Sunday the 15th of January, 2012
“I dunno what came over me. I just snapped and thought, I’m a sergeant and now they’re gunna listen up and take notice of me. And did they what.
I was sick of them treating me like an idiot. The endless teasing as their daily toke.”
That’s from the informers statement after he showed sniffer dog Dougie (dog,over,unda,gouger,informer,exit plan) every stash hole in town. The talking dog made Dougie look very limited.
There’s an old saying from the Undaworld bible, “pretend to be a fruitcake and you become a fruitcake”. Whatever role you play takes over, unless you hold on like araldite, we all know that. But still.
“Your jobs on the line Unda”. The boss is drunk and taking the piss at the Force Christmas Party. He’s just won the TOY Award (Tactics Of the Year), for the second time this year. They said “exceptional circumstances merited a second award.”I was there. I know the true story, and it was all unplanned, or so I thought.
This is what happened. The Bosses are in town just hangin around the top of the Lane. “Keepin’ the rabbits down their burrow,” as they call it. Suddenly a Section 32 that the hippies have looked after for years (they even keep his medication in a well known local tourist attraction) walks up to the all too obvious rugby front rower with a gun in his pocket and offers him some weed. The Boss can’t believe his luck but suspects it’s a set up. He fingers his holster for reassurance and figures he may as well follow the mental defective. They set off at double pace and the 32 leads him straight to a Rasta and the easiest bust he’s ever had.
If that was unplanned, it’s not anymore. The Force Treasury was so excited by this innocent and inexpensive handiwork they wrote up a new policy on the spot and within a week it was in place. Some who shall remain un-named went too far and started cultivating fruitcakes, visiting the clinics, searching for Unda recruits like football scouts cruise the junior clubs.
The new policy meant work for nutters and unemployed homeless Unda candidates across the country they spruiked, carrying on like evangalista. “Help us get rid of the evil weed and you wont be locked up anymore,”was their catch cry. And no one seemed to mind if the demented got a handful of the evil weed itself as payment. Funny that.
And bingo, it’s worked again. With my own eyes I watched myself snap, roll over, and over and over until in utter and complete confusion I lost the plot. A raving lunatic walking around exposing the secret stashes in the village. The Force followed me like I was Jesus and the Boss couldn’t believe his good fortune. And for once they listened to me.
At the Christmas Party he’s looking directly at me with the trademark smirk.“We spend a fortune training Undas to play nutters, and this month we’ve got more weed from the real nutters than you got us all year Bethany. Tell us why we should keep you on the payroll?” In front of everyone. It threw me completely. Even he is confused about who I am. Or am I?
The Boss went on and on that night about his double TOY award. He reckons Nimbin came up trumps again in several areas of the global Village Economic Table (VET). “In the Bin we pride ourselves on the ability to house (well, not really) lunatics and criminals for a set fee of $350 a week, sickness benefits. Compared to the $75,000 a year charged by any other mental or penal institution you’ll agree we are outstanding value for money.”
I’ve been trying to tell the Boss we are creaking at the seams and if the influx of loonies doesn’t slow down soon things could get messy, especially if our non compos inmates keep being used as suicide bongers.
They estimate our tiny village is saving the government about $14 million each year by not locking away half of itself.
When they give nutters and hobos the choice of the lockup or the Bin they always choose the village, of course, which is a win win he thinks and the reason for the double TOY award. “Saving money on all fronts, and exactly what’s needed to keep the, “look what marawana does to you” image happening in the town. And now they work for us without even realizing what they’re doing.” It’s all got way too confusing, he’s forgotten who I really am, and so have I.
