Saturday 30 April 2011

POOR LITTLE FLYING FOXES CONT....PART 5

CONT........

After Horsey had hung up, Cush walked round and round the apartment. " What the hell did that bastard Piper know? " he wondered.  He racked his memory trying to remember what he might have told him.  He was pretty sure he said something to him about the waterfront deal, but he couldn't quite remember.  At the time he thought Piper was in with them all.

As he had suggested to Horsey, the only course of action they had other than in topping Piper was to get him as pissed as a newt and pump him.  Horsey agreed.  Leave it to Horsey to arrange.

Cush wandered into his study, vaguely recalling he had a Chamber of Commerce meeting the following day.  The Council CEO and his Executive Assistant had drafted a speech for him, and left it for his final approval.  He thought he would take a gander at it anyway.

He grimaced in disgust as he saw that Brandi had been hard at work at his desk and left her "work" behind.  There was her "scrapbook" with large gold lettering on the front cover, "THE FIRST LADY OF CAIRNS".
He flipped through the pages.  The first page covered his election victory with a clipping from the front page of "The Cairns Post".  It brought a grin to his face, as he recalled the night.  There had been three candidates for the Mayoralty.  Val Schier, the incumbent was up again for a second term, then there was Boyd Jamieson, an Independent, and then himself.  There were no words to describe it.  He had SHIT it in, receiving over 70 percent of the vote.  Schier received 20% and Jamieson, less than 10%.  "The Cairns Post" had described it on the front page in huge banners....."A POLITICAL TSUNAMI FOR CUSH".

The photograph taken by "The Cairns Post" was of he and Brandi waving glasses of champagne.  He turned the page and there was an interview with Brandi by some tart writer from "The Weekender" with all these photographs of her wearing her various rags..  Curious, he kept on turning the pages, noticing more and more newspaper items of Brandi where the female journalists all gushed and slobbered over her.  There she was at the Cairns Amateurs last year, wearing a hat suspiciously like a peacock's arse, then more and more photos of her modelling clobber somewhere.  Apart from the one photograph at the very front, every photograph in the scrapbook was of Brandi being described as "the First Lady of Cairns" or "the Lady Mayoress".   Narcissistic little bitch!  thought Cush disgustedly flinging the book aside.

He sat down at his computer and fired it up.  Just then the phone rang again and he looked anxiously at the call number displayed.  Unknown number.  He decided not to answer it, just in case it was the silly little bitch again phoning from Melbourne.  Hers was one voice he didn't want to hear again tonight.

The answering machine kicked in, and there was a hesitation before the caller began.  He recognised the voice instantly.  JOYCE!

"Ken, it's Joyce here," she said nervously.  "I'm phoning just to find out how you are......."

Ken grabbed the phone and cleared his throat.  "Hello Joyce!"
There was a strained silence.  Ken thought it was well over two years since they had last spoke.
"How are you Ken?" asked Joyce.  "I saw you on the television news tonight, and I thought I would phone and find out if you are alright."
"Fit as a mallee bull, as usual, but how are you anyway?" replied Cush, rapidly thinking.  Obviously his first wife still carried a bit of a torch for him, he reckoned.  He'd be stupid not to keep her there in the loop still fretting for him.  After all, he doubted if Brandi would hang around if he got really sick.  And someone would have to look after him.

"Oh, I'm very well thanks Ken," replied Joyce.  "I'm living in Townsville now.........."
"Townsville, hey..." broke in Ken.  "So you moved up there to be with Peter and his family?"
Peter was their second son  whom Ken had always loathed.   His favorite was the older son, Luke, who was a SAS officer currently serving in Afghanistan.  Chip off the old block was Luke.  Peter was a poncey mankey little poofter who took after his Mother.  Unfortunately.
"Yes," said Joyce.  "It has been wonderful seeing the grandchildren and watching them grow up."
Cush thought rapidly trying to work out how old Peter's children were by this.  He had never seen them and frankly had no desire to see them.  However he had to humour old Joyce who was a bit touched in the head when it came to rugrats.
"That's real nice," he said, warmly.  "Yes, you would enjoy that."
There was another awkward silence as both thought hard of what to say next.  Finally Joyce broke the silence.  "Well Ken I better go.  I'm glad you are alright."

"Lovely hearing from you again Joyce," said Cush putting as much warmth and sincerity as he could muster into his voice.  "I will keep in touch with you from now on.  I promise!"

Cush leaned back in his chair as the call ended and grinned.  He had to keep the old bag on a string, hanging in there, in case bloody Brandi either pissed off on her own or he booted her out first. 

He was definitely in a much better mood as he opened up his Word Document and perused the speech he had to give to the Cairns Chamber of Commerce the following day.

In Townsville, in the suburb of Mundingburra, Joyce Cush, who was now known as Joyce Taylor, having reverted to her maiden name, washed her hands in the basin of her tiny bathroom in the small duplex she had bought.  After speaking with Ken, she had felt dirty somehow.  She shuddered and scrubbed away at her hands.  She had never wanted to ever speak to him again after the divorce, however Luke, their son, had phoned one day from Afghanistan where he was serving, and asked how his father was.  She said she would find out.

She had done that for their son.  She reasoned if Luke could face the Taliban and the various warlords in Afghanistan, then she could manage one phone call to his father.  Still, the phone call compelled her into washing her hands with antibacterial hand soap for over ten minutes. 

Joyce glanced up at herself in the bathrrom mirror.  Ken wouldn't recognise her now!  Oh, she had made a lot of changes in her life since the day he walked in and said he was leaving and getting a divorce.  For the first three months, she could do nothing but lie in bed, cry and pick away at food and do the least amount of housework.  Severe depression, said the psychologist.  But then, Peter her son, and his wife, Megan had come for a visit and they talked her into moving to Townsville, to be with them.

After she had moved into the tiny and modest duplex, Megan, her daughter-in-law, suggested she have a make-over, turn herself into a "new" woman.  Joyce had protested, but Megan was persuasive.
Gone were the floral suits and sensible cuban heeled shoes which Ken liked her to wear.  She now wore tight jeans which showed off her slim Size 10 figure, with T-shirts emblazoned with slogans.  She had her silvery white hair cut very short, which she gelled each day so that it stood up in quiffs.  Occasionally, she sprayed red or green onto one of the quiffs, just to look a bit more colourful.  Once, feeling terribly emboldened by her new look, she had even gone to a tattooist, and had a small tasteful tattoo of a rose on her right shoulder. 

She was a new woman with a new life.  The entire feminist movement and revolution had passed her by.  She had married in the early 1970s when it was all beginning.  From then she was kept busy keeping house, looking after Ken and having babies.   With Ken away so much in the army, she had to do everything around the home and it was a full-time job.  When Ken retired, he joined so many organisations, that she was kept busy again doing his secretarial work, reminding him of his commitments, cooking, entertaining, even writing up his speeches, particularly when Ken was Governor of the Gold Coast Lions for a year.

Moving to Townsville therefore was all about her, Joyce Tayor how, not about Joyce Cush.  It was her time to do the things she had always wanted to do.  She joined the P & C of the local State School where her grandchildren attended.  She joined a local craft group and surprised herself at how easy it was to create and make jewellery.  Lastly, Joyce joined the Mundingburra Branch of the Australian Labor Party.

TO BE CONTINUED

Wednesday 27 April 2011

POOR LITTLE FLYING FOXES CONT.......

Cont..........

As he reached down into the liquor cabinet and pulled out a no-name bottle of cheap red, he
thought longingly of Joyce's carefully prepared meals, the dining room table set with good
table service, and the alkaline food diet she put him on.  "We have to cancer proof our
bodies, Ken," she said.  Surprisingly, the alkaline salads were tasty.  Very tasty in fact.

He was thinking more and more of Joyce these days.  Yeah, he had many doubts as time
wore on, thinking what a bloody fool he had been marrying a tart younger than his own sons.
Yeah, the sex had been good for a few months, and he liked the look of naked envy as he
strode into a room with Brandi hanging off his arm.

But buggar it all.  He was 68 years of age.  He had a crook back, his knees ached with a
relentless deep pain all night and day long and on top of it all he now had trouble with his
dick.  Never had any trouble with it before.  Ever.  How many times did he get up to pee  last night,
he wondered?

All he wanted was for a nice feed on the table, a comfortable couch, some soothing words,
his suits all washed and pressed.  It wasn't much for a man to ask.  Nothing.

He took a deep swallow of the red and sank down on the couch, finding the remote and switching on
the TV nearby.

The local news had just started.  The story led in with a long and loving segment of Councillor
Lovelady standing on some makeshift dias.  She was making the predictable noises.  Cush belched
and farted, but could just hear Lovelady's indigant voice. "....outrageous, depraved, barbaric!" she
was saying.  "I'm  lodging the strongest complaint with the environmental authorities.  We shall avenge the deaths of those poor little baby flying foxes!"  The crowd cheered and waved their placards, but then
in the next segment the camera veered to his disastrous foray out of the Council Chambers.

Cush stared in horror as he looked at himself falling on his arse inside the Council Chambers
with Mingin cracking up behind him, then coming up and offering him his arm and hauling him
to his feet.  Next, he saw his shocked, puce coloured face, mouth hanging slackly open, as that
awful little monster of a girl carrying the placard with the baby flying foxes, shrieked up at him.

The segment in the Mayor's Office was pretty good, he thought.  He was in command, alright.
The last segment of the story on the poor bloody flying foxes, was taken downstairs again where
the cameraman who obviously had a hard-on looking at Lovelady, kept filming her on the dias.
Cush's eyes narrowed and his lip curled up as he watched both Councillors Mingin and Bomboniere
climb up and stand beside her.  "Solidarity!" Mingin called out.  The crowd roared!

He went again to flick off the remote, when he saw someone else crawling up onto the dias.
He blinked and rubbed his eyes to make sure.  But it was who he thought it was.  The Division
7 Councillor, Dom Piper, was standing there alongside Lovelady, Mingin and Bomboniere!!!

What's that bastard doing! thought Cush.  Ask for a bit of solidarity, and a gutless grub like
Piper licks his finger and holds it to the wind.  I mean he could expect that of a weak and
spineless old woman like Enzo Bomboniere, who probably had a hard on for Lovelady as
well. 

Angrily he flicked off the remote and took another long swig of the red. 

Just as he was refilling the red, his mobile phone rang.  He knew it was Brandi.

"Oooooooh Cushy, darling," she breathed in her bunged on little girl voice which now irritated the
living crap out of him.  "Poor little baby flying foxes........."

He threw the mobile out the window and in a fit of temper walked into the bedroom where he
threw open the drawers of Brandi's enormous dressing table.  There, he had found the
bastard!  He walked briskly out to the balcony and flung the $30,000 diamond bracelet he
had bought Brandi when he was out of his mind with the cruellest set of lover's balls he had
ever had in his life, well out onto the Esplanade.  He stood back then behind the blinds and
watched with great satisfaction as some walker picked it up.  Good job! 

The phone in the living room rang.  It was Horsey.  He went straight to the matter.
"Did you see the local news?" Horsey asked. 
Cush nodded.  "Yeah, I saw him, bloody gutless wimp."
"I think we might have a problem," Horsey said tersely.  "Piper suspects something, you know,
about Operation T."
Alarm bells started ringing in Cush's head.  "Aaaay, what? But he's a , a...a " Cush struggled to find
the right word.  "He's a SAVVY fellow, isn't he?"
There was an awkward silence on the phone.  Cush felt his heart beginning to beat
really fast and sweat starting to ooze from his armpits.
Finally Horsey said, "No, he's not Col.  Piper's on the level, always has been."
"Jeeeeeeeeeezuz bloody Christ,  Horsey, now you bloody tell me!" thundered Cush.
"I thought you knew," stuttered Horsey.
"No mate, I didn't fucken know!" snarled back Cush.  "I thought he was with us."
There was another awkward silence before Horsey said weakly, "No, he isn't with us."

"Oh fuck!" said Cush and Horsey together.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"


To be continued..............

POOR LITTLE FLYING FOXES CONT......

Bomboniere gave him the shits anyway,  Another confused closet leftie multiculturalist always
mumbling on about some Eyetie festival.  Why they all just didn't piss off home to Italy with their
donkeys and grappa, he, Cush, didn't know...........

............................................

Horsey sat beside him as Deputy Mayor, when the media contingent finally arrived.
Cush kept them waiting for over ten minutes while he fussed with his fair, straightened his jacket and
thought about what he would say.  It was all a storm in a tea-cup, he knew that.  Within a few
days it would all die down, and within a few months time,  people wouldn't even be able to
associate his name with the dirty deed. 

The first question came from a WIN Television reporter; a serious looking little girl whom
Cush thought needed her face wiped with a kleenex, it was so greasy looking.

"Mr Mayor," she asked aggressively, "Is it true that you ordered the mass killings of a roost
of flying foxes adjacent to the Cairns Library, two night ago?"

Cush nodded.  "I did.  I arranged for an experienced team of exterminators to come from
Melbourne to carry out the extermination job in the middle of the night.  I had authorised the
closure of all surrounding roads to traffic for several hours, so that the fumigation could be
safely carried out without harm to people."

Another television reporter, another hysterical young woman broke in:
"But Mr Mayor, flying foxes are a protected species, you can't just kill thousands of them....."

Cush cut her off:  "Those flying foxes were attacking people.  I have a duty to protect the
citizens and tourists of Cairns, and by God, I am going to do just that!"

Another question came from the WIN Television reporter:

"Were the animals killed humanely?"

Cush bristled.  "Look here!" he thundered.  "I'm an expert in killing,  I was in the army after all
for forty years!  I assure you those animals were killed humanely, ethically and compassionately.
It was euthanasia.  They would all have fallen fast asleep and never known a thing."

"But......but........" began the hysterical woman.

Cush stood up and waved his hands in front of him.  "You got your interview and it's finished," he
thundered,  walking from behind hid desk to the door.  That always made them leave.

...................................................

Horsey looked admiringly at him.  "Very much in control there Ken," he said.

Cush sat back confidently in his chair.  "You can't take too much crap from the media.  They've
gotta be shown who's the bossman quick smart, and you know what, they all respect you for it."

..............................

It was around 5.30pm that evening when Cush finally arrived home to his penthouse apartment
overlooking the Cairns Esplanade.  It hads been a long and wearisome day, and he was
looking forward to a few nice drinks, a nice feed, and Brandi's nice cool hands massaging his
aching back.

The apartment was empty.  The bedroom was strewn from top to bottom with Brandi's clothes, shoes, handbags, and a warehouse of make-up bottles, face-creams, and all types of slop and gloop in bottles and tubes.  There was a note propped up against a large photo of Brandi wearing a bikini. 

"Darling Cushie, I had to fly to Melbourne today to do a summer shoot because the other
model flew off somewhere with her boyfriend.  Will phone tonight.  Love, love, love Your own little Brandi XXXXXXXXX"

Sighing, Cush returned to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator and stared dejectedly inside.
The shelvews were empty apart from some tiny globs of mouldy green crust and a bottle of flaxseed oil which Brandi insisted was "food" for her skin.   He opened up the pantry cupboards and stared again at empty shelves,  Brandi didn't cook and they ate all of their meals in cafes or restaurants around
Cairns.  He had gained almost twenty kilograms since he and Brandi had arrived in Cairns just under two years ago, and there were many times he wished for one of the roast lamb dinners his first wife Joyce would dish up on Sundays.

To be continued............

Tuesday 26 April 2011

"POOR LITTLE FLYING FOXES" Continued....

Cont.....

Pain shot through Cush's spine like a red hot poker.  "Sheeeet!" he groaned, seeing white hot
stars and feeling quite dizzy.  Next minute, he was conscious of one big black hand, as big as
a dinner plate with fingers like a bunch of bananas, grabbing his arm and pulling him roughly up off
the floor
"I got ya bossman," said Councillor Mingin, still with that silly smirk all over his black face.

Cush dusted himself down and walked out to the waiting media who had stood back
respectfully.  The crowd roared all the louder.  "KILLERRRRRR!!  KILLERRRRR!"
The noise was deafening.

Someone thrust a microphone in front of him and mouthed something.  Cush shook his head.
"I can't hear over this noise," he roared back.  "Come inside the building up into my office."
He turned to walk back inside but something nudged his trouser leg.

Looking down, he saw a tiny little girl, all of three or four years of age, holding up one of the
placards featuring a photograph of a heap of baby flying foxes all wrapped up in little bunny
rugs like little babies. 

The little girl had huge, tragic, tear streaked eyes.  Bravely, she stared up at His Worship, the
Mayor of Cairns, Coloniel Ken Menzies Cush, veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan,  "Poor liddle
baby flying fuckers!" she wailed in a high pitched shriek which could be distinctly heard above
the roar of the crowd.

Cush stared horror-struck at the little monster, before she was grabbed by some bald headed,
heavily tattoed alien sporting dozens of rings and studs all over its face, presumeably the
monster's sperm or womb donor or whatever they called themselves these days.

Walking back inside the Council Chambers, Cush strode purposefully towards his own Mayor's
office looking for the Deputy Mayor, the Division 6 Councillor, Bob Horseman to share the media interview with.  Christ, he needed all the support he could get.  Horsey was a bloody good bloke and
backed him all the way.

They had both arrived in Cairns in 2011, retiring to a sea change.  Horsey had made his pile
as a developer on the Gold Coast, while he, Cush had had more than just a sea-change.
He had dumped his wife of forty years, Joyce, for twenty-six year old  Brandi, a sexy model
whom he had met one night out on the Gold Coast.  And unlike Horsey, who had plenty of
dough, he had a fast disasppearing retirement fund, thanks to Brandi's spending habits.

He spotted Councillor Enzo Bomboniere lurking in the passageway, and instinctively did
his Churchillian scowl.  Bomboniere represented Division 3, the suburbs of Bayview Heights,
Mt Sheridan, Portsmith, Whiter Rock and Woree.  His result in last years Council election
had been a cliff hanger, the closest result in any election in North Queensland in decades.
Bomboniere had defeated the popular Rob Pyne, the previous Councillor by a margin of
two votes.  Oh, there had been recounts and appeals, but at the end of the day, as Cush
said, the voters wanted a change.

Cush got off on the wrong foot with Bomboniere.  The party had arranged a meeting at one
of the big hotels in the city for all the candidates in the Council election of 2012 to get to
meet the media and the public.  His wife Brandi, looked a treat that night, with a sexy,
shimmering tight gown and he felt so proud having her on his arm. 

They had been standing in a circle with the Horsemans, Warren Entsch, the Federal Member
for Leichhardt, Kev Byrne a long ago former Mayor of Cairns and Mrs Byrne, and some
local party officials, having a drink and some cordial chat, when Cush noticed a tight little
group of people standing somewhat to the left of them, all talking animatedly in a strange
language.

They were all dark skinned, dark haired people, and one woman was dressed in a black
pants suit and wearing a black scarf over her head.

Cush curled his lip.  "Look at that lot over there," he sneered, nodding in the direction of the
group of dark looking people.  "I fought the bloody Muslims for years, and just look at 'em
over there, yabbering away in their bloody lingo.  If they want to come over here, they
should all learn the Queen's English or go back to where they bloody come from."

Brandi squeezed his arm and leaned eagerly forward, eager to share her knowledge.  "They should dress as we do, too," she said with indignation.  "That woman looks disgusting with that awful scarf!"

There was a deep silence around the circle.  Finally, one of the women, Cush thought she might have been Secretary of the Cairns SEC, said in a small, hard voice:  "That is Enzo Bomboniere, the Candidate
for Division 3, and his family.  The woman in the pants suit is his Aunt Gina who has been
undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer.  She wears the scarf over her head because she has
no hair."

"Well, thank God for that then!" boomed Cush.


TGo be continued.........................

Monday 25 April 2011

CUSH OVER CAIRNS



This blog is entirely a work of fiction and all characters and events, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Terry Vance , Cairns 2011

                                   CUSH OVER CAIRNS
                                                                                     
                                                                       Terry Vance (C) 2011

CHAPTER  ONE                 "POOR LITTLE FLYING FOXES"


2013  CAIRNS, AUSTRALIA

His Worship the Mayor of Cairns, Colonel (Retired) Ken Menzies Cush scowled.
It was a scowl described by his first wife, Joyce, as "Churchillian and powerful" while his current
wife, Brandi giggled and said he looked like "one of those funny dogs."

The object of His Worship's displeasure was another woman.  Another young woman.  One Councillor Skye Lovelady, aged 23, whom the people in Division 9 of the Cairns Regional Council had decided to vote in as their representative during last years Council elections.  Yes, the good folk of the Northern beaches, the suburbs of Kewarra Beach, Trinity Beach and Smithfield had all voted in the one and only Greens Party Councillor in the entire Council.  A tree hugging, bicycle riding, Bob Brown loving, carbon tax supporter who was studying some crap rubbish about Environmental Science!  Cush couldn't believe it, but reckoned it was because all the half wits at the local uni must have voted for her plus all the young men in the area who were stupefied by her blonde Barbie doll looks.  Oh, and her tits.

His face darkened as he watched Councillor Lovelady stand on a chair and address the growing crowd outside the Cairns Regional Council Chambers.  From what he could make out, there would have been at least two thousand people all thronging around the limited space, carrying placards with slogans on like "KILLER CUSH" while others who looked like druggies carried placards with photographs of baby flying foxes all wrapped up like little babies. 

The TV crews were all there, focussing on Lovelady and her long legs.  He felt his blood pressure rising and his hands clench involuntarily as he imagined the sheer pleasure of wringing that skinny brown throat of hers.
So, he had gotten rid of all the hundreds of shrieking, filthy, mankey flying foxes from beside the Cairns Library.  Yep, he had arranged to have them all killed.  He wasn't the sort of man to quibble when it came to tough decisions.  That's why he was the Mayor of Cairns.  He had campaigned on his tough man image by citing his years of military service in Iraq and Afghanistan.  His campaign slogan was "Tough times need a strong leader!"  The people of Cairns reckoned he was right too, because he won the Mayoralty in a landslide.

Suddenly conscious that he wasn't alone in the downstairs foyer of the City Council Chambers, His Worship turned abruptly on his heel and spotted Mervyn Mingin, the Division 5 Councillor, watching him with a silly grin on his black face.  "It's your call, bossman," Mingin chuckled, waving a hand to the outside crowd.

Cush felt his face flush even more purple if that was possible.  Councillor Mingin was the only aboriginal Councillor on the Council and in fact was the first ever aboriginal Councillor ever elected on the Cairns Regional Council.  He stood for election as an Independent, but Cush and the other Councillors knew he was backed by the Labor dogs.  Cunning, sly politics at its worst.  He, Cush, had nothing against aboriginal people, but why his own political party couldn't have chosen an agreeable one who would quietly do as he was told to and not cause any shit to happen, he didn't know.  As it was, Mingin was swept into office representing the largely black suburbs of Manoora, Manunda and Westcourt, to cheering hysterical crowds of aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.  Mingin was a former Queensland rugby leagues star player and built like a big black brick shithouse.  Cush loathed him as much as he did Barbie-doll-flying-fox-loving Councillor Lovelady. 

Clearing his throat, and squaring his shoulders, Hisd Worship the Mayor, strode forward and opened the doors to the waiting media and chanting crowd.  The roar which greeted him, 'KILLERRRR!'  'KILLERRR!' was like an atomic blast, and he staggered backwards under its force, falling down on his bum where the TV cameras continued to film him. .

To be continued.................