The Crooked Chook Raffle
Road Tales by Kelly Ashton
I WAS out on the town one Friday night with my Best Girl, The Goog, her sister Lee-Lu and her cousin Sards. ‘Sards’ was short for Sardines, which was a corruption of ‘Nadine’; when we called out “Nadine”, it sounded like ‘NAR-DEEN!’ Not saying Sards was real happy about the epithet, but that’s what we called her.
We were starting out at The New Brighton Hotel on the corner of Sydney Road and The Corso, Manly. Our normal drinking hole while in Manly was a short stagger across Sydney Road to The Steyne Hotel, but because The Goog’s other cousin (Sards’ sister Yannie Boo) worked as a barmaid at the Brighton and was finishing her shift shortly, we would grab her, cross the road to the Steyne and commence tearing up the town.
It was always good having a posse of good-looking women, and that particular night, The Goog looked particularly fine in her brand new, bright white denim Levi’s jacket. And that form-fitting jacket was what set off a chain of events that led us all into a funny interaction with a dead-set dickhead. Fair dinkum, the entertainment lasted all night.
The Goog had just put her elbow and forearm down on the wobbly table, and was aghast that the pub table was full of spilt beer. It was one of those ‘edged’ Johnnies so there was probably near enough to a full beer sloshing around on the table but I didn’t spill it (well, not that time, anyway).
“Shit, bugger, POOP!” The Goog yelled out as she dragged her arm away.
She scrunched up, twisted her arm over and looked down at the drenched sleeve in disgust. Now the situation turned quite hilarious as her upturned forearm and similarly positioned right hand protruded into the aisle. At that exact instant, a fit-looking young footballer selling raffle tickets walked right into The Goog’s upstretched hand. He was wearing tight footy shorts and accidentally plopped his cods into an ever-so-gentle Squirrel Grip.
“Oh, Darlin’, thank you!” he said. “You buy a ticket in this raffle and I guarantee you’ll win!”
The wet, wobbly table was rocked by an embarrassed guffaw from The Goog and uproarious laughter from Lee-Lu, Sards and me. I couldn’t find it in myself to be angry or jealous to see my Best Girl cupping some other man’s orchestra stalls, I was laughing too much.
Now, Ballsack Boy was true to his word and just before the raffle draw, came over to our (now-wiped dry) table and whispered to The Goog, “What’s your ticket number, Darling? Oh, B47… okayyyyy.”
“You don’t have to do that,” pleaded “The Goog. “We can’t do that, surely?”
“Leave it with me, Darling,” Ballsack boy whispered before leaving and walking to the centre of the bar.
He stood on a stool and yelled, “Get your tickets out; the raffle’s about to be drawn and the barmaid is going to do it, just to be fair.”
He then walked over to the bar where Yannie-Boo was serving, held the bag of tickets up, then whispered to Yannie, “No matter what ticket number comes out, just say B47, okay?”
“Sure,” Yannie replied, whereupon she drew a ticket and promptly called out, “A24!”
“B47!” he hissed.
“Oh, sorry,” said Yannie, squinting at the ticket, “B47!”
Yannie Boo was a stunning hottie, and… while she wasn’t dumb, she definitely was a bit vague.
Ballsack Boy strode proudly over to our humble table and handed over a fantastic-looking meat tray to The Goog. “I told ya you’d win.”
A bloke sitting at the next table, who, up until then, had not been a dickhead, leaned over and snarled, “What a rip-off — the draw was rigged!”
“Yeah, whatever, mate; whatever you say,” I replied quietly.
He kept going on, getting louder and louder with his accusations of unfair play, and being an ethical and basically honest person, I had to agree with him. I mean, the fraud wasn’t planned or executed by anyone at our table but we were complicit in accepting the ill-gotten gain. And we definitely weren’t giving it up now it was in our cold, clammy hands.
Yannie Boo had clocked off her shift and the four girls and me hightailed it across the road to The Steyne to start the fun and plan the barbecue. Annoyingly, Dickhead was participating in the same pub crawl and he and his large group of mates were harassing us.
“Rigged, rigged, rigged,” they’d chant every so often, with Dickhead being the loudest and most aggressive.
We could only counter with a brief phrase, and that was, “FUCK OFF, IDIOT!” but that didn’t seem to achieve anything.
As was customary, when The Steyne chucked us out at closing time, we made a beeline for Sweet Fanny Adams, a reasonably cool wine bar in Collaroy. The one deviation from our normal migration was to stop off at home and chuck the disputed meat tray into the fridge in preparation for the next day’s hastily-called barbecue.
Now, Fanny Adams was right on the beach at Collaroy, two storeys high with a steep, non-drunk-proof stairway leading to the top floor. Up top featured a big, breezy balcony overlooking the grand Pacific Ocean. The Owner of Fanny Adams was an ex-footballer named Bryan Adams who owned a yellow Rolls-Royce convertible at a time when not many footballers owned luxury cars. He was a good bloke (as long as you didn’t get on his wrong side and stayed casually boisterous rather than out of control).
We hadn’t been there for quarter of an hour when the same, rasping cry of “Rigged” was emanating from the sweaty, cloying crowd. Yep, Dickhead was still on the same pub crawl.
He got in my face and we had words. I said, “Listen, matey, did you have ticket A24?”
“No, I didn’t even have a ticket in the raffle,” he bleated. “But still, what you did was wrong!”
“Fuck off, idiot.” I told him.
It was not the first time I uttered those words to him that night but this time it really upset him and he shoved me backwards. I shoved him back even harder and he jumped back up swinging wild punches. Owner Bryan Adams instantly appeared out of nowhere and broke up the blue that hadn’t even started yet.
Good old Bryan nodded at me and said, ‘You go out on the balcony, and you…” he snarled, addressing the Dickhead, “You can fuck off, idiot. You can either walk down the stairs and leave the premises peacefully, or I can throw you down the stairs and turf you out on the footpath.”
As I might have mentioned, this bloke was a dead-set Dickhead. When he turned to leave, he let out a yell ran to the stairs, shoulder charging a patron and spilling his bourbon. This was very stupid thing to do as the patron who lost the drink just happened to be one of four members of the local patch club who were partying at Fanny’s. Bryan Adams had already laid down the rules: NO COLOURS, but club T-shirts were okay, so there was no mistaking who these blokes were. This particular club could usually behave enough not to get banned from every place.
The drink-less member grabbed a hold of the Dickhead’s arm and dragged him back, stating, “You owe me a double bourbon, Dickhead.”
Now, just to validate his standing in the Dickhead Club of Australia, the ambitious lad arced up and said, “Get fucked! Go on, have yer go, mug!”
This was a really bad move, even for a Dickhead. See Old Mate Patch Member was not just a big bloke, he was also a very good fighter. Old Mate’s Dad, a crusty old biker, had made his son take up boxing when he was just a kid, and by the time he was old enough to need boxing skills, he was a very handy amateur boxer.
The Owner/Bouncer was still Johnnie-On-The-Spot and events stayed civilised: the potential scuffle was moved quietly down the stairs to the carpark. Old Mate’s fellow club members following him downstairs, while Dickhead’s mates followed their Dickhead mate.
“You!” said Owner/Bouncer to me, preventing me from heading down to see the action. “You go out on the balcony; you’ll get a much better view from up there.”
He was right, me and the girls got a great view of the upcoming bout, like it was an amphitheater.
Down in the carpark, there was no all-in brawl but a very civilised shaping up by two blokes about to go toe-to-toe. Dickhead’s mates formed half the ring behind him, while Old Mate’s mates formed up the other behind Old Mate.
Dickhead threw the first punch and Old Mate countered beautifully with a lightning combo of about three rights and three lefts. Dickhead dropped like a bag of shit with a broken handle.
He jumped to his feet and continued, “Come on, have a go, ya mug,” he repeated, before Old Mate decked him again, raining even more savage blows on his stupid head.
“Stay down,” Old Mate told him. “Or I’ll just knock you down again.”
Dickhead wasn’t good at taking good advice, got up again and was sat on his arse on the deck even quicker than the two previous knockdowns.
“Mate,” Old Mate pleaded. “Please stay down, this is wearing me out!”
At that point, Dickhead’s mates held him down on the ground so he couldn’t get up, then they told Old Mate he was free to leave the scene any time he wished.
“Thank you, and good night,” Old Mate said as he turned and walked away.
It was just about closing time and we were all turfed out; ah well, home time.
Old Mate and his crew had already left but Dickhead was still there. As me and the Girlies walked past, he started going off again. “Rigged, rigged!” he bawled. “I knew you were all in it together!”
I stopped and turned to face him. There was no confrontation as his mates all grabbed him and held him back. It’s really funny in that situation, as the held-back aggressor always struggles furiously when restrained, but if ever the restraining mates release him, they often stop struggling and find themselves at a loss of what to do next. But they held on tight so I turned and walked away.
As a final act of aggression, Dickhead started blowing raspberries in our direction, as his mates held him back. It was the final pathetic act of a vanquished foe.
Sportscasters Roy Slavens and H.G. Nelson have always maintained that the basis of all comedy involves the total loss of dignity for someone, and if that’s true, Dickhead was creating comedy GOLD!
More amazing Ozbike features to check out: