Did You Pack The Moral Intuition

They could not possibly begin to understand what was before them - advanced dance moves which plagued the DF; control, mystery, delight, like nothing you or I have ever seen, even on the Madonna channel. Outraged with jealously, the baboons grabbed me by the shirt.

“Time for you to leave” and it was.

I stumbled through the rich oak encrusted doors and onto the hard barren kerb. While mumbling something back in protest.. A night in Darwin always seems to end this way and I couldn’t expect the first to let me down. Being ejected from the seediest of pubs on Mitchell Street, by all indicators, is just another good night out. In the morning maybe I’ll sit quietly, a little ashamed of my Bogan ways and wonder what made me do those fabulous moves I did. But what the hell, this is Darwin. The last frontier, they say.

It all started some time after our arrival on the first day. The Drop Dead Redhead and I set off from the airport in a flurry of excited anticipation - similar to dogs wetting the carpet, tail wagging goodness, ‘ya know?.

“The beer is so cheap” I exclaiming avidly despite discussing, just earlier, our vain plan to go sober awhile, save some money and get decent rigs about us.

We stowed the bags at the musky backpackers. First things first, our nerves fried snap-crackle-pop. For Carly this was the first decent trip into the alluring unknown and, well for me, I just have a fear and inability to use airplane facilities. I was cross-legged, just around the time little creamy first saw those big bloody bull, cross the river miss. Yes, it was time to hit the concrete jungle of shame and indulge in some frosty golden beverages of seeming satisfaction. Iron these suckers out and get a feel for the place.

It’s a good heat up here in Darwin, the kind which encourages a steady thirst from the pores, as the sweat rolls to the tips of your fingers, the glass attains your dry parched lips… It started slowly, a pint every now and then between the usual City introduction.

‘This is…’, I exclaimed dapperly, Carly for a brief moment glanced at the monument slightly disinterested.
‘Oh yeah’, she exhaled under a heavy warm breath
‘And this is…’, I continued
‘Oh’, she moaned drearily. Her cheeks were flush with heat.
‘Wanna get another beer?’,
‘Hell YES!’.

By mid afternoon we had settled around the bar atop our backpackers. A few swimming pools surrounded it, wide screen TV, pool table, kitchen and the obligatory hot bodied tourist strapped in nothing more then a thin fragile strip of fascination. It’s a great place to be getting loaded on $8.50 jugs of oat soda, I thought while taking another large mindful gulp.

We had polished four jugs, when a friend of mine crawled in, a head full of booze and emotion – the missus has gone stray he explained. With him was a daggy looking tag along. He’s a pollie, going for the Chief Minister position, met him tonight. The guy beamed a thick proud drunken smile across the table.

“Wow that’s pretty cool” I lied.

He just looked like another phoney, drinking phoney beer and make outrageously phoney claims, but then this is what Darwin is. I smiled back. He dashed off and moments later returned with three new jugs and yesterday’s junk paper. He poured some beers and cheered as if knowing, he returned my smile. Without saying much else he opened the paper to page three, just sort of pointed and grunted. It read ‘Politics Is Boring Hey Mister xxx’. On the page was a mug shot, balanced by an equally huge screen shot from his Facebook page with little writing… I wonder if Krudd has a Facebook page. Drop Dead Redhead trawled though the fine print, a freshly accomplished student, a head full of booze, a shamble of a newspaper and some sort of hairy politician big heading himself. This was sure going to be fun.

Carly busily sieved through the slap-dash horridness that blemished the pages of the Territory’s only paper.

“This isn’t reporting, this is Facebook”, she exclaimed, horrified.

Everyone broke into a laugh, even her, but she caught herself and this annoyed her even more. It was such a terribly desperate scene for a drunken frenzy. Something as pure and innocent and believing as Carly, subjected to this non-sense in such a raw and ugly form. This is a newspaper which failed to be anything more than a piece of paper and a pollie who appeared to be nothing more than a drunk drongo… This is Darwin, a place which does not need to hide it’s ridiculousness in mass media hype, and its pollies need not attend decadent dinner parties…

To be continued…