And De Fun Don't Done Read Free Page B

Grand Final day at the Sydney Cricket Ground. There were literally thousands of people from all over the world, crushing themselves and their hand luggage into countless queues to get through immigration and customs. Somehow Les got swept into one queue and stood their gaping. Christ! I’ll be here for a month, he thought. People pushed, shoved and argued. Voices boomed out over intercoms in English, Spanish and Japanese. Airport officials — blacks, hispanics, asians, whites — wearing uniforms and badges roamed the queues, ordering people around in weird American accents like nothing Les had heard on TV or in the movies. Now and again a customs official would appear out of nowhere with a sniffer dog and let it run and jump across the passengers’ bags. Still dazed and now a bit spun out Norton shuffled forward in his queue and tried to switch off to the heat and bedlam around him.
    He’d managed to stuff up one of his immigration forms so he had to fill it out again. But the customs official was quite friendly.
    â€˜From Australia, eh?’ he sort of smiled.
    â€˜That’s right,’ answered Les.
    â€˜Going down to Florida to see the “mates”, are you?’
    â€˜Yeah, something like that,’ said Les, returning the man’s smile.
    The official banged a stamp on his passport. ‘You have a good one.’
    â€˜Thanks, mate.’ Les pocketed his passport and walked off, wondering whether he should have said that.
    Now all Les had to do was pick up his luggage from Baggage Claim 18. It wasn’t hard to find; Les just followed the numbers through the melee till he found a mob of forlorn-looking Australians crowded around an empty conveyor belt that just kept going round and round and round. Some bloke in a crumpled white shirt, sitting on the edge of the conveyor belt, looked up and caught Norton’s eye.
    â€˜The fuckin’ hatch is stuck,’ he said, his voice tinged with despair and frustration. He looked too tired to be angry. ‘I’ve been sitting here nearly half a fuckin’ hour.’
    â€˜Christ!’ replied Les. ‘I’m supposed to pick up a plane to Dallas.’
    â€˜Hah!’ answered the bloke. ‘Join the club. I’ve missed my plane to Chicago.’
    Norton looked at his watch. ‘Shit!’
    â€˜Yeah. Shit!’ nodded the bloke.
    After about twenty-five minutes the luggage started to dribble through. Norton’s blue canvas bag dribbled through about fifteen minutes later.
    Getting through customs was barely a formality, but between the kindly air refuellers’ strike in Sydney and the hatch jamming on the plane Les missed his connecting flight by about twenty minutes. Oh Christ! he lamented. I knew this would happen. I just fuckin’ knew. It was no big deal, though, according to the woman at the Delta Airlines counter, just behind the customs desk. She re-routed Norton via Atlanta then told him to toss his bag on the conveyor belt behind him. Norton did as he was told.
    â€˜Now where do I go?’ he asked.
    â€˜Out that door there,’ pointed the woman. ‘Turn left, and it’s about a half-mile to your right. You can’t miss it.’
    I will though, thought Norton. ‘Thank you, miss,’ he said, and stepped outside the terminal.
    If it was hot inside, out on the street seemed like a blast furnace. Norton couldn’t tell where he was, either.Strange noises, strange cars going everywhere, strange voices and even stranger heads. Gripping his overnight bag Les set off in search of Delta Terminal 25 and his connecting flight to Atlanta. To his surprise Les found it without much trouble; he even managed to find a money exchange and without too many stares exchange some traveller’s cheques for just on a thousand dollars cash. The flight didn’t leave for another thirty minutes; Les figured he might as well be on the plane, sitting down reading and relaxing, as