Ringo's Rennaisance
June 1st 2008 05:26
I HAVE THE POWER TO TRANSFORM MY WEE BABAY INTO PETER COSTELLO
All the myths surrounding the safe birth of your first born are quite true.
Fear. Tension. Exhilaration. The dream the night before of that old Warner Brothers Cartoon that it’s a little green alien called Mot. A Shane Warne like sense of pride that it’s a human boy.
And my goodness gracious me, a schlock of hair on the young fella that would have any Scottish grandmother worth her weight in lightly salted porridge marvelling on a daily basis at its deepening redness - no matter what colour it may or may not be.
Disclaimer - I promised myself that I wouldn’t be sidetracked at this point by memories of a Mousey Brown prominent in a corrupt comic of my youth, and I stand by that epoch.
So home he comes and life continues in a blissful, talcum powdery kind of way until the day his mum thinks it a good idea to buy him a hair brush to keep away the little dreadlocks that keep materialising like fresh cream sponges at a country funeral on the back of his wee noggin.
I might point out at this stage that the little bloke in question comes from a line long enough to be reasonable (without bestowing on him the middle name Vissarionovich) of people who are left enough of centre to have never voted Liberal in their collective lives.
Never even thought about it..
Never even thought about thinking of dreaming about it if you paid them a fist full of Malcolm Turnbull dollars to hand out how to vote cards for anyone other than the upstanding Labor member.
All rise.
So it was with unsuspecting hands that I held my beautiful boy, all rugged up and warm after his wee bath. (Even if my veins weren’t clogged with Celtic blood, I suspect that at this point in my life, everything would be ‘wee’ just the same). His wee head was still wet and his mother, with a wee smile on her wee face, handed me his as yet un-used wee hair brush.
“What about this?” I ask, holding aloft a top notch quality Indian made Kangaroo in a green and gold T-shirt bearing the logo ‘Grew here, Not Flew here’.
“The last one,” the guy says through gritted teeth, happily disregarding the no smoking sign and with that South American band playing ‘El Condo Paso’ outside the organic egg section, the joint was in danger of descending into a Sergio Corbucci out- take.
“I’ll take it,” I say grimly, despite my disagreement with its sentiment. “Oh, and that little wee hair brush over there.”
Ritchie or Fonzie, that’s how the hair brush came to pass.
So, with the wee baby all scrunched and warm as two pieces of toast still in the toaster set to Charcoal, I gently brush my boy’s hair for the first … and second last time.
A quick stroke to the left and the house fell silent. The dog voluntarily went to his outside basket. The missus stepped back, lost for words like a Tim Winton novel isn’t and my eyes widened to the point of physical pain as if auditioning for a late night car yard commercial, as there in my arms our beautiful, beautiful baby had been transformed … into a miniature Peter Costello.
The likeness was uncanny. In my shock I expected him to hand down some sort of a budget. Deny a leadership challenge or bemoan a lack of dinner invites to the Lodge.
I quickly ruffled his hair back to its natural state and Costello vanished. The missus and I exchanged curt, wide eyed looks like the hoity Russian chicks who work at our local Radiology centre. I gave the baby to her. She brushed his hair as I had done. Nothing. Still our wee boy. He gurgled and gooped.
What devilish power of transformation was it that I held in my hands?
The missus handed the wee brush to me and nodded. The South American band from the market, hired by the neighbour as a surprise for his wife’s birthday unexpectedly kicked into action - a haunting, windy Ande’s type vulture soaring above me scenario.
And so with hands more jittery than a groom’s with a ring I hovered the brush above the boy’s head. The music sharpened. A bead of sweat worked its way down my cheek.
I brushed, just as she had done.
For a moment, nothing. The dog came back in. We breathed a sigh of relief, looked at each other with love again then looked back down to find Costello back, gazing up at us with exhausted eyes and ever thinning lips.
“Out,” I say holding up the brush and giving the baby to the missus who ruffles his hair and hisses that I’m never to brush it again. “Out, damn you to hell!”
And with that, I toss it out the back door where it sails serenely over the back fence and clocks the guy from the market who sold it to us fair square on the back of the head - rendering him somewhat unconscious.
It seems he is the manager of the band and doesn’t go anywhere they don’t and now markets the brush as without doubt the last homing brush in Australia.
The wee baby giggles in his mothers steady arms and beams the most unutterably beautiful smile yet witnessed on earth by human eyes. I grab half a dozen relieved beers, go to the party next door and ask the band what they really think of Paul Simon.
| 44 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
Comment by Tyronne
Music Times
Sydney Fun
Melbourne DiaryStar
Comment by jon
Orble News
Urban Hint
Blog Adviser
Jon's Bookmarks
Debate Battle
Orblepedia
Orble Notes
Sydney WeekendNotes
You may also need to add the email address admin -at- orblemail.com to your address book in order to receive Orble admin emails in the future.
Thanks,
Jon.
(Orble Admin)