Guns 'n' Rose

by Robert G. Barrett

  It seemed to be mid-tide. But as there wasn’t much beach left, what swimmers or sunbathers there were, were sitting in a fairly tight group on the short strip of sand in front of the surf club. The happy-faced bloke wearing glasses that Les had seen on the microphone the day before was still working at the canteen serving a woman and two kids with ice-creams and drinks. About half-a-dozen tanned, fit-looking men in Speedos, and going a bit thin on top, were sitting in front of the firstaid room. One man with a moustache had a cigar, a sponge, a bottle of iodine and a packet of Band-aids. Another bloke with dark hair going a bit in the front was sitting in front of him with his arm out. Les recognised him as the bloke he saw walking up from the water with the surf ski. As he watched, the bloke with the cigar stubbed it on the other man’s arm, let it sizzle for a moment, then wiped it with the sponge, tipped some iodine onto the burn before covering it with a Band-aid. The other bloke never flinched. He just sat there talking with the others while they all listened to the songs playing on the radio in the first-aid room.

  ‘What the fuck’s he doing?’ asked Les.

  ‘Burning off melanomas,’ answered Jimmy.

  ‘Skin cancers? Why doesn’t the cunt go to a doctor?’

  ‘The bloke with the cigar is a doctor. You’re not back with your arty-farty friends in Bondi now, Les. Anyway, hang on, I got to go and see a mate of mine.’

  Jimmy walked over to the man in glasses who had just finished serving the mother and her two kids. He looked surprised when he saw Jimmy and made a quick, almost nervous gesture with his hands.

  ‘Jimmy? What are you doing here? You don’t have to come round till Monday, Tuesday. Whenever.’

  ‘I just couldn’t wait till then, Reg.’

  ‘Oh, Christ!’

  ‘So, how’s the zurfglub going, Reg?’

  ‘The zurfglub’s going great, Jimmy. It’s all sweet. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘What about the gandeen?’

  ‘The gandeen’s going great guns, too. Everything’s … cool, Jimmy.’

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s going bad. You know what you need, Reg?’

  ‘Not you, Jimmy. Go away.’

  ‘Advertising.’

  Before the man in glasses had a chance to do or say anything, Jimmy had darted behind the counter, got hold of the microphone and was back out the front uncoiling the whip.

  ‘Righto, you lazy bastards down there on the beach, listen up and pay attention.’ Jimmy’s soft voice boomed out of the speakers and across the sand. The group of people on the beach stopped whatever they were doing and turned towards the promenade. Even the people swimming and in the park looked around. ‘You’ve been bludging off us lifesavers for too long and you give us nothing in return. Not even bloody thanks. We ought to let you all drown, you ungrateful pricks. Anyway, the surf club needs your help. So on behalf of myself and Reg at the gandeen, Terrigal Surf Club is now having … a whip round.’

  ‘Jimmy, please. No.’ The man in glasses was too late.

  Jimmy put the microphone down, ran the whip out in front of him then started twirling it anti-clockwise above his head. He spun it round three times then brought it down hard in front of him. Instead of a craaacckkk, like Jimmy said earlier, there was more like a BANG! As if someone had fired a gun. Except the sound was more beautiful, crisp and clear. It had the desired effect. The people on the beach nearly jumped a foot in the air and the ones in the park almost dropped whatever they were eating or drinking. Even the bloke getting the skin cancers burnt off looked up when the doctor dropped his cigar. Jimmy started twirling the whip once more, then cracked it again. And again, and again; each one sounding louder than the first. Jimmy wasn’t all that big, but he knew what he was doing and the whip was so beautifully weighted and balanced he couldn’t go wrong. He cracked it another couple of times then picked up the microphone.

  ‘Okay, you bastards. Reg from the gandeen will now be passing the hat round. So dig deep. And talking about hats …’

  Sitting wide-eyed at the foot of the steps was a small group of Asquith Annies and Roseville Rogers—all staying at their parents’ weekender and having like a really, incredible, totally, just-so-good day at the beach, like you know, wow. One dork in a pair of John Lennon sunglasses and a pair of monstrously baggy shorts had a multi-coloured, peaked cap on his head with a tiny propeller on it. Jimmy moved across to the top step, whirled the whip round his head twice then bent slightly and cracked it sideways over the dork’s cap with a neat, sharp bang! The propeller flicked slightly up in the air then spiralled slowly down onto the sand in front of him like a dying moth. Jimmy ran the whip out in front of him then turned to the man in glasses.

  ‘Righto, Reg, what are you waiting for? Unless you want me to try for a cigarette in your mouth.’

  Reg shook his head. ‘You’re right, Jimmy. What am I waiting for?’ The man in glasses slapped a red and yellow beanie on his head, grabbed a plastic bucket and headed towards the stunned people on the beach who were now digging frantically in their pockets.

  ‘If I’m not here on Monday, Jimmy, just stick a note under the door. Anything you like, mate.’

  ‘See you later, Reg.’ Jimmy put the stockwhip back in his overnight bag, gave Les the nod and they started walking back across the park. ‘I’ve always wanted to do that,’ he smiled at Norton.

  ‘Well, you certainly got your wish,’ replied Les. ‘Who’s the bloke in the glasses?’

  ‘That’s Reg. He’s a retired magistrate and the surf club’s social secretary. He’s a top bloke. If anyone’s on weekend detention, he gives them jobs. Like cleaning up the surf club or painting the church or whatever. I’m supposed to report to him while I’m out. Me and Reg are good mates.’

  ‘Yeah, I could see that. The poor bludger was terrified of you.’

  ‘Get out, you cunt. He loves me. They all love me.’

  ‘Hey, Jimmy,’ said Les, ‘fair crack of the whip, mate.’

  ‘That’s precisely what I gave him, Les.’

  Norton could see this line of conversation was going nowhere. ‘All right, so what do you want to do now?’ ‘Nothing. I wouldn’t mind just hanging at home round the pool. Have a few cool ones, listen to some music I got. Maybe have a read.’

  ‘Sounds good to me. You like prawns?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, I might get some at that place where I got the fish and chips. You want to grab a bottle of plonk? Or do you want to drink what I got at home?’

  Jimmy thought for a moment. ‘I might get a nice white. Then have a few Bacardis later. You got any money on you?’

  ‘Yeah, and while you’re there, get a bag of crushed ice.’

  Les gave Jimmy a hundred dollars and said he’d see him back at the car. By the time Les got two kilograms of Myall Lakes prawns off ‘Big Elvis’ at the Flathead Spot, Jimmy had the bag of ice plus two bottles of Lindeman’s Hunter River Porphyry and they drove home.

  Les had noticed an esky in the garage earlier. After changing into an old pair of shorts and organising a towel, sunblock and his book, he packed the esky with ice, booze, orange juice and prawns. Then he strolled down to the pool and made himself comfortable on a banana-lounge. Jimmy came out of the house not long after with a book also, plus a small bag of CDs, an extension lead and a fairly hefty ghetto-blaster.

  ‘You didn’t have that in your bag, too, did you? said Les. Jimmy nodded. ‘Christ. What haven’t you got in there?’

  ‘You’d be surprised, Les,’ Jimmy said, looking evenly at Norton. He opened a bottle of wine and poured himself a glass, then plugged the ghetto-blaster into the nearest power point and sat it down next to the cabana so the noise would bounce off the wall and the tiles round the pool. Les watched and wondered just what Jimmy had in store for him as he got a CD from his bag, slipped it into the ghetto-blaster, adjusted the graphic equaliser and pressed the button.

  ‘All right, Les,’ he said, settling back on another banana-lounge with his glass of wine. ‘Tell me
if you like this. And if you don’t, too fuckin’ bad.’

  The ghetto-blaster had a great sound; especially positioned where Jimmy had put it. Les sipped his Bacardi, OJ and strawberry vodka as the sounds of a calypso, mardi-gras band, whistles blowing, maracas rattling, came bouncing out of the speakers. The music quickly faded away then this cool, soft American voice said, ‘Hey, Jimmy, do you know somebody in Miami that can get me a passport real quick?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Norton threw back his head nearly spilling his drink. ‘Don’t tell me, Jimmy, you’re a fuckin parrot-head.’

  ‘Hey, right on, baby.’ Jimmy was ecstatic. ‘I don’t believe it, Les. You’re into Jimmy Buffett, too?’

  ‘Yeah, sort of. Warren’s got some of his CDs, so I get a bit of it at home.’ Les gave Jimmy a half-smile. ‘Whether I like him or not, it looks like I’m going to get it all afternoon anyway.’

  ‘That,’ replied Jimmy, ‘and I might have something else snookered away in there, too.’

  Les raised his glass as ‘Everybody’s Got a Cousin in Miami’ cruised easily out of the speakers. ‘Whatever suits you suits me, Jimmy. There’s heaps worse things I could be doing than sitting round a pool drinking piss, eating prawns, and being a parrot-head for the afternoon.’

  ‘Fruit Cakes’ went into ‘Barometer Soup’. Norton read his book, peeled prawns, got a pleasant glow sipping Bacardi and every now and again fell in the pool to cool off and freshen up. Jimmy sipped wine and did much the same. Like Norton said, there could be worse ways to put in a day. Some Jimmy Buffett CD cut out. Jimmy put it back in his bag and took out something else.

  ‘Righto, Les,’ he said, settling back with another glass of wine, ‘tell me if you like this.’

  ‘What have we got now?’

  ‘Pale Riders.’

  ‘Never heard of them.’

  ‘There’s a lot of good Aussie music around you don’t get to hear on radio,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘That’s true,’ nodded Les.

  ‘They live in Sydney but they come from a place in Tasmania called Penguin and they’re starting to get a big cult following. They’re good.’

  ‘If you say so, Jimmy.’ Norton sipped another Bacardi and listened. The music was a mixture of blue grass, country, folk-rock and boogie. Crystal clear harmonies, great guitar licks and heaps of energy. Les gave Jimmy the thumbs-up and made a mental note to buy the CD when he got back to Sydney. Jimmy was in a good mood from the wine and Norton enjoying his music was making his mood even better. He put Pale Riders away and pulled out another CD.

  ‘You reckon you like rock ’n’ roll, Les?’

  ‘Sure do, James.’

  ‘Okay. Try this. The Headhunters’ “Outlaw Boogie”. This belongs to Wade and Peirce. They don’t know I got it. If they did they’d bloody kill me.’

  The next CD was full tilt, kick-down-the-door rock with some great ballads. Some red hot covers of ‘Cadillac Walk’, ‘Roadhouse Blues’ and others and on one track the singer sounded just like Bob Seger of old. Norton made another Bacardi and another mental note. If Jimmy stole this off Wade and Peirce—whoever they were—then they certainly wouldn’t know if he stole it off Jimmy. Don’t leave that CD lying around before you go back inside, young master James, Les smiled to himself. ‘Outlaw Boogie’ boogied out. Jimmy slipped in some more parrot-head music, then said he was going inside to have a leak and make a couple of phone calls. As Jimmy walked off, Les placed his book down and thought he might strain the potatoes too. Running alongside the fence were some oleander trees and a couple of flowering frangipannis. Les started hosing away near an oleander when he heard some commotion. It was the elderly bloke with the beard abusing someone or something.

  ‘Piss off, Golden Tonsils, you bastard of a thing,’ he yelled out. ‘Get away from those bloody tomatoes.’

  Norton peered over the fence to see what was going on. It was a big, black brush turkey. Long neck with a yellow frill and horrible eyes set in a scruffy, half-bald, red and black head that looked like a cheap hair transplant gone wrong. It was as ugly as sin and had its eyes on a patch of choice, ripe tomatoes. Concentrating on the tomatoes, it didn’t see the man with the beard come charging down the backyard, vigorously pumping a large, yellow super-soaker. The bloke gave the supersoaker another pump then from about two metres away blasted the bush turkey in the head. For good measure he also gave it a long burst up the backside. The bush turkey gave a bit of a squawk then half ran, half shuffled and half flew back into the nature reserve surrounding the houses.

  ‘Bastard,’ yelled the bloke, still firing the supersoaker into the bushes.

  ‘Mr Radio trying to get at the tomatoes again, is he?’ Les heard the man’s wife call out from above.

  ‘The rotten bludger,’ answered the man. ‘I’ll give him golden tonsils. I’ll get a longer extension on the hose and drown the bastard next time.’

  The wife said something, the man checked his tomatoes, then went back up to the house.

  Les shook his head, shook Mr Wobbly, then walked back to his banana-lounge. As he went to sit down he noticed Jimmy’s book and picked it up to see what he was reading. A Short History Of The World by H.G. Wells. Les idly flicked through it and found various paragraphs in different chapters marked with pink fluoro highlighter. King Asoka. Priests and Prophets in Judea. Primitive Neolithic Civilisations. The First True Men. The last paragraph in The First True Men was outlined, so Les thought he might see what it said.

  It is interesting to note that less than a century ago there still survived in a remote part of the world, in Tasmania, a race of human beings at a lower level of physical and intellectual development than any of these earliest races of mankind, who have left traces in Europe. These Tasmanian people had long ago been cut off by geographical changes from the rest of the species, and from stimulation and improvement. They seem to have degenerated rather than developed. At the time of their discovery by European explorers, they lived a base life subsisting upon shellfish and small game. They had no habitations but only squatting places. They were real men of our species, but they had neither the manual dexterity nor the artistic powers of the first true men.

  Very interesting, mused Norton, putting the book down as he’d found it. I wonder if that was any of Jimmy’s rellies down there in good old Tasmania? I’d better not ask him though or he might think I’ve been snooping. Les settled back down with his book and the music. A few minutes later Jimmy came back out, picked up his book and sat down again too.

  ‘Everything okay?’ Les asked politely without being nosy.

  ‘Yeah, sweet as a nut.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Les nodded to the paperback in Jimmy’s hands. ‘What’s the book you’re reading?’

  Jimmy held it up. Les scanned the cover. ‘Any good?’ Jimmy nodded. ‘Yeah. I like to read about history.’ He nodded to Norton’s book. ‘What’s that like?’

  Les held up The Hand that Signed the Paper. ‘I haven’t finished reading it yet, but so far it’s pretty good. Easy enough to read.’

  ‘Of course,’ replied Jimmy. ‘You hate abos. It’s only natural that you’re anti-semitic and you hate Jews, too.’

  ‘Don’t forget poofs and Asians. I hate them, too, you know.’

  ‘Sorry, Les, I forgot. It must be the wine.’

  ‘That’s all right, Jimmy. What can I expect, talking to some abo half-pissed on cheap plonk.’

  ‘Lindeman’s Hunter River Porphyry—cheap plonk? You’re fuckin’ kiddin’.’

  ‘Anyway, Jimmy, I don’t think the book’s antisemitic. It just tells things from the other side. The Ukrainians were getting a hard time from the Russians, the Jews, and everybody else. And when the Germans arrived they were no worse off. Better if anything. So they threw in with them and gave the Russians and the Jews a hard time.’

  ‘Like gassing and shooting them.’

  ‘And starving them, too. Same as they did to them.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Jimmy. ‘Ten million Ukrainian
s starved to death under Stalin. I remember reading it.’

  ‘But you know how it is these days,’ shrugged Les, ‘say anything at all about the Jews and immediately you’re anti-semitic.’

  ‘Yo! Mah man. We dig that shit in the hood, brother.’

  ‘I don’t particularly wish to cop one up the blurter and I think Julian Clary’s about as funny as a drunk with a shotgun, so that makes me homophobic. Make even the slightest comment about aborigines, like those few minor points I wished to discuss with you in the car when I first met you, and straightaway you’re a racist. You know what I mean?’

  Jimmy nodded. ‘You’re right, Les, it’s … it’s absolutely appalling.’

  ‘The thing is though, Jimmy. I didn’t just buy this book to read episode nine hundred and seventy-eight thousand six hundred of the bloody Holocaust. I wanted to find out what the fuss was all about and how this sheila won all those literary awards. I’ll admit I got caught up in all the hype and bullshit and they managed to con me out of $13.95. But it’s still not a bad read. There’s even a bit of porking in there.’

  ‘Fair dinkum? The rotten hussy.’

  Les nodded. ‘In a way I feel sorry for the sheila that wrote it. All the fuckin’ shit she’s going through. I mean, all the poor bastard did was write a book and half put one over those turnip heads running the literary scene. Now they want to burn her at the stake. She’s got to get round like that Salmon Rushdon, or whatever his name is. Not game to show her head anywhere.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve seen all that rattle on TV and in the papers. It’s disgusting. She’s a blonde too, poor bludger.’

  ‘There you go, Jimmy—persecution of blondes. Blondism.’

  ‘Exactly, Les, the literati in Australia are nothing but a bunch of fascists and cunts.’ Jimmy seemed to think for a moment. ‘I’ll tell you what, Les, you know what I’d do if I was her?’

  ‘What, Jimmy? And I respect your opinion, because you’re one smart dude.’

  ‘Instead of running away from these pricks, I’d just hang low for a while then come back bigger and better than ever. I’d get a real dark suntan, or cover myself with instant-tan. Dye my hair black and comb it up in an afro. Buy some overalls and a pair of crutches. Then come back again as a crippled, aboriginal lesbian, and say I was writing a book about my gay, HIV-positive, muslim cousin, and how he came to terms with his sexuality before he died of AIDS during the Gulf War. All those academic woozes out there trying to get a warm inner glow wouldn’t be game to knock you back with a spiel like that. You’d clean up again.’