THE UNOFFICIAL DEATH OF LARRY BIRD
Episode 1. The Long Hard Road – Written by Noel Anderson

A wet Sunday morning, Larry Bird woke up feelin’ like shit! His career as Australia’s most unsuccessful comedian had been truly cemented. Larry hadn’t had a gig since before the Tasty Nightclub raid back in August 1994, thirteen years to the day…or is it sixteen? Larry can’t recall… too much partying through the ’80s. It was a benefit he remembered for the local Police Citizen’s Youth Club paying less than a hundred lousy bucks. He’d taken the wrong turn somewhere and he was on the wrong side of forty, couldn’t get laid now in a brothel even on a good day…plus, the cigarettes and vodka from last night’s binge had left a “burning” in his throat so vile he wanted to puke.
He looked down and for a brief moment, his prick went stiff…then just as quickly it was gone.
“Fuck” he cried and jumped out of bed.
Larry was tired, worn-out…but that wasn’t the real problem, no sir. The real problem was that strange smell lingering in the air. What was it?
Still pissed, he stumbled along the hallway and pushed open the dunny door. On closer inspection, it seemed his best mate Rodger had left a little surprise, a turd so fuckin’ big it could take over China, if only it had a mind of its own to do it.
“Damn a floater,” Larry muttered to himself.
“This is shit Rodger, no really, this is shit,” he screamed down the hall stating the obvious. But, Rodger had already left the building.
Realising he was alone, Larry sighed. He knew floaters well, he knew they refused to fuckin’ flush even with aggressive pushin’ on the cistern button, something Larry was gettin’ good at now that Rodger was a regular guest at the flat every Saturday night.
No, Larry thought…this one was definitely not like the Titanic. This one was not going to sink, this fucking floater was here to stay.

Flashback five hours and several blocks away in Hotham Street; Miriam sits nervously watching reruns of Channel 3’s reality TV show, The Jailbirds. Things are heating up…Miriam grabs the remote control and turns up the sound.

ON THE TV SET
“Just you try and run,” Sheila screamed at the top of her tits, “You’ll be dead within seconds, with a thousand blowies shittin’ on’ya in a few minutes.”
Sheila obviously wasn’t havin’ a good day, Helen could tell.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION
Sheila is, in fact, Miriam’s favourite jailbird. She likes her more than cry baby Helen. She likes Sheila more than any other girl in the show. Miriam likes her mainly because she always wears Valentino rocksteel heeled pumps, and is top dog in the jail.
No one rattles Sheila, no matter how hard they try. Sheila is as cool as a cucumber and as smooth and fruity as a bowl of cherries. Miriam really likes that. Sometimes Miriam wishes she was Sheila. Tough and hot! But, of course in real life, Miriam wouldn’t even be able to spit on Sheila’s snatch.

BACK TO LARRY
Larry Bird stood watching the rain hit the window then opened the fridge. Let’s see what greeted him…an onion, a slice of no-name cheese in a plastic wrapper and an ashtray full of cigarette butts, with a raw egg, mashed up. Rodger hated eggs and it looked like he’d taken his angst out on this one charred and left for dead in the ashtray. Still, that didn’t explain why in a drunken haze he’d stuck this bloody concoction in the fridge. Larry thought for a moment, grabbed the ashtray, and then looked at the rubbish bin overflowing in the corner of the room.
“What the fuck,” Larry shouted, and put the ashtray straight into the butter compartment out of sight…and slammed the fridge door.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION
On TV, Sheila is about to knock off Helen in the washroom, after a long-standing feud over Rodrigo the night guard at Worthwhile Prison. They’d all partied hard together for months but lately, the last three episodes, Helen has gotten greedy, and doesn’t want to share Rodrigo’s pork sausage anymore. This change of heart has stirred up a lot of PMT between the girls…and stroked Rodrigo’s ego. Helen is extra pissed because in the last episode Sheila severed two fingers clean off Helen’s right hand…by mistake! And, to add insult to injury, no one has seen the fingers since the accident…if anyone in Worthwhile prison knows where they are…well, they ain’t talkin’.
And, Worthwhile prison has refused to investigate.
Criminals have no fuckin’ rights on late-night reality TV, as Helen has quickly found out.

ON THE TV SET
“Give me back my fingers you redhead bitch” Helen hollered, as Sheila pulled a fiddleback-blade out of nowhere.
Sheila could always come up with something in a tussle, Helen thought and smiled.
Thinking quickly, Helen emptied the washing onto the floor, shielding her body with the plastic laundry basket, just as Sheila made a dive at her heart, the knife missing her breast by inches.
Worthwhile Prison was no place for losers.
“Where are my fingers? Tell me bitch or I’ll have you for bloody dinner.” Helen cried out waving the basket in front of her body as if she was an act from Circus Oz.
“Have me for dinner! You? Don’t make me laugh. You don’t even know how to cook twat face!” Sheila responded triumphant, before taking off her left Valentino heel, size twelve… cutting the air with the heel like a steel blade, in the hands of great Japanese swordsmen.
“Give’em back or I’ll…?”
“What? What are’ya goanna do if I don’t?’ screeched Sheila. “Break into a sweat? Or are’ya goanna try knit me a sweater with ya hand? The best one, with all five fingers.”
It was at that point bedlam broke loose and Sheila pommelled Helen to death with her Valentino heel, swearing to never wear them again once she’s wiped the bloodstains off the shoe…and she never did. Well, not until her grandson’s christening many episodes later, but that’s another story.
Miriam jumped up from the couch in a state of panic.
You see, Miriam can’t relax in normal situations but death, anyone’s death, even Helen’s, a low life TV character she hated, really upset her. Switching off the TV set she decided, despite the late hour, it was 3am… to spring-clean the entire house and scrub the bathroom tiles until they shined. She didn’t even stop when her fingers bled.
Satisfied finally everything was clean, she sat quietly eating sugar candy popcorn until she threw up.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION
Miriam has a secret she doesn’t tell anyone. Can you guess? Miriam has chronic adult eczema around her vagina, which makes intercourse impossible and her vagina tad sore.
She hates to talk about it.
She also hates to admit that…Well, Miriam hasn’t been penetrated now for well over three years. Her last sexual encounter was with a waiter; God knows where she met him. But, she didn’t cum. So does it count as intercourse?
You be the judge?
Miriam is, to be frank, a fucking mess.
Miriam likes to just sit and watch late-night TV and never dates. She sits and watches reality TV shows like The Jailbirds and stuffs popcorn into her mouth instead of hooking up with men because popcorn doesn’t irritate her vagina.
Not that she doesn’t think about romance, she thinks about it all the time!
It’s been a long hard road, Miriam thought…a long road to get to this point in her life. And she’s fuckin’ over it!

BACK TO LARRY
Larry stood stark naked in the kitchen, glanced out the window, scratched his balls and burped. A pigeon lay dead on its back, staring back at him through the glass, eyes snapped frozen like it had been kicked in the guts. The kid next door liked to kill’em and it looked like this little guy had swallowed a lot of the rat poison. Yep, Little George loved his poison and bird seed mix, it was pretty lethal. The poor fella must’ve suffered a slow painful death too. Larry opened the window and gently cupped the bird in both hands and rested the dead bird on a clean white dinner plate. Movin’ in close, Larry noticed a hole, a puncher mark, in the belly of the little creature and a trickle of blood. The bird’s cervical vertebrae had been snapped and twisted. Whoever did this, liked to inflict pain.
“Good morning Melbourne,” Larry shouted out loud. No one heard. No one cared. Larry had died a long time ago anyway, just like this dead bird.
Can death be sexy Larry thought? … trying to find a joke somewhere in the situation. He dismissed the idea as the crazy thoughts of a comic who hasn’t worked in thirteen years or is it sixteen? He couldn’t remember!
What Larry didn’t notice that day, just yet…was a small note pushed deep inside the bird’s belly, between the ribs. But more about that later.
Larry covered the pigeon with cling wrap. He pulled the wrap tight and flicked the plastic with his finger… yes, that should do it, Larry thought. Airtight!
He placed the dead bird gently in the fridge beside the ashtray and egg mashup.
A cold chill ran through Larry’s body as he shut the fridge door. About an hour later the fridge light blew out, no one heard it pop. Everyone got on with their day.

LARRY BIRD – TO BE CONTINUED NEXT MONTH
EPISODE 2. PREVIEW LINE
At Miss Jackson’s café in St Kilda – “I don’t know if you’ve noticed Wayne,” Larry said, “But the two girls at that table are staring straight at you.”
Larry Bird says, SHARE ME 