5/26/2023 0 Comments Pig Boy by J.C. Burke![]() We panicked and ran into the TAB to tell Pa. He was gone a long time and Kylie and I got really scared. 'One time Daniel got out of the car and went for a walk or something. Sometimes he'd be ages and we'd be boiling.' ![]() 'He'd make us wait in the car and we'd be busting to get to the beach. 'I reckon he did some of his biggest bets at the Aralen TAB, where nobody knew him.' 'Dad's favourite, and close to the Aralen TAB,' Brendan added. ![]() ![]() 'I was thinking about when we used to come and stay in the Christmas holidays and Pa'd take us to the beach.' I must've smiled 'cause Brendan said, 'What are you smirking about?' Pa was slack with the SPF 30, he used to say a bit of sun never hurt anyone. A day mucking around in the ocean – boogie boards, meat pies, ice-blocks, burying each other in the sand – then driving home in the evening, licking the salt from our burnt skin. In another hour or so we'd be able to smell salt in the air.Īs a kid, this had been the smell of excitement, a reprieve from the scorching inland heat and Gran's nagging. ![]() We crossed the Dungog River, the tyres bumping over each ridge. I switched on the radio and fiddled for a station. 'That's the only thing that does,' I scoffed.Īnd I didn't want to say any more about it. 'Look, I don't know if anyone knows that much. How did we end up here? If only things had been different, turning the clock back, all that type of stuff.įinally he spoke. I wasn't a mind-reader but I reckon Brendan was having the same thoughts as me. ![]()
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