It takes me some time after breakfast before I realise Sam isn't working today.
What are we going to do?
We walk into the city kind of late morning. We’re heading to the city to get haircuts. Halfway in and we suddenly remember that there’s a football parade, today being the AFL grand final public holiday, after all. We both realise that we don’t really know what route through the city the football parade takes.
“Is it before the grand final,” says Sam.
“Is it after the grand final,” I say.
We both shrug. We both laugh.
“We should know this,” says Sam.
“Being from Melbourne,” I say.
I start to google it as we walk. I get the answer that it starts at Melbourne Park, where the hell is Melbourne Park, I think. I should know where Melbourne Park is, shouldn’t I? I asked Sam if he knows where Melbourne Park is, he just shrugs. We both laugh, what kind of Melburnians are we? We both ask? But then I remember I do know where Melbourne Park is, it’s where all the sporting arenas are in Swan Street that used to be public land for everyone to play sport on, which is now the Tennis Centre and the Football Centre.
“Doesn’t Collingwood have its home ground there?” I say more as a question.
It was all essentially public land that is now private land that private corporations make money from. That always seemed outrageous to me that they took away public land for everybody to use and gave it to corporations who really only essentially cater for the middle class to upper class.
Anyway, it said something about Toyota HiLux and Melbourne Park Precinct to Birrarung Marr, over the William Barak Bridge, wherever the hell that is and into the MCG Yarra Park Precinct. Something about AFL’s free Macca’s Footy Fest blah, blah, blah, yap, yap, yap, but none of it really seemed like where we were going, so we kept walking.
Sam kept commenting on the grey clouds in the sky, he thought it looked like it was gonna rain. Sam thought it looked like it was gonna rain all the way into the city.
And then we get to Bourke Street, and it does start to rain. Sam goes in for a haircut and I go to sit on the normal seat that I sit on when Sam’s having first haircut.
A guy comes and sits next to me eating a pie, so you can imagine how excited the Bulldogs got over the pie and they sat and stared at him, but he said that he didn’t mind, in fact he kinda liked it. But the rain got stronger, and there were rain drops on my phone screen, and even if it was still not all that heavy, Brun and Otto and I seek out shelter out of the rain.
So, we’re standing just a little bit away from the guy and his pie, and when he’s finished, he comes over and gives the dogs the gravy that’s left in the bottom of his pie's plastic bag after which he walks off. Not too long after, Otto throws up and I wonder about the guy and his pie gravy. But I watched him eat the pie, he ate the pie himself, so I figured it was okay. Of course, Brun lapped up Otto‘s vomit, as dogs do, they are just delightful. A girl walking up Bourke Street covered her eyes dramatically and looked away when she saw Brun eat the sick.
But then it was my turn to have a haircut, and I didn’t say anything to Sam because he would tell me off for letting the stranger give the dogs food. Oh, I thought to myself as I settled into the hairdresser's chair, if the meat the stranger gave to the dogs was poisoned, Brun was the one most likely to drop dead in front of Sam, without Sam having any idea why? I grimaced to myself at the thought. Perhaps, I should have said something?
Ugly, but cute hairdresser guy is not available, he’s already cutting someone else’s hair. Damn it. I like him to cut my hair. I get some young guy with fire engine red hair. A fat, little Asian boy who was trying very hard to be trendy, but not really succeeding.
I gazed at ugly but cute guy across the other side of the salon and wished he was cutting my hair. He doesn’t talk, which I admire in a hairdresser. I don’t go in for endless chat, when I am getting a trim. I have to say though, chubby trendy kid didn’t speak either, so gold elephant stamp for him too.
Less than 15 minutes and I’m out.
I tell Sam about the guy and the pie, as Otto gack, gack, gacks again and Sam tells me off.
“I watched the guy eat the pie himself,” I say. “Before he gave them the last bits.”
“It doesn’t matter,” says Sam.
Five minutes later, we’re down Bourke Street and Sam goes to JBHi-Fi to get games he has ordered.
A guy comes walking up the street in big, white, linen shorts and great, tanned, muscular legs, looking like a super model. He had big dick energy the way he strode up, and if the size of his thighs was anything to go by… He heads into JBHiFi too.
The police station is just by JBHi-Fi, and there’s a lot of well built young policeman walking up and down the street in dark blue. They walk past and they smile at the bulldogs. Handsome faces, square jawlines. I think the dark blue suits them. Strapped in, and padded up. Do you think that outfit was designed by a gay man, because it makes them look very sexy, which is how gay men would want their policeman to look.
The Bulldogs lie stretched out on the paving. They do look adorable, stretched out next to each other.
The rain has stopped, and it’s still kind of warm, really, nice and warm, but overcast, cloudy, grey skies.
There are a lot of people in footy apparel, because footy apparel is a sickness from which a lot of people suffer. Although, admittedly, today would be the day for it. So many teams seem to be represented in what people are wearing, I can’t even guess what teams are playing in the final tomorrow.
There seems to be the Cats, and the Lions, and the Blues, and the Crows, and the Kangaroos, and the Bears? Is there a team called the Bears? Ha, ha, I know there is no team called the Bears, I'm just being irreverent in the home city of AFL. So, I have no idea who are actually playing in the Grand Final.
There are a lot of people walking up and down Bourke Street. It’s busy. Fat woman in big T-shirts and giant shorts with stippley white legs walk past. Fat men in shorts and socks and crocs with arses bigger than they should be walk past. Guys and girls, and husbands and wives, and mothers and fathers, and kids, and friends, and bags over shoulders, and back packs, and baskets, and leather jackets, and beanies, and scarves, and woollen coats, and shorts, and handsome blokes, and pretty chicks. There are fat people and thin people, and tall people and short people. Prams full of shopping, and prams full of little humans, bags, and coats, and jackets, slung over the handles of the prams. And a guy in shorts with scaffolding on his right leg walking up the hill. That’s gotta hurt, I think. And a girl with, what I call, a moon boot, I think it is called a moon boot, that which is prescribed for broken limbs, hobbling down the hill.
The Bulldogs don’t care they just make themselves comfortable. People smile at them as they walk past.
I’m even a bit hot sitting here in my Hoodie.
The smell of cigarette smoke wafts past in the air.
There is someone squawking somewhere.
People seem to wander the streets without a care.
I look at the not-quite-right-woman squawking and try not to stare.
She looks like a footy tragic, her life empty except for teams the only thing about which she cares.
A young guy, with voluminous curly brown hair, walks past holding his girlfriend’s hand. He looks over at me and smiles. It’s a I-like-your-cute-dogs smile, I know that look anywhere.
Sam reappears. We gotta go, he says.
Swanson Street is busy. Many people look at the Bulldogs and smile. A crazy man walks down Swanston Street at speed yelling at no one in particular.
Half an hour and we’re in Melbourne Central eating Indian at Chile India, where we slip into one of the laneways in Melbourne Central and eat.
A mother and her daughter stop and pat the bulldogs. The daughter repeatedly says the Bulldogs are beautiful.
We ate Goat Biriani and a Special Dosa. It is nice to sit and feel the breeze and watch the people walk by.
An hour later, we’re walking home. The footpath is busy in Latrobe Street, super busy, it is a struggle to keep the short four legged guys out of harm's way. There is a collection of fire engines parked one after the other. There is a group of fireman, the sexiest profession according to multiple polls, dressed in firemen outfits. Straw coloured, with yellow reflective stripes around the ankles, wrists and shoulders. Not sure why so many of them. I presume they are not posing for a calendar? They seem to be looking inside a door in the side of Melbourne Central.
I drop into JBHIFI, just for a look, but I don’t look for long. I can’t believe the vinyl has really taken over. The CD section has been reduced down to nearly nothing. What is the fascination with vinyl, the sound is inferior and the cost is mind boggling. $70, $80, $100 for each record. It just seems ridiculous. Is it all a part of the push towards conservatism that is infecting the world, I wonder.
We cross Swanston Street, at the big mall cross walk. People jay walk on the red light in front of us. I am all for jay walking if the street is clear. We don't because the four legged guys can be unpredictable.
We see the new Underground station entrance now coming to life. I wonder if they are going to build onto of the, essentially, single story structure.
"Surely, they are," says Sam. "In such a prominent position and all."
We head up La Trobe Street, past the State Library, the footpath is busy with punters.
We walk through the Carlton Gardens. The sun comes out, dappled on the ground.
A paramedic van pulls up outside the Foodworks near home. A male paramedic gets out of the driver’s seat. A female Paramedic gets out of the passenger seat. Brun stops on the foot path and gazes at the two of them.
“Come on Brun,” I say.
The handsome male paramedic in shorts steps over to Brun and says, “Hey there Brun, how are you.” He pats Brun under the chin. Then he smiles at me and walks away.
It has taken us about half an hour and we’re home. And it is still only Friday, I think, even if it feels like Saturday, and you have to love that. I don't have to connect back into the salt mines as quickly as it feels.
We drink coffee and eat chocolate covered Scotch Finger Biscuits.
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