I'Ll Go Home Then, It's Warm and Has Chairs. The Unpublished Emails. - (5 page)

During my last two years of primary school, my family moved from a large city in Western Australia, to a small country town called Leigh Creek, a coal mining town in South Australia, after my father accepted a two year position as a Terex driver. The only two things that were cool about Leigh Creek were the Terex trucks, vehicles the size of buildings, and the fact that almost every kid in town owned a mini-bike.

Every afternoon after school and every weekend, kids would wheel their mini-bikes to the edge of town and ride to a location called The Humps & Bumps. It was basically just a series of piles of dirt and quarry k-cuts left over from mining, spanning about a three kilometre radius a few kilometres out of town, but to kids with nothing else to do in a small town,  and to those that owned mini-bikes, it was paradise. I did not own a mini-bike and not owning a mini-bike meant exclusion from what was essentially the key to making friends and being accepted in a new town.

The model I coveted was the Yamaha YZ80. Featuring a two stroke engine, knobbly tyres, big suspension for jumps, and a top speed of 55 miles per hour which was practically light speed, it was the mini-bike of all mini-bikes and ownership would instantly grant me acceptance by the Humps & Bumps community.

Convincing my parents to buy me a mini-bike was a lot easier than I thought it would be, possibly due to them feeling guilty about taking me away from my previous school and established friends and moving to a small town, but more likely due to wanting me to shut up about being the only kid in town who didn’t own a mini-bike. Eventually, it was conceded that I might get one for my upcoming birthday.

The two weeks leading up to my birthday weekend could not go by fast enough. It was the early eighties and there were no computers, and I had nobody to hang around with as everyone was at the Humps & Bumps, so every afternoon after school I would climb into bed and try to go to sleep to make the time go faster. I even attempted knocking myself out once by sitting on the edge of the bed and throwing a brick into the air, but this only gained me a mild concussion and frozen bag of peas.

On the Saturday morning of my birthday, I leapt out of bed, woke my parents and asked “where’s my motorbike?” Told that it was in the backyard, I ran outside in my pajamas to discover my parents had bought me a second hand 50cc Honda postman’s scooter. 

The stickers that read Australia Post had been peeled off but due to the rest of the paint fading, they were still clearly visible.  The front half of the scooter was white, the back half red, and my father had painted DAVID across the back of the huge seat.

I turned to see my parents, wearing dressing gowns and faces of anxious expectancy, standing behind me and my mother stated “ Happy birthday. I know it’s not a Yamaha like you wanted, but we talked to Mr Williams from number 36 and he said that Honda make very good motorbikes. It used to be a postie’s bike so it has to be reliable. Posties need reliable bikes.”

Although every molecule of my being wanted to yell “what the fuck is this, I can’t be seen on it, the other kids will laugh at me,” the look on their faces made me force what I hoped was a believable smile, but was probably more of grimace below two sad eyes, and say “thank you.”

Beaming, my father said “It’s got your name on the seat and you have another present to go with it,” handing me a motorcycle hemlet shaped present.

Ripping off the paper, which featured a repeated illustration of a guy riding a motorbike that wasn’t lame, revealed a construction worker’s helmet, probably taken from my fathers worksite, spray-painted black with a skull and crossbones emblazoned across the front.  “I painted it myself” my father said, which I had already figured out due to the skull having a smile instead of an angry teethy thing.

After being told “you can take it out for a ride after you get dressed and have breakfast,” I spent an hour dressing and another hour eating froot-loops by eating each Froot-Loop in the bowl indivually and chewing thirty times but eventually the time came to get it over with.

Wheeling the scooter down the sidewalk, wearing the construction worker’s helmet and appropriate motorbike attire (shorts, a Battlestar Gallactica t-shirt and sandals), I arrived at the edge of town, started the scooter, and rode off  towards an area as far away from the Humps & Bumps as possible.

As I rounded a huge mound of dirt I had intended to hide behind for a while, my heart sank as I saw four kids on mini-bikes riding towards me. Turning the bike around, I attempted to race away from them as quickly as possible, with the thought that my face still hadn’t been seen, but with a top speed just under a brisk jog, they caught up to me almost immediately.

Pulling to a stop and as casually as possible saying “Hey,” one of the kids, who I recognised as a boy named Ashley from school, asked “Are you delivering the mail?” and the other kids laughed. “No,” I replied. Which with hindsight was a little lame and if I could go back I would have said something like “Yes, and I have a letter from your mother. She says she is sorry for giving you a girl’s name” or something far better.  Another of the kids then stated, “That’s a postie’s bike. I can see where the stickers were. Is it yours?” and I replied, “No.”

After a lengthy discussion between the four kids in which every feature of my scooter was analysed and ridiculed, including the fact that it had my name on the seat so it must be mine, I suddenly felt need to defend the horrible thing and stupidly said “yes, but it’s good at jumps.”

Riding indian file together to the Humps & Bumps after being told to “prove it then, Postman Pat,” we pulled up at the base of a huge hill and the kids pointed to the summit. The jump was basically a huge track going down the side with a smaller hill at the end acting as a ramp. Riding to the top, I tightened the plastic strap inside my construction hat, and looked down.

Grasping the possibility that there was at least a chance of coming out of this unhurt and earning the acceptance of my peers, I edged forward and threw back the throttle as hard as I could - snapping the antique piece of tin holding the throttle to the handlebar, and locking it on full. Holding on with every limb tensed like steel, the scooter tore down the incline, hit the ramp at the bottom, and broke in half.

My body, carried by momemtum, flew over the handlbars, cleared the ledge of the ramp, and flew twelve feet before landing and rolling several times in the dirt. My helmet, which had blown off half way down the hill, rolled to a stop a few feet from me. Dazed, I lay on my back staring up at the sun glimmering through the leaves of a gum tree, listening to the sound of four mini-bikes disappearing at top speed into the distance.

Noticing a throbbing pain in my left leg, I looked down to see my shin bone sticking several inches out of a large gash in my skin, halfway between the knee and ankle. Ignoring earlier advice from my father about getting back on a bike after a fall, I  began to drag myself home by sitting up and pulling myself backwards a few feet at a time.

Approximately fifty feet from the crash site, I crawled over an ants nest and had to roll again, but only twenty minutes later saw the family car driving towards me up the dusty track. Apparently Ashley had ridden to my house and told my parents that despite all four kids trying to convince me otherwise, I had attempted and failed a stunt and broken my scooter. He also visited me in the hospital and, even though he called me Postman Pat for the next two years, we became friends. 

My father collected the broken scooter and attempted to repair it by welding the two halves together but it caught on fire and was delegated to the back of the shed never to be seen again. Which I was quietly happy about.

As a token replacement birthday present, I received a Slip’n’Slide which I wasn’t allowed to use due to my leg being in a cast but I did get to watch Ashley and his friends using it from my bedroom window.

Also, a week after getting my cast removed, I used the Slip’n’Slide for the first time and, after a massive run-up and standing slide that cleared the entire length of the bright yellow plastic,  I continued along the grass into a hedge, and a branch punctured my scrotum.

Opinions are like nipples, everybody has one.

Despite mentioning cats in only three articles in my previous book, around ninety percent of the emails I receive ask the same two questions; "Did Shannon ever find her missing cat Missy?" and "Why do you hate cats?"

Firstly, yes. Missy was found in a neighbour's hedge that evening. It was about the fifth time she had gone missing and has escaped several times since. Secondly, I don't hate cats. I just don't want them sitting on my lap or rubbing against me lifting their tails so I have to look at their bum holes. If I owned a cat, I would make it wear pants. My partner Holly wants to buy a cat but I have told her that if she gets a cat, I am getting a leather jacket like the one Evel Knievel wore.

Apart from making the occasional joke, which I assume at the time will be taken as such, I would never condone cruelty, violence or tormentation towards any animal. That's what red haired children are for.

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From: Ella Johnson

Date: Tuesday 31 May 2011 2.04pm

To: David Thorne

Subject: Book

I've perused your website before and must admit I laughed at the story about the police officer. I work in a bookstore and when your book came in as stock, I made the mistake of browsing through it. While some of it was mildly amusing, you crossed the fine line between dark humor and psychopathy.

It's quite jarring to go from laughing at drawings of spiders to reading your fantasies about torturing and killing cats. This ruined the book for me. Animal cruelty is a mental illness and usually the first sign of a sociopath. Serial killers torture animals when they are young. It's my most fervent opinion that you need to find a highly skilled psychiatrist post-haste and I have left a review on Amazon warning potential buyers.

Ella J

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From: David Thorne

Date: Tuesday 31 May 2011 3.28pm

To: Ella Johnson

Subject: Re: Book

Dear Ellla,

Opinions are like nipples, everybody has one. Some have firm points, others are barely discernible through layers, and some are displayed at every opportunity regardless of whether an audience has stated, "I am interested in your nipples" or not. Cats have nineteen.

As people can only provide unbiased opinions about things they have no interest in, your zealous fervor regarding cats is understood but misdirected.

At no time have I ever "fantasized about torturing and killing cats." This is an assumption you have made and I am puzzled to its origin. Are you referring to the article titled David and his best friends spend a day at the beach? I have attached an excerpt.

Regards, David.