The Price You Pay 29.3.2016
I am a Scorpion
Human Nature is a funny thing.
I don’t mean the five piece boy band from Miller – they’re just a bunch of crooners and are rarely ever funny, if at all.
I mean the natural behaviour of people.
I think it is extremely hard to change your natural way of being.
If you had an innate sense of justice and fair play in games and sports as a kid – I believe there is a good chance you will display that characteristic throughout your life.
If you can justify to yourself that cheating on your partner is acceptable on one occasion – there is a strong likelihood you will do it again sometime.
If you like to gamble and play games of chance –then you probably always will.
I think that is why you get so may repeat offenders in court and gaol – they are naturally d1ckheads who can’t help themselves.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to change – if there is enough incentive, anything is possible. And for me personally, the thought of sharing a dingy cell with Bubba, leader of the hairy-unwashed, is incentive enough to stay out of gaol (if ever I was likely to go there).
Through my own decisions, I have spent quite a lot of time living on my own (I was gonna say ‘by my own hand’ – but that just sounds gross and misleading).
I don’t mind my own company and I’m confident I can take care of myself under any circumstance – so I find this type of life easy. Make all your own decisions, answerable to no one – when your decisions blow up in your face, as they often do, well – you cop it on the chin and try to learn from it.
On your own, you are able to change plans at any stage – go home, stay late, blow all your cash in a single boozy night of drinking, gambling and bullsh1tting. This is all great fun at different times – though you will pay for the last one with a lingering hangover from the grog. And often what is even worse – enduring the psychological torture of trying to accept your own stupidity for blowing a fistful of cash on nothing!
Despite all this – you can justify pretty much anything to yourself in quite a short time and life goes on.
I have at times been accused of being a cold hearted b@stard – that I don’t care about anyone, however, that is not the case – in fact, I am probably the opposite.
There is the old story about the scorpion and the frog, which always appealed to me. If you are unfamiliar with it, it goes something like this:
‘There is a frog and a scorpion sitting on the side of a river and the scorpion says “Hey Frog – how about you let me climb on your back and you can swim us both across the river?”
The frog says “No way Scorpion – you’re a scorpion and you’ll sting me!”
Then the scorpion counters “But if I stung you Frog – then we would both drown, that would be crazy!”
The frog considers this for a while before telling the scorpion to climb on his back – he then starts swimming them both across the river.
Halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog and before they both drown – the frog says ‘Why the hell did you do that? Now we’ll both die!’
And the scorpion replies simply – “I am a scorpion – it’s in my nature”.’
And your nature is something that’s hard to change.
So it may come as a surprise that I actually have a very caring nature – which is not always good – but its blo0dy hard to change!
I still clearly remember in primary school, cracking some blonde kid in the head for picking on my little sister during the day (I recall he punched her during the lunch break) – so I jacked his jaw as we walked home from school that day. (I think she appreciated it that one time).
Fast forward fifteen years – we all used to frequent Mounties on weekends and drink way too much and party way too hard for a life conducive to longevity!
I started out with school mates from my year and then mates of mates and a bunch of girls etc. It was great fun – I didn’t miss a Friday night at Mounties for about 12 years! (Nor did I pass a solid sh1t for about 8 years due to drinking – but that’s another story!).
The oldies would give me a lift to the Club – I’d drink all night, get plastered and then walk home. We’re talking BKM here – Before the Kebab Man ever thought of pitching his steamy little van at Gamac’s spare parts on Elizabeth Drive.
So we all had great fun every week – at a cheap venue, close to home.
Then my sister started coming to Mounties – I hated it!
I loved my sister – just hated when she’d come out with me.
I was never able to ignore the feeling of responsibility and need to protect her.
She’d be having a ball and some half drunk dick would come sniffing around. Some I knew, many I didn’t – though they all had one thing in common -I didn’t like any of them and I made it quite clear!
So I’d chase them away, she’d get the sh1ts – even though I was pointing out their inadequacies, and then soon enough – no one was having fun.
I did the same thing with my female cousins too – for some reason, no matter how hard I tried to point it out – they just couldn’t see that all these blokes were d1ckheads and were not to be given any attention.
You see – I knew what those drunken young bucks were like – hell, I was one of them! (And I guess when I look back now – the girls had a fair idea what they were like too!).
An early event in our lives also instilled in me an unfortunate commitment to look after my older brother too.
This started one weekend in our teens, when the Oldies went away and a few of us ripped into cheap scotch whiskey (and not enough coke).
My big Bro leading the way – squeezing the sides of the plastic coke bottle (half full of scotch), to get his fair share, as he guzzled each mouthful. We were all blind drunk and running amok – as young idiots do on the turps and everyone had a great night, until the inevitable.
He could well have gone the same way as Bon Scott that night – passed out and vomiting like a defective bubbler. But I rolled him over and cleaned him up as best I could.
Incidentally – he still hasn’t touched scotch since that night thirty something years ago!
Following that episode he has rarely required my supervision – though occasionally he needs someone to let him know the tank is approaching overflow. He goes hard whooping and hollering until CLANG!! It’s like he’s been hit in the head with a skillet – the eyes and face drop, the colour disappears and it seems like someone has removed a great bony rack from across his normally square shoulders. Then he’s in Sh1tsville will all kind of demons for the next three days!
Another thing which has always affected me far more than it should – and in fact continues to right up to this day – if a couple are arguing at the table, I find it puts a downer on everything. Even though I tell myself it has nothing to do with me – and they’ll be over it shortly – I feel cr@p until everyone is friends again.
I am not a fan of needless drama.
An old mate and his girlfriend used to argue every Saturday night – and make up shortly thereafter – it didn’t seem to bother them at all, yet put a downer on me.
(Except the time she stormed out of Terrigal pub with the car keys at closing time and left us standing around with no transport or money to get home – that didn’t put a downer on me – that one actually sh1t me to tears! Leave him behind – not me, FFS!)
As I said, I always knew that I’d be okay out on the town – was never worried about that. There were certainly times that I woke up with no idea where I was – mostly I was at home with no recollection of having travelled there.
Sometimes I’d wake up in the back of a cab heading somewhere obscure – only to re-assess and have them take me home to where I actually lived.
Occasionally, in my creative brilliance, I would decide to pay someone a surprise visit during the early hours of the morning.
Like the time I was returning from a wedding at The Croatian Club – had my mate drive straight past my house and drop me off at my Uncle Bill’s at Bradbury at around 2am instead. Thought it’d be a nice surprise for him.
Indeed it was – when he came out the back yard at 7:30am and found me snoring, sprawled across a park bench on his back verandah!
(And then had to get my old man to come and pick me up later that arvo – after my joy filled visit!).
Then there was the time I decided to walk to my mate Nik’s place near the old Livo cemetery – straight from Alexander’s nightclub in Macquarie Street.
I knocked on his door at 3am and some bloke answered – he says ‘Who are you?’
I said ‘I’m Steve. I’m a mate of Nik’s. Who are you?’
He said ‘I’m Sam – I’m a mate of Nik’s too’
Well – can I come in?
It turned out that Nik wasn’t home – but I stayed there anyway.
So when the Mounties crew eventually began to disperse – and or even worse, marry each other – I packed my car and headed to Darwin.
While Darwin is physically a harsh place to live – high humidity, massive storms, 7m+ tides, crocs, stingers, death adders etc, it is actually quite stress free.
The people are relaxed and mostly friendly (though often more than a little eccentric), the laws are relaxed (unless you’re a re-offending pr1ck), and the whole vibe is more reggae than rock.
They say NT stands for Not Today, Not Tomorrow, Not Tuesday, Not Thursday – it’s an appealing and relaxed attitude – until you need to get something done!
Anyhow, while I was up there I had lots of fun with lots of friends and heaps and heaps of drinks with very few real worries.
My family were all three to four thousand kilometres away and a few would visit every now and then – but for the main part, I just did my own thing.
After I got serious and built a five bedroom house – followed shortly thereafter by a wage cut, I found myself all but tied down to 50 May Street, Parap Grove.
So my house became the party house with all sorts of boys and girls coming round and drinking and smoking and laughing etc.
I built a bar – people used to come round, leave thirty bucks on the bench and then drink from my bar. I made no money but got enough to replenish the stocks. Some stayed over, some didn’t.
I began to specialise in certain drinks on genuine party nights – like Margaritas and some kind of Mango Midori white rum spectacular that I’d whip up from mango pulp, pineapple juice, Midori, vodka, gin, barcardi, cointreau etc .
I’d also barbecue a special blend of marinated king prawns and cook up Oysters Kilpatrick/Mornay in the oven. Though I was put to shame with the Kilpatrick one night when a qualified chef joined us for drinks and offered to take over the molluscs while I tended the prawns!
I spent a hundred and fifty bucks to purchase a blender powerful enough to rip through Ice – just to make Margaritas. And since we were drinking Margaritas, we ended up having Mexican nights – with bandanas, pinata’s, a bit of Raul Malo and the Mavericks (Okay – Cuban Tex/Mex music is the closest I had to a Mariachi Band) – but the dozen or so tequila crazed party goers didn’t seem to mind.
Some strange things happened – getting the hair-clippers out for a spontaneous haircut was not uncommon – though the trick one chick followed it up with one night, sure was! (I haven’t used the clippers since!).
I had doctors, lawyers, chefs, strippers, journalists, political advisors, a marine biologist – and a whole bunch of normal folk there at one stage or another.
The time eventually came though, for me to move back to the fambam.
The brother had been on the Gold Coast for fifteen years or so and my sister was moving up with her family – and I’d always intended moving there one day myself, so that’s what we did.
Now our “Do’s” consist mostly of the family all sitting around someone’s backyard entertainment area, drinking beer and wine and generally taking the p1ss out of each other.
Though, I do still try to keep my hand in the game, by having the occasional bender with the locals at the Jacobs Well Tavern.
It took me about twenty years to feel comfortable enough to finally hand over the reins to their respective partners – and both chose exceedingly well in the end.
It’s up to my old mate Johnny now to look after my sister – though I am as fiercely loyal to him now as I ever was to her and I’d back his any play to the hilt, any time!
And I am quite happy to let my Bro’s beautiful wife Candy clean up his mess after his occasional summer blowout!
Let’s not get started on the young nieces now!!!
Being close to loved ones though, comes at a price.
The currency for that familiarity is stress.
All of a sudden you are made aware of everyone’s life issues, such as health concerns, study, employment, money, and relationship problems.
With the physical closeness, comes responsibility – things I’d been all but immune to living in the Top End.
Mostly, I didn’t even hear about these problems – much less need to personally address them and seek a resolution.
These situations become increasingly frequent, especially with aging parents in the mix – and at certain times, seem like a never-ending merry-go-round of hospitals, specialists and general checkups. Tension building at every turn.
It makes the Northern Territory resort-style living appear all the more appealing.
However, for those tempted by the Siren’s lure of the easy life, keep this in mind: though the Lone Wolf walks a fun and careless path, roaming his domain at will and howling at the moon – surely on the cold, dark night, when it is he who is lame – he pines in earnest for his long lost pack….
