Crazy Cornelius & the Magic Pills Ch. 08

Exiting the café, a film crew from a nightly current affairs show had attempted to film the family, which had enraged Cornelius. "Fuck off!" he bellowed, before launching his attack, shoving his hand into one camera and ignoring directions not to touch the film equipment.

Ranting, raving, swearing and carrying on, Cornelius threw himself at another camera, trying to knock the camera operator off his feet with a hip and shoulder style bump, knocked a reporter's microphone out of his hand and jumped up attempting to grab a boom mike all while expressing his displeasure by using the words shit, fuck and cunt repeatedly.

The Hawkins family had been unwilling media celebrities across Australia for the better part of two weeks now. From Bunbury and Broome in Western Australia to Bendigo, Byron Bay and Brisbane in the East; from Port Lincoln in South Australia to Port Douglas in North Queensland and from the cold forests of Tasmania to the hot outback Northern Territory towns of Tennant Creek and Katherine people just couldn't get enough of the Hawkins family and their very strange story. They were discussed in private houses, workplaces, schools, pubs, nightclubs, restaurants and a thousand other places.

It was the same across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand, where the antics of the Hawkins family amazed people in Auckland, wowed those in Wellington, confounded the people of Christchurch, left people in Dunedin dumbfounded and hoodwinked those from Hamilton. Now across Australia, New Zealand and in other countries around the world, people got to see the son Cornelius wearing a Ku Klux Klan tee-shirt attacking a film crew in the center of Sydney, the fracas spilling into George Street and impeding traffic and only stopping when his wife and sister's boyfriend intervened and dragged Cornelius away, still struggling and swearing. Next days the stills of Cornelius's antics were front page of every newspaper around the country and in New Zealand, embarrassing his mother to the max.

One thing people wanted to know was the story behind the family and what had happened on their bizarre road trip. They expected a tell-all interview either on TV or in a magazine, and media outlets had their cheque books out competing for the price. One television network was even coveting a telemovie about the case. But to their disappointment, the Hawkins family were not playing ball. Faye issued a statement through her brother saying the matter was a private family affair and no interviews would be given at any price, requesting that people respect their family's privacy at such a difficult time.

Media attention and public sentiment already divided became very negative against the Hawkins family after this. They were described as the neighbors from hell, that they were in a religious cult; they were involved in devil worship and witchcraft; they were far-right extremists; that the other Hawkins son was kept in the house as a prisoner and never allowed outside; that all were heavily involved in using and dealing drugs; the father had connections to organized crime; it was all a big stunt staged to get attention and even hints of incest between family members. Never ones to let the truth get in the way of a good story, the media focused on the 'crop circles' mowed on the front lawn when the family fled their house, despite the Earth-bound albeit weird reasons for these patterns on the grass.

Things only got worse later in the week when the police issued a statement stating that no charges would be laid against any family members due to lack of evidence and mental health issues. And when the only potential civil suit against the estate of the late Alistair Hawkins by the man he had bashed in a road rage incident in Wollongong did not proceed when he committed suicide due to lingering physical pain and mental trauma from the attack, ironically by pouring petrol over himself and setting himself ablaze, the Hawkins family were home scot free from a legal perspective, which incensed the media and many members of the public.

Much outrage was expressed on a popular Sydney weekday morning talk back radio show hosted by a DJ named Ross Cunningham. A good example of a 'Shock Jock', Cunningham's show always courted controversy, and had been the subject of complaints to media standards in the past, some people calling for the show to be taken off the air and banned, but because it was a ratings winner and a cash cow for advertising dollars, it was going nowhere. One of the favorite tactics of Cunningham and his team to get ratings was to have guests with opposing viewpoints on the show to discuss controversial topics.

These included having an Islamic and a Jewish community leader both with opposite views set in concrete discussing various issues in the Middle East. There was a gay rights campaigner and a fundamentalist Christian Pastor and the Pastor's wife discussing gay rights in Australia. Then there was another interview with a Serbian community leader who thought Slobodan Milosevic was just great and a Croatian leader who didn't agree with these opinions, and before long the chairs were flying around the studio.

When the Hawkins family was discussed on the Thursday morning show, only one of the family heard it and this was Cornelius who was home alone at the time, everyone else at work. Except of course for Brendan of course, who was out of sight in the granny flat, cowering under his bed fearing the police would come back and search the house again. Furious at what was being said, Cornelius rang the radio station and went into such a rage that staff on the switchboard hung up on him, thinking he was a crank.

Incensed and not about to give up, Cornelius jumped into his wreck of a car, then drove down to the station in the city determined to give the station a piece of his mind. The result was that Cornelius was invited to be part of the show for the last hour and a half, and despite Cornelius waging a one man war against the media for the last few weeks he would ironically be the only member of the Hawkins family to speak directly to the media when he sat in the studio with Ross Cunningham and his team to be live on the talkback radio show.

Despite the show being advertised as 'live', there was in fact a 20 second delay, something that the overworked production staff were glad of having to beep out certain four letter words starting with F, C and S that Cornelius used in just about every sentence, as well as censoring homophobic, racist terms and offensive language for disabled people such as 'spastic', 'retard' and 'cripple' the young man was fond of using.

At times in the past Ross Cunningham had been guilty of riling up guests on the show to create controversy and boost ratings, but he had no need to do any such thing today. Cornelius had no inhibitions and without prompting made a total ass out of himself; rambling, swearing, ranting and raving, delivered with liberal doses of shouting where required.

Satisfied he had made his point, Cornelius tore off his headphones and stormed out of the studio with 15 minutes left. All Ross Coleman - genuinely shocked by what had transpired today - had to say when Cornelius had departed was, "There's some sick people out there."

Few listeners disagreed with this, those in New South Wales and the ACT who heard the interview live and other listeners on affiliate stations across Australia and New Zealand who replayed it during the day. Among those who did hear Cornelius's spot on talk back radio were Faye and Erica Hawkins, both women mortified that their son/brother had proven to Australia and New Zealand just what a sick, fucked up person he really was.

Controversy continued to swirl around the Hawkins family for several more days, but with the only constant in life change there were other news stories to report on and other things to interest people, and the Hawkins family drifted off the front page and the lead articles on TV and radio news, and then faded out of the public spotlight altogether.

A couple of months went by, the weather cooled and autumn changed to the Australian winter. Faye was back at her job, trying to put troubling events behind herself. Erica and Gavin were studying hard at their nursing degrees and working at their part time jobs at the sandwich shop and supermarket respectively. They attracted strange looks and some comments in both places when the story was all over the news, but now they had faded back into anonymity. All was good at the Baxter house for Gavin and Lisa's parents, while Lisa and her boyfriend Pete were working hard to save the deposit for the house they intended to buy.

Danielle had changed. For one while Faye didn't find the presence of her daughter-in-law pleasant, at least Danielle was pulling her weight around the house now, paying rent and helping with chores without being asked. Plus she had secured a teaching assignment at a high school in Cabramatta in South Western Sydney until the end of 1998, covering an English teacher who was on maternity leave. It wasn't perfect, Danielle constantly grumbled and complained about students who were stupid and laughed at one boy who couldn't read properly who she forced to read aloud from a Charles Dickens novel to humiliate him in front of the entire class leading him to being bullied. However, she was punctual in her attendance in work, did devote plenty of her time to planning her lessons and grading work and every 28 days now preferred to keep the details of her menstrual cycle to herself.

Nothing had changed for Brendan but when one spends one entire life in a small flat with doors, windows and blinds closed, not much is likely to change in one's life. For his brother Cornelius however, life hadn't changed much in some ways, but in others there were changes that made Cornelius's life pretty miserable.

With his father and his mortal enemy Henry Cole across the street both gone, Cornelius no longer had suitable targets for his antics and life was a bit boring in this regard. He tried art to pass the time and took some of his works to an amateur art show. The disturbing works however terrified children some of them hiding behind their parents, begging that the creepy and weird paintings such as one of a shadow person looming up behind two unaware kids be gone before they looked again. Subsequently the organizers of the event suggested that Cornelius remove his artworks and himself from the show.

Cornelius's clown income had dried up like a creek in a summer drought, and he was disappointed that his wife had changed. Previously she had encouraged him to make an exhibition of himself, and now she discouraged it and if fact expressed her embarrassment at his outrageous behavior on a number of occasions. What was going on?

There were other things that adversely affected Cornelius's life. When Alistair had died, Cornelius eagerly anticipated gaining a car from an inheritance. He coveted his late father's four wheel drive and anticipated driving it all over Sydney. However, Faye took over her husband's four wheel drive. This disappointed Cornelius somewhat but not all was lost. There were three Hawkins kids, the eldest of which Brendan was an agoraphobic who had never learned to drive, so as the next oldest Cornelius would get his mother's hatchback vehicle.

To Cornelius's horror, the keys to the hatchback was handed not over to him but his little sister Erica, the young man green with envy as he watched Erica driving around proudly in her new little car with the P Plates on it and the petite form of his mother at the wheel of the huge four wheel drive that was his father's car. He was older than his sister, he was entitled to their mother's car. Cornelius tried to disguise his envy by referring to Danielle's car as 'our car' but his wife showing her changed personality reminded him that it was 'her car' and that if he wanted to upgrade his own car maybe he should get a job.

This left Cornelius fuming as he would struggle to start the heap of shit that was his mode of transport on cold and wet mornings, while nobody else had any problems starting their vehicles and going about their business for the day. Making things even worse Erica's boyfriend Gavin had been bequeathed a car by a great uncle from Wollongong who passed away, so Gavin like his older sister Lisa now had a nice shiny set of wheels to drive around in. It made Cornelius feel like a loser. And to rub salt into the wounds, the cops had stopped Cornelius's car, fined him for failing to fix previous defect notices on his un-roadworthy vehicle and made him go to a police lecture with other bad drivers. Cornelius cursed the pigs for hassling him when life was difficult enough for him as it was.

Another problem for Cornelius was a new addition to the Hawkins family, which had four legs and a tail. One Saturday Faye had mooted getting a dog, but nobody had expected her to go to the dog rescue shelter and come back with a blue heeler in the car that very afternoon. The dog was not a puppy but he was still very young at nine months old. Perhaps showing that perhaps she was not moving on from her husband's death, Faye insisted on naming the dog Alistair and could not be dissuaded otherwise by her dismayed daughter and other relatives.

So now Alistair the dog had the run of the house, as if the huge shrine to Alistair in the front lounge room -- the large funeral photograph with the urn sitting just in front of it -- wasn't creepy enough. Cornelius hated his mother's new dog, and the dog hated Cornelius in equal measures.

So on this morning, Cornelius watched the dog eating his breakfast in the laundry and snuck up on it. The dog noticed his approach and lifted his head, growling a warning. Cornelius did not heed this, continuing to sneak up on the dog which went rigid, baring its teeth, raising its fur on its back, growling and snarling at the young man who would not take a hint.

"Can Cornelius have some your breakfast?" Cornelius asked the dog, bending down to take the bowl of food away from the dog.

"BA --RA!" Cornelius pulled his hand back with seconds to spare and jumped as the blue heeler's snapping teeth missed his arm by inches, the dog barking at Cornelius until he retreated and the dog returned to his breakfast, growling while eating as a warning.

"That bloody dog is vicious," complained Cornelius to his mother. "It nearly had my hand off."

Faye Hawkins was unmoved. "If you tease and torment the dog, of course he's going to get savage like that. It will serve you right when Alistair bites you one of these days. Don't bother the dog while he's eating, is that clear?"

Cornelius's face on this freezing and grey July Monday morning showed his absolute misery. Today he was dressed in a shirt, tie, trousers and leather shoes, and the reason for this was the source of his unhappiness.

It was a problem so terrible it made the monstrous injustice of unfair inheritances, the cops giving him a hard time, the changes to his wife, no more party clown work and the addition of a dog to the house minor irritations of the day in comparison. The terrible thing that tormented Cornelius's life was a program by the Federal Government. A terrifying initiative called Work for the Dole.

At first Work for the Dole had just been a rumor, something mooted in parliament, not likely to go any further. Cornelius could only watch in dismay and denial as it became more and more real until it suddenly was, announced by the Prime Minister and Minister for Social Security. A compulsory program for Australia's long-termed unemployed.

Cornelius was very angry about being made to do Work for the Dole and the government for introducing such a scheme. Unemployment benefits were there to support people like him who were too creative for regular jobs. He shouldn't have to work to get money for being unemployed; that was an oxymoron. Today Cornelius would be undertaking his third work for the dole placement and this was the worst one. It was an office, for six long weeks and he had to wear formal clothes like he was going to work in a real office.

"Cornelius, straighten your tie, you want to make a good impression on your first day," said Faye.

"Why do I have to do work for the dole in an office?" Cornelius complained. "I hate offices, the other work for the dole placements at least were outside."

"Yes, and you hated them too," Faye reminded her son. "You had better not mess around like before Cornelius, I mean it."

"Are you still on about that bloody statue?" Cornelius complained.

"You were supposed to be painting a gazebo at the park," said Faye. "Instead, you went and painted a statue of a local Chinese pioneer yellow."

Cornelius laughed at the memory, but Faye was unimpressed. "Cornelius, it's not a joke, a lot of Asian people were very offended by what you did. Then there was that debacle when you were landscaping in that other park."

"Oh yeah, that was funny," laughed Cornelius.

The incident Faye referred to was when Cornelius much against his will was assigned to a landscaping crew spreading mulch and weeding a large park. Things had gone awry on the second day when Cornelius noticed an intellectually disabled teenage boy riding a tricycle on the path, and making motorbike noises as he did so. Running across, Cornelius had dragged the boy off the tricycle and jumped upon it himself, riding it around at speed while impersonating the boy, yelling out, 'broom, broom, broom!', laughing as the retard threw himself on the ground screaming and sobbing and having a complete meltdown, and the boy's mother had hysterics.

Cornelius hoped after deliberately doing badly at these placements he would be excused from further work for the dole placements, but now it had backfired. Not only did he have to do work for the dole but he had to wear a fucking shirt and tie and go to a fucking office.

"Don't be late," warned Faye, indicating the kitchen clock.

"I hate work for the dole," Cornelius grumbled as he collected his car keys.

"Cornelius if you don't want to do work for the dole, there's a simple solution. Get off your arse and get a bloody job!"

Faye Hawkins yelled the last words at her son. She was increasingly short with her son in recent months, knowing that he knew more about the traumatic road trip that culminated in Alistair's death than he was letting on. Faye couldn't prove anything, but she knew it.

Cornelius shambled outside and got into the wreck of a car, driving away filled with resentment and self-pity. That the passenger side window did not close properly anymore and let cold air and rain into the car made his mood even darker, even worse than seeing Erica drive away earlier in the day to university in her pride and joy, Gavin beside her. Previously both his mother and father busted his balls about not having a job, now his father was dead his mother was nagging him doubly hard. He couldn't work out why, his father's life insurance payout had finally come through and his Mum was rolling in cash and had a full time job herself, why should he have to get a fucking stupid job? Why was she such a bitch? And why was Danielle siding with his mother telling him to look for a job?

Cornelius grumbled all the way to his work for the dole placement which was in Balmain, in Sydney's inner western suburbs. It was worse, far worse than anything Cornelius could ever imagine in his worst nightmares. The project was a Government mass mail-out to over five million Australians and involved mind stimulating tasks such as sticking address labels to envelopes, folding and placing letters in envelopes and putting envelopes through postage franking machines ready to be mailed.

There were lots of long term unemployed people in the enormous open plan office doing this work, and Cornelius's interest was picked up when some of them got to do data entry on computers. Perhaps he could do this. But much to Cornelius's disgust, this was restricted to people who could type and had previous office and clerical experience, so Cornelius was relegated to folding and stuffing letters into envelopes, or sticking labels to other envelopes. He felt like a battery hen stuck in here doing this crap work that could be done by retards, and clock watched throughout the day, the hands moving slowly, very slowly. Sometimes Cornelius was convinced the clocks were turning anti-clockwise.