The Glass Canoe Read Online Free Page B
time, though, and a woman walked up and asked the man, âIs he with you?â
âNo,â said the man.
Danny washed a lot of dishes. They must have saved them up for six months, he said.
He wasnât full that night. He was very pleasant when he wasnât full. His blue eyes had lights and his teeth flashed white. He had the whitest teeth around and didnât pay a penny for them.
Someone made an appointment for him with Rent-a-drunk, who duly called to pick him up and take him to some posh party to liven things up. They couldnât find him at home. When they pulled up at the Southern Cross and caught sight of a shoeless apparition with wild hair singing, shirt out and shorts a dog wouldnât sleep on, they left, shaking their heads.
Once, on a Monday, when he started drinking early, he was so full by late afternoon that he didnât make it across the road. He woke at peak hour on the median strip, cars all round him like blunt cattle nosing forward in a field. When he got to his feet all he could see was cars, all roughly the same height, all with horns.
He must have thought they were cattle because he brayed out âMoooooo!â
THE SILVER DEW
I hadnât worked for six months. When the brass ran out, I got a job at a golf course not far away and cut grass, put new trees in, raked bunkers, laid plastic water pipes. Best job I ever had.
There were two streets along either side of the course, which made it a long rectangle. One of the streets had heavy traffic, but also a lot of trees that made it a good stopping place for truckies with big rigs at night when they were ahead of themselves. You know, canât travel more than five hours without a rest, produce your log book, and so on. Not all of them had two log books.
We started early and if you were over near the third green when a truckie noticed another truckie still asleep and late, heâd give him a blast on the horn. This could sometimes lead to mowers digging into the green or nervy golfers diving for cover at the top of a swing. Golfers were out with the dawn, hail, rain or shine. And the athletes and footballers running round the inside edge on the cut grass.
I liked the trees and the curve of the fairways and the dull silver dew. Sometimes, in mid-beer, my heart was outdoors and the world fragrant with cut grass. And when thereâd been a dry spell and the dams running dry, one of the club members who worked up at the water catchment would let a bit go at night, accidentally on purpose, and in the morning it wouldbe across the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth fairways and sliding nicely into the old dam. There were two dams and tanks between to make pumping easier and cleaner between the two and to lower the level in the old dam and build the level in the new dam if there was rain. The water-race between the two couldnât handle a lot. We were at the bottom of a long slow slope and got all the gutters and culverts from the south-west end of the course and some from the north-east.
I hadnât graduated then to cutting fairways with five gangs of mowers behind me on the tractor: I was cutting the rough, which was a two inch cut. I used to wonder what the word meant. The rough was usually better to play from than the fairway since it didnât get watered and the surface was firm. You could lift a ball cleanly.
Kids used to get on the course and swim in the third dam, near the fence at the north end. It was a mistake to chip them. One club secretary chipped them about language, swimming near the eighth, and just being there. In the morning the transfer tanks at the south end had tomahawk cuts all over. Water coming out all directions.
This had its funny side, but when I planted two dozen young willows along the banks of the north dam and next morning most of them were uprooted and on their sides in the water, it wasnât funny at all. I donâtlike young trees dying.
It was just as funny
âNo,â said the man.
Danny washed a lot of dishes. They must have saved them up for six months, he said.
He wasnât full that night. He was very pleasant when he wasnât full. His blue eyes had lights and his teeth flashed white. He had the whitest teeth around and didnât pay a penny for them.
Someone made an appointment for him with Rent-a-drunk, who duly called to pick him up and take him to some posh party to liven things up. They couldnât find him at home. When they pulled up at the Southern Cross and caught sight of a shoeless apparition with wild hair singing, shirt out and shorts a dog wouldnât sleep on, they left, shaking their heads.
Once, on a Monday, when he started drinking early, he was so full by late afternoon that he didnât make it across the road. He woke at peak hour on the median strip, cars all round him like blunt cattle nosing forward in a field. When he got to his feet all he could see was cars, all roughly the same height, all with horns.
He must have thought they were cattle because he brayed out âMoooooo!â
THE SILVER DEW
I hadnât worked for six months. When the brass ran out, I got a job at a golf course not far away and cut grass, put new trees in, raked bunkers, laid plastic water pipes. Best job I ever had.
There were two streets along either side of the course, which made it a long rectangle. One of the streets had heavy traffic, but also a lot of trees that made it a good stopping place for truckies with big rigs at night when they were ahead of themselves. You know, canât travel more than five hours without a rest, produce your log book, and so on. Not all of them had two log books.
We started early and if you were over near the third green when a truckie noticed another truckie still asleep and late, heâd give him a blast on the horn. This could sometimes lead to mowers digging into the green or nervy golfers diving for cover at the top of a swing. Golfers were out with the dawn, hail, rain or shine. And the athletes and footballers running round the inside edge on the cut grass.
I liked the trees and the curve of the fairways and the dull silver dew. Sometimes, in mid-beer, my heart was outdoors and the world fragrant with cut grass. And when thereâd been a dry spell and the dams running dry, one of the club members who worked up at the water catchment would let a bit go at night, accidentally on purpose, and in the morning it wouldbe across the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth fairways and sliding nicely into the old dam. There were two dams and tanks between to make pumping easier and cleaner between the two and to lower the level in the old dam and build the level in the new dam if there was rain. The water-race between the two couldnât handle a lot. We were at the bottom of a long slow slope and got all the gutters and culverts from the south-west end of the course and some from the north-east.
I hadnât graduated then to cutting fairways with five gangs of mowers behind me on the tractor: I was cutting the rough, which was a two inch cut. I used to wonder what the word meant. The rough was usually better to play from than the fairway since it didnât get watered and the surface was firm. You could lift a ball cleanly.
Kids used to get on the course and swim in the third dam, near the fence at the north end. It was a mistake to chip them. One club secretary chipped them about language, swimming near the eighth, and just being there. In the morning the transfer tanks at the south end had tomahawk cuts all over. Water coming out all directions.
This had its funny side, but when I planted two dozen young willows along the banks of the north dam and next morning most of them were uprooted and on their sides in the water, it wasnât funny at all. I donâtlike young trees dying.
It was just as funny
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