adamdaniel

Tales From the Punchbowl #6

Ant Race

After a wonderfully successful exercise in apathy, having refused to change my clothes for five days, I finally started contemplating the benefits of a shower and shave. My sockless shoes were now emitting such a discombobulating aroma that the Shire of Warragul had unanimously agreed to cordon off the park as a biohazard, having received reports that three passers by had seen visions of Mother Mary as a result of my pungent attire.

This would mean a train ride to Melbourne, as I recalled that the Sports and Aquatic Centre had excellent spa and sauna facilities. I determined to make this nice facility my destination. I informed my travelling companions Shane and Nikki of my plans. “I think I’m gonna have a shower”, I declared boldly. They were in theory supportive of my determination to cleanse myself. The night previous, Shane had provided a scrumptious dinner of stolen cray fish and neat whisky. One cray each, accompanied by western music and a high half moon soaring above the mottled clouds of West Gippsland.

It was morning, and before leaving I wanted to do something nice for Shane. I bought a mobile phone from Coles using an echeque linked to a moneyless account. It worked. I went into Coles and collected the phone. Sissi girl, the aboriginal lass I’d met earlier, saw me and offered to buy me a drink. Powerade please. Any colour. She delivered the drink to my hands and bought some smokes.

We wandered out together. She was pleased of the presence of a gentle natured confidante and proceeded to blurt out garbled impressions of psychological and sexual abuse she’d recently suffered, in family networks based on an economy of drugs and self-serving motives. We’d wandered a few hundred metres when she started patting her pockets feverishly and ferreting in her bag. “I lost me smokes”, she said, and proceeded to burst into tears, sniffling and despairing as we walked back the other way, retracing our steps. Nowhere. I’m going to Melbourne, wanna come? Yeah okay.

We walked back to the park. I gifted Shane the phone and helped get it set up, his face bright with pleasure as he swiped the new screen with his tattooed fingers (Nikki’s name etched on his his leg in ink). Sissi girl and I boarded the train. She was out of it, in a funny daze, whispering at me in slurred phrases as the train passed such unlikely sounding place names as Bunyip, Garfield, Nar Nar Goon and Longwarry.

We got off at Flinders. She wanted a tobacconist. We found one pretty quickly. She was frustrated that the shop did not stock what she was looking for. A pipe, a fucking crack pipe! she screamed at the demure Indian behind the counter. I gulped with an anxious soul as I looked on, lamenting the state of this pretty girl. We exited and after a small lunch I lost her near the river.

Needing a car, I searched on Gumtree. I hired a beat up Toyota from a Muslim economics lecturer and drove to the recreation centre. I transformed my entirely odorous, sweat encrusted being from something chemically dangerous to something sparkling with chlorinated newness, savouring chats in the spa with a positive Irishman and three dangerous looking Lebanese guys. After the pleasing effervescence and conversation, I hit the showers and applied body scrub, shampoo and conditioner as I sang with unmitigated glee, like Corey Haim in the bath in The Lost Boys.

I drove to Middle Park and sipped a celebratory Margherita, which cost a very reasonable thirty one dollars. It was raining. I found a kids’ playground in the shape of a pirate ship. I’d always wanted to captain a pirate ship, like Davey Jones, or Jack Sparrow, or Hook, or Captain J. Flint from Treasure Island, and figured that with times being so tough this playground version would have to do. I slept soundly as the rain pattered down on Elwood beach.

I was awakened by the sound of a men’s exercise group, limbering up next to the playground. They performed various stretches and flexes as they gossiped about a horny woman they all knew. Then, very entertainingly, they started crawl-lunging, like four legged ants, progressing along the ground pretty slowly. Looking on I started an uninvited commentary from my nearby position. I employed my slickest, smoothest sports commentator’s voice and called the race…

“And the ants are away! Ant one out of the blocks quickly, followed by a lurching ant two. Coming down the outside ant three is looking good but has an exposed bum crack. Ant one flagging now as ant two surges into pole position” etc etc. The men laughed awkwardly while attempting to proceed unfazed with their silly looking exercise routine. A very comical ant race, which will in time surpass the prestige of the Stawell Gift, methinks, given enough sponsorship and attention.