At the Café of the Fool’s Nemesis.
Arthur
stared into space, stoned, lost to his surroundings, lost in thought. Where had
it all gone wrong? Was it when he was born into his low, working class station?
When his father beat him too many times about the head? Or was it when he hit
puberty and found his sexuality aberrant and his personality disordered? Was it
when he crash-landed in Sydney, choosing the wrong city to operate from, a city
rigidly class conscious, shallow and cruel? No matter, he couldn’t afford
regrets; he was determined to let go of his grudges as it would only drive him
further into madness and dysfunction.
He
snapped to attention, aware a garrulous fool was asking him a question, hoping
to impress him with a rambling story about what a hipster he was. Arthur knew
he didn’t really rate in the guy’s estimation when, in the middle of his reply,
his vacuous companion looked over his shoulder to see if anyone more glamorous
had come through the door of the Piccolo Bar Cafe. Artie gave up, Hell indeed
was the need for other people, and they didn’t give a fuck, wasting one’s time,
gazing fixedly into their own narcissistic projections; he wondered why he
bothered, no one seemed to have anything really interesting to say, at least
not to him. And what of import could he communicate?
Can
a few words in the right place save someone’s life, or change History, by
inspiring a different course of action and thus defying fate? He cynically
didn’t think so. He knew he wouldn’t have listened if someone had said to him
not long after his arrival in this convict city, “Leave Sydney now, it’s not
the city for you, go overseas, you’d stand a better chance of being recognized
as a happening artist!” He had persevered with Sydney for forty years as he
felt a burning desire to prove something to the nation that had bred and fucked
him. He ordered a café latte from Vitto, the grumpy Italian barista, waiter and
carnie barker for this Café on Freakshow Alley. With melancholy he then thought
of Godfry and his shocking story, whose fate not even Mother Mary could’ve
averted, with all her pious prayers and wise emanations.
Arthur
and Vitto agreed that Godfry was one of the best looking, hunkiest of men
they’d ever clapped eyes on, good-natured and masculine, alluring and athletic.
Arthur remembered the night he’d sat at this very table with young Godfry,
smoking a joint in bonhomie, before the shit came down. If only he’d spoken up
and said what he truly thought, he might have helped avoid a lot of angst. If nobody
ever really listens, what could a poor poof do? Godfry had inherited the Cafe
Bread and Circuses from his Uncle Ozzie but he was only nineteen and had
grander ambitions, too young and silly to take charge of a Second Reality
hotspot. Whereupon his father, Joe Podesta, stood in the breach and tried to
run the Cafe for him, keeping old Vittorio on as front man and star attraction.
Joe
was dying slowly from prostate cancer and was in no fit state to handle or
humor the rag-tag, freaky crew that frequented the Kitty-Litter Café. He
particularly hated drug dealers and addicts, loudly bemoaning the Welfare State
that supported them, forever trying to rouse the dazed Kings Cross Businessmen’s
Association into cleaning up Roslyn Street, wherein the Cafe was positioned,
ejecting the suspect denizens lurking in its doorways. Joe’s own daughter had
been a long-time heroin user and had dragged him to the end of his tether;
after all her wheedling and stealing he could only ban her from his presence,
and blame drugs for all that was wrong with the world. His rancor built until
he took to carrying a gun and waving it at would be drug interlopers, frothing
at the mouth, scaring them off, for awhile, and scaring most of his
faint-hearted customers as well.
All
the excitement was doing poor Joe in; arse on fire he called in the cavalry and
hired a Security Firm to visit the Cafe three-hourly to check all was quiet on
the battle-front. Whenever trouble exploded, the Security Guards came after the
event, making of themselves an added nuisance by glowering at the innocent
potheads cowering over their coffees. Joe badgered the Police into harassing
the area’s vagrants off the scene, any Bohemian type got questioned and
searched, and the Café regulars couldn’t talk their subversive bullshit or
smoke their ganja in a relaxed and civilized manner.
As
a last resort, when some down and out junkie proved particularly tenacious at
clinging to a table or shooting up in the dungeon-toilets, he called in his
burly son, Godfry, to beat the shit out of the recalcitrant sod. There was much
muttering and moaning of shock-horror from his peacenik patrons who had to
witness the degrading spectacle of humans reduced to punching bags. The Café
was devolving into a zombie-plagued wasteland, not like the Golden days when
Ozzie ran everything smoothly and the place was a haven for artistes and
intellectuals.
The
mutinous mutterings against Joe wound down and the regulars stuck to their
perches, for they belonged nowhere else. Vitto endured every calamitous
brouhaha, ignoring the blandishments and threats thrown his way by the
never-ending stream of seductive hoods, coping with Joe’s cranky peccadilloes
and deaf to the cacophony of abuse and demands from the Café’s patrons. Joe had
been a Security Guard himself for twenty years and dreamed of his son going one
rung higher and becoming a Policeman, the epitome of a respectable career in
his eyes.
Godfry
should have settled for the Sacred Weed Cafe; with pot dealing on the side it
was a hip, viable business; but why be a small time ganja crim, he thought,
when you could jump into the big-time and get a Doctorate in Crookedness simply
by joining the Police Force. He was smart enough to realize he could amass
greater wealth under the cover of a Cop, a legalized, protected criminal as it
were. Thus Godfry and his father’s dreams vaguely coincided, though Joe would
turn into stone if he knew the eventual outcome.
That
night when they sat at the table together, as he passed the joint, Godfry told
Arthur that he was applying to the Police Academy to be a Cop. Arthur should
have strongly emphasized, “No, don’t do it! You’ll make your family miserable,
destroy your youth and bring on ruination for all. Everyone will hate you and
disown you. You are inviting disaster and damnation!” Instead Arthur said
nothing, he just mouthed platitudes like “Everyone’s gotta do what they gotta
do” and “Que sera sera, whatever will be will be”, toking on the spliff,
smiling enigmatically, for he hated Pigs and hoped never to know one. What to
do? Godfry had a date with his Kismet.
While
most people derided Joe as a mean old dork who wouldn’t even give Vitto a
Christmas bonus, Arthur liked him, for he was a stalwart old bastard, straight
forward and upright, gruffly naïve for all his conservative, narrow-minded
views. Poor Honest Joe died of cancer within the year and Godfry went on to
become an outstanding Police Officer who tried to corner the franchise on party
drugs for the inner-city ravers, running his whole operation from the Bondi
Junction Police Station.
His
partner was a steroid-addicted fellow cop by the name of Johnny Stompano, not
too smart, but as an over-muscled body-builder he could stomp on anyone who got
in their way. Together they hustled the Sydney-city clubs and ware-house raves,
the gyms and beach-side cafes, selling Ecstasy tablets, marihuana, Acid, Speed,
cocaine and steroids by the plane-load, and, devil may care, they sampled too
much of their own wares. It all got away from them, blew up in their faces, and
try-hard Old Joe rolled over in his grave.
Urban
Myth would have it that Godfry’s courier, a naïve French guy, also sampled the
goods he was carrying, taking copious amounts of Ecstasy and Acid on a
three-day binge, till in the end he didn’t know which planet he was on. He
tried to do a runner with all the contraband but Godfry and partner were on the
trail and, after an all night drug binge also unhinged them, they badly spun
out and would’ve done in Queen Elizabeth if she’d crossed their path. The
Frechman’s room-mate stupidly rushed to the Bondi Police Station and blabbed to
them he was worried about his mate who was running amok on the beach with a
knife. This was the info Godfry was waiting for and, rounding up a posses of
pigs to back him up, they blundered down to Bondi Beach to confront him and
stop him from ruining the drug-running scam. They had worked themselves up into
a tizzy and there was no way they were going to let this French wanker rip them
off.
They
cornered the tripping Frenchman at dawn on the famous beach; he blathered on
idiotically about the drugs and their bastardry and was about to give the game
away to anybody who had ears to listen, slashing a butter-knife at the demonic
cops advancing upon him. While most of the cops from the station must’ve known
about the illicit business, they kept their mouths shut and, as usual, closed
ranks and let Godfry do what he will. He wanted his drugs back and he wanted
the Frenchie to shut the fuck up! But the guy kept on babbling, waving the
knife in their faces, he was in Lala-land with the fairies, and ogres were
about to devour him. And Godfry was just as dizzy.
A
few joggers passing by watched as the pressure mounted, Godfry and Johnny the
Stomper both shaking their Service revolvers at the Frenchman, screaming for
him to put down his weapon. The group hysteria ballooned, the maniac tripper
jerked about like a robot in shock, the Cop’s fury flared white-hot, and the
onlookers screeched. Godfry was drug-addled himself, lost in the heat of the
moment, there was no way out, the fucker wouldn’t shut his goddamned, thieving
mouth and chill out! “Rave! Rave! Gobble
gobble! Gook gook!” gabbled the Frenchman.
“Blam!
Blam! Blam!” They shot him dead.
The
ensuing scandal shook the Halls of Piggery to their dungeons. While Godfry was
hauled over the coals and indicted for murder, his partner fled to New Zealand
where he eventually hung himself in his hotel room from the shame of it all.
The outrageous details of their drug business were revealed at the Inquest, and
it was mooted that their tentacles of corruption spread far and wide in the
Emerald City. Johnny Stompano committed suicide over the mortification he had
caused his good Italian family but he should’ve braved it out because after
many years of investigation and sub-trials, like every other cop ever accused
of anything, Godfry got acquitted of manslaughter.
As
a Police Officer who had suffered a stressful situation in the line of duty, he
was allowed to get away with it, cops being masters of mayhem and deceit. To
this day his name is whispered ingloriously among the cognoscenti of deadbeat
Café society and the stupid mug must hang his head in regret that he never took
on the Dumb Luck Café where he could’ve led a laid back life, Prince of the
Potheads, lording it over the hordes of damp-squids and bandage-queens slurping
at their coffees.
If
only Arthur had tried to talk him out of the Pig idea, but he couldn’t have
influenced such a destiny, he was hard put to organize his own affairs; waking
life for him was like a dream in which he tried to wrest control and find
direction while a hurricane raged about his head. Swimming in a torrent of
chaos, distracted, it was a miracle he stayed afloat and it was a hell of a job
to get focused. All was in flux, the Café shimmering, its quantum particles
colliding, scintillating, as if he was experiencing the flashback of a
psychedelic hallucination, life-forms rushing by like in a time-lapsed film,
the light strobing, darker, fainter, darker, fainter, until the Café Time
Machine disappeared and Arthur passed out, too stoned to care anymore.
Before
cranky, upright Joe Podesta died, fed up with all the malicious dramas, he
tried to sell the Lifeboat For Losers Café but there were no takers, it was too
much trouble and quackery for most businessmen’s taste. In fear that he’d have
no reason for living if he was booted from his galley-post, Vitto mortgaged his
apartment to raise the money Joe hankered for and thus, in his old age, Vitto
had finally become the owner of the establishment he’d slaved in for forty
years.
Vitto
had humored, outwitted and cajoled the druggies for the longest time and they
were unable to drag him down easily, and while the Ship of Fools Café felt like
it was sinking into a morass of self-indulgent mind-obliteration, it was full
steam ahead as far as the Old Queen Vitto was concerned. Night after calamitous
night, Arthur jived to all the Café’s shamanic gigs with Vitto as the old
Berdache, nights like a cave-man’s séance attracting restless spirits with a
never-ending variation on absurdity, a freak-show wherein Vitto was the Mother
of all Monsters. Movie stars, non-stars and monstars patronized the Vampyres’
Crypt Café over the years, Vitto welcoming them in like a camp Count Yorga, and
if he were asked who was the Crown Prince of Monsters he would unreservedly
shriek “Arthur Farthing!” and cross himself, for he was still a good Catholic,
lapses notwithstanding, and Arthur was a child of Lucifer.
Arthur
had worked hard to become the accomplished terror he was, he’d studied under
Grand Masters in Divine Foolishness, and nobody could crack a ribald triple
entendre, a salacious witticism, a scathing curse, faster than he. He waxed
ecstatic taking the piss, calling Vitto Mother Theresa or Grandma Moses,
mocking his mythic saintliness. He often had Vitto lamenting his victimization
because he couldn’t get the joke, he had no sense of humor about himself,
moaning like a mock-turtle, “Oh why don’t you cunts leave me fucking alone? Why
are you always putting shit on me!” Long before other accomplished cabaret
artists used the “Hole in the Wall Theatre” to portray its generic red-light
history Arthur had treated the Café as if it were a twisted stand-up comedy
club with Vitto as the straight man, and he milked the silly old poof for every
laugh he could get. The passing crowd lapped it up like it was a bent Laurel
and Hardy born again show.
Vitto
loved to waffle on, making grandiloquent pronouncements about obscure,
meaningless Hollywood movies and Arthur would tear him to shreds by making up
ridiculous titles like “Splendor in the Arse” starring Arnie Shwartzbugger and
Dolly Farton. The bad joke would suck the tizzy old queen in for awhile,
mulling over the conjured-up, sordid movie scenarios, then he would suddenly
flash that his third leg was being pulled and he would hiss, “Is nothing sacred
in your fucking universe, Arthur?” Vitto loved to dish out the crap but
couldn’t take it, so it was with mischievous pleasure that Arthur constantly
teased the old Fairy, and anyone else who wanted to join in the banter.
To
Arthur, Reality was a Divine Comedy of Horrors; laughter made the sadness
bearable, if he didn’t laugh, he would cry, like Jimmie Dean at the police
station, Beauty could only laugh in the face of the Beast. The very mention of
that long dead film-star would suck Vitto into movie histrionics further,
mooning and ballyhooing, as if he were drowning in a bottomless muck-pit of
Hollywood detritus. Movies, shmovies, he went on and on about them like a
scratched gramophone record, lamenting the passing of the “Golden Years”, “They
don’t make stars like they used to” and “Where has all the glamour gone?” He
was a fan of Mussolini, pre-World War Two in his mindset and he couldn’t swing
with the pop culture of today. The rest of the peanut gallery joined in on the
litany to the gods of the silver screen and Arthur found plenty of dumb
opinions to crack apart with bad jokes.
Arthur
felt fearless, he had been through a thousand levels of Heaven and Hell, been
called every fag-arsehole under the sun, sat with the mighty and the humble,
won a few accolades and many kicks in the arse, and nothing seemed to really
faze him anymore. Life was short and shy boys got left without a dance. Toking
down deep on his joint, Arthur reminisced into his cup of café latte on how it
had been a long, bloody hard road to attain his kind of resilience, confidence
and humor. He’d lived through much to become a punk freak and was determined to
make subversive use of it, for the sacred cow of celebrity-mad Sydney needing
badly to be satirized. Ever the horny satyr he determined to be the satirist to
do it. And though its gutters were the toughest to surf, even if it took fifty
years, he would make of Sydney a breakfast of champions.
