Troy wakes up after a heavy night of drinking, “farrrrrrrk” he yells at no one in particular. His shaved head is throbbing and his lip is split. He is trying to remember what happened. Oh yeh, that’s right, he glassed some guy for ordering white wine.
The only problem was, he wasn’t such a soft target, it was a fellow Northerner who had a harder head than him and Troy copped a taste of his own headbutt medicine.
See, Troy is an angry man. He is the son of an English immigrant and an Australian bogan. He is permanently torn between the urge to whinge about Australia and his patriotic duty to “love it or leave it”.
Such inner turmoil has kept his anger simmering like the stew in a pressure cooker of confused identity.
Troy shakes off his hangover and gets dressed. A Billabong t-shirt, Australian flag boardies, no shoes and a pair of reflective fake Oakleys his dad got him in Bali.
It’s Sunday arvo, so Troy decides to celebrate another wasted week by having a quick honk on the glass piccolo and getting pissed at the pub.
Troy jumps in his Ford Xr6 and hoons down. He runs an orange light and almost hits a bloke. In return, the aggrieved pedestrian shoots Troy the wanker hand gesture.
Troy isn’t happy, “I’ll go ya, ya dog”, he screams from his Ford but there is no time to fight this man, there is drinking to be done.
Troy power staunches across the car park and sizes up a couple of bouncers outside the pub. One has a formidable forehead and the other is a young bloke who is about to learn a thing or two about Northern hospitality.
“See these boardies mate, see that flag? I never take em off”. The bouncer tells him he’s going to have to put a shirt on, Troy drops his shoulder and points at the crudely tattooed southern cross tattoo on his chest, “that my shirt, mate”. Ah, the patriotic passport.
Troy sits in the corner and talks to his mate. A long-haired lout who looks like a crusty twiggy stick with a goatee. They demolish jugs of beer while talking loudly about the various UFC fighters that they could “make piss”.
After several hours of loudly shouting over each other, the pair begin to demonstrate headlock techniques on the bar floor.
Troy is living his best life and decides to show his mate a fist and knee combo he claims he learned on his last Muay Thai trip to Thailand. As with all weapons of mass destruction, there is bound to be collateral damage.
In this instance, a bystander is caught in Troy’s crossfire and the pair trade engage in the sweet tango of the Northern knuckle dance.
It’s a good biff and by the end, the pair have bonded. Troy asks his new sparring buddy if he’d like to come back to his and watch home videos of him kicking a boxing bag. Ken oath he does.
Documenting the Human Zoo is thirsty work, so if you enjoyed what you read how about buying Belle a beer, ay?
