Broken Brown Stubbies

Me and the boys used to bush party. We hooked a car battery up to a car cassette deck and a couple of car speakers for music. Once word reached Dope City that there was music besides Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Nazareth and Lynyrd Skynyrd we would listen to punk rock cranked up really high.

To begin with though we listened to the long hair music around a campfire deep in an undeveloped park we had played in since we were little kids. There was a swimming hole, hollow trees, lots of frogs and old stolen cars we would light on fire when the mood struck us.

I smoked my first joint at a bush party. I giggled like a girl. I was still laughing when we were later hanging out in Henrik's driveway. His dad heard me giggling. I was only 15 and some people were getting the impression I was a doper.

The police used to haul their fat asses out of their cars every now and then to try and put a stop to our wanton bush partying. Trouble was we did not have fat asses and we knew those bushes like dope runners know the land and sea near borders. Someone would holler, "Fucking pigs!" and we would run like fuckers. The police never caught us running from them. There must have been a dozen times I had cops jump right over me as I cosied up to the bark of a fallen tree to hide in its black shadow. That was always good for an adrenaline rush. You could always hear the cops muttering in the black of the forest once they had ran past our positions. "Those little motherfuckers!"

We broke enough stubby beer bottles in those bushes to start a recycling company. And we burned enough wood to start a small sawmill. We would climb skinny trees until they snapped sending us laughing to the ground. We got high and read messages from the universe to us written by the stars.

I fell in love with Sonja as I sucked back Carlsbergs one night in those woods. Man was made for parties in the woods.

When we got older somebody thought it would be a good idea to go have us another bush party. We filled a cooler with vodka and lemonade and got at it with the help of some beer and wine. This time when the cops came we did not bother to run. They were directed to our location by a do gooder neighbour who was not going to like the following Hallowe'en. The police were disappointed we were not a bunch of teenagers they could heap abuse on. Instead they started lecturing us. I took another swig from my bottle of wine. A lard ass knocked it from my mouth. "Hey man, you did not tell us to stop drinking."

We were asked, "How you going to put out the fire?"

We told the boys who do not like to bush party, "Usually we let it die down and then we circle around and piss on it. You should smell it!"

We were escorted out of the park like criminals except it was we who were doing the lecturing now. "Like don't you guys have anything better to do on a Saturday night? Isn't there a paper bag rapist or an arsonist out there you could be hunting down?"

The cops threatened to fuck us around but we knew they knew and they knew we knew what a pile of paper work that would be for nothing.

Kids still bush party in that park. Good for them. Maybe one day they will burn it down and people will marvel at the carpet of molten brown glass glistening like northern diamonds in the ashes where I once ran wild and free.