It started with a bet.
The bet was to see who could pick the most buckets of tomatoes. The job was on commission, so it was important to pick hard. On the first day I picked the most buckets. On the second day Tim did. The loser had to chop the wood.
Now, caravan park axes are pretty blunt at the best of times. And I’m not the best with my wood chopping technique. But I was still giving it a good go.
And, I didn’t know it at the time, but Tim and Candy were hiding behind a hill, watching, making sure that I fulfilled my end of the bet.
A couple of guys came and offered to help me, and I knocked them back. I had to chop the wood.
Then along came Oliver, just standing there, shirtless and muscly, carrying a beautiful sharp axe behind his shoulders.
It was probably a Kellie’s Axe.
Oliver was at the caravan park slumming it from the Rainbow Festival. Think Christian Hippies meet giardia. Oliver was full of ego; thought he had the power to turn lesbians into threesomes and other gross shit. And he just stood there and humbugged.
“Fuck off Oliver, I have to chop this wood up for a bet.”
But fuck off he didn’t, so in the end after what seemed like eons and only two small bits chopped, I just thought stuff it all, and let him chop the wood.
Out of nowhere Tim and Candy came running up yelling at me ‘We knew it, we knew that you’d get someone else to chop the wood”
We ended up with heaps and heaps of wood in the end. And in a Caravan Park heaps of wood means a party, so I invited the whole caravan park to dinner.
I had this idea that the more people I could feed, then the wealthier we would be as a community, so the caravan park leant me some huge pots to cook up big mobs of rice, pasta and vegies. Later an English woman told me about food not bombs and that I should go to the cities and feed homeless people. So, I did.
But back at the park, that big mob of wood was the problem. We drank way too much. I stayed awake till morning talking to a guy from Wales, coz he kept saying ‘Ei, that’s grand’ to every thing that I said, which sounds really nice in Welsh. And we had already decided that we were not going to go and pick tomatoes tomorrow, so we could sleep in and nurse hangovers.
So, it was crazy early in the morning, around 5 am, that the people who run the Caravan Park came to get ask and hassle us into working at Morello’s capsicum farm. We were both still drunk so it seemed like a great idea.
But when we got there, we realized it was a mistake.
There were two thin supervisors yelling at people, nonstop. Pick faster, come on, pick those capsicums faster. It’s impossible to pick capsicums that fast, you have to check they are the right color and size before you pick them. And mistakenly picking a capsicum just led to absolute abuse by these supervisors.
I was picking across the row from an elderly Hungarian man. He smiled at me and said ‘You know animal farm, this is like animal farm, no?’
Along with the two supervisors were the two Morello brothers, Big intimidating guys with handle bar moustaches.
Vito Morello, the oldest of the two brothers, was really bullying this Mouri kid, I mean he was probably a teenager but he looked like a kid. ‘Come on you Mouri piece of shit’ He was saying.
And then we had smoko.
And the hangover was really starting to kick in.
Our smoko break was a meeting, with the two Morello Brothers yelling at all of us for not picking capsicums fast enough. And then they started picking on the little Māori kid again, ‘And as for you, you piece of shit’
So, I hate talking in front of people and making a scene, but I hate racism, so I said, from the very back.
‘Excuse me Sir, but you are using very strong language here and It’s in front of children and elderly woman so I don’t think this is appropriate.’
To which the younger brother replied, ‘This is my fucking farm, and I will say whatever the fuck I like on my fucking farm’
“And you can walk.’
Then Tim said, I’m leaving with her, and started walking to. Then he turned around and said “We need to tell you our bank account details because we have just done 4 hours work.
To which he replied ‘you can write your fucking bank account details on my fucking arse’
And then the Māori kid started walking to. I asked him why and he said it was because the only reason I was in trouble in the first place was for standing up for him.
We were followed by the skinny supervisors in their Ute. They drove with the bumper right on our legs and pointed a shotgun at us the whole way.
It was at least 8 km’s back to town, let alone the Caravan Park. We stopped at the pub. I got so drunk I was singing Karaoke songs that I didn’t even know the melody to, just to annoy people.
Back at the caravan park the owners were upset with us for leaving work, even after telling them what happened. Like they were doing us huge favors taking cuts for finding workers for farms.
Tim has never eaten a capsicum since.
I try not to.
Some say that it’s a credit to society that hardly any farms get burnt down. I say sometimes, it’s a bloody shame.
it's a secret room 