The Biggest Croc I Ever Saw Part 3-- Rosco

(Continuation of previous post, so go backwards to go forwards.)

Up until about five years ago, I would have these dreams where an un-aged Rosco Spencer and his girlfriend Penny would show up in California and meet me for a cup of coffee and a couple of bagels. Rosco would still be dressed in all green shorts and a cotton safari shirt. He'd still have boots on and the backs of his thighs would still be streaked with a white butt powder that faded into the backs of his knees and turned into white rivulets that ran down his calves and tucked up under his socks.

Penny would still have a face a bit like Olive Oil, and she would still be sucking hard on cigarettes to calm her nerves and she would still be model tall and rail thin, with large, soft breasts and hard cut wrinkles around her mouth and eyes.

It would be "Scotty" this and "Scotty" that from Penny, and Rosco would call me "mate" mostly, and the two would be so out of place and yet so comfortable as California would be just another adventure in a long line of adventures.

Some people are just larger than life, and Rosco was one of those people. He was almost as tall as I and yet had a much squarer frame. He had thick legs that held a thick torso. He had a broad forehead and a mouth that smiled extra wide. His hair fringed his head in a typical male balding pattern, but Rosco kept it fairly long, giving him a clownish look I don't think he intended but that I noticed everyday. He had small dots on the top of his head where a singular hair transplant had taken root. Out of these dots grew small curly clumps of gray-black hair.

Rosco had been a builder in Melbourne before he started his migration along the coast northward. He had been a builder for people in the horse racing industry down there. He had made good money, but not exceptional money. His wife, however, had come from a family involved in starting or owning or operating Australia's Lotto. Rosco was a wealthy man, indeed. But it was truly his wife's family"s money.

Rosco left Melbourne and began buying real estate on the beach heading northward up the east coast of Australia. He would buy land and then find himself part of the tourism commission within the town. He would promote the town like crazy and then when real estate prices spiked, he would sell and continue northward. Rosco did this for many years and made a good living separate from his wife's money doing it.

Rosco didn't care a thing about money except that it gave him something to do everyday. Making money was a game and a pastime for Rosco. He would wake up, look around, and try to make a buck. It's what he lived for. It's what drove him along on his life's journey.

Rosco had an overweight wife and a few overweight kids at home, but he was not happy being there with them. He had spent years, apparently, one move ahead of his wife and famly, working ahead of their moves, moving on when they caught up. His wife seemed resigned to the man she married, and tolerated Rosco's absences. Things got tricky, though, when Rosco wanted big money from her for a deal he just couldn't pass up.

I met Rosco in Weipa. He had gone as far north as a man could go in Australia. In fact, he was at the extreme tip of Australia, where everything seemed extreme. He never admitted this fact directly to me, but I think he took the government building contracts so that he could hide with his new girlfriend Penny and her daughter, and not have to tell his wife.

Part of my job description as a right hand Friday, was to answer the phone when his wife called and lie like hell.

She flew up to Weipa with the kids on a whim once during my second week there, and thankfully Rosco and Penny were out of town. I told Rosco's wife and kids they were better off staying at the hotel in town, as we boys had a big poker night planned, and she took the kids and did as I suggested. The main thing was that I kept her out of Rosco and Penny's bedroom. Penny left her "things" about, and there was no doubt they were girlie and not part of Rosco's bush attire.

This deceitful act on my part (lord knows I didn't want a woman cuckolded and her three kids staying with me while I had the house to myself) earned me more of Rosco's trust. I was now the designated driver. I was the one chosen to look after Penny and her daughter. I was given my own vehicle. I was trusted with the books. I got out of almost all of the hard labor work and got to make all the necessary flights and drives back into Cairns for supplies and organizational matters. This WAS just simple construction folks. There was no rocket science to anything Rosco had me doing.

I told my Japanese girlfriend that I was now "in the money" and I could pay her way if she wanted to come up. One day, she just "arrived" in Weipa unannounced via the almost daily courier flights from Cairns in a small turboprop. Her language skills had misinterpreted what I had told her. She had worked herself up into a state of desperation and just bought a ticket and got on a plane.

Hiroko had no idea the town was such a wild and outbacky place, and she found herself walking alone on a hot road, not knowing how to contact me. A few hours later, crying and miserable, Rosco passed her and slowed down and asked her who she was.

He had a feeling she was looking for me. Not many Japanese girls wandered in those neck of the woods without a reason.

I hadn't asked, but now Hiroko was living with Rosco, Penny, Penny's daughter and I in a three bedroom house. I had to warn Hiroko about the noisy sex that sometimes went late into the night. Hiroko was just glad to be hanging out with me and on another adventure.

Rosco took to calling Hiroko Hair-O and Penny's daughter traded English lessons for Japanese lessons in the afternoons.

There was this sudden familial feel to the situation I had stumbled into, and this would last for the length of my association with Rosco, which was off and on for about a year and a half.

Rosco gave me full run of a condo on four mile beach in Port Douglas for four months later down the line, with a swimming pool and a nearby youth hostel to cull bikinis from. He always supplied me with work and a vehicle, even though I was not legally allowed to work in Australia due to visa restrictions. I got the feeling I was the son he wanted but never had, though he had two sons at home. I was convenient for Rosco, in the sense that I was always up for anything, and that meant some odd duties involving lots of driving.

And beer.