The Worst of Perth

Christ, but it was hard to contribute meaningfully to the culture. After tripping over the pram in the hall he’d plonked down hoping to grab a few minutes to get the blog post out of the way (“Dude, you said you’d do something for Sunday”) and knock out another thousand words of the novel but, like the insistent Muttonbird surf, things kept plucking at his attention. He’d had to go to Ashfield and get their Brazilian passport photos done – an exortionate 20 bucks, mind you – and then on the way back he gets hassled because he’s in his wife’s friend’s daughters car. He felt rage, like all those years ago when Tali Boutros-Boutros Orsini teased him when his forest cubby fell over. No use telling the rurotards the Jazz was in for a service. Then smoke from his Zest got in his eyes, and he wiped at them – and the dickheads laughed at him. “He’s cryin! Whadda poofter!” Thank Christ the lights changed then, otherwise he didn’t know what he would’ve done.

He stared at the screen, the cursor blinking without remorse. He attacked the plastic keys, like a piranha feasting on a tired dugong: ‘My life has been measured out in cursor blinks’, he typed. No good: that cunt NF#1 would ridicule him for the Eliot reference. Like it was a crime to have read anyone other than Randell Jarrell. Then skink would have a chirp, then Poor Lisa…he deleted the words and sighed, like a seagull at Fishing Boat Harbour when the last tourist eats his last chip.

“Honey!” Another wrench on the concentration. What now? “Did you put this fucken thing up on the fridge?” He dutifully plodded out of the study – in time to see her rip the sign off the Smeg and tear it in two. It was like being punched in the kahoonas, but he kept his dignity, like a graceful marri at the school camp site where he had watched Paul Blennerhasset light his farts.

He turned on his heel and went back to his chair. He felt as tense as a fishing line when it’s been snagged by the rocks at Little Parakeet Bay. Maybe he could get some quick inspiration from Wikipedia? He rooted around on it for a few minutes – and saw he hadn’t even cracked a mention in the new Wintoning entry…

The humiliation: it was worse than when, in Mrs Gillham’s Year 1 class at Brentwood, his shorts had fallen down while he was trying to spell scientific on the blackboard. Even now he could feel the gritty chalk between his fingers as the other kids laughed like drains and the four cheese toasties he’d had during recess rushed up his throat like an inexpertly-opened bottle of Mann’s…