6am.... there's nothing worse than your day starting with the Little River Band. But today it did. Must have been the Fates. Fuckin' fairies...
You can't control the radio. At least not in Cooktown. And Kev had his tuned to the local station, well the only station.... and it had a thing for Ozzie music. The only thing. It was all it played. Dawn to dusk... Now, LRB was okay when you were peeling back a few tinnies to wash down a snarler or two in the arvo, as long as Cold Chisel took on the mantle later in the evening - when you were curled to the eyeballs and using the beer goggles to distinguish between the local herd and the Sheilas ...but seriously, at 6am? Nuh, it just wasn't the done thing.
So Kevin, not in the most salubrious of moods this morning ...on account of a bottle of Bundy and Shazza's undies in his face the night before (right focus on the goggles last night, thank god), decided enough was enough. He cracked an eye that would make a stoner jealous, located the radio and kicked it soundly off the crate.
LRB, describing a parabola that even a Nasa engineer working on the Colombia would be proud of, sailed elegantly across the room and out the window.
"Fuck off John..." He muttered.
A quick roll to unstick his bum from the sheets and he found himself face to face with Bruce, his mutt-of-dubious-pedigree ....who at that moment was yawning his chops and using his tongue as a canine octopus to establish dominance over the ants that had found their way from the floor to the remains of the bundy on the pillow. Next to Shazza's undies. They weren't interested in Shazzas undies. Nothing was. Not even Shazza.
LRB followed by dog breath. Not a great start.
Feet on the floor and straight into his y-fronts (thank god). Bit crusty but fuck it, they'll do. Kev levered himself up and staggered into the kitchen scratching his nuts. It was another pearler day. The sun was just coming up over the treeline. No clouds just that orange blue thing that happens in the morning when your brain is still figuring out which way is up. Like when you take too much acid and you find yourself in a caravan with a horny Swedish gymnast. He emptied a coffee cup of the ubiquitous ciggie ends and oily coffee, wiped it with a spare rag that looked a little less stained than his gruts, hit the switch on the jug then looked around for his roll-yer-owns.
After a considerable time scanning the room, he found them peeking out from under a D-cup on the table, 'Thank christ!' he thought, 'but what the....? Did Shazza shoot home starkers last night? Or ....bugger me! Was she still here!?' He ducked outside and checked the Dunny in case she had timed out whilst chasing the proverbial. Nuh. Thankfully. 'Maybe she had just forgotten... Her tits spent most of their time down round her knees anyway...' he thought to himself. 'Same with her undies.'
The jug jizzed steam all over the room as it tried to turn itself off. It failed miserably, like it did every morning. Kev threw a couple of spoons of coffee into his cup, four sugars and two lumps of milk... rolled a smoke, poured - then headed out to the verandah to welcome the day on his favourite chair. Staring out over the trees he found himself humming Lonesome Loser.
Fucking clock.
Bruce ambled out to sit next to him, farted then gapped it across the yard. Kev could have sworn the little fucker was laughing at him as he gagged into his cup.
It wasn't until the second cigarette that Kev realised that the clock was still going strong from round the side of the house. Only John had stopped his crooning. Instead, someone was talking ...and not just the usual hawking of Dr Johns erectile dysfunction oil, or 40% off a set of Ginsu steak knives, but real news type stuff. 'Strewth, sounds serious' Kev thought to himself. Swirling the dregs of his coffee and chucking it down his neck, he levered himself out of the chair and staggered off the verandah and round the corner so he could hear what all the fuss was about...
Snatches basically, but only due to the fact that Bruce had found the clock and was knawing at it in the only way that dogs can. You know, that way that makes you never want to touch the item being knawed at again. At least not without a bio suit and a gallon of hand sanitiser.
".... Earthquake... Papua New Guinea... Tsunami.... Residents of Northern Territory and Queensland told to evacuate... Perfect storm... Crocodile mating season.... Density.... Salt water crocodiles.... Largest ever...."
And that was about it.
Kev wasn't so sure about the last bit. Crocs were just part of the scenery in Cooktown. Literally. Dead ones were used as median barriers on busy roads (well Cooktown busy, which meant more than four vehicles a week). But the first bit was bad. Real bad. 'Cause Kevs truck was fucked. Not just broken but completely rooted. Bloody thing had exploded two days ago when he was Roo hunting with some mates up Up Creek road. He thought the Roo was going to dodge left. Bloody thing hadn't. It had stopped, turned, stared him straight in the eye and bounced straight at him. Fucker had lifted its legs over the bars and gone straight through the radiator and into the engine block. Boom. Goodnight nurse. Kev could have sworn he had heard it say 'suck on that one... fat boy' as it shuddered its last breath while he was trying to pull it out of what remained of his motor.
So wherever Kev was going, he was walking. Unless someone could give him a lift.
No comments:
Post a Comment