Recently ……

Things were taking a turn for the worse.  I’m tagging along by “special invitation” with O’Hoo – a speed-balling cop/Russian Mafia double agent in search of a one-armed drink-spiking priest called Sandy.  I was a bit distracted.  I’d forgotten about Trotsky.  And I had nearly forgotten about my appointment with the blonde Miss Anne Thropy…..

O’Hoo only needed to look at the door and Pi , ah, squared up to it and let O’Hoo and me loose into a circle of light – the outside world.  It was some time in the day, I guess.  Not being dark.

I was really getting on top of situational analysis and I sensed that the blue Zephyr had, horse-like, made its own way over to meet with us and carry me home.  There’s a crime-fightin pecking order and a private dick ranks below a bent cop, apparently and so I took the wheel and O’Hoo took a swig from his hip flask.  The warm and inviting waft of a morning refresher of Bundy filled the car.  I looked like an old trusty but O’Hoo looked like he didn’t recognise sharing as a virtue.

I punched the radio button.  The radio said “Hey now, hey now, my boyfriend’s back !”.  I didn’t need to look at O’Hoo to know that he was a golden silence passenger.  I thought that the recent return of somebody’s boyfriend had better take a back seat.

I was driving in the general direction of away (Clue !) and I was aspiring to some kind of direction from O’Hoo, figuring that he was not out taking the airs for his health.  “Listen”, I said, “As much as I value your fun and generous companionship, I was wondering why it is that we’re going for a spin this moment”.  I was also wondering about our tattooed arse cheeks, but O’Hoo looked like he naturally gagged question time.  One inquiry would have to do for now.

“I’d kill for some of granny’s bacon, eggs and beans over at the Pig’s – wouldn’t you ?”.  I wouldn’t have killed for granny’s bacon eggs and beans, but I’m fairly certain that O’Hoo would – and probably had.  “Absolutely!” I somehow agreed, turning left off the Erskineville turnpike and down a laneway that had featured in one of Archie Roach’s ballads about Charcoal.

I was in a maze of small twisty little passages and I knew we were close to the pub because I could smell the acrid nasal assault of a combination of bacon, eggs, beans and burning hedge.  That’s the best way to find the Pig’s Arms.  Sniff for hedge and follow your nose.

The local kids were wagging school.  Unusual!?  I lied questioningly to myself.  I knew we were inside the gravitational field of the pub when I saw more kids in the car park, shooting butterflies with their shanghais.

And there at the back of the car park was Jail, deep in discussion, commercially engaged with Hedgie.  Hedgie is a Hell’s Angle with a horticultural bent.  There is a rumour that he got his nickname because he has spiky hair, but the congoscenti (those who can even smell the Congo through a doco on their TV sets) believe that “the Hedge” is deeply acquainted with the cultivation of decorative hemp plantations for aesthetic, commercial and recreational porpoises.

O’Hoo rolled down the window of the Zephyr and instructed Jail to have sex.

I edged the Zephyr next to a couple of 44 gallon drums of eyebrow hair.  Just out of range of the kids and their shanghais and O’Hoo and I headed for the Pig’s dining room, with Jail trailing along like shit on a sheep’s bum.

“We’ll have the lot with the lot, thanks granny”.  O’Hoo pretended to not hear the question that might have otherwise nourished Jail.  It was going to one of those days for Jail, who had managed to find a lower rung on the crime fightin’ peckin’ order than me.

Merv served us two glass canoes of Trotter’s Ale and a chaser of JW Black as palate cleansers before Manne emerged with a couple of granny Michelins worth of breakfast.  The eggs were round with yellow centres surrounded by a ragged white edge.  The beans were tiny round footballs swimming in red slurry.  The square slabs were either tiles or toast.  That meant that the other stuff was more than likely the bacon.

I was relieved to see O’Hoo using cutlery and the sting of the JW Black gave me some reassurance that I’d be reasonably protected from the first wave of microwildlife safari known as the “Pig’s Arms Big Brekkie Special”

Merv came over with the second flotilla of glass canoes and with a wry smile, took his life in his large hairy hands and asked “How are the Bottom Twins, today ?”