CHANGING DAZE....(part 3).

'Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you want till it's gone.....'

I had 8 days to wait until the planned takeover.  Louise had asked me not to confide in anyone and as much as I could I didn't.

I wasn't silly enough to know that anyone I told at Brett's Boys would be known by Louise, somehow, sometime.  Yet I had to confide in some-one.  By this time Betty (Brett) had found the 3 of us a beautiful home in an historic suburb about 15 minutes drive west of the city (detailed later).

Betty was my best friend, my sister, my ally at Brett's Boys and the only person I thought capable and loyal enough of helping me to work out how to deal with getting Marcia on the premises at the appointed time.  A time when she was flat out at her Girl's Parlour - 7pm on a  Friday night!

Betty was a  boy from the outback - full of the Ozzie, she'll be right mate, slap you on the back and laugh Australians who are now a dying breed.  Over the pursuing days Betty worked his infectious charm  on the security guard in question.  Within days the 3 of us were best friends.  When you are spending nearly 24/7 with people you can either love 'em or hate 'em.

The thug, Jeffrey, was a tall, solid, but intellectually lacking thug who was no different to the rest of us.  By the 3rd day she even managed to get Jeffrey to indulge in a bong with us outside in the morning.  Afterwards he went to his room to sleep and that was the pattern that began to follow.  When he awoke Betty would be there to make him a cup of coffee and we would resume normal roles waiting for Marcia to turn up and demand a run down of the days activities and takings.  

Friday comes around and I am on tenterhooks all morning.  Betty gave me some sort of tranquillizer pill to calm me down and promised that everything would be okay.  God bless Betty, everything went perfectly.  We had a few morning bongs with Jeffrey, he went to sleep, and when he woke up and come downstairs Betty was busy in the kitchen making Coffee.  

It's 5.30 and all the boys have arrived.  We are starting to get clients at the door and a few outcalls and Betty and Jeffrey are still outside smoking bongs!!!!! I'm popping out in between to join them and desperately trying to get Betty's attention to find out what's going on.

At 5.50 or so Jeff suddenly closed his eyes and fell forward from the bench landing head first on the tiled courtyard.  The fall had been slow and in pitching movements so even though he hit his head first, it was at a slow impact and he only sustained minor grazing.  it took 4 of our biggest boys to drag an unconscious Jeffrey upstairs to his room.

While all this was happening, Betty calmly told me that he had put Mogadon pills and extra sugar in both cups of Jeffrie's coffee.......goodness knows how many. Betty had a history of pill taking and at one time had said quite innocently to me (after putting her night's trade into an ambulance) 'but I only gave him 5 moggies?'

Minutes later I was on the phone to Marcia telling her that Jeffrey appeared to have overdosed on something while he was in his room and we needed her there.
Marcia arrived maybe 20 minutes later.  Straight up to Jeffries room where we decided he was just passed out and didn't need an ambulance....in the meantime Betty has already rung Lousie.

Ding Dong.......Acting casually I excused myself from the room to answer the door as was my job.  Louise stood there, dressed in all black leather, with 3 huge Islander type bouncers, all at least 200 kgs each.

Shock, feign horror, as Marcia comes down the stairs on hearing Louise's voice. Within minutes it was over.  I don't even know what Louise said to Marcia, it was done in the reception parlour, but Marcia left without a word, followed a few moments later with Jeffrey on the shoulders of two of Louise's heavies.  She never stood a chance.  Apart from Louise being 1m taller and flanked by 600kg of muscle and fat, she (and I'm sure Marcia knew) had the blessing of the local police.  This was Sydney in the mid 1980's - a notorious time for the integrity of the force back then.

We called Colin from home, we called the trannies from Diamond Lil's and waited until as many 'boys' were there as possible present.  The total surprise on everyone's face (including Matty's) when Louise asked me to explain what was happening was something I will never forget. 

Suddenly I was not only the centre of attention, but also the obvious ally and new manager for Louise.  Most of the 'boys' were impressed, everyone knew we were going through change so I don't think it was as much of a shock as it could have been. Nobody had particularly liked Marcia's new regime.  A few of the boys, including Colin, were  not so whole-heartedly optimistic about the change in ownership.

In the end we had a week before Graham's family were taking possession of the house, and all the contents (except the sheets and towels!) and whatever happened, Louise was the only one offering a premises to continue from.  By the end of the week, we had lost half the workers, some going to other parlors, some just disappearing from our lives forever.  Colin kept quiet but remained with us.  I knew he was unhappy with me as in his eyes a much older, more experienced person with a longer history of working at Brett's was being replaced by a recent blow in.  He wanted the position and prestige that went with it...he would never have been able to do it (and within a few years was to prove so dramatically - unfortunately ensuring I had taken a tumble before him).

A week later and we were all putting sheets, bedding and whatever else we thought we could pilfer onto a removal truck and heading to our new location.
This was not what we had imagined.  Where Brett's was a charming Edwardian house in a trendy area of Sydney our new location was totally the opposite.

We moved to Glebe. Glebe was originally an old colonial village worker's village originally located on the outskirts of Sydney a few kilometres from Circular Quay.  It's northern boundary is the shores of the Y shaped Blackwattle Bay and it's southern boundary is roughly Parramatta Road, Sydney's original road heading west to the colonial villages and towns.  The suburb was then a declining urban slum, on the most part.  

Abandoned or decrepit warehouses at the city end, row upon row of small, cheap and run down Victorian workers cottages, squatters living in some of the larger, abandoned terrace houses and many welfare recipients living in public housing.

We were in a single storied, tiny, corner terrace at the bottom of the hill which formed Glebe's now very avante- garde and trendy main street The sandstone cliff which backed onto the small rear gardens of the opposite cottages formed the 'financial boundary' which seperated Glebe from 'Glebe Point'....from the days of the early settlers always a desirable address, with an amazing array of grand old houses of every vernacular.

We had gone from a lavish, 2 storey, 5 bedroom salon into a run-down tiny cottage which provided little privacy and was definitely not up to the standard of what our clients were used to.  The rooms were small. One faced the front entrance, and both were the first two rooms in the house  and had a corridor running the length of them before opening up into the 'reception area'. Every client arriving could be heard by any client using either of the two rooms.

On top of that the house had been being used as a private parlor for two girls. They were not only dirty and messy in their house-keeping habits but left the place with a distinct reek of vagina.

 
Removalists and Louise finally gone, there was only one thing to do, besides all stand there gaping in horror at one an other.  Break out the marijuana, mull up and work out how the hell we could make this place work.......