MEAT

RICHARD PAYNE

A trestle table with an enormous array of meat laid out in front of us. $5 for 6 tickets or $10 for 12. I took 6 and Sticks took 12. The boys didn't take a ticket, they were in the market for a different type of meat. More on that later. The Round Bar also known as Harry's Gym is where the locals sit. No trimmings in the round bar, friendly girls behind the pumps, the walls filled with uniformly framed small black and white photos of the regulars. Horizontal head shots with a name, a year and a type of beer. One read "Sticksy Tooheys New 1978". Whats the significance of the date and beer kind? Ill let Sticksy explain. "Thats the year I had my first beer in the bar and the beer I drank. I was 16 and a snuck in through the window, yep thats right a toheeys new." Sticksy stands before us in casual beach clothes, T-shirt, cargo pants, skateboard shoes, his skin weathered, light brown messy hair covering the bottom of his ear lobes but no further, slightly receding on top. He stands tall, thin and clutches a schooner of Tooheys New, held chest high directly under his chin. He recounts some old stories about him and bubbles and other old mates from the bar, I struggle to hear, the bar is humming with noise, music, chatter, Sticksy talks fast and goes of in tangents, he is entertaining himself as well as us when he talks about the old days, his eyes light up and dart around the room, like he's flicking through a rolodex of memories.

The meat draw is called. I lay my tickets out in preparation, I felt confident. Sticksy has a different method, He takes the bottom ticket and loops it round so that the last number is next to the first number. A method that he has picked up some time between now and the late seventies. Sticksy wins.

Not his first meat tray win. Bubbles joins us. Bubbles is probably late 50's he stands in a similar upright fashion to Sticksy, grey short hair, a big face, shorter than sticks, tanned, clutching a beer same style as Sticksy. Bubbles once won the meat tray and went to the loo. When he came back it had gone. Sticksy had taken it home for bubbles as he thought bubbles had left it behind. Sticksy was told in the Street that Bubbles is still in the round bar. Sticksy returns to the bar and the meat tray is snatched back, the cops were there too and wanted to take sticksy to the cop shop. The boys were getting restless and were receiving messages on their phones to go meet with various girls. Tobes thick curly black hair, a black velvet jacket had buried his meat the night before and was hungry for more. Justin was out and out famished after recently returning from the revolution in Cairo. Women were hard to come by in Cairo and there were more pressing matters at hand, the country was on the cusp of a civil war and is under military rule again, the brotherhood were being killed like unwanted stray dogs.

We wished Sticksy good bye and I planned to go too, but was convinced to have one more at a small bar. A coffee martini. I had two and danced the evening away. A Costa Rican girl that both Tobes and Justin had interest in turned up. She brought with her a flat mate dude and another guy with huge handle bar facial hair. Looked like she had made arrangements to meet up with loads of guys. She sat with all the attention around her curvy body, her hair long straight and parted in the centre to reveal her tanned face, big eyes and plump lips. All the hungry wolves frothed over her unashamedly. I had been given some back story on her before she arrived. She had befriended the Tobes and one afternoon after spending the day with her, he went to go home and offered to take her rubbish out. As he was about to leave she leaned into him and started kissing and nuzzling his neck. The Tobes was still holding the rubbish and by his own account left with the rubbish - "it didn't feel right, it was day time and I was sober. This encounters were meant to happen at night in a haze of booze." I was also told that she is a practicing christian at an Anglican church.

She ended up sat next to me and I decided to probe deeper. Turns out she has a boyfriend that she dosent love, its a new thing and they are still getting to know each other. He's away in the US for a month, "they are waiting for each other." She has only ever loved one guy when she was younger in Costa Rica, but he was poor and love alone was not enough. She moved on to a rich dude and became a trophy girlfriend for 5 and a half years and now she is looking for a balance. She likes this new guy, I asked why? She had a parking ticket and he took it off the car and said he'd deal with it, he wouldn't let her see the ticket. This impressed her no end. Also she dosent drink, dosent eat meat and she goes to church. I wondered if Sticksy would have a chance with her, he's full of beer right now and on his way home with the biggest tray of meat you've ever seen. They sound like a match made in heaven. I had a 7:30am appointment the next morning and headed home to get a few hours sleep, an unashamed swerve. I ate some foul street food on the way, a meat lovers pizza, it made a reappearance in the early hours of the morning.

THE END