Tip Rats

Part 2 - Bundy

In a small coastal town like Bundleton, there's not a lot to do outside surfing, smoking and drinking. The local youth spend most of their time bouncing between one, another or a combination of, the three. When the weekend comes around, they look forward to seeing who turns up to the holiday houses and Caravan Park, hoping the new faces will break the monotony and provide some fresh meat to fight or fuck. Those, who through fear, failing or otherwise, choose to stay in town after leaving school still do this well into adulthood. The rows of wooden benches on the foreshore are the favoured daytime drinking venue of a lot of the boys Ned had grown up with. By this time of the day, some of the fellas would have already claimed their places and be exchanging their versions of events from the night before. Ned spotted a few familiar faces as he drove past the benches on his way into town, and gave a salutary toot of the horn.

'Sad pricks', Ned muttered with a shake of his head.

Further down the road, Ned passed the spot where as a nine-year-old he was hit by an ambulance while he was riding his skateboard. Conveniently, the ambulance was already on the way to the hospital with the body of a leathery old gentleman who'd just succumb to a heart attack on the beach. Ned ended up with a broken arm, a fractured skull and a week long holiday in the children's ward, along with the added bonus of several months' worth of nightmares involving a dead body wobbling and farting beside him in the back of an ambulance and the inability to taste or smell anything for two full years.

Recently, some of the bored youth had made an uninspired attempt at notoriety, playing the part of suburban gangsters and creatively calling themselves the Bundy Brotherhood. They had shirts and hoodies emblazoned with their catchy gang name, bad tattoos of the local postcode, and invented rivalries with the youth of neighbouring communities who happily reciprocated. The Brotherhood boys made a habit of accidentally bumping into groups of youths from nearby towns and starting brawls, giving them something to talk about for the following week, until the next brawl-night.

*

As his rust stained 1986 Nissan Pintara neared its destination, Ned saw a familiar figure lumbering along the footpath in the opposite direction. It was his younger sister Krystal, barefoot, shoes in hand and make-up streaked down her face, she resembled a fat, teenage Alice Cooper. Her right arm was gesticulating wildly, flailing the shoes about like nunchakus, whilst her left hand held her mobile phone in front of her face as she yelled indecipherable obscenities down the line. To his great relief Ned ghosted past her unnoticed.

At the top of the street Ned turned left on to Ocean Parade, pulling up in front of number 22, a single story weatherboard house resplendent in cracked and flaking paint, a splintered wooden deck, and salt crusted window panes. It looked a state but to Ned it was a palace. Number 22 was the last of the original houses on Ocean Parade, built 50-odd years earlier for the miners who worked in the pits behind the Bay and was now the house where Andy Dobson lives.

Andy and Ned had been besties since they were in pre-school. Andy's grandparents had lived in the house for fifty-three years before moving into a nursing home for their twilight years. Andy checked in after he finished school and he made it his man-child play castle.

Ned strolled up the driveway and could just distinguish Andy's silhouette through the streaky glass. As his foot hit the first of the two steps leading up to the deck the flimsy screen door flung open with a hiss and bang.

'Hello dickhead! How was the trip?' Andy flopped down onto a worn out patio chair holding a coffee mug and a banana.

'Yeah, it was alright I s'pose.'

'Did you see her?' Andy gave Ned a cheeky grin.

'Who?'

'Rachel, that chick from last holidays, that's why you went there you pussy.'

'Bullshit, I just didn't want to hang around here all weekend'.

'Bull! Shit! I know what you were up to. So did ya?'

Ned shrugged, '...yeah.'

'...and?'

'Turns out she sucks, and she has a boyfriend... ugly fucker he is too.'

Andy shook his head in disbelief, 'shoulda just stayed here mate, all the tarts from the city were up here slutting about.'

'Yeah right... well, I'm sure they'll be back next weekend.'

Andy nodded in agreement, 'so have you decided what you're going to do with yourself'

'Aaah' Ned puffed his cheeks, 'nah'.

'You know you can work for me for a bit, the offer stands.'

'For your Dad you mean'.

'Same thing', Andy replied defiantly.

Ned shook his head, 'no it's not'.

'You been home yet?'

'Yeah, I dropped in for a shit and a feed. Shane was stinking up the place so I bailed'.

Andy chuckled, 'I saw Shane at the top-pub on Friday, he was being a menace, no surprise.'

Ned nodded with a knowing smile on his face.

'He cornered me for a few minutes, told me he'd been speaking to the manager about DJ-ing up there.'

Ned let out a burst of laughter. 'I guess it's the next logical step after his rap career died'.

'Yeah, I don't know how he failed' Andy laughed, 'all those quality tunes he wrote about smoking bongs and fingering chicks behind Newman's'.

Ned shook Andy by the shoulder, 'the world wasn't ready for him man!'