The LION, THE BITCH AND - g.a.chirnside/author



The LION, THE BITCH AND

THE SMORGASBORD

© G.A.Chirnside 2014 All Rights Reserved

M

y name is Kevin Murphy, and I have just stolen a Kombi van, yellow, in which to complete my escape. My dishonesty has always been not so much serious as recurrent; the challenge for me has always been how not to get into jail, but never how to get out. Over recent years I have slipped in and out of this jail or that with impunity. Escape was easy; how, I hear you ask? Let me say simply that as age has approached and my body no longer in demand, nor a target for abuse or insidious drugs, I have become so unimportant, so overlooked, so hideously small that I have been able to slip undetected through keyhole and laser beam alike. Oh yes. I have come and gone pretty much as I please.

Today is different though. I have stolen a van. Now I have responsibility, but still I am as buoyant as a teenager leaving home. The road winds ahead; I am close to Lakes Entrance

and patches of Pacific blue blow in the open window through gaps in the trees. The Kombi’s motor clatters away aft, propelling us along a steady course. The theme from Seachange has just come on the air when I see her. Not young, but moving on the soft shoulder at a steady pace looking neither to her right or left. I pass her, not stopping, but of course do, a few hundred metres further up the road, and watch in the off-side mirror as she silently catches up and fills it. I have to help her in. Now there is blood on my hands; her paws are about done, it seems.

‘Dumped?’ I ask, but she is already asleep, her grizzled Heeler’s face calm, tongue lolling.

†

When we put into McDonalds, the same truck is there, a sort of mini-semi-trailer, that had passed me an hour before. And the writing on the sides is the same, yes, Mytton’s Extravaganza, Circus of the South, the gay, heavily-serifed letters heralding the greatness of the little show. As we pass, the truck moves slightly on its springs, and from it there emanates a pervasive admixture of diesel, damp tarpaulin and animal urine. Just out of curiosity, mind, I lift a corner of the tarpaulin and peer into the gloom. I see, watching me from its shadowy perch with unswerving eyes, a lion bereft both of proportion and good humour. A pale gold in colour, tail thrashing around like a headless eel.

‘Hmmm ...’ I consider, and out loud, ‘Poppa ain’t happy.’

‘And if Poppa ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy,’ he quips right back.

I sense he is hip. ‘Bro,’ I say, ‘yo’ sure’s hell could ease on fair thro’ dose bars now, like, bro yo’ done gotta jus’ think real small. Like as small as small. Real small and thin as panther piss is how yo’ gotta be.

‘I know that feeling man.’

And with that, he does get real thin, and just as I had suggested, joins me on the outside.

‘Gimme five’ I grin, and he raises a club-like paw to bat my uplifted palm.

I look around for the bitch – she’d been there a second ago but now seems to have vanished. Hurrying, low, we slip back to the Kombi, where I find her waiting, a little circle of blood wetting the hot concrete under her paw. I can tell, looking at her that she is peeved.

‘You never gave me high five,’ she says flatly, and her eyes, looking into the mid distance, well with indignant tears.

‘I never thought ... well, you’re a dog ...’

‘So, only lions do high fives – is that the story?’

‘No.

‘Why? Are they more sporty or something?’

‘Look. I’ll give you high five right now – come on.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Don’t want to now, anyway.’

I catch the lion’s eyes as they roll quickly in the direction of heaven. Unfortunately the bitch sees them too.

‘What the f--- are you making f---ing faces about, f----face? she snarls.

‘Language,’ I correct her.

‘That’s no worse than the stupid jive talk you were doing. I’ll stop if you stop.’

So we all stop talking altogether, and instead board the Kombi, two in the front, one in the back. Brother, I can tell you, this lion can talk. He leans forward and mouths off right over my shoulder. Lion-breath aside, what is coming out of his mouth is all about him; his this, his that, his kidney problem. Never asks a thing about me or my heart problem or the bitch who has that big lump under her jaw. Finally, he sits back.

‘Nice area’ he concludes. ‘Hey look! Stop – back up.’

We all look at the sign: ‘Scenic Flights. Family fares. Helicopter or plane. From $60.00.’

‘Haven’t you always wanted to fly?’ he asks, excited.

‘No’ says the bitch.

‘I’ve been. It’s not that great,’ I offer.

‘Well, what then?’ asks the lion, wobbling his head at us as if we are holding him back.

‘It was quite nice just driving,’ says the bitch.

‘Why don’t we,’ I chip in, sensing another fracas, ‘why don’t we go to a really nice pub and have a good feed and a swim – nice clean sheets on the beds? Besides, I can’t see them taking a bloke and a dog and a lion up in a chopper. There is a limit you know,’ I add wisely.

So the pub it is. More than a pub – this is the last resort. But there is a problem, and I am learning; when you’ve got responsibilities, nothing is easy. The receptionist is bright, tanned and flexible. Twin share is fine. But no pets.

‘They’re not pets,’ I tell her, ‘they’re my friends.’

‘That’s OK then.’ She reaches for a key-card which she places

with a clack on her side of the intervening expanse of polished granite. ‘And how would you prefer to pay today sir?’

Well, you know, I’m stuck. They don’t issue Bankcard at Wacol. But bugger me if the bitch doesn’t come up trumps, and flips out her Amex just as cool as you please. With a small triumphant glance at the lion, she hands it over.

And so we slide into heaven.

†

The lift smells of gardenias and is mirrored on all sides, as we rise, suddenly four blokes with four lions and four blue heelers, a menagerie

of misfits. It doesn’t surprise me when the lion roars into our nice room, opens all the cupboards and bangs them, the fridge, the toilet, the bidet, and bangs them, turns on the ceiling fans and the radio and the flat-screen and jumps on the beds, all in one hit. Some lions will do that. But I am disturbed when he opens the sliders, then, peering over the balustrade, shouts down to a hapless sunbather below,

‘Here, dude – suck on this!’

And sends a large blob of lion spit sailing earthwards.

‘So what?’ he defends himself, ‘it’s not as if we’ve got long, is it? The shit’s going to hit the fan big time.’

He’s right of course, and as we polish off the mini-bar, the television is already telling us that his untimely departure from the McDonald’s carpark has been duly noted Resigned but happy, we go in search of a feed, not a long search, for the function rooms are on our floor, and in the very first, lying

still and calm, glimmering in the afternoon light, is a bounteous buffet, a smorgasbord of such succulence that it takes our breath away as one. The bitch is first to recover.

‘What a fantastic f---ing first-class feast!’ she yips, and bolts to the trough, ‘I’m for the chicken legs!’

I carve myself some slabs of ham as thick as my hand, the salt juice running through the stubble on my chin and onto my chest, already wet with the sliced gold of the mangoes I am stuffing in with the meat.

‘Fancy putting all this on just for us,’ wonders the lion, fiddling with a trifle.

‘Au contraire,’’ I tell him, ‘this is a wedding breakfast, or I’m Dolly Parton. We’re gate-crashing before the party, friends. Come on. Eat up. It’ll be your last.’

Not convinced, the lion seeks my ear.

‘That’s preposterous,’ I tell him, ‘you can’t do that!’

The lion looks glum and embarrassed, but doesn’t drop the subject.

‘But I don’t like any of this food. It’s not natural for me.’

‘Shut up. Have some beef. It’s quite rare.’

‘It’s still not the same,’ he whines.

‘Well, you’ll have to ask her yourself.’

The bitch comes over, offering Moreton Bay Bugs.

‘What are you two arguing about?’ she asks.

‘Felix here, doesn’t like the grub.’

‘So?’

‘So, he wants to eat you.’

The bitch drops the bowl of Bugs.

‘Like hell you will. Go and eat your own arse! End of subject, dropkick.’

And so saying, she tucks into some strudel. Suddenly, we all freeze, We have company; the bride and groom, also arguing.

‘Settle down, Irene.’

‘Settle down? What do you mean – get married and settle down? I’ve never been so humiliated in my entire life. That bloody minister. I just can’t believe he said all that stuff, especially about the blond receptionist and the convertible Saab. You don’t even have a receptionist – you’re a sheetmetal worker, actually.’

‘Don’t hold that against me Irene.’

‘I’m not. I’m just saying.’

‘And don’t hold it against Reverend Abbot for playing the devil’s overcoat – it’s the new way.’

‘Advocate’ stage-whispers the lion to me, behind our trestle. ‘I’ve seen that chick – she’s on the telly. She looks like she’s in control already, to me.’

†

‘Peter,’ the bride asks nervously.

‘Yes Irene.’

‘There’s actually a lion in here.’

The silence that follows, although short, allows us to hear the crowd noise, ebbing and flowing behind the thick palpitating sound of rotor blades, which bruise the afternoon air. I step forward, and see the bride’s fear. I look at her smashing face and see all the lovers I’ve never had. I look at the groom’s face. He is destined for prison as surely as I have

been. His mortgage would be his lock, and the fair Irene his wardress. The Channel 7 chopper appears with deafening suddenness at our window and behind it a police helicopter and behind that – oh God they’ve collided, slicing and hacking at the air, and plummeting to the green quadrangle below. Exploding Avgas balloons past our window at the same time as hail of lead shatters the glass.

‘Come out’ a loud hailer assures us, ‘and you will not, repeat not, be hurt. Free your hostages immediately!’

The irony of my new-found fugitive status strikes me. On the far side of the quad there is a phalanx, rough-necked and armed, and across from them, both soldiers and police, all shouting and shouting. The building seems to be on fire now, and the newly-widowed bride has blood on her veil, for Peter has taken a bullet through the ear. As the tear-gas invades, we break for the lift. I have three floors to instruct the others.

‘If we can reach the other end of the grassy quad, fellas, we are home free. More than that. We will be national celebs. Just gotta think real small, OK? Soon as the doors open, run hard.’

I reach down to pat the bitch, and she licks my hand. The lion is growling a long low note but doesn’t seem to mind the bride on his back. Irene takes a double handful of her mount’s tawny withers and grits her perfect teeth.

‘Ride low, baby,’ I tell her. ‘Ride low.’

The doors open. Down the centre line we charge, as two hundred million viewers watch, headlong into a Mexican Wave of crossfire. Bloodshed to the left. Carnage to the right. And between, the four of us, as thin as panther piss, race unstoppable for our first touch-down.

†††

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