I told Ben I would drop up on Sunday and pick up my compound bow. I hadn\u2019t been for a ride in two or three weekends and the cabin fever was setting in. Also, I had to make sure my clutch hand would handle the Tumbarumba Tourist Trophy ride the following Friday.<\/p>\n
There was a domestic emergency Saturday. The girl-child reported that the serpent Monty had taken two big dumps and then crawled through them and was covered in snake shit. She consulted Google about bathing serpents. Apparently it\u2019s a thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is tomorrow night\u2019s problem\u201d, I told her. \u201cI am going up to Ben\u2019s to pick up my bow. Serpents spend a lot of time on the ground, and they must be self-cleaning to an extent. Let\u2019s see how much comes off as he rubs against the substrate and his log and his branch for a day.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t looking forward to it. I somehow ended up with the responsibility of wrangling him at cage cleaning time and feeding him dead rats. I wear my motorcycle gloves while I do it, because he bites. I didn\u2019t want to put them back in my helmet covered in serpent dirt.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s three and a half hours to Ben\u2019s. I got there at 14:40. It was a good ride. The only real moment was on the dirt road 800m before Ben\u2019s place, when four wallabies burst on to the road in front of me.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you had lunch?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cLunch is for the fat\u201d, I told him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI put some low-fat beer in the freezer twenty minutes ago\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t mind if I do\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n
We drank a beer. We swapped stories for an hour or so. He got my bow out, and we strapped it to the rack on top of the Givi case. I left.<\/p>\n
There was a jacky dragon and a tortoise on the dirt on the way back, but no more wallabies. I missed both.<\/p>\n
Three hours later I stopped near the on-ramp to the motorway and texted my ETA home. Then I took my glasses off and put them on the seat, and picked up my helmet as a red Holden Commodore pulled in behind me. The door opened and a cop got out. \u201cSneaky bugger,\u201d I thought.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a minute\u201d, he called.<\/p>\n
I put my helmet down and put my glasses back on. He seemed to have a problem. I knew just what to say.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat seems to be the problem, officer?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no problem,\u201d he said. \u201cFirst, I have to tell you that this conversation is being recorded. I just noticed what you have on the back of your bike. When we see people carrying weapons we wonder where they\u2019re going.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at the car. There was no-one else in it. I wondered who \u201cwe\u201d were. Maybe he was using the royal \u201cwe\u201d, I thought. Maybe he\u2019s a prince. I wondered if I should call him \u201cyour Highness\u201d or something. I used to know a Samoan prince, but I just called him Bill, and he was okay with that. I decided to leave \u201cyour Highness\u201d out of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot really a weapon\u201d, I said. \u201cI don\u2019t have any arrows with me. But in answer to your question, I\u2019m going home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd where\u2019s home?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
I told him my address.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I see your licence please?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
I gave it to him. He checked it. \u201cStill at this address?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t moved house in the last fifteen seconds, so I said \u201cYep.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHad anything to drink today?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had one beer four hours ago\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n
He had a testing device in his hand. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to do this\u201d, I said. \u201cI am as sober as an imam. Truly rural. British constitution. She stood on the steps of Burgess\u2019s fish sauce shop mimicking him hiccuping and welcoming him in.\u201d<\/p>\n
He held the device in front of my face. \u201cCount to ten, please\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn English?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny language you like\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
So I said \u201cIchi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyuu\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s enough\u201d he interrupted.<\/p>\n
\u201c…ju.\u201d I said. \u201cShit\u201d, I thought. \u201cI hope he isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
His eyes narrowed, but he left it there. He looked at his device. I looked at his car. It had the setting sun behind it. A photo wouldn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou pass\u201d, he said. He gave me back my licence. \u201cHave a nice day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Easy for HIM to say. HE wasn\u2019t going to get python shit on his summer gloves.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The door opened and a cop got out. \u201cSneaky bugger,\u201d I thought<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":282332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[221],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282283"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282283"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282754,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282283\/revisions\/282754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}