3. Big Stan and Little Davy

Big Stan’s open hands make hypnotic arcs in the air, short, lazy, graceful lullabies. Little Davy, fixed on them, concentrates, rolls his own stick arms and tiny knob fists, matching the rhythm.

Somewhere in the bar someone drops a dollar into the jukebox and the rhythm of the song is out of time to the movements of the seated man and the concentration of the child swaying in front of him between the splayed legs.

 Trumby was a ringer, a good one too at that….

Big Stan kinks the left shoulder just enough to break the spell and the boy ducks into a crouch. But it’s the right that’s moving. A flying flat mutton of hand, made powerful by speed, slaps the boy flush on the left ear, rips his head hard down onto his shoulder and drops him onto the cold tile of the bar floor. A sucker for the right. Stan gives him one more chance.

"Get up."

But the boy made dull by nausea only stares and make no response to the prodding sandal.

"Fuck off then."

Big Stan turns back to the bar in time to join the verse.

Trumby was dependable, he never took to beer..

Little Davy waits to be sure he’s clear of his father’s focus The man doesn’t spare the boy another look.

A good day. Still only ten o’clock in the morning.

It’s Davy’s luck there’s no crowd in the bar. The trawlermen were mostly out to sea. The factory hands would be removing prawn-slimed gloves, turning off the taps and galoshing off in their white gumboots for the morning smoko. His mother would be amongst those slipping out the side door for a smoke in the morning sun.

If there'd been a crowd, it wouldn’t have been so easy.

With a crowd, Big Stan would have to demonstrate his dedication to the boy’s training. The sparring would be more intense and the punishment for dropping the guard more spiteful. Big Stan would have gone into his sideshow pitch.

"Come over! Come over! Look at this one! Look at this one!"

And with the spruiker’s call established in his head and the thwack of the cane on the canvas and the two-beat of the sideshow bass drum, the old tentfighter’s blood would quicken and he’d be back in his glory days. The weaving child would become any one of a thousand old foes. The punch-sodden brain, would disengage and the mechanisms of the body would click through the programme of evasions and punch combinations. Spit would fly from the old man’s mouth and snot discharged by the violence of breath and the boy would be in fear of his life.

But today it’s quiet. There’s just Irish Bob behind the bar and the hungover stockman clinging to the iron cage around the jukebox, singing about the work he’s already too drunk to do.

Stan recognises a kindred spirit. Three beers down the track himself and feeling the onset of a comfortable drunk, he’s confident that the three-folded five-dollar note in his fob pocket might be stretched to an all day session.

In many ways a solitary drinker was a better prospect than a crowd. A lonely drinker would appreciate the company and Big Stan is a master at manipulating the tradition of the shout. He needs only two weapons – the carrot and the whip - the hug and the knuckle. He fixes his eyes on those of the stringy stockman and sings to him with all the passion of a leading man from a forties musical, the last line of the song of the tragic aboriginal ringer poisoned by lack of education:

Trumby was a good boy but he couldn’t read or write.

By now his big arm is around the shoulders of the skinny ringer and the blatant offer of beery friendship laid out as formally as a challenge.

To refuse is an insult and an invitation to a fight - out where the bull feeds. The strength of Stan’s brotherly arm testifies to the foolishness of that notion.

"Have a beer with me."

The invitation is delivered on a fine shower of spit. As well as he can from within the confines of the bear hug, the ringer nods.

 Chicken in the pot. Irish Bob is summoned to refill glasses and the only funds available, the ringer’s change on the bar.

"Out of this then?"

Big Stan glares at Irish Bob. The smart-mouth little Irish bastard could screw things up. Stan would love to stick one on him but that was a tricky business – get barred from this pub and it’s sixty miles to your next drink. He also knew about the shiny teak marlinespike under the till. You’d be wide open trying to get over that bar.

Big Stan is here for drinking. There's a similar ease in fighting but it’s short-term. This time the very slowness of Stan’s brain is his deliverance. Irish Bob rings up the till and returns the change before the end of the thought process. Stan nabs a coin and drops it in the jukebox for the benefit of his new patron.

“Here’s one for you.”

"It was Tiger Wilson versus Kid McCoy in the summer of ninety three".

A very good day.

© Ray Lillis 2012