The Real Thing

by Robert G. Barrett

  Boambee lagoon looked just as beautiful in the moonlight as it did in the daytime. Les pulled up at the water’s edge and quickly turned the motor off. The night was warm and it was deathly still but there was plenty of light from the almostfull moon shining on the water. He got the ski down from the car. He left his T-shirt, jeans and sneakers on and got a large black plastic garbage bag and torch out of the boot. He had a quick look around him, locked the car then paddled out into the lagoon.

  It was still ghostly silent as he crunched up the opposite shore; the only sound was the gentle lapping of the water and the splash of a mullet jumping in the moonlight every now and again. He easily picked up the mark where he’d pulled in earlier and, by the soft light of the torch, set off along the trail. The going was a little more difficult in the darkness. Branches scraped across his face and he tripped over a few vines, but the tension of the situation had him moving swiftly. It wasn’t long before he had reached the bullrushes at the edge of the clearing.

  Everything was just as he had left it before. There was plenty of moonlight, so he switched off the torch and began pulling the dried marijuana plants off the strands of clothesline, bending them and stuffing them into the garbage bag. Before long the bag was full. There was just one plant left hanging and Norton would have been flat out stuffing it into the almost-bursting bag. Oh well, he thought, the least I can do is leave them enough for a smoke. He tied the top of the bag with a plastic clip, threw it over his shoulder and looking like a strange version of Santa Claus set back off along the trail.

  There was still no one around when he paddled back to the car so he quickly and silently tied the ski to the roof racks and crammed the huge bag of marijuana into the boot. The thought that he could get five years gaol for cultivation and supply if he had been caught with that amount of marijuana didn’t enter his head. He changed out of his wet jeans and T-shirt, started the car and drove off out of the lagoon. Just after twelve, he yawned to himself and glanced at his watch. I should be sound asleep by one. And he was.

  Norton didn’t bother about doing any training the following morning, opting for a bit of a sleep-in instead. Reg was having breakfast and it was around eight when he walked into the kitchen.

  ‘Hello, no exercise this morning?’ grinned Reg.

  ‘No thanks,’ replied Les. ‘I got enough last night to do me for a while.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Reg’s eyes lit up. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Wait till I get myself a cuppa and I’ll tell you.’

  Norton made a cup of coffee then sat down and told Reg most of what happened at the barbecue and back at the flat. He didn’t elaborate too much about what happened between Betty and himself, and he didn’t mention the dope, he wanted to save that till later.

  ‘So,’ chuckled Reg, ‘one could say you had a reasonably good time Les.’

  ‘Yes. One could say that,’ replied Norton slyly. ‘There’s also a little something else I’d like you to see, too.’

  ‘Yeah? What’s that?’

  ‘Come out to the car and I’ll show you.’

  Curious, Reg followed Norton out to the BMW and stood behind him while he opened the boot.

  ‘There you are,’ grinned Les, untying the garbage bag. ‘Have a look at that.’

  Reg looked inside the bulging, plastic bag and his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. But he was more horrified than amused. ‘Holy bloody hell,’ he cried. ‘Where’d you get that?’

  ‘The other side of Boambee lagoon,’ replied Norton, the grin still plastered across his face. He then told Reg exactly how he’d stumbled across it and how he’d knocked it off. ‘So what do you reckon? Not a bad night’s work eh?’

  ‘Not bad my arse!’ replied Reg. He wasn’t at all amused. ‘What’s the idea of bringing it back here anyway? Shit!’

  ‘Well what else was I gonna do with it? Anyway, there’s at least fifteen grand’s worth of pot there. I’ll put you in the whack when I flog it back in Sydney.’

  ‘I don’t want to go in the whack,’ replied Reg, waving his arms around. ‘I don’t want nothing to do with it and I’m filthy on you bringing it back to my farm. You know my opinion of the greedy bastards who sell heaps of this, and now you’re one of them. Christ!’

  ‘Shit, I’m sorry Reg,’ said Norton, feeling more than a bit uncomfortable at upsetting his friend. ‘I didn’t mean to do the wrong thing. I just saw it there and I thought. . . I dunno, I just thought I may as well grab it. I mean. . . fifteen grand is fifteen grand.’

  Reg shook his head. ‘You’re just like the rest of them Les: motivated by money and greed. It fair dinkum gives me the shits.’ He had another look in the garbage bag and suddenly a curious look came over his face. He started going through the dope running his hand right down to the bottom of the bag. He stood up and turned to Norton, his hands on his hips and a sardonic smile etched round his eyes. ‘How much did you say you were going to flog this for again, in Sydney?’

  Norton shrugged his shoulders. ‘I dunno. About fifteen grand something like that.’

  ‘Fifteen grand eh? And who are you going to sell it to?’

  ‘I dunno,’ Norton shrugged his shoulders again. ‘A couple of shifties I know from the Cross. They’ll take it.’

  ‘Oh they will, will they?’ Reg started to laugh, quietly at first but gradually got louder. ‘Well I’ve got some bloody bad news for you Mr Boambee lagoon connection. Your dope’s not worth two-fuckin’-bob.’

  Norton looked at Reg incredulously. ‘What d’yer mean, it’s not worth two bob?’

  ‘They’re all male plants,’ roared Reg. ‘It wouldn’t stone a budgerigar.’

  ‘What d’you mean male plants?’ said Les, screwing up his face. ‘Pot’s pot and that’s bloody pot. Don’t give me the shits.’

  ‘Don’t give me the shits,’ echoed Reg. ‘You wombat,’ he sneered. ‘You only smoke the female plants that’s where those heads I showed you come from.’

  ‘Well what do you think they are?’ bellowed Norton, pointing to all the little yellow flowers on the stems at the top of the bag. ‘They’re those head things. Have a look at the size of them, they’re the grouse.’

  Reg looked at Les like he was a little kid who had just pooped his pants. ‘You bloody great boofhead. Look, wait here and I’ll show you something.’ He went inside the house, returning with a bag not quite half-full of his own marijuana. ‘Now look you see this,’ he pulled one of the little heads out of the bag and handed it to Norton. ‘You see how sticky and resiny that is?’

  Les squeezed it between his fingers feeling the resin stick to them like honey but with a spicy, almost gingery sort of smell. ‘Yeah,’ he nodded.

  ‘Well that resin’s what makes a good smoke and only the female plants produce it. Now have a feel of yours.’

  Norton took one of the plants out of the bag and squeezed it between his fingers, too. ‘It’s not. . . very sticky. . . is it Reg?’

  ‘It’s not very sticky, is it Reg?’ mimmicked Reg. ‘No. Because it’s got no resin in it, that’s why. You clown.’

  ‘But it looks all right.’

  ‘Yeah, it looks all right but it’s just no good.’ Reg started laughing like a drain again. ‘You Dubbo, Les. You’ve pissed off on that good sort, busted your arse crawling through a swamp to get the shit. Not to mention the five years you’d’ve got if the cops had of caught you, and for what? Nothing. And it serves you right you greedy, big prick.’

  ‘Well the stuff can’t be that bad.’ Norton ran his hand through the garbage bag. ‘I mean, what were the growers doing drying it out if it was no good?’

  ‘They’ve probably dried out their female plants earlier, or they might still be growing. I dunno, but they’ve kept all this to mix with them and sell it as leaf and tip.’

  ‘Leaf ’n tip?’

  ‘Yeah. The old German brew Les. Leabintip. They mix them together and it goes further — you’re not the only hungry cunt in Australia Norton.’

  Norton p
aused for a moment, reflecting on the garbage bag in the boot of the car. ‘So this stuff on its own’s no good?’

  Reg shrugged his shoulders. ‘I s’pose you could smoke it but you’d probably have to smoke that whole bag before you got stoned. You’d end up with coal-miner’s lung before you got any sort of a buzz out of it,’ he added with a laugh.

  ‘Coal-miner’s lung, eh?’ said Norton quite disgruntled.

  ‘Yeah. But don’t worry Les,’ said Reg sarcastically. ‘You’ve done pretty good for a Queenslander.’ He gave Norton a pat on the shoulder. ‘Now I’m going into my shed to do some painting. Do me a favour, will you? — don’t come near me till about one o’clock.’ He turned and walked towards the shed.

  ‘Well what am I going to do with this?’ wailed Norton, from the boot of the BMW.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Reg stopping in mid-stride. ‘But here you are.’ He pulled a packet of cigarette papers out of his shirt pocket and threw them to Les. ‘Why don’t you roll yourself a joint?’

  Norton tossed the packet of cigarette papers into the plastic bag full of dope sitting in the boot of the car. Roll myself a joint, he snorted to himself. Smart little bastard. I ought to boot him right up the arse. But as he watched his little artist friend disappear into his shed the funny side of what had happened started to dawn on him, and he realised Reg was right and he had — through being greedy — made a bit of a dill out of himself. Still, how was I to know? He was chuckling to himself a bit when he spotted Reg’s incinerator — a rusty, old 44 gallon drum with a hole cut into it, sitting on some house bricks standing at the back of the house. Well one thing I do know. I know just what to do with this shit. He picked up the huge bag of dope, walked over and stuffed it in the incinerator. By burning it Norton hoped he might be able to at least regain some esteem in Reg’s eyes. He went to the kitchen to get some newspaper and matches. As he was groping around in the cupboards the phone rang in the lounge-room.

  ‘Hello,’ he said briefly into the receiver.

  ‘Hello. Is that you Les? It’s Betty,’ was the reply.

  ‘G’day Betty.’ At the sound of her voice Norton’s spirits rose somewhat. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. I got your note all right.’

  ‘That’s good. I didn’t mean to run out on you but I just thought it might be for the best.’

  ‘Well you were right. Uncle Don was around here at seven o’clock. He wasn’t snooping, they just wanted to see if I was all right, and they’re taking me up to some friends at Woolgoolga for the day.’

  ‘See, I told you.’

  ‘He probably wouldn’t have said anything if you had been here, but you know what relatives are like. They still think I’m fourteen.’

  ‘You’re definitely not fourteen Betty. I’ll swear to that. And did you tell him you were all right?’

  ‘I told him I never felt better in my life,’ she chuckled. ‘What about yourself?’ she added slyly.

  ‘I ain’t complaining.’

  They both laughed out aloud, then chatted for a few minutes. Finally Betty asked Les if he was still going to take her out that night.

  ‘Just try and find someone to stop me,’ replied Norton. ‘Where would you like to go anyway?’

  ‘Well, I’ll probably have to have tea out at Woolgoolga but I should be back at eight. What about coming around at say nine and we’ll go into Coffs Harbour. There’s a disco there called Pinkie’s. Got a really good DJ. Do you like to dance Les?’

  ‘Does a duck like to quack?’

  ‘Okay then, I’ll see you at nine. Why don’t you bring your artist friend? I’d like to meet him.’

  ‘Reg? Yeah righto I will. I’ll see you at nine then.’

  ‘See you then. Bye.’

  ‘Bye Betty.’

  Well that’s good, thought Norton, everything’s worked out okay there. He was looking forward to seeing Betty again that night. While they were talking on the phone Les had forgotten what he’d come into the house for. He decided to go for a run and do a bit of training before it got too hot. As he trotted off from the farm he noticed the bag in the incinerator. I’ll burn it when I get back, he thought.

  It took Les about an hour and a half to complete his training. He took a shower and had a light breakfast of muesli and peaches and a cup of coffee: he’d have a big lunch later on. While he was having a second cup of coffee he decided to make another one and take it out to Reg who was still painting in his shed out the front. He knocked lightly on the door with his foot before he entered.

  ‘All right if I come in mate? I know it’s not one o’clock yet but I brought you a cup of coffee. Here you are.’

  ‘Thanks Les.’ Reg took the mug from Norton’s extended hand and had a sip. ‘Mm, two spoonfuls of honey — perfect. At least you can do something right Les.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Norton grinned sheepishly. He had a look around Reg’s shed-cum-studio. Strangely enough it was the first time he’d taken a good look inside there since he’d arrived at the farm.

  The studio was nothing more than a roughly hewn wooden shed not much bigger and a little narrower than your average lounge-room. A curtained window faced away from the house and a single fluorescent light dangled precariously from the cobweb-infested ceiling. Paintings and pieces of masonite-backed canvas were scattered around the floor and up against the walls, and a narrow bench on one wall was strewn with brushes, oil-paints, water-colours and various other artist’s paraphenalia, including a moveable wooden model of a human being. Penthouse and Playboy pin-ups were pinned to the walls along with newspaper and magazine clippings, photos, pieces of broken mirrors, posters, books, metal buttons, toys and a million and one other pieces of dusty bric-a-brac accumulated over the years. When Norton entered Reg was seated on an old bar-stool with Sally at his feet. He was finishing an oil painting of what Les recognised as the billabong at the back of the farm, only he’d painted in several water-birds and parrots. Even to Norton’s inexperienced eye he could see how Reg had managed to capture the vivid colours and peaceful beauty of the remarkable little place. He was quite impressed.

  ‘Jees, Reg,’ he said, peering over Reg’s shoulder while the artist sipped on his coffee. ‘You’ve done a good job there. That looks almost like a photo.’

  Reg put down his coffee and daubed a bit more colour on one of the birds. ‘You like it, do you, Les?’

  ‘Too right. In fact I can’t understand why you don’t sell a lot more paintings than what you do. You’re bloody good mate.’

  ‘Ah, people up this way haven’t got a real lot of money Les. I wish I could though. I’d like to get myself a good VCR.’

  ‘Yeah? Why’s that?’

  ‘The ABC’s got these video casettes out about all the old masters — Gauguin, Monet, Picasso, Rembrandt. I’d love to get them.’ He added another daub of paint. ‘Still, you never know. Maybe one day.’

  ‘Yeah, you never know what might happen.’ Norton took a sip on his coffee. ‘I’ve worked out what I’m going to do with that pot.’

  ‘You’re not still going to sell it are you?’

  ‘No. It’s in the incinerator. I’m gonna burn it.’

  ‘Bloody good idea Les. Evil can only create more evil, so just put it down to experience.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right Reg, and I owe you an apology, too.’ Norton took a lengthy sip on his coffee. ‘Anyway, what are you doing tonight? You want to come for a drink with me and Betty? She said she’d like to meet you.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Where are you thinking of going?’

  ‘Some place in Coffs Harbour called Pinkie’s or something. Betty reckons it’s pretty good.’

  Reg put his brush down and took another sip of coffee, reflecting into the mug for a few moments. ‘I. . . can’t go to Pinkie’s with you Les,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Yeah. Why’s that?’

  ‘I just can’t.’

  Norton could see by the way Reg was looking into his coffee that he was keeping something back.
Les was determined to find out what. ‘What do you mean you just can’t? There’s got to be a reason. What’d they catch you dealing pot in there, eh? Is that what it is?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be bloody stupid Les.’ He paused for a moment. ‘To tell you the truth. . . I had a fight with the bouncer.’

  Norton stared at Reg as if he couldn’t believe his ears. ‘You had a fight with the bouncer?’ He roared laughing. ‘What is he, a Kampuchean jockey? Did he have much trouble beating you?’

  Reg’s cheeks coloured slightly as he looked at the floor. ‘Well, it wasn’t actually a fight,’ he almost mumbled.

  ‘No. I couldn’t really picture you in a stink Reg. I mean you’re that skinny now if you go out in a strong wind, you start to twang.’

  ‘All right Hercules, we can’t all be like you. What happened: the bouncer there said I was trying to get on to his girl so he punched me in the head and threw me out.’

  Norton screwed up his face and frowned. He wasn’t real keen on the idea of his little artist friend getting belted by some big clown. ‘Tell me exactly what happened Reg,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Well. There’s two bouncers there but George is the biggest, he’s a bricklayer and he’s got a girlfriend Diane who’s into ceramics: that’s pottery. Anyway we were just talking about art this night and we ended up having a bit of a dance — just as friends — when George came flying over and dragged her off the dance floor and started roughing her up. I went over to apologise for her and tell him it wasn’t her fault, and he just turned around and punched me in the eye, then threw me out and gave me a couple in the kidneys as well. Fair dinkum Les. I had a black eye for nearly three weeks and I was crook for days after.’

  ‘Go on,’ mused Norton. ‘He sounds like a bit of a real heavy dude this George.’

  ‘Oh, he’s a twenty-four carat prick Les. The funny part about it, Diane doesn’t even like him, but she’s too scared to leave him. He’s just bloody mean and he’s big, too. Bigger than you.’

  ‘Mm, he sounds like he’s real bad news, this George.’

  ‘Yeah, he is. And that’s why we can’t go to Pinkie’s Les.’