'Da de da da daa de da da! This is ABC Radio. It's the eleven o'clock news!'


I never expected to wake flat on my back near a crossroads wearing a dead man's Hawaiian shirt, my legs spread-eagled and looking up at the night sky. Two twenty cent coins fell from my left hand when I stirred. An overripe lime rolled out of my shirt pocket. I looked up and squinted at the road sign. A flickering streetlight partially illuminated the sign.

My brain was barking from one whisky sours too many! Hard liquor had the habit of leading me to dodgy destinations.

Somewhere, either in the immediate future, or in the most recent past, was the bicycle I had been riding. I could hear it. It was going clamp, clur-ap and clump as the front wheel decelerated toward an inglorious finale. As to the whereabouts of my audible, but unseen transistor radio - that was now in the hands of the Gods!

I scrunched my nose. In my drunken stupor a fly had slipped in, roamed about, and was about to leave by the way it had entered. The insect reminded me of the oracle's prophecy. That was foretold earlier in the evening when she claimed I would become a lame man - born on all fours, raised to two and destined to one. Hah, she was a fraud. She hadn't foreseen me becoming legless and drunk!

That was when the oracle, my Aunt Maude, dispatched me on a journey to retrieve a bottle of bourbon from her bungalow. Somehow while riding, the bicycle animated into a life of its own, steered me away from the set purpose, and on to this crossroads.

Maude's spare alcohol had become a needed commodity. Bulldog's gathering had degenerated into a drunken get-together culminating in drinking feats and flatulence contests - hence my fur-lined tongue and barking headache.

Before leaving the get-together, I recall watching a sozzled dining table pulsating beneath two of my aunts, each swaying to one of Bulldog's favourite songs, Aquarius, while my cousins wolf whistled, leered and jeered, as only families do. Feeling the desire to flee my aunts intoxicated conduct and their queer dancing skills I threaded a course across the room and out into the passageway. On the way I passed a host of Bulldog's inebriated hangers-ons, many sleeping here-and-there on the floor. Bulldog's immediate family were missing. His schlock relatives had long disowned him.

Before entering the laundry, I had watched Cyclops Bob. He was lying unconscious on the kitchen table. His glass eye had managed to winkle itself out of its socket and roll across the table where it ogled all who entered the room. As Bob slobbered in saliva his eye twisted and turned on the tabletop intent on guarding its owner. But the eye was blind to its unstable predicament and potential doom if Bob happened to slip or fall.

'And that was the eleven o'clock news!'

The radio snapped me back to the here-and-present. The crossroads darken, frosted, and turned to light mist as I stood and looked about. A slight breeze was blowing. It haunted the lime coloured streetlights and animated evening shadows.

Three pert teenage girls came out of the mist. Each aromatic, peroxide blonde, flippant and flirtatious. Their pleasures preceded their arrival.

'It's wild.'

'That's cool!'

'Oh God, how zappy! Who is that?'

I watched them approach. Each was a loudmouthed angel.

'Hi, Christian doll!' They said in unison, giggled, and scurried past.

I peeped sideways and gave them a devil smile.

'Watch it girls, I bite!' I growled like a dog as they giggled and danced away while I admired their taut bums and lithe figures. They made me think about Bulldog's get-together and the sight of paralytic Aunt Barbara. I found her in the laundry. Her bottom firmly planted in the plastic laundry basket. The sight of her stubby legs and sturdy, bullet proof pantyhose had hastened my frosty breath and the need for the sanctuary of the lavatory.

Unfortunately, the toilet had already been commandeered by Aunt Maude. Although semi-conscious, she was weeping. Her knickers were around her knees while her head tilted in a listlessly as it rested against the cistern. Waking with a start, she mistook me for Bulldog. I didn't reply, having realised her oracle powers did not come from the waters resting below her. Bulldog always said the cards were her entry to the other world.

Maude sobbed but refused to relinquish the lavatory unless I retrieved the alcohol from her bungalow. Hence the explanation for my nocturnal bicycle riding!

Yet my true nocturnal quest had been conferred and accepted seven days before. Bulldog had been in and out of hospital for months. Each time without redemption. Gone was the shared room. Gone was the infusion set, blue box, and its volumes of beeps and bells. Gone was the single room of toxic killers, over attentive nurses, clinical masks and surgical gowns. All that remained was Bulldog and his withering illness.

On the day in question Oncology summoned me to Bulldog's bedside. I thought the man's lucidity had heightened. He was aware; impending death had an effect on those dying. We sat, face to face, and talked.

'Do you promise, Christian?' He asked in a splintered, broken voice after much discussion. His breathing varied the pressure of his words.

'I promise.' I replied.

With shaking hands Bulldog gave me four items - two silver coins, a key to his bicycle lock, and a fresh lime. Reverently I transferred the items to my jacket pockets.

'Christian. Do you recall Maude referring to me as the Hanging Man in them tarot cards? All those wires and tubes make me wonder if she was right, especially when you add the red wounds on my arms and my yellow tinge. Maude and her bloody mumbo jumbo!'

I smiled in admiration of the man's stillness and poise when all was lost.

'My cycle's coming to an end. Only for the present, mind you. Maude's sixth card represented my rebirth. Christ, it's all a mystery; mind you Maude always said I was both the Hermit, the Devil, and the Juggler, so I suppose my ultimate adventure and the final mystery are converging. God this is exciting. Soon I'll be serenading Puccini on the far side of the moon.' He gathered his strength and turned the remanent of his body onto one elbow and looked me square in the eye. 'There's only one thing I regret.'

'What's that?' I said.

'I never got me a tattoo on my bum! Think about the nurses rolling me over to give me a jab. If I had one, they would be admiring my once magnificent torso, turn me over, see my tattooed bum and think; here is a guy who has lived,' he said.

I couldn't think of anything to say.

'A dragon! That's what I'd get. Dragons guard buried treasure. Did you know that?'

'No, but what about the tattoos on your chest, don't they count?' I said.

'God no! A tattoo on your backside has style and dignity. The one's I've already got are manifestations of my wilder years. Yep, I need a tattoo on my bum,' he said, with renewed assurance.

Bulldog's gaze glistened as he faced me.

'Siamo all'uitima secena!' he said. It was a line from his favourite musical piece.

'Ah, the last scene. Il conto?' I replied, sighed and cupped open my hands.

I had known Bulldog since childhood yet the man remained a wondrous enigma. He entered my life as a bare-chested twenty-something-year-old dressed in filthy harlequin shorts, a bandanna, frizzy black hair, an unkempt beard and the smell of the great unwashed. Stench and all, each of my aunts adored his daring masculinity whereas I treasured his gaiety and sense of the ridiculous.

Our first meeting coincided with my sixth birthday party. There was exuberant joy and happiness. It was a warm summer's day. My aunts had been teasing Bulldog about his appearance. Bulldog smiled, stripped to his boxer short's, donned the clown's red nose he brought to amuse me, and chased my giggling, gushing, near naked aunties around the house, out into the backyard and finally the front street. In his shenanigans he slapped their rumps, one after the other, as their helter-skelter became more chaotic and exotic.

That set the neighbours tongues wagging!

The incident gave Bulldog local legend status. From that time onwards, Mrs Close from across the road, visited on a regular basis wanting to borrow this or that! Whatever the weather Bulldog would open the door wearing little to nothing - never wishing to disappoint a member of his esteemed fan club.

Oncology Wards scare me. On that evening last week when I was summoned, the grey, remorseless hospital room cocooned the two of us from the outside world. I sat on a back breaking vinyl seat which brought nothing but pins-and-needles. Finally, with Bulldog peacefully dozing, and in an attempt to ignore my numb legs I sought the intimacy of our shared memories.

Bulldog had been my most constant companion, mentor and friend. He taught me to swim after my short-tempered aunts had given up. He held my hand through a bout of whooping cough when my aunts fled north to a folk festival in North Queensland. And it was Bulldog whom my school consulted in regards to my numerous misdemeanours.

The man was always near when despair overtook me - be it day or night. Somewhere in my distant memory was a lady, a lost mother, an outline shape, someone I barely recalled. My aunties ignored her memory. To the family she was little more then a lost footnote, alive but never spoken about, never seen, except the once, in a photo Aunt Maude found in my room. It was confiscated and dispatched to the kitchen's wood heater. Miraculously, the following day another photograph of my mother had appeared in my room.

Bulldog taught me almost everything - except how to kick a football. Aunt Barbara did that. She could out-kick, out-tackle, and out-score any man - dead or alive. Maybe that was why she had never settled down, married and raised a footy team of her own.

'This is ABC Radio and our Opera Hour begins just after midnight!'

I thought about moving from the crossroads but was dragged back to that night seven days before.

God, the chair beside Bulldog's bed gave me backache! I remember arching my back and shifting my weight as Bulldog's breathing fastened. There was a dry smell in the room. It was citrus and not unpleasant.

His extinction came without remorse. Bulldog by name, Bulldog by nature. Death brought together an odd couple. One young, one older. One conscious, one not. Hand against hand. Warmth against chill. Future against past. The rattles were short, nasal and finite. The battle had been bitter and brutal. Bulldog died. I stayed for twelve minutes, touched his hand and left.

Bulldog forbade tears and flowers at his funeral. By request his friends gathered in Hawaiian shirts, shorts or sarongs, and thongs. We sang 'Where do I go?' followed by Bulldog's piece-de-resistance. All present were requested to tell a joke. Each stood, one after the other, before Bulldog's coffin and recited their ditty.

The last to stand was Rabbi Spiegel. He had been Bulldog's time-honoured mensch. The rabbi was the lone representative from Bulldog's previous existence, the time before, when he was known as Isaac. The rabbi apologised, he had not brought an appropriate pun for the occasion. Instead he related the tale of a younger Isaac, gefilte fish and the zaftig woman. It was an amazing tale! We were mesmerised by Bulldog's childhood bravado and laughed in glee at the thought of the woman smelling like a fishmonger's whore.

The fact a young man had the nerve to place gefilte fish where he did was not unusual. Boys after all will be boys! The thought of the zaftig woman leaving the fish in the place in question was bizarre to say the least. Those assembly chuckled in the knowledge that truth was more often stranger than fiction.

As the rabbi related his tale Aunt Maude laughed so much she almost wet herself. Aunt Barbara actually did!

'Da de da da daa de da da! This is ABC Radio. And now for the twelve o'clock news!'

The lost radio brought me back to the here-and-present. Inexplicably, the bicycle and I were near the cemetery where we buried Bulldog. After a time I found his plot. I looked up and gazed at a pale moon shining down on his freshly covered grave. In the gravel I surmised the approximate spots where Bulldog's eyes would be and dug two small holes. In each hole I placed one of the coins and covered them with soil. Next, I buried the lime in the soil above Bulldog's heart.

I sat down beside him and pondered a mystery. How did Bulldog find the courage to lick his lips and face death with dignity and resolve?

The cemetery had no shadows, no darkness. The pearly glow of the night's light illuminated a lone row of cypress trees. Bulldog was dead. As requested, the Ferryman had been paid. I listened. The cemetery's cypress trees whispered their reassurance. They would keep their promise. Bulldog would not be ferried to Hell.

Suddenly, I recalled my other errand - Maude's alcohol. I returned to the crossroads, foraged about, but couldn't find the radio. It was only after I dusted down my trousers and picked up the bicycle that I realised I had lost not only the key to Bulldog's bicycle lock but his lock as well.

'Christian.'

I looked up in surprise. Lilly, one of the earlier peroxide blondes had returned.

'Would you be a dear and escort me home?' she said. 'Walking past the cemetery by myself gives me the willies.'

'Better still,' I said, forgetting Maude's bourbon. 'I'll dink you on Bulldog's bike. What time do you need to be home by?'

'Not for another hour,' she said, with a smile. 'I love your shirt.'

'It's Hawaiian,' I said proudly, as Lilly sat on the handlebars and nuzzled against me.

All at once I shuddered and broke into a cold sweet. The lost radio began to play Puccini's La boheme.

The wind stirred just a little. Startled by the music, I looked down the street and spied a group of late-night revellers approaching us. They arrived at the crossroads singing to the radio. Their voices floated on the tidal swell of the night breeze.

'Il conto?' Sang a member of the group, and eyed me as they passed.

'The bill? It has just been paid.' I replied, as Lilly cuddled a little closer.

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