Last week, Barry made the step up from obnoxious die-hard to eccentric dickhead by spray painting his Tarago blue & yellow and dragging his family over the Nullarbor. Barry had dared to dream and he gleefully bathed in the media attention his unabashed gronkery attracted.
Barry subjected his family to a gruelling three-day ordeal of AFL related singalongs and dubious bain marie food bought from the big eared locals that encrust the Nullarboring trail. In essence, Barry Joseph Fritzl’d the shit out of his unwilling family in a brazen act of cheapness. His wife initially supported the journey until Barry happily told some hack reporters about the incident where he refused to pull over for a toilet stop and forced her to piss into an empty Pepsi Max bottle. Needless to say, she won’t be mouth-diving into his River’s cargo shorts anytime soon.
On game day Barry’s spirits are higher than Chad Fletcher in Las Vegas. He has turned self-assurity into an art form and arrogantly bangs on about his beloved birds of prey. His mood quickly sours as he witnesses Kennedy and Darling fumble around like a 15-year-old trying to lose his V-Plates on the lawn of a dinner dance after party. Each goal drives a dagger through his heart and by halftime the luke-warm mid-strength isn’t the only foul taste in his mouth.
By the ¾ time siren, Barry is simmering like an unappetising rage-curry of tikka “time bomb” masala. He wanders towards the bar in a zombie-esque failure haze and in an act of desperation makes a break for the exit gate. Halfway through this shell-shocked display, he is heckled by a group of Hawthorn piss-weasels, “leaving already mate ha ha!” The jeers level him out and head back to his seat to watch the Eagles miss more targets than a vision impaired bukake party.
The final siren rings a death knell through Barry’s battered heart. The Eagles are fucking dead to him, and he can only communicate in fed-up exhalations of air. The mood in the Tarago on Sunday morning is as sinister as a game of Cluedo with a glove-wearing OJ. They have three majestic days of egg-shellin’ awkwardness with a man who is on the brink of some kind of meltdown.
Somewhere on the outskirts of Kalgoorlie, Barry’s youngest cracks under boredom, “how much longer daddddd”. Barry’s eye twitches and he slow-turns his head like the exorcist to reveal a face that Jack Nicholson wish he could’ve pulled in The Shining. His hands clench the steering wheel, and he responds via anger-grunting like an impotent Mel Gibson at a Jewish brothel. The remainder of the trip is masked in pure silence, lest Barry be driven to the regrettable embrace of bare-handed murder.
Lucky for the missus, Barry has plenty of Pepsi Max.
Art by Shakey
Art by Shakey
Documenting the Human Zoo is thirsty work, so if you enjoyed what you read how about buying Belle a beer, ay?