Guts Tour Quotes

Nearly 30 years since his only tour of Australia, mention of Tavaré still occasions winces and groans. Despite its continental lilt, his name translates into Australian as a very British brand of obduracy, that Trevor Baileyesque quality of making every ditch a last one.

For the gaming fishermen there was the Whatoosie River and its native cocka-snoek, the main game fish of the resident Skegg’s Valley Dynamite Fishing Club. Cocka-snoek were wily and tough and rather too bright for mere fish. You wouldn’t catch much with a rod around here. Many inexperienced visitors would find the bait stolen from their hooks, which punctuated the discovery that their lines had somehow got snagged and tangled irretrievably around some underwater obstruction – sometimes tied together with neat little bows. Often, several direct hits with hand grenades were needed to stun the creatures long enough just to catch them, gut them and fry them, but these former military types had become experts at it. For a modest fee, tours could be arranged via the booking office, which included an overnight stay on the banks of the river where one could drop off to a great night’s sleep after a satisfying meal of cocka-snoek done on an open fire, and the sound the bits of shrapnel made rattling in your stomach.

It takes a certain specialist’s dedication to travel in squalid cities and fetid slums, among the utterly dependant poor, who have lost nearly all of their traditions, and most of their habitat. You need first of all the skill and the temperament of a proctologist. Such a person, deft in rectal exams, is as essential to medicine as any other specialist, yet it is only the resolute few who opt to examine the condition of the human body by staring solemnly – fitted out like spelunkers, with scopes and tubes and gloves – up its fundament and trawling through its intestines, making the grand colonic tour. Some travel has its parallels, and some travellers might fit the description as rectal specialists of topography, joylessly wandering the guts and entrails of the earth and reporting on their decrepitude. I am not one of them.

She told me she loves me,” I blurt out. His eyes open wide. “Wow.” Wow? That’s all I get? He starts setting up his machines. “How do you feel about that?” “I fucking love it.” My heart thrills. “But?” “But I’m just not sure.” He laughs. “No one ever is. You just have to go with your gut. If it’s meant to be, you’ll meet her somewhere near the middle and fall in love with her too.” “Oh, I already did.” He looks up and smiles. “Really?” A grin tips the corners of my lips. “Yeah.” “What does love mean to you?” he asks. “It means that if something happened to her tomorrow, I don’t know if I would ever be the same.” “Love does that to you.” “Did you feel like Friday was yours long before she knew she was yours?” He laughs. “I knew she was mine the first time I kissed her. Then I just had to convince her.” “Do you ever feel like you dragged her along? Like maybe it wasn’t her idea?” He shakes his head. “Never. Is that what you feel like you’re doing with Peck?” I run a hand through my hair. “I don’t know. She told me she loves me. And she sleeps in my bed every night. And now if she left me, she’d leave a hole behind. That’s all.” “Has she talked to her mom yet?” I shake my head. “Not that I know of. That’s kind of why she’s with me. So she can stay away from her mom.” “Maybe she needs to face that. Then she could at least be with you by choice rather than by necessity. You’d probably feel a little bit more comfortable about her reason for being there if you knew she was there for you, and not just for the safety of your apartment.” He shrugs. “But what do I know. I had to have Friday lead me around by my dick piercing to get it.” He grins. “So, do you think she might?” I ask quietly. “I think she’s an idiot if she doesn’t.” “She’s going on tour soon.” “How do you feel about that?” “I’m going to miss her like crazy.” “Be sure to tell her that.” “I will.” “You know Logan and Emily are going to be traveling with them, right?” He gets a gleam in his eye. “Yeah. Why?” “Just saying.” I just wish I knew what he was just saying. “So, you’re the last one to fall,” he says. He’s serious all of a sudden. “I never really worried about you. I worried more about Pete, because I knew you had more ability to love than any of the rest of us.” “What makes you say that?” “I don’t know,” he hedges. “You just wore your heart on your sleeve. You love, and you love well and true. That’s one of your strengths.” “I’m not sure if strength is the right word.” “A lot of men would be put off by her stutter. Embarrassed by it. You’re not, are you?” “I don’t even notice it when she does it, but last night we had a whole conversation without her stuttering even once.” “She’s learning to trust you.” “God, I hope so.” “She

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