Impractical Jokes (14 page)

‘Remember how we used to play that imperfect yet strangely comforting game of Uno?'

‘The one that used to go on forever, no end in sight and no idea how one may achieve victory?'

‘Yeah, that's the one. God I miss that utterly pointless game.'

‘You know what I miss? That game of Kerplunk with dried Milo over the holes so you could only get about five sticks in.'

‘The one with only four marbles?'

‘Yeah. Gee we would play a game of that quickly.'

‘I'm cold.'

‘It's best not to think about it. Hey, remember Miss July, 1974?'

‘I sure do.'

‘I bet you wouldn't be so cold if she was out here with us now.'

‘No. But I bet she'd be pretty freezing.'

Laughter.

‘You hear about that kid that got busted with the hose?'

‘I hear he bought it.'

‘Nah. I hear he got a free pass back home. I bet you right now he's dry and warm and drinking Milo by a fire.'

‘Well, I know one thing. He wouldn't be missing this godforsaken mess.'

‘That's for sure. That lucky sonofabitch.'

Meanwhile somewhere on the mountain the men were properly lost. With each rendition of ‘There's snow business like snow business' they lost a little more strength, enthusiasm and hope. Before long the song had subsided to something of a mumbled mantra, a suitable soundtrack to a death march. Sensing the group was about to give up and begin carving their wills into the surrounding trees, Richard attempted to take charge of the situation, stepping up onto a tree stump to address the group.

‘Gentlemen. We must . . .'

Richard, overwhelmed by a sense of purpose and a skinful of slivovitz, fell backwards off his makeshift plinth and into a snowdrift. While the slapstick interlude did have the effect of raising morale, it wasn't quite the lofty address he had hoped for. It took him a while to gather himself and once again clamber up into a speaking position. By the time he spoke again he had everyone's undivided attention.

‘As I was saying . . . Gentlemen. We must not give up hope. I assure you that I will lead you all back home. For I was a regimental sergeant major and I have extensive field experience in the field of navigation and orienteering in the field.'

There was a half-hearted smattering of applause at this point. The men were reassured by his confidence but unnerved by his overuse of the world ‘field'. Sensing that his support was on a knife-edge, Richard attempted to bring it home.

‘I can tell you exactly which direction we are heading in because I know for a fact that moss only ever grows on the south side of a tree.'

Richard then stepped off the stump and strode towards the nearest tree. With a generous helping of theatre he made a grand gesture of stooping over to inspect the trunk. All the men huddled around to inspect it with him. The sense of optimistic anticipation built within the group, all of them conveniently ignoring the fact that even if they did know which way was south that really wouldn't lead them any closer to the lodge. This, it turns out was the least of their problems, as they all saw at the same time that moss was growing all the way around the tree.

Maintaining his role as the unflappable leader, Richard stepped back onto the stump.

‘Gentlemen . . . I believe we're fucked.'

Back in the village things had gone from bad to worse. Amid sporadic fire, we were still pinned down behind a tree unable to move, only now one of the kids in our group needed to go to the toilet. In an attempt to bring about a ceasefire, my sister, Suzie, pulled a white hanky out of her pocket and waved it above her head, making it just visible above our fortification.

‘Hold your fire!'

There was a pause that seemed to go on forever. The world stood still as we waited for a response. And because we were in the snow it was that special stillness you can't experience anywhere else in the world where you can actually hear the snowflakes falling on your gloves. Finally the snipers spoke.

‘What do you want?'

After some reassurance from Suzie, the unfortunate child spoke. ‘I need to go to the toilet. I want everyone to hold their fire while I walk to the lodge to go to the toilet.'

‘Will you come back?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘What if you go inside and go to the toilet but then sneak out the back door and come around and ambush us?'

‘I hadn't even thought of that.'

‘So are you coming back or not?'

‘What do you want me to do?'

‘You should have to come back and go behind the tree again.'

‘Ok. But you have to not throw any snowballs when I come out again. Do we have a deal?'

‘Deal.'

‘Ok. I'm standing up now.'

He stood up, and was immediately pummelled by heavy fire from a number of directions. He dived back behind the tree and began crying. It was only later that we found out that a snowball had hit him directly in the bladder, causing both urine and dignity to seep out of him. War, as they say, is hell.

And it was here we remained, pinned down, unable to move, never gaining an inch, one of us drenched in his own piss and tears. The sense of futility and constant stalemate gave it the feel of the Gaza Strip in winter or playing Uno in a lodge. As time marched on, it was increasingly impossible to conceive of victory. Until into this frozen battlefield walked the chorus line from ‘Piste! The Musical'.

‘There's
snowwww
business like
snowwww
business like
snowwww
business I
snowwww
!'

They took a barrage of snow and, sensing yet another situation they were drastically ill-equipped to handle, collapsed to the ground and gradually crawled into the lodge.

All except for my dad's mate Harry. Beautiful, kindhearted Harry, who holds the distinction of being the only grown up to have a beaming smile in every one of the childhood memories I have of him. He was known for an extensive collection of hats and enormous, careening dinner parties, the two often going hand in hand. I was fortunate enough to sit at the kids' table at one such party for twelve adults and ten children. The evening began with Harry, in a pith helmet, serving an entrée of a bottle of wine for each adult and a raspberry spider for each kid. To top it all off he spoke like Terry Thomas, conducted himself through the entire course as a foppish colonialist hosting a get-together in deepest darkest Africa in a time when it was ok to use phrases like ‘deepest darkest Africa'. With each course, Harry wore a different hat and adopted a new character, but never failed to top up everyone's wine and spiders. All of this worked to create a genuine sense of chaos and distract everyone from the fact that Harry really didn't have a meal plan to speak of. A supreme court judge served dips. A viking served the entrée. The main course was served by Charlie Chaplin, complete with moustache drawn on with indelible marker. By the time dessert was served, a dangerously jolly Harry had given up on the hats but kept the moustache, giving the impression that Hitler was serving industrial-sized ice-cream tubs topped up with vodka. Above all I remember that from start to finish and without exception everybody at that party was laughing.

But on this day, Harry would be known for selfless heroics that would not soon be forgotten. He stood up, brushed himself off and raised a finger to the sky in the manner one does when they are about to declare something very important or have just invented the light bulb.

‘No! I must save the children!'

As he walked out to meet his destiny, Harry drew some heavy fire. He dropped like a stone. He tried to get back on his feet, but the attack showed no signs of letting up and he was forced back down by a vindictive avalanche.

Things were getting ugly, but we weren't stupid. We could see that Harry was a once-in-a-lifetime decoy. He proved enough of a distraction for all of us to crawl through the frozen undergrowth, across no man's land and into the lodge. Just as my face felt the warmth from within the open door, I turned back to see Harry, writhing on the ground and disappearing under a growing pile of snow. ‘God be with you, Harry,' I thought. ‘You are on your own.'

Inside the lodge it was bedlam.

The men of the lodge were desperate to enthusiastically tell their story of improbable survival in the unforgiving frozen ranges. The women of the lodge, on the other hand, were more intent on enquiring of the men of the lodge as to where all these fuckwits had come from and if it was possible to send them back to the warehouse.

Now, the major problem with fuckwits is enthusiastic solidarity. Whenever a wife would question her husband, his comrades would immediately fly to his defence, invariably in song. An entirely reasonable question like, ‘How could you go and get so drunk this early in the afternoon?' would not receive even the most fumbling response before the fuckwit ensemble intervened with a spirited ‘There's
snowwwww
business like
snowwwww
business'. It was one of the more counterproductive conversational strategies ever seen and had most of the kids predicting an imminent spate of divorces.

Indeed relations between my parents very quickly hit an all-time low.

‘Ronnie. It's two-thirty in the afternoon, we had a special dinner planned and you are completely poleaxed. What do you have to say for yourself?'

Now, apart from the phrase ‘there's
snowwwww
business like
snowwwww
business' my father could only muster one other sentence. With all the misplaced earnestness of a wino tramp telling you the secrets of a successful life, my dad would look my mum in the eye and say, ‘I'm hisstree, Pammy. I'm hisstreeeeee.'

Not surprisingly, this didn't seem to answer my mother's questions.

Just as the 1990 Valhalla Lodge Tension Convention looked set to descend into physical violence, the door to the lodge burst open. Like Mawson returning to base, it was Harry, accompanied by a theatrical touch of blizzard and barely recognisable from the man who left the lodge at ten that morning. He had two black eyes, was bleeding badly from the nose and was drenched to his core. His body seemed to be fighting a losing battle with gravity and he was a source of great concern.