The Show Day Trilogy - Hobart, 97, may contain traces of Superjesus

When I lived in North Hobart, it was in a share house with a nutcase, an anal retentive, the worlds most comically nervous would be lawyer, a girl who always used to sneak in my window (not like that) instead of using the door, a fat thief, a lazy do nothing TV obsessive (oh that was me), and a girl who is now my best friend. Such a collection of people under one roof was never going to be the kind of amusing group of friends so popular of sitcoms of the era, and so it proved, with the year descending into anarchy roughly involving who didn't do what dish, who didn't cook what meal and who didn't turn off which Superjesus tape (me again). Apparently in between fights I was supposed to go to university, but that wasn't really happening. One thing that did mark the year though was we gained a rent free lodger, a mate of mine from school in Burnie called Chris who fancied my soon to not leave me alone best friend, and he pretty much moved in for the year to try and woo her with his collection of Lisa Loeb tapes and references to parts of the anatomy of a bee. There were times that I genuinely wondered why I didn't take a gap year and travel around exotic parts of Europe, as the tension piled up, particularly around exam time when we had a four or five hour argument about a set of keys that went missing. It was probably my first real taste of having to care about really trivial matters that I wasn't the least bit interested in, and I didn't pass the test very well. My entire contribution to the whole four hour debate was to make puns and jokes about locks and whinge that I couldn't see Lano and Woodley on the ABC. Essentially, they didn't find my contribution very helpful, althought I thought the humourous physical comedy of Frank Woodley would have been a lot more assistance to the day than a girl just screaming "MY KEYSSSS!" over and over again. Having dined of a self cooked meal of poorly gristled steak and chips that would make KFC ashamed, I wasn't really in the mood anyway, and the whole day collapsed with a weary sense of tedious inevitability. What could possibly stimulate the weary arguer the next day I wondered as I checked my fledgling e-mail system for e-mails the following day, and yes, it was an invite to the Hobart Show - or the Royal Hobart show, to give it it's full title...I mused whimsically whether Prince Phillip was a fan of the pig racing, but it fell on deaf ears...

Chris was a nice bloke, prone to moments of bewildered anger, and he didn't seem the show type, but when in Hobart, I guess do as the Hobartians do, apart from the stabbing at Target. It's fair to say that it wasn't an especially memorable experience to go to the show. My main memory of the entire night was going on an Indy car simulator where you got to race Nigel Mansell and then being incredibly angry that we didn't win the pre-taped race (a little too upset if I'm honest). It was also at this show that I actually heard someone say the phrase "Someone catch that pig!" which I always enjoy at a show. Chris was pretty distant, he was excited by the propelling motion of the ever touring and resillient Alpine Express, but not by much else. It was left to me to pick up the emotional excitement, which is not my strong point, but if I didn't, then perhaps we would have moped around and punched each other. I didn't really know why he'd asked me to go to the show with him, but I figured out later that he actually wanted my friend to come so he could keep wooing and I was just sort of the middle man who was still in the middle but didn't bring a left flank, so to speak. Once I realised this, I put my own distance between myself and him, pretty much out of a sense of half arsedness. Anyway, as he was moping and mumping around the showgrounds, I saw, I'm sure, one of my old school teachers dressed as a carnival clown. accepting good natured kicks in the groin from small children battling for a balloon. I went to tap Chris on the shoulder to tell him that our old teacher was suffering the kind of humiliation you want to see your teachers suffer until you grow up and realise most of them are desperately lonely but he was staring wistfully and lovelornly at his battered and bruised miserable excuse for a pie, and didn't respond. At which point, I decided enough was enough, left him standing like a lovefool, while I went off and won a giant inflatable novelty hammer, and a copy of Rambo for the Nintendo. When I came back, Chris was in the same place, staring in the same way, and I really did think he was drugged - I never did find out, but if the alternative is a healthy case of botulism from the pie, you better hope it was drugs...

It was the bus journey home from the fair that I always remember, and not just because nothing says fun on a bus like riding home with a giant inflatable hammer. We pulled into Glenorchy bus station, tired and exhausted, not really speaking to each other, while I sat and hoped that the mental patient up the back talking about football wasn't going to be a Collingwood supporter (and of course he was) and listening to bogan girls changing the lyrics of popular songs to include sexual references and adult themes. After we pulled into the bus station, the driver got out, and then...well nothing. The driver just got out, walked off the job and left us sitting there. I'm not sure if there was some sort of bewildering bus driver mix up and a woman was supposed to come and take over, but there we sat, in the dark, in the rain, in a rather dangerous suburb. The mental patient thought it was really funny, but a man across from us with a slightly effinimate curly mullet and big flicky ears certainly wasn't laughing. He announced to the bus really loudly that he was now late for work - as he was in shorts and wearing what I thought was flippers, this job of his must have been a curious one to be starting at 11pm, maybe illegal abelone diving, but he turned his attention on me, demanding that I give him my inflatable hammer. When I asked why, he said was going to take it, find a bus driver (where wasn't specified, maybe in a pool hall?) and beat him over the head with it until the bus started moving again. And it wasn't a wry sideways glance at our current predicament, he was serious. I, perhaps rather foolishly, pointed out with perhaps too much reasoning that I had spent at least three dollars to throw the balls down the clowns (not my teacher) throat to win that hammer and I wasn't for giving it up. Defeated, he turned his attention to one of the more firey flannel girls who was holding a walkman, and suggested that he was now going to beat the found driver with a walkman instead. He and the girl got off the bus to chase vengenance, and of course, when they were off, a new driver got on, put her foot on the gas and drove off, hilarious On The Buses style - leaving them both standing angrily at the bus station fuming. Chris, of course, paid attention to none of this...he was drawing love hearts on the window. I don't think he knew we stopped...

It seemed very strange to me that one of my best friends would essentially have become a different person in the space of a year, but of course, we all had - all the friends forever messages in the world can't prepare you for growing up, moving on, moving away. As he stared mournfully out of the window with his little shaved head glistening in the street lights, I felt compelled to offer some encouragement, perhaps something that could save our friendship in the diffident times it found itself in. "Would you cheer the fuck up!" I said, helpfully and tactfully. There's always a great risk with saying something like that the person will turn around and say they have a life threatening disease or something, well, that's what I used to say to those old biddies who would say to me outside Roelf Vos to cheer up it might never happen, but even my best abrasive tones couldn't shake his weary spirit. He actually, and keep in mind this was a rugged and relatively tough in his own mind emotionally stable young kid, said "I wish I knew how to" without ever once moving from his adopted blank staring position, as he almost started crying. What could I say? What could I do? An hour later he was fine, bouncing around and talking animatedly about Paradise Beach, but what was I supposed to say? I had no idea, and I know why I had no idea - because we weren't really friends anymore. A year earlier I'd have known exactly what to say, hell I'd have known exactly what the problem was, but now, this was just another random person with problems. My platitudes, if I said anything, were probably not helpful, and we pretty much left our friendship on the bus, along with my Rambo game, which I forgot to pick up off the seat. As I got home that night, I slumped wearily on the floor of the living room, throwing my giant inflatable hammer to the side, stared up at the lights, moving after about an hour to finally put on a video tape of Worlds Craziest Pig Thieves or something, and just as the tape started, the anal retentive came in and said something like "Now about those keys..."

My response, as they say, will be recorded another day...