Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 09:58:10 +1000
From: David Spencer <davidspencer1@hotmail.com>
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. ]