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It's a great generalization to know boarders weren’t meant to be very bright, apparently. We played football, and could hit a ball hard, but most of us pretty much knew the odds of a poker hand. We knew the likelihood of the next card coming down in a 21 or blackjack. Why? Because gambling was rife in the boarding house. We even had our own gambling den, which was quite spectacular until it got busted by Stinger in our final year of boarding. Anyhow, the most interesting story in my gambling career at boarding school was my exposure to this fella from the North East, or rather, middle Asia. His father had a lot of money and maybe participated in some, I don’t know, interesting activities. He used to send his son hundreds of thousands of dollars every month to basically go to the races or take them to West Point Casino, which was less than 400 meters away from the boarding house. I remember this one fine day; or night, rather. Let’s call him Joseph Tau. Joseph took me and a group of others, and we snuck out of the boarding house about 1 AM. For some reason, I remember the jumper I was wearing was one I’d borrowed from this guy Raj. It had this red covering with strange little patterns; certainly the sort of thing that brings attention to you because it was so ridiculous. I was all of 5 foot 6, 64 kilos, and looked closer to 12 than 18. Now, I’m 15, going to a casino. We had a few other boys, led by Joseph. Even though we were in grade 10, he was maybe already 18 or 19, maybe even 20. Who knows. But a lot older than us. We get there, and he hands us a brick each. So I get a brick of cash. He basically points me to one of the larger blackjack tables, and I take one of the middle seats. Here I am, 15, and somehow the security back in those days didn’t seem to worry about it. Let me repeat: I was pretty small. Anyhow, I’m sitting at the table with a lot of chips. If you’ve ever heard of the term hot hands, well, this night I had the devil’s hands. I tell you, I was on fire. No matter what I threw down, it came out. Chips were piling up, and the table was surrounded by people because I was lucky. People started betting over the top of me. It wasn’t just me; there were two others at the table, these two Asian guys, and they were winning and winning. Then I heard the voice. It was like when God first let light into the universe: "Let there be light!" And this arm leans over, betting on my cards. This voice from behind; I knew it could be only one person. Only one person I’d ever known had a voice that deep. It was Mr. Horton, the chemistry teacher from the school. Mr. Horton was a very tall man with fiery red hair and a fiery red beard. I could hear that voice directly behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the red. And I’m like, Oh no but in much less polite terms. So I’m staring straight ahead. You got to remember, at this stage, I’m 15. I’ve got maybe $27,000 worth of chips in front of me. I’ve been gambling; there are people around me. Standing behind me is the school chemistry teacher. If he realizes it’s me, I’m so, so expelled. I’d have to explain to my parents I’d been possibly laundering money at the West Point Casino at the age of 15. Anyhow, a few hands pass. The towering teacher was placing secondary bets on my hands, literally leaning over his shoulder to place chips. Then I notice the red-haired hand grab his pile of chips and stand up and walk away. I wait maybe 10 or 15 minutes, then cash in my winnings. I sneak back into the boarding house at 4:45 in the morning. I think I finally fell asleep, ready for the 6 AM bell. A successful night out on the town. This was the first day I realised my Super Power, I am lucky, the greatest super power of them all.

The odds of a Poker Hand

In the context of 2024, it's vital to understand how drastically things have changed. Actions that might land you in jail today were often shrugged off back in the 80s. I was just a young lad in boarding school, a place overseen by a boarding house master who was nothing short of a legend. Allegedly, he was a priest, a doctor, a drunk, and a womanizer. He certainly wasn't running the establishment parents thought they were paying for. The boys in "Lord of the Flies" could have learned a thing or two about chaos from us. We were around 110 boys, running wild, and that was the beauty of it. This story is about "The Soldier." I remember being 14 when my friend Billy and I ventured to Brazilian Video, or whatever it was called, to pick out some movies. We selected a few appropriate for the little kids, a couple for everyone, and one R+ movie that no one was supposed to know about. That movie was "The Soldier." The movie opened with a bang: a terrorist driving his car straight over a lady with a pram, which, fortunately, was filled with cans. It was a soldier-type story, both light and confronting. The soldier went on to eliminate all the bad guys. In one memorable scene, he enters a house, sits at an office desk, takes a lamp, pulls out the light, uses a blowtorch to heat up the side of the light, injects some fuel; maybe petrol; into the molten glass, tapes it up, screws it back in, and walks away. Later, the bad guy sits down, turns on the light, and—goodnight, said the fox. Imagine what a group of 14-year-olds thought upon seeing that! Later that day, we went shopping for light bulbs, syringes, a jerrycan full of petrol, and some masking tape. A few of us merry lads headed to the grade eight dorm, which had 14 beds and a row of lights along the top. We heated the light bulbs, injected petrol into them, taped them up, and replaced the current bulbs with our modified ones. Our primary concerns were testing it without getting hurt, not getting caught, and witnessing the full explosive experience. As evening approached, we headed to the caravan park near the boarding house, from where we could see the upstairs rooms. The lights were all set, and one guy (initials B) just had to flick the switch. Boom! Not a loud sound, but a massive blinding flash, like a sunburst, filled the dorm. Flames shot out the windows, and it was over in a second. Shards of glass were found in our beds, clothes, and socks for weeks afterward. No light bulbs were left, only very little noise, and lots of cheering from us dickheads in the caravan park. All that followed was a little cleanup, and no one was ever the wiser. Until today.

The Soldier

It’s a peculiar thing to realize, the place you're born is like a lottery ticket - sometimes you scratch and win a bit of sunshine, and sometimes it's just a stub reminding you that you could have had more. I suppose that's why going to boarding school felt like I'd hit the jackpot. It wasn't about the education, though I guess that helped. It was about shedding the skin of being the wrong person in the wrong town. You know the type – towns where the most exciting event is the bi-weekly bingo night, and the biggest scandal is old Mr. Henderson's roaming tabby. I used to be someone there. Not someone of note, mind you, unless you count being noted for not fitting in. A round peg trying to jam himself into a square hole because the brochure said, "One size fits all." But that’s the thing about coastal towns – they have a certain shape, and woe betide those who can’t contort accordingly. I had to escape before I whittled myself away to nothing trying. And let me tell you, escaping to a middling city, it's like upgrading from a moldy basement to a room with a view. Not that I'm living the high life. I'm not the guy in a penthouse sipping champagne; I’m the guy in the elevator, going up, but enjoying the muzak more than I expected. Stardom? It was in the cards they said, if I gave a damn. Sometimes, I’d hover my finger over that button, tempted to care, to really try. But you know how it is. Caring is a lot of work. Caring is a bit like looking at my gut and knowing, with a little effort, I could see my toes again. There’s incentive there – I'm told women prefer a man whose belt they can see without a mirror. But salads taste like wilted dreams and exercise is a hamster wheel for humans. So, my gut stays, a testament to my apathy, and the ladies, well, they stay just out of reach. It’s a comfortable discomfort. Now, the real kicker, the real cherry on top of my 'escape the coastal life' sundae, was the allergies. The coast and my sinuses were at war, and I was the battlefield littered with tissues and the remains of nasal sprays. I was allergic to everything, except, ironically, dandelions. And wouldn't you know, they were considered weeds. The one thing the town wanted to get rid of was the one thing I could get close to. So, there I was, the wrong boy for the town, suddenly the right-ish man for this new place. It didn’t match the sweet dreams of childhood, where I was destined for greatness – or at least for not needing antihistamines. But here, in this city that’s okay with just being okay, I found a slice of peace, nestled between complacency and the occasional wild Friday night with more pizza than people. I never went back to that town. Some folks say you can't outrun your past. Maybe they’re right. But you can outrun a place where the biggest aspiration is to become manager of the local grocery store. And maybe, just maybe, if you run far enough, you find a spot that fits just right, like an old shoe you forgot how much you loved. And who knows, one of these days, I might even care enough to polish it.

The right person for the right town

The old man plants potatoes again, paddocks and paddocks of them. We spend our 
time picking them up, bagging them, stacking them in boxes, sweating away as we trek up and down the hills. It wasn’t exactly my idea of a holiday at 17, but it got worse.
You see, once you sold off all the good potatoes, you were left with the ones for next year. If a potato has what you call eyes—those little bits that stick out—you can slice it into pieces, and each piece can grow into several potatoes. There were boxes and boxes of these, and a knife, and you just sat there and cut them.
Now, that could be fun if you had a group of people who were fun to cut with, if you 
could listen to music, crack some jokes. But no, we always got the Brethren or the 
Selected Brethren or the Selected Selected Brethren, the Knights that say Knee or folks 
from some other religious group who didn’t like radios, talking, young people, or fun. So, 
cutting in visceral silence was the order of the day.
One day, there was one box left. Of course, the old biddies, the religious nutters, and 
those clapping their coconuts all decided to leave and leave the last box to me. So, there I was, utterly alone, sitting under the house with a knife, cutting potatoes.
Then a youth pulled up, and we'll protect names to protect the guilty, so let’s call him Simon Freestone. He came out and saw the last big box of potatoes. “Who would know, 
Forbes, if it was there or not?” Not a bad idea, Mr. Freestone.
Let’s think about this. We went down to the shearing shed and found an old 44-gallon 
drum. Inspired by an old trick a neighbour taught us, we decided to have some fun. You 
get a plastic bag, fill it with aluminium nitrate and diesel, a stick of jelly (which the old 
man used to blow stumps), a fuse, and off you go. What we didn’t realize, of course, was 
that potatoes are an excellent accelerant in an explosion. More attention in chemistry 
would have helped.
So, we packed these potatoes in the 44-gallon drum, filled all the gaps with aluminium nitrate, flooded it off with diesel, rammed in some gelignite with a long fuse, maybe 20 
or 30 meters. Feeling quite clever, we loaded it onto the back of the Ute and took it out 
into the bush. We found a spot with some trees, some grass, and a bit of space. We 
rolled out the 44-gallon drum, packed with potatoes, diesel, and aluminium nitrate, 
detonator and set the fuse.
I kneeled down, Freestone stood behind me, and there was a tree behind him. It went 
bang! I mean, it went kerfucking Kaboom, like Hiroshima revisited. Everything around us 
was eviscerated, and hot metal flew everywhere. A piece of the 44-gallon drum slammed into the top of the tree above Freestone’s head so hard you’d never be able to pull it out.We shook for a while, only a rip in the universe had somehow allowed us to be unharmed……..in many universes we were left as cloud of red mist. Eventually we agreed we had failed the bush IQ test, and suggested it was prudent to keep our mouths shut.Till today.

The bush IQ test

Don't draft me for weekend presentations when Monday finds your chair empty.
Don't school me on lessons I've mastered over a lifetime.
Don't mistake me for a rookie;My ego knows its girth,
My pride, its tenacious grip. Once a king, crown gloriously intact,
Now reduced to a peasant,
My castle shrunk to a humble hut,
My courtiers, just a cat and a handful of stragglers.
I expected a journey toward humility,
Yet here I am, unearthing deeper layers of pride, Cutting myself on each sharp edge.
I used to seize victories; even undeserved,
Winning was woven into my being.
Then came the loss, and now defeat is all I brew,
And still, this knowledge crushes my pride,
My ego, a beast that refuses to rest.

Pride

Our 117-day streak; broken.
Craving you, an enigma, unfathomable.
Is it you? Or the scorched remains of my first act allowing me to feel? Rookie errors?
The last whispers of chemicals?
Isolation biting deep? Or am I just some phantom knight, a secret Galahad?
Projection, perhaps—but why must it be you? Why, why, why, why, why, why...
Maybe you are, simply, inexplicably.
I pray you are

F.S.F

Writing, Poems and Rants

The odds of a Poker Hand

The Soldier

The right person for the right town

The bush IQ test

Pride

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