Scatology - My Contribution to that Field, Page 2

  Chapter Two - Carlo's Revenge

  Back in the late 1940s my father worked as a boner at the Lakes Creek meatworks in Rockhampton. It was a large processing plant situated right on the shores of the Fitzroy River. The works employed a large workforce. Quite a few of the meat workers, like my dad, were returned servicemen from WWII. Coming from an era where men resolved their own differences, and tempered by the recent brutality of war, there were some hard and uncompromising men amongst them.

  That post-war Australia was changing in many ways. Until then it had been of largely Anglo-Saxon and Celtic ethnicity deriving from the British convicts and settlers that had pioneered the newly found continent. Suddenly, in that post-war period there was the beginning of another series of immigration waves, coming this time from war-torn Europe.

  It was a shock to the WWII veterans to find these newly arrived emigrants appearing in their work places. That was especially so in some cases where these "New Australians" were from countries that we had only recently been fighting. This was particularly the case in regard to the Italians.

  The Italians, to their credit, were hard workers keen to establish a new life, raise families and prosper in the peaceful and promising Australia of that time. However, the Australia of those days was culturally insular and a long way from the homogenised and politically correct society we have today. Blatant discrimination and racism was the order of the day.

  There was a strong union movement, organised and run by especially hard case veterans. The Italians mostly had little or no English skills and were relegated to the more menial tasks and largely excluded from the better paying and easier jobs.

  So it was that my dad and his co-workers found one day that they had half a dozen new Italian labourers and cleaners. Mostly they were older guys who kept their heads down and just got on with their work. They stoically endured the jibes and insults of the bullies amongst the Australian meat workers.

  There was however a youngster amongst them. He was a lean, good looking young fellow of about nineteen. There was a spark in his eyes and the hint of a feisty spirit in his demeanour. One day as my father was working at his station one of his co-workers called out to the young Italian.

  "Hey! Luigi! Come here and clean this mess up."

  The young fellow sauntered over, mop over his shoulder.

  "I'm not a Luigi. My name Carlo."

  "Just clean that up ... Luigi."

  "You wanta Luigi, I go a get him? But maybe take a time. No Luigi work here. Not yet."

  "Smart arse Dago. Just clean that mess up!"

  "I not a dago. I Italiano. Carlo. You want Carlo clean a mess, you ask a proper."

  The Aussie made a move to get down from the elevated platform he was standing on.

  "I'll give you bloody Carlo," he snarled. The Italian did not take a back step either.

  Luckily, the foreman came over before the situation escalated.

  "Carlo, please clean that up," he indicated the spillage.

  "Yes. Sure a thing boss."

  "And you Bob, get back up there and get to work. The war's over you know."

  "Too right it's over and we kicked those dago's arses," he glared at the mopping Carlo, "and don't you bloody well forget it!"

  Carlo totally ignored him and kept mopping.

  There were little or no environmental considerations for industry in those days. The meat works pumped a large flow of water out of the river and used that for cooling and cleaning. All the bloody wastes, including bits of offal and meat trimmings were simply hosed into the drains. The various open drains then combined and simply flowed straight back into the river.

  The toilets were in a row, perched over the big concrete drain of flowing river water. Human waste joined that of the slaughter house on its way to the river. The seats in the toilet cubicles simply had a large hole with the flowing water passing directly underneath. In winter it could be a bit nippy, but in warm weather it was cool and pleasant location to answer a call of nature, or just plain chill out.

  The cubicles were quite popular in summer. The boners worked to a tally system. The better boners would finish their quota, or tally, ahead of the other, slower men and then retire to toilets to leisurely read the paper. There were no crib rooms or such in those days. Facilities for the workers were rudimentary at best, if not totally lacking. Hence the attraction of the cubicles.

  On Carlo's last day at Lakes Creek meatworks he had gone to the toilet to answer an urgent call of nature. The eight cubicles were sitting there empty. He chose the nearest, the first in the line of loos. As he sat there the gun boners started to take up their positions in the other cubicles. There was the rustle of newspapers being read. Mostly the guys were there to just read their papers and they did not even bother to close the cubicle doors.

  Now it so happened that the boners union rep considered the first loo his own private territory. He was Dan Morgan, tough as nails, a hard-core WWII veteran with an attitude.

  "Who's in my spot," he bellowed. All the other early finishing boners knew better than to take the first cubicle. He had thumped a few guys who had the temerity to think otherwise.

  "Who's in there!" He rattled the door for emphasis.

  "Hey, is a Carlo. Hang on a minute."

  "Hang on yourself," bellowed the union rep and he slammed the door open.

  "Hey!" yelled a surprised Carlo, sitting there with his pants down around his ankles.

  The big man grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hurled him out and down the few steps to the ground below.

  "Go shit in the bush you Dago bastard! This is my spot."

  The young man sat there on the cold hard floor, stunned for a moment. There was a chorus of laughter down the row of cubicles.

  "That's telling him Danny," somebody called out approvingly.

  Carlo pulled his trousers back on and then stood up. He did not display any emotion as he looked up and down the row of loos.

  One of the cubicle residents looked over the top of his paper, "Go on, piss off, before I come down there and give you a flogging!"

  Carlos unconcernedly dusted himself off and adjusted his shirt and belt. He appeared to have reached some sort of decision. One of the older workers, a caring old guy, came over and took Carlo by the arm.

  "Carlo, don't go looking for trouble here. These buggers will kick the shit out of you. You wouldn't stand a chance. So, just walk away."

  "Thanks a Jimmy. Carlo no cause trouble, not look to fight. It's a okay."

  Carlo walked casually away. Firstly he went and got his bicycle and placed it at the front gate. Then he went and saw the foreman.

  "I a quit. No more work here. I leave right now. I collect pay later sometime. Bye."

  Carlo walked back to the toilets. Only ten minutes had elapsed and the eight men were still enthroned in their cubicles. A collection of other mere mortals had started to gather as they finished their tally quotas as well. The gathered men smoked and chatted as they waited for the ruling elite to vacate the loos. They had heard of Carlo's eviction. While not on Carlo's side the gathered men had no great love for the eight guys in the loos. They were well down the pecking order and not part of that tough little group. All had previously suffered varying degrees of bullying from those hard men.

  They watched Carlo with interest. The young Italian had kept out of sight of the men in the cubicles. He picked up a number of old newspapers and took himself up to the wall where the big effluent drain emerged through the wall of the building. The concrete trough was about three feet high and about as wide. The flowing water came up to within six inches of the trough lip. The toilets were perched a bit higher that the concrete drain. The gap between the bottom of the cubicles and the water was about two feet high.

  Where Carlo stood against the wall of the shed was about ten or fifteen metres from the first loo. He began to disassemble the newspapers and loosely crumple the pa
ges. In a few minutes he had constructed a large fluffy sausage of crumpled newspaper that was about two feet in diameter and nearly six feet long.

  The watching men were intrigued as to what he was doing. Carlo carefully lifted his construction up onto the concrete lip of the drain and positioned it there. He ran his eye over it and then down the length of the drain and the toilet cubicles. A few of the crowd of spectators began to get an inkling of his intentions and whispered their perceptions to their friends. There were some suppressed chortles and growing anticipation amongst the spectators.

  Satisfied with his construction, Carlo pulled out his cigarette lighter and his smokes. He casually lit a smoke and drew on it reflectively for a while. Then he snapped his lighter once more and ran it along the paper torpedo. He kept it balanced on the lip of the drain until it was burning nicely. Then with a delicate push he rolled the flaring mass of crumpled newspaper into the flowing water.

  Carlo stood for a few moments as the current sped the water-borne conflagration toward its target. With a nod of approval he then turned and sprinted for the front gate at full speed. Leaping onto his bicycle he pedalled furiously and disappeared out of sight. Rumour has it that he checked out of his boarding house and caught the midday train out of town; a wise move on his part.

  His revenge on the bullies worked better than he could have expected and the story was widely circulated around town for years to come. Danny was the first out of the blocks. He had actually dropped his pants to better appreciate the water-cooled breeze blowing down the drain. The heat and flames of the now vigorously burning newspapers burnt the hair off his arse and scrotum and scorched those areas most tender on a man. With a roar of anguish he leapt out of the cubicle and tumbled down the stairs to the hard floor, just as Carlo had done ten minutes earlier.

  Perplexed, the other occupants wondered what ailed their companions as each in turn found out they too were scorched about the nether regions. The tumbling mass of half naked men rolled about on the floor bellowing. Wisps of smoke and the most unpleasant smell of burnt arse hair filled the air. The spectators could not contain themselves and roared with laughter. This of course was far from appreciated and the tough Danny hastily pulled on his trousers and proceeded to grab the nearest laughing spectator and punch him.

  Maybe it was years of suppressed anger, or maybe the strength of numbers, or perhaps Carlo's revenge had enthused them, but the onlookers were having none of that from Danny and his mean mates. In no time there was a major donnybrook in full swing. The eight occupants were hard men but they were outnumbered. Even the normally meeker members of the onlookers felt emboldened and sought to land a few blows of their own. It was described as the best brawl in Rocky for years.

  For the management it was a golden opportunity and they took it. A dozen men got the sack, amongst them the eight toughs. Carlo's revenge was more than complete.