Mamta's Granny Flat Speakeasy

'... these crickets be wild fed...'

            '...a Breyerhouse Pie like Lambas Bread...'

                        '... a voice, I get that, but to parliament?'

Sojourners beyond the technically real have braved the freeway to drink, this Friday night, at Mamta's granny-flat speakeasy. It is BYO if the drinker so chooses - many do, but exchange their boozes for something more to tonight's fancy, like a market-driven potluck. A cosy, if informally formal, atmosphere is courtesy of a dozen drinkers. A long wail of car horn and Dr. David Hasselfhoff makes the dozen a baker's:

'Ooooh, it's time. Hello, Mamta, what's good?'

'Butt stuff.'

'That's not, uh, I'm sure it is.' David places the Crazy Bones Blunderbuss on the bar. 'For your macaw.'

(Which, digging vibes atop its shotgun perch, bops its head.)

Mamta leans clasped hands on the bar, cleaves a little age and it shows: 'I heard that can only fire Crazy Bones.'

'And so it doesn't need gunpowder.'

Mamta gives David a bottle of 1945 Grand Paladin: 'I don't believe you scrapped with the Baby Born Centipede.'

'I'm a historian. I gave Giuseppe the lead. He didn't want to go back there, so I popped in and grabbed blunderbuss. Salvage law. It's not a toy, so the centipede ignored me. Felt good to be back in the field.'

Mamta gives David a wide glass and he takes wine to an unoccupied table. Mamta resumes drying a Perpetually Wet Pint Glass with an Always Dry Dish Cloth, becoming set dressing which drops eaves. Todd's arms are crossed but he smiles, Elise's cheeks are flushed with laughter, Carl tries a hand on Darrel's shoulder, Sinead gesticulates lit Ghost Tobacco whilst negotiating Quetzalcoatl Feathers with Alexander. This is how Mamta cops a feel of the market which, used to this foreplay, slaps hand away with coy smile.

Mamta tunes ears into: 'You say “wild" but you mean "not meant to be there".'

The voice is Dorothy's. Mamta has gathered that Adrian, pivoted towards Dorothy with elbow on front bar, is trying to sell her some live locusts which he netted during a tour of cropland.

He drinks Hunter Valley Sémillon: 'It's like kangaroo. They're hunted because one less kangaroo is one more sheep that a farm can run. The meat is a by-product, but it's still wild.'

Adrian is hangering after another or Dorothy's Musical Sandwiches. Inspiration had struck Dorothy and inspiration became madness, subconscious engineering genius layering precision strips of cheese, lettuce and ham like piano strings. Halfway through his set, opening for the K-Pop girl group known as Kev, Adrian had killed birds with stone and ate the sandwich from a harmonica neck holder. The sandwich was nourishing for Adrian's body and the audience's soul.

Adrian continues: 'We wouldn't even have to meet. Just leave a sandwich in an esky once a month and I'll swing by and replace it with a sack of crickets.'

Dorothy circles a finger along the rim of an empty glass: 'Yeah, but there's only so much I can do with insect protein. My friends have become adventurous eaters because of my dinner parties, but they've also become more creative with excuses to not attend. One time, their dog ate their child.'

'In other words, you don't think you can pull it off.'

'Your expecting audience would be the first to find out.'

Mamta returns to flicking through audio channels:

'... Tom counting his darts...'

            '... why PornHub doesn't have a dwarf category...'

                        '... NOT ATTEMPT TO USE WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED...'

Alexander bows out to the bathroom. Sinead goes outside for a smoke. Foot in door and Yvette haggards towards the bar. The shot of monkey booze and schooner of dragonspring sake, a 'Long Spark', are ready on her arrival.

Yvette offers her goods: 'I brought the Plus-Point-Oh-Two Watering Can.'

'Which, for every litre carried, only weighs a respective 800 grams. It says it can only carry ten litres, but you seem to fit twelve.' Mamta rolls smiling eyes, song-and-dance. 'Your money isn't good here. Except, maybe, as collateral.'

'What'll it be?'

'Butt stuff. Better but less often.'

'A sex goddess needs inspiration.' The monkey booze makes Yvette wince and raise schooner. 'Another of these, perhaps?'

A long screech and thonk. Sinead calls and Mamta's customers rush outside to poke heads over fence. Someone has tried to cross the freeway and been hit by a car. Colin is dead.

Mamta is going to have to close this speakeasy. She sighs and pours herself a Long Spark. 

Sandwich de Mayonesa de Machu Picchu

A phone call.

Colin: 'Holy fuck.'

Stu: 'What?'

'Holy fuck.'

'What?'

'Guess who's coming to town.'

'Holy Fuck?'

'What? No. That's not a band. Is it?'

'It is.'

'Dick Valentine is coming to town.'

'Who, or what, is that?'

'Lead singer of Electric Six? Not bringing the whole band over but, shit, his solo acoustic stuff has to be the next best thing. Hasn't been here in years. Not in my listening years, anyway.'

'Electric Six?'

'How young are you?'

'Where's he playing? Gay bar?'

'So you have heard of them.'

'No?'

A moment: 'You're an idiot.'

'But you called.'

'Yes. Well. I'm new to the live show scene. I need to get that night off work.'

'Say no more.'

Two days before the show, Stu dons a clown mask, a gaudy sky-blue shirt, zebra print skinny jeans and a purple cape. After dark, when Colin's shift has just finished and the workers exchange car park small talk, Stu star-jumps from behind a she-oak and strikes Colin in the back of the shin with a padded minigolf club. Someone yells 'What the shit?' and Colin lands a surprised jab into Stu's shoulder. Stu drops the minigolf club and makes his escape over a fence. Another someone throws the  minigolf club, striking Stu in the ass. Stu goes 'fuck' and Colin is briefly wide-eyed, realising for the first time that the clown is Stu and that he has a plan. There are enough witnesses that Colin can play shocked and rattled to his manager, getting a few days of personal leave off work.

The story of the random clown attack spreads around, a bit short of going viral. It trickles through most departments of government, most of which dismiss it as an oddity outside their respective jurisdictions. The Department of Very Bad Ideas (DVBI) acts instantly and their advice, to list the Juggalo subculture as a Declared Criminal Organisation, is passed through parliament that day.

The night before the show, Colin and Stu has a couple of drinks at their local.

Colin: 'This is bad.'

Stu: 'The new law? Don't tell me you're into horrorcore now.'

'No. It's a fascinating mythology, though.'

'So what's the problem?'

'It opens the floodgates. More musical subcultures will be banned.' Colin skulls beer. 'Electric Six fans call ourselves "Crazies".'

'Shit.' Now Stu skulls. 'OK. We need a cat. There's that cat that sometimes visits the small beer garden next to the pokies.'

'I'll buy the next round.'

So a couple of beers becomes nine. A bartender eventually comes out to collect empty glasses. She says, stern:

'We're calling last drinks.'

Stu, swaying: 'Awww come one, we need to drink until the cat gets here unless, unless, we need to save music.'

'I'm cutting you two off.'

Colin spills beer: 'Shit, shit, cat's there do the thing do the thing.'

Stu, in one motion: the Catnip Page unfurls with a flick of the left hand, catching the catnip-and-tobacco cigarette with right and raising said cigarette to mouth whilst the left hand, moving parallel, raises lighter from pocket to mouth, flicked on the way to instantly inhale. Tom pushes the door to the beer garden open with his foot, carrying three pints, says cheeky:

'Hello Andrea. Clocking off soon?'

She plays cute: 'Twenty minutes.'

Placing beers on table: 'Plenty of time.'

Andrea the bartender concedes an arrangement with a puckered smile before glaring a warning at Colin and Stu. She exits, putting on a bit more wiggle to her ass than usual. Tom turns to Colin and Stu with a disappointed frown:

'Poor form.'

Meaning that the Catnip Page caught on fire during Stu's cigarette-lighting flourish. Half is singed beyond readability before they dowse the flame with beer.

Colin, a bit embarrassed: 'So, uhhhh Juggaloes?'

Tom raises an eyebrow: 'I heard. What you want, if you could read my catalogue, is Sandwich de Mayonesa de Machu Picchu. An international coven, or convention rather, has a stockpile of catchy songs with stupid corresponding dances. They pull one out whenever the wider public gets a bit burn-the-stake-y. Remember the Macarena? That was one, saved tens of thousands of wiccan lives.'

Stu starts bouncing: 'Gangnam Style? Wop? Wop wop?'

Tom: 'No, nooo stop that, that was just South Korea out-capitalisming the white man. The coven, or convention, well it turned into a hell of a party, cast a great communal spell that brought these songs into existence. A lot of spiritual energy spent. I think four died but -' Tom mutters to himself now. 'My insemination rate is... two percent? Soooo... six born? Yeah, that sounds right.'

Stu has finished his beer: 'So whadaya want?'

Tom: 'I supplied the drugs in exchange for a surplus song - Sandwich de Mayonesa de Machu Picchu. It will distract everyone and stop this persecution of musical minorities in its tracks. Comes to six hundred CatScript. Now, a suggestion, I'm buying, for sixty CatScript a pop, Marital Aid Potion. It's like a love potion but it requires consent. That. Is. Important. There's an alchemist a few suburbs over. She's able to cook it.'

Deal struck. Colin and Stu walk to the alchemist's, swinging by Colin's to pick up a quarter bottle of Jack Daniels. They find Magdalene Jones, Australia's leading DIY-alchemy YouTube personality, sitting over a large rat cage with chin in left hand and sipping grain alcohol from a beaker. In the cage, a dozen rats stand on their hind legs and squeak in angry, unified rhythm, holding miniature placards with catch calls such as 'Daily Wage for our Daily Booze', 'No Higher Intelligence Without Union Rights' and 'Cocaine'. Magdalene is unfussed when Colin stumbles in and, bumping the kitchen counter, collapses onto the floor. He asks:

'So what's your problem?'

'Look what Tom dragged in.' Magdalene pours two more beakers of grain alcohol. 'I seem to be having trouble finding test subjects to trial a potion I've been tinkering with. Instant sobriety.' She sips. 'How about you? Do you consent to be experimented on?' A bemused glance at the rats. 'That. Is. Important.'

Stu, having taken a piss on roses out front, enters now with a broad grin and takes a beaker: 'Oh, I consent.' Giving Magdalene sex-eyes now. 'We need ten wuv potions. Not for personal soos, sosisould seem.'

'Marital Aid Potion.' Magdalene corrects him, a little taut because she is a touch insecure about how well she passes but, well, she can smell the grog on both of them so, thinking about her Patreon supporters, she flashes a smile. 'We might have a deal.'

Magdalene sets Colin and Stu on stools in front of a video camera and hands them both a mug of dark green liquid: 'List of ingredients. Organic centaur hoof, activated wolfs bane, sodium capryloamphohydoxypropylsulfonate from coconut, Jӓgermeister, warlock ash and, for taste, sugar-gum honey  from Kangaroo Island. Please support our bushfire affected regions.'

Colin: 'Coconut?'

Stu: 'Jӓger!'

Stu raises the mug and begins gulping. Colin slowly follows. A minute passes before Magdalene, kneeling forward with hands on knees, asks:

'How do you feel?'

Colin: 'I feel like a yiros.'

Stu proceeds to scream.
Magdalene: 'Hmmm. A hangover cure for next video?'