Old Wal drinks at The Antler. He's six-feet-two with a neck like a bullocks: bloated, ruddy cheeks. His arse crack hangs like a spirit-gauge between his shorts and the back of a ripped singlet. Tattoos blister his shoulders. Fat arms sway like lamb shanks.
Six schooners
[1] of the good stuff and his red, podgy cheeks will glow like a catseyes. The vein in his eyebrow eye starts to flicker in time with the music. Two minutes later and his cheek joins in: they're twitching like he's winking - eyes glase over like runny eggs.
It's then he says, "It's time for the good stuff. Thins the blood, I swears!". And he swears it's only OP Rum that'll do it. He swears! He'll beat the shit out of any man who disagrees!
"Heard it from some doctor, sometime," says Wal's gravelled voice.
"What was his name?" asks the barkeep.
"Who?"
"The doctor?"
"Bugger off, ya poof," says Old Wal, as he positions his bulk between the barkeep and the exit; he reaches for a pool cue.
Now Old Wal, he's not an educated man and he'll tell you that himself. 'Cause you can't learn what he knows from sitting in classrooms. Thirty years of working at the dockside won't earn you a PHD. You'll never learn what he knows from any book. Wal's seen some strange things come in and go out in those shipping containers, but he's smart enough not to talk. "Talking too much can kill a man," says Old Wal.
And sometimes I wonder what's going through Old Wal's mind. Sure, that head's been hit by more bricks than make up the walls at The Antler but at times when he stands there, and it's generally between the third and the fourth schooner, when you'll see his eyes soften and retreat within himself. His steadfast gaze, grappling with the footy on the television, it'll loosen its hold and slip, and his shoulders will fold. He'll collapse the breath he's been holding all night so his belly will overlap his belt and he'll rest his beer on that outcrop like it's an armrest. And it's then that I imagine that I see Old Wal cry, very silently.
