By John Switala

Well, I was feeling a bit down on Saturday and made a trip to the pub to have a refreshing ale in the hope it would boost my ailing attitude for the rest of the afternoon. As I stepped through the door I met a patron coming out. Met isn’t right, blocked is right. This bloke was about 194cm tall, slightly too wide for the width of the door and although I didn’t test it, he had a “density” about him. I took two or three steps back and the mountain with accompanying shadow strode past. I’m not sure if he even knew I was there.

I re-entered, made my way to the bar and ordered a beer. It was a hot day so the first few swallows removed the top third of the glass’s contents. The pub wasn’t crowed and wasn’t empty. About five different groups of blokes (didn’t see a girl) were engaged in various conversation that I couldn’t hear. There was that background buzz that told you there were people about chatting but you couldn’t understand about what. Some time for contemplations was required. I was thinking and sipping when I noticed, about 60cm to my right resting on the bar was a wallet. It was one of those wallets that had grown so thick it couldn’t be slipped into the rear pocket of your jeans, so was left behind every now and again. I continued to sip and think.

A shadow formed around me. Not quite the right description. Ever see the strange light created by a partial eclipse of the sun? It was like that but bigger. I looked around to see the patron I didn’t bump into.

“Where my wallet?” was the demand. It seemed the limit of social courtesies’ we were to exchange had already been reached. “There’s a wallet” I pointed. “Been there since I came in.” I said, “Still there” I added pointedly. A huge hand fell on the wallet. It was opened and the contents studied. Some numeracy was going on; I’m sure I heard cogs turning. The numeracy was taking a long time, I had been in shadow quite a while, some frustration was creeping in, I felt compelled to say something and “It’s all there” came out. “We see” was grunted back. “Oh, go get knotted” I retorted a little too loudly. (Actually I didn’t use the word “knotted”, however, to reduce the pressure on our editor I decided on this substitute word). A silence fell on the hotel. A pair of dark, black eyes rose above the rim of the wallet. “We see who knotted in moment”. (He didn’t use the word “knotted” either). The eyes descended back into the wallet, the cog noise continued, I remained in shadow, and it was still quiet, too quiet.

The silence was palatable and I thought I could feel every eye in the pub on us. I think they were waiting for a show that seemed to occur on a regular basis under the shadow. “I buy beer for you” was announced by the mountain. “Reg, beer here.” The noisy cogs had stopped, the shadow had lifted and that conversational buzz had restarted. Reg was apparently the bartender’s name. The beer arrived very quickly. I also noticed that we had a “clearance” around us. There was a definite “zone of don’t disturb” all around. Our very own DMZ. Roughly two and a half metres. I wondered why. It was then that it registered with me the European accent the mountain had, but I couldn’t work out the source. “Thanks for the beer” I said, “My name’s John”. “I Serge” it replied. “You look after Serge wallet. Good” “Where you from Serge” I asked. “I from Serbia” was the reply. It sounded accurate.

I had a problem. Having just bought me a beer and with me telling him to “take a hike” only 43 seconds ago, now was not the time to “take leave” of the situation. I had to stay, until the end of the beer at least. Time to make conversation. “What do you do Serge?” “I force.” said Serge. “Sorry Serge, I don’t understand. What’s force?” “It easy. You no pay money, I force you to pay money” “I think you mean enforcer, Serge” “Yes that it. Someone told me once.” My only thought at this time was Uhh Ohh. However, my conversation mode seemed to have slipped into “auto” mode and just keep going. “Work for yourself do you Serge?” Serge’s eyes looked up the same way the senior librarian did at school. “Sometime. Sometime people tell me who to force” “Enforce” I corrected, stupidly. “Yes. People no pay, not fair. You get things, you pay, it fair” “You have no problem doing this work?” I asked. “Problem? What problem?” replied Serge. “Any moral dilemma?” I suggested. Serge looked at me and shrugged. That shrug contained a lot of information, much too much information. Why can’t I drink beer faster? I think it’s the fizz. Mental note; drinking beer fast is a survival skill.

“You live in Benalla Serge?” I asked, “Sometimes.” Was the reply, there was no further information proffered. This conversation was getting difficult. Outside of the language difficulty (that’s the difficulty I’d be in if Serge didn’t understand my language) there was the distinct feeling that if the wrong question was asked it may be terminal. Then Serge prompted “You live Benalla?” “No Serge, I live in Melbourne” I replied. “What you doing here?” he quickly asked. I’m sure that if I closed my eyes and listened to that question again I could easily picture myself at a border control crossing in some eastern European country with Serge in a dark olive uniform with an AK47 slung loosely over his shoulder in charge of letting nothing “wrong” enter. “I fly gliders here from the airport” I said. “Gliders, no engine, stupid” was the instant response. “But it's so much fun Serge” I almost pleaded. “Gliders stupid, no engine” Okay, I think we’ve debated that topic to its end point. “Why you in pub? Why you not flying, so much fun?” Serge asked.

I was out of conversation so I just followed the lead, “Serge, last night one of our club members said there wasn’t enough cleaning gear in the hangars to clean the club gliders properly after flying them. Well today I went to have a look and there was only a few chamois around, not enough really. But of the ones that were there, some were on the ground in the dirt and dust, the buckets had a layer of dirt in them, there were empty cans lying around, food wrappers all over, a layer of dirt on the shelves you could grow potatoes in, cobwebs everywhere, scrunched up bunches of used wing tape on the floor and on the shelves, we found a quarter full pee bag just lying on the hangar floor, wing covers weren’t on the gliders, one of the gliders had a broken undercarriage door; the place was a mess. I cleaned up for a couple of hours but I needed a break and a drink, so that’s why I’m here.” Serge looked at me and said “What pee bag?” I explained the use of the pee bag in gliding. Serge said “Someone left you piss to clean up?” “Yep” I said. “No?” quizzed Serge. I just nodded. I think I had just accomplished a first; I shocked a very large Serbian enforcer. “Why not other people clean mess? They make mess why not they clean?” Serge asked. “Good question Serge. It doesn’t take much time, the gear belongs to all of us and it’s so disappointing when it ends up in such a mess.”

Serge then said “I can fix.” I looked up startled and quickly said “No, no Serge, it’s up the club members to clean up after themselves, you shouldn’t do it”. Serge looked at me and smiled. Now, it wasn’t exactly a smile, it was the same expression a crocodile has when a wildebeest is in range. Serge said “Me no clean. Others will clean. Others will clean. These members, you got names? Just names, I can find.”

It dawned on me where this conversation was going. What Serge had in mind couldn’t be allowed to happen; we can’t unleash a large Serbian enforcer on the membership. However, I had just spent a few hours cleaning up other people’s messes. This type of response was too heavy handed. But, I still had another couple of hours of cleaning to do. Moral dilemma. Where’s mum when you need her? Mum would say “get your room cleaned up and don’t come out until you do”. With Serge it’s more “if it’s not clean when I come in, you not coming out”, similar but entirely different. Moral dilemma. What to do? What to do? I shrugged.

So, if you see a large bloke, both tall and wide, looking rather dense, in a kilograms per volume sense, accompanied by his own rather large shadow hanging around the hangars, make sure everything in your zone of influence is clean, very clean.

Also, if I’m at the bar chugging beers it’s now called survival training.