Impractical Jokes (10 page)

The room was repaired, but never felt the same. We would continue to go to Flinders, but somehow the magic had worn off. You can burn all the nag champa you like, but you'll never deodorise a memory. Deep down I'm pretty sure that's why they sold the house.

7

Misinformation, Disinformation
and Goddamned Lies

B
ack to 1987 and we returned home from our trip to Flinders to find that Richard had put our house on the market.

It was late at night, dark, and we were tired from the journey. We pulled into our driveway and the headlights hit the front gate only to find it chained shut and adorned with a real estate agent's sign that read:

MORTGAGEES' AUCTION:
DUE TO DISASTROUS BUSINESS PRACTICES AND PENDING LEGAL ACTION FOR MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE, ALL PROPERTY OF RONNIE ‘THE BASTARD' PICKERING IS TO BE SOLD FORTHWITH.

My sister and I were confused. My mum was beside herself. This was a public relations disaster. Upon seeing the sign, Mum immediately assumed that everyone in the street had been talking about her behind her back.

‘Did you hear about the Pickerings?'

‘Didn't they go belly-up?'

‘Yes. I hear it was gambling.'

‘Well I hear it was drugs.'

‘Well I hear they gambled
on drugs
.'

‘You don't say?'

‘Yes. They'd get hopped up on goof-pills that Ron made in the pharmacy and then hit the craps tables at the casino.'

‘Well I'm glad they've had to sell up. It's a danger having
those sorts of people
living in
our street
.'

This may sound ridiculous, but I think it is a fairly accurate transcript of what was going through my mother's head at the time. She had always aimed for our family to have a good ‘street reputation'; a goal that flew in the face of any rational assessment of our street community.

When my parents first moved in they made a grand overture to the neighbourhood: the first (and only) ever ‘Get To Know Your Street Barbecue'. They figured they would start a tradition. Twenty years on people would spend their year looking forward to the street barbecue. ‘Remember the first one of these we had?' people would say. ‘Yes,' other people would reply. ‘It was the Pickerings that started all this. They held the first ever Get To Know Your Street Barbecue, and haven't we all just been the best of friends since?'

Initial disappointment came with the underwhelming level of RSVPs. When final numbers were tallied in order to calculate supplies, it was agreed that a more accurate name for the event would have been the ‘Get To Know Upwards Of A Quarter But Definitely No More Than A Third Of Your Street Barbecue'.

By midway through the event my parents began to wish the attendance had been poorer. It became apparent there were some seriously long-running feuds in operation in our leafy street. The evidence for this included the numerous people making vigorous, pointed attempts to be seen to be not talking to other people, or making a noteworthy exit upon the arrival of a neighbourhood nemesis. That kind of behaviour and the one woman who actually said, ‘I have some seriously long-running feuds in operation.'

By the end of the barbecue my parents concluded that there was one person in particular that everybody had a problem with but, apart from him eating most of the pigs in blankets, they couldn't see why. They also concluded that this would be the last ever ‘Get To Know Your Street Barbecue' and it would be best for everyone to henceforth keep a low profile and try not to start any feuds.

So, feuds aside, our street was about as far from a gossip factory as you could imagine. Some of our neighbours had passing conversations with our other neighbours, but on the whole most people kept to themselves. A reality lost on my mother in this time of shock, as her fantasy continued.

‘So they lost everything?'

‘Yes, everything. One night the children had to eat dog food.'

‘Well, I blame the mother.'

‘Of course you do. It's the only logical conclusion. The mother is definitely to blame.'

‘I'd go so far as to say she is the worst mother in the world.'

‘Without a doubt. Pamela Pickering is the
worst
mother in the entire world. And that includes those ones who sell their daughters into sex slavery in South-East Asia.' ‘They're saints compared to Pamela Pickering.'

But while Mum came to terms with a P.R. disaster that didn't exist, my dad's reaction was very different.

‘Brilliant! This is bloody brilliant!'

‘It's not brilliant, Ronnie. It's embarrassing.'

‘No, Pammy. This is brilliant.'

‘Why is it so bloody brilliant, Ronnie?'

‘The rules of engagement have changed, Pammy. It's about signs now!'

On a Saturday morning in September my dad woke me around five o'clock. He'd spent a sleepless night mulling over ideas and had finally come up with a plan.

‘Come with me, son. We're going to have some fun.'

This was a very important moment. It was the first time my father had included me in one of his schemes and I was giddy with excitement. I had always been a keen and admiring observer of my father's shenanigans, building a checklist for the things that one does when one becomes a man. First on the list was ‘hilarious retribution'. Dad's war with Richard, in particular, would become the yardstick against which all of my future comedic ventures would be measured. To be included, nay conscripted, into Dad's retributive plans meant something else altogether. Clearly now I had come of age and was ready for active deployment. I was the general's new lieutenant. He was taking me under his wing and was going to teach me what it meant to be an adult.

So to speak.

But there was another reason why his call-up was such a big deal and that was closeness. My father and I had always been very close, but in a way that we never vocalised. He taught me how to kick a footy, ride a bike, hammer a nail, swear after hitting your thumb with a hammer and all of the other important things that a boy needs to know. But we never spoke about what we, as men, had in common. This really is the Australian version of
menschkeit
—it is that which exists between men, but dare not speak its name. Sure you might have a few too many schooners at the pub and tell a mate that you love him enough to give him your golf clubs, but it's never taken seriously, and if you ever said something like that sober things would get very uncomfortable.

I could only recall one prior moment, when I was about six, that Dad and I truly related to each other on a man-level. It was a Sunday afternoon in summer and, as was our Sunday afternoon habit, we were watching
Solid
Gold
. If memory serves, Billy Ocean was really letting rip with a power lip sync of ‘Caribbean Queen'. As if the audio feast wasn't enough, the Solid Gold Dancers were doing what they do best. Dancing. Dancing in tiny costumes. Spandex had only just been invented and the world was beginning to see why. Even at the age of six there was something about the scene that caught my eye, and I felt that I had to share it with my father. I turned to him and said, ‘Those girls have big boobs, don't they, Dad?' With all the beautiful simplicity of bread and butter pudding or a drop punt, my father replied, ‘They sure do, son. They sure do.'

This was our
Wonder Years
moment. An unlikely connection that passed as swiftly as it arrived but would not be forgotten. Much like my childhood and the relevance of Billy Ocean, the Solid Gold Dancers are now long gone. Some of the greatest things in life, it seems, have a built-in use-by date.

And so it was, nearly five years later that we were about to bond again. As the sun was rising and rubbing the last remnants of celestial sleep from its eyes, my dad and I were hard at work. We had twenty-three large sheets of cardboard and some fat smelly textas. We were making signs. I was using my neatest handwriting and only messed up two signs by trying to fit too many words into a line so that the last three letters were all skinny and unreadable. Dad said that was ok, that was exactly why he bought spare cardboard. After a half-hour craft session we had a stack of twenty signs that read:

FRESH FISH
FOR SALE
CHEAP!!!!

And then each sign also had Richard's address at the bottom of it. We grabbed a tall ladder and a staple gun and went out and put up these signs at all of the major intersections around Richard's suburb.

You would be amazed how many people like the idea of ‘Fresh Fish Cheap!!!!!'. The doorbell first rang at seven am and it didn't stop. By the time the Saturday morning traffic swelled to the point of mild inconvenience, hundreds of fish-loving motorists had taken note of Richard's address. We had unleashed a monster.

Initially, Richard's reaction was one of simple confusion.

‘I'm sorry but I have no idea what you're talking about. I have no fish for sale.'

As the morning wore on, his temper became shorter.

‘No! I don't have any fish. Not for sale or otherwise.'

And shorter.

‘No. I
don't
have any bloody fish. You're welcome to come in and have a look around but I don't have any bloody fish!'

And shorter.

‘There's some bloody goldfish in the bloody pond! How about you eat some of them?!'

Each time Richard sent away a fairly bemused customer who felt that, if nothing else, this fishmonger really needed to work on his people skills.

By one pm, Richard thought he had it figured out.

‘Pickering put you up to this didn't he?'

‘Who's Pickering? I'm just after some fish.'

‘Oh ha-bloody-ha! Very amusing. Seriously though, what's he paying you? I'll double it.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about. I just wanted some whiting.'

‘Not talking, eh? Well why don't you just piss off back to Pickering and see if
he
has any bloody fish for you?'

Dad and I had a great day. Buoyed by our newfound camaraderie, I helped Dad with some chores around the house. I had never been that enthused with garden maintenance or home repair, but on that day, knowing I was Dad's young second-in-command, I attacked the tasks with gusto. If I had to pull out weeds, that was fine because I was pulling out weeds
with my dad
. If I had to do the edging because the goddamned-stupid-useless-fucking-whipper-snipper had broken down, that was fine because I was doing the edges
with my dad
. Let this be a lesson to all fathers about how to get sons to do chores: simply don't make them seem like chores. Make them seem like team projects that men do together as equals. Never before, nor since have I cleaned out gutters with a smile on my face. But on this wonderful day I was glad to be up to my elbows in slime. And the best thing was that about every half hour we would look each other in the eye, remember the signs, imagine Richard's face answering his door to fish-seekers and crack up laughing. For the whole day Dad could reduce me to tears just by saying, ‘Do you know what I feel like? A nice piece of flake.' This was a Saturday for the ages.

Richard's Saturday, however, was not going quite so well. After all-but-beating information out of a customer he went out in search of the signs that were ruining his day. After an hour of searching, he had collected seven and returned home expecting the enquiries to dissipate. But still the people came. It got so bad that some time around three o'clock Richard's wife Cheryl turned to him and said, ‘Richard. Should I just go and buy some fish?'

Eventually, at five o'clock, after a harrowing day, he put up a sign on his front gate that read:

SORRY:
FISH SOLD OUT

Richard had lost a Saturday. And, as we all know, Saturday's are a rare and precious commodity. Reprisal would need to be swift, unexpected, calculated and, above all, disproportionate.

8

Trouble in the Pacific Theatre

W
hile the war was not going well for Richard, the commercial world was treating him much better. His tie-making business had gone from strength to strength and he was on the verge of signing a deal to become a major supplier of ties to one of Australia's largest department store chains.