Part two Of Cunningham Dan’s Funeral
It was stinking hot in that little hall. The mirth had run out of the day, the sweltering heat sucking my life force while coating me in. a stinking visceral essence of slime.
But as bad as I knew I smelt it was nothing compared to the other unwashed, gritty human mass that surrounded me.
Callisa hung onto my arm like a sour dish rag in the hopes of not falling over while I used her as a crutch to steady myself.
If it wasn’t for her petite beauty and fragile nature and for our mutual love of Cunningham I would of pushed her away and fled out of that tin fucking shed like diarrhoea through a gangrenous arse hole.
As the congregation stood perspiring as one, a god botherer in a dress approached the podium and starting talking of salvation and gods children while lamenting the lose of a beloved brother a dutiful son and a honourable man.
I started wondering if I was at the right funeral.
Some middle aged hag with blurry tattoos in black tights and a black midriff top, that exposed a swollen stretch mark mound of grey putty that I think was her stomach, started howling through a stringy, spittle encased mouth that looked so vile I was nearly dry retching.
I’m guessing it was Cunningham and Tourvill’s mother.
Speaking of which, Tourville took to the pulpit after the man in the dress which surprised me.
As I mentioned earlier, Torville was special and by special I mean fucked up.
As a baby he was, and I’m not kidding here, dropped on his head. His dad had come home drunk one night and roused his two boys out of bed to watch a meteor shower he imagined was happening.
He had lifted a young Cunningham up atop the tank stand in the back yard then tried to lift his little brother up to him, lost his balance on little Tourvill who flipped doubleback over his dads shoulder smashing his head on the concrete corner of the foundation.
To add to this misfortune their dad then stumbled sideways crushing his sons tiny wrist and hands so that he was forever brain damaged with a nasty twisted claw.
Two weeks later he fucked off and no one ever saw him again.
Tourvill spoke waving his claw accusingly at the rooms overbearing heat haze.
“I uved mime uver wiv oor mime art, ar bevva man neva orked vis erf.
E beweeved vings tru even iv uverrs fort im mad.”
Being an old mate of both Tourvill and Cunningham I can actually translate this piece of fractured wisdom.
“I loved my brother with all my heart. A better man never walked this earth. He believed things true even if others thought him mad.”
He started to lose me after that or my hearing was screwing up from the over abundance of stimuli running around my fractured brain, but I thought he said that Clay Pidgin a surveyor around these parts had killed Cunningham.
It was Clay who Cunningham had smacked in the mouth the night he took on old number 7.
He was saying that it was Clay who knew the truth and Clay who pushed his brother over the edge.
At least that’s what I think he said.
It was then that Stuart (Spew Scungy) Dungy, with a dramatic door banging entrance, made his appearance in this sordid tail of intrigue and mayhem.
Spew had worked with Cunningham from the onset and was possibly his best mate. They had even both entered Copper Box Sally once together, before she hit the big time in Adelaide as a $20 whore.
Nothing binds a mateship closer, or so I’ve heard.
He walked up to the pulpit with Tourvill grinning, like the idiot he was, from ear to ear, pointed with his demented hand and said, “I ate spew.”
My mate Stu, is what I believe he said.
Stu took the pulpit.
“My best mate Cunningham is dead.” He started, and no one could disagree with this statement.
“And it is true that indirectly our good friend Clayton Pidgin did kill him as sure as Tourvill has said.”
I saw many surprised looks at this as hardly anyone had know what the stuff Tourvill had said.
Spew continued. “It was him that could verify the truth and him that knew the truth of which Tourvill had spoken. It was why they were arguing, why Cunt punched him in the face. (Cunt was Cunningham’s pet name, I hadn’t mentioned that earlier because I am, deep down, a gentleman)
He trusted Clay to back him up and to tell the truth. To unite in the knowledge and truth they had both uncovered and to use that truth to free the world from the yoke of oppression and slavery that is around all of our necks. For they shared a secret that a few with ears to listen knew was true but when it came to the crunch Clayton was to gutless to follow through and be part of the change for a greater good.”
I peeled out a gaping cavernous jaw aching yawn at this point but just because I was rooted, not because I was bored.
“Cunningham and Clayton know what few can know. They worked with the tools needed to break the great lie. Clayton a surveyor and Cunningham a layer of tracks.
They shared this information with very few because of the ridicule and the backlash that would ensue. But they did share it with me, and Cunningham shared it with his beloved brother Tourvill and we understood and we believed.
The earth is not a globe, it is flat.”
A hushed inward breath of silence greeted Spews stern expression.
A spit clogged giggle first came from Mrs Dan followed by a few more building up to a laughing garble.
“Sit down ya’ fuckin’ galah.” Someone shouted from behind me.
“Yeah, piss off ya fuck wit.” Advised another intellectual from the front.
Spew was about to say something else when a tinny of Jacks sailed through the air and donked him square in the middle of the forehead, Spew’s knees buckled as Tourvill caught him before he hit the ground.
More abuse followed him as Tourvill dragged him out the side door.
Later on in the beer garden, meself, Callisa, Tourvill and Spew, who was nursing a lump on his forehead the size of Ayres Rock quietly discussed the things that Cunningham and Clayton had discovered.
According to Spewy, when measuring distances using the surveying tool no variant or adjustment is made for a curvature of the earth. The same when laying track. “It’s a continues flat surface.” He said.
I found this all very interesting but really, really needed to get some sleep. Callisa agreed it was a good idea considering at this moment she looked twenty eight instead of the sweet eighteen she was supposed to be, but first she had to piss before hitting the hay.
She stood up to walk to the dunny when a big fucking slack jaw brown dog with dangling, cancerous growths hanging off its mattered flank latched onto her waist, cherry red lipstick dick poking away at thin air, bring her to her knees.
The owner of the mongrel became aware of the situation as shouts of surprise echoed through the beer garden.
I reacted faster kicking the mongrel bastard square in the balls just as the owner grabbed it by the collar.
The dog let out a high pitched yelp and retreated between the mans legs. “No need for that, I was just grabbing him.” He shouted as the dog dragged him half under the table he came from.
“The only mongrel who does that to her is me mate!” I shouted and. grabbed Callisa’s by the wrist and exited.
After a decent nights comatosed sleep we meet up with Tourvill and Spew Scungy who’s forehead looked like it had grown a purple conjoined twin.
They had come down to the siding where my ute was parked to say good bye.
I shook hands while Callisa received the compulsory hug.
We stood, us four looking off into the distance where the train line petered out into the extended unbroken expanse that seemed to go on forever.
“Nont ee no urve.” Said Tourvill.
“Nuh Mate,” I answered in reply.
“I don’t see any curve neither.”