Them Sandhill Boys and The Doll Tree

In Kodshollop we named it The Doll Tree and it was best known that you steered well clear of The Doll Tree and the creamy white cottage behind it, specially when the summer bushfires was more than just a warning on the tele about making sure youse got plenty of space between the house and the bush, you mow the grass, keep plenty of water on hand, all that kinda stuff – always have an escape plan. Ol’ Papa Pete Sandhill, the grouchy gray bearded patriarch of them rasculous Sandhill boys, though so far as we all knew he bore no direct relation, ol’ Papa Pete being of this robust onyx complexion, while they was mostly being white and all, except for little Gerys Sandhill who had a bunch of Maori in him and Jayden Sandhill who, well, we didn’t know what heritage was in him. Them Sandhill boys, despite the ‘damn’ that followed em like a stink, particularly when they got to cruisin in their Ford Fiestas about town playing their R’n’Bs so loud youse swore the gentle bass of their factory set sound systems would rattle a tin bin, well despite these rebellious behaviours, them Sandhill Boys were not a nitpicky bunch about such matters of skin and ethnicities. Youse were a Sandhill boy or youse weren’t. Well, as I was about to be sayin, ol’ Papa Pete used to regale with tall tales about The Doll Tree and the witch who lived in the creamy white cottage behind it who would be witchin away at all the hours. And they was tall these tales, tall as the clumsy made brick clock tower down the end of Main that we all thought was shaped like a great big dick – with its narrow body and enormous bulbous top where the clock and all its gears was stashed to keep time – but we felt better than to talk nasty about our own town’s proudest, oldest monuments, and that clock tower had likely seen more years than ol’ Papa Pete himself. So our guffaws was all in muffles when we saw its shadow come the afternoon, when the sun would hit it just right and leave the imprint of a huge black shadowy dick on the grassy hill in Georgia’s Paddock behind, which was damn near as funny as Lloyd Jeffer’s three legged mule, Cap’n Hoppers, lusting after Sheila Bronkowski’s cattle. Such was our respect, we even kinda kept it quiet when Davey Sandhill, who read some and enjoyed goon straight outta the sack, referred to the tower as ‘turgid,’ which we all felt was gross, partly cos it sounded like turd, but mostly cos we couldn’t think of our own dicks as bein so rigorously swollen with blood as to be labelled ‘turgid,’ as inflated and rough to touch as that clock tower. We fancied our dicks as prettier than such a downright perilously ancient structure, which we swore leaned when the winds got up and about a little. Them Sandhill boys in particular was well known for bein confident of the perfect functions and looks of their parts and would be damned if their dicks was ever swayed by the wind. Fuck, they’d boast, to shift our cocks from their course, it’d need to be like one of them westerly gales that blew down Nancy’s farm in ’92, when all of Kodshollop had to keep a low head to escape the foliages bein blown from out of the bush. But, we agreed, ‘turgid’ was kinda funny all the same, we guessed. Davey had his way with words, even if he pissed most of them away in his low drawl when head divin into his goon sacks. It’s one of them good words that mostly sounds like it is: hard as its meaning. Turgid. Hehe. Anyways, ol’ Papa Pete had had a few dealings with The Doll Tree and more than a few run-ins with the witch who used to frequent the tourist gift store, The Kooky Kodshollop Kift Boutique, he ran for years on the corner of Penelope and Kaya, a block off Main, up the north end of town near the Murray. ‘She’d come amble in,’ ol’ Papa Pete would say, ‘cos she never really seemed to walk, her impressive girth made her kinda barrel everywhere and when she wasn’t a barrellin, well, she’d amble, like a kinda heavy sashay, and when she’d come on in, she’d always head straight to the plastic dolls I kept up near the rear of the store cos I couldn’t stand their painted blue and green eyes but they always seemed to sell well when I’d tack on a sticker that said Kodshollop Made or Murray Fresh. Them tourists love the local crafts, though these dolls come from somewhere in Vietnam. Mongolia? Latvia? Damn, I don’t recall such trivias. So this witch, who went by Baba Yaga, though I swear I’d heard some girls about town just call her Madame Becky, would come on in and always be snoopin round me dolls, liftin em up, poking at em, flappin round their clothes – just them kind of inspections. I knew she was a witch cos she’d gone and told me once that her business was spells and potions relatin to matters of “knowing” and “needing,” which don’t make too much sense, but I figured neither does witchin. Bout town we was all used to seein her wanderin, always mutterin sumthin to herself a lil bit cross-eyed. Never really bothered us much cos we all went on, unwitched you could say. Though some nights I swear you’d hear her out there past The Doll Tree screamin her nonsense and cold nights would be afflicted with an extra cold and my balls would go and shrink up inside me body. Boys, you know how I like my balls to dangle. I’m always struck by a hectic discomfort when they go crawl back up inside me.’ If them Sandhill boys took a special kind of pride in their parts, ol’ Papa Pete was OG with that pride, mostly in reference to his famously low dangling balls that would drop all too often unannounced like a pair of fat wrinkly drops of grey-black flesh coloured rain from the navy footy shorts he wore near year round. ‘Like to air em out,’ he’d say, spreadin his legs. We’d all been tricked by ol’ Papa Pete more than we cared to admit into castin our eyes downwards to have these testicles drift suddenly into focus, flopped up against his veiny thighs. He’d giggle like he always does and take a drink from his Earl Grey Tea and say that they were a beautiful thing, lowest dangling balls this side of the Murray he’d say, then his eyes would always lose a lil focus cos he’d be thinkin about his nemesis Mayor Herman up in Brackhurst whose balls fell even lower than ol’ Papa Pete’s. Oh, when the Brackhurst Footy Club was in town, the rivalry between Mayor Herman and ol’ Papa Pete was sumthin to behold. While the game was on, another game of cat and testes was goin on, where the loser was he who fell to unwillingly stare at his opponent’s baby factories. The ladders about the club house the two older men climbed to get their opponent get eye level with their testicles was sumthin of a testament to the two older men’s robustive spunk. We in Kodshollop could only stand on the sidelines, it wasn’t our fight, but we cheered for ol’ Papa Pete all the same, wincin when he’d get an eyeful of Mayor Herman’s fermented fruit. Needless to say, ol’ Papa Pete was protective of his precious pebbles. ‘So Baba Yaga would come amble in and head straight to the dolls,’ ol’ Papa Pete would go on, ‘and she always seemed to git the most pot bellied, skin blemished freak of the lot –they came in little white skirts, sometimes in little colourful nappies, sometimes completely nekid, maybe plastic, maybe fake porcelain – and she’d pay in nuthin but gold coins and leave with the doll. You always knew the darn thing would be strung up in that tree with all the others before the sun had even checked out and gone headed to the other side of the Earth. So, one day she comes in again, now she never said a word, just grabbed whatever doll took her fancy, came to the counter and paid without even a how-ya-doin-cunt’ – the most common exchange between them Sandhill boys – ‘and she would go amblin back off to her cottage behind The Doll Tree, but this one day I have this impulsiveness to ask her what she’s aimin to accomplish with these dolls. See, the night before, I’d heard her weird hollerin noises out there, in her cottage, and my balls had done their disappearing act and I was not a bit myself, short of me proper eight hours and findin some unusual curiosity creepin up on me. So, I ask, what you doin with them dolls? And she says, trying to make life. And I have no idea what she fucken means by that so I ask her what she means by that and she says that maybe she can know life if she can make it and I still have no clue what the fuck is goin on, so I turn a lil crass, cos I’m not only curious that day, but, on account of temporarily losing me balls for the evening, grumpy as Sally-Bob Bufford when Jeremiah Jefferson goes and takes her favourite seat at the Civic Centre on bingo night. So I tells Baba Yaga, well you have to fuck to make life, are you gonna get them dolls to fuck? Now, she looks at me with this slinty eyed stare, like I’ve gone insulted her but also given her some kind of bright light idea – there’s a fucken bulb gone off somewhere in there, like this wet light playin round her peepers. And she says, you’re right – and I fucken already know it, so I don’t rub it in – and she continues, I thought if I got enough of them in the same place, all hanging up in that tree, life would rub off onto them, they’re near the Murray and the Murray is life around here – now this shit is all hippy to me and as a proper Liberal man, I’m startin to get suspicious (and, I’ll tell you what, my good ol’ boy Mister Howard would had her tarred for such soft soap gibberish). She carries on all thoughtful, philosophising and the like, maybe they’re missing the vital ingredient of humanity and, I kid you boys not in the fucken least, she stares down at me glorious nuts and, as they do, as if humming along to the melody of their own fickle fate, they decide there and then to just pop out – my sodden, heavy little bastards maken that wet thwacking sound on me thighs they always do when they’ve been cooped up in sweat and suddenly find their freedom – and her eyes got hungry lads, but not in the ways we usually like em to. She licked her lips and pays in gold coins for her latest plastic doll – a bigger one, beige coloured, with blue eyes, almost the size of small toddler – then ambles on out. And what happened the next morning, well boys, you mightn’t believe it, but it happened, sure as a promise, I woke up and someone had crept into my house and gone taken my fucken scrotum. This was a singular shock, fellas. It was not like it had been cut off neither, there was no stitchin or wounds or nuthin, they was just gone – plucked off clean, not a pubic hair left – and my poor old pretty cock was left all lonely hangin there. Now, in a fair state I looked everywhere about the house in case I’d gone misplaced them in me sleep, but it was hopeless. Poof, they was just gone. So I settled into a few jugs of Early Grey to soothe me nerves – at least three after me morning shit (fortunately not put into jeopardy by the absence of me balls – I thought there not bein there would throw me balance on the can, like they’ve always been me anchors, lads, me counterbalance in the act of specially difficult shits) – and once I’d got over the shock of not having me boys, I realised that this mopin was doin no good, so I bundled into me ’76 Ford Fiesta and got to investigatin.’ Them Sandhill Boys would always whistle when they heard this part, givin each other elbows and nods and you betchas. Partly cos they was all lovers of the Ford Fiesta, lovin nuthin more than lappies about town in their own Fiestas (all hues of colours) and were in awe of ol’ Papa Pete’s original model – all soft curves, baby blue, small functional tires and great mileage, thing could get up to 60 with a proper putter in round 8 seconds. And, of course, they’d always had their own tumultousistic relations with the boss of the Ford Fiesta plant, Boone Bufford, a worm if ever there was, always tryin to get it shut down and shipped off outta town. Man is scum. But also partly cos ol’ Papa Pete’s investigatory work is true to the Sandhill habit of mystery solvin. This is kinda where it all starts for them Sandhill Boys, why they get these urges to get into their Ford Fiestas and get about town makin sure nuthin is left to mystery: the mystery of what happened to Aunty Jemma’s cat’s anus, the mystery of the fallin’ shippin container out the back of Nancy’s farm, and the great who dug that hole mystery on Main – all stories, like the run ins with Boone Bufford, who so often seemed entangled in these mysteries, for another time. Spurred into action, Ol’ Papa Pete said he went out cruisin around Kodshollop, up and down Main with an eye sharp lookin for his absent balls. ‘Boys,’ he’d say, ‘I was at the finality of me wits, no one had seen em and there was not even their sweaty scent anywhere in the air. I asked Constable Ernie, snuck into them sneaky bastards Geoff and Margaret’s Kodshollop Knick Knacks cellar to make sure they hadn’t tried to rob me, went digging round Georgia’s before the shadow fell, and even checked at the Koddy Royal Pub to see if in a stupor of Earl Grey I’d gone and bet them at the pokies. Nuthin. Not a fucken thing. But I decided not be a quitter and headed to the only person besides meself who had seen them the past day. So I got to drivin to Baba Yaga’s. As I pulled up in Kimmy’ – the name of his ’76 Ford Fiesta – ‘I saw The Doll Tree. Fucken ugly.’ We all know The Doll Tree. Still stands today, still in front of Baba Yaga’s creamy white cottage, left alone but for the odd kid who will touch it for a dare, who will brave both the witch – admittedly quieter and more taken to her old ham radio on the back verandah than her hey days of squealing spells – and them doll eyes that follow you round wherever you go. The Doll Tree is a great big eucalpyt, boney bark, sticky leaves, thick trunk, perfect for a koala, though no koala with any sense would stumble near it, not even them moronic Thompson koalas Davey Sandhill told us all about down in Tassie. It was like a postcard tree as it was. Old too. Yet the dolls made it sumthin different. Sumthin ugly. Hauntin, like Madam Herandez’s mansion near the end of Kaya, that one with them dead roses none of us have much trust for, bein all covered in thorns and whatnot. These dolls, they hang off the branches from twine, are tied to the trunk. They’re tacked to leaves and twigs. All danglin and swayin like. The tree had even taken to growin round some of the ones which had been there for a long time. At its base, in all this mildew and compost, there’s like another hundred bits of doll parts that have fallen from the tree, stacked up in this mound of arms, torsos, head and legs. Ol’ Papa Peter, when he drove up on The Doll Tree, was cautious, everyone in Kodshollop was when they was nearby. But sure as the Murray floods, he saw them. His prides and joys. ‘They was sticky taped to that brand new plastic beige doll she’d got from me the other day,’ he told us, ‘me balls danglin between its stubby legs. Actually, they was longer than its legs, like it could bounce around on them if it was alive and could move. I saw em up there where they was pushed round by the breeze and they was all dried up not being enclosed in me shorts and I knew they were moments away from falling to the damp heap below to be lost in all that dirt and toy parts. Likely, a neat lil teste tree would grow, and I thought such a thing may be purty, but they was mine and I wanted em back. I got to screamin, Baba Yaga, youse get to amblin out here right away, I want me scrotum back. Come on! Now, woman! All I heard was her witch’s cackle from that creamy white cottage and then it happened. The doll with me balls looked down at me and its already smilin face took to smilin even more and it lifted its arm as if to say, come get em. All them dolls got to movin then and it wasn’t no wind or nuthin – they was squirmin in their twine, twitchin round, all stiff like, knees and elbows flexin. The one with me balls was particularly animated, usin the significant weight of me boys to get some momentum as it swung back and forth. Thanks Petey! I heard Baba Yaga yell out. Your balls are all the magic I needed! Now see the life they bring! She wasn’t tellin me much, cos I already knew me testes were magic, but I didn’t know they was magic enough to give plastic dolls life. Boys, I was kinda impressed, but mostly shit scared. Then, there was this big ol gust of wind and the one with me boys suddenly flung itself loose of its noose and fell with a loud wet slap in the leaves below. It rose up out of that muddy mess and worked up into a gallop as it charged directly at me, my balls scrappin behind. And they was all startin to drop now, ploppin into the leaves and runnin straight at me. Now, you all know that I am a man of vitalities, and shouldn’t have had any problems dealin with sum stiff plastic dolls, but I was outnumbered and they was deceptive quick and fierce. Quiet too. Not a sound as they rammed into me. The one with me balls got me first, took the wind right out of me, as another darker little bugger took out me left arm. I caught one with a right foot and it flew off past The Doll Tree, over the cottage’ – ol’ Papa Pete, back in his youth, when he played for the Kodshollop Gators, was well known for havin the biggest kick in the region, could kick the leather off a footy it was said – ‘but another three got tangled up in round me left leg and they took me down, continually sockin me in all me parts. Fellas, I put up quite a fight against them lil monstrosities, even gettin up durin the tussle and kickin em off into the distance left and right. Then I feel this solid whack catch me in the jaw and I see that they’ve started to throw all them broken doll parts at me, and these dolls had some fine arms – I’m gettin well bruised and me clavicle in particular has taken a fair poundin. I figured, as I was gettin pelted by plastic, that my balls had surely gone and given em all this strength and I was right might proud through me confusion and, yeah, I’ll admit to it, fear. Then the one with me boys still danglin and draggin tween its legs hit me a solid one-two, and in this barrage of doll parts and things punchin at me shins I went down in a heap. And I hear Baba Yaga off laughin and clappin. They all came and surrounded me then, glarin with their dollish malice, castin tiny lil shadows, all menace and meanness and glass eyes. I see the beige one with me testes come up to me. He stared for a minute, then kicks me in the face, spits at me (and I’ll never know where that moisture came from), rips off me testes and flops em down on me forehead, turnin round and raisin its arms, and all them dolls raised their arms back. Then they turned back round, wander to the old eucalypt and began to string themselves up in The Doll Tree again. You men and your balls are all the same, I hear Baba Yaga start rattlin off. Good for a burst, a spurt of life and not much else. Ya your all just wet sacks of flesh. Now you watch your mouth, Mister Sandhill, and show some respect, or we’ll be back for your scrotum, and we won’t just off and leave with only that next time. Your penis would be a fine addition to my doll menagerie, don’t you think? And I heard her screen door slam and I scurried outta there fast as me bruised legs would carry me, my balls danglin from me fist. Dear Kimmy was pushed to her limits that arvo, but I got over to Docs righteous quick, findin him thankfully to not yet have indulged in his afternoon’s nang and whiskey repast. Anyways, after a moment’s confusion and Doc’s unbearable laughter at the predicament I found meself in, he stitched me boys back on and I felt whole again.’ At which point, to calls of proof, ol’ Papa Pete would always stand, perch his leg on a chair and let his balls drop wetly out his shorts, and he’d start pointin to the faint scar he had on his scrotum near his gooch. ‘There she is boys, all the evidence you’d ever need.’ Them Sandhill Boys would all call bullshit then, and say it was all a trick to get them eye level with his damn testes again. But then they’d all reach down to check there’s was intact and they all steered well clear of The Doll Tree, specially when the summer bushfires was just round the corner and Baba Yaga’s ham radio would go quiet and all you could hear was them dolls rustlin in the trees and her occasional cackle in the cottage.