BOAR THE TWELFTH
by The Boar
Some of you may remember than in my younger days I played around with the TRG and other tactical groups. We were used to arrest bad guys, real bad guys. One little war story indicates clearly what happens when things go wrong.
I'm back (for better or worse, I'm not quite sure).
Okay, a war story to celebrate my return.
Violence. Physical violence. The sound of fist pummelling flesh, of head-butt splitting brow, of foot sinking deeply into the lower realms of the stomach. The sweat, and spit, and blood. Ah, good Australian pub fun!
Over the many years that I protected life and limb I had the dubious pleasure of attending many, many, many good brawls and fights. Some occurring at hotels, some at homes, some in shopping centres and one memorable event at a grave site resulting in the main combatants landing on the top of dear old recently departed dad's coffin whilst it was nestled firmly in the bottom of the hole in the ground.
I have always found the posturing, alcohol-affected, chest-puffing, big mouth Australian male a humorous creature (in small doses).
Whenever attending a brawl, the makeup of the event is nearly always the same. Not the cause, mind, but how in the normal course of events it degenerates into an exchange of blows. Mouthing off commences the festivities, followed by the ritualistic puffing of the chest with more mouthing off (and generally specific threats detailing the pugilistic intent of each combatant). This section normally has a long-suffering female trying to keep the two males apart That also makes me smile because generally, if the males were fair dinkum they would roll straight over the better half. Finally someone gets the nuts to have a swing. And then it's on.
Now there can be major divergence at this point depending on numerous causal factors. Brawls occur for varying reasons, from two rampant males (generally) merely occupying the same geographic area, all the way to a deep pathological hatred stemming from religion, politics, family issues and more. In some of the latter causal factors, the outcome of any physical confrontation can be tragic. Death, serious wounding, fractured skulls, broken bones, stabbings etc are all too common. And, I note, these top-order results are now on the increase, which might say volumes for how our community behaves and views each other. Certainly the days of a man on man, fist-only punch-up seem to be well and truly on the decline.
But, I digress...
I've seen brawls where the combatants have had more swing and swish than Liberace! Honestly they wouldn't knock a drunken sailor off your sister. They bitch slap, close their eyes and throw punches that are more likely to break the thrower's hand than the receiver's jaw! Then again I've seen blows thrown that would fell a water buffalo, where the thrower clearly has more than a ready grasp of the Sweet Science. And, I've seen brawls way out of control, using weapons that should never have seen the light of day.
Many years ago there lived a family we'll call for the sake of this exercise, the Clampets. There also lived in the same town a family called the McCoys. Now neither family knew each other, as the Clampet sons (all three of them) lived some distance from their parent's home. Each year the Clampets would celebrate Christmas early due to the many and varied conditions that affected their respective employment. The Clampets were tough men. Their women, well, they were tough too. Mum and dad, they were just retired (and expert alcoholics). Ma Clampet used to do herself up like that Zsa Zsa Gabor sheila except because she was always pissed she never managed to get her lippy on her lips if you know what I mean. Old man Clampet was just pissed, all the time, just pissed.
Nothing very exciting about the McCoys to tell, apart from the fact they were shitbags that were always on the edge of trouble and well known to the Boar and all his good old mates at the Station.
The Clampets and the McCoys ended up visiting the same night life venue (a local club) where all goes just swimmingly until the completion of the evening's activities. As usual, the car park of the club (in fact any club that runs discos or live bands) became the site for Round One. Just as an aside, in my experience there are more donnybrooks in car parks than in Madision Square Garden.
To this day I never established what started Round One, but whatever it was, it worked. The Clampet men and McCoy men came to blows. Then more blows. And then even more blows. They punched shit out of each other despite the best attentions of the club bouncers. I am reliably told it was one of the best all-ins ever seen in a town which had a reputation for putting on a good car park program from time to time.
Now as it turns out, and much to the surprise of the gathered throng, the Clampets lost.
Maybe there was an element of surprise involved (particularly seeing as though only two of the McCoy boys were present) and because the McCoys were known to be 'king hit' merchants. Also it was suggested that the Clampet women got more in the way than they managed to assist. Additionally, and more importantly, Ma and Pa Clampet were there and it sounded like their boys were (rightly) more worried about them than the McCoys.
Anyway the result was that the Clampets attended the local hospital en masse for stitching, ice packs and Panadol.
The McCoys had an interesting take on all this. Despite winning a split points decision they decided it wasn't over. Oh no, not by a long shot. They hurried themselves off to another licensed premises in the town were Floydie held court. Now Floydie was a hit man. Not in the sense you would understand from popular film and literature. More a man that was utilised to remind you when you had a debt due to an organisation that didn't advertise on-line; or to square up the bloke who was annoying your daughter, or to square up an annoying neighbour. You know the type of bloke I speak of. Floydie could fight, and everyone knew it.
Now Floydie had put on the years (as we all do), which had taken the edge off his game, you might say. The fact that he was full of VB also didn't help his form, although did assist his ego somewhat. The McCoys paid the appropriate tithings and a plan was hatched to attend the Clampet's home and to lay in wait for them with intent to ambush them once they arrived home from the hospital. An evil plot indeed.
So Floydie knocked back a few more schooners before embarking with the McCoys to bring life to their plan. They were driven to the Clampet's home by one of the McCoy women. The Clampets lived in a cul-de-sac near the hotel so all the actors, now possessing much Dutch courage, decided to drive right to the front of the home instead of utilising an approach of stealth under cover of darkness. They drove right to the head of the driveway.
Trouble was that when they pulled up, so did the Clampets.
The Clampets loved a punch-up as much as the next redneck family, however it wasn't cricket to bring the fight to the family estate (so to speak). This time the Clampets fought with right on their side. This time they had the home ground advantage. This time, they got serious.
Floydie got knocked out early. The impact player was well and truly out of the game after being hit over the head with the wooden bench from a barbeque setting. One of the Clampet boys pulled a paling from the fence (from those that still were on the fence and hadn't been used for fire wood). This Clampet then proceeded to whale the shit out of one of the McCoy boys. I am told there wasn't a limb, nor piece of torso, nor area of skull that didn't have some form of splinter embedded deeply into the epidermis and dermis. That McCoy managed to skulk off into the darkness with the speed of a startled gazelle. One always tends to run fast when in fear of one's life.
The other McCoy boy didn't fare so well either. The elder Clampet boy had a number of pastimes, one of which included spear fishing. With the grace of an ancient Greek athlete (or even a Spartan from the movie '300', and just how tough were they?!) Clampet grabbed his tri-pronged hand spear and launched it at McCoy. McCoy raised his hand in a defensive gesture across his chest, which was particularly fortunate for him as the spear, instead of embedding itself into his chest, only ended up hanging out of his forearm. McCoy, realising this shit was now very serious, and rueing his choice of Floydie to back him up (Floydie was punching out zeds at this stage) decided that discretion was the better part of valour and fucked off, with spear decoratively hanging out of arm. I suppose upon reflection the ability to run would have been hampered somewhat. Despite this impediment, McCoy managed to make good his escape towards the very hospital that had recently treated the Clampets.
The Clampets stopped to survey their work, no doubt with sweat on their brow, and chests heaving from exhaustion and adrenalin. They were ushering mum and dad back inside for another schooner glass of chateau cardboard when they noticed Floydie still sleeping peacefully on the driveway.
As would be expected, any prisoner of war is going to cop it when the combatants don't abide by the Geneva Convention. Floydie was a prisoner of war.
Floydie awoke to the unique sensation of handfuls of dirt being pushed into his mouth. The good old reliable fence paling was then employed for a period of learning Floydie the error of his ways. During this period Floydie later related that he shit his pants. Literally. Finally one of the Clampets, no doubt tiring of this juvenile nonsense, declared to his brother, "Hey, Leroy. Go get the mower fuel."
There can be little doubt about his intention, and certainly at that time in Floydie's mind there was absolutely no doubt about his intention. They was goin' to have themselves a side of roast Floydie!
Earlier I spoke about fear as a catalyst to making your feet get you to where you ain't. Well this was an even more pressing example of the need to forget about your injuries and fuck off as far, and as fast, as possible.
With what was later described as the run of a professional sprinter, Floydie ignored the numerous injuries and undies full of shit that would normally hamper rapid movement of any type and took off like a dog shot up the arse.
The Clampet's long suffering neighbours finally tired of hearing the paling smacking Floydie's skin and contacted the cops, who found Floydie some 1.5 kilometres away walking bow legged (don't forget the shit in the undies) looking like he'd had a tin of red paint tipped over him. Which was actually his blood.
Everyone with a vowel in their name got charged.
All pleaded guilty.
Floydie? He retired from his hit man job. Best flogging he ever copped, or so he claimed.
As usual I look forward to your questions and comments.
Some questions I will ignore.
Some I will not.
Grunt.
