nader style accent, “and a sell-out season at the Twin Towns Services Club, h-e-r-e-s Dunky.”

  The oldsters applauded enthusiastically as Duncan bounced out centre stage.

  “Thank you, thank you. I love you all.”

  The oldsters all went, “Oh. Isn’t that such a sweet thing to say.”

  Duncan began his routine.

  “Have you ever noticed when you ask an oldster where they are going for their holidays, they never say ‘I’ll be in Europe.’ They say, ‘I’ll be in Continent.’ Haw, haw, haw.

  “I’ve always been impressed with the powerful memories oldsters have. The ability to remember the full richness and detail and of their lives. Why I’m told there are actually a couple of people in this room who can even remember what they had for breakfast. Haw, haw, haw.

  “The name tags are a great idea in a social situation like this. If you’re introducing yourself to someone you can always look at the tag when you forget your name. Haw, haw, haw.

  “You never hear old people whingeing and complaining. I learned to block it out years ago. Haw, haw, haw.

  “If I can be serious for a moment folks. Until I met you kind people here today, I had always been scared of death. But now, as I look around your moronic dribble-drenched faces and quivering limbs, I can see there really is a fate worse than death. Haw, haw, haw.

  “Don’t you just hate the way people talk to tiny-tots and oldsters in the same way? You know: ‘Coochy coo boys and girls. You’ve been so well behaved, you deserve a nice drinky-winky.’ Well I think it’s about time people showed a little respect. That’s no way to talk to tiny-tots at all. Haw, haw, haw.

  Thank you, thank you. You’re the best audience I’ve ever had. I love you all. I really do.”

  The audience cheered and clapped. One old geezer in the front row even tried to whistle, but his slaggy denture plate went flying and landed on Duncan’s left shoe where it was held fast by the Polygrip.

  An oldster woman put up her hand and said, “Can I ask a question? Why’s that Dunny bloke wearing that yellow safari jacket? It’s much too big for him.”

  On the way back to school, a couple of pit-bull terriers attacked the denture plate stuck to Duncan’s shoe. He threw the plate to the dogs and we ran for our lives.

  44

  At lunchtime back at school, a number of us saw a puppy run over on the school crossing. By the end of lunch, the school had flown a plane load of grief counsellors up from Sydney.

  My counsellor was Sharon.

  “You realise,” she said, “if your grief is too severe we may have to send you to our recovery centre near Seaworld on the Gold Coast.”

  “Wha, wha,” I bawled, “puppy killded. Oh grief.”

  “Of course,” said Sharon, “if you slip into denial, we may have to send you to our denial clinic on the beach at Noosa. Is there anything you want to say?”

  “About what?” I asked.

  “The puppy.”

  “What puppy?”

  There was a knock at the door. It opened to reveal my one and only run-away pet dingo boy, Eddie Patterson. Tears were running down his sad little cheeks.

  The vice-principal stood with his hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

  “Excuse me ma’am.”

  It’s spooky to hear the vice-principal being polite.

  “But I have a cry-baby emergency situation and our school Sadness Counsellor is away attending a Disorder naming ceremony.”

  “My, my,” tut-tutted Sharon. “The only sadder boy I’ve ever seen was one who had always believed he was adopted then one tragic day discovered that his parents were really his real parents. Such grief.”

  “Never fear – Neil is here.”

  Some people mistake my shyness for big-noting myself.

  “Mumsy always ties a happy pill in a knot in my hankie just for those crestfallen occasions when nothing else will do. Here Eddie. Pop a pill.”

  I threw the pill and Eddie caught it in his mouth like any good dingo boy.

  “Feel better?” I inquired.

  “Boo, hoo, hoo,” Eddie balled.

  “Sorry Eddie,” I said, checking my pockets. “Wrong hankie. That was the sadness pill for when people just can’t stand my cheery little soul any longer.”

  But Eddie didn’t stay to hear my glib, hollow apology.

  His timed record dash to the school fence w
as later disallowed because of his ‘inherent species advantage’.

  45

  Our first lesson after lunch was science. Mr Farrer was on sick leave because of a ‘nervous breakdown’. All our teachers have used that excuse to get off school at one time or another. Students have to be content with ‘sore throats’ and ‘upset tummies.’ No mother on earth would give you a ‘nervous breakdown’ note on sports day.

  The casual replacement teacher quietened us down and introduced himself.

  “Good afternoon students. I’m s-s-Stewart s-s-Simmons. What were you doing in your class with Mr Farrer?”

  “Sustainable development,” someone said.

  “Good. s-s-sustainable development,” said Mr Simmons.

  “I think sustainable systems would be a better term,” said someone else.

  “Yes, s-s-sustainable s-s-systems, very good.”

  “To make sure we’re referring to the most appropriate system,” some asked, “wouldn’t suitable sustainable systems be better?”

  “Yes, s-s-suitable s-s-sustainable s-s-systems, that’s good.”

  “But to be sure we’re not just talking about window dressing,” said someone,” wouldn’t serious, suitable sustainable systems be even better?”

  “Yes s-s-serious, s-s-suitable s-s-sustainable s-s-systems is very good indeed.”

  The considered opinion was we hadn’t had so much fun tormenting a casual teacher since ‘Limping’ Larry Saunders took us for gym.

  46

  A special school assembly was held so that Gold Logie winner Mike Brians could give us a talk on ‘Television As Our Guide Through Life.’ He was back in Mullumbimby to attend the celebrity funeral of Margot Progmore.

  When Mike came on stage we cheered our little throats to a pulp. A couple of kids had to be taken to the sick bay when their eyes started bleeding with the excitement. The headmaster demanded the girl who threw her lacie panties on stage should come out front. Nobody dobbed Duncan in so he got away with it, but his sister was pretty pissed off when she found out later.

  Mike began by explaining that in these complex and fast changing times, we youngsters need a trustworthy friend who will take us by the hand and guide us through life.

  “That friend,” he said, “is the humble television in the corner of the room. Parents may come and go, but believe me, your television loves you as much as you love it. Where is life most fun – on television or in the family home?

  “Why on television of course Mike,” we shouted as one.

  “And what parent ever took their child to so many sporting events as does your real friend the television?”

  “True, true,” we agreed.

  “And what parent ever showed a child how to make a bird bath out of plastic buckets?”

  There was silence as everyone turned and looked at me. Bloody big mouth Duncan again. Can never keep a secret.

  “So I’m sure,” continued Mike, “that you can all see now that television is your truest friend and parent all in one. It is television which both educates and enriches the lives of the youth of Australia.”

  We cheered and shouted, “too true Mike.”

  “Any questions?” he asked.

  Someone put their hand up and asked, “Why aren’t there more malformed baby stories on tv?”

  “Yes,” said someone else, “and why not more stories about three-headed pigs and stuff in China?”

  “And why,” asked a third person, “aren’t there more stories like the one where the surgeons cut the wrong leg off some guy and then they had to cut the other one off too?”

  There was much laughter at the memory of the story.

  Mike said he would raise our ideas at the next production meeting.

  47

  For dinner, mother cooked a roast as a special treat. Tonight was the public premiere of my play.

  “What a wonderful surprise Mother. Why we haven’t had roast in,” I looked at my watch, “nearly twelve hours.”

  Father walked in carrying his yellow safari jacket.

  “Bloody moths,” he said. “Looks like a pit-bull terrier’s attacked it. And I can’t work out why my best shoes smell of Polygrip.”

  “Perhaps you could try something a little more formal dear,” suggested mother.

  “You’re right. I haven’t worn that purple polyester Nehru jacket in quite some time.”

  “I think it was the night we went to see that Abba tribute band at ‘Bar-B-Q Ya Own’ in Lismore,” mother recalled.

  “Yeah. That’d explain why there’s mouldy tomato sauce all down the front. Wasn’t that the night we conceived Neilly’s little sister?” father asked.

  “Yes it was. Bless her little wet soul.”

  “That’d be the last time we......”

  “Now, now. No dirty talk in this house,” interrupted mother. “And look at our endlessly creative young son, revising his play at the very last moment.”

  “No. I’m filling out an application form in the back of this comic. It’s a teach-yourself at home course in attention deficit disorder. They guarantee that when I complete the course, any doctor in Australia will put me on behaviour modification drugs. Cool huh?”

  “I did one of those courses once,” said father. “I learned how to be a magician but I got bored with it after a while.”

  “You lost interest,” said mother, “about that time you wrapped Evan Brown’s gold watch in a hankie and smashed it with a hammer. Then you did that locksmith’s course by correspondence. But you only did that one repair. It was the lock on the door of the ambulance station and when the bus crashed on the highway, they couldn’t......”

  “Yeah, but week seven got lost in the mail.”

  “Yes,” sighed mother. “Lost like our poor little pet dingo boy.”

  “Not so much ‘lost’,” I explained. “It’s more like he’s questing after a superior life path. Or, being a dingo boy, sniffing for some quality bum.”

  “They reckon around town,” said father, “He’s been stealing ladies panties offa clothes lines.”

  “Yes,” I said. “The vet reckons that’s a common reaction for the first few weeks after de-sexing.”

  “Just like bower birds,” contributed mother. “Except they steal little blue pegs off the clothes lines.”

  “So who’d bother de-sexing a bower bird?” asked father.

  “But I am disappointed in you Neil,” lectured mother. “Care and maintenance of a pet is a primer, a first teeny stepping stone in handling the burdensome responsibilities of life. And you have fallen well short of your Mumsy’s expectations.”

  “Your mum’s saying you stuffed up big Neil,” father thoughtfully summarised.

  “Can I have a pony then. Maybe I’ll just stuff up small next time,” I pleaded.

  “Pony’s a girl thing ain’t it,” said father.

  “So what do you think cowboys ride? I shot back at him.

  “Oh……………Cows?”

  48

  Barry Nader arranged for a stretch limo to take us to the play. It even had a cocktail cabinet. The drive was so short I was still shaking the Margarita when we arrived.

  Barry was waiting for us on the footpath outside the auditorium. We went in and sat with all the celebrities who were in town for the Margot Progmore funeral tomorrow.

  “All these vacuous celebs just to see my humble little play?”

  “Not really Neil,” said mother.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Just then, Gordon Best, host of ‘This Is Your Lifestyle’, walked on stage carrying his book.

  “Barry Nader,” he said. “This is your lifestyle.”

  Barry went up on stage amidst thunderous applause. He gave ‘aw shucks’ waves to the audience.

  “What about my play?”

  “No play. ‘This Is Your Lifestyle’ just used it as a ploy to get Mr Nader here tonight,” explained mother. “So no play.Not tonight. Come to think of it, pro
bably not ever.”

  “And you knew?”

  “If we’d told you, you would have told Duncan. And you know what a big-mouth he is.”

  “Fair enough,” said Duncan, who was sitting next to me.

  Gordon introduced the first guest. It was Barry’s dear old mumsikins.

  “Remember Barry,” she croaked. “I put up the family home as security for the money I borrowed so you could make your first film, ‘Ned Kelly: Studmaster – The Bedroom Chronicles’ in 1973.

  “And now you’re so famous. You’ve got far more important things to do than pay back some measly loan to your humble mumsy. But I’ve made such good friend over the last 20 years at the Cockroach Boarding House, so I don’t miss the family mansion at all what with that huge cottage garden to maintain and trying to remember the names of all the servants.

  “I’m so proud of you and so would your father if your accountant hadn’t assessed him as a ‘bad risk’ when he needed that loan for a life saving operation.”

  She wiped her eyes.

  “Thank you, thank you,” said Gordon who was getting a bit misty himself. “Our next guest is little Rodney Howell who you will remember successfully sued Barry for $8 million after a drunken hit-and-run accident left Rodney with limp lower limbs.”

  “How’s that for alliteration?” Duncan whispered in my ear.

  A crippled kiddie wheelchaired on stage and said, “I wasn’t always this little you know.”

  “But just think,” said Gordon, “all that suffering is so character building. Plus you scam a multi-million buckeroo nest egg. Nice going, I reckon.”

  “Rather have me bloody legs back,” whinged the kid.

  The kid obviously had an attitude problem so the audience started booing him because of his lack of gratitude after all that Barry had done for him. A couple of bouncers in ‘Corpuscle Australian Tour” singlets wheeled him off.

  “Our surprise final guest,” announced Gordon, “is the missing Wombat Man.”

  We all stood and cheered as Prison World’s favourite attraction crawled on stage.

  “I’d like to thank,” said Wombat Man, “that wonderful human being Barry Nader for buying me from Watson Bros Circus so I can play the mad king of Venus in his new sci-fi-sex epic ‘The Quest for Gotham City.’

  “For months I was chained up by that murdering bastard Tiny Watson. He fed me nothing but PAL three times a day. Wouldn’t even heat it up.”

  Gordon asked Wombat Man if there was anything alse he would like to say to Mr Nader.

  “Yes,” said Wombat Man, “Woof, woof.”

  49

  When we got home, I turned on my 81cm Sanyo parent replacer.

  I was just in time to catch a National Geographic Documentary about the Koala Boy of Goonengerry State Forest which is near Mullumbimby.

  Koala Boy had been found living with a colony of koalas. He had become integrated into the koala’s chosen life-style. I made a mental note to mention this in social science class next week. We were going to be studying multiculturalism.

  A cherry-picker raised someone up a tree so they could interview koala boy. He wouldn’t come down for fear of feral dogs.

  “May we talk to you Koala Boy?” asked the interviewer.

  “Sure. But just just call me KB. We’re not big on formalities around here.”

  Koala Boy was all furry with a black nose. He piddled down on the interviewer.

  “Sorry about that, but I’m still striving for total acceptance.”

  “How do you spend a typical day?”

  “Well actually there’s a pretty active night-life social scene around here. Considering we don’t even have electricity. But most mornings we have some boring census form to fill out for some endangered species organisation. Usually by morning tea we are so stoned on eucalyptus oil nobody can remember how we spend the rest of the day.”

  “What do you miss the most about human society?”

  “You mean apart from those shops that sell $2 plastic crap made in China?”

  “Yes, apart from them.”

  “Nothing really.”

  “Do you plan to stay here with the koalas?”

  “I have to. I’m locked into the koala superannuation scheme. No portability at all.”

  “Is there anything you’d like to say to anyone?”

  “Hi Neil. I sorry I never fitted in with you Dobbsikins. Come and visit me sometime.”

  50

  The next morning was Mullumbimby’s day of days: The Margot Progmore celebrity funeral. And my very own papa was funeral director.

  Father had a mild attack of nervousness. Mother always gets annoyed when he vomits in the kitchen sink rather than the bathroom at breakfast time. But women just don’t understand these special moments of father-son bonding. I didn’t tell father he was a wuss of a pewker compared to Barry Nader.

  Father looked up from the sink and pleaded, “Do I have to go?”

  “I can hardly give you an excuse note,” scolded mother.

  “You could try ‘nervous breakdown’,” I suggested.

  “Well it’s your funeral Warren,” said mother.

  Mothers always say that, but I guess in this case it’d be a hard point to argue.

  “Duncan offered to organise the funeral,” I offered helpfully.

  “He did?” asked father, cheering up.

  “Yes. He said if you died an unexpected, gruesome, hideous and painful death, or more likely, just chickened out, he’d take over.”

  “That was very kind of him,” said mother.

  “You’d love his ideas for the funeral procession,” I enthused. “The naked marching girls is a stroke of genius.”

  “I don’t think so Neil.”

  “But Mother. You haven’t even heard about the symbolic flushing of the ashes down the new public toilets.”

  “I don’t think it’s an appropriate occasion for Duncan to express his views on Miss Progmore’s singing.”

  “I guess he just wanted the last laugh,” I said meekly in defeat.

  “I really do think you should pull yourself together Warren,” said mother sternly. “After all, Mr Nader is paying you rather well for this day.”

  “But he said he can’t pay cash,” father replied. “He opened up a suitcase full of white powdery stuff and said he’d give me few ounces of that instead. So I said, ‘What the hell am I supposed to do with that stuff? Shove it up my nose or something?’ And he said, ‘You’re my man,’ and I got the job.”

  51

  The pre-funeral champagne breakfast at Heritage Park was well under way when we arrived. It was a hot, muggy morning with a low mist floating over the river like in one of those books with boring descriptive passages.

  Young persons of intellectual disadvantage were being taken for walk through the park. Duncan called out: “You should be wearing hats. It’s too early in the morning for baked vegetables. Haw, haw, haw.”

  “Der,” came back a dribbled response from one of the graduate social worker carers.

  Felicity Johnson, the compere of ‘Consumer Justice’, walked up to father and said, “Remember me? You were on our program. We exposed the way you were substituting barbecue ashes for body ashes.”

  “Oh yeah,” said father, shaking her hand. “It was the beer bottle tops gave me away, wasn’t it? Good to see you.”

  “Tell me,” asked Felicity, “What were you really doing with the bodies?”

  “Well blood and bone was so expensive at the time......”

  Just then Barry Nader interrupted to introduce a police mate of his who was Royal Commission celebrity.

  “Barry tells me,” said the cop to father, “he gave you some of the coke I supplied him.”

  “Well I’m a Pepsi man myself,” said father. “But that bag of powder Barry gave me didn’t work nearly as well as Cold Power.”

  During the sausage sizzle, one of the local football clubs put on some entertainment. It gets pretty boring seeing footballers dress
ed as women. Mrs Neuman, our social science teacher, says its got something to do with the ‘latent homosexuality of the Australian male.’ But Duncan reckons it’s because they’re a pack of poofters who won’t admit it.

  I asked Barry Nader to introduce me to Wombat Man. Mr Man, as I called him respectfully, had some pate de fois gras in one paw, a gum root in another and a glass of champagne in a third. This left a paw for a cigar.

  He said he’d already been signed to do a series of PAL commercials on tv. His agent had also lined up a guest spot on ‘Tool Time’ where Mr Man was going to show how to build a wombat house using Binford power tools.

  “Did you see Koala Boy on television, Mr Man?” I asked.

  “Bloody upstart,” he said. “He’s not even a member of The Freaks and Other Abhorrent Accidents of Nature Union.

  “And besides, he queue-jumped to get a species change operation. Quite unethical by our professional standards. But then those bloody dingo boys always get favoured treatment.”

  “Says who?”

  We all turned around to be confronted by the ex-dingo/now koala boy.

  “Says me,” replied Mr Man.

  “Just checking,” said Koala Boy. “Can’t hear too well. Been practising Duncan’s trick of dribbling from the ears. Goes down rool well at koala barbeques.”

  “How ya doing Eddie,” I asked.

  “The koalas don’t call me Eddie. For the first six months I have to endure a name which suggests total nerdism. A name which people snigger at and ridicule. Just call me Neil.”

  Neil put out his paw for me to shake.

  “Glad to know ya, Neil,” I said.

  “The feeling’s mutual,” replied Neil.

  “Mumsy has a message for you.”

  “I can understand her grief,” replied the freak formerly know as Eddie. “She’s pleading, begging me to return.”

  “Well actually,” I explained. “She was wondering if she should throw out the Meaty Bites. The ants have gotten into them.”

  52

  The grand celebrity funeral was planned to kick off at 10 am. Father’s innovative funeral plans surprised us all. We really didn’t think he had it in him.

  Father had decided to have the cremation on the hot plates so they’d be good and hot for the sausage sizzle afterwards.

  Father’s real stroke of genius was to cremate the corpse on a skewer. This innovation revolutionised the Australian funeral industry. Fathers’ colleagues still call him ‘Shish KaDobbs’.

  “And I did it all without a fact sheet,” father beamed proudly.

  The funeral was to take place outside the very same Council Chambers where Margot performed what the oldsters called her ‘swan-song’. I think this refers to the length of her neck by the time they cut her down.

  A special platform had been erected for the visiting celebrities. When I asked mother if she had seen the erection, she said she was getting sick of all the dirty talk going on in our house.

  There had been a bidding war for the rights to televise the funeral. A pay tv channel won. Protestors stood in front of the celebrity platform carrying placards reading: ‘Keep celebrity funerals on free-to-air television so the poor can mourn their betters.’

  The channel which won the rights was The Bargain Channel - ‘Where Crap Is A Way Of Life’. A heartfelt eulogy was delivered by Margot’s old friend Tina Benton, the former women’s magazine editor.

  She wiped tears from her eyes and began to talk: “If Margot had only worked out daily on the Tinaciser, she might still be with us today. The Tinaciser is just the thing for toning up those flabbly old neck muscles. At only $49.95 plus $39.95 postage and handling, the Tinaciser is......”

  At that moment Clarrie Hibble leapt on to the coffin which was already warming up on the hot plates. Clarrie had escaped from Prison World while everyone was attending the funeral.

  “I’ll show youse,” he cried. “I’ll show youse a real exploding fart.”

  Clarrie turned his back on the celebrities, dropped his pants, bent over a did a brown eye. He then shoved the missing test tube of ebola virus up his bum and launched it with a fart which registered on earthquake monitors in Tokyo. The test tube arced towards the heavens, then, ever so slowly, returned towards the awestruck silence of the celebrity platform where it shattered, smothering Australia’s famous for being famous with a cloud of the deadly virus.

  Duncan said this incident almost made him question his atheism.

  The celebrities were rushed to isolation wards where most died of a celebrity specific condition called ‘denied ego syndrome’. No matter how sycophantic the nurses were, the celebrities still faded away.

  The whole township was evacuated for twenty-four hours to a refugee camp set up at the football ground. It wasn’t too bad because sheep dog trials were being held at the same time. A nice border collie called Chloe taught me how to herd a flock of sheep through five obstacles in four minutes. I’ve still got the ribbon to prove it. But my gums got awfully sore from catching frisbees.

  53

  Aunty Alice was waiting at her gate next morning. I handed her a paper.

  ”There’ll be no more omens Neil. The lies being told about Mullumbimby have stopped.”

  “I know Aunty Alice. The film’s been nixed.”

  “You really are thick as a prick Neil.”

  “I think that’s ‘brick’ Aunty Alice.”

  “All right. Brick as a prick. It wasn’t the film. It was your play you little mush for brains.”

  “My quaint little historical pageant? Not true? You mean the covered wagons, the cutlery etiquette, the black and white televisions for the aborigines. All fibs?”

  “Yes Neil. I am the only living soul who knows the true story of Mullumbimby. It was told to me by ‘The Old Wise One’ who lived on the top of that crappy little hill they call Mt Chincogan. I was sworn to secrecy until I had lived five score years and a dozen.”

  “That’d be twenty-eight,” I guessed.

  “You really are your father’s son.”

  “Well who the hell else’s son would I be? Like tell me something new Aunty Alice.”

  “Oh God,” she continued. “Lord knows why, but you have been chosen by the Spirit of Mullumbimby to be the next story carrier. You will also live to 112 and not tell a soul ‘till then. I am going to tell you the true story of Mullumbimby but you must swear an oath of secrecy.”

  “I swear to keep the story secret Aunty Alice.”

  “Come and sit on the verandah and I will tell the true story of our beloved little village.”

  We made ourselves comfortable and Aunty Alice began her story.

  “Once upon a time, when Mullumbimby was known as Gotham City, two feisty femme outlaws from Venus......”

  54

  That evening father and I were sitting on the lounge room floor laughing at a ‘Road Runner’ cartoon when Barry Nader burst in.

  “Ah, my inspirational genius,” he said.

  “I do my best,” I replied with fake humility.

  “Not you, you little twerp. Big boy here,” he said, shaking father’s hand. “That funeral you orchestrated was so spectacular, I want to buy the film rights. What a moment! Old Clarrie launching the test tube.”

  “That’s an old party trick of Clarrie’s,” explained father. “They call him ‘Cape Canaveral’.”

  “Behind his back of course,” said Barry.

  “No way,” said father. “Nobody’s ever been game enough to stand behind him.”

  “What about ‘The Quest for Gotham City’ based on my humble little play?” I pleaded. (If I had more self-honesty, I’d admit to whineing.) “What about the chicks from Venus? Not to forget the large-breasted Amazon women. Nor, just in passing, the squillions of dollars you were going to pay me.”

  “When the story outline was published in the newspapers,” said Barry, “We were besieged by minority groups demanding equal representation.”

  “Like who?” I asked.
>
  “The Coalition of Small-Breasted Amazon Women. The Society of Venution In-Laws. And then we market tested the script with some young adults and they found it too intellectually demanding.”

  “You’re kidding!” I exclaimed in disbelief. “Who did you test it on?”

  “A group of German backpackers.”

  “Sorry Barry,” I apologised. “I should have guessed.”

  “This time,” continued Barry, “we’re aiming at the oldies as well as the youth market. Clarrie Hibble and Wombat Man will play themselves. Why at this very moment they are out in the cage at Prison World workshopping the script. It’s going to be called ‘The Most Grumpiest Old Freaks’.

  “But the killer diller is we’ve found a dynamic, charismatic new youth star. Talk about hot property. This guy has unbelievable sex appeal.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Well you probably haven’t heard of him. His name’s Koala Boy.”

  ####

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