Read Online He Died with a Felafel in His Hand by John Birmingham - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Birmingham
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TV and we came back to earth, wrestled him away from it, then shrugged and threw him in too. I don’t know why that happened.
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First we had Patrick, the boy from Hong Kong. He lasted a day, and spent that day in front of the mirror in his underpants grooming his hair. Loved that hair. He got it right and moved out. We had some Baptist black guy from Africa, a bible-bashing footwasher but he was okay. Really took to the basketball court. Then he took to the hallucinogenic fungus in the back yard and that was the end of him. Finally there came Krishna, an easily titillated Malay Indian guy. Loved the SBS Friday night porn. The merest flash of nipple would send him off like a retarded child on a nitrous binge. He was thirty-five. Whenever we passed the bong around Krishna felt duty-bound to point out that in Malaysia old Mahatir would have you swinging by your heels for this sort of thing. Neal finally convinced him to pull a cone for multiculturalism. He took a few smokes, started giggling and fled to his room. He legged it the following day. After Krishna, we decided it was all just too hard. The house voted to take a rent rise and let the sleepout lie fallow. Not surprising really. I’ve always tried to do the right thing by our multicultural brethren, but it just never seems work out. Like with this Chinese Chef who moved into another place I lived once. I came back from a road trip to find this Chinese guy had moved in. Someone said he liked cooking.
‘A Chinese chef,’ I said. ‘Outstanding.’
They could have been more specific. He liked to cook fried rice in a wok on a gas burner beside his chair in the lounge as he sat watching television. After a few weeks, the lino acquired a sticky, sooty complexion from the soy sauce and the TV screen was flecked with burned rice. He’d made a special deal with the fruit shop where he bought in bulk at discount rates and he was always dragging these 250kg sacks of potatoes or carrots up the back steps. Four weeks later, we had to sneak the soggy residue into a nearby industrial bin because the neighbours were coming over to complain about the smell. The same thing happened with the cabbages a month after that. We were working up the nerve to kick the Chinese chef out when by a strange twist of events he threw us out. He brought his mother over from China for a visit, had her staying in his room. The Chinese chef couldn’t admit to the filthy mess he was leaving around him – the kitchen was about an inch deep in chicken bones and cabbage leaves by this stage – so he blamed us. His mother stewed on it for a few days, then got the real estate heavies to turf us out.
Satomi Tiger’s neighbour in the bad side of the house was Jabba the Hutt. He was enrolled in civil engineering at Queensland Uni, but as far as I know, he never made it to class. Not once. Sat round all day watching TV. Even on golf days. He’d watch the kids’ shows in the morning. Then the soapies through the day. Then the news. Then the evening shows. Then the late night movies, the dire sitcoms and those obscure, undead fillers like Mod Squad and Chuck Connor’s Thrillseekers . The thrillseeker , said Chuck. A special breed of cat . And finally Jabba would stack some zzz’s, get up the next day and start all over again. Day after day. Week after week. For months without a break. Then one Saturday night, completely out of character, he got so drunk he wet himself. We threw him out the back yard, turned the hose on him. He stayed out there all night. I got up the next morning and there he was, cleaned up, lying in front of the teev again.
Across the hall from Jabba lived Mick, our racist in residence. Mick blew into town from Perth and knew someone who knew someone at the house. Nobody will fess up to it now, so I guess that link is going to have to stay lost. We should have known really. He didn’t like chilli, didn’t like curry, didn’t like anything Asian. Had these very strange views
----
First we had Patrick, the boy from Hong Kong. He lasted a day, and spent that day in front of the mirror in his underpants grooming his hair. Loved that hair. He got it right and moved out. We had some Baptist black guy from Africa, a bible-bashing footwasher but he was okay. Really took to the basketball court. Then he took to the hallucinogenic fungus in the back yard and that was the end of him. Finally there came Krishna, an easily titillated Malay Indian guy. Loved the SBS Friday night porn. The merest flash of nipple would send him off like a retarded child on a nitrous binge. He was thirty-five. Whenever we passed the bong around Krishna felt duty-bound to point out that in Malaysia old Mahatir would have you swinging by your heels for this sort of thing. Neal finally convinced him to pull a cone for multiculturalism. He took a few smokes, started giggling and fled to his room. He legged it the following day. After Krishna, we decided it was all just too hard. The house voted to take a rent rise and let the sleepout lie fallow. Not surprising really. I’ve always tried to do the right thing by our multicultural brethren, but it just never seems work out. Like with this Chinese Chef who moved into another place I lived once. I came back from a road trip to find this Chinese guy had moved in. Someone said he liked cooking.
‘A Chinese chef,’ I said. ‘Outstanding.’
They could have been more specific. He liked to cook fried rice in a wok on a gas burner beside his chair in the lounge as he sat watching television. After a few weeks, the lino acquired a sticky, sooty complexion from the soy sauce and the TV screen was flecked with burned rice. He’d made a special deal with the fruit shop where he bought in bulk at discount rates and he was always dragging these 250kg sacks of potatoes or carrots up the back steps. Four weeks later, we had to sneak the soggy residue into a nearby industrial bin because the neighbours were coming over to complain about the smell. The same thing happened with the cabbages a month after that. We were working up the nerve to kick the Chinese chef out when by a strange twist of events he threw us out. He brought his mother over from China for a visit, had her staying in his room. The Chinese chef couldn’t admit to the filthy mess he was leaving around him – the kitchen was about an inch deep in chicken bones and cabbage leaves by this stage – so he blamed us. His mother stewed on it for a few days, then got the real estate heavies to turf us out.
Satomi Tiger’s neighbour in the bad side of the house was Jabba the Hutt. He was enrolled in civil engineering at Queensland Uni, but as far as I know, he never made it to class. Not once. Sat round all day watching TV. Even on golf days. He’d watch the kids’ shows in the morning. Then the soapies through the day. Then the news. Then the evening shows. Then the late night movies, the dire sitcoms and those obscure, undead fillers like Mod Squad and Chuck Connor’s Thrillseekers . The thrillseeker , said Chuck. A special breed of cat . And finally Jabba would stack some zzz’s, get up the next day and start all over again. Day after day. Week after week. For months without a break. Then one Saturday night, completely out of character, he got so drunk he wet himself. We threw him out the back yard, turned the hose on him. He stayed out there all night. I got up the next morning and there he was, cleaned up, lying in front of the teev again.
Across the hall from Jabba lived Mick, our racist in residence. Mick blew into town from Perth and knew someone who knew someone at the house. Nobody will fess up to it now, so I guess that link is going to have to stay lost. We should have known really. He didn’t like chilli, didn’t like curry, didn’t like anything Asian. Had these very strange views
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