Free Blind Date at a Funeral by Trevor Romain Page A

place where most of my friends hung out. At any given time of the day, there was always some wayward Orange Grover at the Radium.
    As I expected, I found some people I knew at the Radium, including my brother, who was also my best friend. The Lion Lager beer flowed and before long I was quite intoxicated. My brother and friends encouraged me to go back and visit Debbie. I told them that it was probably not the best of ideas, but they mocked me and called me a chicken.
    That’s all it took. Someone calling me a chicken.
    And because I was young and an idiot and there were no roadblocks, or strict drunken driving laws in those days, I got into my little car and sped back to Debbie’s house.
    I parked down the road, around the corner, and walked up to her house.
    By that time it was about 11.30 p.m. and her house was dark and quiet. There was not one light on – it was pitch black.
    I scurried across the lawn like a cat burglar in a
Pink Panther
movie and pressed myself against the wall, making sure I was not spotted. Not that anyone would have spotted me. It was so damn dark, you would have needed night-vision goggles to see me.
    The house was a mock-Tudor style and the side of the house was covered in ivy. I looked at her window one storey up and distinctly heard the theme from
Romeo and Juliet
in my head. I probably smiled, knowing me.
    The alcohol reduced my fear-factor quotient by a huge amount and I was ready to be with my love. I grabbed the drainpipe and started climbing up to her window.
    It was pretty easy shimmying up the pipe and when I got level with the window, I reached across to tap on the glass.
    That’s when it happened!
    I felt the pipe shift. I frantically felt around for something to hold on to. I suddenly realised that it was the gutter pipe and that it was totally corroded at the point where the brackets held it onto the wall.
    I froze, not wanting my movement to jostle the pipe any more. But it was too late. The pipe shifted again and then it slowly started separating from the wall. I wrapped my legs and arms around the pipe, hanging on for dear life.
    Then the pipe came away from the wall and, still clinging on for all I was worth, I fell backwards in slow motion. It soon became fast motion and I landed flat on my back on the lawn below.
    I was completely winded. I lay there, unable to catch my breath.
    Suddenly lights came on in the house and the front door opened. Silhouetted against the light, I saw Debbie’s father angrily wielding a cricket bat. By his body language I could tell that he was more than somewhat agitated.
    Adrenaline helped me find my wind and I scrambled to my feet and hobbled through the bushes like an old man in a cartoon. The old British word ‘scarper’ comes to mind. I had visions of him happily clobbering me with that cricket bat.
    I clambered through the neighbour’s hedge, ran down the road and hid behind some trees to catch my breath. Thankfully, he did not see where I went.
    Even though I was a few houses down the road, I could hear him cursing to himself as he checked around the garden.
    I waited for what seemed like an eternity and then, when the light turned off at Debbie’s house, I snuck back to my car and drove home as fast as I could.
    Ha. So much for basic training and being invincible and not being scared of her father.

The Eye of the Beholder
    (Soundtrack: ‘I Can See Clearly Now’ by Johnny Nash)
    When I was in the army, we had to stand guard at the ammunition depot a couple of times a week. For some reason, I always had the 2 a.m. to 8 a.m. shift.
    An inner barbed-wire fence, a walkway and then an outer barbed-wire fence surrounded the ammunition depot. It was located in the bush some miles from the base and unless the moon was full, it was a pretty dark and quiet walk between the fences.
    The perimeter beyond the outer fence was made up of dense scrub, large bushes and trees. On each of the four corners were spotlights