The hotel was somewhere, either Cunnumulla or Goodooga? A helluva way that was far away, I remember —–a wooden Victorian hotel with rooms upstairs behind an iron balustrade and the reception, dining room and bar downstairs. The wooden swing doors squeaked like they did in the old cowboy movies. Inside the bar, yellow windows threw a warm glow onto a counter that stretched the length of the room. At the far end of the room sat three men wearing cowboy hats. I screwed up my eyes (just like in the movies) and ordered a beer. Looking out of the open back door, across the old wooden veranda, I could see a lopsided corrugated-iron shed leaning sideways like someone who had had one too many in the bar. The abandoned car and water tank were there, of course. I raised my empty beer glass right up close to my eyes. (now unscrewed). The circular foam rings distorted the scene like a grainy Super 8 millimetre film from the 1950’s. Later, I wandered over to the cowboys and introduced myself. “Me … O-b-i-e … C-h-e-e-e-r-s”, I said, drawing it out like the surrounding landscape. “No worries, Mate — make that four more beers, will ya!”, came the reply. The one cowboy, pointing to the bar, asked me to wake up the barman. “ He’s named Willis, but we all just call him Bruce”. It turned out that Bruce was not only the barman, but also the hotel manager, the receptionist, the handyman and the cook. After we had cheerfully soaked ourselves with several more beers, Bruce took over the leadership reins. He sent Charlie back to his cattle-station, Richie back to the windmill he was busy repairing and Jacko back to removing the road kills on the way to Cunnumulla or Goodooga. I spent the night in Bruce’s backyard. Beyond the leaning shed, and the last few houses of town —— lay all of Australia.
