ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
With the side door to the Green Point Hotel closing behind them, a group of happy-go-lucky nighttime revellers found themselves deep in Betoota Heights without a phone with a charge between them.
All needed to get back down the hill toward the French Quarter to either keep drinking or crawl into their beds.
“Should we call an Uber?” said Boris Gooch, the group’s de facto leader.
“My phone’s flat, seriously. Look, it won’t turn on,” said Mark, who asked to remain relatively anonymous for this story.
“Typical. What about you, Johnno? You got any charge?”
“Nah, boss. Do you?”
“Fuck, nah. I don’t. How the fuck are we going to get home?” said Boris firmly.
All of a sudden, a taxi rounded the bend and cautiously slowed down as the trio contemplated doing something they hadn’t done since they were teenagers.
Out shot Mark’s arm, he was hailing the cab.
“What the fuck are you doing? None of us has any cash!” said Johnno.
“Yeah what the hell, dude. I’m too old to be jumping cabs.”
As the shuddering Falcon screeched to a halt in front of them, they looked at each other to see would be game enough to sit in the front seat.
Mark hailed the cab, so they decided he should ride shotgun.
“Where we going tonight, boys?” said Bill Hershey, a Betoota Ponds-based cab driver.
Mr Hersey shot to local fame in 2001 for saying he’d drive down to Sydney to break both of Mark Latham’s arms after he assaulted a cab driver during a dispute over a fare.
It was the evening of Gough Whitlam’s 85th birthday. Hersey later admitted he would’ve broken Gough’s arms too if he got the chance.
“Ahhh just down to the French Quarter, thanks mate,” said Mark
Bill groaned as the fare was only a short one; less than $70.
“Can we take Mulholland Avenue?”
“Sure thing, mate,” said Bill.
The four of them then sat in silence until the turnoff to Mulholland came up.
Bill blew straight past it.
“It’ll be a bitch for me to get out of town if we go down that way,” he said.
“We’ll take Beattie Drive.”
More breathless moments passed.
No nighttime glow on everybody’s faces from their mobiles, just the warm desert wind coming in the windows against their faces while the unforgettable whirl of the Falcon’s transmission made its way up through the floor.
Twenty minutes later, that’d all been replaced by the neon fuzz and gentle rabble of the vibrant night district.
“That’ll be $34.40, blokes,”
Mark turned from the front seat and smiled back at Johnno and Boris.
“No worries, mate. Here’s my card.”
Bill looked visibly annoyed, scrunched up his face and took his glasses out of his top pocket.
He turned on the cabin light and groaned then sighed while he slowly punched in the numbers.
“It’s not working, mate. Can’t get reception. You got any cash?” said Bill.
“Try it again.”
A short time later, the payment went through and Mark get out to join his friends on the footpath.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” said Boris.
“Yeah I know, right. It’s a bit of a bitch. The cabbies act like you’re asking for a fucking kidney or something. Anyway cunts, both of you own me two schooners of the good stuff.”
More to come.
