It’s early and I’m driving through the bush-covered hills of the Darling Range east of Perth. A hangover is coming on hard and fast, and I know exactly what it needs.
I pull into the car park of the Mundaring bakery. I kill the engine, swing a leg over my bike and begin what very nearly counts as a skip toward the bakery door, such is my lust for a pie. I stop when I hear a crashing sound.
I look around, but there are no cars backing into poles, only my motorbike on the ground. It doesn’t make sense. There’s nothing near it. I go back and pick the bastard up. It’s a heavy machine — a tourer — not the sort of thing you want to be lifting in my state. Once I have it up, I lean it back over. It drops to the ground again.
That’s when I realise the kickstand’s not out. So I pick up the bike, which seems even harder the second time, and extend the kickstand, whereupon it leans gently to the side. I don’t check for new dents or scratches.
I totter into the bakery. The lady at the counter says, “Are you ok?”
And I say, “I’ll have a steak and kidney pie, please.”
I get a carton of flavoured milk from the fridge — the green one catches my eye and I don’t think twice. I sit down and eat and drink in a vacant stupor. Once finished, I lean back and take a breath and presume myself cured. But then, partially revived, a thought comes.
Normally mine is a good motorbike, the sort that does as told. So why would it do that — fall down — on such a morning as this when I’m clearly in no state to be picking up great pieces of unyielding steel?
The caffeine or sugar or God knows what else that’s hidden in green milk suddenly kicks in and a wave of clarity sweeps my mind. The whole sorry bike-dropping affair becomes eminently explicable. Which is to say, I forgot to extend the kickstand because I’m still drunk. Drunk as a boiled owl.
Before anything worse can happen, I buy a custard tart for morning tea and drive the last forty-five minutes to the Northam Racecourse, park my bike with the use of the kickstand and head inside. A few people say hello. A few people mention that I don’t look too good and ask if I’m sick. I say yeah, I might be a bit sick.
I could just as well mention that I’m drunk. None of this lot would care. I’m already assured of the job — in fact, I’m already on the payroll — so my presence at the training course, however shabby, will suffice.