Pythian Games

Tom Hennessey was a spray painter and panel beater. Not just any spray painter and panel beater but the best spray-painter and panel beater around. He had been practicing his trade for years and his customers had nothing but praise for him. Tom liked that; happy customers talked to others and as far as he was concerned word of mouth was the best publicity he could get as it didn’t cost him any money. Money was important to Tom Hennessey; more important than friends and more important than family.
“Dad’s as tight as a bum on a goldfish,” his daughter Sal would explain.
Sal and Eve Hennessy, Tom’s long suffering wife, both worked for Hennessey’s Panel and Paint. For the years since they had become engaged and married Eve had worked as Tom’s secretary. As soon as Sal was old enough to help out she worked for her father too. The women worked six or seven days a week; the only time off being one or two days over Easter and Christmas. Even when Sal was born Eve was back at the workshop, nursing, three days after delivering.
Tom Hennessey didn’t pay his wife and he only begrudgingly put his daughter on junior wages when, at fifteen, she threatened to jump ship and work as a cashier at the local Woolworths. Family and friends quickly learnt that there were no mate’s rates at Hennessey’s Panel and Paint. Tom’s brother-in-law, Len, found out the hard way. He dropped his car off on a Saturday morning and Tom worked on it until Sunday afternoon. Eve’s brother expected to pay for paint and parts but was shocked and a little angry when Tom presented him with a receipt for not only paint and parts but the hours and overtime that Tom had worked. For his sister’s sake, Len swallowed his anger and paid the bill but he never again approached Tom for a favour.
Tom wasn’t bothered by what his friends and family thought. What mattered to him was making money and keeping the customers who paid walking back in his workshop doors and sending more customers to him via word of mouth.
“Nothing like free publicity,” Hennessey would say.
When Sal turned twenty-one she left her father’s workshop and his junior wages to study business and advertising. After a few months she managed to convince her mother that she could also leave and find a paying job. For the first time in 22 years Eve began to earn money and, with Sal’s help, began to enjoy spending it.
Tom was furious. He kicked his wife and daughter out of the house and refused to have any contact with them. He found he could still run his business. He bought an answering machine, a hot drink dispenser and hired a cleaner.
“Sponges,” he would snarl at anyone who asked after his family, “They were bleeding me dry, I’m better of without them.”
Funnily enough both Eve and Sal were the happiest they could remember being. The women bought a small house together and enjoyed their new found financial freedom. But that’s another story.
Tom Hennessey continued working well into his sixties when he started to think about retirement. In his mind’s eye he had a little place planned near Darwin. A fishing shack, a caravan; some peace and quiet.
He sold his business, bought a four-wheel-drive packed a trailer with all his tools and drove north to the Territory.
No-one believed Tom would last five minutes without work of some sort. He managed a week. After seven days of sitting on the beach he used his cash (hidden in a safe under the driver’s seat of his Toyota) to buy a workshop and yard on the Stuart Highway into Darwin. He bought a caravan to sleep in and installed it in the workshop.
All he needed was customers. He placed his usual three line advert in the local paper and waited.
After a fortnight he found himself ringing an advertising company in town.
The executive was extremely helpful and offered Tom a range of packages including T.V. radio, internet and colour print adverts.
“What’s it gonna cost me?” Tom asked suspiciously.
The executive started to give Tom a costing schedule based on the different packages.
Tom hung up before the man had finished saying the first three digit figure,
“Bloody vultures!” he exclaimed, “They’ll bloody bleed me dry. What do they bloody know? Never worked a day in their life!”
He spent the afternoon grumbling furiously to himself and drinking from a bottle of Queensland rum. By early evening he had come up with an advertising package of his own.
He scoured the workshop and yard and found several lengths of sheet-metal and corrugated iron. Over the next few days he scrounged more metal and iron from the yards adjoining his own and began to cut, paint and sign write.
If Tom had listened to the radio he would have heard the severe weather warnings being broadcast. The residents of Darwin had been warned over three or four days to prepare themselves for strong winds and rain. A tropical cyclone was blowing itself out off shore and was approaching the coastline. After the events of Cyclone Tracy in 1974 the town was well prepared and secure. No-one took chances anymore; everyone stayed close to the radio to listen to cyclone warning updates.
Everyone except Tom Hennessey, holed up in his workshop, working like a man possessed on his advertising. By the end of the week he had over six hundred beautifully detailed signs advertising his business. The only problem was he had no permission to hang the signs anywhere.
Tom waited until late Sunday night when he took his loaded trailer through the suburbs and the city hanging his signs anywhere he could find space. The town was quiet, no traffic; Tom couldn’t believe his luck. By two in the morning his arms and shoulders ached from trying to hang the signs in an ever increasing wind but all they were all up. He returned to his caravan in his workshop and slept soundly.
He didn’t hear the storm hit at three am. Wind gusts of up to one hundred and fifty kilometres per hour screamed across town picking up any unsecured debris and hurling it through the air like missiles.
Tom woke at seven thirty, made a cup of coffee and ambled out of his caravan to check his answering machine. The lights flashed brightly and he happily read 45 messages. He clicked his tongue in satisfaction.
“Who needs TV?” he chuckled to himself as he opened up the workshop and stepped into the yard. His eyes widened and he grinned greedily as he saw rows of cars parked outside his gates, shining in the morning rain. He had to stop himself from dancing with joy.
“Nothing like free publicity!” he joked to himself as he unlocked the gates.
An angry looking man stepped down from his vehicle holding a piece of crumpled sheet metal. Tom noticed branches and debris strewn across the wet highway,
“Some storm last night. Must have blown its ring off.” He said to the man, “Can I help you mate?”
The man shoved the metal into Tom’s hands. Tom looked down at the dented remains of one of his signs.
“Is this yours mate?” the man asked, “I found it this morning buried in my car roof. I believe you’re going to fix it for me.”
Tom looked at the huge tear in the roof of the expensive four wheel drive then looked at all the vehicles waiting in line with their angry owners holding crumpled metal signs and similar damage to their own cars. He began to feel a little unwell.
The news of Tom Hennessey’s foray into self-advertising made the news not just in Darwin and Katherine but across the country. Within hours it had crossed the world and was being picked up on TV, radio and the internet. Rumour has it that Tom Hennessey fled Darwin with what little money he had left after paying damages to the people and city of Darwin. Some say he’s down in Coober Pedy hiding under-ground trying to rebuild his fortune fossicking opals.
There’s nothing like free publicity.