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Why don’t you tell Joe that? Brett suggested, nodding towards the bar where a certain Mr Camilleri was opening negotiations involving a Victoria Bitter.

I’ll pay for that, I interjected, waving a bank note towards the bar attendant. Least I could do. Great show, Joe.

Joe may or may not have recognized me as the you could grovel dude from Wavelength seven or eight hours earlier, but looked at me with a bewildered expression and the sort of gesture that goes with extreme puzzlement.

The bastards wouldn’t dance, he remarked.

They usually don’t, I pointed out. Not till the encore. Mate, you did really well.. (Or words to that effect). 

Whatever the wording it was enough to start a conversation that continued shout for shout for a couple of hours as Wilbur Wilde attempted to out-cool someone I ended up teaching with in Bowen a couple of years later about ten metres away.

It must have been around two when Joe looked at me and remarked that with a voice like that I could possibly do well in a doo wop band.

You mean, I suggested, something like “Book Of Love” by The Monotones? Well I wonder wonder who de doo doo who....

The Joe jamming rumour may have failed to get off the ground, but the partial rendition of Book Of Love that followed, fuelled by many beers, may not have reached any great heights musically, but remains something that I’ll carry to my grave.

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© Ian Hughes 2015