For a while now this blog has been seeing very little in the way of action, and I thought that one way to amp it up a bit might be to shuffle through the dusty files and dig out some stories and poems and things. These will be pieces that were published once, ages ago and have never seen the light of day since, or that have won a competition somewhere or other but never actually been published.

I hope you like them.

This first one was my first big success with a winning story. It was published back in 2000 by Write Spot, the publishers who ran the competition, in a collection called Briefs. When I wrote it, it was just for the fun, but members of a writing group I was part of at the time suggested I might like to submit it to a competition.

A Level of Cool

Chook had been staring into the middle distance for so long that the others thought he’d forgotten the question. Their conversation had veered onto a whole new topic when he finally said: ‘Maggot’s dad.’

Maggot had just taken a mouthful of Coke and it came out of his nose when Chook said that. By the time he’d got over the initial shock there were Jax and Horrie solemnly agreeing with Chook.

‘Yep,’ Jaxie was nodding sagely. ‘He’d have to be right. Your dad really is the coolest bloke in town.’

Horrie patted Maggot consolingly on the shoulder. ‘Too bad coolness isn’t an inherited trait, Mag.’

‘No but I reckon stupidity must be contagious. My dad?!?’

‘Well, he looks cool,’ said Chook.

Maggot’s dad was a lean, lanky man who looked as if he’d been made out of sinew and leather. The thing he resembled most in the world was a knotted stockwhip. With boots on. He had a thatch of sandy hair burnt gold by the sun and piercing blue eyes that could see into tomorrow. There always seemed to be a half-smoked rolley in the vicinity of the grin that lurked about the lower parts of Maggot’s dad’s face.

‘His car’s cool,’ said Jax.

They all loved it when they got the chance to travel in Maggot’s dad’s ute. There was a bench seat in the front so two of them could sit beside him while the other two could squeeze in the space behind, sitting on the car fridge and whatever else was back there.

‘His dog’s really cool too,’ said Horrie.

While his dad’s bluey barely acknowledged Maggot’s existence, it would would do anything in the world for Maggot’s dad. He’d trained it to open the fridge and fetch him a coldie. While Maggot’s dad took care of the tinny, the dog would sit at his feet, gazing adoringly up at him.

‘Cheez, he’s my dad. How can he be cool?’

‘He opens beer with his teeth,’ said Chook dreamily.

‘He only did that once and Mum made him go to the dentist cause he busted his front tooth.’

‘Cool,’ said Jax. ‘Busted a tooth! What about the time he cracked that snake?’

Maggot shrugged. ‘Yeah. Well…’ there was no arguing against the coolness of a man who could break a snake’s back by grabbing its tail and cracking it like a stockwhip.

‘And what about the time he rode Bloodeye?!’ said Horrie.

That was when the rodeo had been in town. Maggot, in an act of recklessness had volunteered to ride Hellraiser, one of the buck-jumping horses. It had given everyone a good laugh, seeing him fly through the air after a few seconds of Hellraiser’s leaping about. After he’d recovered, Maggot made wild promises about being able to ride the placid looking Brahmin bull in the paddock, but it was his dad who had managed to stay on Bloodeye the Brahmin Bastard for five full minutes and take away the rodeo’s grand prize and trophy for his efforts.

‘Face it Maggot, your dad’s just cool,’ said Jax.

‘He farts in bed!’

‘Nice one,’ grinned Chook appreciatively.

‘He falls asleep in front of the TV and snores.’

‘Fair criticism,’ nodded Horrie.

‘He’s scared of spiders!!!’ yelled Maggot.

There was a small, awed silence which was only broken when Jaxie said: ‘Bullshit.’

‘He is. He practically pees his pants when he sees a big one. He runs out of the house like his arse is on fire and Mum has to swat it with the broom.’

‘What, his arse?’ said Chook.

‘The spider, dopey.’

‘Don’t believe you,’ said Chook.

‘Well, all we have to do is ask him,’ said Horrie.

‘Oh, sure. He’ll say yes Nelson dearie. Big spidies give me the willies. Please don’t bring them near me. If you have a problem with one, ask my wifie to deal with it.’

Jaxie shrugged. ‘Then I guess he’s just cool until proven otherwise.’

It was about a week later that Maggot’s dad decided to take them to help out with the ferreting at McKenzie’s place.

‘You can sit in the front,’ Maggot offered graciously, allowing Horrie and Jax the bench seat. Blue had parked himself in the tray, minding the ferrets, and Maggot and Chook squeezed in behind the seat, perching themselves on the car fridge and bunny nets.

It wasn’t until they got started that Maggot slipped the jar out from under his shirt and showed it to Chook. Chook was impressed. The spider was so big, its legs seemed to fill up all the space and overlap each other like a tangle of string. Maggot made a face behind his dad’s back and unscrewed the lid.

It was as if the spider was a rubber toy that had been compressed while it was in the jar. As soon as the lid came off it unwound itself all at once and made a sudden, spastic rush. It raced over Maggot’s hand and was up his arm and onto the inside pillar of the car before he had a chance to make a sound. Maggot’s eyes bulged and he choked as if he either needed to laugh or scream. Chook stifled a nervous giggle as he watched the spider’s long legs carry it to a spot directly over Maggot’s dad’s head. There it paused as if considering its options.

The car slowed to a stop. The spider nibbled one of its legs in a thoughtful sort of way.

‘Get the gate, Jax,’ Maggot’s dad ordered.

Jaxie jumped out of the car to take care of opening and closing McKenzie’s gate. While he waited, Maggot’s dad lit the cigarette he’d been keeping behind his ear.

It must have been a non-smoking spider, because when the blue cloud drifted from Maggot’s dad’s nose to the roof of the car, the spider took offense. Before Jax got back into his seat the spider had moved to the apparently secure spot between the sun visor and the roof.

Maggot and Chook watched in silence, their eyes riveted to the dark space where the spider lurked. They could just make out the paler grey of its body and three black toes that clung to the edge of the visor. It seemed as if it was determined to stay safely tucked away. And then they hit the first potholes in McKenzie’s paddock.

Jax and Horrie, oblivious of the drama unfolding, laughed as they bounced around in the front seat. Maggot and Chook hung on as best they could in the tangle of bunny nets. They jarred through the paddock and Maggot’s dad, grinning away, bounced up and down, his head thumping on the roof of the car. It was all too much for the spider. It secured a bungee cord to the visor and launched itself from its safe spot. It hung suspended in front of Maggot’s dad’s face for a moment with its legs splayed out so that it looked sort of like a surprised asterisk. And then it fell.

Maggot’s dad emitted a noise like a struck bull. He didn’t stop the car, didn’t even slow down. He just opened his door and got out, his long arms and legs bowling him across the paddock in a series of clumsy cartwheels. They were doing forty.

It was just as well Horrie wasn’t the type to panic. He reached one foot across and slammed it on the brake hard enough for the car to shudder to a stall. Tom McKenzie drove the boys home in the ute and Bill took Maggot’s dad to the hospital. They never did see what happened to the spider.

‘Told ya he was scared,’ said Maggot.

‘Yeah, but the way he just got out of the car,’ said Chook.

Horrie nodded. ‘Totally cool, Mag. Your dad has raised being scared of spiders to a level of cool.’

THE END

Yes. These spiders are real. In the big picture at the start of the story, the spider is not life size. Oh no. Huntsmans are much bigger than that. Put your hand over the picture and imagine those legs spread out beyond the length of your fingers and you pretty much have it, because that’s how big they are.

Huntsmans are common spiders that have flat bodies, adapted to slipping beneath the loose bark of eucalypts. They are extremely dumb spiders because they don’t know the difference between “trees” and “houses”. They are also highly controversial spiders, and all you have to do is say the word “huntsman” within earshot of any collection of Victorians and you will get a whole heap of stories about them appearing in the scariest of circumstances. Half of the people telling you these stories will complete the tale with “and then I scooped it up on the end of the broom and put it outside because they’re harmless, you know.” The other half of the stories will not end so well for the spider.

I’m in the “other half” camp. I hate these bastards. They’re sneaky and scary. I do NOT believe the “they’re more scared of you than you are of them” theory of huntsmans. If they are scared of me why have they come into my house/car/motorbike??? Yes. I have scare motorbike huntsman stories and trust me, you do NOT want one of these running up your arm when you’re in traffic. Or hiding under your tank while you’re “seeing what the bike can <cough>”do”<cough> on the freeway. My theory is to feed them to the chooks or pet rats, or empty a can of fly spray onto them until they’re so iced up and toxic they will never move again.

The “they’re harmless” camp suffer under the delusion that huntsmans are not venemous. This is a furphy. ALL spiders are venemous, their venom is harmful to humans in varying degrees from “not at all” to “make out your will”. Since huntsmans are so common in houses hereabouts, they are also the spider most likely to bite people. Strangely, the “they’re harmless” people are also the ones most likely to come down hard against the White Tailed spider, which is no more or less likely to bite than a huntsman, and whose bit is no more or less painful and nasty. I, personally, don’t mind the White Tail. They’re smaller and nowhere near as creepy.

And yes, my dad is scared of them, and quite right too. As he explained to me when I was very young: You can go to the hospital and get some antivenin if you’re bitten by something, but there’s no cure for being scared to death.

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