Best Australian Comedy Writing

by Luke Ryan

  That segment summarises to me what juggling work and family feels like. You start off alright, and all your doughnuts are going where they are supposed to go. But as more jobs materialise, and more deadlines bob up, and freakishly unexpected developments arrive (your child comes down with gastro; the hot water tap in the bathroom inexplicably gets jammed at full bore; your boss announces that now would be a good time for you to deliver a formal progress report on your project to the board; suddenly the prime minister’s on the TV announcing a snap Royal Commission into something; everyone gets nits), everything has to be done just that little bit faster, and the faster you go the more the panic rises, as does the guilt about doing everything just that little bit worse. You’re just hurling the damn doughnuts now, hating doughnuts and wondering why anyone would ever bother eating the stupid things anyway. Generally, it’s at this point that you’ll realise that you forgot it was your mother’s birthday yesterday. Or you’ll stub your toe, and dissolve into a wail of entirely disproportionate self-pity.

  It’s not just about the work hours involved. Paid work can be demanding, stressful and exacting. But work in the home can consume a huge amount of emotional bandwidth, in which failure brings a sense of guilt and self-recrimination far more tearing and existential than what you feel when you bugger something up mildly at work.

  For example: I am fast approaching the deadline for finishing this book. In the past twelve weeks, I’ve written eighty thousand words. In the weeks to come, there are dense weeks of parliamentary drama, the planning of a new Kitchen Cabinet series, several speeches and God knows what else. But the only thing that has actually reduced me to tears is Chiquita, a foot-tall stuffed kangaroo.

  Chiquita lives at the childcare centre my four-year-old son attends twice a week. Every holiday, a lucky child gets to take Chiquita home and show her a good time. Chiquita travels with her own scrapbook, and the idea is that parents will capture action shots of Chiquita’s adventures with her juvenile escort, then paste them into the book to create a permanent marsupial travel diary. At Easter, it was our turn.

  Chiquita had a quiet holiday. We forgot to take her to the Easter Show. We forgot to take her to the pool. We forgot to take her to the museum. Any outing we actually achieved was undertaken in Chiquita’s absence; she spent most of Easter perched hopefully on the dinner table. It was only at the eleventh hour of the Easter egg hunt, when the children were half-heartedly poking through undergrowth for any overlooked goodies, that anyone remembered to get a snap of Chiquita even vaguely near the action. The day before Chiquita was due back, the task of printing out the lame Chiquita pictures drummed at the back of my skull. I had a column and two speeches to write. Three o’clock was fast approaching. I had just enough time to get to the photo shop, if I hustled. The discovery that the photo shop had gone out of business the day before very nearly finished me. With Herculean restraint, I did not actually claw hysterically at the expressionless roller door securing the defunct shop’s dim interior. But I wanted to.

  Sticking pictures of a nomadic stuffed kangaroo in a book is – in economic terms – an insignificant piece of work, of no interest to national productivity, immaterial to the formal prosperity of my household. But the emotional exposure is considerable, and this is at the heart of the Chiquita Syndrome: I do not want my son to be the kid who brings the Chiquita book back blank because his mum was too busy to organise it. Failing Chiquita isn’t like failing as an employee; it feels like failing as a person, which cuts much deeper, notwithstanding the triviality of the enterprise itself.

  Chiquita is a small but typical example of ‘wife work’ – utterly invisible to the national economy, but significant to the wellbeing of a family. She fits beautifully into the job specifications for the position of ‘wife’, which might look something like this:

  Opening exists for leader of a small, spirited team in a vibrant but often chaotic environment. Applicant must be mature and patient, as team members may at times be prone to sudden mood swings, unorthodox social techniques, strategic tunnel vision and outright insubordination.

  Applicant will have responsibility for cleaning, laundering, tutoring, light maintenance, heavy maintenance, procurement, occupational health and safety, occupational therapy, nutrition, ethical guidance counselling, transport, skills training, intra-team human resource management, out- sourcing, mentoring, mediation, education and sanitation.

  Fine motor control and calm temperament a must. Creative experience and demonstrated innovation strong advantages, esp. capacity to construct, for example, a plausible bat costume from basic household items in under ten minutes.

  Some tasks may be repetitive. Formal performance assessment very limited, though applicant may self-assess regularly in bleaker moments.

  Salary nominal.

  If you look at this gig through the eyes of a conventional jobseeker, it’s pretty obvious why blokes do not regularly apply. The signposts of success in the workplace – the clear milestones and targets, the achievement of which might earn you backslaps or bonuses or both – are nowhere to be seen. You don’t get paid, which I guess is sort of a deal-breaker for some people straight up. Achievements may frequently prove fleeting, and soon forgotten. Washed clothes get dirty again. A perfectly balanced, home-cooked dinner still gets eaten, and will encounter exactly the same digestive fate as frozen pizza. Toys, blocks and general filth will quickly reclaim any territory cleared by even quite concerted parental effort. Some of the key performance indicators – looking at you, Chiquita – are so random as to be ridiculous.

  If you do well at this job, the returns are hugely significant: good relationships with your children, a balanced approach to life, probably a happy retirement in which you will be able to enjoy yourself with gentle pursuits, rather than working till you’re seventy and then dropping dead. But we’re talking some pretty long-tail business there. In the meantime maybe someone will thank you for it. Or maybe they won’t.

  From The Wife Drought by Annabel Crabb

  (Random House Australia 2014)

  SHAUN MICALLEF

  Trying Too

  Hard Now

  ❛The movie screening that night was Rambo III. Everyone enjoyed themselves, except for Rocky. He was completely confused by the film, and the next day he wrote a letter to TriStar Pictures asking about the actor who’d starred in it. He’d missed the name.❜

  As they drove home in the limo, Rocky seemed distracted. Adrian noticed it, and so did Paulie. The unveiling of the statue hadn’t gone well. Rock had tried to announce his retirement, but Clubber Lang had turned up and taunted him, goading him into one more fight – even insulting Adrian. It was Mickey who asked him what was wrong.

  Rocky didn’t turn from the window. His eyes were fixed on the frozen waters of the Schuylkill. ‘It bothers me, Mick,’ he said to his manager of many years. ‘It bothers me that they were playing that tune, you know.’

  Mickey squinted and turned his good ear to the champ. ‘What tune, Rock? Whataya talkin’ about?’

  ‘You know – that tune the brass band was playin’ when they unveiled the statue.’

  In the rear-view mirror, Paulie’s eyes narrowed and flicked for a moment from the traffic on the Ben Franklin Parkway to meet Adrian’s. Both were worried, but Rocky was too troubled to notice. Paulie turned into 19th Street.

  Mickey twisted his face more than normal and snarled away the champ’s concern. ‘You’re a fighter, what do you know from music?’

  Rocky lowered his eyes and smiled. Perhaps Mickey was right – he was just a fighter; a bruiser from Philly who got lucky and wound up on top.

  But if Rocky had anything, it was a good gut instinct. He didn’t know why, but that music that high school band was playing was just plain WRONG. ‘Gonna Fly Now’ by Bill Conti. How would the band even know that piece of music existed?

  A few weeks later, Rocky and Mickey were in the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles training for the Clubber Lang bout. Why they’d gone ther
e was a mystery, given the fight was gonna be back in Philly. It was a circus. Autograph hunters, the press, gawkers, geeks and hangers-on. Paulie was in the corner selling merchandise, and a string quartet was playing in the background. When Mickey heard them launch into ‘Gonna Fly Now’, he swung around and barked at them: ‘Shut up, back there, can’t you? Change your tune.’

  Mickey knew something. Rocky saw it in his eyes. Flinty and scared. Could it be? The little man who’d knocked Ginny Russell out of the ring in ’23? The fiery bantamweight with seventy-two wins under his belt and only one loss? Mickey Goldmill – scared?

  You bet.

  Rocky wanted to talk to him about it, but they had training to do. He’d ask Mickey later. There was plenty of time. On the night of the big fight at the Spectrum, as they were walking through the tunnel on their way to the ring, Rocky was about to mention it, but Mickey mysteriously collapsed and died of a heart attack before he could say anything.

  Strange.

  A few years later, when Rocky flew back to America after defeating Ivan Drago in Moscow, he was climbing off the plane when the marching band that was there to greet him started playing ‘Gonna Fly Now’.

  He turned to his wife on the steps behind him. ‘Yo, Adrian – you hear that? It’s that tune again.’ Adrian held his hand tight and told him not to worry about it. ‘Yeah, but how can I not worry about it?’ he said. ‘It’s driving me crazy, you know. It’s like – it’s haunting me or something.’ It bothered him so much that he didn’t even notice his son was now five or six years older than he had been when he’d left for Russia only a month earlier.

  He mentioned the music to his doctors, and they concluded he had brain damage and recommended he never fight again. Paulie told him to shut up about it; that it was causing problems. But Rocky wouldn’t listen. He mentioned it to everybody and anybody who’d listen. He even raised it with his accountant, who promised he’d look into it, but then the guy suddenly disappeared – along with all of Rocky’s money. He and Adrian and the boy had to move back to Philly; into that dump on Rosehill Street. Paulie got his old job back at the meatworks.

  The headaches and blurred vision troubled him a little during his street brawl with Tommy ‘The Machine’ Gunn in 1990, but he didn’t hear that music that year. Maybe he was getting better, he thought. Then the Philadelphia Museum of Art pulled down his statue. They said it wasn’t art; that it was ‘a movie prop’. What the hell were they talking about? He and Paulie went to talk it out with the museum director, but the guy told them he didn’t want to waste his time talking to a pair of fictional characters.

  Paulie and Rocky visited the old neighbourhood that night. Mickey’s gym on North Front Street, the J&M Tropical Fish store opposite, the Lucky 7 Bar, even his old apartment at 1818 East Tusculum Street. The Atomic Hoagie Shop on the corner of 12th and Cantrell was gone, but the parking lot was still there on Winston Street, just a block away from where he’d walked Little Marie home that night. Paulie was less sentimental about it all than his brother-in-law. He suggested they get a beer at Andy’s and maybe catch a film at the Roxy.

  It was late when they left Andy’s. Paulie was drunk and insisted on driving the truck. Rocky said okay, but only if they could pick up Spider Rico, Duke Evers and a couple of other old pals on the way. They managed to get to Sansom Street in one piece. It was half an hour until the midnight showing, so the champ left Paulie and the others to get the tickets while he went for a walk through nearby Rittenhouse Park, where Adrian had told him she was pregnant with Rocky Jr.

  Back in the lobby, Paulie ran into Tony Gazzo coming out of the men’s room. Gazzo warned Paulie that MGM were breathing down his neck, and that Paulie should get the champ to back off and stop asking questions about so-called ‘diegetic music’ and ‘soundtracks’. Paulie tried to reassure him that Rocky would play ball, but Tony was angry. He went a long way back with Rocky and didn’t want to see him hurt, he said. Hadn’t he looked after Rocky when he was nothing; given him a job as a leg-breaker; some money when he wanted to take out Adrian? Sure, said Paulie, he knew he was a pal. But Gazzo explained he was only a small-time loan shark, and these were the big boys from Hollywood. Paulie said he understood and he’d talk to Rock again. Gazzo said he’d better, and left.

  Paulie was waiting out front smoking a cigar when Rocky ambled back from the park. The others had already gone in. ‘Listen, we gotta talk, Rocko,’ mumbled Paulie.

  ‘Sure, we’re talkin’ now, ain’t we?’ joked Rocky, feinting a few jabs and putting his arm around his old friend as they walked back into the lobby. ‘But we better get in there; you know how if I miss the first few minutes I don’t follow the film so good.’

  Paulie lost his temper, as he sometimes did when he was especially drunk or jealous or angry at his sister or fired or around black people. He hurled the half-empty bottle he’d been drinking from at the Rocky pinball machine next to the candy counter. Glass exploded everywhere, and people ran screaming. Paulie was blubbering and begging Rocky to forget about ‘that tune’ and to stop writing to Bill Conti or they’d both wind up dead. Rocky tried to calm him down, but there was no stopping Paulie once he started feeling sorry for himself. He threw the gold watch Rocky had given him on the floor and kicked it away.

  ‘Oh, Paulie, that’s the third one I give you that you gone and broke,’ said Rocky, genuinely hurt.

  ‘Just promise me you won’t ask no more questions.’ Paulie sobbed. ‘Please, Rocko.’

  Rocky shrugged and looked away and back again for no reason. ‘Hey, sure, no problem. All you had to do was ask, you know.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Paulie, sniffing back the tears.

  ‘Sure, Paulie,’ said Rocky with a smile. ‘I’d do anything for you. You’re family, right? And there ain’t no bustin’ up a family.’

  The two men embraced, and Paulie wiped his nose on the shoulder of Rocky’s jacket. The theatre manager came over to find out what was going on. He was swearing and threatening to throw them both out, but as soon as he saw who it was he apologised for his rudeness and offered them each a complimentary snow cone. Rocky thanked the manager but said that wouldn’t be necessary. Paulie said he’d have three, plus a giant bag of popcorn and some Twinkies.

  The movie screening that night was Rambo III. Everyone enjoyed themselves, except for Rocky. He was completely confused by the film, and the next day he wrote a letter to TriStar Pictures asking about the actor who’d starred in it. He’d missed the name. They never wrote back, but not long afterwards, Adrian mysteriously ended up buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery. No one could recall her dying.

  Thirteen years later, Rocky was again jogging through the streets of Philly. Mickey, Apollo Creed and Adrian might have been gone, but the streets out of Kensington remained. The Italian Market, the train tracks off Leigh Avenue, Kelly Drive, over the park bench outside Independence Hall, along the Parkway and up the seventy-seven steps to the eastern plaza of the art museum. He couldn’t hear that tune anymore; he couldn’t hear anything. If only the patrons of Rocky: The Musical, playing at the Winter Garden in New York, had been that lucky.

  MONICA DUX

  Gone a-Nunning

  ❛Nuns are meant to be more concerned with Jesus than with carnal pleasures, yet Loretta seemed particularly fascinated by God’s naughtier gifts, using the fact that she taught biology as a convenient cover for her digressions.❜

  Not long after I started high school, my class was told that when we reached Year 10 we’d all get the opportunity to do work experience. My teacher explained that for one week we’d be able to try working in our dream job, just like real grown-ups. To a bunch of twelve-year-olds who had never even heard the words ‘wage slave’, ‘sexual harassment’ or ‘office Christmas party’, work sounded like an entirely thrilling prospect. So when the teacher invited us to take a moment to think about the jobs that we might one day like to try, the rest of the class erupted in excited whispering. I alone sat there in smug silence, for I already k
new where my future lay. My burning ambition, my heart’s one desire, was to be a nun.

  My big mistake was sharing this with Sharon Dunbar. Due to our common alphabetic destiny, Sharon and I sat next to each other in class, but if it wasn’t for our surnames I doubt we’d have even made eye contact. She wasn’t a mean girl, but she was tough, while I was a certified dag, bookish and awkward. Sharon wore her school dress dangerously short, was known to have pierced her own ears with her mum’s sewing needles and had told me all about something called ‘dry rooting’, which sounded intriguing but very unhygienic.

  When it came to work experience, Sharon obviously didn’t need to do much thinking either, because she quickly turned to me and announced that she wanted to be a beautician. This wouldn’t have surprised anyone, for that very morning Sharon had made fashion ripples at school by turning up with bleached hair. And when I say bleached, I mean it quite literally, in that she’d White Kinged herself, attacking her unfortunate scalp with the same stuff her mum used to whiten the Dunbar sheets.

  Emboldened by Sharon’s career-related confidence, I confided right back at her, admitting that my dream was to become a bride of Christ. Did she think that would be allowed? I fully understood how serious the nun business was and feared that there might be some procedural barrier that would prevent me from dipping my toe into the holy waters for a trial week. I’ll never forget Sharon’s expression in that moment, her mouth gaping in mid-gum chew, framed fetchingly by her once-blonde hair, now perfectly silver, tiny fragments of which were breaking off and falling gently to her desk like metal shavings. At first I assumed that her speechlessness was caused by sheer admiration. After all, mine was clearly the superior ambition. Given the White King debacle, her desire to learn more about hair-care was certainly well motivated, but how could it compare with buying yourself a first-class ticket on the Jesus Express?