Of first dogs, underdogs, top dogs and meth rage

“You can’t say the underdogs don’t win occasionally,” said Joadja, as the gang sat outside the Brushtail Cafe hoping for cooling breeze. “Here we all were, fearing another Israeli invasion of Gaza, and the Zionists go into meth rage and posture like they’re going to send the tanks over the border, laying waste all around them and, amazingly, they didn’t. It’s almost like you could call this latest bit of unpleasantness – the exchange of rockets – a victory for the Palestinians.”

“And indeed you can,” said Old Stan, the retired colonel. “Because in this sort of guerilla war, the underdogs win if they don’t lose, whereas the top dogs lose if they don’t win.”

“And then the the world votes overwhelmingly for observer status for Palestine, which is effective recognition of statehood,” I said.

“Yeah, and best of all, good old Oz abstains on that vote,” said Tarkis. “And against the wishes of the prime minister, who was desperate we retained our status as the greatest little abject lackey of the US and vote no. And it happens because the Labor backbench finally, finally, finds a bit of spine and stands up to her. I was stunned.”

“Just goes to show how far things have moved in the last few months because, if you think back, the Zionists were also threatening to nuke Iran themselves if the Yanks didn’t, and now things have gone very quiet on that front too.”

“And speaking of underdogs, how’s the cafe dingo recovering?” asked Stan.

Just then, one of those peculiar warrigal vocalisations, resembling a cow distantly lowing, issued from inside the cafe, where Jesse Dingo was hiding out. It was a week since he’d been viciously kicked by a passing psycho as he stood outside the cafe chatting to Joadja and Bruce.

“You speak dingo, Nick, what did he say?” Bruce asked, laughing.

“He says that wasn’t the only good thing this week – First Dog on The Moon won the Walkleys.”

“Did he? A legal high! I didn’t read that in the papers!”

“Of course you didn’t, the mainstream media doesn’t like to admit that a low-cost rival like Crikey could beat them, even in the cartooning department. It was a well deserved win for First Dog – he really has brought something new to cartooning.”

“But I was asking how Jesse was,” said Bruce. “That was a nasty business. Did the cops get the bloke?”

“Haven’t heard anything yet,” I replied. “Dogger is still rather traumatised by the whole business, and I’m beginning to wonder if it isn’t related to some other bits of weird viciousness that we’ve been seeing these past months.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it could be just a random cluster,” I said, “But my PI instinct tells me we’re seeing a new pattern … weird, out-of-control, psycho incidents involving people doing random vicious things. It’s like all their normal restraints have been lifted and their worst underlying impulses come to the fore. I think we’re seeing more of this stuff than usual – like the nasty business in Redfern which ended with the cops shooting that madman in the truck. I mean, who steals a tradies’ truck in a crowded lane and charges around like that? What was that guy on?”

“Who knows? In that case we’ll have to wait for the autopsy.”

“True, and then there was the racist nutcase on that bus in Victoria – the business that got on YouTube. Not only does he go off his brain because some woman is singing to herself in French, but then, when he gets off the bus, he smashes the window next to her … thus absolutely guaranteeing the cops will chase him down and book him. What was he on?”

“When I reported the Jesse incident to the cops the sergeant said they were suddenly seeing an awful lot of unexplained shit. Are we talking about ‘meth rage’ here?” asked Joadja.

“Well possibly. But here’s another thought: what if we’re seeing a rash of incidents caused by so-called ‘legal high’ drugs like ‘bath salts’ and ‘Smokin Slurry’. Apparently they can cause the same sort of scary violent behaviour as methamphetamine, and you can buy them over the counter at tobacconists and adult shops. We already know that ‘bath salts’ was implicated in the death of that Newcastle truck driver who injected it.”

“And who’d have guessed it … the guy importing the stuff is a former Barker College student called Mark Binstead, who’s got a conviction for armed break-and-enter. Seems his dad’s a Pymble investment banker who was once chairman of the State Rail Authority and the Sydney Ports Corporation and he used to host ALP fundraisers.”

“Jeez, how very Sydney, eh. Did Mark go to St John’s College too?”

 • More Nick Possum at brushtail.com.au