Look Evelyn, Duck Dynasty Wiper Blades. We Should Get Them.: A Collection Of New Essays (6 page)

“Which makes him a sailor. People who spend their lives in boats are either fishermen or sailors and he’s not wearing a beanie.”

Simon slammed shut his laptop.

“If I go for a paddle in a canoe, it doesn’t make me a sailor, it makes me a canoeist. He’s more of a rafter.”

“Like Tom Sawyer?”

“No, that was Huckleberry Finn. Tom Sawyer was the one who convinced other kids to paint a fence for him. And no, the raft that Huckleberry and Jim lived on was a proper raft. White-water rafters don’t even use a raft, they use a blow-up boat. They should have to call it white-water blow-up boating.”

“Who’s Jim?” I asked.

“He’s the runaway slave that rafts down the river with Huckleberry.”

“I thought his name was Uncle Tom.”

“No, Uncle Tom makes rice. The kind you can microwave in the packet.”

I’ve never been a big fan of ‘the Classics’. I once had to read Alcott’s Little Women for a school assignment and I figure that’s enough of the Classics to keep me going for a while. It mainly consisted of girls talking about their feelings and complaining about things. There was also a guy who rode a horse.

“She told me that it was an accident,” Simon said, “that she didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“No doubt,” I agreed, “those inflatable boats are pretty bouncy. They probably went over a big bump in the river and she bounced onto his penis. I’m sure it happens all the time. They probably have you sign a waiver or something.”

“No, that it was a mistake. Everyone got drunk afterwards.”

“Ah, that explains it. It was probably slim pickings that day on the river but after several shots, Douglas thought, ‘What the hell, I’ll do her from behind so I don’t have to look at her face.’”

I’d met Cathy a few times, mainly at work functions, and Simon had a photo of both of them on his desk for years. The photo showed Simon, wearing a dark grey suit with light blue shirt and leather business slippers, with his arm around a short chubby girl wearing an ankle length purple velvet dress. The dress had long sleeves that flared at the ends and a wide neck opening. Around her neck, she wore a black choker with a star pendant in the center. Her dark hair, parted in the middle, hung straight down. She looked like a gothic Teletubbie.

“Is your girlfriend a Goth?” I’d asked Simon the first time I saw the photo.

“No dickhead, she’s a wicken.”

“A what?”

“She practices Wicca. It’s a modern religion based on pagan rituals.”

“Right, so she’s an unemployed Art’s graduate then.”

“No, she works in a call centre.”

“Did you stop for a photo opportunity on the way to a forest-clearing candle dance?”

“No, it was my Grandpa’s funeral.”

Apparently Cathy had written and read a poem for the service. Simon showed me the folded A4 program they gave out to those attending. Below a photo of an old man holding a shovel, the poem read;

Cry not.

I reach to the universe and she embraces me.

I welcome her arms. We merge.

I feel everything. Everything that has ever been and will ever be.

I feel her strength. I feel her love. I feel the universe.

I cannot see your tears though.

Cry not.

“Wow,” I told him, “that’s pretty fucking dreadful. And I think the word Universe is meant to be capitalised. Also, your grandpa doesn’t look like he was the kind of person to care about hugs from the Universe. She should probably have written a poem about shovels.”

Simon nodded, “Or woodwork. He had a big shed. He also collected World War 2 memorabilia.”

“Anything good?”

“Mostly just Nazi stuff. Uniforms and knives. That kind of thing.”

When I die, I do not want anyone reading any poems at my service. Certainly not terrible ones. And there had better not be any singing either. I’d actually prefer not to have a service. If it was legal, I’d just have my body dropped off at a vet’s office. A cardboard box containing my ashes could be picked up a few weeks later and scattered somewhere nice. Or out of the window on the drive home, I don’t care. I have told my partner Holly this which means there will probably be singing and poems and the worst photo she can find of me enlarged and stuck in an A-frame.  Probably the one where I am about to take a bite out of a hotdog.

Simon looked horrified. “What’s that meant to mean?”

“I’m just saying. Ignoring the fact that Douglas dresses and acts like an idiot, he’s fairly fit, tanned and muscular - paddling all day will do that to you - whereas Cathy is more... circular.  And gothic.”

“Wicken,” Simon corrected.

“Whatever. They’re all dreadful. And since when do Wickens go white-water rafting? It’s just weird. If I was spending a day by the river, the last thing I would want to see is a boat bobbing past me with the chick from The Ring sitting in it.”

“Her sister wanted to do it,” explained Simon, “what’s your point?”

“My point is, generalising of course, that most people who go white-water rafting are the healthy, attractive, outdoors type. Like Douglas. I can see how Cathy - hundreds of miles away from home and charged with adrenaline after an exciting shared experience - might be susceptible to his advances, but obviously the choices were limited that day for Douglas. He probably had to stay back late to deflate the rafts or something and by the time he got to the bar, his coworkers had already claimed the good looking ones.”

“How can you say that? She’s beautiful.”

“She’s beautiful to you because you love her. Or think you do.

I’ve always thought she was a bit of a bushpig.”

When someone breaks up with his partner, for whatever reason, it is probably best to simply say, “I understand you being upset, she/he had many defining qualities,”  and perhaps follow this up by nodding. Nobody will ask, “like what?” even if they want to, so after they nod along for a bit, you can go back to doing whatever it is you’d rather be doing than talking about feelings. If people were meant to talk about feelings, they’d be called talkings. You’re not meant to say anything bad about the person they have broken up with because when they inevitably get back together, it will be held against you.

“How’s it going with you and your girlfriend Louise?”

‘We went through a rough patch and broke up...”

“Well you dodged a bullet. Louise is a fat girl’s name and horrible to say. Its almost as bad as the name Gwyneth. Both names sound like they are being squeezed out of a balloon. Plus, I heard Louise sucked off a dog once.”

“Then we worked through our issues and got back together. She’s just gone to the ladies and will be back in a minute.”

I went to school with a girl named Louise. She was a huge heifer with tight curly hair and a moustache. Once during a school game of  soccer, she ran to the edge of the playing field, dropped her shorts, and did a poo. This is the kind of thing people named Louise do.  The gym teacher had to pick it up with a plastic shopping bag.

I also knew a Gwyneth once. She was bi-polar and stabbed her boyfriend Stuart in the arm with a steak knife during an argument about electric cars. It was the second worst dinner party I have ever been to. The worst dinner party I have ever been to was when Gwyneth and Stuart held another one six months later and I was the only person who turned up. I made a joke about swapping the cutlery with plastic utensils and Gwyneth cried.

“A bushpig?” Simon asked incredulously, “because she didn’t shave her armpits?”

“No, she just looked like a bushpig. She didn’t shave her armpits?”

“What the fuck is a bushpig?”

“I don’t know. A pig that lives in a bush I guess.”

Simon opened his laptop again and typed ‘bushpig’ into Google.

“According to Wikipedia, it’s a member of the pig family that lives in forests, woodland, riverine vegetation and reed beds in East and Southern Africa. It looks like a big hairy rat.”

I’m a big fan of Wikipedia. If Holly and I are having a fight about something and I know I’m wrong, I change the facts on the Wikipedia page to side with my error and then tell her to look it up;

“Well I’ll be, Tom Sellek of Magnum P.I. fame
was
in the band Hall & Oats. I apologise for doubting you. I just figured the band’s name was made up of their last names.”

If I’d known Simon was going to look up bushpig, I would have changed the existing Wikipedia photo to one of Cathy beforehand because it would have been hilarious.

“That works,” I said, “I wouldn’t usually say such a thing, but she really was dreadful. I’ve always thought you could do a lot better.”

“Really?” asked Simon.

“Of course. You have many defining qualities.”

“Like what?” It’s allowed if you’re asking about yourself and you say it in a kind of sarcastic self-deprecating manner.

“Oh I don’t know, you own your own apartment. Not many people can say that. Plus it looks a lot better now without all the candles and dreamcatchers everywhere. The macramé wall hanging you had above the fireplace didn’t really go with all your mid-century modern furniture.”

Simon rubbed the arm of his chair, “It’s Herman Miller.”

“Yes I know. Very nice. Did she actually own any furniture? I don’t see anything missing.”

“No,” Simon replied, “Not much. She always said possessions end up owning you.”

“That’s just something poor people say to make it look like they have any choice. You know what would look good on the wall above the fireplace? A large framed Rothko print.”

Simon nodded. “What else?”

“Maybe a new rug. There’s candle wax on this one. You might be able to get it out with an iron and brown paper though.”

“No, I meant what else apart from owning my own apartment.”

“Well... you also own a lathe. And you’re a snappy dresser. Not right at this moment obviously, but you scrub up alright.”

“I do own a lot of Diesel and G-Star...”

“And your head isn’t nearly as big as I make it out to be. You kind of look like Dave Matthews.”

“The musician? I like him.”

“Of course you do. He has many defining qualities.”

Simon nodded. “We have the same haircut.”

“That’s true. Any woman would be lucky to have you.”

I glanced around the apartment. “Do you want me to help you clean up in here a bit?”

“Okay.”

I was once asked, “I liked that Australian man who got stabbed by a swordfish. Did you know him?”

I never met Steve Irwin but I did once go fishing with Greg Norman and Matt Lattanzi. Greg Norman is famous for accurately hitting balls with sticks and Matt Lattanzi isn’t famous for anything apart from once being married to Olivia Newton John. My friend Bill, who ran an Australian tourism publication, invited me out for the day.

“What do you do?” asked Matt Lattanzi.

“I work for a design agency,” I told him.

“Ah, so you’re good at drawing pictures and shit?”

“Something like that. What do you do?”

“He’s an actor,” Greg Norman answered, “Did you ever see the movie
Xanadu
? He’s in it. He dances on roller-skates.”

I was quite young when the movie
Xanadu
came out in theatres but not too young to be impressed by Olivia Newton John’s outfit. I remember being puzzled as to why all girls didn’t choose to wear flowing white dresses, ribbons in their hair, and roller skates. I wasn’t so impressed with Olivia’s outfit in Grease although the shiny black pants she wore at the end were ok.

My best friend at the time owned a copy of the album
Physical
which came with a folded poster showing Olivia doing exercises in Spandex leggings and leg warmers. Where the crotch was meant to be, he had made a hole.

“Why is there a hole in the poster?”

“It came that way.”

“But it’s all wet.”

“Just fold it up and put it back in the cover.”

“I’ve been in more than that,” Matt Lattanzi said defensively, “Did you ever see the television series
Paradise Beach
?”

“No.”

“Well I was in it. I played Cooper Hart. What about the movie
My Tutor
?”

“No. Is it about someone who owns an English cottage?”

“What?”

“Did you say tudor or tutor?”

“Tutor. What the fuck is tudor?”

“It’s an architectural style popularised in England during the 1500’s.”

“Why the fuck would anybody make a movie about that? It’s about a guy who has an affair with his French tutor.”

He pointed a thumb at me and turned to Greg Norman, “Get a load of this guy, fucking asking me if I was in a movie about old English cottages. Who invited him?”

I also had a cup of magic tea with Kate Bush once.

After my parents divorced in the eighties, my mother became a social worker, and a lesbian, and began hanging around with ‘artistic types’.  Before the divorce, my parent’s friends mainly consisted of people they knew from their local tennis club.

They were all very polite and well dressed and sometimes we had parties at our place where everyone would stand around eating fondue while Boney-M albums played in the background at a level that wouldn’t hinder conversation.

“Fantastic fondue guys, what kind of cheese do you use?”

“Kraft.”

“Delicious. I also love this album. Boney M are going to be the next Beatles. You mark my words. Have you heard the track, Ra Ra Rasputin?”

“Yes, fantastic isn’t it? It’s just called Rasputin though.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. They sing Ra Ra Rasputin in the song but it’s just called Rasputin.”

“Well there you go. I did not know that.”

My father moved out while my mother was at the local pool with my sister and I. The swimming centre was having the grand opening of their newly installed waterslide that day and had advertised heavily. We stood in line for about thirty minutes but before we even got to the steps, a foundation gave way and the lower half of the slide separated, moving several feet to the right. There were two kids who had just pushed off from the top, a chubby girl in her early teens and her younger brother who sat between her legs. Their exit opened to a thirty foot plunge onto concrete. I like to think that the chubby girl purposely landed below her bother. He survived.

They closed the swimming centre and we returned home to discover my father’s clothes, the Bang & Olufsen stereo system, and all the Boney M albums missing. According to the letter he left on the dining table, he loved my mother and his children, but he was in love with the lady that did the member’s fees and match scheduling at their tennis club.

My mother didn’t play tennis after that, she instead devoted most of her time to crying, yelling, and telling me terrible stories about my father.

“Your father is a sick pervert. Sometimes when we made love, he liked to stick his finger in my bottom.”

I was eleven. I spent a lot of time in my room. I read a lot. I was tall for my age and when I walked down the hallway across wooden floorboards, my mother would rush out of her bedroom screaming that it sounded like how my father walks and for me to take smaller steps. I learnt to walk like the guy in Dune does to avoid the giant sandworm eating him and only when I had to. There was no point walking down the hallway several times a day when I could cut this down to just a few by storing food in my closet and urinating out the window.

Late one evening, I opened my window, pulled out my penis, and began urinating into the backyard. It was dark but there was a full moon. As I was standing there, staring into the night, something caught my eye peripherally to the left. I squinted and realised it was a man standing very still against the wall. He realised I had seen him and leapt at me. I threw myself back, narrowly avoiding his reach as he tried to grab me through the window. We stared at each other for a few moments then he smiled and disapeared into the darkness. I couldn’t close my window for fear of him jumping out and grabbing me and as far as I knew, he was still in the backyard.   Or, in the house, I thought, perhaps he was walking silently down the hallway towards... My bedroom door opened. I yelled.

“What are you doing?” My mother asked, “Why is your penis out? Were you masturbating?”

“A man tried to grab me,” I pointed at the window as I pulled up and zipped my pants.

‘What?”

“A man. He was standing outside and he tried to grab me. He’s in the backyard.”

“There’s piss all over the floor you filthy animal. Clean it up and stop telling lies. You’re just like your father.”

She slapped me hard on the side of the head a few times and slammed the door on her way out. I sat on my bed staring at the open window for the rest of the night. I almost nodded off a few times but the instant I closed my eyes, the image of the man smiling at me through the window bolted me back awake. The moment the sun came up, I closed and locked the window, pulled the curtains across, and never opened them again.

I have no idea who the man was or what he was doing outside my window, but I saw him a few years later and recognised him instantly. He was at Target, a few people ahead of me in line at the checkout, buying lambswool car seat covers.

After several months of tears, terrible stories and stride critique, my mother decided to study towards a sociology degree and enrolled as a full time student. When she wasn’t at university, she locked herself in her bedroom to study or went out with her uni friends. My sister Leith and I were kind of left to our own devices during that time. Leith went out a lot. She had a boyfriend named Trevor who had long curly hair and owned a metallic blue panel van with the members of the band KISS painted on the side. Trevor also had one leg shorter than the other and had a special shoe with a three inch heel. He enjoyed giving me dead arms so one day I did a poo in a plastic bag and wiped it into the air vents of his car. He died in a car crash. Not because of the poo, apparently he was low on fuel so switched the car off to coast down a big hill. At the bottom, he tried to turn and the steering lock engaged. He went through the front window of a H&R Block and was decapitated by a giant green square. I caught the bus with my sister to his funeral. They played Love Gun.

Back then, milk was delivered during the night so if you wanted two bottles of milk in the morning, you left two empty bottles on your doorstep with the money under them. Sneaking up driveways in the middle of the night and taking the money was known as ‘doing the milk rounds’ and would generally net you a few dollars. My bike was stolen one night and for several months I did the milk rounds so I could afford to catch the bus to school. I was chased by the occupants a few times but had a large stride for my age. I didn’t tell my mother my bike had been stolen and she never noticed.

I moved out of home about the same time my mother graduated. I was fourteen. At that age, I spent a lot of my free time hanging out with school friends at a local shopping mall called Tea Tree Plaza. We generally just sat on benches and smoked cigarettes to look cool while pointing out how lame everyone else was.

This was years before anyone had an issue with cigarettes or cigarette advertising. Both my parents had smoked. They smoked Winfield’s because that was the brand Paul Hogan smoked and advertised. They smoked in the house, they smoked while playing tennis, and they smoked in the car. Sometimes when we were on family trips, I could barely see out the windows.

“Why are you coughing? You’d better not be getting sick.”

“It’s smoky in here. Can I wind down my window?”

“No, the air conditioner is on. I don’t know what you’re carrying on about, your mother and I are the ones smoking and we’re not coughing.”

“Just a little bit? I can’t breathe.”

“Fine. Just half an inch though. You can stick your drinking straw through the gap and breath through that if you are going to be a dickhead about it.”

“How long before we get there?”

“Six or seven hours. It depends on the traffic.”

Outside tobacconist stores, representatives from different tobacco companies would stand with trays of samples asking things like, “Would you like to try our new smoother tasting menthol?” in order to persuade people to change over to their particular brand. One called me over.

“How old are you?” asked the middle-aged lady wearing a gold Benson & Hedges jacket.

“Sixteen,” I lied. 

“Would you like to make twenty dollars?”

All I had to do was wear her jacket and offer people cigarettes while she went shopping, “for an hour or so.” I agreed. Immediately after she left, kids from school came over and grabbed handfuls of cigarettes. I thought I might get in trouble for this but when the lady - whose name was Rachael - eventually returned three hours later, she was delighted at how many cigarettes were gone.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked.

Tomorrow was a school day.

“Nothing,” I told her.

Within a week, I was working everyday from 9am to 3pm with an hour break for lunch. I was given my own gold jacket, a pair of black trousers, leather shoes and a white shirt. The pay was sixty dollars per day, in cash, which was more money than I had ever had in my life. I’d seen a movie in which a book had the pages hollowed out to make a hiding spot so I made one out of a dictionary and hid my growing collection of twenty dollar bills. The school rang to check where I was after a while but my sister pretended she was our mother and told them I had broken my leg and would be in hospital for a few months. I bought her a pair of Ugg boots. I bought myself a replacement bike. Then a car.

I hadn’t intended on buying a car, but a guy who worked at the shoe store across from the tobacconist told me he was selling his 1973 Honda Civic hatchback for $400, which seemed like a bargain. It was bright yellow and had mag wheels and a working cassette player. He included a steering wheel lock and a cassingle of
Hold Me Now
by The Thompson Twins.

As I couldn’t let my mother find out about the vehicle, I parked it a few streets from our house. Each morning, when I was meant to be heading to school, I would ride my bike to the car, put the bike in the back, change into my uniform, and drive to work.

Being fourteen, I didn’t have a driver’s licence, but the route to Tea Tree Plaza involved crossing several intersections and roundabouts so I learnt the road rules fairly quickly. Occasionally, I would break out in a sweat when police cars were behind me at traffic lights, especially as the Honda stalled a lot, but I always stayed under the speed limit and used my indicators so I was lucky enough never to be pulled over. I stayed on side streets wherever possible.

The school eventually rang again but Leith told them that I had cancer and wouldn’t be back until my radiation therapy sessions were completed. I bought her a Yamaha organ. She made it look dirty by rubbing Nutella over the keys so our mother would believe a friend lent it to her.