Crazy Cornelius & the Magic Pills Ch. 01

And having learned no end of bad parenting skills from his own domineering parents, Alistair Hawkins had no hesitation of telling his eldest son what an abject failure and disappointment he was, how he was never good enough in the past, not good enough now and would never ever amount to anything in the future, and how the world would be a better place if he never existed in the first place. He would yell at Brendan for not having any friends, then tell his son that if he was his age he wouldn't want to be his friend either, and nor would any other kids. He even said that he wished that he had a spastic, a retard or a mongoloid instead of Brendan for an eldest son, that a freak like that could not cause him any more embarrassment than Brendan had done.

Alistair would also openly question his oldest son's sexual tendencies. During an outing to Cronulla Beach with Faye's brother who was married with three girls, Alistair constantly criticized Brendan for struggling at beach cricket, hiking or fishing when his three female cousins along with Erica had no problem with these activities. Alistair said that Brendan was a homosexual, and spent a great deal of time telling family members, neighbors, relatives, friends, work colleagues and indeed anyone who would listen about how his eldest son was a poofter who was nothing but a failure and a complete and abject embarrassment to the family.

One tactic Alistair Hawkins had tried in an attempt toughen up his eldest son was by forcing him to watch videos of terrifying horror movies obviously not suitable for children, usually late at night, Alistair watching the movies with Brendan to make sure he saw all of it. And if Brendan cried or protested that he did not want to watch the scary movie, Alistair would threaten his son with a close encounter with an object he feared even more -- Alistair's belt. He made good on the threat on more than a few occasions.

Eventually the down-trodden Brendan did find some friends in the later years of high school, but these boys and girls were not the type of friends one would ever want one's own teenager to even know, much less socialize with. These were kids who were most interested in putting artificial substances into their bodies, and soon Brendan was smoking marijuana and taking magic mushrooms, LSD, narcotics, speed, and other methyl amphetamines. And with Brendan's drug use spiraling out of control leading to him flunking out of high school, Brendan's fantasy world and reality soon combined to create a perfect storm of delusion and paranoia in his own mind.

Thanks mainly to his father terrifying him when younger by forcing him to watch horror films, Brendan had major fears about monsters, both yowies coming out of the Blue Mountains and bunyips emerging from Sydney Harbor or the waters of the Parramatta River to take him back to their lairs and eat him. Brendan believed that dinosaurs were not extinct as claimed, and that a tyrannosaurus, plesiosaur or a pterodactyl could easily end his days. He was convinced that ghosts, poltergeists and demons occupied the walls and roof space of the house and were talking to him, passing on messages from the Devil himself. Brendan also thought that UFOs hovered overhead with the said occupants of the flying saucers -- aliens -- plotting to abduct him and take him to another galaxy. Seeing the lights of planes and helicopters added fuel to these fantasies. Brendan's delusions led him to believe that the police, government, armed services and fire brigade held regular meetings to conspire against him, and not surprisingly all of this landed him in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital.

After a long stint in the psych ward which included detox and drug rehab Brendan eventually improved and he was released into his parents' care, but he was far from perfect and not likely to improve much further. While not as paranoid as before, Brendan was still too terrified of the devil, demons, dinosaurs, monsters, ghosts and flying saucers to venture outside. Therefore he spent his entire life concealed in the granny flat, behind a closed and locked door, the curtains down, the windows closed tight. His parents collected a disability pension for him which helped pay for his up-keep.

Erica often wished that Cornelius like their older brother would stay behind locked doors and windows too but this was not a wish about to come true. Cornelius never seemed to worry about anything. As a child and younger teenager Erica had seen her oldest brother Brendan cowering before their angry father many times. Erica spent much of her childhood and early teenage years hiding either under her bed or in her closet crying, either when her parents were having one of their frequent arguments or when Alistair dished out the discipline to his sons with his belt. He had three levels of punishment for his sons, the standard belting when he was annoyed with them, the end with the buckle when he was even more angered and when he was white-hot with rage Alistair would wrap the belt around his fist and punch Brendan and Cornelius with it.

None of this seemed to bother Cornelius, who would just antagonize their father even more when Alistair was angry with him, frequently by calling him Alistair. Or he would be passive aggressive, take the beating from his Dad and simply plan out the next stunt to drive his father insane. And Alistair Hawkins was always angry with Cornelius, it was just a matter of whether he was furious or incandescent with rage.

One thing about Cornelius was that he was always found a way to surprise his parents and while at school his teachers and other authority figures. Aged 15 and on a school trip into the city to see the Harbour Bridge, Opera House and other tourist attractions Cornelius had been forced to read and sign a list of acceptable behaviors that he was supposed to follow. This was understandable given he had been banned from school trips from some time after a series of problems on excursions in the past. This included Cornelius leaping onto railway tracks and playing chicken with a train, getting kicked out of Taronga Zoo for feeding a hot dog to some crocodiles, and running away from another school trip to the Blue Mountains, Cornelius making his own way back to Sydney by hiding on the back of a truck, 'truck surfing' as the vehicle traveled at great speed on the freeway. Cornelius being Cornelius, he did the exact opposite.

After jumping into the waters of Circular Quay, a drenched and hyperactive Cornelius swan ashore then ran off towards Darling Harbor, laughing like a maniac. The teachers thought he would make for home, and the long-suffering Faye Hawkins received a call from the school to warn her. But Cornelius did not turn up at home, back at school, at the local shopping center or video games arcade, nowhere he would be expected to be. Several days later and by now officially listed as a missing person, Cornelius was finally located on the Gold Coast, hanging out in Surfers Paradise and as usual acting like a total jack-ass and making an absolute nuisance of himself, much to the astonishment of his parents after getting the call from the Gold Coast police.

Just how Cornelius got all the way to Queensland was never revealed not even by the boy himself, but the reality was that he was there and a furious Mr. Hawkins had to get on a plane to Brisbane, catch a bus down to the Gold Coast and return his son to Sydney, the high cost of short notice airline tickets making Alistair even angrier. At least when Cornelius got kicked off a school camp in Canberra when he was aged 12 -- again to the outrage of his father - it was only a day's drive there and back to collect him and bring him back.

But Cornelius's little journey to Queensland as a teenager was nothing compared to the surprise he pulled three years ago. And as Erica opened the front door and went inside the house, this surprise was lying on the living room couch watching television.

"Hey Erica, Gavin, how was your day at university?" called Danielle.

"Oh, not bad thanks Danielle," Erica answered her brother's wife as she went into the living room.

"Yeah, hi Danielle," said Gavin.

The entry of Danielle into the Hawkins family in 1995 had indeed been a shock to put it mildly. Cornelius then aged 20 was not living at home at this stage -- he was living with some of his loser mates as his father (accurately) termed them and not on good terms with his parents - and was not the sort of person to update his family on every little detail, or indeed big details of his life. So when Cornelius turned up unannounced in his wreck of a car and got out with a slim and attractive blonde girl who they had never seen before, everyone wondered what was going on.

Then to the shock of everyone, Cornelius had announced when they entered the house holding hands, "Mum, Dad, Erica, this is my wife Danielle."

When the shock of this wore off slightly, it was time to get to know the newcomer. Like Cornelius, Danielle had been born in 1975 and was then aged 19 and studying to be a high school teacher. She wasn't from Sydney originally, but the city of Newcastle in the Hunter region north of Sydney and was part of a large family with a number of siblings. Obviously Danielle had some intelligence, she had gotten into university to study teaching and clearly she wasn't some bimbo. Would marriage turn Cornelius from an idiotic and insane slacker and into a more responsible young man? Would Danielle be like another daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins and a loving big sister to Erica? The answers to these questions were soon answered as a resounding no.

At best, Danielle was an enabler of Cornelius's bad behavior and at worst she openly encouraged her husband to act in even more irresponsible and idiotic ways. That Danielle and Cornelius had married at a registry office just two weeks after meeting was a red flag, that she had chosen to marry a moron like Cornelius in the first place another and it was quickly clear that Danielle was a very bad addition to an already dysfunctional family.

On the first day that Cornelius had introduced his new bride to the family, they had gone out to dinner at an Italian restaurant near Bondi Beach, with the exception of Brendan as he was confined to the loony bin at the time. Cornelius's antics in the restaurant -- throwing spaghetti around, eating with his fingers and generally making a disruptive nuisance of himself with other diners and staff -- led to the Hawkins family getting kicked out. But rather than being horrified by her husband's shockingly bad behavior, which Cornelius defended as 'live performance art', Danielle thought it was funny, especially given how angry it made her new father-in-law.

Danielle, a girl of an average height of five feet five inches, sat up on the couch, attired in a pink tee-shirt that swelled at the front thanks to her C-cup breasts and black stirrup-pant leggings, the stirrups tight around the arches of her bare feet. She pushed her blonde hair back from her forehead. Danielle's hair was about the length of a short bob, but a complete mess today as it was all of the time.

Never one to mince his words, Alistair Hawkins had once disparagingly asked Danielle if she cut her own hair in the dark using safety scissors. His daughter-in-law's somewhat huffy response was that it was deliberately styled that way at a salon and she thought it was 'cool'. Mr. Hawkins, who thought that very few things in life were cool anyway, said that if she paid a hairdresser any amount of money to style her hair that way then she must be retarded just like her husband.

Erica was glad Danielle did not cut her own hair. Brendan cut his own hair, but that was because he was too scared to come out of his tiny flat and into the outdoors, something that visiting a barber would have entailed. Two crazy people cutting their own hair in the house would be too much.

"You didn't get a teaching assignment today?" Erica asked Danielle.

Danielle shrugged her shoulders. "Nuh. But I don't give a fuck, I taught all last week all the way out in Mount Druitt and on Monday and Tuesday I had to go to some other school way down near Kingsgrove to teach the dumb class that don't know shit from clay. Fuck, I might as well have been trying to teach the spastic class, those retards might have been able to learn more than the kids I was supervising. No wonder their fucking teachers get sick all the fucking time."

While Danielle was indeed now a qualified high school teacher, she had never had a permanent teaching position, doing only relief work. Erica thought that being a relief teacher would be one of the worst jobs imaginable given how kids tended to act up when their normal teacher was away. Cornelius in particular was disruptive at the best of the times when he was a boy, but when there was a relief teacher he was often made to sit outside the deputy principal's office or in time out all day to prevent him from sending the substitute teacher insane in just one day at school.

With Danielle being a relief teacher, this meant days where she did not work, and she hardly was productive on such days. Cornelius obviously did not have full time work either -- he complained that jobs were not creative enough for his superior and artistic mind -- but did make some money as a party clown on weekends, much to his father's displeasure. Sometimes Cornelius would dress up in his clown costume even when he did not have a booking, just to anger Mr. Hawkins.

Cornelius and Danielle's employment situation were one reason they were back living at his parents' house, and as Erica looked at the table he saw another main reason. Danielle had fixed herself lunch during the day -- vegetables with gravy by the look of it -- but her plate and cutlery had sat unwashed on the table for hours, spills and stains on the table top. She had been drinking soft drink during the day, but had been too lazy to clean up some she had spilled on the table. An empty energy bar wrapper was discarded on the floor.

When first married, Danielle and Cornelius had rented a house but were evicted after six months for failing to pay rent and keep the house to an acceptable standard. Their second tenancy went the same way, only this time they were kicked out after three months, again for failing to pay rent, keep the house tidy and illegal subletting to some of their dodgy friends.

Lacking referees for a third rental, Cornelius and Danielle pulled a major con trick on an inexperienced 'Mum and Dad' investor couple who thought that purchasing a second house would help fund their retirement income. Cornelius and Danielle showed up for the interview with Danielle wearing a maternity blouse and overalls, a cushion underneath to make it look like she was about seven months pregnant. A sob story about how they had nowhere to go with a baby due caused the couple to drop their guard -- and allow Cornelius and Danielle into the house with no reference checks.

Soon, there were the same problems. Rent was not paid, the property was not kept to an acceptable standard, the same freeloading friends were staying there with dogs, cats and birds in breach of the lease and there were complaints from neighbors about the behavior of the occupants. But it was Cornelius's painting -- undertaken on his own initiative - that caused the most issue.

As a boy, Cornelius had shown at least one talent -- art, specifically painting. Erica had to admit that Cornelius had talent -- he could have become one of Australia's leading artists and even win the Archibald Prize had he set his mind to it. It didn't impress Mr. Hawkins -- he didn't like art of any description -- but the talent of Cornelius was there. But with Cornelius being Cornelius, he used his artistic talent to create chaos, throwing paint, clay and other supplies around the room, and creating inappropriate, bizarre and disturbing images that drove the high school art teacher -- a humorless and strict French-Canadian woman -- to a nervous breakdown and caused Cornelius to get banned from the only class he was good at.

At the rental house, had Cornelius decided to paint the cream walls of the lounge room cream or given the back gate another coat of mission brown it would have been a breach of the lease, but not so bad. Cornelius however had more extravagant plans for the house. In the main entrance as soon as one stepped in through the front door, one could find a life sized mural of Danielle painted by her husband. Like with all of Cornelius's artworks, it was an excellent but created to shock rather than draw admiration. The painting was not of Danielle tastefully clothed, but of her squatting down completely naked, her legs spread wide apart showing off the fact that she was a natural blonde and had a large, wide-set vagina with prominent light pink pussy flaps, and a darker pink anus.

The confronting nude painting of Danielle that greeted visitors to the house was not the only one like it. In the kitchen was another nude painting of Danielle, this one a rear view of Danielle bending over with her bare bottom thrust high in the air, her pussy visible between her legs.

And in the smallest room in the house on the opposite wall to the toilet was another painting of Danielle. This time she was fully clothed, but with her skirt hitched up and her knickers around her ankles as she sat on the toilet. If one sat on the toilet in this house one would be staring at the painting of Danielle on the toilet the whole time.

The ongoing problems at the house led to the eviction of Cornelius, Danielle and the hangers-on, only this time the media got involved. A nightly current affairs show turned up outside the tenancy tribunal, and while Cornelius was normally an appalling shameless attention seeker, suddenly he became camera-shy when confronted by the film crew and reporters and about to end up on national television.

Like many conmen, charlatans, crooks, perverts and nuisance neighbors who had been shamed Australia-wide on the show for many years, Cornelius took to his heels, the film crew getting plenty of footage of him running away from the cameras before he dived into Danielle's waiting car, Danielle giving the film crew an obscene hand gesture and a spray of foul-mouthed abuse as she sped away and nearly running into an old lady in the process.

Now on a database of bad tenants and having been on national television, Cornelius and Danielle had nowhere to go but back to the house of the most-unimpressed and unwelcoming Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins and set up home in Cornelius's old bedroom. Cornelius and Danielle were supposed to pay rent and contribute to the housework, but their rent was months behind which did not seem to bother them and the only thing both contributed to the house was chaos. The first of two differences between this and their previous failed tenancies was the absence of the hangers-on, who were too afraid of Cornelius's father to visit this house and make a nuisance of themselves.

The second and more significant difference was that they were not going to get thrown out despite the despair and anger of Alistair and Faye Hawkins. While Cornelius annoyed and stressed his mother no end, not least by his choice of wife, out of a misguided sense of family loyalty she was not going to throw her son and daughter-in-law out.

As for Mr. Hawkins, Erica had found the ideal word that described her father -- misanthropic. While hating many things in life with black people, Asians, the handicapped, homosexuals, his two sons, and his daughter-in-law topping a very long list, Mr. Hawkins seemed to have a perverse love of things going wrong for him because then he could get angry and be a grouch. It even extended to things that Alistair liked. Mr. Hawkins was a big fan of Rugby League, but Erica had noted that her father seemed happier when the team he supported was defeated or when New South Wales lost to Queensland in State of Origin so then he could feel bad about it. So therefore Cornelius and Danielle were going nowhere -- and they both knew it.