Syd Soyley is a True Blue outback backpacker, licenced professional adventurer, and genteel vagabond. He travels the world bringing his readers the grundiest travel log and extreme vacation guide on the Net.
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VII
Part VIII
Part IX
Adventures in Dirt Cove, Part VI
Then it was on for young and old, mates. There was a flurry of activity as patrons rearranged their tables to get a better view, like fans watching a rugby game on TV. Some ordered drinks, while Garland Wrongwrub busied himself pouring the remnants of other blokes' empties into his glass in an effort to make a full beer of his own.
Uncle Wally just stood there behind the bar, livid, glaring at the priest through a dim, alcoholic haze. The knuckles of the hand clutching his dog's head mug were so white I feared the glass was about to implode.
Then Father O'Lecher made his next move. He sat back down at the smoldering machine and repeatedly smacked the Print Ticket button like a lab monkey hoping for a banana.
"Wally, yer machines are shite," he complained. "I couldn't even print me ticket before she shut off. That was a good ticket. I had eight hundred thousand credits! You owe me!"
Cecil dutifully reached for the cash register, but Uncle Wally quickly intervened. "Not so fast, Cecil," he said, simultaneously refilling his "coffee" while fumbling for some unknown object under the bar. "I don't t'ink I agrees with the Fadder's math. You wouldn't be lyin' now, would ya Padre?" The accusation hung in the air with the stench of burning insulation from the deceased VLT.
"Eff you!" yelled the holy man. "The Irish Christian Brothers taught me how to count, and I'll be happy to teach ye to subtract yer nose from yer face, ye bastard!" He had a way with Scripture.
"I was just wondering," said Uncle Wally, still groping for something behind the bar. "Why would a man with that many credits ask for another roll of loonies?"
A few of the patrons murmured at this. He had a point. Uncle Wally was like Columbo -- only much, much more drunk.
"Well, maybe I was goin' for the effin' bonus," countered Father O'Lecher, swivelling around in his stool to face his accuser, the revolver still clutched in his hand. "Ye wouldn't be standin' there, drinkin' booze I brought here and tellin' me how to gamble, would ye? I'd take notes, but I did nay bring me asshole scribbler with me, ye shite-speckled bastard!"
Bonzer. This was the foulest priest I'd ever heard -- and I'd been to confession with the Shamans of the Taswegian Tourette Tribe!
"Know what I thinks, Wally?" Cecil interjected while his boss frantically pulled out drawers and fossicked through cupboards like a bloke after his last smoke. "I thinks he only shot the machine to hide how many credits he had. Dat's what I thinks."
No sooner had the pint-sized bartender uttered these words when he was felled by a hefty glass ashtray that Father O'Lecher expertly hurled from across the room. Cecil went down for the third time that night, still clutching the glass he had been cleaning. "Who asked ye, ye bastard!" spat the priest.
Uncle Wally dove behind the bar
and cradled the dimwitted bartender's head in his lap. An
angry red ashtray imprint was clearly visible just below the
small man's receding hairline.
"Cecil! Cecil, can you hear me?" Uncle Wally whispered, obviously shaken. "Please wake up, Cecil!"
The bartender stirred. His eyelids fluttered. "Wa ... Wa ... Wally?"
"Cecil, thank God! Thank God yer alright, b'y!"
Touching stuff, this. I hadn't been this moved since I accidently shot a baby gorilla. My eyes had watered as I watched the mama gorilla cradle the infant in her arms -- I had a great view through me scope. I dried me eyes and took her head clean off. Moments like that are what being an Outback Backpacker are all about. Beauty stuff, that. Cheers.
"Don't be sad, Uncle Wally," whispered Cecil. "I'll be okay. I love you, too."
"Wha!?" said Wally, jerking back. Cecil's head hit the floor again with a dull thud. "I just wants to know where ya put me gun to, ya stunned arse!"
With a monumental effort, the small man raised his arm to point at the ceiling. Hanging overhead were dozens of rusty items. It seemed the bar was also the town museum -- bedpans, straight razors, bucksaws, shovels and the like were fastened to the rafters, along with an ancient shotgun.
"I kept tripping over it," Cecil added weakly, then lapsed into unconsciousness. Wally stood on a barstool and freed his weapon, but it was too late. Quick as a wink, O'Lecher was behind the bar, his shiny revolver aimed straight at Uncle Wally's doodle.
"Do ye want to go?" the priest inquired.
Just then the door banged open. "Police!" boomed a voice. A uniformed copper stepped inside only to be immediately bowled over by a mob of pissed patrons making a run for it. The Mountie staggered to his feet and brushed off his trampled hat.
"Halt!" he yelled at the departing crowd, then decided it was a lost cause and turned back to find a strange tableau indeed. Uncle Wally standing on a barstool, head and hands up in the rafters. O'Lecher doing his best to look inconspicuous while holding a gun to the mayor's groin. Garland, busier than a cat burying crap, grabbing abandoned bottles and pouring them down his skinny throat.
I sat on my stool and tried not to make an sudden moves as the mustached copper approached the bar.
"Hello Constable," said Wally, his voice slightly higher now. "I'm Wallace Pippy. I'm da mayor. You can call me Uncle Wally. This is my bar."
"Constable Edward Brocklehurst," said the cop, sizing up the situation. "I'm the new Mountie. Who's that feller?" he asked, pointing at O'Lecher.
"How rude of me," said Wally from the rafters. "The fella with gun at me crotch is Father O'Lecher. The fella knocked out behind da bar is Cecil. He works here. The fella over there sneakin' beers is Garland Wrongwrub. Oh, and the fella in da fedora is some Australian buddy. He's only a tourist. Don't mind him."
Fedora? What sort of hoon couldn't recognize a genuine Tilley Jungleman 6000 Series Adventurers Walkabout Hat?
There were a few tense moments as everyone waited for the copper to clue in. "Right," said Constable Ed, pulling a notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. "Uh ... so you're the priest, are ya?"
"No, I'm the mayor," answered Wally.
"Right. Uh, it's probably not important, anyway," said the cop, putting away the notepad. "I just come round to say hi. If ya see the Mayor, tell him Ed Brocklehurst dropped in, will ya?"
Cripers. This copper was as useless as the bottom half of a mermaid! Well, I thought, he'll fit right in.
As
the constable turned to leave, a seven-foot tall heap of
recycled washing machine and vacuum cleaner parts trundled
into the bar.
"Oh, and this is my partner, Constable CARES," said Ed, indicating the blue-painted robot.
"Winners don't do drugs," said a staticky, poorly amplified voice from a speaker grille on the bot's globular head. "Hey kids, stay in school!"
"Constable CARES is a Shag-R 2000-series Drug Enforcement Educational Model type of officer," explained Ed. "We mostly goes around to schools talking to youngsters, right? But what with all the cutbacks and everything, we needed every man we could get."
"Saints alive," whispered O'Lecher, captivated. He lowered his revolver. "I've never played one of those before!"
The priest rushed over to the robot. He grabbed one of its arms, jerking it up and down, going for the bells. "Does she take loonies?" he asked, eyes wide.
"Stop, drop and roll," buzzed the robot. "Play Safe!"
"Uh, he's not a game, mister. He's an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police," Ed protested. Wally climbed down from his perch.
"Don't talk to strangers," advised Constable CARES, then blasted the priest with some form of builtin TASER. The powerful arc of electricity lit up the bar and sent O'Lecher flying back over a table. He landed in a heap, twitching violently, his revolver clattering to the floor a few feet away.
"Ask mom or dad to help you! Look both ways!"
"I'd mind yer machine with him," warned Uncle Wally as he refilled his mug. "He's after wreckin' three of me VLTs."
"He done that?" inquired Ed as he inspected the newly ventilated machine. "That's destruction of Government property! What do you make of this, Constable CARES?"
The bot's faceplate swiveled toward the terminated terminal. Suddenly the siren mounted atop its head lit up. "Man down! Man down! Officer needs assistance," the blue scrap heap announced, its head spinning in circles. "Vandalism! Vandalism is no joke!"
"I'm gonna have to take this fella in," said Ed, fumbling with his handcuffs and somehow managing to get both of them on O'Lechers left wrist. "No, that's not gonna work," he observed, digging for the key.
Once he had successfully apprehended the unconscious suspect, we carried O'Lecher bodily outside to Ed's shiny new police ute. Quite the booze bus, mates!
"Gotta put 'im in the cab," said the copper. "Constable CARES takes up the whole back seat, see?" We hoisted O'Lecher up into the cab. The holy man was groaning and foaming at the mouth slightly as Ed belted him in to the passenger seat.
"That oughta hold 'im," said Ed, and headed back inside, where Wally was offering Constable CARES employment as either a dishwasher or smoke eater.
Ed had several beers as he took
statements from me, Wally, and Garland Wrongwrub, who was
nervously eating small pieces of tinfoil that he kept in a
Glad bag in his jeans pocket.
Actually, we ended up having had quite the rip, backpackers -- Constable Ed was buying rounds on his RCMP expense account.
"We got reports of contraband liquor in the area. You hear about that, Wally?" he asked.
"What do you think yer drinking?" replied Uncle Wally, winking. Ed found this so hilarious he laughed until rum squirted out his nose.
"Ah b'y! Dat burns!" laughed Ed, even louder. He barely heard his truck peeling out of the parking lot.
"Oh shag," he said. We rushed outside to find nothing but a cloud of dust and tire tracks in the gravel.
"I guess I shouldn't have left the keys in the ignition," he decided.
"Booze makes you lose," agreed Constable CARES, and promptly arrested him for drinking on duty.
Related Links:
Dirt Cove Home Page
Dirt Cove News:
Shagwater Peninusla to get full-time Mountie