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Authors: T. W. Lawless
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useful to ignore. Maybe, one day he would heed their advice.
‘Good family, good food, good woman. And lots of healthy children. That’s all you need in life,’ Roula declared as she spooned the salad into a separate takeaway container. Con smiled in agreement.
Then again, maybe not. ‘I should start to worry,’ Peter grinned, pretending to wipe sweat from his forehead. ‘I’ve managed to avoid all of those, so far.’
‘But you not too old yet,’ Roula continued. ‘You still young and not bad looking. You meet a good girl. But not one who like to smoke, drink and go to parties. Okay?’
‘Sounds like you want me to marry a nun,’ he joked. Con and Roula broke into a hail of laughter.
‘Good,’ Con wiped his eyes. ‘We start looking for one tomorrow.’
9
After dishing up his evening meal onto a chipped plate, Peter settled onto the couch with a comforting can of VB. Feeling the need for relaxing dinner music, he left the couch to slip the latest Whitesnake record on his Pioneer stereo (with the turntable and two cassette players combination). It was one of only five items of furniture, the others being a second-hand fridge (with leaking seals), a very old double bed (with sloppy mattress), a battered wardrobe (with one door missing) and a rusty camp bed for pissed guests who didn’t mind doing permanent injury to their back. The stereo was the only thing in it that was insurable.
He turned the volume to mild ear pain and fell back onto the couch. All of his immediate neighbours were shopkeepers and Con and Roula had already gone home, so there was going to be no noise complaint. He felt lucky to be where he lived because, if on occasion he turned it up to ear-damaging volume, the surrounding residents always blamed the bands playing at the Tote.
With the VB still in one hand and the instructions to the fucking scanner in the other, he sank into the couch, determined that he would learn how to use it, thus making the new position his own. Embracing new jobs and new technology were, admittedly, not his forte. He needed help to change a light bulb. A Luddite.
The sound of Coverdale’s vocals filled the flat and overflowed, joining the screech of the Johnston Street traffic, as Peter wrestled with the manual and the scanner’s buttons. It responded with a series of farts, crackles and whistles. He wanted to throw it across the room.Instead of Irmgard for seductive diversion, he had this machine to contend with.
By midnight, after six more VB’s, three temper tantrums, four changes of records and a broken hearted depressive moment, he finally conquered his fears, his heartbreak and the scanner, which, in the meantime, he had nicknamed, The Beast . He fell into bed, placing the scanner on the floor beside him. His new, dark navy blue Stafford Ellison suit awaited in the broken wardrobe. The phone sat on the pillow next to him. Peter was prepared. Peter was ready. Ready for anything. The Pulse was ready. Bring it on . With that, Peter crossed himself and fell asleep.
Peter was skipping along in a field that appeared to be in the Bavarian Alps. He was holding Irmgard’s hand tightly as they laughed and gambolled. Reaching a stream—a bubbling one, of course—they fell with unbridled laughter onto the soft verdant grass. Irmgard slipped off her white blouse to reveal her bounteous Germanic breasts covered in a lacy bra. Peter joyfully was unhooking and fumbling with the bra but the noise of the stream was distracting. It crackled urgently.
Cars in the area of Clifton Hill, gunshots have been reported at 92 George Street, repeat…
Peter was rudely snapped out his dream. He sat upright as if a rope was around his neck and he was being pulled towards the ceiling.
Double shooting, two males, 92 George Street Clifton…
He fumbled for the phone and dialled Mad Dog, who answered as if he had been sitting by the phone expecting an important call. No hint of sleep evident in his voice.
‘We’re on.
‘Good family, good food, good woman. And lots of healthy children. That’s all you need in life,’ Roula declared as she spooned the salad into a separate takeaway container. Con smiled in agreement.
Then again, maybe not. ‘I should start to worry,’ Peter grinned, pretending to wipe sweat from his forehead. ‘I’ve managed to avoid all of those, so far.’
‘But you not too old yet,’ Roula continued. ‘You still young and not bad looking. You meet a good girl. But not one who like to smoke, drink and go to parties. Okay?’
‘Sounds like you want me to marry a nun,’ he joked. Con and Roula broke into a hail of laughter.
‘Good,’ Con wiped his eyes. ‘We start looking for one tomorrow.’
9
After dishing up his evening meal onto a chipped plate, Peter settled onto the couch with a comforting can of VB. Feeling the need for relaxing dinner music, he left the couch to slip the latest Whitesnake record on his Pioneer stereo (with the turntable and two cassette players combination). It was one of only five items of furniture, the others being a second-hand fridge (with leaking seals), a very old double bed (with sloppy mattress), a battered wardrobe (with one door missing) and a rusty camp bed for pissed guests who didn’t mind doing permanent injury to their back. The stereo was the only thing in it that was insurable.
He turned the volume to mild ear pain and fell back onto the couch. All of his immediate neighbours were shopkeepers and Con and Roula had already gone home, so there was going to be no noise complaint. He felt lucky to be where he lived because, if on occasion he turned it up to ear-damaging volume, the surrounding residents always blamed the bands playing at the Tote.
With the VB still in one hand and the instructions to the fucking scanner in the other, he sank into the couch, determined that he would learn how to use it, thus making the new position his own. Embracing new jobs and new technology were, admittedly, not his forte. He needed help to change a light bulb. A Luddite.
The sound of Coverdale’s vocals filled the flat and overflowed, joining the screech of the Johnston Street traffic, as Peter wrestled with the manual and the scanner’s buttons. It responded with a series of farts, crackles and whistles. He wanted to throw it across the room.Instead of Irmgard for seductive diversion, he had this machine to contend with.
By midnight, after six more VB’s, three temper tantrums, four changes of records and a broken hearted depressive moment, he finally conquered his fears, his heartbreak and the scanner, which, in the meantime, he had nicknamed, The Beast . He fell into bed, placing the scanner on the floor beside him. His new, dark navy blue Stafford Ellison suit awaited in the broken wardrobe. The phone sat on the pillow next to him. Peter was prepared. Peter was ready. Ready for anything. The Pulse was ready. Bring it on . With that, Peter crossed himself and fell asleep.
Peter was skipping along in a field that appeared to be in the Bavarian Alps. He was holding Irmgard’s hand tightly as they laughed and gambolled. Reaching a stream—a bubbling one, of course—they fell with unbridled laughter onto the soft verdant grass. Irmgard slipped off her white blouse to reveal her bounteous Germanic breasts covered in a lacy bra. Peter joyfully was unhooking and fumbling with the bra but the noise of the stream was distracting. It crackled urgently.
Cars in the area of Clifton Hill, gunshots have been reported at 92 George Street, repeat…
Peter was rudely snapped out his dream. He sat upright as if a rope was around his neck and he was being pulled towards the ceiling.
Double shooting, two males, 92 George Street Clifton…
He fumbled for the phone and dialled Mad Dog, who answered as if he had been sitting by the phone expecting an important call. No hint of sleep evident in his voice.
‘We’re on.
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