During my time in Guvvie City, I moved around a bit. First, a couple of months in the Twin Towers Of Sin as mentioned earlier and then a blissful(?) few months with Fifi the Rich-Bitch, who insisted on sleeping with the window open and a heater going flat-out in midwinter. Like the gargantuan electricity bill that followed, she was generally high-maintenance. I can accept that quality in Italian motorcycles, but there are easier ways to live than with a constantly-demanding young lady who's used to seeing more in pocket money than you get in a fortnightly pay-packet. It became obvious I should release her back into her native habitat.
One of the security desk coppers heard I was on the hunt for a place: it turns out his wife had just cleared out his house and moved in with another guy, so he had a few rooms on offer. I was in on that: my odd hours would be okay with Constable Irish, and at least I knew the guy. Things were reasonable until...
...Mrs Constable Irish (departed) pushed for some more dollars as part of their separation. I don't know the details, and must admit I was a bad listener after about the fifth time he started rabbiting on about the breakup. Everybody has to be the Wronged Party, and then it turns to a mush of blah blahs. Anyhow, Irish decided to let the up-till-now spare room.
***
We weren't too far from one of the Big Learning Institutions, and it was a second-year teaching student we got, a bloke from somewhere rural. Oh yeah, he came highly recommended, letter from his local minister and all.
Before too long, it became apparent that our new housemate was a pain in the arse. Be it morning, evening or lazy Saturday afternoon, he had only to appear to cause an outbreak of cringing.
His evangelical approach was based around asking "What do you think about (youth lawbreaking/nuclear weaponry/genetic research/price of eggs/pick your own)?" and then trying to bring it around, by means he seemed to have thought up beforehand, round to Jeebus, yet again.
(Jeebus was a fairly regular nuisance, and I'd gotten used to being badgered about him at the parental place. He wasn't really going to prove much of a threat till about ten years later, when I was suffering from a bout of mental instability.)
***
There had been some fairly obvious Redistribution Of Wealth going on, too. Perhaps our student housemate had been reading his Acts, Chapter 4 with a little too much interest, but Irish had asked me if I was hoeing into his groceries, and I'd been preparing to ask him the same. So it was, when the big fridge died, Irish brought home three bar-fridges, sourced from who-knows-where: his, mine, student's. Easy as.
The little fridges were arranged in different parts of the kitchen: mine was on the bar, diametrically opposite the other two, stacked where their big predecessor has sat.
So why the unspeakable was Student Guy opening my fridge, taking out a bottle of milk, glugging a large swig directly from it, and returning same to the fridge? You bet, I had to ask him.
"Oh, I thought it was mine!" (Not convincing.)
From that point on, he was christened "Worms". Irish and I put little hasp-and-staple arrangements on our fridges, with little padlocks to match.
***
The phone, too, was a bone of contention. I wasn't talking to my folks in Queensland, but I *was* trying to woo a young lady in Melbourne. Obviously it would be a problem splitting the bill fairly, so we decided to bar dialled long-distance calls and itemise the operator-connected ones, soon as the next bill came in. I found it quite convenient to use a phone-box a hundred yards down the road anyway. The exercise I was getting from hefting a big jar of twenty-cent coins between house and the booth was sufficient reward in itself!
Still, there was some angst, and a fair deal of stupidity, on the part of Worms, whose girlfriend was still back in Ruralville. I woke one morning to the sound of Worms dialling the direct code and number, yet again, and loudly praying, "Oh please Lord, let me speak to Whatever-Her-Name-Was! Oh God, you've gotta help me!"
This miraculous state of belief wasn't confined to the telephone: there was the desperate attempt to pray away two on-campus parking fines, which apparently should not have been issued, as Worms had prayed while parking, that he would not be ticketted.
When the phone bill for that quarter arrived, we duly marked up our calls. I paid Irish for my share and was about to leave the room, when Worms, who had been reading the itemised list, bellowed, "Hey! Which one of you guys has been calling my girlfriend at home?"
***
Grotty bachelor ways being what they are, I'd long gotten used to the fact that some foodstuffs are best kept in one's own room. And pr0n, if you have any, doubly so. Moving from Queensland (where such stuff could only be gotten by circuitous methods) to Guvvietown meant I simply *had* to acquire a stash. I was hardly home, but the box seemed to have developed its own limited powers of movement and content-shuffling, quite independent of its owner.
One day, when I wasn't going in to work till afternoon, I'd been reading a book in the living room. As I rounded the corner into the main passageway, I saw Worms's door closing. My door was still open and moving. A couple of copies of Mayfair were missing off the top of my box-o-pr0n, which had mysteriously found its way out of the wardrobe.
I knocked on Worms's door. A quick look past his bare torso revealed a number of my smut-o-zines in formation on the bed. Of course, a good friend of Jeebus wouldn't trespass and lust, and all that, would he?
Oh, he was sorry. The Devil had tempted him, blah blah blah.
I'm a bit of a bastard at times. Reminding him I knew his girlfriend's home number was only part of the fun... I had him where I wanted him.
And that is why you could see us at the rubbish tip, with a box of jazz mags prominently displayed on the boot of his car, Very Obvious Indeed to passers-by, as he tore each page into tiny pieces, individually, and scattered the pieces to the wind. About an hour's worth of work, and him worrying every moment that somebody he knew might see him.
It was worth more than the magazines.