2003-12-08

Nice day..sitting here in Wellington (NOT New Zealand!) where I have been spending the weekend with my Mum and brother. I drove the five hours up the Golden Highway (love the name of that road!) on Friday, to lend my moral support in light of their break-in this week. This is the ‘third’ incident Mum has had in a couple of years, and the second in two months.

Mum got broken into a couple of years ago, with my brother’s Playstation being the main victim that time.

About a month ago, Mum was away on holidays, visiting my uncle in Coffs Harbour. When she goes away, Mum has people dropping into her house, to feed pets and stuff. Rowan, one of my brother’s friends and an ex-pupil of Mums comes over to stay or play the computer - just generally hang out and not leave the house empty.

So one day when Mum was away, Dawn (Mum’s pet feeding mate) was coming over to feed pets and clean the house a bit. When she pulled up, there were three kids running off and the curtains were on fire! Dawn went in and put out the small flames. The ratbags had thrown a rock through Mum’s living room window and then lit the curtains! If Dawn had not come when she did…well, I suppose a large portion of Mum’s house would have burnt down!

Mum was pretty chilled with it, not really stressing, and generally talknig about how God was probably protecting her, she was blessed etc.

This week, when Mum and my brother were at school, the house was trashed. A local smackie, who kinda knew what Mum did and knew the house would be empty smashed through the front door. Smackie then ransacked Will’s room, as well as Mum’s and the kitchen. He stole what he could carry: Playstation, joggers, USB memory device, jewellery (including Mum’s engagement ring from my Dad), camera, CDs…He also destroyed a cake that I would have gotten to eat but for his ransacking. My brother was pretty shaken up to find his room so fucked up, he was angry and freaked out. I was a bit pissed off about the cake.

Smackie was caught, as he was not that bright and had gone to see a household of people who knew Mum. Smackie blatantly bragged about what he had done and tried to offload some hot goods on them, for a bargain price. Some of the people at the house agreed to make statements to police, identifying Smackie as a right prat. By the time the cops caught him though, he had gotten rid of the jewellery, the playstation and the joggers, but some of the other stuff was recovered.

Mum has now decided to install a fence around the front of her house (where there is no fence), a metal one with those arrow-head points on it - because she thinks it looks nasty. I didn’t once tell her that a thief would still climb over it in a second. The real purpose of the fence would be to allow one of her dogs to have roaming rights out the front - the other dog is kinda ineffective in guarding skills. My brother and I joked about putting in a moat with pirahnas to help the dog do its job. Cause he does need help!

He was ‘saved’ from a local farmer who was going to ‘get rid’ of him cuz he was ‘no good’. So Mum took him so she could have a guard dog. My brother gave the blue cattle dog pup the name of Bradfield, or something. I can’t even remember cuz everyone just calls him Bluedog. After a bit, Mum realised he wasn’t very responsive to her commands, and was a bit hard to teach obedience to. It was soon deduced that he was deaf! Mum’s guard dog is deaf! To this day, he is quite a good guard dog despite being deaf. Feels the vibrations through the ground, my Mum says. He even growls at me when I go in the back yard without Mum. I suppose she is his protector and everyone else is a potential threat, since he is down one of his senses.

When I visit Mum, I often take Dame’s dog, Barbie. Every time I take her, she gets total house rights. Mum’s two dogs are relegated to the back yard with no car or house access. The cat refuses to leave Mum’s room upstairs. Barbie gets full run of the ground floor. At night I let her sleep on the other single bed in the spare room where I sleep - its like we’re having a teen sleepover and she’s my best friend. Barbie never gets to go out the back and see the dogs as it would become a big fat dog fight orgy with someone coming out with dog flesh on their breath. And Barbie is a big wuss and has to be by my side at all times. Every time I go out to move the car in to the carport (otherwise it faces the risk of beng stolen) Barbie would freak out, yelping uncontrollably lest I should never return. I had thought this was quite extreme til I spoke to woman at my brother’s cricket match, who told me she ahd a full grown male labrador that refuses to walk on lino. That’s one fucked up dog right there.

Aaah, smackies, they always know how to be notorious. Every one has their own smacky stoy, of pals losing their souls to heroin, or spotting smakies nodding off on the bus or having been broken in to by smackies.

My tales revolve around flatmates, generally. My second flatmate was a junky but I was pretty naive at that stage, enver having experienced the 'friendship' of smackies. I thought he was just a lovely gentle dude. And still did when his friends started hanging round heaps. Then I got a bit funny at the lack of bill/rent payment. Then I became overwhlemed by the multiples of people living n the back bedroom. Then I worked it all out - horrified! I soon moved out, but had a hell of a time getting out of the leae and I would hear that there were 10 people living in the tiny 2 bedroom flat above the hairdressers on King St.

Next was the Morrissey St house, where I lived with about 3 smackies. No one did much at that house, but shoot up and nod off. And fuck out. And hock their gear. I stayed pretty much untouched by it all, but heard lots of junky-justification of their lifestyle and what they were doing. What they were doing was slowly (very slowly) dying. Really fucking up.

Then I lived with non-smackies, but one of them started going out with a smacky. So he moved in - before I knew it, she was on smack too. And then our other flatmate got into it. Shiiit! Rent hassles a-go-go, culminating in my bass being taken, before my very eyes, under the justification that the girl flatmate had given it to me, so it was really hers. Huh? Covered in stickers and shit, they would have hocked it immediately but gotten only about ten bucks, if that. Later she got pregnant to him. I think they got off the gear, but I don't think they are together anymore...I have no real clue.

Then, no more contact with smackies, as I staunchly refuse to have anything to do with them. Hear tales about them from friends occassionally in Newcastle but none of my aquaintences are into it. One often sees them traipsing the streets, nodding off at bus stops and swearing in shopping centres.