Earlier this year, Michaela McGuire and Benjamin Law attended the Wooroolin Peanut Pullers and Backfatters Ball. Ben has written about the experience in the current edition of The Monthly. Michaela tells her side in the August Brow, which is available now for preorder. They joined me on Skype for a discussion.
Michaela McGuire: Good evening, Mr Scott!
Benjamin Law: Okay, I’m back!
Welcome Ronnie!
Ronnie Scott: That’s what you think! I’m getting a beer!
hang on
BL: Awesome idea. I’m getting a beer too.
MM: I already have wine next to me, so I’ll just amuse myself in the meantime.
And also, I’ll check Facebook.
What sort of beer did you grab?
BL: COOPERS GREEN.
EVERYONE NAME THEIR ALCOHOL.
RS: Carlsberg, All Malt Premium
MM: Last bit of a cask of red goon.
Blew it up and everything!
BL: You’re a classy Queenslander, deep down, MM.
RS: Do you ever blow your wine back into it?
MM: Only by accident.
BL: I wish writers festival panels were done on Skype.
MM: Naked and drunk, the way writers are meant to be.
BL: OKAY WHERE DO WE FUCKEN BEGIN.
RS: At the B&S ball, why did you guys drink so much but not get drunk? How does that work?
MM: We drank for courage, but we didn’t drink enough.
It’s very hard to get drunk when you are in fear of your safety.
BL: The next morning, I figured I actually had drunk a lot of alcohol: a lot of Coopers, scotch, and the three beers we had at Wooloowin Pub.
But I didn’t feel drunk at all, considering I’m Asian.
Like MM says, I think the fear kept me sober.
MM: I stopped drinking earlier than you because I realised that it would mean an earlier escape in the morning.
BL: Did you notice people inspecting what you were drinking, MM?
They scrutinised my Coopers Green. “Poof’s beer,” I think they were thinking.
MM: You seemed a bit drunk right after you got covered in food dye and screamed ‘THEY FUCKEN GOT ME!’
I drank raspberry UDLs, so I think I went undetected.
BL: Is Cooper’s Green a poof’s beer? Discuss.
I probably was drunk by that stage, yes. I was actually thinking Parko was attractive by then, so I must have been quite, quite drunk.
MM: I think so. It’s certainly very ‘Melbourne,’ which, in the country, seems to be synonymous with either ‘gay’ or ‘wanker.’
RS: Who is Parko?
MM: Parko and Ben shared a bit of Bundy. It was a sweet moment.
Parko was the 18-year-old who was an apprentice boilermaker.
I do not know what a boilermaker is.
I asked him, but I already forget.
He also won a beer cooler that was attached to his wrist with a strap, so when you drop it, no beer spills!
BL: I think they make boils.
Parko loved demonstrating that beer cooler for us. It was actually wonderful.
MM: We high-fived each other to demonstrate the ingenuity of this device.
BL: I love that every time Michaela said she came from Melbourne, people looked at her, agog.
She may as well have come from the centre of the earth.
RS: Did you tell people you were writers?
BL: Which may also be true, I don’t know.
MM: And then they’d ask “What’re you doing here for?” and I would have no idea what to say.
Yes. Although I think Ben told some people I was “looking for love.”
BL: Yeah, I told them I was writing an article. I’m terrible at remembering dialogue, so I was taking notes and using a dictaphone.
RS: That would be a terrible disguise.
BL: It wouldn’t have been very discreet, no.
MM: It worked in your favour though.
BL: I am very upset and surprised Michaela did not find one single person she would have considered sleeping with.
MM: Lots of people were very keen to talk into/spit at that dictaphone.
BL: They were keen to spit into a lot of things.
MM: They referred to “town” by mentioning Kingaroy. Which has an Aldi and a McDonalds.
BL: Kingaroy was actually a little more impressive than I remembered.
MM: From previous excursions?
Had you been to a B&S right before going to Kingaroy the last time?
BL: Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’d been there in childhood, because I grew up on the Sunshine Coast.
I am a massive fan of B&S balls.
No, just kidding. I’m just a massive fan of balls.
MM: So when you yelled like a bogan after being covered in dye, you were just channelling your history?
BL: And by that, I mean testicles.
Totally.
Seriously, I was a bit of a boge in high school. At least, a lot of my male friends were.
I have a weird affection for the boge, even though I felt they were going to kill us within the first 10 minutes at the B&S.
MM: We decided that in the country, it’s not gay.
it’s just “mates helping out mates.”
BL: Yeah, and if it’s YOU fucking the guy in the arse, it’s not gay.
MM: Nah, that’s just being a real bloke.
BL: Scott says I pick my nose and fart in my sleep.
RS: It’s all very prison, isn’t it
BL: So maybe I am a bogan after all.
MM: It totally is.
And the B&S area proper was fenced in with security guards posted outside, much like a prison.
And a man – was it Parko? – showed us how he had snuck his (water) pistol in, much like prison.
BL: Speaking of prison, there were no facilities for the men to defecate.
MM: I am certain at least one of them took a dump right behind the ute we were sleeping in.
CERTAIN OF IT.
BL: Anyway: the men’s toilets were really confusing. When I needed to take a leak, I walked into the bathroom and saw …
… well, it looked like an empty room.
Then I realised the emptied out pipe was the trough.
RS: What do you mean? With pee on the walls?
LIke a half-pipe?
BL: No, it was just a half-pipe with sawdust underneath,
to collect the moisture …
MM: Ben and I went to the bathrooms together in the middle of the night.
The ladies bathroom.
It was the most sexual thing that happened to either of us that night.
BL: I hate doing poos at night. They’re the worst.
Michaela, I was pretty turned on in that moment.
RS: Were there any other women in there?
BL: We could have made a baby.
MM: No. Just us. As Ben said, we could have made a baby.
BL: Not that I remember. But it wouldn’t have bothered me by that stage. Everyone was pretty … relaxed.
MM: No, what did that guy tell us?
“Socially excited.”
BL: You know what’s funny though? For a night of debauch, I expected more people to be having loud moany sex in the back of their utes.
SOCIALLY EXCITED! Yes, I have that phrase in my notes.
MM: And then we asked what happened when he kept drinking. “I just get more, socially excited.”
BL: Who said that again?
MM: Stoney
BL: You see, it was wonderful having Michaela there, because she has a photographic memory. She may even be an autistic savant.
I have a terrible memory.
I should not write non-fiction.
MM: Stoney was the man that had Ben and I fearing for our lives, because as soon as he spotted Ben, he was very keen to have Ben and “do me a favour.”
Ben, tell our audience what the favour was.
BL: “COME OVER HERE,” Stoney said.
I felt like I was in an episode of Oz.
But with utes.
And navy Bonds singlets.
Which is sort of hot, when I think about it.
MM: And Akubras. With police tape tied around them.
Again, with the prison theme.
BL: Anyway: Stoney wanted me to come join his friends, who were cracking whips.
Actually, he first led us to this woman (at least, I *think* it was a woman) who was covered — head to toe — in food dye.
She looked like … you know those Pro Hart carpet cleaning ads?
She looked like the carpet.
After the mess.
And then Michaela and I got scared.
MM: Very scared.
BL: And Parko told us the “favour” had nothing to do with her — instead, his friends were going to whip something out of my mouth.
MM: STONEY
NOT PARKO
BL: STONEY.
I am mixing up the names.
STONEY.
I am distracted by Parko.
Sexually.
ANYWAY.
RS: They are both names, it’s fine
BL: This is true, Ronnie.
There was Gravo, who was actually sober and whipping away. I was tempted to say yes, but my face is munted enough without whipping scars.
MM: STONEY wanted Ben to hold a cigarette in his mouth
BL: There was Gravo … who was the drunk guy who was scary?
MM: Gravo was NOT sober.
BL: Gravo was RELATIVELY sober.
Gravo with the black akubra?
MM: Yes. The drunk guy, covered in green dye, with his shirt undone, and the police tape tied around his hat.
Yes.
He was about 6 foot five and terrifying.
BL: It was their friend who was way more drunk. On a Wooroolin scale of things, Gravo was practically a priest.
MM: Gravo WAS the drunk friend.
What are you even talking about.
Anyway, they all have names, as Ronnie wisely pointed out.
BL: No, no: wasn’t Gravo in the black singlet? There was the OTHER dude who was WAY more drunk.
And scary.
And made me want my mother.
MM: Gravo was the one with the shirt undone. No singlet.
BUT LET’S NOT QUIBBLE.
BL: Fuck, maybe I was drunk by this stage.
WITCH.
MM: Oh hush up and finish the story.
BL: Oh, and as mentioned in my Monthly story, we backed out of there. Then we backed into another bunch of people sitting in the back of their ute.
And one guy had his ball hanging out of his shorts, using it to taunt Stoney.
“Don’t trust that guy!” he told us.
Weirdly, with his scrotum all exposed like that, he felt quite authoritative.
MM: Because a guy holding one ball out to us was infintely more trustworthy.
BL: Totally.
MM: Yeah, you knew he was in charge of the situation.
BL: Wow, this really *is* like prison.
Were you wet by this stage Michaela?
I mean, vaginally.
MM: I think I was too scared to be wet.
Vaginally.
Perhaps like when men get cold. Nothing works properly.
BL: Was there NO ONE you would have considered sleeping with? It was a BACHELORS and SPINSTERS ball after all.
MM: NO ONE.
BL: You could have produced a litter of peanut-pullers.
RS: It seems like you guys talked to a lot of men. What were the bitches like?
MM: Because, as everyone I asked mentioned, “Oh nah, you don’t come to these things to hook up. It’s just like, mates hanging out with mates.”
Hogs, not bitches.
SOWS
BL: If I were heterosexual, I thought the girl with the Year 11 formal gown was quite pretty.
MM: Stoney’s woman?
BL: It was her first time, and everyone said you could tell.
BL: Nah, she had dark skin and wasn’t covered in food dye.
MM: OH
That bitch!
BL: Was Stoney’s woman actually there?
MM: Yes
BL: Who the fuck was she?
MM: She wore the pink dress, and did the slip n slide of death to get to the Bundy
You have a photo of her!
BL: SERIOUSLY: THAT WAS HER?
RS: You have to explain the Slip n Slide of death to get to the Bundy.
BL: I never made the connection. Unless I just wasn’t paying attention.
Which is probable.
MM: The slip n slide, Ronnie, was a long stretch of plastic tarp stretched out in front of a lightpost
The contender was tethered with a harness and bungy cord to the pole
BL: Michaela: did you even see what the prize was?
MM: And the plastic was slicked down with semen and/or detergent, so that when they tried to run towards the bottle of Bundy they would be yanked back in a comical fashion
BL: I didn’t see a bottle of Bundy. All I saw was human flesh. Moist human flesh.
MM: It was while I was watching this that I got attacked from behind with blue food colouring
That’s when I got wet
BL: You got wet like Smurfette.
MM: Vaginally.
RS: Michaela, your piece cuts out when you guys go to sleep. What was the atmosphere like when you woke up?
MM: Mercifully quiet, for the first twenty minutes
BL: You’re talking about “waking up” like it only happened once, Ronnie.
MM: Oh god, yes.
Worst nights sleep ever.
BL: Awful.
MM: We both kept waking up at intervals and opening our eyes, praying to see light.
BL: I felt like it was a cross between “Romper Stomper” and “The Boys”. Either way, one of those hideous Australian movies that has an element of assault.
Michaela: did you want to describe our little midnight “friend”?
MM: Yes.
I think we must have just managed to drift off to sleep when I was shaken awake.
BL: SHAKEN.
MM: I opened my eyes to see a large bogan peering over me who said “What’ve we got here?”
“A couple of SOFTIES!”
BL: (P.S. I am going to repeat everything like a feisty black woman in a Baptist church from here on.)
SOFTIES!
MM: I cannot tell how terrified Ben and I were.
BL: TERRIFIED! TESTIFY!
MM: The man asked whose ute it was, and I mumbled that it was my Dad’s/
BL: (Okay, maybe I should stop the racism now.)
MM: Probably.
BL: Well it definitely wasn’t mine.
MM: “A Ford Falcon. LOVE the Falcon. GO the Falcon.”
Ben and I had no idea what to say, but he offered encouragement.
“Say it with me. “Go the Falcon.”"
So I mumbled in response.
BL: I like a man who leads
MM: Then he said, “Nah, both of youse.”
So Ben mumbled “Go the Falcon.”
BL: I wanted to do everything he said, like in a hostage situation.
MM: “Nah, both of youse together.”
So we mumbled it together.
Then he said something else, but I figured this could go on all night, so I rolled away from him and waited to be raped from behind.
BL: And then she was raped.
THE END.
*applause*
MM: Yes. It’s like you were there.
Those little peanut pullers should be coming into the world in 8 months time.
BL: That was a fun story.
MM: Ben shall be their godfather.
BL: By which stage, you’ll be a backfatter,
“a sow so large … ”
MM: Yes, of course. I’ll have too much backfat to walk!
BL: Did you know some women can pull their backfat forwards and add front cleavage?
RS: Do you mean like four breasts, or like substantively adding to the breasts they have
MM: Depends how good your harness device is.
BL: I reckon human udders are underrated.
MM: So practical!
BL: So, are we ending this story with Michaela’s rape?
RS: Yes! let’s do that.
BL: I guess it’s a pretty fun note to leave it on.
RS: Thank you guys.
MM: You are so welcome.
RS: ENJOY!
MM: GOOD NIGHT WOOROOLIN!
BL: Ronnie: before you entered this chat, Michaela and I were talking about the fact she is only wearing glasses and a tampon.
You can include that if you like.
GOOD NIGHT SOUTH BURNETT SHIRE!
MM: Also, that the name of this chat appears to be “Are you naked?”
BL: I noticed that too.
RS: I came in too late! Mine is just “Good evening, Mr Scott!” which I thought was a fun feature of Skype
BL: Nah, Skype is asking me if I’m naked.
MM: That’s a nice feature too.