They were a fairly mixed bunch. A few old pensioners lived in the houses opposite. Alongside these were some wharfies, an old SP bookie who still wore a hat everywhere he went and a sleepy looking fireman who did a lot of Yoga. His side of the street appeared to be mainly Jewish migrants of all nationalities and in the houses directly alongside him, a family of Greeks owned one and a mob of noisy New Zealanders rented the other. Naturally enough Norton sorted the Kiwis out first.
Actually the Kiwis weren’t a real bad bunch. There were four of them sharing the house, three guys and a chick. The were all working and they were a happy enough, easy-going lot but like all New Zealanders, as soon as they arrive in Australia and get their first flat or house they’re not happy unless they’re partying 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This didn’t worry Norton that much because he didn’t get home from work till after 4am, so he’d miss the worst of it. But he did find it a bit punishing when he’d drop off to sleep and they’d start up again about 7.30am. Not that Norton was a nark when it came to music, he was very partial to a bit of Cold Chisel and he used to love training to AC/DC and Rose Tattoo. Nor was he the kind of bloke who wanted to lie around in bed all day; as long as he got his six hours sleep in the morning and an hour before he went to work he was happy, but this particular lot and their friends didn’t even want to let him have that.
He copped it sweet for almost three weeks till finally he arrived home absolutely buggered above five one Sunday morning to find about a dozen drunks sitting on their front verandah sucking on cans of Fosters and banging away tunelessly on a couple of guitars with a Dragon album still blaring on the stereo back in the house. Some empty beer cans in his front yard and several pools of urine where some one had pissed up against his fence didn’t cheer him up that much either.
He ignored them as best he could as he went inside, had a mug of Ovaltine and went to bed, but try as he may he just couldn’t get to sleep. The noise was right under his bedroom window and the more he tossed and turned, even with his face under the blankets and the pillow over his head, the louder the noise seemed to get. Finally, about 6.30am, he got up, put on a pair of Stubbies and a sweat shirt and decided to go and have a word with them. They didn’t even notice Norton come through the gate and stand scowling alongside them, his eyebrows bristling over a pair of bloodshot eyes all puffed up like two cane toads from lack of sleep.
‘Excuse me matey,’ he said to the nearest Kiwi banging away on his guitar. ‘Do you think you could quieten down a little so’s I can get some sleep? It is getting late you know.’
If the Kiwis had noticed him they chose to ignore him and just kept singing along, sucking on their tinnies.
‘Mate,’ repeated Norton through clenched teeth, ‘it’s half past six. Do you think you could ease up a bit, I just want to get some sleep.’
‘What’s the matter, fellah?’ the first Kiwi with a guitar finally said. ‘You don’t look very happy. Here, have a beer.’ He giggled drunkenly and offered Norton a sip from his can.
‘I don’t want a beer, mate. I just want some sleep.’
‘Don’t want a beer, mate,’ echoed one of the other Kiwis apeing Norton’s Australian accent. ‘What sort of an Aussie are you if you don’t drink beer, mate?’ The others all laughed uproariously.
Norton could see he wasn’t going to get anywhere; they were all too pissed and just a bunch of smart-arses anyway.
‘All right then,’ he said ominously. ‘If you’re going to play your guitars, the least you could do is get them tuned properly. And I know the quickest way to tune a guitar. Fellah.’
He tore the guitar out of the first Kiwi’s hands and smashed it over his head with a hollow splintering of wood and a twanging of breaking guitar strings, leaving it sitting on his head like a big wooden hat. It happened so fast the others still sat there blinking.
‘Now, as for this other one,’ said Les reaching over and grabbing the second guitar. ‘It’s too big. You could make this into two ukuleles.’ He leaned it up against the pillar supporting the roof of the verandah and gave it a forearm jolt, smashing it noisily into two crumpled halves. ‘There you go,’ he said brightly. ‘That’s much better, isn’t it?’
‘Hey. What do you think your doing, fellah?’ said one of the Kiwis, starting to rise drunkenly to his feet. Norton gave him a backhander that split his mouth open and dumped him straight back down on his arse. ‘Shut up while you’re in front. Fellah,’ he said evenly.
‘Oh. One more thing,’ said Norton looking at them for a moment. ‘I almost forgot to mention it.’ He went inside and walked quickly down the hallway which was littered with empty cans, glasses and wine flagons and stank of stale beer, stepped into the lounge room, over some people crashed out on the floor, pulled the leads out of the speakers and tore the Dragon album off the turntable. ‘As far as I’m concerned,’ he said returning to the others out the front, ‘Marc Hunter couldn’t carry a note if it had handles. Jimmy Barnes’d play him off a break.’ With a few twists of his huge hands he broke the album up like an arrowroot biscuit and dropped the jagged pieces of black vinyl noisily on to the guitar still wedged firmly on the first Kiwi’s head. ‘Get into some Cold Chisel. It’s much better than this.’ For a moment he looked at them sitting there with their mouths open, then rubbed his hands together. ‘Now I’m going to beddy byes,’ he said. ‘I suggest you all do the same. Goodnight.’ Norton left, closing the gate gently behind him. In five minutes he was in bed and dead to the world.
The Kiwis quietened down considerably after that, though Norton sensed there was something in the wind; but he didn’t lose any sleep over it. However it came to a head the following Sunday morning, exactly one week later.
Norton got home knackered about 4.30am, had a mug of Ovaltine and hit the sack. His head was no sooner on the pillow and he was snoring his head off revelling in the new found peace and quiet. About 7.30am his sleep was shattered by some loud reggae music and this other horrible sound which he couldn’t identify. All he knew was that it was coming from the Kiwi’s house.
‘What the bloody hell’s goin’ on?’ he mumbled angrily, swinging his legs over the bed and rubbing his eyes as he stared numbly at the floor. He stumbled sleepily over to his bedroom window, pulled back the curtain and stared into the Kiwis’ front yard.
Sitting on the steps of their verandah, playing an electric guitar and singing at the top of his voice next to a ghetto blaster about the same size as a large suitcase, on full bore, was the biggest Astra bat Norton had ever seen in his life. Whether he was a Maori or a Cook Islander Les couldn’t tell, but he was well over six feet tall and at least 17 stone, with arms like tractor tyres and a big ugly scarred head with a mouth like a Murray cod sitting on a neck as thick as a tree stump. Behind him sat the three Kiwis and the girl, sipping on cups of coffee and trying not to laugh. They spotted Les looking through the curtains and went into a huddle.
‘I wonder what our friend next door will do now,’ said the girl.
‘I don’t think he’ll do too much when he sees Big Tiki,’ replied one of the boys.
‘Big Tiki’ll murder him.’
‘Play it a bit louder, Big Tiki.’
Big Tiki was only too willing to oblige. He turned the tape up another two notches on the ghetto blaster and accompanied it on the electric guitar with his own horrendous version of Bob Marley’s ‘Coming in From the Cold’. You could have heard it back in Jamaica.
‘Just as I thought,’ growled Norton, letting the curtains fall back into place. ‘A bloody set-up. Oh well.’
He stood there stroking his chin, thinking for a few moments then put on a sweat shirt and a pair of old Stubbies, went to the bathroom, cleaned his teeth and splashed some cold water on his face and neck. Feeling half awake he sauntered into the kitchen and put the electric kettle on. While it was boiling he started limbering up with a few push-ups, sit-ups and stretches; he wasn’t worried about fighting the big mug next door but he could see that he was built lik
e an ox and he didn’t expect it to be any pushover, so there was no use in going off half cocked. After the exercises and gulping down a large mug of scalding hot coffee and honey Norton felt almost wide awake; he also felt extremely mean. He finished his coffee, did another 20 sit-ups, then slipped his mouth guard in his pocket and went out to confront the giant Astra bat.
The Kiwis in the meantime were chuckling amongst themselves at Norton’s non-appearance, it had been over 15 minutes since they saw his face at the window and they were convinced he had dogged it. They were congratulating Big Tiki and laughing out loud when Norton suddenly seemed to materialise out of nowhere at their front gate. His eyebrows were bristling like two red scrubbing brushes and the look on his face would have frightened a bulldog out of a butcher’s shop. Their laughter immediately stopped. He glared at the now silent Kiwis on the steps then strode straight up to Big Tiki and turned off the portable stereo; in the abrupt silence Norton’s voice sounded like far away thunder.
‘Listen, soul brother,’ he snarled right into Big Tiki’s face. ‘If you don’t stop playing that fuckin’ guitar, I’m gonna shove it right up your big smelly black arse and use you for a fuckin’ licorice paddle-pop. And I’ll shove that fuckin’ Third World briefcase up there as well. You understand? You fat heap of shit.’
Big Tiki was slightly taken back by Les’s direct approach but he had about three stone and four inches on Norton.
‘We’ll soon see about that, fellah,’ he snorted, unhitching the guitar and rising to his feet.
Norton stepped back to give himself room and as the monstrous black lumbered to his feet he bent at the knees and drove a ferocious right rip straight up into his solar plexus. The big Maori’s eyes bulged out like two boiled eggs as every breath of air was torn violently out of his body. He was instantly paralysed. Norton followed this up with two savage left hooks that mashed Big Tiki’s mouth into a nauseating crimson mess, spraying blood and teeth all across the front yard. Before he had time to blink, a knee thumped viciously into his groin, making his eyes roll with pain and slamming him up against the wooden pillar supporting the front of the house. He would have collapsed on the spot but unfortunately his belt caught on a hook imbedded in the wooden pole to support pot plants. Not being able to fall forward and still paralysed from the first deadly blow to his solar plexus, he just had to stand there and suffer Norton’s pitiless rain of punches. And the big red-head wasn’t pulling any either.
A short right broke most of his ribs, another opened up a cut above his eye almost half the length of his forehead; a left closed the other one. Christ, thought Norton, as Big Tiki still stood there, what have I got to do to drop this big goose? He unleashed another barrage of hellish punches that almost tore the big Maori’s face apart and crumpled his ribs up like balsa-wood. Finally, the weight of Norton’s punches wrenched the hook out of the pole and Big Tiki started to totter forward. As he fell towards him Les stepped back and brought his knee up into his face with a deep crunch that moved what was left of his nose six inches across his face. Big Tiki’s torture was finally over and he slumped face down on the path unconscious; blowing bubbles in the widening pool of blood oozing out of his face.
‘Now. You cheeky team of Kiwi pricks,’ Norton snarled fiercely at the terrified New Zealanders still sitting ashen faced on the steps. ‘You’re next.’
He strode over and grabbed the closest two by the hair, banging their heads together violently; a hefty back-hander sorted the other one out.
‘As for you, you poxy looking moll,’ he said. Reaching across the others and taking the screaming girl firmly by the hair also. ‘I’m just gonna rape you on the spot.’ He held the sobbing, trembling girl in front of him for a moment. ‘Then again you’ve probably been stuffed by half the Astra Hotel and I’ll end up with the jack.’ He spun her around and kicked her up the backside. ‘We’ll forget about that,’ he said. A look of extreme distaste on his face.
‘Now listen, you team of wombats,’ he said evenly, walking over to the terrified New Zealanders. ‘All I want is a bit of sleep in the morning. No more. No less. You understand?’ They all nodded their heads nervously.
Norton picked up the portable stereo and turned it back on at a moderate volume. ‘There you go. That’s heaps loud enough,’ he said, placing the huge ghetto blaster down in the pool of blood next to Big Tiki’s battered and broken head. ‘See, even your big mate agrees. Don’tcha son?’ He gave Big Tiki a nudge in the ribs with his foot but he didn’t budge. ‘Oh well. I hope so anyway,’ said Norton with a grin. ‘He’s too big to argue with.’
Bob Marley was cruising into ‘Oh Woman don’t Cry’ as the others picked Big Tiki up and Norton hosed the blood off himself in his front yard and soaked his sweatshirt. Five minutes later he was back in bed; the barely audible sound of Bob Marley singing ‘Is This Love’ was drifting pleasantly through his bedroom window as he dozed off.
Strangely enough, Norton finished up fairly good mates with the Kiwis after that. They realised they’d been a little out of order and apologised to Norton and Les not being the sort of person to harbour grudges accepted this with a laugh over a few cans out the front one afternoon. In fact it wasn’t long after that they invited Les in for a barbecue one Sunday afternoon and he ended up pulling this young Air New Zealand hostess, a really spunking little blonde, and throwing her up in the air. As for Big Tiki, he wasn’t quite his old self when he eventually got out of hospital so he went back to Auckland and joined a religious movement.
On the other side of Norton lived the Greek family. Stavros Poltavaris, his wife Despina, their two sons, Nick and Steve, and Stavros’s mother; she used to get around dressed in black with a black scarf over her head all the time. Norton nicknamed her Johnny Cash.
Les got to be the best of neighbours with the Poltavaris family and as far as Les was concerned Stavros was a pretty good bloke. He came out to Australia in the early 60s with a spare pair of pants and about two dollars in his pocket. But by sheer hard work he’d managed, after marrying Despina, to own his own home, get a new Valiant every year, send his kids to Waverley College and bring his mother out to Australia; where he was able to keep them all well-fed and comfortable with the excellent wages he earnt as head foreman in a big smallgoods factory out near Botany. He was overweight and over proud of his family and always rabbiting on to Les about how smart his sons were and how many goals they’d kicked that weekend for Hakoah Juniors. But Norton copped this sweet because if there was one thing Stavros could do, he could organise a barbecue and his wife and mother were two of the best exponents of Greek cooking Les had ever seen. They were always calling out over the fence to him and offering him a plate of souvlakia, or moussaka. Some stuffed egg-plants, honey cakes or spicy little meat dishes rolled up in vine or cabbage leaves.
Every Sunday afternoon Norton would wait till Stavros got his barbecue going, give him about half an hour, then casually stroll down the backyard with a rake and kid to be tidying up the garden. Before long Stavros would call out over the fence.
‘Les, my good friend. Have you eaten yet?’
‘Oh, I had a bit of breakfast this morning thanks, Stav,’ Norton would nonchalantly reply. His mouth welling up with saliva at the tantalising aromas coming off the Poltavaris barbecue.
‘Hah. This morning. That is hours ago,’ Stavros would exclaim. ‘A big man like you, you must have food. Some meat. Here my friend, try some of this.’
‘Well if you insist, Stav, I suppose I could fit a little something in,’ Norton would modestly reply.
The next thing, over would come beautiful shasliks, grilled lamb with lemon, continental sausages, some fetta cheese salad full of big, plump, black olives. For a bloke who wasn’t hungry Norton would eat enough for six people.
Stavros never twigged to Norton’s subterfuge, or if he did neither he nor any of the family ever let on; but Les always did his best to reciprocate Stavros’s genuine hospitality. Some of the fishermen in the boat-sheds at Ben Buckl
er owed Norton a few favours, so they were always laying a snapper or a few red bream on him, which invariably ended up going over the fence to Stavros and if ever the thieves, where Norton used to drink, ever hoisted any ouzo or zambuka Les would get it at the right price and lay that on the Poltavaris family too. There was no way Les would take an unfair advantage of Stavros’s honesty and warm-hearted generosity. He was too good a bloke.
Stavros, however, for all his good points had one glaring fault. A great fat, over-fed, savage, hulking german shepherd dog he owned called King. King was without a doubt the greatest prick of a dog God ever put breath into; a big dumb bully, but also as cunning as a shithouse rat. It had everybody in Cox Avenue, from the old pensioners across the road and their silky terriers to the postman, terrified. Everybody except Norton that is. It would growl, snap, bark and do its best to try to bite anybody who came within 100 metres of the house. It was spoilt rotten. It had its own carpeted kennel with an electric blanket in winter and a fan in summer, its own monogrammed dish and jacket and it only got the best cuts of beef and the juiciest bones available from the smallgoods factory where Stavros worked. So King, knowing where its bread was buttered, would naturally put most of this snarling, biting act and show of canine devotion on for Stavros’s benefit. And Stavros thought the sun shone out of its big, fat hairy arse.
‘By golly Les,’ he’d say to Norton over the fence. ‘I’ve got a champion watch-dog here, you know.’ He’d pat King’s dopey big head and King would sit at his feet like a good, faithful, loyal companion. In the back of its mind though, it was just waiting for another hand-out of juicy, lean gravy beef.
You Wouldn't Be Dead for Quids Page 10