Anthony W. Pahl

SECRET MEN’S BUSINESS

Jacky’s Dad ‘n’ brother ‘n’ a couple of elders of the clan
Come over one Saturday arvo to speak to me old man
I could hear them talking but couldn’t hear anything what they said
but when they finished yakking, two flagons of red was dead.

Me old man and the other blokes lay down beneath the trees
and soon they was all snoring ‘n’ me nanna wasn’t bluddy pleased
She gathered together the four of us; me ‘n’ Alan and the two girls
‘n’ sat us ‘round the radio to listening to the serials what was her world.

Was after dark when the men folk woke demanding some grub to eat
Nanna tole them where to go ‘n’ they left, heads hanging like drongo sheep
Cursing ‘n’ muttering beneath their breath – me Nanna heard it all
and was after them like a bunyip riding a wild river in a storm.

Was kind of funny to see me Nanna (who was all of seventy-five)
chasing these bluddy drunken yobs, threatening to skin ‘em all alive
The White Kid (left) with Nanna and Grandpa, brother Alan and sister Anne ~ circa 1952She was cursing ‘n’ yelling’ in German, but clear and in no uncertain terms,
That the evils of the liquor would turn them into compost for the worms.

I never ever did really find out what the men-folk talked about that day
‘n’ when me cobber Jacky come around, the next time he wanted to play,
I asked him if he knew anything what the blokes discussed ‘n’ had to say;
he said something ‘bout “buying off the back of a truck’s always the cheapest way.”