Laughter Hurtz

‘Oh its Hurtz!’

‘Where,’ I said, ‘are you Ok dad?’

‘No not me girl, there! There’s that old bastard now Mr. Hurtz! He’s a rich man now. He owns this pub.’

'I’ll tell you a story girl,’ my old man always began, always at the Roebuck Bay hotel, watching the moon rise, low over the tide, again. Stairway to the Moon on a hot Broome night and we had all had a drink or two. It was nice to be back, just for a while.

So he starts.

‘We used to live on the oval across the road from, that café that turned into MacDonald’s. Yeah, back of the oval actually. Anyway, one morning I wake up with Dave yelling ‘You prick! What did you do that for?’

‘Standing there is this guy Jacob Hurtz, you don’t know him but he was an arrogant sort of fallen rich man then. Dave and I thought he was the ass of Broome. Didn’t stop him from inheriting millions though did it!

‘He used to strut past us every day and give whoever was asleep a kick and ask for a smoke, myself included. Hurtz was thick and couldn’t take a hint. He’d always come back soon enough kicking, waking, bludging smokes. The thing he did that really got us was to throw his head right back and laugh whenever we got into him for this. Sort of like this.’

I watched and laughed as dad demonstrated.

Then the coughing.

‘Have another drink dad’ I said.

‘Thanks’ the old man spluttered

‘Where was I? Oh yeah. It was because he always had his nose in the air. Never watched where he was going. Anyway, Hurtz’s head fling gave us an idea one day. A get even gig.

‘We looked around Broome for some bits, a pair of old jocks, a bedspread, a basket and some other stuff. There was a nasty spot on the oval where the council were digging in that big sprinkler system they got that wets you awake if you sleep to long. Big hole girl, with a cover over it.

‘Anyway we set it up this night and waited through the morning for Hurtz to roll up. Sure enough, his arrogant figure comes strutting up towards us, head in the sky.
‘As Hurtz came closer I got up and started to play my pipe with the old undies on my head wobbling and me acting fully stung to me eyeballs.’

I watched and laughed as dad demonstrated, yes again. These stories were always the best and worst part about having a drink with my dad.

’Anyway it worked. Hurtz walked right up to me and didn’t even notice where he was going, he saw me clearly though, and threw his head back with laughter. The head fling happened and guess what!’

I knew it was coming from the start.

I’d heard this story more than a few times. But these were my dad’s last days. Soon there’d be no silly grin and the story would stop. I could sail along with it and try not to cry. Sail into that hot night and the full moon rising.

‘What! What happened,' I pleaded, holding back tears.

’He falls straight down that bloody big hole, girl! And we all laughed so hard it hurt. Get it?’
We weren’t alone and once again there was laughter all around. Laughter that sometimes hurts.