Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 09:58:10 +1000 From: David Spencer Subject: Landlord: Stephen 2 I still don't know how it was I had come to meet Dale. Dale had known Matthew from Forster. Dale said he almost fell over when he saw Matthew at my place. He didn't know what to say. And then when he found out Matthew was my son. My son! I hadn't noticed. Not that I was into noticing much in those days. He reckoned he'd seen Matthew quite often around the town, surfing and stuff. It was the stuff that piqued my parental interest. Looking back on it I am amazed that I was so blase, so accepting, so unaware. But then I did not really know Dale all that well. Much later he assured me that absolutely nothing had happened between him and Matthew in Forster. Even later he told me that Matthew had been too young. Even later still I realised that Dale had said nothing happened between him and Matthew IN FORSTER. Makes you wonder. Certainly made me wonder. Stephen didn't really like Dale. They were both quite civil to each other. But both were here because of me. Not that I was any use to anyone then. Anyway... Stephen was into horticulture and landscaping. Makes a change from the hairdressing type, I suppose. During the day when the partner was at work ... he was into selling artists' supplies ... Stephen would wander off in his combie to rip up some trees, or to plant some trees, depending on the whim of whoever was paying at the time. He preferred planting them. I think he genuinely liked them. I had actually caught him hugging one once. At length. He was embarrassed when I mentioned it a couple of days later. After I had spoken with him about it, he admitted this penchant to his partner. He must have been feeling guilty. But a couple of times a week he would go beaching instead of treeing. He usually took Seven with him. Usually to Dudley. He told me that was a good beach to take a dog for a run and a swim. It was years later that I was told it was the best beach for picking up younger surfing types. Not that I am inferring Stephen was doing that. After all he was living with his long term steady partner. He still is. Isn't he. So Stephen used to take Seven for a run. Then home. Then find he had lost his key. Could he borrow the spare he left with me. I do still have it don't I. Yes. Wherever he put it -- I can't remember. Neither can he. So its showering in my bathtub for him and coffee or whatever until his partner comes home. At that time I was into making home brew. I still am for that matter. It's strange really -- you see I cannot drink beer at all. I was experimenting at the time to see why I couldn't stomach beer. I was even enlisting the aid of Stephen to conduct double blind trials on me with the different brews. Could pick them every time with just a mouthful. Not even swallowing. So much for Professor Lance's theory that food does not induce migraines. Gentleman Jim had done clinical trials of food introduced directly into the stomach. The good Prof said those trials proved food was irrelevant to migraine attacks. The stuff didn't even have to get to the stomach to affect me. In the mouth was enough. Bloody academics. So when Stephen was having coffee or whatever at my place, the whatever was usually some of my home brew. Some of it was really wicked. My favourite trial was when I decided to see how much alcohol that brewing-yeast could take before it got so sick it stopped producing more alcohol. So I kept putting another half a kilo of sugar into the barrel every week. This went on for weeks and weeks. The airlock kept bubbling. The little critters were obviously still working their arses off. The specific gravity tests showed the alcohol level had reached 22 per cent volume for volume before the little critters decided to go on strike. I was not even sure whether they had simply gone on strike or whether they had decided to curl up their toes. Anyway, after a decent interval, I syphoned it off into bottles, charged them for the secondary fermentation and crowned them. Stephen came in about 12.30 the next morning to see what I was slow banging for. He wondered whether I had had a heart attack and was trying to get his attention or whether I had done a Mum and fallen through the floor. The hole was still not fixed. He was fascinated to see me crowning the bottles with a five pound club hammer. Stephen decided to try some of what I was bottling. Then he decided to try some of the older stuff with some fizz in it. Then he decided to try a different batch with fizz in it. Then he decided to try another batch without fizz in it. I then told him it was the same as the first batch. He told me he thought it tasted different. It must have improved with age. I didn't think two hours would have made all that much difference. But then again, I'm not a beer drinker. I did rather get the message though when Stephen decided to try the new batch with fizz in it. I knew that half an hour in the bottle would not have given it any fizz. Stephen said it tasted better. Then he seemed to suddenly acquire an intensely passionate interest in the floorboards. He was cuddling them. Others might say he was sprawled out. Still others might have said he had passed out. But I am not as uncharitable as those people. I just say he was being intensely passionate with the floorboards. After all, he was asleep on top of them. The next evening he came around to ask me what was in the beer. I asked him which beer did he mean. A half hour discussion ensued about the various types of beer he had tried. He decided to take a bottle of each of them home again to try them with his partner to see if he could establish which one it was that he was so interested in. I did not see him again that night. Or the next day for that matter. His partner looked quite sick when he got home from work that afternoon. I asked him if he had a hard day at the office. I was rewarded with a stare and a growl. Goodness, Seven was affecting Stephen's partner too. I wondered if he was affecting Stephen's partner in the same way as I suspected he was affecting Stephen. Seven never sniffed anyone's groin after he had spent a relaxing day at the beach with Stephen. A lot of lengthy bush walks around that beach. Pretty lonely on a weekday too. Goodness me. Stephen told me he likes his privacy. But I don't think it would have worried Seven one way or the other. But the beer. Oh, the beer. The next evening Stephen was in again. Was that the only beer he had drunk. What about the fresh batch. How was it going. Would it be ready yet. Can we try some. Anyway we did. In the usual way. I opened the bottle, gently decanted the bottle into a carafe and rinsed the lees out of the bottle for the next brew. The carafe was passed on to Stephen to sample. I had made my contribution towards trying it out. Now all Stephen had to do was the drinking. He did. This was the stuff, he said. What was it. Beer I said. But what type. It didn't taste like a Budweiser, and it didn't taste like a Coopers, and it certainly wasn't a Golden Sheaf or an apple cider. It wasn't a mead ale, or not like that last lot I made anyway. It certainly wasn't that stuff I made up with the extract from that kitchen place in Adamstown. It tasted a bit like ginger beer except it had a lot more bite to it. Yes. It was ginger beer except I used real ginger which I had minced myself. Not heat dried factory produced stuff. Oh, so that explains the floaties. Yeah, gives you something to chew on while you're drinking. About five minutes and half a bottle later, Stephen was doing that carousel trick of his. Standing upright while his head was revolving around and around his axis. Except he managed to do it with all his upper body while still staring glazedly straight in front. Then came the slow crumple. I caught him while he slumped, then got a pillow for him. Muhammad Ali himself could not have done better. He was well and truly out for the count. I slipped a pillow under his head and a blanket over the corpse. Then I thought. I must remember to tell him it's 22 per cent. Just like drinking straight Baccardi. Goodness. No, not good. Especially half a bottle in five minutes. I left another bottle beside him to take home and share with his partner. It was the least I could do for him. I didn't see Stephen for a bit over a week. But in the meanime, I had another problem to fix. [ If you would like this story to continue, please email me, David Spencer, davidspencer1@hotmail.com Positive comments are always welcome. ]