BUMPING OFF TONY

The local pub seemed the ideal convivial spot for Oscar to hold a persuasive conversation with his best mate, Barry.

Oscar had personal matters of great import, requiring serious intellectual cerebration, hence the lubrication of Barry’s brain well warranted the expense of several glasses of the magical amber fluid.

Oscar trusted Barry explicitly when it came to offering advice, such as buying a second hand car, the correct time for planting potatoes, and all that informative stuff which ensured a trouble-free lifestyle.

To Oscar, Barry was a walking, talking Wikipedia whose expertise in all matters personal increased according to the quantity of liquid stimulation.

Barry was big … some would say big and ugly. In all fairness, remembering the adage ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, it is difficult to define ‘ugly’, while ‘big’ is a definitive measurement when compared to a fellow human such as Oscar, who definitely owned up to being small.

......

They acquired the privacy of a small table decorating an isolated corner of the pub.

Oscar well knew not to broach the prime reason for this meeting of minds. Tradition demanded numerous minutes of insane chit chat, washed down with gastronomical pleasure, before Barry belched forth.

‘OK, mate, you reckon you needed some advice upon a matter of great urgency.’ Barry buried his mouth in the glass of beer and it took several seconds for Oscar to realize it was a statement rather than a question, and nothing more was forthcoming.

‘It is a most delicate matter,’ said Oscar. ‘If I were to claim some distant, indigenous Aboriginal ancestry, do you reckon the coppers would kinda look the other way if we were to bump off Tony?’

The immediate response was a spluttering and spray of frothy beer across the table top. ‘Struth, that is a double-barreled question if I ever heard one. For starters, you can forget about the ‘we’ bit. Hell, I’m just a bloody butcher. What you need, mate, is advice from a good solicitor.’

‘But it’s not that simple, Barry,’ spoke the sadness of Oscar. ‘Tony is wrecking my life.’

The big heart of Barry thumped with extra concern for his friend. ‘OK, I’ll not promise expert advice, but who is this Tony anyway, and how come I never met him?’

‘Tony, uninvited, blew in about six weeks back and established a camp down in my mini-rainforest. He could well have been there for several days before I spotted him, wandering around at the back of the house. I asked him what he was doing and what he wanted. It must have spooked the blighter because he took off like a Bondi tram, then just looked back at me from the safety of the trees where he was camped.

‘I figured that, what with the current financial crisis, global warming and all that crazy stuff, Tony was just one of the great homeless army drifting around the countryside looking for shelter and a feed.

‘It hardly seemed Christian to cause an argument when, provided he was happy camping in the rainforest and didn’t bother me, he could come and go as he pleased. I told him that loud and clear, then went back inside and made me a cup of coffee.’

‘So what did Tony have to say for himself?’ Barry asked.

‘Nothing, not a bloody word, just stares back at me from behind the trees. Could be dumb for all I know. We have experienced a few conversations in passing, but I am the only one doing the talking.’

‘But if he doesn’t say nothing, how do you know his name is Tony?’

‘I don’t have a clue. Tony is a name suggested by me mate Wolfie, who, as you know, lives way down in the southern highlands.’

‘Fair enough, you have a speechless squatter called Tony. So what is your problem?’

‘Everything was real beaut for the first week, then all of a sudden the little bugger went feral, sneaks up at night when I’m not looking, and kicks the shit out of my beautiful garden. No kidding, mate, Tony has feet like camel pads with shark hooks. He rips into those plants and sends them flying in all directions. I rant and rave, swear and yell at him, but it doesn’t do a bit of good. Tony hides down in his camp and stares right back at me. This performance goes on night after night. I build a fence, he smashes it down. I am going fair up the wall. Now I need you, my very best mate, to come and bump him off.’

‘He’s your problem, why don’t you bump him off?’

‘Well I would, see, but as you know, Barry, I am a card carrying pacifist and I’ve converted to vegetarianism. You, on the other hand, are a butcher. You’re not squeamish when it comes to body bits, blood and gore … you possess the perfect credentials for an efficient hit-man.’

‘Since when were you a bloody vegetarian?’ asked Barry.’

‘Since about eight o’clock this morning. I saw the light while having my morning ablutions.’

‘Struth, I don’t know what’s worse, you asking me to bump off Tony, or me about to lose one of my best meat-eating customers.’

‘Yeah, but you are big, like really big, and butchering is in your blood. You’re a natural.’

‘I reckon you should know,’ says Barry, ‘that under this huge frame lurks the hidden soul of a new-age person, a pussy cat, a genuine tree hugger. There is pain in the heart every time I slash down the cleaver to separate the little lamb chops. When setting up the display counter with the liver, kidneys and other body bits, I always show my dewy-eyed gratitude with a small but beautiful bouquet of freshly picked parsley, reverently laid upon each tray.’

Time for another beer, thought Oscar, as he observed Barry staring soulfully into the bottom of his glass. Apparently the lad had not reached the required state of lubrication.

The new round, when delivered, cheered Barry up no end.

‘Have you ever considered, Oscar, that maybe this Tony of yours doesn’t speaka da English, probably doesn’t understand a bloody word you are saying, mate.’

‘Yeah, I am one step ahead of you there, Barry. I thought, seeing as Tony did not respond to my ranting and raving in good old Aussie vernacular, maybe I should try a spot of foreign swearing to see if that worked, so I asked my good friend Levant to teach me some great Turkish swear words.

‘Sadly, Levant claimed he was not into swearing, but there was a fearsome curse that just might work. Seems how on the 25th of April every year, good loyal Turks gather together and, in one voice, they shout out, ‘Yall kursunlara cekilesin’. Then they all throw rocks and stuff at imaginary invading foreigners.

‘Roughly translated it means, ‘May you all be shot with greasy bullets’. But before you ask, the fearsome curse guaranteed to scare the shit out of most folks did not make the slightest impression on Tony and, under the hail of rocks, he retreated deeper inside the mini rainforest. I could tell from how he was staring right back through the trees that Tony was not too happy with me.’

‘Guess you should have tried a Maori haka,’ suggested Barry. ‘Hell, mate, the haka is the most fearsome curse ever invented.’

‘Hmmm, I do believe, mate, there is nothing scary enough to cease Tony’s destructive rampage, unless of course we figure out how to bump him off and stay out of jail in the process.’

‘Which reminds me,’ says Barry, ‘What did you mean when rabbiting on about the cops looking the other way on account of your alleged Aboriginal ancestry?’

‘Well,’ replies a less than confident Oscar, ‘it is a well known fact that Aborigines are allowed to hunt for their native tucker, even when it happens to be a protected member of the wildlife.’

Barry is so shocked by the revelation of this statement he demands a recovery beer before breathing the next words directly into Oscar’s terrified eyeballs.

‘Are you telling me, mate, that Tony is not human?’

‘Of course Tony is not human,’ splutters an amazed Oscar. ‘He is a flaming bush turkey, and a bloody destructive one to boot. Hell, that is why Wolfie christened him Tony the turkey. So what about you bumping him off before he starts wrecking me house?’

.....

Took just three more sleeps before life found Oscar back on the blower, pleading an urgent meeting with his mate Barry,

‘We have gotta do something, man, we just gotta do something fast. That crazy Tony, he has started building a mound, before we know it, down will come his sexy girl friend, she will lay a mountain of eggs, and I will be surrounded by a whole mob of bloody bush turkeys.’

‘Why doncha just destroy the mound?’ suggests Barry.

‘These flaming turkeys, mate, they can build a mound weighing up to four tonnes and the size of a small car, and Tony is building his right next to the back door. You touch his mound, mate, and you are in trouble big time.’

‘Hey, just got me a bright idea. Why doncha give that famous photographer and wildlife sheila, Vicki Ferrari, a bell? She’s right into all that stuff, mate. She would be a moral to know what to do with bloody Tony.’

‘Yeah well, Barry old son, you are a bit late there. I rang her yesterday.’

‘And … ?’ panted Barry, who sounded like a bloke who just staggered in with his tongue hanging out, dying for a beer.

‘Vicki says to take Tony’s picie, blow it up to poster size, hang it over yer bed, and learn to love him. Alright for her, ain’t it mate? She isn’t the one having the crap kicked out of her garden.’

Barry started to worry, a trifle more than somewhat, about his little friend. The pathetic whine was starting to sound more suicidal than just plain ordinary desperate. Barry decided the time had come to concentrate on bumping off Tony.

That very same evening Barry borrowed uncle Fred’s double barrel shotgun, then whipped around to Oscar’s joint. Barry is all fired up, ready to do battle with Tony the Terrible.

‘Can’t go using shotguns,’ moaned Oscar.

‘Why bloody not?’ asked Barry. ‘One good blast with this and all you will see is a pile of feathers.’

‘Because, Barry, my fussy neighbours would have the Armed Response Squad around here in five minutes flat, and seeing you with that shotgun, they would not stop to talk turkey.’

‘How about we trap it?’ suggested Barry.

‘Tried that with your new plastic meat bin. Baited it up and in went Tony. I pulled the stick and Tony shot down the hill, bin and all. He’s currently using it for a shelter in case it rains.’

‘What we need is a drink,’ moaned Barry. ‘High time we retired to the pub for a good think.’

... And that, strangely enough, was where Barry received his wonderful moment of inspiration.

.....

They were not too sure how much vodka you needed to soak the grain, so Oscar bought two bottles to be on the safe side.

In theory, Barry and Oscar were going to make Tony paralytic.

In typical Aussie fashion, they set out Tony’s well-sloshed feast, retired to a couple of canvas chairs, munched some barbecued sausages and drank a glass or two of leftover vodka while they waited.

‘Do you reckon Tony is going to show?’ asked Barry.

‘Well,’ says Oscar, allowing for a slight slur in his speech, ‘To quote from a recent report in the Victorian parliament, Bush Turkeys have the smallest brain chip of any bird on the planet. It has three embedded instructions: eat, rake and fornicate. Fair dinkum, one thing I know for bloody sure, mate, no self-respecting bush turkey will ever knock back a free feed. Tony is going to come, Tony is going to get pissed, we are going to toss him in the car and drive well out of town and let the little bugger go in the bush.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ says Barry … and so they did.

......

It quite amazed Oscar how little time it took for Tony to cop the staggers. Tony even sang a little song before he squatting down in a cloud of inebriated bliss, waiting for someone to pick him up for transportation to bush turkey paradise. Hell, the nice gentlemen were going to make him comfy on the back seat of the car and take him on a leisurely drive through the suburbs, then into the bush.

Sadly for Oscar, neither he nor Barry had a clue regarding the metabolism of a bush turkey when it came to the process of sobering up. Unlike the Mafia, they quite forgot to tie Tony’s legs together.

It must have been about a third of the way through town when Tony woke up, had a merry look at his surroundings and, with the flight of a flapping eagle, decided to drive the car.

Screeching brakes, small ditch, some bloke’s front fence flying through the air, doors flapping open, people shouting, Barry’s head crashing into the windscreen,. He was out for the count. Oscar was only slightly injured but now firmly pinned against the steering wheel.

A big copper’s face looked in at Oscar through the mess. ‘Would you mind telling me, sir, what you think caused this accident?’

‘No mystery there, sergeant,’ replied a slow-thinking Oscar. ‘I was attacked by a wild bush turkey.’

‘Do you see any sign of a turkey, wild or otherwise, constable?’

‘No sarge, no sign of any turkey. There is just this almost empty vodka bottle.’

‘Bit of a problem here, sir. I cannot see a turkey, the constable certainly doesn’t see a turkey, so before I accept your claim of being attacked by one, I should warn you, the bush turkey is a protected species and any transportation of such would see me obliged to book you for a criminal offence. However, may I suggest that, what with the accident and all, you might be suffering from a hallucination? Maybe you only imagined you were attacked by a wild turkey.’

Oscar could hardly believe his luck. Heck, here he was being interviewed by a fair-minded copper.

‘Yeah yeah, sergeant, you are quite correct. I would not be seen dead illegally transporting protected wildlife. It must be that poster of a bush turkey I have hanging over my bed. Barry here only eats meat, and I love turkeys.’

‘So, may I cross wild turkeys off my list then?’

‘Absolutely, sergeant, absolutely,’ assured the stupidity of Oscar.

‘The constable informs me that there is a well-known brand of Kentucky bourbon called Wild Turkey. Maybe you’d be kind enough to tell me about the almost empty bottle of vodka on the back seat. Have you been drinking this evening, sir?

Poor Oscar shut his eyes while he tried to estimate the ever-increasing monetary cost of this pointless exercise. Then he heard the fateful words …

‘Blow in the bag, will you please, sir? Keep up a continuous blow until I say stop.’

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Tags:

barry, bush, butcher, copper, oscar, tony, turkey, vicki ferrari, vodka, wildlife and wolfie