by Nick Cummins
I put the foot down, threw in a goosestep to shake things up and turned on the gas to go flying through a gap in the defence. I dodged a few potholes in the pitch, the odd cow and stick of corn, then drew the last few remaining defenders in as I looked to offload to the massive Minion – but he was nowhere to be seen! And after we’d built such a rapport . . .
After the game the beers were flowing, as they often did, and the team was belting out the team song – which I’m pretty sure was just the Hard Yakka jingle. I let my new-found mate enjoy a few sips before I asked him the pivotal question – ‘Where were you out there?’
He lifted his his head and squinted his eyes: ‘I had a full bottle of rum in me. The mind was willing but the jelly sticks couldn’t keep up!’
And he was the player–coach! Jokes. Good bloke but.
“ONE OF ME OLD MAN’S SAYINGS, THAT IF YOU WANNA MAKE GOD LAUGH, YOU TELL HIM YOUR PLANS.”
TRANSLATION: ‘The best laid plans often go awry. So live in the moment. Take it as it comes and lower your expectations. You’re less likely to be disappointed and more likely to enjoy yourself.’
LONGREACH, FAR-OUT!
Before I was bashing down the door as a Wallaby great or even realised my undeniable ability – ha! – even I’m struggling to keep a straight face – I joined a rugby tour that was headed out to the ‘Stockman’s Capital of Australia’ – Longreach.
If you haven’t heard of the joint it’s in outback Queensland, is the birthplace of Qantas and can be can summed up in two words – F---ing hot!
Anywho, during the team briefing the coach said there was to be no alcohol for anyone until the trip home. First thing on my mind: ‘Who does this bloke think he is? Me missus? And where’d he think we were headed? The in-laws?’
Protests aside, we got on the bus with high hopes and a professional attitude for that 12-hour demoralising haul to Longreach, traversing through country more scene-less than downtown Kingsford.
It didn’t take long before a few of us got to playing poker on an esky lid with loose change.
Moe was the money man and he always had a bumbag full of coins – God only knows where he got that fashion atrocity from. If the bumbag were an animal, its species would have been culled into extinction years ago.
But Moe’s fashion nonsense aside, he was the man with the coins. And if you gave him 20 bucks you’d be lucky to get $10 in change – and they say casino odds are steep! His conversion rate was worse than the big banks so my brothers always had a few playing cards tucked into their pockets to counter any losses from the buy-in. Genius.
Needless to say, any latecomers were subject to Moe’s weakening exchange rate, Luke and Nath’s card racket and an ever-present flatulence problem – is this becoming a running theme?
It was a good way to burn a few hours but in a beat-up bus in outback Queensland, with 30 sweaty blokes and nine odd hours still to go, the professional manner of our motley crew was quickly fading. And the bus driver didn’t take kindly.
Finally, the bus came to an abrupt stop and the bus driver marched down the back and in no uncertain terms made clear his disdain for whoever was smoking. There aren’t enough dashes to fill in that sentence . . .
And no sooner had he asked ‘who was smoking’ than the dunny door flew open to reveal a dishevelled figure in a haze of smoke, complete with bloodshot eyes. He looked the driver dead in the eye and said ‘Smoking? Not me.’ That was all the encouragement the boys needed to trade in the professionalism for some good old-fashioned footy trip antics.
AS SOON AS THE BUS STOPPED FOR FUEL, CARTONS OF BEER BEGAN BEING LOADED ONTO THE BUS LIKE SANDBAGS DURING A FLOOD.
As soon as the bus stopped for fuel, cartons of beer began being loaded onto the bus like sandbags during a flood. The only thing professional about this outfit was the precision with which the boys worked in unison to form a human chain and pass the cartons along. Not a single casualty either, thank you.
The bus trip ended up being red-hot and the boys pulled it together on the field, too. Remarkably, the tour was a success!
But one thing those fancy Longreach brochures don’t warn you about is the flies! I hadn’t seen so many since I left my bedroom! They were that bad you had to eat your meat pie under your shirt to stop the flies from getting in ya mouth . . .
“THE FLAMBOYANT FRENCH? THEY LOOK ALL RIGHT. THEY HAVE A GOOD STYLE ABOUT THEM WITH THEIR HAIRDOS. I MIGHT TAKE A FEW POINTERS AND GO TO A STYLIST TO SORT MYSELF OUT. A FEW OF THE BOYS TELL ME I LOOK A BIT ORDINARY AT TIMES.”
TRANSLATION: ‘I agree that French people are traditionally considered stylish and, if given the opportunity, I’d be more than happy to consider changing up my look to be more fashion forward.’
BUSH BASHING
I played in Bargara once. Which shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise given it’s about a 10-minute drive from the main drag of Bundaberg.
Anyways, it’s a nice little joint near Mon Repos (swear I didn’t make that name up), a well-known green zone and turtle rookery on the Queensland coast.
It always stood out as a unique place ’cause the rugby posts were bent over almost 90 degrees due to a cyclone that smashed the place some time back.
Even by country rugby standards, it was a rough park. It had a grass athletic track around the field, a heavy slope that saw you running uphill half the game and more faecal matter than a dog track. And personally, I loved it. Such things give a place character.
Or it could have been because the joint backed onto a nudist beach which gave it that little spark that it needed. Let’s just say six of one, a full dozen of the other . . .
I remember being in the car after the game and someone asking the locally renowned coach, Rob Darney: ‘You ever broken the law, Coach?’ Like Tony Abbott in relation to misogynist allegations, Coach responded without hesitation: ‘I am the Law!’
THIS BLOKE HAD SO MUCH PULL I EVEN REMEMBER HIM HAVING THE PUB RE-OPENED ONE NIGHT WITH NOTHING MORE THAN THE WINK OF AN EYE.
This bloke had so much pull I even remember him having the pub re-opened one night with nothing more than the wink of an eye.
He was like a real-life Chuck Norris. Or Tony Soprano? He instilled fear in any obstacle he tackled.
I remember on a boys’ trip to Rainbow Beach and Fraser Island the sandy four-wheel-drive track was impassable. LandCruisers and Troopies were backed up for miles while a bulldozer attempted to fix the gaping hole in the track. But Coach wasn’t having any of that.
Like the King of Westeros, he commanded everyone – including the dozer operator – to get the BLEEP out of the way, ’cause he was coming through. We were in the backseat and didn’t know whether to cry or cheer. We settled on both.
Next thing we know Coach’s foot was flat to the floor, the engine was screaming and sand was spraying onlookers like bullets. The wheels were spinning in full fury. We hit the incline flat-out and the vehicle, passengers, esky and all were airborne.
We got ourselves in the brace position but Coach, calm as you like, window down and his arm resting on the door trim, turned his head to a group of astounded backpackers as he powered through thin air and yelled ‘We’re Aussies!’
He cleared the hole with ease. A perfect 10. And didn’t spill a drop of what I can only presume was Bundaberg Ginger Beer. It’s hard to tell in a brown paper bag.
Rob Darney was legit. So when he swore to me he could run the 100 metres in 10.7 seconds, it was just easier to believe him.
“MY OLD MAN WOKE ME UP IN THE MORNING. HE WAS GOING OFF LIKE A BAG OF CATS.”
TRANSLATION: ‘Cats are loners that typically like to roam free. They don’t take kindly to being put in close quarters with other cats and get quite physical.’
DUCK!
The year 2001. We’d survived Y2K without a scratch on us and I was well on my way to manhood and all the glory it holds. I was in Year 9. Fourteen years of age. I had the world at my feet. And my two younger brothers, Jake and Joe, at my beck a
nd call. I mightn’t have been the biggest bloke but I was a giant in comparison to those little grubs. Who I love dearly, of course.
Anyhow, Dad had told us not to muck around with any of his equipment in the shed. Which of course in teenager speak translates to: ‘Go on, lads. Do your worst. I’d be filthy if you didn’t.’
It was like waving a Redskin in front of a schoolkid. So we took on off up there with grand plans to make a bow and arrow from PVC pipe – I’d seen MacGyver once or twice and if Bear Grylls asks, I was ahead of my time.
But all of a sudden I hear a chirping sound. Instantly, I thought one of the chooks had got out of the cage. Not ‘cage’ cage. The bludgers were free to roam. Free-range organic even by suburban standards. But to my surprise it was a family of ducks. Six ducklings, in fact, that were running along the yard. Then I spotted mother duck (not slanging here) about 20 yards in front of the pack. Yes! The coast was clear. So I swooped down and picked up a duckling to get a closer look. The duckling then made a certain sound different to the other ducks. It was tough to describe the sound – a combination of standing on a dog’s tail and Dad’s night snorts.
I MIGHTN’T HAVE BEEN THE BIGGEST BLOKE BUT I WAS A GIANT IN COMPARISON TO THOSE LITTLE GRUBS.
Smelling a rat, I looked up to see the mother duck taking off and coming right for me. I was used to sheilas making a quick dash in my direction at the school dance but what this duck was offering I wanted no part of. Not to say I didn’t wanna see what happened . . .
So I quickly palmed the duckling off to Jake, who was all of eight years old, stepped back and thought to myself: ‘Nick, you genius. You’ve done it again’. Jake looked more confused than Tony Abbott at the Oxford Street Markets. Jake looked up at me and saw a guilty grin on my face and then his face went white – he turned to hear a horrible hissing sound – like something breaking the sound barrier – and did so just in time for the mother duck to hit him in the jugular at 186,000 miles per second or, some would say, the speed of light.
The impact was brutal. Jake fell backward, the duckling catapulted into the air and landed on the shed roof.
It gave new meaning to the term ‘duck’ both literally and figuratively. And that look of sheer fear on Jake’s face was priceless.
We near copped a hiding from the old man that night. Not because we went into his shed but because ‘none of you morons had the foresight to take the video camera with you?’
To this day his one goal in life remains to get on Funniest Home Videos.
“I JUST SAW THE LINE, PINNED ME EARS BACK AND ENDED BAGGING A BIT OF MEAT IN THE CORNER THERE, WHICH WAS TOPS!”
TRANSLATION: ‘Meat pie is rhyming slang for try. I don’t care for the extra syllable and it’s my birthright as an Australian to minimise even slang terms. Therefore, meat is short for meat pie which is slang for try. And I love me some meat.’
ANYTHING FOR A BUCK
I’ve never been one for hard labour. Hell, that’s why I became a winger and not a forward.
So it’ll come as little surprise to you that I’d conjure up any scheme possible to make money and avoid hard work as a youngster.
I was some 13 years of age. Finally, a teenager. And in Game of Thrones years, old enough to conquer a people and pillage the village. I knew what I wanted to pillage – the local lolly shop for Killer Pythons and race cars. But how would I conquer the people and convince them to give me their hard-earned? A light bulb moment – food challenge!
Even now looking back, offering to eat a carton of raw eggs for the enjoyment of strangers was a stroke of genius.
We were in Bargara, a coastal town near Bundaberg, and my holiday funds had dried up. Asking for pocket money from the old man was a sure way to get laughed at or told to bugger off. So one day when we were having a BBQ in the park by the beach I saw an opportunity. There were people everywhere and though they wouldn’t say it, they were begging to be entertained. Enter one N. Cummins.
I foraged through the esky and found a carton of eggs and of the few things I knew to be true in this world, it was that no one likes raw eggs. Let alone watching someone consume them.
’No, we won’t be using them today’, were Mum’s words. Basically a seal of approval.
So I marched out into the middle of the park and commanded the attention of my soon-to-be audience: ‘How much for me to eat this carton of raw eggs?’
I was doing the carnies down at Darling Harbour proud. I spun the spotlight on the audience and sure enough, they started to cough up some cash. I’m not certain whether they were excited or just desperate for me to leave them alone, but the gold coins starting coming in and then some notes started appearing. Shit, life as a travelling freak show wasn’t seeming so bad.
So with anticipation building – State of Origin-esque you might say – this magician was in need of a beautiful assistant. Preferably blonde, buxom and some years younger than me. But seeing as though I was 13 and on a family vacation – in Bargara – I had little choice but to employ the services of my four-year-old brother as my assistant. He’s turned into a sort, too – if you’re into that type of thing, ladies.
Anyhow, the show must go on. And he held the carton up as I began cracking the eggs on my front teeth, one by one, and swallowing them whole.
I wasn’t sure how my guts were gonna take it but I’d had Dad’s green curry plenty and lived to tell the tale so I was confident these hyena guts would pull through. And sure enough they did, and I bagged $40 in less than 10 minutes. I’ve never been able to match that rate since.
However, upon leaving the park and heading home in the family vehicle, the guts began to take a turn for the worse. It sounded like a wild boar watching a horror movie. And with 200 metres till home, I couldn’t hold much longer and dropped an ungodly aroma. The screams were instant from my sisters and I couldn’t deny it – blame it on the unleaded gas vapours. Everybody knew what I’d eaten – a dozen of Woolies finest.
The car came to an immediate halt and I was evicted with force – not for the first or last time.
Walking home, all I could think was ‘suckers!’ They were trapped in it and I was out free, the wind at my nose. And my tail . . .
IT SOUNDED LIKE A WILD BOAR WATCHING A HORROR MOVIE.
“IF I GET A GIG, I’M GONNA GO OFF LIKE A CUT SNAKE.”
TRANSLATION: ‘Snakes don’t have legs. They slither smoothly. However, when cut by machete or shovel they tend to become angry and their movements very aggressive.’
GUINEA PIG ISLAND
The family had just moved to Chambers Flat and there was a lot to explore for a young buck like me – especially down at the dam that had been recently dug out. Were there prehistoric bones? Treasure? Or buried cars?
After a solid storm, the dam was about half full and the island in the middle (about 5 by 5 metres) was now not accessible – by foot that is. So one day I was working up in the chook pen and thought ‘maybe we whack a few of these squawkers on the island to spice things up a bit. Their very own motte, if you will.’
So I made sure their wings were clipped and took them down to the dam. Doing my best impersonation of Trevor Hendy, I paddled across with one hand on one of Dad’s old surf skis while still holding the bird. I released the chook and dusted off my shoulders: ‘Nick, you genius’.
But within about 20 minutes of deploying said bird it had jumped into the water and swum across to the mainland. Was I witnessing magic? A Guinness World Record-breaking chicken? Who knew the bastards could swim?
So before I got Dad’s camera out and gave the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not lads a ring, I took another chicken out there. Same thing. This happened two more times, after which I decided they’d won their freedom.
Disappointed, my dreams of fame dashed and realising I had regular, non-magic chickens, I put the chooks back. But not before bleakness turned into a glory and I spotted my sister’s guinea pig.
Without asking – sibling code – I quickly snuck off with the pig and padd
led across. Set a new lap record in fact. The little tacker carefully walked up to the hollow of the island’s solitary tree and we didn’t see him until the next day. He would become the first settler on Pig Island. Some say the show Survivor was conceived that very day. On that very island. By some, I mean me. And I’m still waiting on those royalty cheques, Jeff Probst.
THE ONLY WAY TO FEED HIM WAS A LETTUCE VIA GRENADE THROW.
Anyhow, the only way to feed him was a lettuce via grenade throw. On impact, the pig would tear a hamstring to get out there and start gorging. It was faultless. Until one day when he was on the chew something spooked him. He was minding his own business when a hawk came tearing down and near snatched him, just missing him. During the pig’s impressive acceleration back to the hollow it let out the type of squeal I’ve become quite used to in years since – it sounded like a high-pitched ‘ewwwww’. And every time I get knocked back by a bird at the bar it reminds me of that little bastard.
Anyhow, it got to the point where a leaf would fall out of the tree and the pig would squeal and hammer off. I like to tell myself he found Mohammed and decided to fast. But truth be told, he died on that island. And it’s how my sister would have wanted it . . .
“HE’S A PRETTY QUICK ROOSTER ALRIGHT. YOU DON’T SHOW HIM THE SIDELINE THAT’S FOR SURE.”
TRANSLATION: ‘The rooster is the king of the hen house and if he gets a sniff of an opportunity to make a break, he’ll take it and often make something of it. Therefore, you need to keep an eye on him.’
FEATHERED TERRORIST
Back on the acreage about 2001 and I’d recently been christened a teenager with the big 13th birthday. And with the honour comes a certain sense of responsibility. You can’t just be scared of things any more. You gotta take matters into your own hands and confront life’s woes head-on or your mates and older brothers will make fun of you. Now, if avoiding ridicule, humiliation and peer pressure isn’t justification enough to act on impulse, then what is? Around this time I’d become mates with a kid from school name of Tom Magee – still mates with him today in fact.
