My Oddball Neighbor

Many times, I’d seen him, wild, bushy, greying hair framing his entire head like some kind of grotesque creature. Down the corners of where his mouth apparently was, there were brown lines fading into the beard hair. I was sure that if I looked deeper into the hairs, I would definitely find lost food particles. He would usually not acknowledge any greetings or waving. He was definitely “grumpy guts”!

His clothing was always drab and stained with threads hanging off and he wore great heavy steel capped boots that looked like he never took them off as the caked mud went from trouser to toe all in an unbroken sheen. Over everything he wore a very old, tattered leather jacket, Davey Crockett, style. One thing though, I don’t remember him actually smelling bad, odd that.

He would drive slowly past in his ancient, grey, Land Rover with miles and miles of looped binder twine hanging across the upper section of the flat tray. Some of it you knew had been there for nearly as many years as he was old by the colour because every few years the manufacturers brought out a new colour and there were examples of all variations hanging there.

At the time, as a child of 10, I found him quite scary especially when he became convinced that I was purposefully tying knots in the manes of his “wild” horses. Even he couldn’t get near any of them. There were also reports from other people that he would fire his gun threateningly if he found them near his property….and bellow, I used to hear him roar at his dog sometimes.

Our property’s boundary fence was also his and occasionally he would come up to the fence and holler for my father. After a brief exchange he would promptly turn and march away. This was how we found out that he thought I was knotting his horse’s manes as he indicated to my father that if he caught me, he would “tan” my hide. My father said he better not or else….and that’s when he stomped away. Of course, even I couldn’t get close enough to those horses to be able to do such a thing even if I had wanted to. I did used to handfeed them and rub their noses though, there were heaps of them, such beautiful creatures they were with show bloodlines.

There was also a great herd of wild goats that roamed the entire area, coming and going through ANY fence at their pleasure. Technically he owned them since he was the one who originally started the herd but after that they owned themselves. Sometimes the bucks would come and try to fight with our goats, they were much “smarter” than our poor billy and we would have to rush to his rescue. Anyway, as things go, we ended up with some pretty coloured babies, much to my dad’s disgust.

Eventually he got a new puppy. He called him Useless. I think after a good year or so the new dog grew on him and he seemed to love it, however unfortunately the name stuck. As the years rolled by we began to have a little more to do with him and he even used to get us to assist with injured horses when they needed daily treatment and he had to go away to his job. Later we were even permitted to walk across his property to get to a beach that was there. We had to be careful to only climb through specific “holes” in the fence and not climb over and only walk in certain paths. I started to see another side to him and under his bushy eyebrows I now saw the most beautiful blue eyes.

Many years later I was helping another neighbour test a new cart behind his donkey on the road and suddenly the donkey decided that he had had enough of this business and bolted down the hill. The cart began to breakup and my friend and I bailed out. A little further on and the rest of the cart came loose and the donkey continued on with just the traces dragging and flapping behind. Grumpy guts came driving up the road and saw it all happening. He leapt out of his truck and stood in the middle of the road with his arms out to stop the donkey. He couldn’t stop laughing. He said to my friend, “Chariots of Fire, Chariots of Fire”, and nearly choking.

One winter whilst he was checking on one of his boundary fences he found evidence that someone had crossed onto his land. He would have been furious. There was a little pickers hut in the bush from yesteryear when an orchard had once existed and a young couple in there trying to survive. They had nowhere to go and she was heavily pregnant. Instead of getting his gun out as usual and throwing them out he let them stay and even started taking them bags of food and other supplies. I don’t know how long they ended up living there but it just goes to show that despite living a gruff and meagre existence and appearing like he couldn’t and wouldn’t trust anyone and giving all who come near him a hard time there was still a tiny seed of decency and care for his fellow man.

Maybe the woman reminded him of his only daughter that I knew he never saw. Maybe he thought one day she might be in need and someone might just come to her aide. I don’t know, but I do know that eventually he died alone in his rundown, dirt filled house. He never slept in the bedroom in the bed but instead lay on the couch looking out over the paddock and down to the sea. He drank black coffee with whisky in it and ate bacon fried in a pan that was so full of previous meals fat all black and gross that I am sure it was simply NEVER washed.

He was a very odd man, a loner and alone. A product of several wars at whose end no side wanted him back so he ended up in the back of nowhere as far as you can go without going to Antarctica. Yes, as a child he scared me but no one should die alone!