By Sean Bean.
Explanatory Note: In Part 7 when Iris and Greased Batshit roared away from the start line in the race to decide who wrote the next episode of Dastardly Doings, Sean was the first to recover from the shock. The others were still trying to clear their ears when Sean staggered down the course. He just edged Bistro Waiters into third place with Arjy a close fourth and therefore Sean writes the second in the self-help episodes.
A LITTLE EARLIER ON TAMBORINE MOUNTAIN.
(The whole world is a muzzy blur. I remember a loud bang and a horrible feeling of shock. Then a huge yellow thing followed by a brief silence and then another different sort of crash. Now I am swaying and I can hear the wind, I can also hear Arjy shouting at me.)
Arjy: Sean! Wake up! Come on wake up you stupid shit! I can’t get you out on my own!
(My vision clears a little and I can see Arjy. She is leaning into the Jeep and trying to undo my seatbelt. But the Jeep is all bent and there is shattered glass everywhere. Why is Arjy outside leaning in and why is she tied to a tree?)
Arjy: Listen carefully, Sean. If you don’t pull yourself together and start trying to help me, you WILL die. Make no mistake, this car wreck is hanging by a couple of bits of steel to a very thin tree that is about to uproot. When that happens the whole mess will fall about 300 metres onto some very nasty rocks and so will you if you don’t sort yourself out. Now COME ON!
(That will do it every time. I like the way Arjy sums things up so simply. I scrabble with the seat belt and ignore the pain. Arjy isn’t tied to anything; she has her extraordinary legs wrapped around the trunk of a tree just above where our Jeep has got stuck. As she drags me through the window past the airbags there is a creak, followed by a crack and finally a groan and the Jeep starts to shift. The tree snagging the Jeep rips out of the ground and the car wreck rumbles forward and into space. Arjy, holding on to me like a trapeze artist, is left hanging by her skinny legs. She starts to swing me back and forth and each swing gets wider and wilder until abruptly, she lets go. I scream but, after a heart-stopping moment of flight, I land safely on a dirt ledge and Arjy joins me there a few minutes later.
Unbelievably, apart from cuts and bruises we are unhurt and we collapse onto the ledge gasping with relief and shock.)
Me: What the fuck happened?
Arjy: Not sure - but I recognised the driver of that bulldozer.
Me: Ah yes, the yellow thing. Who was it?
Arjy: Constable Gruff.
Me: Gruff? What’s Slideback’s nephew doing trying to kill us?
Arjy: Don’t know that either but there seems to be a link between Iris Pessary, the police and that other ugly bastard that Iris was talking to at the pub. We have to get back to Jimboomba fast.
Me: That might be hard, our transport is in bits at the bottom of the mountain.
Arjy: Yes but we passed Thunderbird Park just before we were bulldozed. We should find help there. Let’s go.
(There is no arguing with Arjy once she is set on something so I follow her and scramble up the slope to the road. When we reach the road there is no sign of a bulldozer or the truck and only a few deep gashes in the bitumen prove that something has happened here. We limp down the hill to Thunderbird Park.
Thunderbird Park seems deserted. The cafe is closed and there doesn’t seem to be any staff, guests or visitors. It is as though the whole area near the attack on us has been cleared of possible witnesses and only the police could do that effectively. We look around for some sort of transport to get us back to Jimboomba. I find a pony and trap but Arjy rejects that idea and then she cries out in triumph. I wander across to see what the fuss is about and I find Arjy standing at Thunderbird Park’s newest kiddie attraction. It is a racetrack for go-karts and lined up at the start are Rory the Racing Car and his nemesis Maxi, the yellow Italian racer. They are quite small but probably very quick and they are fuelled up and ready to roll so, within a few minutes we are careering down the mountain and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. In fact we are quite sorry to reach Jimboomba but that changes when we find we have managed to get back before Iris and are able to see her arrive and then deliver what looks like a mesh cage to the police station before she drives on to Incontinental. Arjy decides to stake out the police station. I buy two cheap pairs of binoculars from Dollars and Sense and we sit in our clock towers and watch.
It is after dark before we see anything worth looking at. A shadowy figure leaves the police station carefully carrying what looks like the mesh cage. The figure scuttles down the steps to Woodies car park and creeps over to the Jimboomba Times office where it spends a lot of time fiddling at the door. I decide that the lock is being picked. Eventually the figure enters the office and comes back out a few minutes later carrying the gage far more casually. Whatever was in that cage is now in the office of the Jimboomba Times. Arjy and I discuss the case over the string phone and we decide to be at the door of the Jimboomba Times office when Bistro Waiters arrives to open up in the morning.)
THE NEXT MORNING – JIMBOOMBA TIMES OFFICE.
Arjy: Good morning, Bistro. Nice day.
Bistro Waiters: Blimey, what happened to you two? You look as though you’ve just crawled out of a car wreck.
Arjy: We have, but it was yesterday.
Bistro Waiters: Oh, what a shame. We’ve got our quota of traffic accidents for this week’s edition. Don’t suppose you’ve won any nice jam making competitions have you?
Arjy: Sadly – No.
Bistro Waiters: Sod it! I need a big story for the front page. How about macramé? Do any of that kind of thing, do you?
Arjy: I fear not. But how about a juicy break and enter?
Bistro Waiters: Nah, no interest you see. People are seeing break and enters every day around here. Some get done while they’re sitting down for breakfast. The villains just wander past and expect to be directed to the valuables and then given a cup of tea on the way out. Do you know, some of the Jimboomba burglars are so bloody idle they’ve taken to doing it by email? That’s right, they email and ask for the stuff to be left outside the front door for them. Mind you, it’s a good thing in some ways because it cuts down on damage to locks and windows. But the buggers I can’t stand are the bloody burglars that email and ask for the stuff to be delivered direct to their fence. That’s taking the piss that is.
Arjy: What about if it was the Jimboomba Times office broken into last night?
Bistro Waiters: That might be an angle. But it depends what was pinched?
Arjy: Or left. Why don’t you open up and we can see what’s been going on?
Bistro Waiters: Righty Ho.
(We go inside and look around but there doesn’t seem to be anything unusual lurking there.)
Arjy: Ok, do you see anything out of place or odd or strange?
Bistro Waiters: Not really, it all looks quite ………My God!
Me: What? What? What?
Bistro Waiters: I think we’ve just walked into an Alien movie. You’re not Sigourney Weaver in drag are you Sean?
Me: Cheeky sod! I……Shit!
(I’ve just noticed what Bistro is staring at on the Editor’s desk. He is staring at the strangest creature I have ever seen. It had been so still I’d taken it for some weird ornament but then the ornament moved its head. It is like a snake but not a snake. The head is snake and the body is snake but the two spindly legs holding the front half of the creature high off the desk are definitely not snake. The rest of the snake body continues past the legs normally for a bit but instead of tapering away to a point it curls under. The back half of the body is supported on the stumpy tail that ends in a four-toed foot. Somehow, we seem to have ourselves a three-legged snake.
The head and body are black and has a familiar red blush on the underside; this is no three-legged tree snake. It’s head sways back and forth as it looks at each of us in turn and the tongue flickers scarily as it scents us. Stretched out, the snake thing would be about a metre and a half long and that’s plenty big enough for me - but something has to be done.
The office boasts a shredding machine and below it is a large empty bin that I pick up. Now, I have seen loads of animal shows on TV so, with a resounding shout of ‘CRIKEY’, I leap and scoop the bin over the snake trapping it on the desk top. I just can’t believe how rash I have been so I pass out for a minute or two. When I come round Arjy and Bistro are already discussing what to do next.)
Bistro Waiters: We have to get that thing identified. It might be a completely new species though.
Arjy: Got to be. But the important thing is why did someone from Jimboomba police put it here and what has Iris Pessary and her ugly friend got to do with all this?
Bistro Waiters: Maybe it’s all linked up. I need to get this thing to my Uncle Morris.
Arjy: Uncle Morris?
Bistro Waiters: Doctor Morris Plinthmember. He’s a retired Zoological Geneticist.
Arjy: How convenient.
Bistro Waiters: Indeed.
Arjy: Where do we find Dr. Morris?
Bistro Waiters: He’s a resident at Incontinental and he even has his own laboratory there.
Arjy: Why did I already guess that?
Bistro Waiters: Now you’re taking irony to the point of being silly. Let’s just get over to Incontinental with this brute, shall we?
LATER, AT INCONTINENTAL – DR. PLINTHMEMBER’S CHAMBERS.
(We are gathered in Dr. Plinthmember’s laboratory. The snake thing has been safely transferred to a Perspex holding chamber and Plinthmember has been examining it. The doctor is obviously very excited but also seems confused.)
Dr: Plinthmember: This is not a new species, Bistro, in my opinion it is no species at all. It is a creature that has mutated into its present form because of some catastrophic interference with its genetic structure - most likely radiation did this.
Arjy: What makes you think radiation is involved?
Dr. Plinthmember: This little holding chamber of mine is littered with sensors including radiation detectors. Your weird beastie is hot stuff and registering 40 Rutger Hauer’s.
Me: Wasn’t he in Blade Runner?
Dr. Plinthmember: Possibly, possibly but I don’t follow popular music. The last pop musician I took any interest in was Victor Silvester. But back to this little beast. Before we put it in the holding chamber I took a scraping of the soil trapped between its scales. I put some of this in the mass speckleometer and some in the crud analyseometer. The results are surprising.
Bistro Waiters: In what way?
Dr. Plinth member: When I was a young scientist I was commissioned by the Australian government to do a study on the effects of contaminated soil from the Maralinga atom bomb testing grounds. This was to determine what effect, if any, the contamination might have on local wildlife and the ecology generally. Part of that study included taking an accurate record of the soil composition. Soil composition is unique to an area so if you give me a lump of dirt, I can tell you which garden it came from – anywhere in the world. The dirt from this snakes scales is an exact match for Maralinga, specifically the One Tree site; I know because I still have all my research documents.
Bistro Waiters: What the hell is a mutated snake from Maralinga doing in a newspaper office in Jimboomba?
Dr. Plinthmember: Giving you this weeks front page?
Bistro Waiters: Brilliant!
Arjy: Bistro! I need to talk to you about your Uncle Morris. There’s something odd going on here and it’s not just the bloody snake.
Bistro Waiters: No time, I’ve got a front page to write and some photos to take.
Dr. Plinthmember: Precisely - well done nephew – and as for you, Ms. Barjy, I’d like you to get your interfering self and your idiot friend out of my laboratory. Now!
TO BE CONTINUED.
8/26/09
8/21/09
Dastardly Doings - Part 8
By Iris Pessary.
The power behind the throne would be one way to describe Iris Pessary. She is fast approaching 90 years young and her mind is as sharp as a skinning knife. Iris has dominated The Incontinental Luxury Retirement Home for over twenty years, ever since her useless clown of a husband died and left her with no one to make the coffee. At least he left her a fabulously wealthy woman, mainly because he slavishly followed her instructions thereby ensuring the success of their castration clinic known as ‘Had A Ball Pty Ltd.’
(The clinic had been started to service the horse and beef industries in the Beaudesert region but due to a fortunate error in some state government office the business had branched into the treatment of habitual sex offenders. The style of treatment and the seemingly permanent benefits to the recipients had been so successful that ‘Had A Ball’ soon became the service of choice, in matters of sexual deviant treatment, for the entire Australian justice system, particularly the Department of Criminal Remedial Care based in Canberra. They also did a substantial amount of under the counter business with the Australian Feminist movement. It has been said that the phenomenal success of the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras during the last 20 years may be partly due to the efforts of Iris Pessary and her clinic, and quite a few of her ex-customers may be seen at this event cavorting in exceptionally streamlined body stockings.
Even though Iris has retired she continues to provide pro bono services to the local community and has earned many community care awards. If the local branch of Australian Feminists locate a possible rapist or even a vaguely potential ‘watcher with intent’ then Iris will be there to help. Her only stipulations being that the subject must be at or over the age of twelve and have at least one female accuser. Iris prides herself on her skill, even at the age of 89, and she claims to still be able to crash two house bricks together with the best of them.
But it was a chance meeting at the Gold Coast Jupiter’s High Roller Lounge that led to a powerful partnership between Iris and the retired billionaire Terrence Pucker. This unholy alliance brought chaos and rich pickings Iris Pessary’s way. Terrence had intended to spend his last years in peaceful anonymity. He had faked his own death to get the privacy he had secretly longed for but even though he was heavily disguised when he first saw Iris, she saw through him and Terrence realised this was an exceptional woman.
To Iris, Pucker’s disguise was totally transparent. He had shaved his head and grown a moustache but, on his fearful mug, the moustache looked like anal hair bursting from a warthog’s arse. Iris knew there was only one man on the planet who could be that ugly without being arrested for traumatising the young. She greeted him as one grotesque to another and the bond was forged.
Now, Iris has ventured out of Jimboomba for a meeting with Pucker. He is a permanent resident (and secret owner) of the Frill Necked Lizard restaurant and hotel standing in the shadow of Mount Tamborine. Iris and Terrence sit in the warm spring sunshine at a secluded garden table reserved only for them.)
Iris: It’s starting to heat up.
Pucker: I expected it to. The scheme won’t work without a little heat. Are those amateur sleuths giving you trouble?
Iris: Not really. Bean is too stupid and the girl is so wrapped up in herself she can’t see past her ego.
Pucker: Then how did they manage to follow you here? It’s not like you to underestimate people, Iris.
Iris: Where? Where?
Pucker: They’re sitting on the veranda, behind the Casling bush.
Iris: How, for goodness sake? I was careful. I didn’t see a thing.
Pucker: You didn’t see them because they were ten minutes behind you and as for ‘how’ – that may have been an anonymous tip they received this morning.
Iris: You told them they would find me here? Why?
Pucker: They are an unnecessary risk and need to be dealt with, Iris. But don’t worry about them for now. Our little friend has finally arrived.
Iris: You’ve got it? How marvellous.
Pucker: Marvellous is right. Four years of research, two years in the making and 100 million dollars – it had better be marvellous.
Iris: You’re doing God’s work, Terry.
Pucker: Very funny. You can take it back with you and give it to Slideback; he knows what to do with it.
Iris: And what about Barjy and Bean?
Pucker: Take the long way home, up over the mountain. Slideback has a team in place at the Thunderbird Park turn-off.
Iris: You’re sure you want to do this?
Pucker: It was your idea to do this at some stage, Iris, and I’ve learned to trust your judgement. Come on, I’ll push you to your little go-kart – our friend is already strapped on and waiting.
(Pucker pushes Iris in her wheelchair to the car park. Behind them, two figures scuttle to the battered old Jeep parked in the shadows. Iris presses a button on a tiny remote and the side panel of Greased Batshit swings out and down forming a platform beside the vehicle. Pucker positions the wheelchair carefully on the platform and, with an electronic hum, the wheelchair is drawn into the driving position and clamped. Iris pulls on her gloves and helmet and fires up the V8 as Pucker checks that the perforated steel box strapped to the roll cage is secure.)
Pucker: Don’t damage our baby. Keep just ahead of those clowns until you pass the Thunderbird turn-off then gun it. Slideback’s crew will do the rest. I’ll be in touch.
(In a spray of gravel, Greased Batshit slews out of the hotel car park and heads for Mount Tamborine. The battered Jeep is 400 metres behind and Iris keeps it in sight as she idles up the snaking mountain road. The V8 engine thuds effortlessly until they finally reach the Thunderbird Park junction. As Iris drops her right foot she glimpses a bulky truck begin to move out of the side road behind her, then Greased Batshit lashes its rear end and streaks away trailing fire and the crackling roar of a receding jet fighter.
The truck is a nondescript Japanese model and has a dingy yellow dozer, complete with hooded driver, in the back tray. The truck whips around a hairpin bend and begins to tip its tray until the dozer rolls off and crashes to the bitumen its engine roaring and sparks kicking from the bucket as it hits the road. Moments later the Jeep carrying Arjy and Sean races around the bend trying to catch up with Iris. The Jeep smashes into the bulldozer without any apparent effect on the powerful machine other than a slight backward shudder. The dozer seems to hunch and its caterpillar tracks bite as the huge diesel engine goes to maximum power. Slowly but inexorably the mangled Jeep and its stunned passengers are thrust to the edge of the road and the 300 metre drop-off to the valley floor. Arjy wakes and groggily looks around her. She doesn’t even have time to scream as the Jeep is pushed into space and into its final chaotic plunge to the bottom of the mountain.
Iris slows down and takes time to enjoy her roundabout trip back to Jimboomba. On the way she stops off at the police station and hands over her special passenger to Senior Sergeant Slideback before continuing to Incontinental Retirement Home. At the door of the home she is greeted by Gladys De Weekent who appears to be agitated.)
Gladys De Weekent: Oh, Mrs Pessary, that dreadful man is up to his tricks again.
Iris Pessary: Ambrose Jockscent?
(Ambrose Jockscent, the Octogenarian Ram and long-time resident of Incontinental, has devoted his lifetime to pleasuring the ladies wherever he can find them and he has found rather a lot during his 84 years, some of them in damned peculiar places too. He often dwells on army days and the fond memory of a Bedouin girl with an arse like a camel’s hump who breathlessly declared Ambrose to be far more satisfying than the donkey that usually figured with her in the photos sold in Baghdad bazaars. That pretty compliment had cost him several weeks of treatment but it had been worth it. In more recent years ‘rumpy-pumpy’ has been difficult to find but it doesn’t stop him from snatching at every chance he gets.)
Gladys De Weekent: Yes, Iris. This time he tried it on with the Duty RN. He might even have succeeded if his pyjama cord hadn’t been tied in a double bow. He’d managed to get her stuck in his clothes cupboard and had her bent over a laundry basket with her head trapped under the bottom shelf. I’m sure she will leave this time and good staff are so difficult to come by.
Iris Pessary: I’ll have a word with him, Gladys. Give me five minutes and send him along.
Gladys De Weekent: Thank you, Mrs. Pessary. He’s really gone too far this time.
**********************************
(Ambrose tootles happily down Billion Row toward Iris Pessary’s chambers. He has been summoned and, unless he has missed his wistful guess, his luck is in. It is true that Ambrose considers Iris to be quite the ugliest old crone in this abode of wrinkled flesh but any flesh is better than none at all in Ambrose’ view, so tootle he must when the devil drives.
It has been about a year since Ambrose last scored but he is not at all sure if the catatonic counted. Never the less, today is the day – he can feel it in his jammys as he arrives at Iris’ door. Setting his face with his most unctuous grin, he knocks.)
Iris Pessary: Come in.
Ambrose: Ahh, Iris. You look more beautiful than a desert rose which ……
Iris Pessary: Which is what the British troops called the latrines they dug in North Africa. Don’t try your ridiculous charm on me, Ambrose, we both know you left any vague semblance of charm you might have had with the remains of your testicles in the last knocking shop you managed to drag your feeble backside into.
Ambrose: What? You smelly old bitch! Did you think for one minute that I was interested in your dried up offal tube? Why, it would be like thrusting my magnificent lance through a cheese grater. Think again, madam, you are of no interest to me!
Iris Pessary: Oh, Ambrose, I have misjudged you so much. I thought you would take me in your strong arms and …. treat me dreadfully. I admit that the thought excited me in a way, but I was so afraid.
Ambrose: Really? Well, in that case - never mind my dear, no harm done. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. It’s true that I sometimes have impure thoughts about you but never let it be said that Ambrose Jockscent is no gentleman. However, I must refute your suggestion that my testicles are not in order. Why, they were once described as being not unlike a Bedouin’s goatskin water bags. Would you like to see them?
Iris Pessary: Yes please.
(The fun is over and, as Ambrose scrabbles with his pyjama cord, Iris slides her hands deep into the sides of her wheelchair and takes a firm grip on her favourite number nine house bricks. A short back swing and a good, sharp chop out of the rough, she rather thinks would be the go.)
Iris Pessary: My gosh, Ambrose, they are magnificent! They are somewhat like that swinging ball executive toy that powerful men have on their desks. Would you mind if I gave them a little tap?
(Ambrose shudders with pleasure. Here is the praise he longs for and his scrawny chest lifts with pride. His eyes close in near ecstasy. He still has what it takes to be the sex god he sees in his mirror, even at 84.)
Ambrose: Of course my little pretty one – tap away.
TO BE CONTINUED.
The power behind the throne would be one way to describe Iris Pessary. She is fast approaching 90 years young and her mind is as sharp as a skinning knife. Iris has dominated The Incontinental Luxury Retirement Home for over twenty years, ever since her useless clown of a husband died and left her with no one to make the coffee. At least he left her a fabulously wealthy woman, mainly because he slavishly followed her instructions thereby ensuring the success of their castration clinic known as ‘Had A Ball Pty Ltd.’
(The clinic had been started to service the horse and beef industries in the Beaudesert region but due to a fortunate error in some state government office the business had branched into the treatment of habitual sex offenders. The style of treatment and the seemingly permanent benefits to the recipients had been so successful that ‘Had A Ball’ soon became the service of choice, in matters of sexual deviant treatment, for the entire Australian justice system, particularly the Department of Criminal Remedial Care based in Canberra. They also did a substantial amount of under the counter business with the Australian Feminist movement. It has been said that the phenomenal success of the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras during the last 20 years may be partly due to the efforts of Iris Pessary and her clinic, and quite a few of her ex-customers may be seen at this event cavorting in exceptionally streamlined body stockings.
Even though Iris has retired she continues to provide pro bono services to the local community and has earned many community care awards. If the local branch of Australian Feminists locate a possible rapist or even a vaguely potential ‘watcher with intent’ then Iris will be there to help. Her only stipulations being that the subject must be at or over the age of twelve and have at least one female accuser. Iris prides herself on her skill, even at the age of 89, and she claims to still be able to crash two house bricks together with the best of them.
But it was a chance meeting at the Gold Coast Jupiter’s High Roller Lounge that led to a powerful partnership between Iris and the retired billionaire Terrence Pucker. This unholy alliance brought chaos and rich pickings Iris Pessary’s way. Terrence had intended to spend his last years in peaceful anonymity. He had faked his own death to get the privacy he had secretly longed for but even though he was heavily disguised when he first saw Iris, she saw through him and Terrence realised this was an exceptional woman.
To Iris, Pucker’s disguise was totally transparent. He had shaved his head and grown a moustache but, on his fearful mug, the moustache looked like anal hair bursting from a warthog’s arse. Iris knew there was only one man on the planet who could be that ugly without being arrested for traumatising the young. She greeted him as one grotesque to another and the bond was forged.
Now, Iris has ventured out of Jimboomba for a meeting with Pucker. He is a permanent resident (and secret owner) of the Frill Necked Lizard restaurant and hotel standing in the shadow of Mount Tamborine. Iris and Terrence sit in the warm spring sunshine at a secluded garden table reserved only for them.)
Iris: It’s starting to heat up.
Pucker: I expected it to. The scheme won’t work without a little heat. Are those amateur sleuths giving you trouble?
Iris: Not really. Bean is too stupid and the girl is so wrapped up in herself she can’t see past her ego.
Pucker: Then how did they manage to follow you here? It’s not like you to underestimate people, Iris.
Iris: Where? Where?
Pucker: They’re sitting on the veranda, behind the Casling bush.
Iris: How, for goodness sake? I was careful. I didn’t see a thing.
Pucker: You didn’t see them because they were ten minutes behind you and as for ‘how’ – that may have been an anonymous tip they received this morning.
Iris: You told them they would find me here? Why?
Pucker: They are an unnecessary risk and need to be dealt with, Iris. But don’t worry about them for now. Our little friend has finally arrived.
Iris: You’ve got it? How marvellous.
Pucker: Marvellous is right. Four years of research, two years in the making and 100 million dollars – it had better be marvellous.
Iris: You’re doing God’s work, Terry.
Pucker: Very funny. You can take it back with you and give it to Slideback; he knows what to do with it.
Iris: And what about Barjy and Bean?
Pucker: Take the long way home, up over the mountain. Slideback has a team in place at the Thunderbird Park turn-off.
Iris: You’re sure you want to do this?
Pucker: It was your idea to do this at some stage, Iris, and I’ve learned to trust your judgement. Come on, I’ll push you to your little go-kart – our friend is already strapped on and waiting.
(Pucker pushes Iris in her wheelchair to the car park. Behind them, two figures scuttle to the battered old Jeep parked in the shadows. Iris presses a button on a tiny remote and the side panel of Greased Batshit swings out and down forming a platform beside the vehicle. Pucker positions the wheelchair carefully on the platform and, with an electronic hum, the wheelchair is drawn into the driving position and clamped. Iris pulls on her gloves and helmet and fires up the V8 as Pucker checks that the perforated steel box strapped to the roll cage is secure.)
Pucker: Don’t damage our baby. Keep just ahead of those clowns until you pass the Thunderbird turn-off then gun it. Slideback’s crew will do the rest. I’ll be in touch.
(In a spray of gravel, Greased Batshit slews out of the hotel car park and heads for Mount Tamborine. The battered Jeep is 400 metres behind and Iris keeps it in sight as she idles up the snaking mountain road. The V8 engine thuds effortlessly until they finally reach the Thunderbird Park junction. As Iris drops her right foot she glimpses a bulky truck begin to move out of the side road behind her, then Greased Batshit lashes its rear end and streaks away trailing fire and the crackling roar of a receding jet fighter.
The truck is a nondescript Japanese model and has a dingy yellow dozer, complete with hooded driver, in the back tray. The truck whips around a hairpin bend and begins to tip its tray until the dozer rolls off and crashes to the bitumen its engine roaring and sparks kicking from the bucket as it hits the road. Moments later the Jeep carrying Arjy and Sean races around the bend trying to catch up with Iris. The Jeep smashes into the bulldozer without any apparent effect on the powerful machine other than a slight backward shudder. The dozer seems to hunch and its caterpillar tracks bite as the huge diesel engine goes to maximum power. Slowly but inexorably the mangled Jeep and its stunned passengers are thrust to the edge of the road and the 300 metre drop-off to the valley floor. Arjy wakes and groggily looks around her. She doesn’t even have time to scream as the Jeep is pushed into space and into its final chaotic plunge to the bottom of the mountain.
Iris slows down and takes time to enjoy her roundabout trip back to Jimboomba. On the way she stops off at the police station and hands over her special passenger to Senior Sergeant Slideback before continuing to Incontinental Retirement Home. At the door of the home she is greeted by Gladys De Weekent who appears to be agitated.)
Gladys De Weekent: Oh, Mrs Pessary, that dreadful man is up to his tricks again.
Iris Pessary: Ambrose Jockscent?
(Ambrose Jockscent, the Octogenarian Ram and long-time resident of Incontinental, has devoted his lifetime to pleasuring the ladies wherever he can find them and he has found rather a lot during his 84 years, some of them in damned peculiar places too. He often dwells on army days and the fond memory of a Bedouin girl with an arse like a camel’s hump who breathlessly declared Ambrose to be far more satisfying than the donkey that usually figured with her in the photos sold in Baghdad bazaars. That pretty compliment had cost him several weeks of treatment but it had been worth it. In more recent years ‘rumpy-pumpy’ has been difficult to find but it doesn’t stop him from snatching at every chance he gets.)
Gladys De Weekent: Yes, Iris. This time he tried it on with the Duty RN. He might even have succeeded if his pyjama cord hadn’t been tied in a double bow. He’d managed to get her stuck in his clothes cupboard and had her bent over a laundry basket with her head trapped under the bottom shelf. I’m sure she will leave this time and good staff are so difficult to come by.
Iris Pessary: I’ll have a word with him, Gladys. Give me five minutes and send him along.
Gladys De Weekent: Thank you, Mrs. Pessary. He’s really gone too far this time.
**********************************
(Ambrose tootles happily down Billion Row toward Iris Pessary’s chambers. He has been summoned and, unless he has missed his wistful guess, his luck is in. It is true that Ambrose considers Iris to be quite the ugliest old crone in this abode of wrinkled flesh but any flesh is better than none at all in Ambrose’ view, so tootle he must when the devil drives.
It has been about a year since Ambrose last scored but he is not at all sure if the catatonic counted. Never the less, today is the day – he can feel it in his jammys as he arrives at Iris’ door. Setting his face with his most unctuous grin, he knocks.)
Iris Pessary: Come in.
Ambrose: Ahh, Iris. You look more beautiful than a desert rose which ……
Iris Pessary: Which is what the British troops called the latrines they dug in North Africa. Don’t try your ridiculous charm on me, Ambrose, we both know you left any vague semblance of charm you might have had with the remains of your testicles in the last knocking shop you managed to drag your feeble backside into.
Ambrose: What? You smelly old bitch! Did you think for one minute that I was interested in your dried up offal tube? Why, it would be like thrusting my magnificent lance through a cheese grater. Think again, madam, you are of no interest to me!
Iris Pessary: Oh, Ambrose, I have misjudged you so much. I thought you would take me in your strong arms and …. treat me dreadfully. I admit that the thought excited me in a way, but I was so afraid.
Ambrose: Really? Well, in that case - never mind my dear, no harm done. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. It’s true that I sometimes have impure thoughts about you but never let it be said that Ambrose Jockscent is no gentleman. However, I must refute your suggestion that my testicles are not in order. Why, they were once described as being not unlike a Bedouin’s goatskin water bags. Would you like to see them?
Iris Pessary: Yes please.
(The fun is over and, as Ambrose scrabbles with his pyjama cord, Iris slides her hands deep into the sides of her wheelchair and takes a firm grip on her favourite number nine house bricks. A short back swing and a good, sharp chop out of the rough, she rather thinks would be the go.)
Iris Pessary: My gosh, Ambrose, they are magnificent! They are somewhat like that swinging ball executive toy that powerful men have on their desks. Would you mind if I gave them a little tap?
(Ambrose shudders with pleasure. Here is the praise he longs for and his scrawny chest lifts with pride. His eyes close in near ecstasy. He still has what it takes to be the sex god he sees in his mirror, even at 84.)
Ambrose: Of course my little pretty one – tap away.
TO BE CONTINUED.
8/15/09
Dastardly Doings - Part 7
At last this turgid tale is beginning to develop a form of sorts. Let’s re-cap.
Arjy and Sean are private detectives who started to investigate possible price fixing by Woodies and Cols. They are side tracked by a spate of killings that seemed more interesting to investigate but now appear to be linked to the ‘Big Two’ supermarkets. The supermarkets were paying protection money to the local constabulary but then welshed on the deal and the killings started. So – are the killings actually moves in a power play between police and the retail food industry? Maybe, but don’t forget the Incontinental link! The Incontinental Retirement Home also seems to be involved in this farrago but quite how, is anyone’s guess including mine. And now, for some inexplicable reason, the managers of the supermarkets appear to be a couple of almost famous - almost international comedians we know as Billy Colony and Robbin Millions. Arjy is dragging her investigation – kicking and screaming – toward a conclusion. And it can’t come soon enough. Now read on, if you can be bothered. Let me know when you’ve finished.
(The car park outside Woodies is deserted. No people, no cars, not a bird in the sky and the sky is a featureless lightness verging on blueness. Not even a whisper of breeze disturbs the stasis of the atmosphere; the scene is totally and unrelentingly lifeless. The day is not cold nor is it hot and despite the clear sky there are no shadows, but that may be because the sun seems to be missing. Eventually a single figure creeps in from unknown, outlying regions and, treading warily, moves to the centre of the car park. It is Sean Bean.)
Sean: Hello?…….. Hello?
(No movement. No sound. Not a fucking thing but then, Sean has never been the one to inspire enthusiastic welcome.)
Sean: Aaaah shit – not again! ……….. HOUSE MEETING! HOUSE MEETING! ….Come on, everybody out! HOUSE MEETING!
(Slowly, hesitantly, others appear at the edges of the deserted expanse of bitumen and begin to move in towards Sean Bean. A small crowd - consisting of the entire cast of Dastardly Doings - gathers.)
Arjy: What’s going on?
Sean: It’s Yuteman. He’s going to bail.
Iris Pessary: Where’s Bail?
Sean: Bail OUT. He’s going to bail out.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: What do you mean - bail out? How – bail out?
Sean: Just bail out! Withdraw! Cut and run! Dump us! Axe the series! The prick is bored with it!
Arjy: How do you know that?
Sean: I’ve seen it before. I recognise the signs. Believe me, he’s going to chuck it in.
Arjy: He can’t fucking do that, the decrepit old cunt. Who the fuck does he think he is?
Sean: If he goes – we go. That’s the way of it.
Arjy: No! The bastard said he was going to give me a chance. He said he was! I could feel my character gaining sympathy. He could do the same for me as he did for that cow Porker in The Comedy of Errors. She ended up almost human in that. It’s not sodding fair! Where is he?
Constable Gruff: He’s gone up the paddock at the back of his place. The three-year-old granddaughter is annoying the shit out of the plovers up there.
Iris Pessary: She’s going to lose a piece of her arse to those plovers if she doesn’t watch out. They’ve got eggs I think.
Constable Gruff: That’s why he’s chased off after her. Uh-oh, now she’s chucking rocks at the bull ant mound. There’s going to be tears before the day is out.
Arjy: Will you just shut up about bull ants and bleeding plovers! What are we going to do about Yuteman?
Gladys De Weekent: We must be able to do something. I was starting to enjoy my part. I felt it had room for more development, you know? It’s obvious that Incontinental has a big part to play in this story – what about the teeth for one thing? And I am, after all, nominally in charge at Incontinental even if I did start off as a sort of lowly Activities Officer. My role developed, didn’t it? Yuteman does that doesn’t he? He forgets things and things get changed for no apparent reason and so on. Well, I feel my character is going to come on leaps and bounds in …….
Sean: Shuddup for fucks sake!
Comical Killer: What about me? I haven’t managed to get a line to say yet but my part must be important.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: I thought the Comical Killer was going to turn out to be Billy Colony or Robbin Millions who were bumping off coppers to embarrass the police because they were staging supermarket customers suicides because Cols and Woodies weren’t paying out ……. or something like that.
Comical Killer: Oh. Right ….. I’ll just …um … push off then, shall I?
Arjy: Too fucking right you will! Bloody bit players! Give them a costume, a dab of make-up and a lunch voucher and they think they’re part of the cast. Go on – fuck off!
Sean: I don’t know why you want to talk about this. It will all just end you know. Like a light going off. Click! That’s it. Look, just face it; Yuteman has decided the story isn’t getting anywhere interesting, he thinks it’s humdrum. You know what he’s like. He likes weird shit, twists and turns, change of pace, fast – slow – fast – slow – manic – boom. That kind of thing.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: We can do manic. Why doesn’t he give us a go? Ok, the story is a bit boring at the moment but stories do that, don’t they? All of them have slow bits where you might feel like flicking over the page till you get to a good bit. What does Yuteman expect?
Arjy: Billy, Robbin – you’re experienced artists. You must have something to say about this?
Billy Colony: Och! Don’t ask me. I’m just a guest artiste under contract. I get paid the same if it finishes or not. I don’t want tae get involved and I don’t give a fuck which way it goes.
Robbin Millions: Well I DO care! FUCKING ‘A’! Know what I’m sayin’? This whole shit’s gotta come down brother – know what I’m sayin’? FUCKING ‘A’. Who’s your Daddy now? Who does this asshole think he is? Martin Gimsholde? Yeah! Yeah! Know what I’m sayin’? I might look like a French Jew but I talk like a Brother and if that aint kosher, who gives a fuck. FUCK YOU SENATOR BRADSHAW! Yeah! Yeah! Who’s your Daddy now? This aint Arkansas. Know what I’m SAYIN’? Yeah!
Billy Colony: Fuck me, I see what you mean, Arjy. Am I as crap as that?
Robbin Millions: Oh, sorry, sorry. I forgot one. RIGHT ON MOTHERFUCKER! Sorry about that, please carry on.
Arjy: Jesus! There must be something we can do.
Bistro Waiters: Why don’t we write it ourselves?
Arjy: What?
Bistro Waiters: Do the story ourselves! Who needs Yuteman? We could write the thing the way we want to. Develop our own parts. We can be whatever we want to be and do whatever we like.
Constable Gruff: Hey, that’s not a bad idea.
Gladys De Weekent: Yes, I could be an international mogul in the aged care industry advocating compulsory institutional care for everyone over the age of 35!
Arjy: I could be President of the new Feminist Republic of Australia.
Sean: Well, supposing that was possible, how are we going to agree on the characters and story line? I mean – half the time we can’t agree on the date let alone something like this.
Bistro Waiters: Easy – we each get to write an episode. The next person follows on as best they can and develops his or her own story in their own way – and so on. One episode each until the story ends.
Arjy: Brilliant! And if Yuteman tries to interfere we crash his spell checker - the sod couldn’t write his own name without that. Ok, so who’s going first?
Bistro Waiters: Well, I do have a little experience, being something of a professional writist as you might say so perhaps …..
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Hang on! Hang on! Whoever starts is going to set the tone of this thing. I think we should …..
Sean: Heads up! Yuteman’s back! He’s sitting down at the keyboard, probably going to write a simpering apology to his “public” then bin the lot of us.
Arjy: Quick! Disable the spell-checker!
Ron Yuteman: It is with sinsere regret that I mus tel yoo all that Iam considaling doin away with this hole seereez. It hav cum to me that this is not alot of good and yoo mus not be disupoynted if yoo….. Ang on, wot the fuk iz goin on heer? This iss all rong I think. Why do not the spelin and the gramer get fixt for me? Hav yoo bin fidlin with Grampys conputar, sweathart?
Grandawter: No Grampy. I wont to see the birdiz agen. Wont to cownt the egs.
Ron Yootmun: Not now sweathart. Grampy is havin a bit of bother with his smel-fuker program and the wurds is all cokt up.
Grandawter: Nanny, Grampy wont take me to see birdiz becos he say his smel-fuker is cokt.
Missis Yootmun: RONULD! HAV YOO BIN SWERRIN IN FRUNT OF OUR LITUL GURL? GET OWT HEER. NOW!!!!
Arjy: Has he gone? Sean, can you see where he is?
Sean: Yes. Hiz wife is givin him a rite bollikin. Ill activat the spel-cheker agen. That’s better. Oh, he’s getting a really good going over; we won’t see him again for a few days.
Arjy: Where were we? Ok, we have to work out who gets to write the first of the new episodes.
Iris Pessary: I think we should have a running race down the car park to decide who goes first.
Arjy: That seems fair enough. All those in favour?
Constable Gruff: Just a moment, giraffe jeans! Who put you in charge? I suppose you think you’ll romp home on those seven league legs of yours?
Arjy: Fuck you, Gruff!
Iris Pessary: I’m at a bit of a disadvantage in a wheelchair of course and, what with the arthritis, I can’t turn the wheels properly. Does anyone object if I use my little motorised wheelchair?
Arjy: That’ll be fine, Iris. Ok everyone, back here in ten minutes. One hundred-metre dash and the winner writes the first episode.
TEN MINUTES LATER.
(The cast are lined up half way down the ramp from the upper car park. They are impatiently waiting for Iris Pessary. Arjy is quietly confident, certain that her freaky legs will carry her down the course in only a few strides. Bistro Waiters is equally confident and has the sprint medals to back him up. The others know they are along for the ride but Sean still thinks he might be able to trip and cheat his way through.
A horrendous roar interrupts their thoughts and they duck in unison as a screaming machine bursts from the blackness of the undercover car park above them. It takes off as it breasts the top of the ramp and hurtles through the air, flames jetting from the quad exhaust pipes spearing like rocket motors from the back of the machine. It soars over the terrified cast and lands twenty metres down the track in a crash of steel and bellowing power. In a moment the driver, crouched in a black roll cage, has the contraption spun around and gurgling back to the starting line. A blip on the throttle sends it into a violent 180 that has the machine facing back down the track and ready to race.
The machine is black steel gripping a V8 motor. Specially made Goodyear slicks bulge beside the engine that is ticking over like the beat of a gigantic heart from some ancient mythical beast. The side panels are custom painted with bronze cloud formations and electric blue lightning overlaid with a name painted in a red, jagged font – ‘Greased Batshit’.
The driver is secondary to this brutal monster but still seems part of the machine. A gloved hand flips up the black tinted visor on the helmet that is laminated with mother of pearl set with emeralds. Behind the visor, like a toad emerging from a Faberge egg, a hideous face leers out at the rest of the cast.)
Iris Pessary: Meet my little motorised wheelchair, losers. Get ready to choke on rubber!
TO BE CONTINUED.
Arjy and Sean are private detectives who started to investigate possible price fixing by Woodies and Cols. They are side tracked by a spate of killings that seemed more interesting to investigate but now appear to be linked to the ‘Big Two’ supermarkets. The supermarkets were paying protection money to the local constabulary but then welshed on the deal and the killings started. So – are the killings actually moves in a power play between police and the retail food industry? Maybe, but don’t forget the Incontinental link! The Incontinental Retirement Home also seems to be involved in this farrago but quite how, is anyone’s guess including mine. And now, for some inexplicable reason, the managers of the supermarkets appear to be a couple of almost famous - almost international comedians we know as Billy Colony and Robbin Millions. Arjy is dragging her investigation – kicking and screaming – toward a conclusion. And it can’t come soon enough. Now read on, if you can be bothered. Let me know when you’ve finished.
(The car park outside Woodies is deserted. No people, no cars, not a bird in the sky and the sky is a featureless lightness verging on blueness. Not even a whisper of breeze disturbs the stasis of the atmosphere; the scene is totally and unrelentingly lifeless. The day is not cold nor is it hot and despite the clear sky there are no shadows, but that may be because the sun seems to be missing. Eventually a single figure creeps in from unknown, outlying regions and, treading warily, moves to the centre of the car park. It is Sean Bean.)
Sean: Hello?…….. Hello?
(No movement. No sound. Not a fucking thing but then, Sean has never been the one to inspire enthusiastic welcome.)
Sean: Aaaah shit – not again! ……….. HOUSE MEETING! HOUSE MEETING! ….Come on, everybody out! HOUSE MEETING!
(Slowly, hesitantly, others appear at the edges of the deserted expanse of bitumen and begin to move in towards Sean Bean. A small crowd - consisting of the entire cast of Dastardly Doings - gathers.)
Arjy: What’s going on?
Sean: It’s Yuteman. He’s going to bail.
Iris Pessary: Where’s Bail?
Sean: Bail OUT. He’s going to bail out.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: What do you mean - bail out? How – bail out?
Sean: Just bail out! Withdraw! Cut and run! Dump us! Axe the series! The prick is bored with it!
Arjy: How do you know that?
Sean: I’ve seen it before. I recognise the signs. Believe me, he’s going to chuck it in.
Arjy: He can’t fucking do that, the decrepit old cunt. Who the fuck does he think he is?
Sean: If he goes – we go. That’s the way of it.
Arjy: No! The bastard said he was going to give me a chance. He said he was! I could feel my character gaining sympathy. He could do the same for me as he did for that cow Porker in The Comedy of Errors. She ended up almost human in that. It’s not sodding fair! Where is he?
Constable Gruff: He’s gone up the paddock at the back of his place. The three-year-old granddaughter is annoying the shit out of the plovers up there.
Iris Pessary: She’s going to lose a piece of her arse to those plovers if she doesn’t watch out. They’ve got eggs I think.
Constable Gruff: That’s why he’s chased off after her. Uh-oh, now she’s chucking rocks at the bull ant mound. There’s going to be tears before the day is out.
Arjy: Will you just shut up about bull ants and bleeding plovers! What are we going to do about Yuteman?
Gladys De Weekent: We must be able to do something. I was starting to enjoy my part. I felt it had room for more development, you know? It’s obvious that Incontinental has a big part to play in this story – what about the teeth for one thing? And I am, after all, nominally in charge at Incontinental even if I did start off as a sort of lowly Activities Officer. My role developed, didn’t it? Yuteman does that doesn’t he? He forgets things and things get changed for no apparent reason and so on. Well, I feel my character is going to come on leaps and bounds in …….
Sean: Shuddup for fucks sake!
Comical Killer: What about me? I haven’t managed to get a line to say yet but my part must be important.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: I thought the Comical Killer was going to turn out to be Billy Colony or Robbin Millions who were bumping off coppers to embarrass the police because they were staging supermarket customers suicides because Cols and Woodies weren’t paying out ……. or something like that.
Comical Killer: Oh. Right ….. I’ll just …um … push off then, shall I?
Arjy: Too fucking right you will! Bloody bit players! Give them a costume, a dab of make-up and a lunch voucher and they think they’re part of the cast. Go on – fuck off!
Sean: I don’t know why you want to talk about this. It will all just end you know. Like a light going off. Click! That’s it. Look, just face it; Yuteman has decided the story isn’t getting anywhere interesting, he thinks it’s humdrum. You know what he’s like. He likes weird shit, twists and turns, change of pace, fast – slow – fast – slow – manic – boom. That kind of thing.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: We can do manic. Why doesn’t he give us a go? Ok, the story is a bit boring at the moment but stories do that, don’t they? All of them have slow bits where you might feel like flicking over the page till you get to a good bit. What does Yuteman expect?
Arjy: Billy, Robbin – you’re experienced artists. You must have something to say about this?
Billy Colony: Och! Don’t ask me. I’m just a guest artiste under contract. I get paid the same if it finishes or not. I don’t want tae get involved and I don’t give a fuck which way it goes.
Robbin Millions: Well I DO care! FUCKING ‘A’! Know what I’m sayin’? This whole shit’s gotta come down brother – know what I’m sayin’? FUCKING ‘A’. Who’s your Daddy now? Who does this asshole think he is? Martin Gimsholde? Yeah! Yeah! Know what I’m sayin’? I might look like a French Jew but I talk like a Brother and if that aint kosher, who gives a fuck. FUCK YOU SENATOR BRADSHAW! Yeah! Yeah! Who’s your Daddy now? This aint Arkansas. Know what I’m SAYIN’? Yeah!
Billy Colony: Fuck me, I see what you mean, Arjy. Am I as crap as that?
Robbin Millions: Oh, sorry, sorry. I forgot one. RIGHT ON MOTHERFUCKER! Sorry about that, please carry on.
Arjy: Jesus! There must be something we can do.
Bistro Waiters: Why don’t we write it ourselves?
Arjy: What?
Bistro Waiters: Do the story ourselves! Who needs Yuteman? We could write the thing the way we want to. Develop our own parts. We can be whatever we want to be and do whatever we like.
Constable Gruff: Hey, that’s not a bad idea.
Gladys De Weekent: Yes, I could be an international mogul in the aged care industry advocating compulsory institutional care for everyone over the age of 35!
Arjy: I could be President of the new Feminist Republic of Australia.
Sean: Well, supposing that was possible, how are we going to agree on the characters and story line? I mean – half the time we can’t agree on the date let alone something like this.
Bistro Waiters: Easy – we each get to write an episode. The next person follows on as best they can and develops his or her own story in their own way – and so on. One episode each until the story ends.
Arjy: Brilliant! And if Yuteman tries to interfere we crash his spell checker - the sod couldn’t write his own name without that. Ok, so who’s going first?
Bistro Waiters: Well, I do have a little experience, being something of a professional writist as you might say so perhaps …..
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Hang on! Hang on! Whoever starts is going to set the tone of this thing. I think we should …..
Sean: Heads up! Yuteman’s back! He’s sitting down at the keyboard, probably going to write a simpering apology to his “public” then bin the lot of us.
Arjy: Quick! Disable the spell-checker!
Ron Yuteman: It is with sinsere regret that I mus tel yoo all that Iam considaling doin away with this hole seereez. It hav cum to me that this is not alot of good and yoo mus not be disupoynted if yoo….. Ang on, wot the fuk iz goin on heer? This iss all rong I think. Why do not the spelin and the gramer get fixt for me? Hav yoo bin fidlin with Grampys conputar, sweathart?
Grandawter: No Grampy. I wont to see the birdiz agen. Wont to cownt the egs.
Ron Yootmun: Not now sweathart. Grampy is havin a bit of bother with his smel-fuker program and the wurds is all cokt up.
Grandawter: Nanny, Grampy wont take me to see birdiz becos he say his smel-fuker is cokt.
Missis Yootmun: RONULD! HAV YOO BIN SWERRIN IN FRUNT OF OUR LITUL GURL? GET OWT HEER. NOW!!!!
Arjy: Has he gone? Sean, can you see where he is?
Sean: Yes. Hiz wife is givin him a rite bollikin. Ill activat the spel-cheker agen. That’s better. Oh, he’s getting a really good going over; we won’t see him again for a few days.
Arjy: Where were we? Ok, we have to work out who gets to write the first of the new episodes.
Iris Pessary: I think we should have a running race down the car park to decide who goes first.
Arjy: That seems fair enough. All those in favour?
Constable Gruff: Just a moment, giraffe jeans! Who put you in charge? I suppose you think you’ll romp home on those seven league legs of yours?
Arjy: Fuck you, Gruff!
Iris Pessary: I’m at a bit of a disadvantage in a wheelchair of course and, what with the arthritis, I can’t turn the wheels properly. Does anyone object if I use my little motorised wheelchair?
Arjy: That’ll be fine, Iris. Ok everyone, back here in ten minutes. One hundred-metre dash and the winner writes the first episode.
TEN MINUTES LATER.
(The cast are lined up half way down the ramp from the upper car park. They are impatiently waiting for Iris Pessary. Arjy is quietly confident, certain that her freaky legs will carry her down the course in only a few strides. Bistro Waiters is equally confident and has the sprint medals to back him up. The others know they are along for the ride but Sean still thinks he might be able to trip and cheat his way through.
A horrendous roar interrupts their thoughts and they duck in unison as a screaming machine bursts from the blackness of the undercover car park above them. It takes off as it breasts the top of the ramp and hurtles through the air, flames jetting from the quad exhaust pipes spearing like rocket motors from the back of the machine. It soars over the terrified cast and lands twenty metres down the track in a crash of steel and bellowing power. In a moment the driver, crouched in a black roll cage, has the contraption spun around and gurgling back to the starting line. A blip on the throttle sends it into a violent 180 that has the machine facing back down the track and ready to race.
The machine is black steel gripping a V8 motor. Specially made Goodyear slicks bulge beside the engine that is ticking over like the beat of a gigantic heart from some ancient mythical beast. The side panels are custom painted with bronze cloud formations and electric blue lightning overlaid with a name painted in a red, jagged font – ‘Greased Batshit’.
The driver is secondary to this brutal monster but still seems part of the machine. A gloved hand flips up the black tinted visor on the helmet that is laminated with mother of pearl set with emeralds. Behind the visor, like a toad emerging from a Faberge egg, a hideous face leers out at the rest of the cast.)
Iris Pessary: Meet my little motorised wheelchair, losers. Get ready to choke on rubber!
TO BE CONTINUED.
8/13/09
Dastardly Doings - Part 6
Your friendly local detectives have been given a tip-off that Cols and Woodies are refusing to cooperate with Jimboomba’s finest. The police have a nice little protection racket going but the ‘Big Two’ supermarkets opted out of the scheme six weeks ago and, since then, a wave of suspicious deaths has swept through the region. Following the tip-off, Arjy and Sean drive to Cols and as they arrive in the shopping centre car park they see several police cars awkwardly parked in an emergency huddle with lights flashing. Constable Gruff guards the main entrance to Cols.
(Arjy shows Constable Gruff a Bogan Council luncheon voucher and Gruff lifts the police cordon tape to allow her through. Sean flashes his Video Ezy card and follows Arjy. The supermarket seems deserted apart from a small group in the freezer section. Senior Sergeant Slideback stands in front of the frozen fish and looks bemused. Bistro Waiters, the editor of the local newspaper, is dancing up and down with glee and scribbling furiously in his notepad while the supermarket management team grimly look on. As she gets closer, Arjy can see yet another dead body in the bottom of the freezer cabinet. Beside the body are a hatbox and a coiled length of chain.)
Arjy: Good afternoon, Senior Sergeant. More problems?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Well, well, its Mrs. Holmes and Dr. Whatsup. This should be right up your alley. We’ve got another suicide for you to puzzle over and it’s a real tricky one.
Bistro Waiters: Cols Shooting – Police Baffled.
Arjy: Suicide? What did he do, shoot himself in the back from the other side of the room?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: You seem to know a lot about this case. What makes you say it was a shooting?
Arjy: Lucky guess. So what happened?
Bistro Waiters: Rival Crime Fighters Team Up.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: The victim climbed inside the freezer cabinet and shot himself. A shopper discovered the corpse when she picked up a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. We arrived and uncovered the rest of the body. But here’s the tricky part, the gun was found beside the body but it was inside a hatbox secured with chains and a padlock. The key was missing so we had to use bolt cutters on the chain.
Bistro Waiters: Evidence Chain Broken.
Arjy: How the hell do you reckon this was suicide? That’s the most idiotic conclusion I’ve ever heard.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: That’s because you’re a damned amateur but for your information, clever dick, the gun was still in the victim’s hand.
Bistro Waiters: Police Outsmart Local Gumshoe.
Arjy: I thought you said the gun was in a locked box?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: So was the victim’s hand. It had sort of …. detached itself from the body. I told you this was tricky.
Arjy: Let me see if I have this right. The victim shoots himself, cuts off the hand still holding the gun, puts the gun in a hatbox and chains it up. He secures the chain with a padlock, locks it and hides the key. He then lies down in a freezer and pulls one hundred and fifty packets of frozen cod over himself so he won’t be discovered until the supermarket is full of people thereby getting maximum exposure for his performance. Is that the way you see it, Senior Sergeant?
Bistro Waiters: Not so fast. What did you say after ‘frozen cod’?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Of course it didn’t happen like that. That’s ridiculous. Why would he hide the key? Ok, Ok, I’m willing to concede the possibility, and it’s only a possibility, that the victim may have had an accomplice.
Bistro Waiters: Police Admit Error.
Arjy: An accomplice? What, like a murderer?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: There has been no murder here, Miss, and I think it’s a timely time to remind you that the police are handling this enquiry, not Barjy Bean Investigations. You are welcome to help out, as are any members of the public, but that is as far as it goes.
Bistro Waiters: Police Stymied – Seek Help.
Arjy: So the victim shot himself where? The head?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: We think so but it’s hard to tell with all the tyre marks across the face.
Arjy: Tyre marks? The face looks like a pizza with everything! The head is totally flattened! You could swipe it down a nuns arse-crack!
Bistro Waiters: Nuns Behind Pizza Topping.
Arjy/Slideback: Will you shut up and piss off!
Bistro Waiters: Press Gagged.
Sean: I may be wrong, Senior Sergeant, but isn’t that a water pistol in the hatbox?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Hmmmm, I think you’re right. We may have to revise our thinking here a little bit. Of course, the victim may have drowned himself……. But that still doesn’t explain what happened to the padlock key.
Arjy: There’s also the mystery of the mixed vegies.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: What?
Arjy: You said a customer uncovered the body when picking up a bag of frozen mixed vegetables.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: So?
Arjy: So what were the mixed vegies doing in the frozen fish freezer?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: My God! That’s right!
Arjy: Where is the manager of this place?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Just over there, whispering to his staff. He’s a Scotsman and a bit…. Well, you’ll find out. His name is Billy Colony.
Arjy: Mr. Colony! Could you help us out please?
(A large, hairy individual steps up. He leaves his staff creased with helpless laughter as he saunters across to Arjy.)
Billy Colony: Aheesh ta ye fine wimun. Tha nae cally since?
Arjy: Could we forget the jokes please, I don’t have much of a sense of humour in a situation like this.
Billy Colony: Greeet! Tae mair cunni on tay ye lassie. Wha’ fuckerrrs dij ye keen follin tae me, huh?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Oh, he’s off again. Oh my, oh my. Stop. No more please. You should have been here when he saw the body. Laugh? The bugger nearly made me wet myself!
Billy Colony: Koosh! Senna Sergint, Wha’ the fuck dae ye pinna the kin, so it does. My bollocks kidda harry borsin. Wak falla tha sin!
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Oh, stop! Stop, stop, stop! Oh, my ribs!
Arjy: Mr. Colony! You may have these idiots fooled, but not me. I’ve met people like you before. You get your reputation and then sit back for the ride. Your audience laughs now, not because you’re funny but because you’re expected to be funny. The audience kid themselves that they are listening to a funny man but really you are just another foul-mouthed creep with a stupid accent. So just cut the crap will you? Where did the mixed veggies come from and how did they get in with the cod?
Billy Colony: Cheezus! Iris Pessary wiz right. Ye are a nasty cow. So ye wint tae know where the frozen vegies come fram hey? Well, why didnae ye look at the fucking bag properly? Go on – look at it, ye smart-arrrsed lang leggity bitch!
(Billy Colony snatches up the bag of vegetables and thrusts them at Arjy. She glares at the bag as if it is deliberately trying to confuse her. A moment later her anger changes to astonishment. She takes the bag and turns to Senior Sergeant Slideback.)
Arjy: This is a ‘Select’ brand. It’s a Woodies product.
Billy Colony: Och! The lassie has maer than one brain cell. Whoop-di-fuckin-doo! Ring the fucking bells and gi’ the lass a coconut.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Oooooh dear! Gi’ the lass a coconut! That is priceless! Dear, dear, dear. What will he say next? Oh my aching stomach. Where's my hankie, I can't see for tears. Oh, dear, dear, dear.
Arjy: Sean, we’re going across to Woodies. Does anyone know the name of the Woodies manager?
Billy Colony: Aye lass. He’s anither of your comedians who sit on their reputations. The fucking wanker talks like a machine gun and says nothing. He’s got a good name for a Woodies supermarket manager, though.
Arjy: What is it?
Billy Colony: Robbin Millions.
TO BE CONTINUED.
(Arjy shows Constable Gruff a Bogan Council luncheon voucher and Gruff lifts the police cordon tape to allow her through. Sean flashes his Video Ezy card and follows Arjy. The supermarket seems deserted apart from a small group in the freezer section. Senior Sergeant Slideback stands in front of the frozen fish and looks bemused. Bistro Waiters, the editor of the local newspaper, is dancing up and down with glee and scribbling furiously in his notepad while the supermarket management team grimly look on. As she gets closer, Arjy can see yet another dead body in the bottom of the freezer cabinet. Beside the body are a hatbox and a coiled length of chain.)
Arjy: Good afternoon, Senior Sergeant. More problems?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Well, well, its Mrs. Holmes and Dr. Whatsup. This should be right up your alley. We’ve got another suicide for you to puzzle over and it’s a real tricky one.
Bistro Waiters: Cols Shooting – Police Baffled.
Arjy: Suicide? What did he do, shoot himself in the back from the other side of the room?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: You seem to know a lot about this case. What makes you say it was a shooting?
Arjy: Lucky guess. So what happened?
Bistro Waiters: Rival Crime Fighters Team Up.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: The victim climbed inside the freezer cabinet and shot himself. A shopper discovered the corpse when she picked up a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. We arrived and uncovered the rest of the body. But here’s the tricky part, the gun was found beside the body but it was inside a hatbox secured with chains and a padlock. The key was missing so we had to use bolt cutters on the chain.
Bistro Waiters: Evidence Chain Broken.
Arjy: How the hell do you reckon this was suicide? That’s the most idiotic conclusion I’ve ever heard.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: That’s because you’re a damned amateur but for your information, clever dick, the gun was still in the victim’s hand.
Bistro Waiters: Police Outsmart Local Gumshoe.
Arjy: I thought you said the gun was in a locked box?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: So was the victim’s hand. It had sort of …. detached itself from the body. I told you this was tricky.
Arjy: Let me see if I have this right. The victim shoots himself, cuts off the hand still holding the gun, puts the gun in a hatbox and chains it up. He secures the chain with a padlock, locks it and hides the key. He then lies down in a freezer and pulls one hundred and fifty packets of frozen cod over himself so he won’t be discovered until the supermarket is full of people thereby getting maximum exposure for his performance. Is that the way you see it, Senior Sergeant?
Bistro Waiters: Not so fast. What did you say after ‘frozen cod’?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Of course it didn’t happen like that. That’s ridiculous. Why would he hide the key? Ok, Ok, I’m willing to concede the possibility, and it’s only a possibility, that the victim may have had an accomplice.
Bistro Waiters: Police Admit Error.
Arjy: An accomplice? What, like a murderer?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: There has been no murder here, Miss, and I think it’s a timely time to remind you that the police are handling this enquiry, not Barjy Bean Investigations. You are welcome to help out, as are any members of the public, but that is as far as it goes.
Bistro Waiters: Police Stymied – Seek Help.
Arjy: So the victim shot himself where? The head?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: We think so but it’s hard to tell with all the tyre marks across the face.
Arjy: Tyre marks? The face looks like a pizza with everything! The head is totally flattened! You could swipe it down a nuns arse-crack!
Bistro Waiters: Nuns Behind Pizza Topping.
Arjy/Slideback: Will you shut up and piss off!
Bistro Waiters: Press Gagged.
Sean: I may be wrong, Senior Sergeant, but isn’t that a water pistol in the hatbox?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Hmmmm, I think you’re right. We may have to revise our thinking here a little bit. Of course, the victim may have drowned himself……. But that still doesn’t explain what happened to the padlock key.
Arjy: There’s also the mystery of the mixed vegies.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: What?
Arjy: You said a customer uncovered the body when picking up a bag of frozen mixed vegetables.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: So?
Arjy: So what were the mixed vegies doing in the frozen fish freezer?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: My God! That’s right!
Arjy: Where is the manager of this place?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Just over there, whispering to his staff. He’s a Scotsman and a bit…. Well, you’ll find out. His name is Billy Colony.
Arjy: Mr. Colony! Could you help us out please?
(A large, hairy individual steps up. He leaves his staff creased with helpless laughter as he saunters across to Arjy.)
Billy Colony: Aheesh ta ye fine wimun. Tha nae cally since?
Arjy: Could we forget the jokes please, I don’t have much of a sense of humour in a situation like this.
Billy Colony: Greeet! Tae mair cunni on tay ye lassie. Wha’ fuckerrrs dij ye keen follin tae me, huh?
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Oh, he’s off again. Oh my, oh my. Stop. No more please. You should have been here when he saw the body. Laugh? The bugger nearly made me wet myself!
Billy Colony: Koosh! Senna Sergint, Wha’ the fuck dae ye pinna the kin, so it does. My bollocks kidda harry borsin. Wak falla tha sin!
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Oh, stop! Stop, stop, stop! Oh, my ribs!
Arjy: Mr. Colony! You may have these idiots fooled, but not me. I’ve met people like you before. You get your reputation and then sit back for the ride. Your audience laughs now, not because you’re funny but because you’re expected to be funny. The audience kid themselves that they are listening to a funny man but really you are just another foul-mouthed creep with a stupid accent. So just cut the crap will you? Where did the mixed veggies come from and how did they get in with the cod?
Billy Colony: Cheezus! Iris Pessary wiz right. Ye are a nasty cow. So ye wint tae know where the frozen vegies come fram hey? Well, why didnae ye look at the fucking bag properly? Go on – look at it, ye smart-arrrsed lang leggity bitch!
(Billy Colony snatches up the bag of vegetables and thrusts them at Arjy. She glares at the bag as if it is deliberately trying to confuse her. A moment later her anger changes to astonishment. She takes the bag and turns to Senior Sergeant Slideback.)
Arjy: This is a ‘Select’ brand. It’s a Woodies product.
Billy Colony: Och! The lassie has maer than one brain cell. Whoop-di-fuckin-doo! Ring the fucking bells and gi’ the lass a coconut.
Senior Sergeant Slideback: Oooooh dear! Gi’ the lass a coconut! That is priceless! Dear, dear, dear. What will he say next? Oh my aching stomach. Where's my hankie, I can't see for tears. Oh, dear, dear, dear.
Arjy: Sean, we’re going across to Woodies. Does anyone know the name of the Woodies manager?
Billy Colony: Aye lass. He’s anither of your comedians who sit on their reputations. The fucking wanker talks like a machine gun and says nothing. He’s got a good name for a Woodies supermarket manager, though.
Arjy: What is it?
Billy Colony: Robbin Millions.
TO BE CONTINUED.
8/10/09
Dastardly Doings - Part 5
Arjy and Sean have arrived at The Incontinental for their lunch date. They are shown into the communal dining hall known as ‘Large Chamber’ and are shocked by a wall of sound so loud it is painful. The Incontinental board of directors has decided to base much of the aged care home’s life style system on that of the traditional English public school. Large Chamber particularly, is modelled on the type of dining hall to be found at most English public schools.
(For some reason the English consider conversation at table to be an inviolate rule of civilised behaviour even if conversation is all but impossible without braying and bellowing like a savage. Therefore it is in halls like Large Chamber that the embarrassing, peculiarly English ‘loud voice’ has developed; the sort of loud voice that cuts through foreigners like a scythe, never mind if the foreigners are in their own country at the time. It is also the place where the, again peculiarly English, statement ‘I say!’ began – to establish that the speaker was about to utter something significant rather than merely indicating ‘I belch’ or ‘I choke on this disgusting lump of gristle’.
The noise at Incontinental’s Large Chamber was a sustained roar of conversation and a harsh metallic clash of cutlery interspersed with the scraping of dishes and the frequent crash of breakage. Arjy sat on the chair held for her by an 80-year-old flunky and failed to hear what Gladys De Weekent said.)
Arjy: I’m sorry, I can’t hear a thing. WHAT DID YOU SAY?
Gladys De Weekent: I SAID, WELCOME TO LARGE CHAMBER – MORE COMMONLY KNOWN AS DIN DINS!
Arjy: I’m not surprised. I SAID, I’M NOT SURPRISED!
(The strain of bellowed conversation was too much for Arjy who sat back and watched the frenzy around her. Occasionally a dish of some pallid gloop was placed before her and she did her best to chew a little of it even though she wasn’t quite sure if it was food or something to smear on a gangrenous wound. Those bringing food to the tables appeared to be older than those they served, they were decidedly less healthy and staggering under the weight of the loaded trays they painstakingly carried. These were sort of ‘scholarship’ residents who were there as working boarders. In exchange for a bed and a couple of meals per day they worked out their final years struggling to maintain the illusion of privilege enjoyed by the more wealthy residents. This was aged care in all its fiscal efficiency.
In contemporary aged care, the art of gradually absorbing the last scrap of value from the human carcase has been brought to a level of competence not seen since the 1940’s. Community minded volunteers gladly give their time to help out in these facilities and they are informally trained to assist in more and more areas until they are firmly established as essential workers in the organization as well as being possible future scholarship candidates. At that point, paid staff levels are reduced, resident self-help is further encouraged and another degree of fiscal efficiency is gained. Arjy is gradually suspecting these things and wondering how she can get in on the killing to be made in the fast developing discipline of aged care mechanics.
Eventually the dining ordeal is over and the hall empties. When the last wheelchair squeaks from the room Arjy and Sean look about them at a battlefield of broken crockery, dismembered foodstuff and overturned chairs. Gladys De Weekend picks her teeth with a spare fork.)
Gladys De Weekent: Did you enjoy the meal?
Sean: Very nice meal.
Gladys De Weekent: Ms. Barjy?
Arjy: It was an amazing lunch.
Gladys De Weekent: Mr. Bean is a liar but you, Ms. Barjy, merely refuse to speak the truth. You should be a politician.
Arjy: I have many aspirations left.
Gladys De Weekent: Unfortunately many of those in this establishment do not. Mrs Pessary, however, is eager to meet you and to question you about your interest in local affairs.
Arjy: Well, I was rather hoping to question her.
Gladys De Weekent: One can but hope of course, but be under no misapprehension, Ms. Barjy, you are being granted an audience not an interview. You will find Mrs Pessary’s room at the end of Billion Row – suite one. Any of the staff will direct you.
(When they eventually arrive in the room it is a surprise, it is also a chaotic dump; it would be difficult to imagine a more complex muddle. Clothing, magazines and torn snack-food packages are strewn across the lowest level of the room (presumably the floor). Vague shapes of furniture support more cast off clothing and mixed items too strange to be identifiable. Photographs and cheap prints hang askew on the cream painted walls that are splashed with snack residue. A bowl of rotten fruit sits on top of a television set jutting like a gravestone from the congealing rubbish. There is movement beneath the jumble in a corner and Arjy hopes it is a cat turning in its sleep but suspects it may be the first stirring of some new life form evolving from a swamp of soiled underwear. It would be no great shock if a possum pursued by a wild dog suddenly burst from the clutter, certainly no more of a shock than the mountainous, heaving bulk of a fat old woman reclining in hideous splendour on what might be a bed, smack in the middle of this dreadful and odiferous shambles. The old woman is indescribably ugly and Arjy suspects the woman revels in the response she generates as though she and this room deliberately challenge perceptions of the socially acceptable. Her wicked little eyes miss nothing and seem to act independently of each other. The eyes are also completely different shapes and this may be the result of cheap plastic surgery or they may just be the disconcerting eyes of a seriously disturbed psychotic. This is one of the few occasions when Arjy feels she is in a situation that she may not be qualified to control. There is an overall cloying smell, a stink of old lady and her imminent death.
SPECIAL NOTE:
The conversation that follows could have been written in the bland style of much of the inane chatter between young and old. Inane, because often the old are too world-weary and jaded to say what they truly think and the young are handicapped by a tendency to patronise those they consider degeneratively stupid. Instead I have chosen to report the hidden sub-text of these conversations en clair (that’s your actual French) thereby dismissing the bullshit that divides generations so disastrously.)
***************************
Iris Pessary: So you are the detectives.
Arjy: Yes, Mrs. Pessary, I’m told you have a great deal of local knowl………
Iris Pessary: Where do you come from, dear? You’re not Australian are you?
Arjy: Well, I believe my roots are Middle Eastern but……
Iris Pessary: A fuzzy wuzzy then, a little Arab. Do you wear traditional costume at home, dear? Robes? Fez and so forth, or is that just the men? Perhaps you are from one of those tribes that go about naked? How are you finding civilisation?
Arjy: I’m still looking for it, Mrs Pissary.
Iris Pessary: Oh, my dear, do you not think my name is embarrassing enough or perhaps you think I am too old and ignorant to know what a pessary is? Or perhaps you don’t know what a pessary is? Does your tribe use some kind of camel dung plug to prevent more little Arab bastards? Is that what you have been cramming into yourself since puberty when you were no doubt deflowered by some disgusting witch doctor during your primitive initiation ceremony? Do tell me, dear.
Arjy: Mrs. Pussary. I was hoping you might be able to give me valuable information but I think, perhaps, you know very little of any value.
Iris Pessary: What I do know is – you have the face of an angel, the body of a monster and the soul of a nasty, vindictive, mean-spirited shit. You are intelligent and quick witted but you will never be as successful as you desperately long to be because, without others to trample on, you have no idea how to climb. You will always be a parasite, my dear, greedily and jealously feeding on the next one up the hill until you meet one who really doesn’t give a damn about anything except the truth. Then you will be lost and as far as you will ever get. You see? I do my homework, Ms. Barjy, and I know all about you and your pathetically disguised inclinations.
Arjy: And what about you? Have you dug into your own foul tripes and come to a conclusion about yourself, Mrs Pastit?
Iris Pessary: Long ago. I have the body of an ape, the heart of a lion and the wiles of a fox but I also have the soul of an angel.
Arjy: Quite the celestial zoo. Talking of zoos, what is that dreadful smell?
Iris Pessary: I also recognise evil when I see it and I can weigh people up very quickly and very accurately.
Arjy: Oh, that’s it! That’s bloody it! Why is it that you smug, drug-ridden sacs of mouldering bones have the bloody gall to assume the mantle of the wise when most of you can’t even wipe your own arses without help? What makes feeble bastards like you imagine you can sit in judgement on the very people who bust their guts keeping your pointless lives glimmering? We feed you, house you, wash the stink off you and dress your suppurating sores. We treat you with a deference most of you don’t deserve and with a respect few of you have earned. The only claim you have to justify special treatment is age - as if that were some kind of sodding achievement. Christ, every pebble on the ground is older than any of you buggers. Perhaps we should establish nursing homes for tired boulders and use you lot for road-base; that would make a lot more sense.
Iris Pessary: If only I could last to see you in a wheelchair and suffering the way we have to suffer! But my time is now short and …….
Arjy: Oh, please. Spare me the violin recital! Most of your kind are perfectly capable of moving around and doing a bit of productive work even if it’s only knitting willy-warmers for refrigeration engineers, but you prefer to slump on your wrinkled backsides and do fuck-all while young battlers are throttled by a politically correct concern they are forced to espouse. And every time your feather bed lives are challenged you counteract with the worn-out sympathy card and weep tears generated by an inexhaustible supply of self-pity. Don’t you know how false and bloody embarrassing you look when you pull that kind of shit?
Iris Pessary: My God but you’re a nasty swine! Have you no regard for those that wiped the snot out of your nose and did all the things for you that you now object to doing for them? Everything you are, you owe to us and don’t you forget it. As for young battlers, what a joke, you think it’s battling when you lose the signal on your mobile phone. Do you believe that welfare for the aged is too much of a drain on you? Just remember this: every time you go out in your tinny new car you drive on roads built by the old, each time you switch on your big screen TV you are connecting to a grid conceived and constructed by the old. Your laptops are connected by a web spun by the old and every damned thing you consider to be your birthright was fought for, built and maintained by the old. Just what the hell do you think you have achieved apart from unprecedented levels of debt that are threatening to destroy it all? You miserable, puny, greedy little bastards should be on your knees to us in thanks for the glide through life that you enjoy. It’s a bit tough at times? Hard bloody luck! Welcome to the land of grown-ups, kid!
Arjy: You just can’t stand that you’re no longer necessary, can you?
Iris Pessary: That is such a stupid thing to say, it’s not worth answering.
Arjy: Because it’s true!
Iris Pessary: Of course it’s bloody true, you brainless, moronic tart!
*******************************
Arjy: Well, it’s been nice talking to you, Mrs. Pessary, but I have to go now.
Iris Pessary: Of course, dear, I have enjoyed our little chat and I do hope you will drop in to see me again soon.
Arjy: I certainly will. Bye bye for now.
Iris Pessary: Oh, Ms. Barjy! Did you know that the managers of Cols and Woodies are refusing to make the payments on their police protection policies? They stopped paying about six weeks ago, just before the killings started. Ahh, you didn’t know. I thought not. Goodbye dear.
(When Arjy and Sean leave the room, Iris Pessary lies back on her grubby mound of pillows and shakes with delighted mirth. In the corridor Arjy is silent as she walks towards the exit. Her eyebrows are raised and there is the ghost of a smile on her lips.)
Sean: What was that all about?
Arjy: Mmmm?
Sean: Well, you seemed pleasant enough with each other. Having a nice little chat and that - but there was something else. You both seemed tense as though something was going on between you. I just wondered.
Arjy: Have you ever had a bar room brawl in a pitch-black room while you were blindfolded?
Sean: Shit no.
Arjy: I think I have. I might go back to visit the old bag again some time…..it was….interesting.
Sean: Where do we go now?
Arjy: We follow the old bag’s lead. We go to Cols.
TO BE CONTINUED.
(For some reason the English consider conversation at table to be an inviolate rule of civilised behaviour even if conversation is all but impossible without braying and bellowing like a savage. Therefore it is in halls like Large Chamber that the embarrassing, peculiarly English ‘loud voice’ has developed; the sort of loud voice that cuts through foreigners like a scythe, never mind if the foreigners are in their own country at the time. It is also the place where the, again peculiarly English, statement ‘I say!’ began – to establish that the speaker was about to utter something significant rather than merely indicating ‘I belch’ or ‘I choke on this disgusting lump of gristle’.
The noise at Incontinental’s Large Chamber was a sustained roar of conversation and a harsh metallic clash of cutlery interspersed with the scraping of dishes and the frequent crash of breakage. Arjy sat on the chair held for her by an 80-year-old flunky and failed to hear what Gladys De Weekent said.)
Arjy: I’m sorry, I can’t hear a thing. WHAT DID YOU SAY?
Gladys De Weekent: I SAID, WELCOME TO LARGE CHAMBER – MORE COMMONLY KNOWN AS DIN DINS!
Arjy: I’m not surprised. I SAID, I’M NOT SURPRISED!
(The strain of bellowed conversation was too much for Arjy who sat back and watched the frenzy around her. Occasionally a dish of some pallid gloop was placed before her and she did her best to chew a little of it even though she wasn’t quite sure if it was food or something to smear on a gangrenous wound. Those bringing food to the tables appeared to be older than those they served, they were decidedly less healthy and staggering under the weight of the loaded trays they painstakingly carried. These were sort of ‘scholarship’ residents who were there as working boarders. In exchange for a bed and a couple of meals per day they worked out their final years struggling to maintain the illusion of privilege enjoyed by the more wealthy residents. This was aged care in all its fiscal efficiency.
In contemporary aged care, the art of gradually absorbing the last scrap of value from the human carcase has been brought to a level of competence not seen since the 1940’s. Community minded volunteers gladly give their time to help out in these facilities and they are informally trained to assist in more and more areas until they are firmly established as essential workers in the organization as well as being possible future scholarship candidates. At that point, paid staff levels are reduced, resident self-help is further encouraged and another degree of fiscal efficiency is gained. Arjy is gradually suspecting these things and wondering how she can get in on the killing to be made in the fast developing discipline of aged care mechanics.
Eventually the dining ordeal is over and the hall empties. When the last wheelchair squeaks from the room Arjy and Sean look about them at a battlefield of broken crockery, dismembered foodstuff and overturned chairs. Gladys De Weekend picks her teeth with a spare fork.)
Gladys De Weekent: Did you enjoy the meal?
Sean: Very nice meal.
Gladys De Weekent: Ms. Barjy?
Arjy: It was an amazing lunch.
Gladys De Weekent: Mr. Bean is a liar but you, Ms. Barjy, merely refuse to speak the truth. You should be a politician.
Arjy: I have many aspirations left.
Gladys De Weekent: Unfortunately many of those in this establishment do not. Mrs Pessary, however, is eager to meet you and to question you about your interest in local affairs.
Arjy: Well, I was rather hoping to question her.
Gladys De Weekent: One can but hope of course, but be under no misapprehension, Ms. Barjy, you are being granted an audience not an interview. You will find Mrs Pessary’s room at the end of Billion Row – suite one. Any of the staff will direct you.
(When they eventually arrive in the room it is a surprise, it is also a chaotic dump; it would be difficult to imagine a more complex muddle. Clothing, magazines and torn snack-food packages are strewn across the lowest level of the room (presumably the floor). Vague shapes of furniture support more cast off clothing and mixed items too strange to be identifiable. Photographs and cheap prints hang askew on the cream painted walls that are splashed with snack residue. A bowl of rotten fruit sits on top of a television set jutting like a gravestone from the congealing rubbish. There is movement beneath the jumble in a corner and Arjy hopes it is a cat turning in its sleep but suspects it may be the first stirring of some new life form evolving from a swamp of soiled underwear. It would be no great shock if a possum pursued by a wild dog suddenly burst from the clutter, certainly no more of a shock than the mountainous, heaving bulk of a fat old woman reclining in hideous splendour on what might be a bed, smack in the middle of this dreadful and odiferous shambles. The old woman is indescribably ugly and Arjy suspects the woman revels in the response she generates as though she and this room deliberately challenge perceptions of the socially acceptable. Her wicked little eyes miss nothing and seem to act independently of each other. The eyes are also completely different shapes and this may be the result of cheap plastic surgery or they may just be the disconcerting eyes of a seriously disturbed psychotic. This is one of the few occasions when Arjy feels she is in a situation that she may not be qualified to control. There is an overall cloying smell, a stink of old lady and her imminent death.
SPECIAL NOTE:
The conversation that follows could have been written in the bland style of much of the inane chatter between young and old. Inane, because often the old are too world-weary and jaded to say what they truly think and the young are handicapped by a tendency to patronise those they consider degeneratively stupid. Instead I have chosen to report the hidden sub-text of these conversations en clair (that’s your actual French) thereby dismissing the bullshit that divides generations so disastrously.)
***************************
Iris Pessary: So you are the detectives.
Arjy: Yes, Mrs. Pessary, I’m told you have a great deal of local knowl………
Iris Pessary: Where do you come from, dear? You’re not Australian are you?
Arjy: Well, I believe my roots are Middle Eastern but……
Iris Pessary: A fuzzy wuzzy then, a little Arab. Do you wear traditional costume at home, dear? Robes? Fez and so forth, or is that just the men? Perhaps you are from one of those tribes that go about naked? How are you finding civilisation?
Arjy: I’m still looking for it, Mrs Pissary.
Iris Pessary: Oh, my dear, do you not think my name is embarrassing enough or perhaps you think I am too old and ignorant to know what a pessary is? Or perhaps you don’t know what a pessary is? Does your tribe use some kind of camel dung plug to prevent more little Arab bastards? Is that what you have been cramming into yourself since puberty when you were no doubt deflowered by some disgusting witch doctor during your primitive initiation ceremony? Do tell me, dear.
Arjy: Mrs. Pussary. I was hoping you might be able to give me valuable information but I think, perhaps, you know very little of any value.
Iris Pessary: What I do know is – you have the face of an angel, the body of a monster and the soul of a nasty, vindictive, mean-spirited shit. You are intelligent and quick witted but you will never be as successful as you desperately long to be because, without others to trample on, you have no idea how to climb. You will always be a parasite, my dear, greedily and jealously feeding on the next one up the hill until you meet one who really doesn’t give a damn about anything except the truth. Then you will be lost and as far as you will ever get. You see? I do my homework, Ms. Barjy, and I know all about you and your pathetically disguised inclinations.
Arjy: And what about you? Have you dug into your own foul tripes and come to a conclusion about yourself, Mrs Pastit?
Iris Pessary: Long ago. I have the body of an ape, the heart of a lion and the wiles of a fox but I also have the soul of an angel.
Arjy: Quite the celestial zoo. Talking of zoos, what is that dreadful smell?
Iris Pessary: I also recognise evil when I see it and I can weigh people up very quickly and very accurately.
Arjy: Oh, that’s it! That’s bloody it! Why is it that you smug, drug-ridden sacs of mouldering bones have the bloody gall to assume the mantle of the wise when most of you can’t even wipe your own arses without help? What makes feeble bastards like you imagine you can sit in judgement on the very people who bust their guts keeping your pointless lives glimmering? We feed you, house you, wash the stink off you and dress your suppurating sores. We treat you with a deference most of you don’t deserve and with a respect few of you have earned. The only claim you have to justify special treatment is age - as if that were some kind of sodding achievement. Christ, every pebble on the ground is older than any of you buggers. Perhaps we should establish nursing homes for tired boulders and use you lot for road-base; that would make a lot more sense.
Iris Pessary: If only I could last to see you in a wheelchair and suffering the way we have to suffer! But my time is now short and …….
Arjy: Oh, please. Spare me the violin recital! Most of your kind are perfectly capable of moving around and doing a bit of productive work even if it’s only knitting willy-warmers for refrigeration engineers, but you prefer to slump on your wrinkled backsides and do fuck-all while young battlers are throttled by a politically correct concern they are forced to espouse. And every time your feather bed lives are challenged you counteract with the worn-out sympathy card and weep tears generated by an inexhaustible supply of self-pity. Don’t you know how false and bloody embarrassing you look when you pull that kind of shit?
Iris Pessary: My God but you’re a nasty swine! Have you no regard for those that wiped the snot out of your nose and did all the things for you that you now object to doing for them? Everything you are, you owe to us and don’t you forget it. As for young battlers, what a joke, you think it’s battling when you lose the signal on your mobile phone. Do you believe that welfare for the aged is too much of a drain on you? Just remember this: every time you go out in your tinny new car you drive on roads built by the old, each time you switch on your big screen TV you are connecting to a grid conceived and constructed by the old. Your laptops are connected by a web spun by the old and every damned thing you consider to be your birthright was fought for, built and maintained by the old. Just what the hell do you think you have achieved apart from unprecedented levels of debt that are threatening to destroy it all? You miserable, puny, greedy little bastards should be on your knees to us in thanks for the glide through life that you enjoy. It’s a bit tough at times? Hard bloody luck! Welcome to the land of grown-ups, kid!
Arjy: You just can’t stand that you’re no longer necessary, can you?
Iris Pessary: That is such a stupid thing to say, it’s not worth answering.
Arjy: Because it’s true!
Iris Pessary: Of course it’s bloody true, you brainless, moronic tart!
*******************************
Arjy: Well, it’s been nice talking to you, Mrs. Pessary, but I have to go now.
Iris Pessary: Of course, dear, I have enjoyed our little chat and I do hope you will drop in to see me again soon.
Arjy: I certainly will. Bye bye for now.
Iris Pessary: Oh, Ms. Barjy! Did you know that the managers of Cols and Woodies are refusing to make the payments on their police protection policies? They stopped paying about six weeks ago, just before the killings started. Ahh, you didn’t know. I thought not. Goodbye dear.
(When Arjy and Sean leave the room, Iris Pessary lies back on her grubby mound of pillows and shakes with delighted mirth. In the corridor Arjy is silent as she walks towards the exit. Her eyebrows are raised and there is the ghost of a smile on her lips.)
Sean: What was that all about?
Arjy: Mmmm?
Sean: Well, you seemed pleasant enough with each other. Having a nice little chat and that - but there was something else. You both seemed tense as though something was going on between you. I just wondered.
Arjy: Have you ever had a bar room brawl in a pitch-black room while you were blindfolded?
Sean: Shit no.
Arjy: I think I have. I might go back to visit the old bag again some time…..it was….interesting.
Sean: Where do we go now?
Arjy: We follow the old bag’s lead. We go to Cols.
TO BE CONTINUED.
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