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Shire Council Epic

Shire Council Epic

Published by Brian Rebbechi on October 31, 2021

What is lighter than a feather?

DUST, my friend, in summer weather.

And what is lighter than the dust, I pray?

The winds that blow them both away.

And what is lighter than the winds?

The lightness of unthinking minds.

Now what is lighter than the last?

Ah! there, my friend, you have me, fast.

– Anonymous

With a bang of the brass gavel, Shire President Nancy Silver called the special meeting of Winton Swamp Council to order.

After a few words with Secretary Heather Jensen and Minute secretary Miss Eva, she mumbled through the meeting preliminaries before sternly dismissing the public gallery and the news people. Then, without looking up, she clomped to the lectern and started speaking:

“This community, threatened by global warming, labors to protect the natural world, our priceless legacy. That’s why, some years ago, the government decided to cease all fossil fuel extraction and to much restrict its importation from around the globe. This council joined the new order, that is it called for the phasing out of fossil fuel mining, right across our nation.

“Locally, our first step was to cease maintaining all asphalt roads. Had we not done this, the exponential increases in the price of bitumen, that followed the government’s decision, would have consumed almost our entire property tax income. Simply raising more funds by increasing the taxes would have driven our people from their homes; most have no way to get more money. So, to emphasize here, abandoning bitumen roads has allowed many of our people to keep a roof over their heads.

“Now I come to the reason why this has had to be a closed meeting: The potholed, fragmented road surfaces that remain must be skimmed off and dumped, and the dirt surfaces smoothed out, to avoid massive vehicle damage. Stated in another way, we hereby admit to the public that sealed bitumen roads are a thing of the past in Winton Swamp county. We have moved on from our former, ugly ways to a clean, green way of life.

“Our task tonight is to figure out how to explain and rationalize what our citizens in their ignorance will probably call a descent into hard times. Be aware that many residents have little sympathy for our environmental initiative, so we must gently adjust them all to retreat from from what they say is a dastardly and outrageous discomfort, and a vile attack on enjoyment of daily life.

“News of the new policy will be publicized tomorrow. Fresh bylaws have already been drafted. Prominent speakers have been reminded to describe the new order as a new enlightenment. They will explain it in great detail and stress that our plan spreads the pain of this epical environmental protection equally across the entire community. It is necessary: no pain, no gain or, as councilor Karen said, you can’t make an omelet without breaking at least one Emu egg.”

“I now pass the microphone to my deputy, John Cece, who will explain some of the issues that the new bylaws will address. John, please take over.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I start with a philosophical observation: You have all seen movies depicting former times (Wild Westerns, for instance) where muddy streets and clouds of dust were normal seasonal variations. Around the mid-1800s, winning oil from whaling began to wind down and petroleum use expanded. Before that, dusty and muddy roads were accepted throughout the world as being part of life.

“Thus, how can we pretend that we can’t do, creatively, what our forebears did uncomplainingly? It is a little known fact that more horses exist with us today than ever in man’s history. Whether ridden or pulling a wheeled conveyance, they create minimal dust and pollution. It is time to welcome them back.
“Now, let me outline some of the things that our new bylaws will cover; pick up your copy of the first edition of these bylaws on Thursday.

“We’ll mandate speed limits for all of our roads. Maximum speed will not exceed ten mph, but lower limits will apply to extremely dusty locations and hilly areas. Also, there will be variations for wet and muddy conditions and for night traveling.

“The speed limits will apply to all vehicles, including motor bikes, scooters, bicycles that have motorized assistance, and horse-drawn conveyances, like gigs, and buggies as well singly ridden horses and ponies.

“In the produce growing areas: Five miles per hour will be the maximum speed allowed. In addition, where powdery clays can make fine dust up to six inches deep, produce must not be grown within 500 feet of roadways, so dust and grit will not penetrate leafy vegetables.

“Rains in winter will lay dust, but no increase in speed limits should apply due to sliding and bogging being a constant danger. Chains are generally recommended in winter conditions. These limits will be enforced; a penalty schedule has been set. Fines to be used to fund strict policing, and to finance purchase of horses for older, first-time riders as well as for youngsters who would like to own their first pony.

“Some roads will naturally become impossibly bog-prone. To combat this, land owners will be obliged to permit vehicles and horses to travel outside the legal road reserve and within private property, on a generally parallel course.

“Now, back to you Mr President”

Shire President, Nancy Silver, then reclaimed the microphone to close the meeting: “Thank you all for attending this historic conference. The steps we institute this night will echo far and wide as all countries realize the necessity. We pray and look forward to seeing inventions and innovations that will advance man’s lot, as has happened before. At times, our resolution may falter, but gladness and optimism will surely prevail.

Good night all.”

Constable Frank

Constable Frank

Published by Brian Rebbechi on October 28, 2021

Ned Hanlon drank at the Railway Hotel bar every night after work.

His job was carting lumber for the hardware store right there in town. Big, muscular, and handsome he was, but nasty tempered, loud and a real bullying man. He went out of his way to abuse and insult people; it seemed that his day was complete if he could provoke another man and then punch him up.

Dunnystop was a tiny town, way out in the country; only about a thousand people (and nearly the same number of dogs, which, when they weren’t barking and howling, raided sheep in the farming area).

Young junior constable Frank Gardiner had recently been assigned to Dunnystop’s one-man police station. Of medium height, thin as a rake but with good muscle, he grew up in the city. Frank had no idea why the powers-that-be had posted him to this remote backwater but there he was; might as well make the most of it. If only there weren’t so many dogs running around loose. Frank hated arresting dogs.

The police station was housed in an old shopfront. It badly needed renovation. Two rooms made up the office which was fitted out with an ugly old desk and some awful looking cupboards. Flakey beige paint covered the walls and ceilings. In the yard was an ancient outhouse attached to a one-room brick lockup.

The Railway Hotel where Ned Hanson did his drinking and fighting was just three doors away on the corner of Main Street. There you have it.

The very week he took charge, Frank heard that Ned Hanlon was bashing two guys in the bar, so he showed up right away to see blood on the floor but no victims. They’d slunk off to nurse their wounds. Frank walked up to Ned Hanlon, “I’m arresting you for assaulting two citizens.” Ned looked Frank up and down and yelled, “You and which army?” Then he rushed at Frank. It wasn’t pretty. Frank was barely able to lay a fist on Ned before he was on the floor bleeding and barely conscious. They took him to the little hospital around the corner where Nurse Mannion sedated him, plastered his wounds, and kept him in bed overnight.

The following Friday, the hotel clerk called Frank because Ned was mauling a young lady. Frank limped into the pub, still sore from the previous week, and said,” Ned, I’m arresting you for assault and for disturbing the peace.” Ned said, “In yer dreams, Frank,” then, he laid into Frank again. This time, before being taken to the hospital, Frank hit Ned on the chin. Skin flew off and the blow left Ned feeling a bit dizzy.

The same sort of thing happened week after week. Each time Constable Frank tried to arrest Ned there was a fight, and Frank had to be helped to the hospital. The nurses soon knew what to expect on Fridays; they got ready with bandages and Rapid gel, which they rubbed into Frank’s many sore spots. Usually, though, Frank would land on Ned a solid punch or two, mostly on the chin.

So it went, month after month, Constable Frank limped into the bar and called for Ned to come quietly. Routinely, Ned refused and fought Frank till the blood flowed, and poor Constable Frank had to be taken to hospital. But then it was noticed that Ned was getting nervous; he wasn’t enjoying his beer and he kept looking at the door lest Frank should come. And Frank always did come.

Near Christmas, months later, Frank walked in as usual and asked Ned to submit to arrest. Ned said, “OK Frank,” and held out his hands for the cuffs. For 35 years, Frank was town constable and no one ever resisted arrest again.

After retiring, Frank took over parking enforcement for the local council. All he had to do was walk the streets, looking stern but smiling easily at those who greeted him, barely ever having to write a ticket.

Gos – Part One

Gos – Part One

Published by Brian Rebbechi on October 15, 2021

Gos squinted from his high perch in the cave mouth, down the cliff face to the wide icy beach and across the pack ice, across the endless glaring white pack ice. He was young when this tiny cave became home. In those times, the sea ice was yet solid in front of him, so it was good that he found this shelter where birds and bats lived and nourished him. And important was this for Gos’s safety. Earlier, a band of wolf like beings had attacked Gos’s little group, killing and eating all but Gos and his parents, who had hidden in the frozen marshes, inland from this high cave.

When winds didn’t blow, Gos foraged along the edge of the ice, collecting crabs, turtles and beached fish. One day, a woman came home with him. She didn’t ask. He didn’t invite her; she just followed. Now, there was a female child in the high cave too.When winds didn’t blow, Gos foraged along the edge of the ice, collecting crabs, turtles and beached fish. One day, a woman came home with him. She didn’t ask. He didn’t invite her; she just followed. Now, there was a female child in the high cave too.

Early one morning, Gos saw a young bear gorging on the remains of a furred seal. He walked slowly across the ice to where the ravenous bear, oblivious to his presence, was soon battered senseless with a boulder of ice. Gos needed the meat, and he needed the fur; so bears were often his prey.

One fateful day, Gos noticed a strange odor as he stood squinting toward the horizon. Far out in the ocean to the south of the sea ice, the water began to bubble strangely, and deafening, howling jets of water and foam shot skywards. And this foam soon covered the scene, the whole vista, clear to the horizon. The sea rose and enveloped the beach and the lower cliff beneath the cave. Each day, it got worse. The smell was putrid. The fire would not stay alight. Breathing became impossible. The woman and the child died. Gos crept to the back of the cave, and laid down, waiting for his life to end.

A wind blew, and when it did, Gos, with much effort, was able to breath weakly. He found the strength to push the bodies of the woman and child out of the cave, into the rising water. He chewed on the flesh of the young bear and he pelted stones at the bats, killing none this time. Some days, the fire would brighten up; it depended on the wind. Gos understood nothing of what was happening. But what he saw made him choke with terror. The birds flew about the sky no longer; instead, their lifeless bodies drifted on the swell or lay scattered on the receding ice pack. He found that he could see better across the open water without narrowing his eyes to avoid dazzling light reflected from the pack ice.

Nor did Gos have any concept of time. He ate what he could grab, when he had the strength, and he labored painfully at breathing. Mostly, he lay terrified on the floor of the little cave.

Time passed; the atmosphere warmed. Barely at first then substantially. The water lost its chill and breathing came easier. Seepage in the cave was yet fresh enough to sip. The beach was submerged beneath the water’s surface, so Gos could not venture far down from the cave. More time passed, the sea ice below him began cracking and breaking up. As the water warmed still further, the air got humid, then rain fell as droplets melded with dust. Clouds appeared in the sky.

Far along the water’s edge to his left, Gos saw a massive whale; it had been thrown against the cliff by the turbulent, turbid, ugly ocean which swirled and bubbled and rose and receded some days and calmed on other days. He could see that death would soon come to the whale, so he waited and watched. As a youngster, he had learned about whales.

And Gos had seen as a youth how to transport fire. He gathered two flat pieces of soft rock, mudstone, the length of his foot and as thick as its width. He’d scraped at each piece with his hand-stone cutter to make a hollow such that when put together the two plats enclosed a space the size of his fist. Then, he scooped fire ashes with red coals into the hollow and tied strips of bear hide to hold the rocks for carrying. Thus equipped, and with a fresh bear skin and strips of bear flesh, Gos walked to the lifeless whale, gathering pieces of driftwood as he went. The beach, close to the cliff, was crackling beneath his feet, but this was not ice, it was hard and bright and of fine texture, a substance he’d not before seen, left by the rushing ocean.

As Gos neared the whale, he saw two figures lying prone upon the monster. One, a woman, was hungrily gnawing at the dark blubber, while the other, an infant, watched helplessly as the woman chewed, now and again taking fragments from her mouth and passing them to the child. Gos made his presence known as he approached, showing as best he could that he meant no harm. The whale’s tail was wedged against the cliff and this enabled Gos to climb up to where the woman was sitting by the pathetic hole that she’d chewed into the whale’s blubber.

Spreading the bear skin right there on the whale, Gos sat upon it then passed fragments of the raw bear meat that he’d brought, to the woman and her child. Before long, he had a fire burning, the driftwood he’d gathered and the oil of the whale blubber creating passable light and heat. He gestured to the others to also sit upon the bear skin, but was not surprised when they ignored the invitation. His talk meant nothing to them; no common words could be found, but gestures and imitation helped to connect the three. The woman though wrapped in a tattered fur, was visibly emaciated. She’d clearly eaten so little in recent times that Gos wondered if she could remain alive.

The sun came and went, over and over, and the three huddled atop the whale; Gos cut a deepening gash in the whale to win blubber and flesh. And he scouted for fuel, for heat and to partially cook the whale flesh. But he was uneasy; he couldn’t cease scanning the land and the sea, the land lest marauders should come in search of a meal of their own kind, and the sea lest the ocean should resume its terrifying eruption.

Late one evening Gos sprang to his feet, yelling guttural sounds, and, grabbing the bearskin and the remaining bear meat, he took the child under his arm and rushed off the whale and along the beach toward his cave home. The woman ran after him; he’d seen massive geysers far out to sea. Gos knew that breathing would again, very soon, become impossible.

Once the three were safely in the cave and had restarted the fire, they waited in fear for what would happen next. It started as before; the fire went low, they could barely breathe; experience told Gos to lie stock still on the floor of the cave. The others followed his example. Much later, a wind got up and breathing came easier. The tiny group established a routine for living. A pelican, the first live bird since the latest sea eruption, alighted in the cave entrance; Gos grabbed it. Fresh, warm meat.

The little cave provided space for the three of them once they’d rearranged the stones that Gos kept there for protection. He mounded the rocks to one side of the entrance, the more easily to take them up should marauders threaten to climb the cliff. The collection of driftwood was arranged, all the better to save space. They moved the fire itself to give room for sitting and sleeping around it. Turtle shells when not in use for keeping salt-water and for heating food, were nested inside one another by the wall. Gos draped bear skins across the entrance to dry, instead of leaving them heaped on the rough rock floor as before.

The three settled into a life of watching and waiting. Gos pondered and gazed across the ocean toward the far away horizon. He puzzled deeply about the awful turmoil around him. He knew it was much beyond his poor wit ever to understand, but his desire to retain life and hope still drove him.

Gos had not the slightest sense that he was enduring the beginning of the end of an ice age that had lasted many thousands of years. Nor did Gos know that his terrifying privations would be known of, far, far ahead in years. At night, he gazed up at the brilliant stars and sensed how small a part in the scheme of things was his minute being. But a tiny spark in his brain told him that henceforth his kind had to begin figuring it all out. He continued to ponder for the remainder of his short life, the deep suffering that engulfed him:

Why did the ocean roil so furiously? Why did it rise then recede in a coating of foam, over and over? Why did the ice break up and give way to a muddy, furious ocean? Why did breathing get so difficult?

What caused the never-waning, atrocious smell? Why did all the birds die? Why did the air and the water get warmer? Why did so many clouds appear in the formerly almost clear sky? Why did so much heavy rain start falling? Why did the surf leave a coating, a brittle skin, a shiny substance on the beach, that Gos had not seen before, and where did this strange substance come from?

End of Part One

Father Phil of Jillamatong

Father Phil of Jillamatong

Published by Brian Rebbechi on October 15, 2021

He who is wrapped in purple robes,

With planets in his care,

Had pity on the least of things,

Asleep upon a chair.

– William Butler Yeats

JILLAMATONG TIMES
7 November 1955

CLASSIFIED ADS:

LOST: Father Phil’s Brown Mare.
Answers to Molly.
Bring Back to Presbytery.
No Reward.

A busy-body parishioner, most likely Mrs Hannebery, snipped out the ad and mailed it to bishop Collins, with a note of disapproval scribbled in the margin.

“Botheration take it! Not again!” (This is as close to cussing as his Holiness ever ventured), then he sent for Monseigneur Ryan : “Another complaint about Fr Phil out there at Jillamatong! What does he want a horse for? We got him that old Ford. There’s not even a stable there.” The Monseigneur agreed. “Your excellency, I’ll instruct Fr Phil to get rid of the animal and, henceforth, pay more attention to his pastoral duties.” The bishop sighed, “It’s only six years since I ordained him, but it seems like 20. I’ve done everything I can. Yet, the parishioners, in fact the whole township, like him. What else can I do? Jillamatong’s already the diocesan equivalent of Siberia!”

Christmas came and went. So did Lent, Easter, and All Saints Day, yet there was Father Phil still clopping around the parish on Molly, save for a few hours every other week when the mare, without telling anyone, went for a quiet walk by herself. The bishop tried and tried, but somehow his formidable authority was all for nothing; talk about old fashioned passive resistance!

A month later, Fr Phil called the 4th grade back into the church to repeat their Saturday Confessions. “Bless me Father, (they went), for I have sinned. I threw peanuts in the lake.” One by one, the whole class confessed to exactly the same thing!? Fr Phil gently, explained to each kid, that this was not a real sin.

When the last child knelt before him, Fr Phil said, “And, I suppose, you threw peanuts in the lake too?” The child said, “No, I’m peanuts!”

Fr Phil was perturbed; his response had been wrong; he was duty bound to straighten it out; it took quite a while, in fact it was almost dark before each child had been brought back and told that, in fact, to throw a person in the lake really is a sin. In an attempt to make light of it though, Fr Phil imposed a novel penance: the boys were to stand on their head against the wall for five minutes while they said two extra Hail Marys. Mrs Hannebery came along just then but decided not to stay when she saw the boys standing on their heads. “I’m not dressed for it. I’ll come back next week,” She said. As usual, bishop Collins heard the whole story from her. He crossly sent for Father Phil’s file once more. Fr Phil thought it was more bad luck than bad priestly management; and he was a victim too, because he missed out on his peaceful evening jaunt on mare, Mollie.

Angst about the Peanuts incident had faded into the past, and life was mooching along serenely. Molly had expired. Knowing the bishop was a busy man, Fr Phil opted not to bore him with the trivia associated with the purchase of a new horse. Had he done so, he would have mentioned that the new mare was to be named Molly in memory of the old Molly.

But enough of that, Fr Phil had to get to work on his Sunday sermon. He’d already chosen to base it on the parable of the loaves and fishes, and when he ascended the pulpit on Sunday, he started with an impressive oratorical flourish: “And the Lord fed a few people on 5000 loaves and fishes.”

A slip of the tongue, a small mistake, they knew what he meant, but they heard what he said. Now, Pat Hannebery, obnoxious lad, a cheeky devil, a real show-off, couldn’t let it go. He hops to his feet and yells, “Now there’s an easy thing, Father, I could do that me self!“ Everybody laughed. Even the sisters in the Nuns’ Chapel twittered. Humiliation! No doubt about it.

Fr Phil was enraged and remained so for most of the week. Spent three days riding Molly around the countryside he did, reliving the public embarrassment, and thinking awful things about that vile little reprobate, Hannebery. By Friday, he had a plan: redo the sermon and get it right this time. So it went: “And the Lord fed 5000 people with a few loaves and fishes.” Then he lent forward, stared down at Hannebery, and shouted, “Now could you be doin’ that, Hannebery?”

Right away, that , awful young rat-bag, Hannebery, stands up and calls back at Father Phil, “Sure I could Father, I’d use what was left over from last week!”

The congregation let forth with loud laughter and catcalls that should never be heard in a Catholic church. For once, though, Mrs Hannebery didn’t tell the bishop; after all, it was largely her son’s fault. As for Father Phil, he prayed to God for guidance and was told to go ride the mare, and remember that the effluxion of time cures everything. And so it did.

I’ve lost track of just when, during Fr Phil’s Jillamatong career, these things happened, nor can I recall the order in which they took place, but he’d been there 27 years when Molly disappeared; the usual ad in the Jillamatong Times didn’t do any good. The parishioners scoured the town to no avail. In due course, they realized that Molly was gone for keeps and as Fr Phil was looking sadder by the day, they chipped in to purchase a replacement mare, the new one to be named Molly, as usual.

When the presentation took place, right after Easter Sunday Mass, Father Phil, standing with his arm around the new Molly, made a most heart-rending speech of thanks that caused even Mrs Hannebery, by then a fan of Fr Phil, to shed a tear or two. The bishop, in the meantime, vaguely wondered about the lifespan of horses generally, and of Molly in particular, but he was never told anything about it.

The mystifying disappearance of the previous mare, Molly, was forgotten once the new Molly proved edifyingly efficient; maybe she was even a little slower, a non-fault as far as Fr Phil was concerned.

Once each calendar month, Mass was said at outlying Havilah. They had a really tiny wooden church some 15 miles away. Fr Phil had to say the Jillamatong Mass quite early before heading out to St Jude’s at Havilah ( I forget the exact Mass times). One such Sunday, Fr Phil forgot his eyeglasses. Kind of a disaster really. He couldn’t read the gospels and he couldn’t read the epistles. Nor could he make out any of the other prayers. He asked for someone to lend their specs for the morning, but several pairs proved to be unsuitable, so he sent the altar boys round the church to collect everyone’s glasses. A good idea, surely, but it took a bunch of tries before the right pair was found. These were perfect, so Fr Phil went right ahead with saying Mass, ignoring the big old tray of spectacles just sitting there.

After Mass, Fr Phil hopped on Molly and headed back to Jillamatong without another word. The folk, many half blind, were left there for a long spell, matching themselves to their correct glasses. The bishop was kept out of that loop too, but Havilah’s Christmas contributions were way down.

It was a priestly chore to drive the ladies of the women’s guild to meetings with their counterparts in the neighboring parish. Normally, this was monthly on Wednesday afternoon. The road to Carisbrook was short, but very rough, bendy and hilly. On the day I have in mind to tell you about, it was raining pretty hard, yet the five ladies were enjoying the outing, each nursing a plate of cakes for afternoon tea. For some reason, best known to the Lord above, Fr Phil had chosen a road less travelled, and no wonder, it was not paved. And (guess what), they got hopelessly bogged; no use getting out and pushing. Besides, the ladies were, as Fr Phil said the previous Sunday, “skin and bone under-achievers,” not to mention they were wearing their Sunday dresses. They saw a faint light in the distance, and toward it plodded a lone Fr Phil, leaving the guild ladies in the Ford.

The farmer, Eric and his wife, Edith, greeted Fr Phil with such generous hospitality that he forgot to explain about the guild ladies, anxiously cooling their heels in the Parish Ford till he should come back to drive them through the endless rain to their homes, it being, by then, far to late to continue on to Carisbrook.

What, with getting the priest dry and comfy, and with serving a libation, and with attending to the inner man via a nice hot meal, topped off with plum pudding and whipped cream, not to mention sharing the district news, the waiting guild ladies were relegated to the back burner of Fr Phil’s memory. The lovely ladies meanwhile watched the rain stream down the Ford’s windows in the fading light.

No cell phones in those days; the ladies just had to wait. The rain, at least, could have stopped, but it didn’t.

Around 9 pm, Fr Phil and farmer Eric Dempsey turned up on the latter’s McCormick-Deering tractor and pretty soon they’d extricated the bogged Ford. Fr Phil thanked the farmer all over again, waved goodbye exuberantly, then took the driver’s seat and headed for home. At least the ladies hadn’t gone too hungry whilst waiting all those hours in the Ford: Thank God for the cakes they’d made for afternoon tea at the meeting. Fr Phil did notice a stony silence in the car, but assumed the ladies were just a bit tired.

Next day, the guild secretary, Mrs Morgan, sent a polite letter of regret, for not showing up, to her counterpart in the Carisbrook Guild. In it she managed, with loyal eloquence, to insulate Fr Phil from blame for the debacle. Fr Phil himself remained blissfully unaware that the day had been awful for the guild ladies. He did say that all would have been well if only they’d left the Ford at Jillamatong and ridden to Carisbrook on Molly instead, but he didn’t explain how that could possibly have worked.

Fr Phil was a little older when the affair of the statues took place. Across the street from the presbytery, there was a body of water, a shallow lake, of size about a hundred acres. The Jillamatong folk used it for boating, fishing and swimming. Not Fr Phil. He used it to dump the church’s every statue; one night he did the whole thing, in all, a total of 18 of the painted plaster images were carried to his little rowboat, rowed well beyond the shore, and consigned to the depths.

Or so Fr Phil thought. Cheap religious statues are molded from plaster. They are hollow. In water, they appear to sink, but they do nothing of the sort. Thus, by the time Fr Phil was back in bed, all the statues were bobbing around in the water, keeping the ducks company.

Around 6 am, there was loud knock on the door of the presbytery. “Fr Phil, Jesus, Mary and Joseph are in the lake, and angels galore! It’s still dark. What will we do?” Fr Phil said, thinking quickly, in spite of the early hour, “Adam, go home right now, tell not a soul, leave this to me.”

He should have broken the statues to bits, so the air inside the hollow figures wouldn’t cause them to float. “Well, here goes,” he thought, as he donned his riding clothes, grabbed his shot gun and plenty of cartridges and rode Molly round to the little jetty where the rowboat rose and fell in the gentle swell. Rowing out to where he could just make out the floating statues, he systematically blasted them all with number 12 cartridges.

The shattered pieces obligingly sank to the bottom. Fortunately, it was duck-hunting season, so Jillamatong incuriously slept on.

The bishop was toxic with rage when he greeted the delegation of Jillamatong’s parishioners. “But it’s no big deal,” said sergeant Corcoran,“ The statues were old and dusty and were substandard images. Fr Phil has been complaining about them for years. True! He should have raised the issue with the Parish Altar Society. We would have proposed a disposal plan more palatable to parishioners and society generally. As we are all aware, Fr Phil occasionally resorts to precipitate, agricultural-style solutions to everyday problems. But what’s done is done. We must look to the future. To this end, our parish elders have already promised the funds for a set of the latest models of all the statues.”

Poor old bishop Collins! He was placated by Sergeant Corcoran’s fine speech, yet, while nervous and apprehensive, he agreed to let Fr Phil’s latest mischief get covered up as the weeks went by. A letter from the Environment Protection people was promptly answered by the bishop’s office via Monsignor Ryan, who composed a letter that could only be described as a masterpiece of evasion. The statue fragments were never recovered from the lake and no one seemed thereafter to know a thing about the episode. Everyone was delighted with the new statues and the ladies’ guild baked and sold cakes until they raised enough money to repaint the inside of the church a gentle light violet color to better display the new statues.

At the the national bishops’ conference that year, Bishop Collins was approached by an aggressive reporter: “It is well known that a certain priest in a small rural parish has, over many years, been involved with multiple acts of dubious behavior. Yet you have not acted to discipline him. What do you say to this allegation?”

The bishop reacted strongly: “Listen to me young lady! Fr Phil’s sacred duty is to attend to the moral welfare of his flock. In each and every case reported to me, there was no instance where Father’s moral guidance and attention to his flock’s religious instruction was not beyond reproach. Take the report of Fr Phil’s calling back into the confessional, a group of boys who had been told that they had not sinned. Father thought they had merely thrown peanut shells into the lake. When he found that the boys had actually thrown a real live lad (named Peanuts) into the lake, Fr needed to correct this and he resolutely did so. He did the right thing, regardless of town criticism.”

All summer, miles away bushfires had smoked up the air, and aging parishioners were suffering; many were ill enough to call for the sacraments. Fr Phil on Molly gave comfort, day after day. One twilight, He returned very tired to the presbytery and fell gratefully into his verandah chair. “Hard it is,” he sighed, “for, a lone priest, and getting old, and so far from city help, to get enough rest.”

Then, thinking blankly about the day, he dozed, just as young Freddie Hogan, galloped up and called to him, “Father, Mum wants yer to come quick. She thinks Pa’s dying!”

“I’ll be right there,” said Fr Phil, “soon as I water Molly and feed her. She’s worked all day. ”So saying, he filled the little water trough and put some fresh hay beside it and poured some cold tea from his teapot, then sat again while Molly fed. Half numb, he gazed out across the sweeping, plain all bathed in evening light.

The lengthening shadows merged into the land of sleep as darkness descended and, peacefully, the stars bore witness.

It got cold. The priest roused, then came wildly awake and fished out his watch. “It’s nearly morning! Pa Hogan likely has died, and without the sacraments! I’ve betrayed him; my weak priesthood’s done this. Please God let Pa Hogan be still living! My parishioners will lose faith in me as their pastor.”

With that, Father Phil bounded off the verandah, adjusted the astonished Molly’s bridle, mounted roughly and set off for the Hogan farm, in the faint moonlight. For nigh on an hour, Molly carried the anxious priest. Then, up the broken drive she trotted and slid to a halt by the Hogan front porch.

The door burst open and Mrs Hogan rushed out onto the verandah. “Oh Father! You’re back? You’re back again! Pa died at midnight, just after you left. He half sat up, then he smiled and lay back and held my hand and died.”

The dawn light was showing in the sky when Molly stopped beside Fr Phil’s chair. He eased himself down, and sat ever so quietly, staring ahead at the orange light of the rising sun that just then began to appear low on the eastern horizon.

He who is wrapped in purple robes,

With planets in his care,

Had pity on the least of things,

Asleep upon a chair.

– William Butler Yeats

Senses of a Bakery

Senses of a Bakery

Published by Brian Rebbechi on September 30, 2021

It’s a country road, a long road, straight and flat and shade less. Each summer, Paul slogged his old bike, for eight hours, on that dusty, deserted route, watched by warbling magpies – the sweetest morning sound he’d ever heard – contrasting with screeching cockatoos, like the grinding of concrete, mixed with boot camp shouting, and hysterical kookaburras and a dozen other winged friends. On this day, as the sun burned through his shirt, he came at last to the welcome sign that said 800 people are in this dry, bleached town. He choked on the dregs of hot water from his army canteen and his bare forearms, red as beets, flamed as he creaked by the few sunlit shops to his gramma’s house.

After joyful greetings and tea and hearing chatter and family news, Paul left his gramma, limped to the river and swam thankfully in the leaf-stained, fishy-smelling water, while the stiffness in his young legs faded.

In the meantime, the Gallagher sisters, Lemme and half crippled Jibby, held court in their little bake shop. It doubled as a gathering place for local ladies, as they bought little or lots and sat nibbling, sipping tea and prattling merrily about local goings-on.

Detached behind the shop, stood the brick bakehouse itself. Old bricks, but solid; a monument to a hundred years of wear and tear and sweat and honest labor. It was the nerve center of the Gallagher business, its chimney flue belching white smoke as if a new Pope was just elected.

The bakery fronted a rear street along which Paul walked on his way back from swimming. The baker was Morris Gallagher, brother to the girls; not a spouse between the three of them. No one seemed to know how long they’d run the bakery; always been there and would always be there.

The day’s products were being taken from the oven. The aromas from the breads and pastries blended with smoke from the red gum wood blocks that fueled the oven. Instantly, Paul reacted; couldn’t help himself. He bounded in and asked Morris Gallagher if he might be allowed to come watch next day. “Can’t pay yer,” says Morris. “This is a one-man show.” Paul just said, “I wasn’t thinking of getting money.”

After all, what unpaid kid shows at 5 am every day without fail?

Once and only once during the five weeks he was in town did Paul not arrive at work before Morris himself; that was the very first day. He’d not been told when to show up and he didn’t ask; Morris hardly expected him anyway. After all, what unpaid kid shows at 5 am every day without fail?

Paul had no plan. He just stood around, keeping out of the way, but noting what tasks he could handle. Routinely, Morris would go to the wood-stack outside the door and bring more wood to the fire, the yellow flames keenly enveloping the fresh fuel. Paul saw how to clean the bread tins, sweep the floor, and cart butter, jam, coloring, lemon curd back and forth to the big old fridge, and, bit by bit, he took over these chores.

As bread and pastries went into the oven, Paul set the horrible rowdy alarm clock to time the baking. Pies, cakes, jam rolls and lemon tarts, had their own cook time; Paul soon knew each one. Then he would stand by, trying to anticipate what should next be done. He watched Morris querulously. How could such a painfully thin, grey man, wearing a stained singlet, his corrugated ribs clearly showing, even through that singlet, be able to lump bags of flour, buckets of sugar, tubs of lard so effortlessly?

The only mechanical aid was the dough mixer, a cranking, banging, scraping mechanical monstrosity. Paul kept well away from it till it had made dough for the day, then he’d clean it just as he’d seen Morris do. He wondered when he might be able to knead the dough and place the loaves in the tins ready for the oven. When might the wonderful dough caress his fingers; Morris was so lucky, he thought.

It was odd that Morris never told Paul to do any task. He just kept on with working his bakery, but his Irish thoughts raced on. What had happened here? Is this a leprechaun? It’s not April Fool’s Day, is it? Sure, he’ll not come tomorrow!

Yet, show up Paul did. Now and then, the baker would mutter a quiet thanks, especially when his weary bones breathed thanks for the help, but Paul never said, “your welcome,” or smiled or talked, save for good morning and good night. At one point, Morris asked Paul to do an important thing: “Go to the railway station and bring back the new yeast shipment.” Paul loved that lightning bike ride, but back at the bakery, after being out in the fresh air, he was struck by how damned hot it was near the oven. After all, it was a hundred in the shade without the roaring fire adding its contribution.

Still, once he was back at work, Paul felt the heat not at all.

Ten Miles from Jerilderie

Ten Miles from Jerilderie

Published by Brian Rebbechi on July 1, 2021

Pedaling through thick dust is tiring, so I rested under heavy shade of a peppercorn tree. How could traffic be so sparse, yet the dust be thick enough for the rabbits to burrow in?

The sedan came at walking pace from the direction of town, ten miles distant across the wheat land.

This is what I saw:

The lone driver, a thin man, thick hair white as snow, turned his head this way and that, his mouth opening and closing with intense, unceasing agitation.

He lifted his body from the seat and turned his torso as if to see the rear floor. Agitated further, he braked to a stop and sat staring ahead a while then, again, he contorted his body as if to see the rear floor. He got out of the vehicle, scratched his white mane and, leaning against the vehicle, lit a cigarette and puffed on it as he stared impatiently across the plain. He opened the rear door and gazed in for a few seconds before slamming that door most energetically.

He stomped to the rear of the car and grabbed and twisted the trunk handle, but it held fast. After a second or two’s hesitation he returned to the driver side door, reached in, switched off the idling motor, and grabbed the keys from the ignition. Not for a second did he quit chattering angrily at the world.

Back at the rear, he juggled the keyset and selected one, and plunged it into the lock and opened the trunk wide. After staring into the interior for several seconds, he crashed the trunk shut and removed the key. Charging back to the driver seat, he restarted the motor, executed several backs and fills, the roadway being narrow; then the heavy, dusty old auto moved jerkily in the direction whence it came, the driver still madly chattering, his irritation undiminished.

That’s what I saw.

What could that guy have been saying/thinking?

This:

Look at this bloody dust. As if the road’s not lousy enough without that stupid Keith Rowan ploughing up more clouds of grit. I told him to work at night when the air’s damp. He’s shit-scared it’ll rain like buggery before he gets his crop in, but why be stupid about it? Still, he gets a good yield in the end: 18 bags to the acre last year ya know? Beats us.

Our lands better for sheep; that’s how we make a few bucks. Good wool and good lambs both. Keith’s got no idea how to raise sheep. He buys rams that are as useless as a work shirt without pockets. You’d think he’d learn. I try to help him; he’s just not a natural. He comes to help us when we shear; picks up the fleeces and skirts them. He’s ok at that. Her brother comes to help Keith at his place with his crutching and marking, some years when he’s off; a teacher in the city. They work well together, but he doesn’t know much either. Still, two heads are better than one, even if they are only sheep’s heads.

Bloody Hell! Jean’s not in the car at all.

You haven’t said a word since we headed home, Jean? Noisy road doesn’t help much. I wish you would sit up front; easier to hear. You’ve ridden in the back since Winsome was born. Damn-it-all, she’s 34 now. And don’t keep blaming me. I have not left one greasy machinery part on the front seat in all that time.

I might have upset Jean with something I said. Or she coulda had one of her little turns. Betta check; smoko anyway —— Now there’s another idiot raising a bloody great dust – too far away to tell who it is. Well, let’s see if she’s ok, can’t stay here all night; We gotta get home so I can milk Gwennie. Gwennie best house cow we’ve had in 40 years—- Bloody Hell! Jean’s not in the car at all. What happened?

Did she fall out or something? Or did I ferget to pick her up at the grocery? No way! The groceries better be in the trunk, or I’m in deep shit! Looks bad. What! Can’t open it. The trunk shouldn’t still be locked once we head home. Now I gotta get the trunk key outa the ignition. —— Shit! Which one is it, again? There we are—- Bloody dust gets in everything—- Holy shit!

No groceries in the trunk! — That’s it then. I damn well forgot to pick her up!

She’ll be muttering her head off outside the supermarket. Frozen stuff’ll melt; I’ll never hear the end of it. And if any of her scrawny mates come by, she’ll tell ‘em the whole story, unload on me she will. To hell with it! She’ll say I’m somewhere between Genghis Kahn and the devil himself or whatever. Everyone’ll know. And to think I got up early for this mess!

And it’s gunna be a bastard putting up with the shit I’ll get from the smart arses at the farming association meeting. I wouldn’t go, except I’m president. —- Can I think up an excuse to tell her? —- Waste of time! Impossible! She’ll yell at me. She’ll ask how many times I’ve gotten away with lying to her in 40 years. She’ll accuse me of having a coupla beers at the The Farmers Arms and leaving her waiting in the heat. So what! Betta fly now though; can’t let it get any worse, as if that’s possible — damn these deep table drains— hard to turn round —waste of time.

Now I’m the one raise’n the dust. Bugger it!

Gos – Part Two: VOS

Gos – Part Two: VOS

Published by Brian Rebbechi on June 30, 2021

A small part of the granite wall of the high cave that Gos lived in and suffered in and survived in all those years ago can yet be seen. But it’s not easy to find and it’s difficult to get to. Even solid rock yields to time.

And the daily fight to survive that once so desperately engaged Gos, was nothing in the rushing torrent of time, time that sweeps us all away as dust, or to a higher destiny. Still, while we live our short lives, the work of daily survival becomes paramount:

A Business Trip

Vos’s father took the lad along on a business trip to the city. Two days of non- stop discomfort ensued, for parent, Mos, because Vos wanted to study everything he laid eyes on; he was as curious as a thousand cats. Vos, while loving every minute of the outing, was a monumental nuisance to his dad. At home again, Mos collapsed into an armchair and spilled out his story to wife, Kossie. “I love the little guy like you do, Kossie, but he’s so toxically fanatical about how everything works that he can’t keep his hands to himself; there’s nothing safe when he’s around.

“For the trip to the city, as you know, we called Taxi Debbie. By the time we reached the train depot, Vos had detached the window winder, taken the ashtray apart and managed to lose the cigarette lighter. He said he had been trying to fix things. Debbie said she understood and not to worry.

“I had no idea how many things could come loose from their moorings. Vos turned, screwed, yanked and rattled at everything in reach. I was tired out from stopping him and we weren’t even on the train platform yet. And Vos had to investigate every piece of luggage he could get at and fiddle with and read the labels out loud; I did nothing but apologize to people.

“It got worse as the train headed for the city. If Vos stopped messing with everything he could reach it was to read signs, mile posts and advertising posters in a loud voice but with the wrong pronunciation. Our compartment had seating for eight, but we had it to ourselves before we reached Lurg.

“Right after we emerged on the street in the city, Vos yelled that he’d ‘seen that yellow taxi about six times.’ When I told him that yellow taxis are in the city by the hundred, no way was he embarrassed; instead, he set about counting yellow taxis in a loud, clear voice.”

Kossie understood. “I know how it is,” she groaned, “last week, he dug a trench across the front lawn, starting at the faucet. I asked him why he did it, but all he would say was that he wondered where the water came from. I helped him refill the trench to avoid a fuss. Once you got back from work. A few years ago, I was constantly muttering at him to leave ladies’ handbags alone. If I took my eyes off him, he’d pick up some unguarded purse, remove some item from it and ask me what it was. Follow-up questions too. Thank Heavens he left off doing that.”

There was silence in the room for a few minutes, then Mos said that he’d been agonizing over what to do about Vos’s ongoing education. “I hope you’ll agree, Kossie, but I think we should encourage Vos to take on an apprenticeship once he finishes high school. He’s such a hands-on, hyper- active blighter that a long tertiary course wouldn’t work for him or anyone else.”

That’s how Vos became a plumber and went into business for himself, right there in town, a pleasant, personable young man; much respected. No drippy tap or leaky pipe was safe when Vos was about; he rendered plumbing services of every description with the utmost skill and competence.

Years Later

Bad Butcher, Les Diamond, and plumber, Vos, had been friends for a long time, all the way back to when Les opened his butcher shop on Main Street and Vos was beginning in the plumbing business. Neither of them had much money in those days, but their energy and enthusiasm more than compensated.

Early Saturday morning, Les was busy trimming fat off big red steaks and arranging them on a white enamel tray ready for the window display. And a colorful, appetizing display it was, too: pork slabs, legs of lamb, chops and neat trays of pure white lard. And not a fly to be seen in the whole place. Vos came in the rear door of the premises though it was not yet open for business. “Hey Vos!” called Les, without looking up, “you here to check out my plumbing system again? It’s great that you do this for me because I’m hopeless with that sort of thing.”

Vos, in those beginning days, had done everything needed to change an old dress shop into a clean, efficient butchery. What Les did know was that everything Vos did, he did wonderfully well. “Twenty years ago,” he thought, “I bought this place; had no money except a deposit. This young Vos guy, had no money either. I didn’t know him from Adam, but he wanted to help get the place ready for business, (“just for the hell of it,” he said.)

Ever since, he has made the shop his baby. “Yer could have floored me when I saw how much work had to be done,” thought Les, “but Vos got right into it; he knew what to do and he was mad keen to do it just right. The whole of the floor had to be broken out. The pipes, cast iron the lot, jointed with lead, four inch diameter. Instead of bends, under the new concrete, he put sealed concrete pits with shaped floors in the pits so nothing like a blockage has happened, not even once and that’s saying a lot in this greasy butcher shop environment. The pipes have a one in 40 slope like it says in the regulations. Finally, he built me a sealed grease trap, to prevent the town sewer getting blocked up with fat, which hardens once it cools down. The plumbing inspector, Billy Riverside, said it was the best setup he’d seen. And he took photographs and wrote about it for the state Plummer’s Association magazine, which attracted other butchers to come look the place over. “

Thus, Les was proud of his shop and stayed close friends with Vos who said he’d showed up early this particular day to look over the system and check for leaky valves and that sort of thing, because he was planning an absence.

Leaning against the counter as Les worked, he continued; “Well, Les,” he said, “as a little kid, I wondered about everything I heard or saw. It fascinated me that things worked the way they did. Everyone yelled at me to leave things alone. They all said I was a nuisance, fiddling and pulling at stuff and trying to take it apart. When I started in high school, I was in Mr Pedler’s science class. The very first day, I knew this was for me. I pored over physics, chemistry and mathematics, and everything related to it.

The first morning, Mr Pedler took our class out to the playground where there was a teeter totter. He carried two buckets and put them each end of the board and moved them a little bit till the board was exactly horizontal. Then he sent a couple of us to cart water, some cold, some hot, from the lab. He yelled at us a bit, to silence the wise cracking types, before guiding us to very carefully fill the buckets precisely full, one with cold water, the other with hot water. The bucket with the hot water went up and the bucket with the cold water went down. Then, Mr Pedler spoke very sternly and seriously: ‘Never forget what you just saw. What’s true with physics is true in this little class and on the most distant star in the galaxy.’ I’ve never forgotten that introduction to physics.” When I started work as a plumber, I learned to relate the schoolwork with on-the-job physical things. So, you see, my daily work seemed always an extension of what I’d studied and wondered about.”

“There’s something else,” said Vos, “I’ll be away for six months. I’ve contracted with a drilling company. They are in the area, prospecting for ground water. Pipes galore to look after. There’ll be constant moving about and camping out. The farmers are desperate now that the drought has persisted so long. But my business here in town will stay open. Young Jacob can attend to emergencies and routine jobs. Margherita in the office knows the stock and sales, so all should be well. If you think of it, remind Constable Frank about me being away, so he’ll keep an eye on my place at night.

“And tell Uncle Alf where I am, and that I’ll come Saturday mornings when I get back. The folk who come here to talk and hang out owe a lot to Alf for the sensible way he manages to turn what is just a bunch of customers waiting to pick up a meat parcel, into a special group conversation. There should be more of it. Yet, Mabel complains to the other women. And, I’ll bet she squawks a bunch at poor uncle Alf at home.”

Six Months Later - Saturday Morning Again

Nine customers were standing round chatting and waiting to give their meat orders. A few seconds elapsed before anyone recognized Vos who entered quietly. He was much thinner, but as brown as rust and fitter looking than ever, and he wore strange clothing. Yet what stood out more than anything else was a bright, excited demeanor. Everyone was keen to be updated on what had been going on with Vos while he worked with the drilling crew, so he shushed the group and spoke up: “The pipe maintenance contract was but a small part of working with the drilling crew; my instinct was to connect with all sorts of drillers of the earth. I felt that I’d gain access to a fraternity of people connected to all sorts of drilling projects, shallow and deep, local, national and international. I know what you’ll be thinking. Like, big deal, what’s so great about making holes in the ground? Well, rocks don’t lie; they bear stern and true witness to earth’s past, millions upon millions of years of earth’s history, and near-recent history as well.

“And the engineers who drill are connected to scientists who study drill cores and investigate ways of deriving more and more information. All this was new to me; I started with a feeling of excitement. That’s all. I have learned from people who learned from other people, who move from project to project and from lab to lab and write in journals which they read and study relentlessly.

“Drilling goes on every day, on land, on ocean floors, through, perhaps, more than a mile depth of ice, and in locations from the poles to the equator.

Marvelous new sensitive tests correlate depth with time and temperature and gas content, and dust that has ever floated in the air through time immemorial. In short, these champions write strictly, compliantly with the inviolate laws that mandate how everything work, how things work in our kitchens, how things work on our streets, how things work on our planet, how things work across the Milky Way and throughout the heavens. For my part, I have a belief that I’m meant to be involved, that I am fulfilling an epochal role, crafted for me a very long time ago.

Hear me next Saturday, and leave with your spine half numb and a renewed sense of revelation about what the universe is working at, magically and wonderfully, for the future of we humans.”

With that, Vos left the shop, leaving butcher Les Diamond and his nine customers all very much astonished and sobered and with a tense anticipation for the following Saturday’s learning.

End of Part Two

Missie

Missie

Published by Brian Rebbechi on March 22, 2021

A change of pace . . .

Missie’s home was a box, a good strong box, two by five feet, and a foot high. Three other white ferrets lived with her. There was a hinged lid on top. The floor was of bird wire, open to the underside. A section was divided off at one end; it was stuffed with clean straw for sleeping. A two-inch hole connected the compartments.

There was a freshwater dish. A corner furthest from the sleeping section were used for business-doing, ferrets being neat critters. The box was mounted on stout legs, bringing it up to waist height, and it stood under a lean-to to shelter it from rain and sun. Right near, was the family chicken coop, where a dozen Leghorns clucked about. Missie liked their cackling and the exciting wafts of bird odor.

Reg Craig and his wife, Jill, took Missie’s three friends out to hunt rabbits. Missie was left at home because she was pregnant with a bunch of babies. Being left alone made her restless.

The back yard also housed a dog pen, and that dog pen was home to four beautiful, black, pedigreed Greyhounds. Reg spent several hours each day training the champion canines. They could win races against any company, but Reg had decided that losing a race now and again was the path to profit, backing a sure winner did little for the pocketbook. Reg needed to put his dough on a dog that would win unexpectedly, a “dark horse,” so to speak. His ruse was to paint a white blaze on one or other of the dogs to manipulate its identity. At home later, he’d remove the blaze. If his scheme of the day called for slowing a dog down, he would feed it a handsome slab of cow flesh just before the race. Dubious business, of course.

Reg swore that his Greyhounds ate a cubic yard of meat every day, an exaggeration for sure, but steak was far too expensive anyway, so Reg thanked God for his ferrets, his willing helpers in obtaining cheap rabbit-meat. Thus pondered Reg as he transferred Missie’s three friends into a carry-box for the day’s rabbit-hunt outing.

Three things of importance had happened that day: Reg unexpectedly asked Jill to go with him on the day’s excursion; Jill had had to hurry to get Missie fed before they left and probably due to haste, Jill hadn’t properly fastened the catch that secured the lid of the family’s ferret box.

Leaving home . . .

Missie wasn’t bent on escaping. Yet she was inordinately curious and couldn’t resist playing about with things to relieve the monotony of being alone. She would push on items to see if they’d move, then she’d shove and nudge, a bit like an athlete constantly flexing muscle. Nosing against the lid, Missie sensed movement, so she kept on shoving and, presto, her head was jammed in the opening. Then, struggle, wriggle, squeeze, and Missie was on her own in the open air.

The leghorns were safe; Reg had done a really sound job building the ferret-proof hen house. He knew that a ferret on the loose, even a gentle looking specimen like Missie, once inside that hen house, could and would attack each and every bird and, in minutes, leave them all bleeding to death from the neck.

So Missie let her insatiable curiosity take over; she followed her nose, and it took her ever so far. Now ferrets like Missie don’t get nervous; nothing frightens them, inquisitiveness reigns. She didn’t expect cats or dogs or snakes to steer clear of her; she’d just wait till she was attacked, then lightning speed and razor-like teeth would come into play. Once the attacker retreated, that was it. She didn’t pursue.

Missie never thought about returning to her shared home. She was comfortable with Reg, her owner, but, to her, all places were alike. While there was something to sniff at, check underneath, climb over or stop and listen to, she kept on moving. As she trotted ever farther from home, she carefully investigated each hen house she came to lest some defect should invite access to the interior. Each time, the resident poultry would cackle, fuss panic and flutter about as the birds sensed danger.

Missie was getting hungry and tired when, suddenly, she came to a hen house that invited her in; the door hung open! How could that be? Well, this was the time of year when hens quit laying eggs and their owners, seeing no return on the cost of feed, get rid of them. Mostly, they’d kill and dress every last hen then pack them in the freezer. Or they’d distribute the dressed carcasses to folk around the neighborhood. Either way, all that was left for Missie was the tantalizing smell of bird. Eating would have to wait.

Now, 20 feet from that hen house, stood a tidy wood pile. Eight-foot-long logs had been stood on end, each mutually supporting the others, and the whole making a teepee-like structure. Into a gap between logs crept bone weary Missie, seeking a safe sleeping nest in the interior of that wood pile as the sun rose over the horizon to usher in a new day. Hunger didn’t keep Missie awake, but she might have liked to know that a young early riser had seen her disappearing into the log pile.

To be continued . . .

A Bad Butcher – Part One

A Bad Butcher – Part One

Published by Brian Rebbechi on October 2, 2020

He loved the smells and the feel of the sawdust-covered floor, the sounds, the chatting, the silly joking with his scrawny friends, the latest news and scandal and football analysis. Saturday mornings, were bliss to Uncle Alf, so that he happily walked the mile to Les Diamond’s butcher shop on busy Station Street. The habit defined for Alf, just who he was. A tatty burlap sack was to be seen slung over his shoulder, capacious and utterly practical; nothing posh about Alf. Not much in the way of panache with this local identity.

Mabel was irritable and unhappy, one winter evening, as they sat down to their meal of sausages and vegetables: “Look at these sausages, (she actually called them Snags, an old Irish name for them), thin as worms — and it’s not my only problem with Diamond’s meat: his steak has so much fat on it, an inch or more sometimes, and that chicken you brought home on the weekend was skin and bone. As for last week’s leg of lamb, tough as an old football boot.”

She went on and on: “I’m sick of it. I’m going tomorrow to see what the prices are like at the new supermarket. You can forget about Diamond’s butchery from now on. “

For several days, Uncle Alf worried and wondered and fought with the black cloud that hung over him. A part of his world was blown away. “I suppose I have to accept that Les Diamond is simply a bad man, a lazy operator, a rogue, a devious crook, a really nasty butcher. I just didn’t see it all these years,” he thought, as he picked up the newspaper, strode out to the verandah and slumped in his chair, his horizons so suddenly clouded by Mabel’s banning of the butcher, Les Diamond.

So preoccupied with his worry was Alf that he barely took in what he was reading. Yet, one small headline item, several pages in, caught his eye: “Butcher Fined. Cheats on Taxes.”

This set Alf to thinking. An idea emerged. He snipped out the news item and took it to the Xerox shop and had it copied on stout paper and enlarged slightly. At home, he pinned the copy to the wall in the hallway, right by his Aunt Aggie’s portrait. Mabel said nothing to Alf, but she bitched to her lady friends.

Almost every day, Alf found news articles about butchers, stories in which a butcher was the villain. If not, Alf would go to the library and read papers from around the country and copy bad-butcher articles and post them in the hallway. Mabel at first was quite unhappy, but then she decided that anything that kept Alf from whining all day about missing his butcher shop friends, was OK with her.

There were other pluses; the more she shared with friends what was going on, the more attention she received from folks: The choir group, the book club, the Ladies’ Football Auxiliary, the Village Greens Committee, the Temperance Union (symbolic, really, because she quietly drank at bit at home, and dosed her puddings with plenty of liquor). Meetings would pause until the members had been updated about the latest bad-butcher developments.

In short, Mabel was becoming acclaimed and celebrated; wherever she went, townsfolk waved to her from across the street. Her closer friends asked if they might drop by to inspect the growing collection, so she had to keep the bed made and the wardrobe doors closed. Nor could she leave dishes in the sink or allow tea towels to look grubby. She admonished Alf to keep the bathroom nice, with no dirty knickers lying about.

Butcher Swears at Choir Master Who Asks Him To Try Singing In Key

Knowing about what butchers did when they weren’t dispensing meat and making sausages, appealed to the people: Butcher Convicted of Bigamy; Butcher in Drunk Driving Outrage; Butcher Fined for Cussing at Children; Butcher Runs Over Prize-Winning Dog; Butcher Overcharges; Butcher Swears at Choir Master Who Asks Him To Try Singing In Key; Butcher Trims Street Tree Illegally (actually, he cut it off at ground level); Butcher Bribes Meat Inspector; Butcher Charged With Cruelty, to-wit, a Pig; Butcher Charged for Gazing Luridly at Nun. These examples were the lesser of hundreds of laws that butchers had broken across the nation.

More and more friends, relations, acquaintances, strangers asked if they might inspect the clippings; they trooped in to see the burgeoning collection. Space on the wall was becoming hard to find. The visitors took Polaroid snaps and showed them around so that even more folk asked to see the display. The Daily Snoop, that’s the local paper, came running and the journalist and cameraman got cracking; their work filled the front page. Next it was the evening news and the national papers. Parking in the street became a problem. The council parking inspector took over. The neighbors were perplexed and anxious. “Don’t Park Here” notices were posted all over the place.

The tour company brought busloads of Japanese holidayers. One company asked if it might add translations to each posted cutting. Mabel decided the situation had gotten out of hand; neighbors said that Alf and Mabel had a tiger by the tail. “More like having half the animals in Africa by the tail,” said Mabel. Alf just kept adding the cuttings. It became impossible. People sent clips from nation-wide. Alf started pinning them on the bedroom walls; he took down all the family portraits and holy pictures and stacked them in the garage. Alf had to get the front path concreted, because the gravel couldn’t handle the constant foot traffic. Mabel ordered heavy duty beige-colored commercial carpet for the whole house. All this time, money was rolling in. They didn’t even ask for it. Dollars galore just showed up.

The National Butchers’ Association talked constantly about the scandalous way butchers were being maligned. A delegation to the prime minister did no good, of course, but by this time, the Association realized that butchers were making a killing as hordes of shoppers deserted the supermarkets and returned to their local family butchers.

A few months later, Alf and Mabel were national figures. They were forced to hire all sorts of people, and they had less and less to do with running things. Gone were the days when Alf would tend his vegies and sit on the verandah, and Mabel had to get fitted for many new outfits and wear underclothes every day. Increasingly, they were asked to travel for TV interviews and to give silly speeches in strange places.

One long weekend, Alf came home late from a night of reminiscing with his veteran friends and found Mabel sobbing in the bed. He boiled the kettle and made tea and sat by her and they talked. Then Alf started sobbing, even more than Mabel.

To be continued . . .