It’s Friday evening, end of the day, end of the week, end of representing an employer and all that it entails. Dearly Beloved has literally washed it all away. Freshly showered, he has taken up ‘the position’ on the couch, a barely-there bath towel as cover.
I’ve no need to explain his state of undress to other blokes – it’s late summer, we have no neighbours, and Beloved is comfortable in his own skin. Besides, it’s his house, his castle.
The shout-out from a visitor at the front door comes as an unwelcome surprise. I attend to it as I am fully attired.
Bugger. The visitor is a weekend warrior wanting to access our workplace. He’s had issues with his key and the padlock, which that key should open. It’s not something I can remedy – it’s a task for Beloved – back to work fella!
Roused from his slouch on the couch, Beloved is trapped in the lounge, naked bar a bath towel, his route to other clothing blocked by the unsuspecting visitor.
In the lounge, clothing selections are meagre. Very meagre. Beloved finds a pair of clean track pants in a washing basket and drags them on. A hi-vis tee shirt is snatched from the back of an office chair. Done, dressed and semi-respectable.
The access issue proves to have no easy fix, instead Beloved must slide his bare feet into gumboots, his bum into his work truck and drive away from home. Credit to him, he has made the change from zoned-out to tuned-in, indeed, he’s so alert he notices a new garden feature in the neighbour’s yard as he passes.
That new garden feature, black and hairy, notices Beloved too. It is wary. Wise to humans’ wicked thought processes, it trots away to safer pastures, or so it thinks.
Job done my man drives toward home. As he does so, he notes the neighbours’ most recent garden feature has transitioned into a paddock ornament. Not only is it black and hairy, but it also has a shiny scrotum at one end and shiny tusks visible at the other end. Tail swishing, it feasts on clover, oblivious to its impending doom.
The boar-sighting is enough to make my big fella squeal his wheels both figuratively and literally, putting pedal to metal he comes down our front driveway like a boy racer.
At the door there’s two thumps and a clatter – bare feet shuck gumboots, toenails scrabble across the porch. Beloved barely remembers to draw breath as he hurriedly unlocks rifle, bolt and mag, and then ammo from their various safe places.
Watching him, I’m transported back to my childhood and one of my favourite Little Golden Books – ‘The Saggy Baggy Elephant.’
The thin fabric of Beloved’s grey-coloured trackies is all wrinkled after its journey through the laundry. They may be loose fitting, but there’s no hiding his trunk, unrestrained, as he stampedes from room to room. But I digress … back to the hunt and the hunted.
Our neighbour has a hate on the marauding wild porkers, which destroy his lawns and crops in the dark of night. His permission is ongoing, no need to phone. So, armed and dangerous, Beloved slips barefooted into his gumboots and stalks off down our rear driveway. I watch on, grinning – Henry Mancini and his Orchestra’s ‘Baby Elephant Walk’ trumpeting in my head.
That man of mine then slithers towards the back gate, putting a new spin on The Gonads’ song, ‘Old Boots, No Panties.’ He does a fine job of unlatching said gate, no latch-rattle at all, but a covey of quail read his body language as that of a predator on the prowl. A cock quail on sentry duty starts alarm calling and the paddock ornament next door pauses mid-bite.
The boar listens but hears no sound. He sniffs but smells no scent. He looks but only sees 13 quail and an elephant. Nothing to fear at all. He is hungry, the clover is abundant and sweet, his feasting resumes.
Beloved waits till the boar is head-down, bum-up before scuttling across the road and getting into position. A convenient fence post provides a rifle rest. There’s a natural safe background. Promptly thereafter his scope-eye-view is filled with a hairy black elbow crease.
The cock quail does his best to warn the grazing grunter but, after another session of ‘listen, sniff, look,’ it settles to grazing once more.
There’s a rifle shot, a suppressed ‘crack,’ before a tiny projectile penetrates the boar’s rib cage and a pulse of heart-blood floods his chest cavity. He tries to run for his home in the hills, but his gas tank feels inexplicably empty, and his legs will not respond to his brain’s urgings.
“I told you so – I told you so – I told you so,” chides cock quail on loop.
Beloved’s evening score is young and fat, prime pork. If our freezers were empty, we’d welcome him into our home. Our freezers are not empty but for this pig there will indeed be a ‘forever home.’
Yup, this evening he was a lucky score. Tomorrow evening, he will also be a lucky score. He’ll satisfy appetites aplenty, the celebrated centrepiece of Island-style feasting. Then, afterwards, there’ll be more contented blokes lying on couches with full bellies and in various states of repose – underpants optional – their house, their castle.
