Dingo's Fickle Life

Chapter 1

Dingo (Damien Foster) left the family farm when he was twenty-eight after a bust-up with his father, who'd told him to get a haircut.

Clyde advanced pugnaciously and his son who'd defied the command to backdown by saying, "Get knotted" (rejection slang for 'get lost').

Arms at his side, Damien took the punch that landed with a thump just below his left shoulder.

"Clyde, leave him," called his wife Isabelle, coming to the doorway wiping her hands on a tea towel.

She was ignored and Damien ducked under a swing that left the attacker unbalanced and he stepped back and chopped down heavily on the back of his father's neck. Clyde fell face down into the dust in 101-degree heat and lay groaning.

Two stockmen stepped forward and helped their quickly recovering boss to sit on the veranda decking.

Easing his head back, Clyde snarled, "Get your hair cut or go, there's no other choice."

"I'll go during the night, Asshole."

Damien went over to the hitching rail and rode off on his beloved white horse Madonna for his final look over some of the 29,680 acres of the grazing and cropping farm. He returned at dusk and rode up to the farmhouse where his tearful mother and sister and his two younger brothers, who showed little emotion, came out to greet him.

"Your father has gone west for tonight and most of tomorrow to keep out of your way while you complete your farewells," Isabelle sobbed.

"Right mum, I'll go over to my hut and clean up. See you all in half-a-hour.

Around 9.00 pm, Damien drove away tooting the horn of his white pickup and his distressed mother and siblings waved farewell.

* * *

Damien drove for the best part of two days from near Booleroo, first travelling 180 miles to the South Australian capital Adelaide, and then 450 miles to Melbourne, pausing only for fuel and once sleeping in his vehicle off the highway for five hours before continuing to his destination.

Damien looked for accommodation in the big city unfamiliar to him, checking at four boarding houses with the same result, there were no vacancies.

He tried a suburban house in Dandenong South, catching sight of a sign in a front bedroom window that stated 'Room to Let'.

The woman in her fifties who answered the door, eyed him and retreating and half-closing the door asked was he a new arrival to Melbourne.

"Yes."

"Are you foreign?"

"Aussie through and through, ma'am."

"Are you on drugs?"

"No."

"Are you attempting to impersonate Jesus?"

"No."

"Then tell me, why have golden hair that falls lower than your shoulders and a moustache and full beard?"

"I've come off a farm two long days' of driving from here where I found that a hat and long hair kept the sun from burning my face and neck."

"Is that true?"

"Yes."

She opened the door fully.

"Can you show me character references."

Damien said he only had a letter of recommendation from his mother.

He pulled it out and handed it across, despite the woman saying that wasn't an independent recommendation.

She opened the single page and said, "Oh my word, that's the remains of tears I can see. She must have been weeping as she wrote this beautiful tribute to you."

"That's possible."

"Why didn't you say yes?"

"I don't lie and anyway I wasn't in the room when she wrote that at my request. She's old, about your age, and wouldn't write lies."

"So, in your eyes I'm old, am I?"

"Yes, but I accept there are other people who are older."

She laughed revealing a kind face, and said well at least that more or less proved he didn't lie to try his best to get the room.

"You can have the room providing tomorrow you get a decent haircut and shave. I don't want you scaring my cat and the neighbours and having the police around to look for the Second Coming of Jesus based on calls from people seeing you looking like you do now."

"Okay."

"Okay what?"

"I'll get shorn tomorrow."

"You haven't promised."

"That's not necessary Mrs..."

"Mrs Hamilton," said the widow of seven years, with short-cut greying hair and a lined face.

"That's not necessary Mrs Hamilton because it's already established with you that I don't lie."

Damien simply said "Puss" to the approaching haughty-looking cat.

The cat came to him to be patted and then walked off behind them.

"I knew she wouldn't be scared of me because she wouldn't know who Jesus was."

"That's smart thinking and how did you know Bella was a she?"

"She has a smaller frame than males usually have."

"So, you know all about animals?"

"I know quite a bit because my best mate and his sister are qualified vets in their father's veterinary rural practice and I've often helped them out when they are short of manpower."

"Hmm, so my new boarder is a young man full of surprises."

In the morning, walking off early to local shops to get ahead of people with appointments, Damien was dressed in a polo shirt, well-fitting pants and polished brown shoes to avoid being mistaken for a druggie, street beggar and possibly Jesus.

He looked for a women's hairdresser salon, thinking they'd be more used to attending to long hair than barbers. He found one with a woman inside looking at what appeared to be the appointment book.

He knocked on the door and the woman unlocked it and said curtly, "Yes?"

"Please cut my hair short and trim my beard so I can shave clean. Look, I'm new in Melbourne, don't have a booking and wish to get to a job today if I can. Please, I have money and my name is Damien."

She hesitated.

"Please."

She opened the door wider and let him in and locked it because it was 40 minutes before opening time.

"Lucky for you I'm a nice person."

He said smiling, "And pretty."

"Oh, country boy, your mother has taught you how to be a charmer," she said, settling him into a chair and setting up. "Now, give me explicit instructions."

"Give me a haircut that's typical of the style of many businessmen. I realize that will require loss of a great amount of my hair. How do you know I'm from the country?"

"I came here from the country aged 22 which was many years ago. Country lads speak well, clearly and with basic simplicity, just like you."

Later, he went to a till, feeling light-headed and well-ventilated around the ears and neck and looked disbelievingly at himself in the wall mirrors. He paid across the money his hairdresser asked for and then added a fifty-dollar tip as she'd been so cooperative and removing his 'fleece' had been a huge task for her.

"Can you afford that Dingo?"

"Yep Brenda," he smiled (they'd shared names, his nickname and her first name during the shearing).

"You were awesome in accepting my challenge, keeping your chatting going that alleviated my rising panic and then telling me to return when I had a job and you'd call your daughter and introduced us."

"Well, an ex-country girl has to look after a country boy coming alone to the city and you are rather dishy, I must say. Here, please take your tip back."

"No, you don't run a good business by giving the profits away. Um, give me a kiss and I'm off."

They kissed on the lips with a soft dab, and Brenda Soper patted him on the back and wished him good luck with job hunting. She stared in his wake, thinking someone with brains would see the potential and employ him.

Dingo decided to go home and wash his hair.

He also decided to use his nickname more, now that he was away from his mother, because he didn't like his given name, as when young he'd sometimes associated Damien's as young kids sitting in a corner and sucking their thumbs.

In recent years, he'd received the nickname Dingo. Over a number of years, he'd shot and killed more than 200 wild dogs including Dingoes (wild feral dogs native to Australia), far more than his mates put together and that was believed to be easily a record tally for any one person in their district where wild dogs and Dingoes were unwelcomed predators, killing sheep, calves and grass-roaming domesticated poultry.

His landlady, Mrs Hamilton, had invited three friends over for lunch so they could peruse her new boarder.

"Omigod, you've had more than some removal of hair," she exclaimed, and introduced Damien to Vicky, Irene and Shirley.

"Lunch in 20 minutes," Mrs Hamilton said, when her new boarder said he was off to shower his head that felt scalped.

Afterwards, when the ladies departed, Mrs Hamilton said, "The ladies reckon I must be the luckiest landlady in Australia, having such a handsome and nicely spoken young boarder in my house."

"It's all show," Mrs Hamilton, "I can get drunk and tell dirty jokes like all young guys."

"You don't tell filthy jokes or get plastered on booze or entertain grossly loose females in my house," she said firmly.

"I'll have to try to remember that," he said and she berated him for being such a tease.

"Call me Dingo, the nickname my mates gave me for shooting so many wild dogs killing calves and sheep in our neighbourhood where I was raised on a farm. Those canines would often kill their prey for the thrill of the chase."

"Dingo, I might use that nickname to startle my friends," she said. "You may call me Kitty but only when no one is around."

"Yes, and especially not to call you Kitty when your clergyman calls, otherwise he might think you and I have been very naughty."

"Oh Dingo, you are such a tease," she said, blushing heavily.

He went out to his vehicle, just short of the driveway into Kitty's property, and saw something white under one of the windscreen wipers.

"Christ, my first driving offence in the State of Victoria and I haven't been here for 24 hours yet."

But he was pleased to find the paper was a page torn from a pocket notebook. It was signed Vicky, giving her mobile phone number and stated if he was looking for catering work at posh places, then he should call her.

He sat in his vehicle and called Vicky. She asked could he cook on a barbecue and he said expertly and Vicky gave him her address and said to be there at 5.30 and her son would pick him up to take him on trial to help with a cook-out.

"I'll describe how to get here."

"No, it's fine, my mobile phone is GPS-enabled."

"I really don't know what you are saying, but I guess you do."

"Thanks Vicky, what's your surname name?"

"It's Yates, but keep on calling me Vicky. That makes me feel younger than am. My son Roddy is 33 you know."

Dingo didn't know that, but that was fine. Some of his mother's older female friends spoke rather like that, especially those who lived alone.

Chapter 2

Roderick was already waiting outside Vicky's house on the footpath with his mother when at 5.28 Dingo parked behind the double-cab pickup with lockable metal tonneau cover over the carrying tray.

Vicky introduced them and when Roderick invited him to call him Roddy, Damien said to his potential new boss to call him Dingo.

"Country boy eh," Roddy grinned, kissed his mum and said they must be off to set-up at the venue.

During the drive, Roddy said, "Can you really barbecue well or have you exaggerated because you are desperate for work?"

"I want a steady job and the truth is I began barbecuing by myself when I was about seven and helped dad at other times when we catered for friends of the family and extended family or wider community events when were had 100 or more mouths to feed, the feature being two sides of beef that had been slow cooking on the barbies for most of the night."

"In mid-morning I'd have the barbecues fired up to perfection and we would begin cooking the sides of beef fully to finish them off. We'd have a couple of other cookers going with beef sausages and mutton chops which I did with at least one of my uncles standing alongside me or dad and taking part of the credit as onlookers drooled looking the sides of beef."

Roddy smiled, "Christ Dingo, that doing a barbie at commercial level. My barbie man left me two days ago to join a catering competitor. If you do well tonight, you can have the job fulltime as we are employed most days but almost never on Mondays unless it's a Public Holiday and most Tuesdays, you'll be free to chase young women. Alas, we are always fully booked on Fridays and throughout the weekend."

"No problem, I worked every day on the farm with a week off over Christmas and also over Easter."

"Great as that means you know how to do it tough. Mum said you only arrived from South Australia yesterday and so it will be a week or two before you latch on to a girlfriend."

"Perhaps not as I expect to have a date sometime tomorrow with my hairdresser's daughter. Neither of us have met before but her mom is pretty, which is encouraging."

Stroking his moustache, the immaculately-dressed Roddy said, "Jesus, I best keep you away from my wife. You sound to be a fast worker. Oh, if you date this woman and have started working for me just remember you can screw her any morning and into afternoons most days when we don't have lunches booked and, of course, you will usually be free to screw her all through Monday and into Tuesday."

Dingo grinned and Roddy laughed and lightly punched the new man on the shoulder.

"Christ, you feel all bone, sinew and muscle."

"I've worked since I was six as a farm boy Roddy, remember?"

"Oh yeah. Christ, from that age?"

"Actually, I began helping from a younger age but dad didn't begin paying me from the day I turned six, the day he gave me my first horse."

"Christ, what a privileged life, Dingo."

"Yeah, mostly it was but of course, there were many bad times, including days in a row, usually when dad's back was giving him assholes when he'd bawl everyone out, occasionally including mum until she'd slap him across the mouth, practically rattling his teeth and then he'd cool down and become apologetic."

"But next morning when boarding a tractor or harvester or mounting a horse, pain from compressed disks would set him off again until the painkillers I reminded him to take would begin to work well."

The hostess's Thursday evening barbecue to celebrate her birthday on the back-lawn of a mansion, in the affluent inner-suburb of Toorak, went well and gave Dingo his first look at how the modern gentry looked and behaved. He thought everyone was dressed as if they were going to a wedding.

Mid-evening, when they were packing everything into Roderick's vehicle, the hostess came over and thanked Roddy for such a fine job 'of top-class catering.'

"I'll recommend you to my friends."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Turning to look at Dingo, she said, "I must say your barbecue chef is certainly top drawer. Where did you find him?"

Roddy said he arrived looking for work.

"Oh, I say lucky you. I never have been greatly enthused eating barbecue food but tonight's offering was so deliciously yummy according to many people that I had a change of mind."

"I'm happy to hear that ma'am. My man was raised on a farm and began developing barbecuing skills from the age of six when he began cooking the meat for pedigree farm dogs. He's dedicated to barbecuing meat to perfection ma'am and is a cracker at producing unforgettable sauces. I believe part of his success is due to him not touching the devil's drink whereas most commercial chefs are alcoholics."

"But at one stage I thought I saw you pass him a bottle of beer."

"I think that was a malt and hops soft-drink ma'am," Roddy lied once again.

"Oh, of course," she said, partly concealing a hiccup into the long sleeve of her gown.

"Here's the amount of money we agreed to beforehand Roderick," she said, handing him a bundle of banknotes. "It includes a very large tip. Some of my guest are saying it's the best barbecue they've ever had and they would have had oodles of them. I'll probably be endowed with the reputation of hosting the best barbecues in Toorak."

"Oh, while I remember, my other daughter is having her birthday in two months, I'll go online tomorrow and book that event in with you, Roderick."

"Thanks ma'am. You are now my No. 1 client."

"Oh, really?"

As the two guys drove off, Dingo mimicked, "Oh I say Roderick darling, you revealing to me that I've become your Number 1 client thrilled me no end, for instance more than when my new Mercedes-Maybach Pullman limo was delivered or when I was made a Dame under the Order of Australia. How is it I'm becoming drunk from sipping my sixth malt and hops soft drink?"

Dingo's voice lowered, and he said, "My guess, your ladyship is that some fiend on your staff has slipped an incapacitating Micky Finn into your soft-drink. That means your deprived husband has a good chance of getting a leg over you tonight. Heh-heh-heh."

The two guys roared in laughter.

"You have skills, and you have humour Dingo, that will enrich the business and the job of barbecue chef is yours if you want it."

"Yes, I do, thanks."

"In that case come to my home for lunch tomorrow at noon and we'll discuss job conditions, renumeration and fully outline your responsibilities," Roddy said, digging into his top pocket for a business card.

"We had two bartenders and four waitresses on the team tonight, which is about average. But for really big catering jobs my wife comes along as floor manager and we have up to 35 people in our team."

"Wow, at that level the operation becomes big business."

"That's true Dingo providing we deliver without any disasters."

Sliding into bed tiredly, Dingo thought now that he was settled with a job he could relax and start thinking about getting his sporadic sex life going again and his whole damn life looked like remaining fickle.

Having oodles of sex kept a young guy healthy and probably did so for females too. But where to start in a new location to find a lasting and enduring vocation, he had no idea.

* * *

Hairdresser Brenda Soper looked up on Friday morning when she heard a guy asking one of her assistants could he speak to Mrs Soper. She recognised the caller was Dingo.

He was neatly dressed, clean-shaven and his hair had settled down nicely,

Then she remembered she'd told him after cutting most of his enormous amount of hair to return when he had a job and she would introduce him to her daughter who worked on data processing for the law firm of Struthers-Pearson.

She called another assistant over to work on the hair she was teasing.

"Hi Damien. You look very presentable and whoever cut your hair did an incredible job."

He grinned and lightly kissed Brenda on the cheek and said, sounding almost breathless, that he had secured regular work for the meantime and he was here to be looked over by her pretty daughter.

"How do you know she's pretty?"

All conversations in the salon stopped and ears were practically flapping.

"You are pretty Brenda and therefore how could she be anything less?"

"Um, Damien there's been a chance lost since we last talked. Unfortunately, Nicole has started going out with a guy she met at a party and she's indicated she's rather taken by him."

"Brenda, are you taken with him?"

She sighed and said not altogether.

"Had you told your daughter about me?"

"Yes."

"It's only 8.10. Ask her to meet me somewhere for coffee on her way to work."

Brenda said her daughter wouldn't want to do that but Dingo said he didn't know much about women but knew that they could react unpredictably when captured by curiosity.

"Damien, that's not going to happen."

"Call her please Brenda. Say that guy you told her about Dingo, who was straight off a large farm, wants to meet her for coffee and to say hi."

"Very well, I go out to the back to call because everyone is listening."

Dingo called, "Back to work girls and everyone lie about the slim dude in an Italian suit who made a pass at you."

There was giggling and work resumed without any insults being hurled at Dingo.