I just got back from a trip to Byron Bay. My first one in decades. While I was there I walked into to a cafe that had muffins for sale for $9. And then I walked out.
Without all the signs everywhere I wouldn’t have recognised the place.
But it did make me remember this story …
ORAL TRADITION
You can eat anything you want to in Byron Bay these days. It even has a theatre. But back in 1968 just about all you could get for breakfast was a few pies and a chocolate or strawberry milk in big glass bottles. Remember? You could also get custard or lime. But that was later: I think the early seventies. Around the time that Nat and the setters moved in.
Anyway, after breakfast we’d all head back to the Pass for another surf. Sometimes we’d go round to Watego’s. But usually the Pass was better, so we just stayed there. At least until the wind came up, usually around lunchtime.
Now the menu for lunch in 1968 wasn’t all that much different to breakfast. So after the wind came up it was a few more pies and a flavoured milk or two before we all went round to the Pier Astor Hotel. There was a motto we had in the good old days: ‘It’s always offshore at the pub’.
So we walked into the hotel full of youthful optimism, and the vain hope that a few of the girls from Ballina and Lismore would be there getting drunk enough to take advantage of. But they weren’t. The Keepis brothers were there instead.
The brothers Keepis were a couple of half-caste Aboriginal blokes who were surfers. Everyone was terrified of them because they could really fight. They used to get onto these O.P. rum binges. When they got full of booze they were terrible. The white man really came out in them. They became aggressive and violent and senseless.
Anyhow, after being the victim of their go more than a couple of times I’d figured out a way to stay on their side. All you had to do was drink rum with them, and make polite conversation. You’d slap their backs as the rum rushed through your head and say things like, ‘What a great wave you had today, Jimmy’. Then you’d have to give the other brother equal time, ‘You too Johnny. I saw you in the tube. You must’ve been stoked on that one’.
Sometimes they even smiled at us.
As usual, real time stayed with you for a couple of hours. Then the next six or eight just seemed to disappear, along with your equilibrium.
Not being a rum drinker, I staggered out of the pub quite early, for a couple of very good reasons. One, I could hardly stand up. And two, if you passed out drunk around Byron Bay at that time there was an evil bloke, who is now a well known Gold Coast solicitor, who used to pay the local idiot two bob to do anything. Many’s the bloke who passed out and woke up with one eyebrow missing and Billy’s ‘ock shoved in his mouth. Sometimes the rest of the blokes would be standing around cheering. That was the worst part. The audience. Lucky there were no polaroids in those days. Mate.
As the fresh outside air invaded my much abused body I saw the old standard blue kombi waiting patiently for its master. Most kombis seem to be orange these days. But in those days they were blue, with a white VW insignia on the front. And they had sliding windows too. Which is important. ‘Cause later I remember trying to find the handle to wind down the window, which was a bit of a mistake.
So I lurched towards the kombi, grabbed the door handle, got in and got the keys out. I remember thinking, ‘God, I’m drunk. I hope the local sergeant doesn’t get me’. I also realised I was abandoning the boys by taking the car with me. But that was bad luck. It was too late in the game for niceties.
My head was spinning as I stabbed the key at the ignition. It seemed as though it didn’t fit. But it was mainly a problem of aim. Or lack of it.
Then it happened.
A gigantic rum chunder.
It ran all down the steering wheel, the steering column and then into my shoes. Those old kombis had a radio speaker too, in the front. It ran all into there. And all over the inner windscreen. The dashboard copped it, too.
I’d let go about three good ones before deciding that the boys were going to kill me, and that I’d better get out of there and walk on up the beach.
But as I was getting out of the car I slipped. And as I slipped my face hit the seat and I let another one go. It ran all over the back of the seats and onto the floor.
I woke up shivering on the sand not far above the high tide mark. The wind was offshore again, and there was a fisherman standing over me. He said he thought I was dead. And I’m not surprised. I must’ve looked like it.
Not really knowing what to do at this stage, I sort of automatically made my way back to the Pass, the place we’d been sleeping.
When I got there, the car was there, and the boys were in the back, all sleeping. I checked my sleeping bag. There was nothing in that. I smelt the car, and it seemed OK. Even though I’d thrown away my shoes and socks, it was still a bit hard to tell. The smell of rum stays with you. But they’d cleaned it up, that’s for sure. It was a different car when I left it.
I’d invented a story for the boys about the giant root I’d had with one of the girls from Ballina and Lismore who’d gotten drunk enough to take advantage of. I even scratched me ‘ock when I walked up to the car, just in case any of them were watching.
When I got them up they seemed all right. Hung over, but nothing unusual. But when we were waxing up to go for a surf and they still hadn’t said anything, I thought, ‘Hello, they’re keeping it quiet, and saving me up for a beauty. Anybody who’d pay someone two bob to stick his ‘ock in your mouth is capable of anything’.
But the surf was good and it washed all that off. It’s amazing the way that it does it. We missed breakfast by staying out till the wind started to turn, then decided on pies for our lunch.
When we were drying ourselves off we sort of got talking to some guys in the car next to ours. They were from Maroubra. There was a lot of rivalry then. To the Queensland blokes who were surfing around Byron Bay at that stage the guys from Sydney were somewhat feared, somewhat respected, and also somewhat hated.
The usual bullshit went down about how the good the surf was just before they got there, and how much violence had been done to others at the pub. But they took it all in pretty good humour as they got ready to go for a surf. Then down the old dusty road that led to the Pass rumbled an old blue kombi, just like mine, but with NSW plates.
‘Gidday,’ said one of the guys from Maroubra. ‘What happened to youse last night?’
‘You wouldn’t believe it . . .
Who do you know who drinks rum around here?’
by Peter Hock (a Sydney writer) Copyright 1984 … sourced from ‘Billy Blue’ magazine
PS: I just looked at (what I think is) Peter’s Facebook page and he lists Tony Edwards as a friend. OMG. If you’ve never seen that guy’s work then you haven’t lived (incl. for example his work with Captain Goodvibes).