Gonzaga's observations in the first episode about the drinking capacities of the smaller members of Australia's fauna have been confirmed by many other sources. Dahlwinkle-Smythe ["Livestock, Luncheon, and the Lash: Musings on an Australian Sojourn." London 1824] for one complains bitterly about the sight of drunken Koala's disporting themselves lewdly after having committed a slow-motion raid on the Sydney Brewery.

Of the stalwart Wombat, however, no such claims of incontinence can be made. The Wombat is a mid-sized marsupial and is, in many ways, an unremarkable animal, the average-Joe of the wild kingdom. Despite some confusion about his name, he is not a bat, he does not fly, but rather ambles in the hot Australian sun with a determined purposeless that many find endearing. These slow and generally amiable creatures (although they can be a little quick to temper in the mornings) are blessed with an enormous ability to consume alcohol to little or no ill effect.

Such were the trencher qualities of a Wombat named "One-Eyed Jack" that he and his owner (although drinking companion more nearly covers their relationship), a Linus Tebbit, late of Lougabouruga, toured, throughout the 1920's, the dusty villages and sheep stations of the outback in a specially tricked-out Model T Ford (it was effectively a mobile pub, and carried billboards with garish depictions of the wombat’s exploits) challenging all comers to a drinking bout (or in Tebbit's inimitable words "come on you pus-green sheep-shaggers, are you going to let a fucking monocular Wombat put you under the bloody table?") on the result of which much wagering was done. Few could best the Wombat, and all regretted trying. Despite the occasional casualty, it was a popular entertainment for participants and spectators alike and a welcome distraction to the rigors of rural Australian life.

Sadly Jack's days as an entertainment ended when he fell into the unscrupulous hands of Guilliame "Billy the Frog" Chirac, a French émigré who was looking to make his fortune as a purveyor of an uniquely Australian form of Foie Gras, and for whom One-Eyed's grossly distended liver proved an irresistible temptation.

But enough of Wombats, we will dwell on them no more. We left Gonzaga in peril, in the midst of a convict horde clamoring for the darkest and most depraved of their many vices: Football. Let’s us return to his story . . .

Let me begin as they do, with the ball. To arrange a tourney of football, you must first provide a football. Unaccountably, the "lobsters" (for so the soldiers were known, either because their tails were plump and juicy, which one of my clients would vigorously assert whenever in his cups, or because of the redness of their coats); the lobsters, as I was saying, had neglected to pack this key item when they embarked for points south. This forced my clientele to improvise from local materials.

While their fellows kept the chant circulating, three of my customers were busy fetching one of the local fur-bearers down from the heights of a blue-gum tree (which operation was accomplished without fatal injury, and only two broken bones). When they had the beast on the ground, they proceeded to lash left front leg to right rear, and right front to left rear, pulling on the bindings until the struggling creature was rolled into a neat ball. Then a shifty beggar proceeded to lop off the animal's stubby tail and sharply protruding ears with the aid of a jackknife. Needless to say, this drove the beast--already frantic--to a murderous rage. Which was exactly as the sportsmen had planned. Keeping clear of its flashing teeth, he kicked the ball into the center of the crowd, which had formed themselves into a large circle--a ragged, wavering, chanting and puking circle, but a circle nonetheless. Now to choose the teams.

The two biggest members of the congregation beat their way to the front of the group and faced off. The other Max brought them refreshments and after they had drunk off a couple of graybeards of the stuff, they spoke to one another thus:

"Me first, you smasher."

"You offer me the dog's portion, you filthy little Harry. Why, I'll figdean you before I let you take first choice!"

"You queer cove, I'll have your head between your breeches before you can..."

And so on. The two gentlemen being unable to come to agreement, I ventured between them, having firmly corked my nostrils, for the stench coming from these brutes was intolerable. Musing on the picturesque scene, it seemed to me that an obvious solution presented itself. I beckoned to Theophilus, who had joined the burgeoning group of his tribe now queuing for a cup of the creature. I tried to convey to him my understanding of this game of football, of its aims, goals and rules. Theophilus laughed and with a shrug of his shoulders, took a swing with his foot at the heftiest of the Britons. Only the timely interruption of a Max, who happened to be passing by with a full tray of my vital juices, prevented a horrible scene developing, for by now said Englishman was so soaked that Theophilus' foot was to him like the proverbial sticks and bones. A younger lout came up to me.

"No matey, you're all wrong. Football's not for the likes of this one. Football's a white man's game. Why, this batch of shotten herrings couldn't wage football if ... oh, pardon me."

And the young rascal proceeded to disgorge all over my feet. Another wag staggered up beside him and slapped him jovially on the neck.

So the slackard British had agreed to a little game of football after all. I conveyed in pidgin the meaning of the rascal's words to Theophilus and his clan. Theophilus's customary leer broadened into a smile, and after a moment the entire village was rolling in laughter. I did not share his confidence, nor was I entirely satisfied that I would be properly paid, but stuck between two groups of thirsty savages I felt that perhaps it would not be wise to be too stingy. Theophilius's tribe must select, said the British, their twelve best men. Only these could drink, although the whole village could offer encouragement to their own team, while heckling the other.

The first contestants were a rheumy-eyed Londoner, a child-husband and catskinner, and a young prince of the kangaroo family (well-known for their capacity). Both quaffed the first amphora without blinking, and then attacked the second. On the third I thought I saw the Englishman gasp for breath. His face went red, but he swallowed hard and finished the bottle. The fourth he began at a leisurely pace, while Prince Kangaroo started drinking at his usual speed. I was sure we would win, until a stone thrown from the crowd caught him on the Adam's apple. I argued to stop the match, but the English insisted that such a move was well within the rules of football. As it was their game, and the British are known for their sportsmanship, I decided that the match must continue. Unable to swallow any more, the kangaroo fellow lost the match, three to four.

Next to play was Theophilus, who won his match easily, seven to three, and performed a wild victory dance. This attracted the attention of a couple of English doxies, low ugly beer wenches, who danced along with him to the amusement of both the natives and the English. Feeling the thirst myself at this point, I asked the uninjured Max if I might substitute for the next competitor. He explained this to his village and a huge cheer went up. There was grumbling amongst the British, but they accepted the substitution. My rival was a huge man with a strangely elongated head and long stringy blonde hair, though the top of his head was as bald as a bat egg. As he approached the drinking area there were screams of approval from the British crowd.

"Drown the fat bastard!"

"Come on the Monk!"

"Come on the Blacksmith!"

At about the seventeenth bottle I felt terrifyingly full, but I continued drinking albeit in increasing pain. I could see two of the damned Englishman, and they appeared not to shirk at all. Just as I felt I could drink no more a rock hit me in the stomach and I let out an enormous belch, and the pain went away. Not fatigued, but merely windy, I grasped another jug and continued to drink.

The ale ran out on our twenty-first flask. My competitor looked a little peaked, but nodded grimly when I suggested continuing using a barrel of absinthe I had produced from local herbs. There was no contest. At the third round the cupshot lout turned green, then white, and started to vomit, first the green of the green fairy, then the brown of the ale. When he could vomit no more ale, he puked bile. And then blood. Soon entire organs were coming out his mouth. With a last spasm he catted up his liver and died.

Somewhat fatigued, I raised my glass and toasted my team with one last cup of absinthe, their cheers ringing in my ears. It was exceedingly smooth to the palate, but I fear that it was the trickle that broke the weir, for hours of competitive quaffing had ensured that my bladder was distended to the point that it would have resembled a large muskmelon to the anatomist, had one happened by to slit open my paunch. And speaking of my paunch, the competition had enlarged it until it sorely tested the mettle of my old cassock.

Thus as soon as the dram was firmly seated where it would do the most good, I felt a strong urge to unburthen myself; indeed an urge so powerful that I could not but yield myself to it. And so I did. All at one blow the seams of my cassock gave way, John Thomas and his dependent cods leapt forth into the full view of all and immediately set to dispensing the Sangaree that had been a-mixing in my punchbowl.

This was a mighty stream of urine, mighty indeed!

Those who were there would tell you, were they yet in this life, that its stream must be measured in yards, yea, in fathoms. All who were present were inundated by this magnificent micturition; indeed, some of the thirstier spectators bent to catch it in their mouths, to take advantage of the rapidity of my drinking and the consequent high proof of my urine. I could not stop them, nay, I could not have closed off that stream had my very life depended on it, not even if I used an iron clamp--indeed, the very force of it drove me backwards (and I am not a reed), backwards until my I came to rest against that blue-gum tree.

This proved to be an excellent vantage point from which to view the rest of what transpired that day. It seems that some of the Britons had taken it badly that an Aborigine, even an honorary one, was relieving his bladder over their heads. They decided to avenge this disgrace by feeding the rouges their boots. The locals in turn applied their knobkerries to the heads of the English, which proved to be less vulnerable to that sort of treatment than one might suspect. And so it went. My torrent narrowed to a trickle, then a dribble, and then it ceased. I was engaged in divesting Saint Peter of the final clinging drops when the lobsterbacks arrived on the scene.

The swirling, heaving mass of drunken footballers did not notice their arrival until the column, responding to a shouted command, had deployed itself into two ranks, facing the football grounds, whereupon I prudently deployed myself into the lower branches of the gum tree. The Officer took up his station on the right flank, and raised his sword. The redcoats raised their muskets; the fighting died down and the ragged mass melted apart, resolving itself into discrete clumps of drunkards, all staring in dumb amazement at the massed muskets leveled at their breasts. The Officer dropped his sword. Any survivors were dispatched by the soldiers' bayonets--all, that is, but Gonzaga.

They shook me out of the tree, a hundred greasy arms shaking at the trunk until I dropped to the ground like a hat-creature drunk on pure-sap. I sent a pawnbroker's dozen of the constabulary to early graves, pushing them six feet under by virtue of the combination of my weight and the elevation of my approach to them. I was making a feeble attempt at administering last rites when the remaining pack of redcoats came at me, with cries of "Roast that donkey!" and, "Smite his costard!" accompanied by a variety of incisive blows which of course rocked me to sleep. <

Episodes from "The Travels of Father Gonzaga" were translated from the language of the Sami peoples on a Reindeer farm near Mexico, Maine, by Marcus Boon, Nicholas Noyes, and David Wondrich.

Marcus Boon is working on a history of drug use by writers and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Nicholas Noyes recently contributed to The Amok 5th Dispatch: Sourcebook of the Extremes of Information, and is currently taking tea and dreaming of the Arctic north. Mr. Noyes wrote another story in this issue titled, Pleased to Meat You.

David Wondrich is a Senior Research Fellow at the North Gowanus Institute for Cranial Distempers, where he resides.

gonzaga@start.com.au

Michael Evert is an artist living in New York.