Comedy of Turmoil

By Bruce Hanna

HUGH JANUS is an obscure stand-up comedian working in a dump of a nightclub like an old time Humphrey Bogart movie set. His story is a non-conformist comedy of erotic self-indulgence and violently interwoven relationships around him. Humiliated by his wife and bullied by his boss, Janus’s scandalous performances win him success and infamy in a blaze of betrayal, drugs, sex, violence and murder.

Finding a gun against his head is nothing new to Janus. His life is an erratic and erotic search for artistic meaning and personal truth. Janus weaves a dangerous self-indulgent path through violent turmoil often of his own making. His domineering wife Deanna resents his dependence on her money and he resents her. She is a mysteriously powerful woman with international connections. She debases him and she punishes him when necessary; and she saves him from trouble when she must. He is a pain in the arse, but he’s her pain in the arse. She tries to force Janus to give up show biz and get a normal job. In despair Deanna seeks satisfaction in an affair with her psychiatrist while Janus carries on a number of secret liaisons with the nightclub’s staff, his mistress and prostitutes. It seems a perfect marriage in some ways.

Janus must conceal his relationship with Daisy the wild-eyed exotic dancer in the nightclub. Daisy is the lifelong friend of Deanna, and the mistress of the jealous nightclub boss. Eighty year-old Henri Kaye is a sadistic and conniving old-school gangster, troubled by sexual dysfunction and ill-health. Boss Henri plagues Janus with comedy advice and wartime nostalgia from the holocaust.

The turbulent tale of Janus is a comedy in honor of the soul's need to belong and the ego’s craving for attention, with ambiguities of love and lust - the simple gravity that holds people together as they fall apart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bruce Hanna
• Release date: Apr 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370474127

Bruce Hanna

“I’m no writer. I actually don’t write. The stuff just comes out, like the insides of an insect clinging to the windscreen of a speeding vehicle.” – Bruce HannaAfter growing up among construction sites and factories of western Sydney, Australia, Bruce Hanna became a homeless outlaw, hunted by Federal, State and Army police due to his refusal to collaborate in the USA-led war against Vietnam. He was later granted amnesty under the Whitlam-Barnard Labor government.Hanna’s writing and cartoons appeared on fringes of the Australian press, including The Bulletin, Nation Review, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, Tribune and the underground tabloid Paper TV. They may also be found in obscure collections of his poetry, along with Suicide Circus, an illustrated homage to the self-devastation of the human race, along with his PsychoJunk recordings beginning with Mad Dog on Crazy Street (1999).Hanna’s first novel Fatal Moments (published by A&R in 1987) caused Peter Bowler in Canberra Times to remark on a “delicious thread of dry humour running through the high drama” and “the sheer outrageous fecundity of Hanna’s imaginativeness.” Hanna reveals the World in spurts of liquid insight, and outrage etched into his writing by acidic humour, as reflected in Sentimental Traveller (2020) a compassion-fuelled narrative of cross-century travels. Some years ago, his e-books (Babu, Comedy of Turmoil and Scrapheap of Dreams) with Sentimental Traveller were made available free of charge, for educational purposes.

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COMEDY OF TURMOILS

By Bruce Hanna

Distributed by Smashwords

Copyright 2017 Bruce Hanna

Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

About the author

Other books by Bruce Hanna

Chapter 1

"I have this thing about tall women,

When I grow up I want to be the Seven Dwarfs.

And I got a thing about soap & water too,

You know if you use enough deodorant

You don’t need to bathe at all." - Hugh Janus.

A black man in blue overalls stared upward at the swarthy interrogator in white shirt with sweat-stained armpits. Bloodshot brown eyes glared hatefully from both faces. The nightclub security guy caught the black caretaker resting in worktime, and he made a big deal of it. Marty Marino stood hands on hips out back of the nightclub, sneering, waiting for an answer.

Al Toogood was glad Marty Marino did not catch him reading the paperback he hastily stuffed in his hip-pocket. He took a long breath. He stared at Marty’s mouth and the neat-trimmed goatee beard round it. Al felt his hand ripen into a fist. But to hit a bully is as useless as kicking a dog for stinking. His fingers unclenched. It was not worth the risk of losing a good job.

What’s wrong with you? Marty barked again. Cat got your tongue?

What’s wrong with me? Al sneered. I’m indigenous, aren’t I?

Marty snarled, I don’t give a fuck if you’ve got indigestion or heartburn. Get back to work. Is that too much to ask? You’re not on the reservation now!

Al’s modest ambitions he described as approximately none. Marino made sure they stayed that way. Trouble began from the get-go. Al was caretaker for several years before Marty started on the job and immediately began to throw his weight round the place. Marty Marino had the same megalomaniac attitude of a redneck cop in an outback town, according to Al. He did not like Marty the bouncer or his shaved head or the gold cross on a chain round his neck or his little beard. But even more Al hated trouble. He learned his lesson as a ward of the state and when gaoled as a youth. You have to think of consequences. He wasn’t proud of the fact that he once served time, nor was he ashamed of it he said, though he seemed to be secretly both. The old man, boss Henri was broadminded. He paid no attention when Marty said you can’t trust a gaolbird no matter what its colour. Though Marty hated him, the good side for Al was Marty hated Hugh Janus even worse.

When boss Henri was away-on-business, Marty’s importance swelled. He was in charge. One of Al’s fondest memories was the occasion Marty spied the performers’ door locked.

Big boss Henri respected the performers’ territory. Little boss Marty did not. When Marty discovered the backroom door locked, he banged with the heel of his fist and demanded entry. Obtaining no response from inside, Marty was outraged. He rushed about searching for a duplicate key.

Al laughed later as he described the fiasco. Marty furiously hunted in the boss’s office. He spilled the contents of a drawer everywhere on the floor.

Marino went mental. You should have seen him on his hands and knees...

Then Al described Marty with his face swollen and red darting back down the corridor.

Marty banged and yelled at the locked door, Who is in there? Daisy, can you hear me? Hey-y-y! Answer me, Hello in there….

Al laughed like he was on a stomach pump as he recalled how Marty thumped and kicked at the solid door. Then Marty crouched to spy through the keyhole. The view was obscured on the other side. Marty didn’t need to see more….

Open up! I can hear what’s going on in there! Janus, is that you? I know you’re in there.

Al had the spare key in his pocket the whole time, as Marty dashed out to the bar, searching for it. In Marty’s absence, Al moved a sheet of plasterboard to reveal a hole in the wall. He pressed his face close and peeped through.

What an eyeful. He was greeted by a ring-side shot of Daisy Cutter on her hands and knees, and from behind, Hugh Janus going at her like the clappers. Al was seized by a familiar pang of envy or jealousy, he did not know which; maybe both, it made no difference, Daisy was way out of Al’s league. She was far too good for old Henri, and she was too good for Janus too for that matter, but she seemed to not care. Al slid the plasterboard sheeting back to conceal the spyhole.

A couple of days before Henri’s return, Marty cornered Al in the back toilets, and he hissed in Al’s ear, You were there. Remember? You must have heard them, didn’t you?

Al said he heard nothing, and he didn’t remember anything.

Don’t kid me, Man! You know what was going on. You saw they locked the door. You know Janus was in there, the bastard, him and Daisy with the door locked. Come on Al, you know as well as I do what he was up to.

I saw nothing, Al said with a shake of his head, meeting Marty’s eyes. All I remember is you wrecking the boss’s office. That was a…

That’s got nothing to do with it, Marty snapped. You just keep out of it, keep your mouth SHUT… if you know what’s good for you.

Okay, said Al with a sarcastic grin. I will if you do.

The trouble was, though sufficiently-armed with suspicions Marty had no proof. He remembered the angry look on Henri’s face whenever the old guy heard any bad news. By the time Henri returned, Marty no longer had courage. After all, Janus and Daisy would deny everything. It would be his word against two liars. Marty had enough experience to know liars always win. He shut up. He let his hatred fester, waiting for a better chance to backstab Janus. That’s how Janus got away with blue murder, time after time. Al was amused by Janus’s narrow escapes. Like years before, Janus had a thing for a backpacking Argentine chick who worked behind the bar. The Argentinian lass and Janus were careless, and Marty Marino watched with delight as a small scandal developed. Then his chance came.

Marty shot off his mouth one busy night when Janus’s fancy-dressed wife was in earshot at the Club. Al witnessed the fracas, as Janus’s wife freaked out. Al expected her to rip Janus apart with her manicured claws. Her fine ways disappeared when she overheard Marty. The enraged wife dragged the scruffy comedian out to the backroom. She went ape-shit, screaming and chucking chairs about and smashing stuff. Then she came back out front, shoving Janus ahead of her to the bar, and she confronted Henri in front of everyone. Punters at tables and staff watched in amazement. The Argentine lass shrank behind the bar.

Janus’s wife sneered and said calmly, Get rid of the bitch!

Boss Henri obeyed like a schoolkid. He fired the Argentine lass on the spot. The girl gave Janus a spray of verbal abuse as she went, because Janus bowed his head and said nothing to defend her. That was all. Janus was charmed. The best part was watching Marty Marino grumble about the injustice. Jovial Janus escaped punishment in his normal way with free unlimited booze from the bar, free cigarettes and beer nuts, not to mention potting the boss’s missus on the side, doing the bar staff if he liked and getting away with it all scot-free. Most wives would have dumped him flat, but Deanna Kaye seemed perversely, almost pathologically devoted to the rascally comedian Janus.

*

Everybody in the Club overheard the scenes that night between the wild wife and her unfaithful husband. When the hullabaloo settled, the Argentine bargirl was out of the picture, Henri told Al to work back after the show to clean up the damage left by Cyclone Deanna.

The matrimonial ruckus had been heard all over the Club. Then later, when Janus came onstage the audience were in uproar at the sight of him. His T-shirt hung almost torn off his back. A big scratch shone red on his face. Nobody listened to his act. They were laughing helplessly at the sight of Janus. The humiliated comedian flustered his lines. His wife’s ballistic performance had blown him offstage before he got there. The entertainment was magnificent.

It took hours for Al to clean up the mess after the show. The front doors were finally shut. Al remembered feeling sorry for Janus at Henri’s table with his wife and the others. As Al went by one way he noticed her glare at Janus with a look of hatred. Then strangely, lugging a crate of empties on the way back Al saw a sweet smile come on her face, as though doting on an errant child. She leaned toward Janus and she kissed the scratch on his face like she owned it. Finally, with cleaning up over, as he went Al noticed the wife clinging to Janus’s arm like a daffy teen on her first date. Janus sat passively while Henri gently scolded them.

Don’t ever do that to me again - this nightclub means The World to me.

The eighty-year old nightclub-owner’s voice softened, eye-bags and jowls cast shadows on his face with a deceptive suggestion of frailty, If I do only one thing before I die, I want to make this place into something. You know, artistically and legitimate-like…. It would be sort of nice to look back on when I get older….

They were crackers, all those people. Al reckoned that was half their charm. Night folk were not normal. They did not know what normal was. But they were fun. They made life interesting. The notorious nightclub was great, Al worked in plenty worse dumps and a black ex-con was lucky to have a job at all.

From the start, the chubby caretaker had a soft spot for the kid comedian Hugh Janus. Hughie, Al called him until the kid asked him not to. The smart-ass, young punk comic was raw and carefree with a chip on his shoulder. He was adored by his wife. She was slightly-older than him. Her uncle owned the nightclub. On occasion, the wife Deanna Kaye acted in a motherly way, other times she treated Janus as a pitiable misfit. Janus was enough of a misfit without her help. On his left forearm was a crude tattoo that made Al laugh when he first saw it - a cartoon outline of male genitalia above the words Fear No Cunt.

It had a do-it-yourself look. Over twenty years the impact of the tattoo faded, and Al saw Janus grow from a skinny odd-ball, foul-mouthed youth into a flabby, dissolute, regular comedy guy. Yet the crackpot comic remained a dinkum bloke. Fame when it came did not go to his head. He treated life as a joke, same as the rest of the weird mob in Henri’s Club, where no one laughed louder than boss Henri’s volatile girlfriend, Daisy Cutter the cabaret dancer. Al was obsessed by her. He admired slyly from the corner of his eye, as she tramped round the backroom mindlessly naked. He licked his lips to glimpse her stooped and showing her knickers, if she were wearing them. He enjoyed perving as she pranced round the Club in tightly-moulded shiny pink slacks. Daisy was hot, hot-tempered and unpredictable. He had a crush on her. She scared Al. He was fascinated by her. She was a dancing, walking wank-works. Janus found her that way too, it appeared. And always in the background was Janus’s high-pressured wife, the sophisticated and snooty lawyer-lady, Deanna Kaye. As smooth as golden syrup most of the time, without warning she cut loose like a sheet of corrugated iron in a storm. It seemed only a matter of time till everything turned to shit.

Chapter 2

"My balls taste DELICIOUS.

Twelve hundred Crab Lice can’t be wrong!"- Hugh Janus.

It was a happy time. Janus was jolly as a kid playing on the way to school, deaf to the bell ringing in the distance. Henri Kaye was celebrating a recent success. He chucked money about like chook pellets. The boss palmed dosh to Daisy, and told her to get her backside a facelift. He stuffed a wad of hundreds into Janus’s back pocket for good luck. Henri slipped Al a hundred dollar bonus, bringing tears to the black caretaker’s eyes.

Keep it quiet, Al. It’s just for you, boss Henri said. Don’t tell the others.

Janus for his part guessed the generosity came from no good. He saw Henri deliver a courier-case of cash to Deanna one night. Perhaps it was for safe-keeping or payback, possibly it was a sweetener or a pay-off. As usual, Janus turned a blind eye. The less he knew the better. It was common for his secretive wife and her wicked uncle to exchange sums of money, just as it was for them to exchange harsh words. He ignored it. He was simply glad to not be the target of either temper, especially hers. It took a lot of nerve to be her husband. And a thick hide. At the start of their relationship many years ago she brushed off his curiosity with a laugh, You wouldn't be intersted in what I do. It’s not a job, not a real job. You might call me a conveyancer of consequences. I don’t do things I just make them happen, and I’m good at it. You’d be bored, Darling, if I tried to explain.

Like he was dumb enough to fall for that - he let it drop. She was lucky he did not care. She would have been disappointed, if she tried to interest him in it after all these years. He was no wiser about her business now than he was in the beginning. The last time he asked what she was up to he was surprised by the sound of his voice. Its vehemence was natural but unintended. She said nothing at first, she simply stared. He was fed up with her caginess and her snaky half-smile.

After saying next to nothing she pursed her lips then cut off further discussion, That’s all you need to know. As if it is any of your business…

Even years ago, her deviousness was unnecessary. Now Janus was more disinterested than ever. What annoyed him was her superior attitude. Deanna made it clear for Janus to keep entirely out of her business. Henri was the same with his spurious foreign connections, shady investments and involvements. Legitimate or otherwise, both Deanna and Henri made clear it was none of Janus’s business.

Henri often welcomed dangerous-looking visitors to his nightclub. They flew from interstate or overseas. Or they at times appeared out of nowhere. Henri courted them with two thugs normally at his back, either for protection or to impress. Janus knew better than to ask questions. The old crook didn’t take kindly to prying.

Janus had his own problems. The comedy racket was undergoing changes. It was getting dirtier than ever. Janus felt he was being left behind by the new-wave of filth. Respectable TV comics were saying fuck and cunt on-air in prime time. That would have landed you in gaol in bygone years. Now the comedy-game was all motherfucker and cocksucker and anal-sex, terrorist snuff-jokes and two-bob each-way politically-gelded satire. Nothing was sacred anymore. Fear and hatred reigned, and free speech turned to shit on stage. It was hard. Janus concentrated on planning his performance for Henri’s big New Year party. If the boss wanted to squander money on wall-to-wall booze, drugs and happy flesh that was the boss’s business. Janus was pleased to assist.

Hey, Henri warned Janus. Keep your eyes off the girls! I don’t want you giving your wife an excuse to spoil my night...

Sure, don’t worry about that.

Janus was more concerned with his act. Ideas were brewing. Like what’s the difference between kissing a pussy and kissing a man with a beard? The pussy doesn’t try to stick its tongue in your mouth, lots of stuff like that. His wife wouldn’t like it, but she didn’t like whatever he did. It wasn’t big time humour. In all honesty Janus had to admit Henri’s nightclub was a grubby haven of losers and low-brow entertainment. Drink prices were stiff even so the place was no goldmine. Some nights, in the old days, the joint was near-empty. These days, crowds mysteriously improved. Nonetheless, as an environment, the Club remained trapped in a time-warp late in the previous century, with cigarette smoke in the air. Nothing had changed. Marty Marino hovered bodyguard-fashion round boss Henri. At times Marino fluttered like a valet. Other times like a moth.

Henri’s two stony bodyguards ignored Marty. The thugs unexplainably disappeared hours at a time. Nonetheless, Marty went on whispering to Henri, as though the thugs remained listening. Besides hanging round the boss, Marty’s main function was to prowl the establishment in managerial fashion, spying and overseeing matters unnecessarily. Sometimes he rested by the nightclub entrance where he occasionally menaced an odd patron with witticisms such as: Make my day!

A magazine feature on nightspots dismissed Henri's Club as a second-rate set for a B-grade Humphrey Bogart movie. The snippet concluded with a short verse describing the nightclub as a dingy downstairs dump, and the floorshow as fancy dress dancing by an owl-eyed frump, and so-called comedy by a foul-mouthed chump. Daisy was insulted by the rhyme.

What the goddam hell is a Frump, anyway? she sniffed.

Henri muttered he would talk to someone. Despite the bad review, Janus excitedly looked forward to Henri’s party.

*

At home, one rare early night, Deanna and Hugh snuggled on the leather lounge, relaxed in comfortable, romantic harmony.

That was nice, said Deanna with a wink. We should make a New Year resolution to spend more ordinary time together.

Yeah, said Janus, quickly flicking the remote button to get the news. I can’t wait. This New Year is special. I’ve got a few new ideas for my act at Henri’s party.

Deanna scowled but Janus didn’t notice. A gourmet pizza slowly disappeared piece by piece from a china plate on the low table nearby. Outside double-glazed windows, silent shadows of large fernery thrashed in the wind in the darkness of a high-walled garden. Inside, the room shuddered with a reporter’s voice booming amidst all-round sound of war; from giant quadraphonic speakers came the frantic Whap-Whap-Whap of helicopter blades and the thunder of heavy artillery, a barrage of explosions and bursts of automatic gunfire…

Janus cried out, carefully balancing the pizza so grease dribbled down his wrist, Look at it! Bloody women and kids in those buildings…. Dammit - blown apart in front of a man’s eyes….

Romance flew out the window. Deanna was sick of bad news…. and she was sick of the sight of Janus slumped morosely on the couch like a mental patient. He watched too much TV, scratching at himself and grumbling at the World. She hated Janus on stage too. She got enough of his silly rubbish at home.

Night after night…. Boom! Boom! Boom… Janus whined with a mouthful of pizza.

Just look what these immoral imbeciles are doing….

Deanna endured the gruesome, senseless bloodshed and Janus’s commentary. If griping changed anything, the World would be different. Too bad… the fact is, griping changes nothing. Things were never different. Complaining about the Ways of the World is a waste of time. Everything is about money. You play the game, or the game plays you, simple as that. Deanna knew the rules too well, after all, she considered herself a player.

She said, If you don’t like the TV program, Hugh, switch to another channel.

There were dozens of channels to choose from. She mentioned there was a cooking show on at least one. She hated cooking. But she liked to watch people do it. Janus swore his wife never cooked a meal in her life. She did not deny it. After the news, came the sports report and Janus muted the sound. Deanna watched without interest. Ladies hit golf balls. Men hit men. Janus licked melted cheese-grease from his fingers and he told Deanna how the night before he watched Marty the bouncer kick a small guy’s teeth down his neck on the floor of the Club. The brawl only ended when Al the aboriginal caretaker stepped in before Marty killed the guy.

What did you do? Deanna asked.

She wiped her hands on a linen napkin and she relit a half-smoked four-paper joint.

No use trying to do anything. You can’t reason with a bonehead like Marty. Anyway it was none of my business. They had an argument over some prostitute.

Janus reached toward the smoke. Deanna held it beyond his reach. She glared at his slimy fingers.

I don’t know how any self-respecting man can have sex with a prostitute, she muttered.

A stream of smoke swelled from her nose and mouth. Janus saw the look on her face, glaring at him like a dragon, and he shut up, before he said what he was thinking. They were meaningless words she would find offensive. Yet the gag appealed to him and days later he used the idea in his comedy act. It got a few laughs, not a nice joke, but what’s nice? The World is a mess, a maelstrom in fact, and Janus loved the worldwide insanity as an addict loves the drug eating-away all other meaning. He railed at life’s failings with fascination. His own problems he treated with regal detachment. He thought himself a master of life’s syncopated chaos, secure in his portion of all-consuming universal turbulence. Whether his life was on the up-and-up or going-nowhere, things could be worse. Just ask the guy Marty gave a kicking to.

*

Christmas came and went. Christmas meant nothing to anyone in Henri’s Club, beyond a few dismal decorations and extra dollars in the till. Work was busier than normal. Arriving early at the Club one night before the New Year, Janus gave a weak wave to Marty Marino and he hurried through the darkened venue.

In the back passageway the chubby caretaker Al was hefting aluminium kegs onto a stack. Interrupting his grunts of exertion, Al enquired why Janus was in a hurry.

I’m busting for a crap, Janus said.

Hey brother, you must be a Boss, if you got time to take a shit, chuckled the sweaty black man.

Al slapped dust off his hands, and said, Hey! I’ve got a joke to tell you….

Al always had a joke to tell. It had to wait. Janus made it to the musty dunny, barely in time to drop his trousers. Ah-h-h-h! The creative process arrived at the moment of performance. Intense relief and pleasure were unspoiled by run-down surroundings and the dull dripping of rusty pipes. With a shiver Janus enjoyed the philosophical fullness, the sudden yield of resistance, and the easy slide of well-worked material, a pause for effect, the surging culmination and effortless delivery, and the slosh of applause that followed. Ah-h-h! Yes! The mystery of Life was therein contained in three elements: Creation! Performance! Fulfilment!

Janus sat absorbed in gratified humidity, cooling-down vaguely, an emotion similar to coming offstage. He reached for the paper roll. He sucked air through teeth as he wiped… Micro-fibres of tissue gnawed his tenderly sensitive flesh. He flushed and departed from the cubicle. He wetted and dried his hands over the grime-stained porcelain basin, ignoring soap in a nearby crockery dish. With time to go before the show, Janus gravitated to the bar.

The topless bargirl with splendidly tattooed breasts slyly raised a cupped palm to her lips. She shot in her mouth something too small to be seen. Janus smiled. From behind a mask of indifference he watched closely…. her face mostly. He savoured her immodesty. She avoided his eyes, but she spied him in the mirror. His intense look pleased her. He saw in the mirror a smile creep on her lips. The crazy little pill freak was half his age, far too young for anything but his private thoughts… My, my, my….

Janus never understood women. And they too, his wife for instance, they did not understand him. Maybe just as well! His marriage was already rocky. He was thinking of his wife as he retreated from the bar with a whiskey and a pack of nuts for his pal, Al. He congratulated himself how wise he was to keep away from the dark-eyed tattooed bargirl. The ongoing effort drew a heavy sigh from him.

Janus smoothly cruised out of sight. When time came he sprang onstage, his gaze perused the dim shadows of the audience, his voice booming from the PA: Felicitations Flesh-Eaters, Fisters and Felchers… Welcome to Henri's Club...

Behind the bar, young Maria slipped a folded fifty out of sight into her handbag with lizard-like eyes innocently stage-ward. The scruffy middle-aged comedian sprayed the microphone with glints of verbiage-borne saliva. In the glare of stage-lights, elevated and illuminated, Hugh Janus sweat through his familiar routine.

Mandy, the waitress muttered to Maria, What the Hell is a Felcher??? My God, he is such a reprobate, this guy! His clothes need burning, not washing… with him IN them preferably.

Onstage Janus scratched his behind like a child who knows no better. He hit out a joke into the audience-shadows beyond the heat of stage-lit glare.

Life is hard, isn’t it? You gotta be tough to survive, eh? I’m tough. Yeah, real tough - I’m so tough it frightens me. Every time I hear myself fart, I shit myself.

It was not a home-run. A voice yelled from the edge of the scattered shadows.

I wondered where that stink was coming from!

Without a look, Janus gave a finger in the heckler’s direction, as he groaned into the microphone, It’s hard to be tough when you’re poor. We were so poor in the old days when I was young. I thought people who wore shoes had no feet.

His delivery rolled lazily, a light laughter followed.

We were so poor we didn’t know what poverty was. Our Mum sent us out at night to shit in the front yard! She was trying to impress people! She figured folks passing in the street next day would see the turds among the weeds… and they would think we were rich enough to own a dog!

Behind the bar Maria shook her head. Beads of perspiration trickled, as she worked like a wind-up doll. More punters drifted in. The audience swelled to a decent size. Maria glanced at the stage with half a smile. She’d heard the patter before.

Our Mum didn’t wear make-up. No jewels, no fancy hoo-ha, like underclothes and all that middle-class bullshit, Janus bellowed, with an occasional pause, glaring one moment defiantly the next eyes-glazed dementedly at shady shapes beyond the bright lights burning his face.

We were very down to earth at our place - literally Down to Earth! You can’t get any more down to earth than we did in the winter… no damn electricity bills for us mob… we chopped up the floorboards for firewood.

He gave an evil grin.

Posh luxuries… like toilet paper… hey, they were too snooty for us. But it was not easy - let me tell you, it was a fucking hassle when it came time to wipe your bum! In our dunny you needed a magnifying glass - to find a clean spot on the wall to wipe your finger.

He carefully wiped his finger in mid-air on an imaginary wall, inspecting it closely and giving his fingertip a close sniff, raising a couple of lonely howls of disgust or laughter.

"Toilet paper was a status symbol in our street. Of course, we wanted to raise our prestige as much as the next no-hopers … and we got a batch of stuff from the public toilets at the local footy ground. That’s not stealing it’s free enterprise… well, free dunny paper anyway! That was the best bit, watching our neighbours’ jealous sneers. I bet they wished they thought of it first. You could see their green eyes staring through curtain-holes as they watched us dancing down the street with our pockets full of the dunny paper we collected… good stuff too – most of it almost unused.

It’s all a case of using your brains creatively in the spirit of enterprise. Get in first, grab it fast, and get out before you get caught. We discovered the less-soiled tissues made excellent face wipes too! Janus popped his eyes wide.

They would have been handy for wrapping a school lunch if we had one.

He was delighted with a loud groan close to the stage.

Watching in the bar mirror as she fixed drinks, Maria wondered why she found Janus interesting. It was not his humour. He evinced a certain grubby cred. The rude tattoo on his arm was something else. Still, he remained an average-looking oldish guy. Probably less than average to be honest…. She had little interest in the gags booming from the loudspeakers, as she pumped beers. Yet, she felt a slow, involuntary response rise from within herself to the tone of Janus’s voice.

"We couldn’t afford a funeral when Grandpa died....so we dumped his corpse on the couch and left him there. Grandma was full of praise. She said it was the first time in fifty years he let her get in a word edgeways!

Yeah, you should have seen Granny’s eyes sparkle…. Then she began to get frisky. When we heard her rubbing her thighs together we knew something was going on. She said a man with listening skills does that to a woman. We had to be ready for when she came back on heat and tried to romance Grandpa’s carcass again.

Janus made a flamboyant show of disbelief. There was an awkward moment of great quietness in which glasses could be heard clashing behind the bar, before he continued.

"Then our stuck-up neighbours took up a petition about the smell. Health Department inspectors raided us in a truck. They tried to wrap up Grandpa in a rubber tarpaulin and take him away. Poor old Granny freaked out! She sprayed the inspectors with her colostomy bag…. And she fought them off with her walking stick…. She was no shrinking violet, our old Granma! She raised herself to her full height, which wasn’t much…. she would have been knee-high to a dinner table if we had one… Yet all the same she was a frightful sight with the back of her dress tucked into the leather chastity belt that our Mum forced her to wear after her first date with Grandpa’s corpse on the couch.

Old Grandma gave a blood-curdling yell! She screamed at the Health Inspectors, You can’t take him, I love him, she cried: Go to Bloody Hell! Don’t take him now - I’m just starting to get used to the smell!

Janus finished his final set suddenly. He thanked the crowd and disappeared offstage, as punters raised their eyes from their ashtrays and realised he was no longer there. It was a dull night for everyone.

Long after the show, the nightclub’s solo dancer sat at the bar. A hint of dim fatigue glowed from Daisy Cutter’s powdered face. Raised brows pencilled above her eyes gave her a look of permanent surprise. Faint vertical creases above her bright red upper lip and crowfeet at the corners of her eyes complimented slight wrinkles round her neck. She decorated the bar stool with the air of a lady with a half eye out for a customer. Dispensed with her exotic stage costume, now in a pair of skin-tight pink slacks and a loose top revealing pale smoothness snugged loose in a scanty lace bra, she stirred rum and black soda with a swizzle stick. She drank from the glass, while behind the bar between stacking glassware and wiping surfaces, bargirl Maria slipped into a blouse. Maria buttoned the blouse partway. Daisy sneered with admiration at a startling fringe of tattoo either side the young woman’s deep cleavage. She saw breasts that required no support. Both women groused about life, without much listening to the other. Daisy castigated men in general, a worthless lot except for maybe one or two... maybe! Maria bemoaned a disappointing childhood, and life on the street as a teenage runaway….

Blah-blah-blah….

Yeah, blah-blah-blah….

The bargirl fell silent in mid-sentence and lowered her eyes when Janus wandered near. In the mirror, Daisy saw reflected behind her shoulder, Janus’s smirk of sly curiosity. The bargirl ignored the comedian too obviously. Out of the girl’s sight, Janus patted Daisy’s backside like he didn’t mean it. It didn’t fool her. She summarised her secret thoughts aloud, like a lonely, bored nutcase.

Bah!

Later, she wandered among empty chairs in direction of the backroom, she lingered where Henri sat, at his table of glasses, bottles, ashtray and ash. Daisy resisted an urge to clean and tidy it. She discretely glanced over her shoulder, toward Janus at the bar bullshitting to young Maria.

Daisy sneered to Henri, That bloody Maria makes me laugh. She guts-aches what a tough life she had! Humph! She’s had it easy. You know her trouble? She hasn't been hurt enough yet, to no-longer care...

Henri sneered and blew a smoke cloud into Daisy’s heavily made-up face.

Everybody thinks they have it tough! If the young bitch wants to know what a tough time is, I'll show her what a Tough Time is. Ha-ha! Send her to me. I have the perfect job for her tight little two-way street.

Yeah, I’m sure she’d thank me for that, Daddy, Daisy laughed, and Henri called for another bottle, with a vigorous wave of his hand at Maria.

With sign-language Henri indicated what he wanted. The bargirl now fully-clothed gritted her teeth in a smile and slid the bag-strap off her shoulder. She dumped the bag out of sight under the bar. Janus strolled over from the bar and joined Henri and Daisy. He slumped lazily on the nearest empty chair as Henri waved his cigar with a flick. A big ash floated gracefully in the air.

This rubbishy booze might be alright for the punters but it upsets my pancreas. Here, you finish it if you want. It tastes like methanol-laced dead woman’s piss.

Henri growled, shoving a near-empty bottle toward Janus. Then Henri glared at Maria when she tabled two bottles of Russian stuff. She paid no attention to the boss, she was eyeing Janus. Daisy stared coldly as Janus had a side-glance at Maria’s departing backside, and Henri ripped the lid off one bottle, sploshing vodka at a short glass. Janus followed suit but he added as much water and he poured another for Daisy.

Bloody kids have a sheltered life these damned days, Henri growled.

He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, capturing dribble from swollen lips, Bloody girls with tattoos, and guys who don’t even carry a knife! Now they all wanna wave round a pop-gun. In my day only weak bastards carried a piece. What an ass-about fuck up. They think they have it tough now. Bah! And you….

Henri Kaye gave Janus a few tips to improve his act.

"A thousand spots do not a leopard make, and a string of sick jokes does not make a comedian. Don’t tell me you never heard of Shecky Greene. What about Milton Berle and Red Skelton, surely. You should watch some old Jack Benny movies, he was a star. Those yanks had class when comedy had class! Not like nowadays. They could crack a joke that’d crack you up. And you never once heard them talking filth.