Rex shuffles around the TAB in a pair of piss-stained Diadora trackies that have formed such a repulsive crust that Dominos is trying to find a way to put cheese in them.
He makes a series of unfortunate bets and his mood steadily declines with each foot-draggin’ greyhound’s inability to be a champion. His demeanour now resembles a hungover bus driver after no one thanked him for the day.
He decides to wet his whistle at a local watering hole. So, he pulls up a barstool and nurses middies of Swan Draft while poking at a pile of shrapnel in front of him.
He takes a moment from his brooding anger to regale the bar-chick with some light-hearted banter, “too many farkin’ blow-ins these days, there goes the damn neighbourhood”.
By 3 pm, the staff are sick of looking at the spittle accumulating in the corners of Rex’s mouth and evict him from the premises. He gets dragged out while screaming angry-nothings about coming back to burn the joint down.
Seeing as he makes these threats most weeks, no one is particularly bothered. So he makes his way to Chicken Treat to grab a Hawaiian pack with a side dish of whatever life throws at him.
Lucky for Rex, he spots an old flame seductively spooning potato & gravy into her mouth. She always gets butterflies when she sees Rex. She’s reminded of how they met.
It was a warm summer’s afternoon in 2012. Rex had just got his Commodore back from confiscation and tried to set a fishtail record on her street. He lost control and smashed into her brick letterbox.
She nursed him back from the fuzzy world of concussion and when he came to he was confused and mistook her for a cop. She’ll never forget the way he told her to get her “fucking hands” off him and that he hadn’t “done nothing”, he wasn’t even driving. She knew this was a man who could take care of business.
They share a few warm Wild Turkeys that he kept on the floor of his car and soon the magic was back. She attaches to his face so fiercely she makes the Alien Facehugger look like a good CPR partner. It’s raw. It’s passionate and it’s happening in a car park in broad daylight.
Turns out, unfortunately, Rex isn’t so lucky. His peen is flailing around with the structural integrity of a wacky, wavy inflatable tube man. He doesn’t even get through the front gate of the kwon-ranch before his own desires melt pitifully in his own hand.
It‘s just like old times and she starts thinking she might be in love again. So she asks Rex to give her a lift home for a little dessert. Rex promises to try and last long enough to get the icing on the cake this time but the purchase of another 4 pack tells a different story.
He turns onto her street and notices a parcel sitting on a doorstep. He slams on the brakes, jumps out and like a crime-gazelle bounds gracefully over to the package, grabs it and returns to the car. She didn’t know Rex could move like that. It was inspired.
They open the parcel together on her pull out couch and discover that it’s just some pump for some kind of home medical apparatus. It wasn’t the result they were after but it set a good baseline level of a disappointment.
Which prepared her fully for the disappointment she felt when he passed out while going down on her like a drunk at the business end of a kebab.
Documenting the Human Zoo is thirsty work, so if you enjoyed what you read how about buying Belle a beer, ay?