Fuzzy Muff

I can’t talk for long…
It’s too risky. I can’t take any chances at the moment. None whatsoever, Bucko. So just back off. BACK OFF fool!. I’m layin low…blinds are shut, eyes are peering clandestine through parted slats, and it’s just me now…me and me alone.
The fuzz are on my tail. The fuzzy muff. The boys and girls in blue. The heat. The man. The purveyors of pork produce. I’m, layin low, y’see; layin low and shelving out a little downtime before my next move.

Last night I celebrated the commencement of my long weekend via the usual means – a night of good times, laughter, and customary swathe of alcohol. It was a brilliant night; I caught up with old work mates that I hadn’t seen in a good three years; folks I’d come to know through a past foray into fashion retail during my much heralded Surf Dive N’ Ski tenure (aka Muff Dive n Ski/Surf Divinsky).We kicked on and on until the wee hours, before the better part of Melbourne city was left painted red. As reality and exhaustion hit, my subconscious mind delivered a message that it was high time for me to get the hell out of whatever iniquitous den I’d found myself in. Some place called Ping Pong – a vast, split level meat market where everyone seemed at least a decade younger than me and the cohort I was travelling with. We drank tequila and showed the youngsters a thing or two about the art of dance. I trundled up Flinders Lane from William to Swanston, stopping briefly by my place of work to have a bollocked conversation with the hostel Night Porter.

I trundled up along Swanston street, contemplating a sobering walk home, but instead opted for a lift, eventually hailing down a yellow sucker after a pitiful attempt at footing it back to Fitzroy. I made it to Lonsdale St and that was enough.
The cab ride was nothing unusual, nor anything special. My Indian driver seemed friendly enough. I mumbled the acceptable array of sparkling cab repartee, ‘how was your night?’, ‘been busy?’, ‘anyone ralphed in your cab tonight?’, etc, etc…I’m always thinking of ways to expand drunken cab comminique but I seem to fall back on the regular horseshit. To be frank, the cabbie was probably doing just fine without my inane banter and bloated verbal runoff.

We pulled up a few cars down from my house, and suddenly the night took a very unexpected turn.

My vision was inundated with the luminous flood of flashing red and blue. We were surrounded by police. With a clear, if not hazy conscience, I wished my cabbie well and handed him some cash – the conviction crossed my mind that he was in the deep end and had been smuggling automatic weapons mid-shift, if not operating an unliscenced vehicle or stealing candy from children.
It wasn’t to be the case.

Enter Cam Hassard – public enemy number one.

The cabbie got out of there quick smart with my 10 spondoolies, delivering ‘Hassard: Renegade’ into a swarm of hardline Johnny Ossifers. I was surrounded. Five blokes, one chick; in not one, not two, but THREE police vehicles. Evidently some shit was up; otherwise it had been a very, very quiet night for our local constabulary. I remember thinking it was a nice touch that they’d covered the vehicular spectrum quite efficiently – meeting me in one divvy van, one squad car, and one unmarked blue holden; just to cover their bases.

I was confronted by fuzz.
“What seems to be the problem?”, I asked.
“You tell me”, replied a dumpy cop sporting a thick molester moustache.
It’s funny how you talk to cops like they do in the movies. I could have just as easily retorted, “How the bloody hell are ya China, what’s the craic!?”
It felt as if was in the process of being ‘Punk’d’ and I wondered who was responsible.

Because I failed to note down anyone’s real name, and for the sake of clarity in the following reel of events, this first ossifer’s name shall from here on be ‘Dumpy Moe’. Evidently it was his turn at assuming the lead role in this particular drama, his moment to shine amongst his admiring peers

A second unsavoury protagonist in yellow reflective vest arked up in between Dumpy Moe’s textbook diatribe. This scallywag will be referred to as ‘Vesticles’.
“Do you think it’s a good idea to let police car tyres down!”, Vesticles belched.
Vesticles wanted answers damn it, and stat! Inhaling a stick of nicotine, the cancerous drug seemed to supply Vesticles with confidence to project his fearful timbre with profound assertiveness. I reasoned that he must have taken up the habit in order to quell the disdain at how bald he’d become over the years; how unattractive he had been to the opposite sex for the majority of his life.
Chang on, Vesticles, I summoned. Inhale that glory stick and give me your worst!

The interrogation continued. Dumpy Moe and Vesticles hogged the limelight whilst another bald cop took down my name and address with the fervour and nonachalance of an overworked Italian waiter at Marios. Later I was asked to pose for a photo.

Dumpy Moe’s ego had not been checked at the door and oozed like pus, blindingly, from every pore in his moustachioed stump of a body.

For those who came in late;
‘our hero has been lured into a concentrated sting from the establishment by a non-conversational Indian cab driver; allegedly capping off an enjoyable, legal evening with a good ol’ fashioned spate of squad car tyre slashings and was now being accused of the aforementioned criminal action on the strength of a ubiquitous(and unfailing) Big Brother surveillance system as well as sworn testimony of at least three reliable eyewitnesses. Water tight.

Ahhh. The slashing of cop tyres. Nothing really goes down as smooth. Just keep that bottle o’ Ballantynes and your Johnny Black aged a dozen years back on the shelf thanks - I’m gunna head out n’ slash me some black pig rubber. The only nightcap in my book.


Dumpy and Vesticles walked back to their divvy van and conversed amongst their brethren. I stood at the centre of everything, this bizarre scene. I smiled wryly at the lone female cop standing on the footpath, half believing that I had indeed run amok along Flinders Lane with a broad, sharpened knife. She smiled back. I sensed her knowledge that they had come all this way for the wrong guy.

Minutes passed, and finally Dumpy returned. But for a brief, though rather telling, sideglance Dumpy and I locked eyeballs as he reeled off his man talk. The pus of his ego bubbled and dripped; Vesticles had finished his cigarette and drilled me once again about how ‘letting down police car tyres is not on, and highly dangerous’. Thank God for his pep talk. Six years of private school education, seven years since, and somehow this fundamental tenet of life knowledge had slid past my otherwise solid elementary morality. Thankyou Vesticles. For the love of God, thankyou for this life lesson.
Vesticles, you truly are a mammoth douche.

Dumpy Moe concluded the evening’s proceedings with a stiff diatribe regarding the pressing of charges, should the evidence conclude that I was indeed the alleged criminal protagonist. No doubt the description filed went something like ‘Male, not short, kinda hairy…average at taxi conversation’. Dumpy’s diatribe was the verbal equivalent of a man whipping his regrettably tiny appendage about in a victorious, circular motion; unable to concede any ground; nor the notion that such disproportionate resources had been wrongly dispatched in order to sting and intercept an innocent, drunken renegade. You could smell the justice; potent and thick, like a cab driver’s armpit.

So, people, that’s why I’m layin’ low. The fuzzy muff are on my tail and I can’t afford to take any chances. I’m shacking up in this little room and planning my next move. At least now I’m armed with some fresh material to throw at the next cab driver. And if that doesn't go smoothly, i'll probably just slash his tires.