Howard Dowling: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1949
It’s true. You do know them by the hardness of their hearts.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Howard Dowling
Robert Andrews: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1950
Life is about choices and this is the one I made. It was either this or the sort of trouble that makes a man’s balls shrink. Woman trouble. Can’t help themselves in my vicinity. They’re all over me. God knows how many children I’ve got running around the place. I had to get away from the women.
But there are women here, too. An ancient one, and some not quite so old. The best one, the juiciest, she’s been here what, two years?
She’s called the Black Widow, but she’s a lot worse than that. Reading her file makes you sick to your stomach, what she did to those families. Those children. Gutless bitch, leaving them die, not even taking them out of their misery like a man woulda done. Letting those kids die in such terror. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever heard.
Before I went in, people said, “Make her suffer.” Her more than any of the others. So I dragged her into the middle of the room and gave her what she wanted. Shut her up for a while.
“Good man, good man,” the prisoners chanted, sounding like a distant train. Noises are odd here. Different somehow and not always familiar.
You got to leave something behind. Cigarette lighter didn’t work, anyway.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Robert Andrews
Fred Webb: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1951
They will tell you terrible stories. It makes them feel better, miserable cunts. It gives them release.
Murdered children are never released. They will always suffer. Perpetual suffering.
And if a child is abused, even if they die as an adult, they’ll haunt as a child, seeking expressions of regret, but nothing is ever enough. They’ll wait until their molester dies then drag him to hell. Then they’ll be free.
Can you feel the tug? They can sense weakness. The very hint of illness gets them going. And they know who’s done what. If you can feel tugging, it means they know.
They’ll fumble with your fly, tiny kid fingers not up to the task, but don’t help them. You’ll wake up with bites on your neck.
They hate the bath, don’t they? They’re like cats.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Fred Webb
Patrick Curran: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1952
They always want to know; what happened to the keeper from last year? And you’ll try not to let it out, but they are at you and at you and at you until you say, “He came back from the Time Ball Tower weak and anemic and he died soon after.”
And they start talking about fingermarks in the dirt. They’re picturing him holding on to nothing, trying to save himself. They reckon he’ll drag himself out of the grave before too long.
He is not one who thought of the red flag.
Sometimes I think I can hear his fingernails on the window glass.
They ask about Robert Andrews, 1950, because he had as fine a patter as any they’ve known. Gift of the gab.
“How many children does that Robert have? Sowing his seed from near to far, he told us. How many little bastards set to end up here has he spawned?”
None, by all accounts. Unless he was successful out of town. In town, he was one to avoid. Girls knew this from the age of twelve.
All of us are “good men” and “good women.” We have done many good things in our lives. And yet all of us are capable of something.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners did not require bathing. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Patrick Curran
John McKeown: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1953
I brought a girl here, thinking to get her all scared and needy.
Last shred of human in these men and they use it to say, “Fuck her here, in front of us.”
It was tempting. “It’s awful here,” she said, tight as a limpet on my side. I could feel her pelvic bone against my thigh, she was grinding into me so hard.
She said, “Can they see or anything?”
I told her, “They’ve got all their senses. But they don’t feel pain. Not much, anyway.”
I showed her what other Time Ball Tower keepers had done. The cigarette burns. The names drawn into skin. She was shocked, but I had her to read the files so she wouldn’t be sorry for them. This is how we can express that fury, all of us. We’re looking after the worst of humanity so others can rest easy, knowing that crime is being punished.
She played with the oldest one.
His hair, brittle, long, white, snapped off it you lifted it. I gave her some to take home with her.
She sneezed all over them, my girl did. And you wouldn’t believe it, but one of them got sick. Yes, he did. Not that you’d know the difference. Poor bastards.
Sick. It was pathetic to watch. Pitiful creature. They deserve all they get. No room for rehabilitation. Nothing. They deserve to suffer.
They say you change out here. That if you don’t change, you did it wrong. Wasted your time.
Did I change? If I did, it was because of her. But she left. She was so full of vim and vigor and she left, leaving me again with them. Those almost fleshless skull heads leering at me, knowing more about me than they should know.
The storm was like the wrath of God came down upon us. Watching the storm from the top of the Time Ball Tower, I could see a vast expanse. Planning. I wondered how any of us would survive. Water up to the windows, just about.
I had to shift the prisoners about, all except the one who came in 1938. The orders to keep him chained were never rescinded. I hated to touch him. His clothes were soft and sticky, like an insect’s casing. The only thing that gets him going is a new smell. Even my soap can set him off. He said to my woman that he could smell her cunt and she better watch it or it would rot from the inside out.
Honestly, he did say that.
Once he said that I couldn’t bear touching her again. And I thought I was tough.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
John McKeown
Michael Carroll: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1954
John McKeown killed himself drinking acid. Wanting to suffer in the most unimaginable way.
I told this lot; didn’t think it through because, boy-oh-boy, did that news make them happy.
“Happy for him,” they’re telling me. “Because he has blessed release.”
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Michael Carroll
Bart Carroll: The Ti
me Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1955
They make me think of the Huli description of ghosts; they keep aging. Their hair goes white, their limbs stiffen, cataracts form. Eyes like milk.
Who wouldn’t be a scholar, to learn this beautiful stuff?
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Bart Carroll
Donald Rouse: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1956
If Bart Carroll’s a scholar, then I’m the Emperor of Japan. Didn’t even talk about Tithonos whatsit and the long life and all the rest of it.
Some people have no idea how to educate.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Donald Rouse
Brian Webster: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1957
The routine is a killer but also a life saver. Follow your head, not your heart. You can listen to your heart when you are back at home and the world is safe for you.
Do not listen to them. They will tell you things. You are made of stone, they’ll say, and perhaps it’s true. Who knows?
Still. You do what you have to do and that is not up to them at all.
I watched them all find God and lose him again. The Preacher still preaches, but everything that comes out of his mouth sounds filthy and degraded.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Brian Webster
Nathan Bunting: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1958
I’d been led to expect they’d be happy to see me. Instead, all they do is try to spit with their dry, sad little mouths.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Nathan Bunting
Frank Ross: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1959
Before I came out here, I checked out all the buildings named for my predecessors, built with money donated by keepers. As Burnett said, live long enough, anyone can become a billionaire. You just have to be patient. And money buys recognition like street names. Park names.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Frank Ross
Stephanie Brennan: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1960
Don’t even want to think about what they told me at the Club. Cheeks burning at the thought. They said, don’t be agitated. They meant; don’t be horny! Couldn’t believe it. Dirty old men talking about sex.
But to be honest, they pick up on it, these creepy little things. Sniffing away. I’ve been having more showers than is good for the skin. I have very sensitive skin…
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Stephanie Brennan
Luciano Costello: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1961
Boredom is your greatest enemy, not the prisoners. Some days seem to last a week. Others will last an hour.
I say—bring a project to complete. Do not come here unless you have a novel to write, a symphony to compose, a village of idiots to carve. I’m trying with driftwood and the awful blunt knives we’ve got out here. Note; bring knives.
I discovered a use for the many bricks left over from the building. A scientific use, if you will.
How many bricks does it take to flatten the arm of a man over one hundred and fifty years old?
A new one arrived, and I chucked him the box. Creepy little shit he is, too.
Bathed the others.
They tried to distract me from it; really, you’d think they’d be happy of the distraction themselves.
Bathing changes everything. I’m glad they warned me not to go too far down. Jeezus. Still I hear it. Clickety clickety click.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Luciano Costello
Roger Heath: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1962
Do your research, my history teacher always said. Make sure you know your facts before you dive in with both feet. And yes, we said, but you don’t dive with your feet, and that made us all laugh. But still, he was right.
Who deserves to be out here? Who deserves this punishment? Here’s a list. But really it only makes me think; are these really the worst? Do they really deserve it?
These are the things that happened in the twelve months before I came here, into the Time Ball Tower. ONE SINGLE YEAR.
1961
March 20 Trial of Stephen Bradly who kidnapped and murdered Graeme Thorne.
April 22 Trial of Adolf Eichmann.
April 20 Five hundred hacked to death in Angola.
Sept 24 Wendy Mayer was murdered by John Maltby. He drowned on this day.
November 6 Leonard Lawson raped and killed sixteen-year-old girl at Collaroy (they always describe this as “killed and raped,” not the other way around. Which is worse?)
November 16 in the Congo. The bodies of thirteen Italian UN soldiers are sold in a market.
1962
Feb 11 In Elliott, Northern Territory. School of eleven children, six white. White parents pulled them out, demanding aboriginal children be removed. “Worried about hygiene.”
I think those parents deserve a spot in the Tower.
October 31. Robert Peter Tait. We’ve got him, here. He’s the newest one. Luckily, he arrived before I got here so he’s already been boxed.
Sir Henry Bolte wanted him dead, but an insanity plea kept him alive, so Bolte went for Ronald Ryan.
Some say Bolte is a long time secret supporter of the Time Ball Tower.
Tait is described sexual psychopath. A friendless alcoholic, sexual deviant in the extreme.
Wears several layers of women’s underwear.
Killed and raped Ada Ethel Hall, eighty-two, a vicar’s mother.
He was on parole after assaulting a church worker.
The Time Ball Tower doesn’t care if they are sane or insane.
They’ll all be insane before long, anyway.
He was due to die on 31 October 1961, but we got him instead. His grave was already dug. He told the others and me, “I seen it. It was this close. Me grave.”
The longer you spend here, the more you understand the importance of the keepers. I’m a vicar’s son, and would be a vicar too, one day. Always is, always has been. There is a certain inevitability about it all, something I enjoy greatly I know I can help people. I have the ability to listen.
I will baptize them. Down by the water. If God means them to go, he will take them from my arms.
I left that skinny little shit who was delivered in 1938 chained up. Who am I to change things? Music upsets them if
you think they are getting the upper hand. Especially the trumpet, God knows why.
Roger Heath
Lee Heath: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1963
No flag was run up for two days, so they sent out the boatman. Roger was found face down in the water, massive dent in his head. Long dead, weeks dead. One of the prisoners was caught underneath him. Not dead, although they say he tried to keep his head under water, tried to move so that he could drown, too. So we don’t have a full report from Roger.
Sometimes you forget there’s a world out there. Where people are alive, not like these things. Beating hearts aren’t a trick.
SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS: I found the prisoners to be well nourished and of sound mind. Prisoners bathed successfully. Prisoners appeared distressed on waking and have trouble sleeping. Prisoners experienced dry skin, chronic pain and halitosis.
All normal for this report.
Lee Heath
Maria De Salvo: The Time Ball Tower Keeper’s Report 1964
It’s been ten years since my sister disappeared. Home from teacher’s college for my sixteenth birthday, she brought me the smallest radio anyone in Tempuston had ever seen. I was famous for that for a while. It had a clock in it and all.
What I’ve heard is there might be a clue in the Tower to where she is. Rumor has it that clues to many things sit out here. We just want to know what happened. Even if she’s passed away and we won’t see her again. Just so my mother can bury her.
One girl went missing in 1953. She was found quickly though, within a month or two, washed up. It was a mystery for a while because she was wearing a negligée, and no one knew how she got out there. When the keeper John McKeown got back, he confessed and then hung himself on the cypress tree.
Tide of Stone Page 12
