SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN STARVING BOGANS.

Bogan: NZ term for redneck.

So there I was, a young man …

Up in the bush, East Coast New Zealand 1993. Coromandel if you want to look it up…an hour’s drive from the nearest fish and chip shop….

We were starving!

We were grunge.

We were 17 year old small time Swandri¹ wearing weed growers with dreadlocks and incessant coughs.

We were Wookie, Mimple, Shnarler, Tossie, Stumpy, Mung and I The Wez.

We were starving!

The story takes place in the palatial bush retreat mansion of Wookies' parents who are in France visiting family.

What they had done was left Wookie enough money and food to live on for the month they were to be away, and had left him with the strict command of “ No party’s!”

They had been gone 3 hours when we moved in …

What followed in the next two weeks is unspeakable and is of no consequence to this story.

Yet men and woman came and went of age in the various rooms of the bordello that had become our party house.

Much drugs and drinking, vomiting, hallucinating and ejaculating was done…

It was a simpler world…no phones in sight… just kids having a good time.

But as I previously said, is another story and shall be told (or not) another time.

The point of the story was that we were starving, the partying had left every cupboard bare, our last meal (besides one pseudo meal of go-cat Tossie was bravely and intermittently munching on) was onions, flour, and tomato sauce all fried up together on a bare pan.

Now this house had everything, brand new TV, video and stereo, spa pool, new flash kitchen and we had about a half a kilo of good quality weed between us… yet, no food.

What to do?

Well the logical thing would be to send a few guys hitching into town to sell some weed, get money, get food.

So off went Tossie and Mung with an ounce all packed up for sale.

Problem was it was autumn and there was a huge glut of pot in our little town.

The result was Tossie and Mung arriving back the next day completely bombed out of their wits with half a 40 ounce of homebrewed rum, a can of spaghetti, half a loaf of squashed bread and a story of a party. The rest of the tale being but a half garbled and conflicting account of cops, gang members and people asking if they could come up and use the spa pool (which was now thick with a layer of unmentionable scum).

After a tired argument and careful dividing of our meager rations (we were all shaking now from lack of food combined with incredible munchies of monumental proportions and too weak to do anything but lie about and whine) we sat dejected and forlorn destined to starvation, minds numb with the sort of malaise only stupid doses of cannabis can do to a young body.

Gazing out the window over the bush covered hills to the neighbors farm beyond where roamed many white grazing creatures…. SNOW WHITE SHEEPS!!!!

EDIBLE SHEEPS!!

“FUUUUUUUUCK!!!! WE ARE TOTAL CLOWNS - LOOK! SHEEPS!!!!”

Mimple screamed!!!

We burst up off the couch like there were snakes on it and got into action!

The light of realization was blinding, filtering in through the black basalt walls that were our minds.

A plan of attack was quickly formulated!

Black clothes, weapons, fast shoes, preparatory “mission cones” and half a cup of rum each “for strength”.

After an hour long mission through the pitch black bush so bombed that we wouldn’t have even been able to see even if it was daytime, we emerged scratched, exhausted and crouching at the edge of the forest, gazing forth into the green pastures of the promised land.

Our motley band of warriors were armed in an equally motley fashion, among the weapons were an axe, a big hunting knife, a kitchen knife tied to a broom handle, a cricket bat and the piece de resistance, my weapon, a muddy brick at the foot end of a pair of Wookys mums stockings.

We crept along the side of the scrub until a sheep was within throwing range and all simultaneously hurled our projectiles of dinner killing death.

The axe handle hit its back and bounced off while the head flew away, spiraling into the darkness. Everything else fell short except my brick in a stocking weapon, which went sailing far overhead also, trailing its tail behind it like some female comet.

We burst from our hiding place, snatched up our weapons and charged after our bolting wooly dinner.

After what seemed like years of running and throwing our weapons, and using various surrounding the dinner tactics, my brick in a stocking weapon connected with the side of its head, dazing it!

We charged in, Mimple stabbing it deep in the back with the hunting knife, the cricket bat cracking down on its head, the improvised spear … not really penetrating the thick wool before coming off the broom handle…

It was dead and dragged into the bush before you could say snow white and the 7 staving Bogans.

Back to the palace we shakily dragged it …

Quickly taking turns to slice off huge, ragged bloody chunks before rushing inside to the oven, all elements on!!!

Needless to say we were well fed that night … I still have fond memories of grinning Wookie holding a huge slab of mutton to the dirty, unoiled frying pan by a fistful of wool to which it was still attached “SIZZZZZSSSSSS!!!!” went the mutton.

Red blood dripped down our chins as we laughed joyously at our seared feast.

We threw the whole sheep into the chest freezer and lived on it to the last scrap (besides the guts, wool and bones which went into the gully behind the house ) over the next 3 days, sometimes boiling it into a fatty meat chunk filled soup, and adding random spices.

Now does anyone know the effect that a huge amount of partially cooked, tough and heavily spiced mutton has on the digestive system on one who has not eaten for days?

Unfortunately I do.

But that is another story and shall be told ( or Not ) another time.

1. Swandri: A thick woolen partially waterproof jacket worn by rugged Bushmen and young men who are aspiring to be rugged Bushmen.