Viv Tufnell: shield cricketer and complete arsehole (parts 8 & 9)

Part eight

Of all the dithering, indecisive …

 

 

Danelio Bouchard, as you well know, escaped a thoroughly deserved axing from next weeks 2^nd Test, and it’ll just be my luck that capitalizes on this good fortune. I mean, he must have something really incriminating on the selectors not to have been discarded after that pair. That’s the only way I can read it. Either that or our selectors are as clueless and spineless and dithering and indecisive as they appear (it’s probably a little of both.) Anyway, it’s, of course, left me bitter and hateful. Indeed, I’m in such a state about it, I’m starting to wish him ill fortune; both on and off the field. I mean I’m so far gone, I’d sell my soul to the devil tight now if he’d give him a tumor; that or a crippling injury. Like anything that would stop him getting on the field to cash in against them Bangladeshis. But alas, all that stuff only works for Catholics in fiction, doesn’t it? It doesn’t work for the likes of I, you, me and everyone else. Yes, the nightmare is still upon me, friends. Again, I just thought I’d be better prepared.

 

 

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Christ, you’ve never seen anyone so smug.

 

As you well know, Tassie beat South Australia last week with 4 balls remaining, and this after Dave declared at 3 for 650. With 4 balls to spare! Can you f@#*^g believe it? Dave, of course, was smug as f@#* about it, especially seeing that I’d been sniping him since the declaration. “Hey Viv,” he’d said all smarmy, “what was it you were saying about me not knowing when to declare? Something about me not having any f@#*^g idea about declarations? Something about us being better off batting another day? Pfffff..” A little later, he baited me in front of everyone over my threats. “Restraint of trade?” he laughed. “The stupid f@#* was gonna sue me for a restraint of trade?” Still laughing, he then swigs his beer and says, “What a f@#*^g dolt.” Steve Phibbs then cracks, “Hey what trade is Viv restraining around here? Everyone looked at expectantly. “Our scoreboard attendants,” he laughed. “That and our scorer’s.”

 

You know what trade I’ll be restraining from Dave and Steve? The selling of their arses. That’s right, when I’m done kicking them in, they’ll be sealed up for good! And that’ll mean there’s no way they can ever become rent boys or gigolos or man whores. And it’ll serve them right if they ever wanted to be. It’ll serve them right good. Coz this time they’ve pushed me too far. This time they went to the limit. This time they went to the point of no return and when you go to the point of no return, there’s no way back. And especially when you’re a pair of sealed up rent boys!!!!!

 

 

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Mick and I have not been in communication for three weeks now. Well, technically that’s not true. When Danelio made his pair last week, I’d sent several text messages saying ‘suffer ya f@#*’, so I guess that’s me communicating, isn’t it, but I think you know what I mean.

 

Mick is in Brisbane with Danelio at the moment and if I know Mick and Danelio, they’re having the lamest time. Like I bet Mick is counseling Danelio about the virtues of an early night and good diet and all that shit about being professional. Christ, Mick even had me thinking about quitting drinking the night before a match last year. As if it’d make a difference? Pffff.

 

In the first year of my sorry association with Mick, he had me in a Boot camp. I can’t believe I let him talk me into it. I mean these Boot camp drill sergeants (or what ever the f@#* they are) are really playing out some fantasy to be actual drill sergeants. Like they take it all a little too seriously. The f@#* running my camp was in my ear every five seconds yelling his macho drill sergeant bullshit. “You’re a lowlife worm,” he’d  bark, or “You’re a pasty fat piece of shit.” When he then caught me sniggering at him, he yelled, “You lowlife worm scumbag. You pasty piece of shit dirtbag. Who the f@#* are you to snigger at me. You’ll eat that you turd. You’ll be sorry you ever did that you f@#*. Now get on the ground and give me twenty.” Needless to say, the f@#* never got the 20. What he did get was the double bird – and with the extra vigor I save for parking inspectors.

 

Having this big fat cherry of a central contract almost in the palm of his hands must be so tantalizing for Mick. I mean, he must be fussing over every little thing with Danelio to make sure he doesn’t f@#* up like last time. Shit, I’ll bet Mick is even having dreams about it – cryptic dreams of a holy grail and it being so close he can almost touch it. That’d be just like Mick to dream that, coz the truth is, he’s just a money grubbing leech. Crunching the numbers and coming up with that $4.00 an hour thing is proof of that. I mean, we had a beautiful thing going on here and he had to put a $ value on it. He had to put dollars and cents on good times, laughs and camaraderie. Pffff, he’ll be lucky if he ever gets to speak to Slazenger on my behalf again.

 

 

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I can’t work out which band I like more. I mean some days Nickleback are my favourite all time band and sometimes it’s Bon Jovi. Matchbox 20 are also in the mix, as are Maroon 5. Do you think Matchbox 20 and Maroon 5 would have been as successful if they’d swapped numbers? Or singers? Billy Ray Cyrus is also up there, but not for ‘Achy breaky heart’, for his album tracks. I mean they’re really underrated. Female wise, I like Enya, Pink and Sporty spice. I like a few boy bands too – not female wise, just boy band wise. Mostly though I just listen to SEN sport. And if not that, recordings of my innings on 936 ABC Hobart. I have excerpts of their commentary of all my hundreds on my iphone. I never tire of Roger Woodely praising my stoicism and then announcing my milestones excitedly. “There it is! A deft glance to third man to get his hundred. Another big score for the Glenorchy stalwart. Well done Viv. He just keeps on keeping on.” I love that line: he just keeps on keeping on. When I have my signature range of leisurewear, that’ll be etched on the polo shirts. Many even the chinos? Who knows. Whatever way it works out, Roger Woodely can help himself to all the leisurewear he wants. He’s a thoroughly descent bloke. A real class act. And who’d have thought he’d turn out to be a Nickleback fan? And moreover, who’d have thought I’d run into him at their Melbourne concert? We hit it off right away and have been great mates since. We even flew together to see their Sydney concert and then the one on Perth. They were both ripper shows too. Both of them really went off! Yep, Roger’s a thoroughly decent bloke. A class act, alright. That on top of having terrific taste in music.

 

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I’m always getting knocked off the front mage of the Mercury by disasters. Each one of my 12 shield centuries has been scored on the day of an earthquake or a mass shooting or a plane crash or something. Like just once I’d like to get a hundred on a slow news day, you know … so it’d get the coverage it deserves. I mean I’m not asking for a commemorative color spread lift out or anything, though that’d be nice, I just want my just deserts – that being, of course, a thousand word match report from 3 journo’s, some editorial and a few pictures. You know, just what the Test players get. Instead, what do I get? A cursory blurb in the drab sports results section. If I’m lucky! In the meantime, pages 1 to 10 are saturated with gory details of a Tsunami in some godforsaken place most Hobartarians couldn’t give a toss about. It’s all out of whack. I put it down to people being ghouls. They’re really obsessed with the macabre. Like if they’d only open their hearts, they’d realize there is a feel-good story unfolding just down the road from them at Bellerive. A story that would warm their cockles and lift their spirits. A story that would help them achieve harmony and a state of nirvana. A story that might very well be a Hollywood feature one day, due to its inspirational protagonist. But alas, they prefer gory sensationalism. Alas, they ghoulishly prefer disasters. It makes me shake my head in bewilderment. It really does.

 

 

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Part Nine

 

 

As you well know, Danelio plays his second Test in three days, and I’m so bitter about it, life has become almost unbearable. I spend my days willing misfortune upon him – all 24 sleepless hours of them. Damn, I’m even thinking about seeking out the services of a Satanist I happened upon at the Slazenger Xmas party last year. Like me, the Satanist was just there for the free booze (well she wouldn’t have been for the Xmas festivities would she?) and like me, she had fled the main party to escape Slazenger’s marketing bore, Greg Delves. “So I’m a Satanist,” she then dropped casually in the conversation as we sipped our drinks out on a balcony. “Oh,” I said a little jolted (naturally enough!) She went on to say that she didn’t just blurt out her Satanism to anyone, it was only to people she sensed were kindred spirits. After assuring her that, though, I loved all the pea soup and head spinning in The Exorcist, and all the other dark pitch forky stuff, my non-theism did not allow for belief in cast out beings that tortured souls for all eternity. “That is what happens,” I laughed. “He sticks his pitch fork into the spleens of the wicked?” She looked at me dead serious and said, “Only to non believers: believers get to participate in the prodding.” Hmmm, I thought, this woman is certifiable. In then continuing to humour her, I allowed her to tell me about satanic pacts and how they can bring about the demise of people that thwarted you. She said that she sensed that I was a person that had the aura of someone who had been thwarted time and again and that maybe I should consider being in league with her Lord Satan. “He can really make things happen if you give it a try.” Anyway, since Danelio’s selection, that comment has been swimming around in my head (and around and around …)

 

 

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Bangladesh, as you well know, are in the middle of their first summer tour of Australia, and as you also well know, they have been having a few problems with Australian food. In the last week, half of their touring party have been laid low with a mystery stomach virus. Their medical staff are clueless about the source of the problem and have put it down to stomach sensitivities to western food the way we westerners get Delhi belly whenever we tour the sub continent. But I, Viv Tufnell, happen to know otherwise.

 

Bev and Evelyn run the Bellerive tuck shop, and have so for what seems like forever. How they have, though, is anyone’s guess. I tell you, no one can murder a Frankfurter like these ladies. I mean if there is such a thing as a hot dog sourced from an abattoir that specializes in processing animals with terminal illnesses, these hot dogs are it. Like Bev and Evelyn’s Frankfurters are the mot anemic looking thing imaginable and even worse, they look better than they taste. Way, way better.

 

Bev and Evelyn are two of the most hateful people I’ve ever come across. Ever. Indeed, they make the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld look like Shirley Temple. What’s worse, though, is that they haven’t got the cooking skills to back it up. They can’t warm a pie to save their lives and their fried dim sims have all the cache of a flaccid penis. (And not just any flaccid penis, Mr Bean’s flaccid penis!)

 

As the Bellerive kiosk is the only place to get a bite on low attendance shield match days, Bev and Evelyn pretty much have a monopoly on punters appetites. This stranglehold coupled with their naturally nasty dispositions has proved a poisonous combination. Like these ladies wield the small amount of power they have in the most atrocious ways. I mean everything they have to do is an inconvenience – giving change, answering questions, passing condiments. Asking them for extra salt on your fries is received as though you’ve criticized Gordan Ramsey for overcooking a Lobster thermidor; the only difference being Ramsey would come across as wishy washy in compassion.

 

We shield players actually lunch and tea in the comparatively palatial settings of the Bellerive dining room, but as we’re always looking for extra snacks when not fielding or batting, we’re always nicking across to Ben and Evelyn’s tuckshop for this and that. When the Bangladeshis played Australia A in their opening tour game they did the same – and boy did they do it over and over (and over!) Like, you’ve never seen a bunch of blokes so crazy for deep fried food; and, damn it, as deep fried goodies go, Bev and Evelyn’s deep fried stuff goes as deep as it gets. Hell, their Dimmies go so deep in the fryer, they come up with the Benz! (Like these are some distressed looking golden fried goodies.)

 

After their match against Australia A, the Bangladeshis started coming down with these gastrointestinal aliments, so you only need to join the dots, don’t you? It’s obvious it’s all traceable to Bellerive’s kiosk. But, alas, for the sake of saving shield loving Hobartarians from botulism, no one’s made the connection; no one but me, that is. Meanwhile, Bev and Evelyn’s reign of terror continues unabated – a reign that forsakes taste buds, puts lower intestines under siege, and tears holes in colons the size of cutlets (thanks Frank Costanza!) All I can say is, let’s all hope and pray they’re behind bars before the next touring team visits, lest Bellerive causes an international incident.

 

 

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My stepsisters Tina and Anastasia are away on a trip, so I filled in at the café today. It’s one of the few times I’ve been behind the counter in the many years I’ve been an owner, and whenever I do it, I do so with great reluctance. I mean, it’s really hard work, damn it, and being nice to people is so painful. It’s all “Have a nice day,” this, and “See you again,” that. Shiverrrssssssss, it makes me sick. It’s just as well I mostly overcharge our customers, and if not that, shortchange them. I mean, without something dark going on, working as a cashier would be a drag.

 

Being as it may painful and something I do with reluctance, filling in today, however, was something I relished. As I’ve touched upon, I’ve been wanting to get to the bottom of why the café has been faring so poorly recently, and my stepsisters absence had given me a perfect opportunity to do so. As I’d said, I reckoned it’s to do with this regular customer. He has this withered arm with a deformed hand, and again, I know its cruel to think this, as well as saying the unsayable, but I reckon he’s the reason why. Like compellingly, before he showed up, we were going gangbusters. We were clearing a shitload every week and I was making a fortune. But then he became a regular and it all went to shit. Our takings went under our expenses and all the tables just lay underutilized and empty. All the tables except his, that is.

 

Whenever I’ve popped into the café, I’ve noticed that he usually turns up around noon and that’s exactly what happened today. After inquiring about my lovely stepsisters absence, he made his way to the bay marie. There were about a half a dozen people jostling around the trays of foods behind the glass, and as he edged towards them I could sense their discomfort, Anyway, to his credit, he then ordered more than anyone else and took a seat at his usual table. I then studied the other customers as they came and went, and every time they sized up where they’d sit, they’d give his table a wide berth. Every time, damn it! I’m telling you during the whole hour he was there, no one sat near him. And on top of that, there were at least a half a dozen people who walked in, saw him, and then walked out without ordering anything. Society, I then think to consol my guilt. I’m not at fault here, its society. It’s the superficial amongst us that are shunning him, and in turn my cafe. We’re both victims of societies superficiality.

 

Feeling a little kinship with him, but still way more resentful that the cash register isn’t turning over, I then watch as he finishes his meal. At around 1.00 he then gets up to settle his tab. He bustles towards me rubbing his stomach with his one good hand, and says, “Mate, that was great. Yep, if you guys keep serving up food like that, I’ll be a permanent fixture round here.” He then waved to our cook Martha with his withered arm. “So,” he then says to me, “are you a casual here or something?” Though I had every right to be a little indignant, I say explanatorily, “Mate I own the place.” “Oh,” he says. He then says, “You look familiar. Are you a sportsmen or something?” I have to say I was flattered. Not many people recognize us shield players. Playfully I said, “Do you follow cricket?” He says, “Yeah I love it. So you’re a cricketer?” Hoping he’d then be able to place my name, I say, “Yeah.” “Hmm,” he says, wracking his brain to work out who I am. “You haven’t played for Australia have you?” I said, “No mate, I go round in the interstate comp.” “Oh,” he says, underwhelmed. Then he says, giving up without making an effort, “Yeah I wouldn’t really know about that stuff, mate. I only really follow the one-dayers.” He then notices the clock over my shoulder and says, “Shit, gotta run.” He then slams $20.00 on the counter, saying “Keep the change,” and knowing full well that tab was just short of the $20.00 and that meant his ‘keep the change’ line was taking credit for something that wasn’t really the case. He then rushes out in a real flurry having denied me a deserved moment of celebrity, and as he does, to rub salt in the wound, he costs me two more customers as he stumbles into a these superficial types in the doorway, who turn and leave right after the incident. Now, after all that, I have a question: was it truly evil of me to then wish he was hit by a truck or is that just another complicated behavioral issue all to do with living in a society?

 

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Mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn am I freaking out! Mannnnnnnnnnnnn am I shitscared!

 

 

The night before Danelio’s accident, I entered into a pact with the devil. Through the stewardship of that Satanist I happened upon, I offered up my earthly soul in kind for a Danelio’s demise. Like I had become crazy with hatred and it was a desperate last measure. Little did I think it would actually work; little did I think Danelio would be in a horrific car accident on the eve of this week’s Test. And now he’s in a coma. Now he’s on the brink of death and I’m the one to blame. And how do I know all this? How do I know my pact was honored? Coz of the driver of the other car. The driver who ran a red light and T-Bone’d Danelio’s Mazda was Alan Jones: the devil incarnate himself!!!!!!!!!!

 

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To be continued  … or maybe not.