Sox on Cox
A Dad in the States
got a message one day:
Dad, I’ve been arrested.
It’s bad.
Then nothing.
No why.
No what.
No comforting fact.
Just five little words
and a small heart attack.
He searched Brisbane news
from the far side of Earth.
There were fights.
There were deaths.
Nothing close to this mirth.
“Oh Christ,” thought the Dad,
“what has he done?”
Meanwhile in Brisbane,
the answer was:
“Fun.”
The students were making
a film for their college.
A cultural project.
The flowering of knowledge.
They wanted Scooby-Doo.
They wanted some fright.
Queen Street Mall
became Scary Island that night.
There’d be monsters!
There’d be chasing!
There’d be terror galore!
Then somebody mentioned
they shouldn’t wear drawers.
“Nude is the baseline.”
And nobody said no.
Which tells you most things
you should know about the show.
Then somebody shouted:
“SOX ON COX!”
So Cox put on socks.
Then Coxes wore socks.
There were Coxes in socks
doing laps past the shops.
Socks high on Cox.
Socks low on Cox.
Cox chasing Cox
around Queen Street blocks.
Cox fleeing Scooby
past startled shop clocks.
Bare bums.
Big laughs.
Then came the coppers.
The students cried, “Art!”
and explained Scary Island
from finish to start.
“It’s Scooby!”
“It’s college!”
“It’s daring!”
“It’s fun!”
The police reached the view
that Art still needs pants on.
Back in America,
Dad started to learn.
Nobody was shot.
Nobody did burn.
“We were naked.”
Good.
“In the Mall.”
Less good.
“There was Scooby-Doo.”
Worse.
“And socks.”
Of course.
And now comes the day
when the jokes meet the law.
The students approach
the great courthouse door.
Dad paces in America,
imagining clocks,
judges,
lawyers,
and an evidence box
carefully labelled:
STATE
versus
COXES IN SOCKS.
The students go in.
Dad waits by the phone,
with coffee gone cold
and the morning half gone.
At last comes the message.
No prison.
No shocks.
Just fines,
and a warning,
for Coxes in socks.
Dad reads it once.
Then laughs to himself.
Puts down the phone.
Pours something else.