Dead Men

by Derek Haines

  While waiting for his third bus on the morning of his first day to his new school, David met, and made a new friend, also a scholarship winner, also on his own, also looking for someone to talk to on what was going to be a difficult day. A new school is always full of fears, and especially the first day of high school. He was relieved he was not totally alone now. He had only known his new friend for a few minutes but it was a feeling of security he hadn’t had an hour before. David wondered how all his old friends from primary school were, secure in their own groups on this fearsome day he jealously thought.

  Within a few months he’d settled and had a new group of friends and his school work and music progressed well. While navigating his first year without any drama, he must’ve been saving his energy for the following year.

  Nineteen Seventy. David fell off the rails. He was about to cancel out all the years he had been such a good boy to his parents. His credits would be used up inside eighteen months. Simply, David got bored. School work had been easy for him, as he’d never struggled to learn. From simply missing a few periods of school to enjoy a smoke with his mates in a nearby lane way, David and a few of his friends found that life in the city, where they had to change buses in the morning, provided a vast array of interesting things to do. The snooker hall was their number one favourite as it was full of wonderful characters almost every hour of the day.

  The small barber shop in the narrow corridor at the bottom of the entrance stairs to this basement haven was a favourite haunt of David’s. He enjoyed the conversations of the old men, the drunks, the Vietnam vets, the losers and the winners. He often played a game of snooker with the jeweller, who owned a store at the top of the stairs at street level. He oozed money. David had never seen so much gold around someone’s neck and wrists. He also played and enjoyed equally the company of the cities down and outs. Their stories, mostly lies, dreams and exaggerated memories amused David for hours. He learned how to ‘set someone up’ by playing badly for the first game for a twenty cent wager and losing, then asking for another game for a dollar, and win by a whisker. He wasn’t a hustler, just a quick learner. There were enough strangers coming in each week to let David make a few dollars. He wasn’t ever going to be world snooker champion, but he played well enough, and picked his marks well enough to succeed in his ploy on most occasions. It was enough to fund a few packs of smokes, and a Coke or two during what used to be school hours.

  David and his friends would still attend school roughly sixty per cent of the time. He enjoyed his music classes, and surprisingly missed very few music periods. Somehow he attended enough classes to pass the year. This was an intelligent boy who could’ve stayed at the top of his classes. He didn’t however.

  Nineteen seventy-one. This was the year David became a stranger to his parents. It’s not unusual for fifteen year olds to be difficult to communicate with, but David was impossible to break through to. He closed off completely. The only open communication he had was with his small group of friends. The same ones he had inhabited the snooker hall with the year previous. From a platform of returning to the previous year's routine, this small group of lads began to reach out for independence as they all felt fenced in and restricted. They lost life’s rule book that they had all learned so well as children. These young boys knew right from wrong. They were not from dysfunctional families. One boy was the only child of a wealthy couple, another the son of a senior army officer and one the child of a schoolteacher. And David was the son of a carpenter. Within a few months all had tasted new life adventures, alcohol, drugs, theft and sex. These boys abandoned any boundaries. The common bond these boys had was loneliness. None having friends of longstanding, they gelled together in a reaction to their lack of peers. Not as a gang, they just felt they were on their own and took sanctuary in each other's company. As misery often does.

  There was an attempt to run away to Sydney. David and the military officer’s son hatched a plan to ride their push bikes to Sydney. Being some two thousand seven hundred miles away, the two boys had the good sense to pack a bag each of tinned food. Not far into their epic journey came their first problem as the climb up Greenmount to the top of the escarpment that borders the eastern side of Perth is very steep. Impossible to ride up on a push bike with no gears, and made all the more difficult by the heavy bags of tinned food hanging off their backs. They consoled each other with the thought that once they covered the twenty miles up Greenmount, it should be flat for the next two thousand six hundred and eighty miles to Sydney.

  The next problem was a little more threatening to the journey. David’s friend dropped his bike and started running for the bush.

  ‘Run, it’s my old man! That’s his car comin’ behind us’.

  David jumped to the order and bolted with his friend deep into the scrub. They heard voices as they hid in a small gully, but couldn’t decipher what was said. After an hour or so, they popped their heads out for a look. No one. Nothing moved. Moving quietly and carefully they made their way back to the road side. Their bikes had disappeared.

  ‘Fuck it,’ David shouted at the loudest volume he could muster.

  A few minutes discussion ended up in agreement that they should camp the night in the scrub. It was probably about six o’clock in the evening and late winter, so it was getting a little cool. They had no idea what time it was, but they did discover that they had forgotten to bring a watch. With the onset of hunger, they made another fascinating discovery. They hadn’t packed a can opener.

  ‘Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it,’ David screamed as he belted the living daylights out of a can of spaghetti with a rock. Its contents firmly entrenched inside the can. The two boys had missed many science lessons, but at least tonight they did discover the strength of tin.

  When the can had been pummelled past its point of submission, a creamy pinkish red paste like sludge dribbled from a few cracks in its defence. This sludge was once spaghetti in a Bolognese sauce but it was now just goo reacting to the pressure built up in the almost crushed tin. As it dripped to the ground, the boys made yet another discovery; a plate would’ve been a handy addition to their kit bags. With the lack of a plate they took turns in sucking on the can.

  With dinner complete, albeit because their fingers, hands and arms were sore from bashing cans with rocks, and not from being replete, the cold of the night started to have an effect. One last discovery was that a pullover, jacket or blanket would’ve been a very good idea. As they shivered, they agreed that this trip to Sydney hadn’t started all that well. The laughing fit they had helped them forget the cold for a few minutes. Through the trees they could see the highway. West, twenty miles to Perth, east, two thousand six hundred and eighty miles to Sydney. After what seemed like all night, but more likely a few hours of shivering, David suggested they try again another day. Both boys strode off defiantly. Happy in their consoling excuse that they had run out of smokes anyway. Towards the highway they strode to hitch a lift back to Perth.

  The police car and two constables who had been despatched to have a quick look for a couple of teenage runaways in the National Park didn’t notice the two lads. They would have to have been quick in locating them, as for just once that day the boy’s luck was in. No sooner had David popped his thumb out to hitch a lift, a car pulled over. The second slice of luck was that the driver, an elderly gentleman, was heading to Perth from a near by country town to see his daughter. He liked to avoid the traffic of the city by arriving very early in the morning. The boys hid their surprise when he told them it was four-thirty in the morning. His destination of Cottesloe was the last slice of luck to make up for a bad day as the man’s route passed both boys' houses.

  The police were advised of their safe return by their worried parents. David avoided a long questioning by his relieved but angry parents by going to bed. His mate got a belting from his father.

  The next morning, David’s father accompanied him to the local police station. The sergeant on duty explained to David the d
angers he had placed himself in. He also explained what a waste of bloody time he had created. His officers had better things to do than look for runaways. Smiling as only a police sergeant seems to be able to do, with clenched teeth and cold piercing eyes, he told David about how this sort of behaviour could lead to big trouble with the police in future. David looked at his shoes to avoid the Sergeant’s eyes, and waited for the lecture to finish. When it had, he left with his father. David fully clammed up. The rest of the day he put up with his parents questioning.

  ‘Why did you do it son?’ they asked over and over. David’s answer was ‘I dunno.’

  Although this answer didn’t satisfy them, they would probably have been worried even more so if they knew this was the truth. David just did it because it seemed like a good idea. He honestly had no idea what he was reacting to in running away. He just wanted to run. And did.

  He went back to school for a few weeks, part time as usual. At the mid point of the year, David abandoned the little time he attended school. A few of his mates joined him. To their surprise, it took three months for anyone to notice their absence and for anything to happen. When it did, some sanity would start to return to David’s life. He wasn’t a bad kid. Just lost, lonely and directionless.

  It was towards the end of the school year, David’s third year at high school, that it was noticed by the school that he was truant.

  Accompanied by his mother and father one Tuesday morning late in October 1971, David sat with his parents in the high school office waiting to see the deputy headmaster. David didn’t like him. The deputy headmaster’s feeling for David was mutual. For some reason David felt no fear. He just wanted to get this over. ‘Here comes another fucking lecture,’ he thought to himself. Once in the office, he turned off to the conversation his worried parents were having with the deputy headmaster. The deputy head felt compassion and sympathy for these obviously worried parents. David looked out the window at the group of students having a smoke behind the tennis courts. He wondered if it was only him who could see the kids with their cigarettes, and the obvious plumes of smoke through the green cyclone wire of the tennis courts. ‘Surely the deputy headmaster had noticed this,’ he thought. ‘If he hadn’t he must be stupid,’ he pondered. ‘But he must see it. It’s so bloody obvious. So he must know about it, and does nothing to stop it. He must just……’

  David’s thoughts were broken as his attention was caught by the word cane, mentioned by the deputy headmaster. His parents had been informed of what was going to happen. The deputy headmaster now explained it to David. Now that he had his attention.

  ‘David young fellow,’ he started, ‘I’ve decided to administer six strokes of the cane to you. Following this, you’ll leave this school with your parents, and you won’t be welcomed back should you decide to continue your fourth year. It’s up to you if you wish to find a new high school. You can however, sit for your Junior Examination in November. Judging by the little amount of school you’ve attended, it’s probably a waste of time, but you have this option.’

  With this, the deputy headmaster rose from his chair, took a cane from the water filled cane holder in the corner, and flexed it a few times to check its subtlety. ‘Over here lad,’ he ordered in a strangely gentle voice. ‘Hand out. Right hand first.’ While his parents watched on, he administered three stinging cracks across David’s right hand. His palm immediately swelled and went a livid colour. ‘Left hand lad,’ he almost whispered. And delivered the final three cuts. He sat back in his chair, looked at David’s parents and said, ‘I wish you well, thank you for coming. Good morning to you.’

  David left with his distressed parents.

  There was little to be said. And little was said for a few days. David kept to himself in his room most of the time. To him, being banished from the school meant losing his friends, again. Fifteen years old is a very early age to recognise a pattern of loss in one’s life. David felt it. His friends from high school were scattered all over the city, and even though he still saw a few friends in his area from his primary school days, they were adrift from him with their longstanding friends. They were merely acquaintances now. He felt very alone. His only friend, who would listen to his torment, was his violin. And it would cry for him. It saved him from having to do this himself.

  As David would remember later in life, his father was sparing with advice. He was about to receive his first of very few words of wisdom from his father, but later in life he would look back on a few rare occasions that he was offered them, and cherish and value each occasion. His father’s advice was simple, and delivered quietly over breakfast a few mornings after the caning.

  ‘Son,’ he said, ‘Get a job. If you can’t, go back to another school until you can find one. Once you have a job you’re on you own. So, if that’s what you want, to be independent, start looking. An apprenticeship would be a good start in life.’ The lecture ended. Short and sweet. But for some reason, effective.

  David attended the Junior Examination at his now banished high school. In January when the results came by mail, he had his certificate. He’d passed all subjects. In doing so his parents must have wondered what he could’ve achieved if he had applied himself to his studies. Within a couple of weeks he had secured an apprenticeship with a large plumbing company, and had enrolled himself into night school for two subjects for his tertiary entrance subjects, English and mathematics.

  His job was interesting and he learned quickly. Being indentured as an apprentice, he’d basically signed his young life away for five years, and the owner of the company was a disciplinarian. The days had yet to arrive when it became incorrect to give a cheeky apprentice a clip around the ear. David only copped a couple, but he knuckled down to his job and his studies at technical college for the theory part of his apprenticeship. In the first two years he was top of his technical college class. By the time he reached his fourth year, he was nominated for apprentice of the year by the state industry body. He won. His prize was a seven day trip to Sydney, to visit factories and businesses within his industry. Travelling with a fellow winner from Adelaide, the two young men laboured through their days of factory visits, but relished the excitement at night of a city so alive with entertainment and life. To David, who had lived half his life in the isolation of country towns, and the other half in an isolated small city, Sydney was exhilarating, exciting, alive, and very, very big. It was an exciting week. He did tire of people he met being surprised to meet someone from Perth, and repetitively saying, ‘Oh I’ve heard that it’s a wonderful place. I’ve always wanted to go there. But it’s so far.’ On arriving back home in Perth, he felt the isolation.

  David had a girlfriend and a car. He was nineteen, earning good money and was living at home with his parents and sister. Outwardly he was settled and responsible and making a good start to life after a rebellious period in his mid teens. Only David was aware of a growing urge to run, gathering in his gut. From an early age David had been possessed by an urge to run. To nowhere in particular, and from nothing in particular. It was just a feeling. A sensation of being bound and trapped on all sides. Not a physical entrapment. It was in his mind and gut. The feeling could manifest itself to run from a place, person, feeling, situation, or later in life relationships and responsibilities.

  The first outward manifestation of this feeling came at a young age. Little more than seven years old, he rode his bicycle out the front gate. He knew he was not allowed to ride his bike out of the yard surrounding his house, because he had understood his parent’s warnings about the dangers of the road and motor cars. Heeding these warnings, he rode on the footpath. Within two hundred yards of home on his great escape he suffered the misfortune of a flat tyre. Noticing his absence from her vantage point at the kitchen window, his mother despatched his father to look for him. He found him within a minute, a forlorn little figure sitting by his prostrate bicycle. His father walked the short distance and sat down by his son. Not speaking straight away. After a minute
or so, he asked, ‘What’re you doing son?’

  ‘Running away Dad,’ was his almost whispered reply.

  His father looked at his son, and held back a smile and said, ‘Well, I don’t think you’re going to get very far with a flat tyre. Maybe we should head back home and see if we can repair it.’ David nodded in defeat, and pushed his bicycle home. His father walking slowly beside him. Within a few days the event was forgotten. Except by David.

  The sensation would rise in David many times. Prior to his ill fated expedition to Sydney as a teenager, David had run away many times. In his early years, maybe just to the end of the street, or to a park. As he got older, he would wander further. He could never explain to anyone the reasons why he did it. Least of all himself. It was just an irresistible urge. An auto-response. It would perplex his parents until the day he left home for good at twenty. It was to perplex David for his entire life.

  Shortly after turning twenty, and with a successful apprenticeship completed, David married his girlfriend. In hindsight David would admit to himself later in life that he married at an early age to satisfy his urge to run. To run from the environment of his family. To run to create a situation where he thought he would be independent and in control of himself. Highlighting this was his decision, which he gave his new bride little choice in, to move to Adelaide within a few months of being married. For a short time David felt he had escaped. From what? He had no idea. The move to Adelaide was a disaster. He didn’t settle at all. Although he found a job within days of arriving, he lasted there less than two weeks. After five years in the one and only job he had known, he found his new job strange and uncomfortable. The sudden changes David had meted out to himself in such a short period of time scared him. He ran from his new job. No formal resignation, he just didn’t turn up for work there again. Luckily, he gathered himself and found another position within a couple of weeks. Which he tolerated.