The Long Way Home

by Phillip Overton

  ****

  “Mum, are you home?” Simon called out. From somewhere near the front of the house he thought he heard a noise. “Mum, are you there?”

  He listened closely but heard nothing. Leaving his empty glass in the sink he ventured into the lounge room and froze in his tracks. There on the floor in front of him was his mother, her body now pale and white, lying face down with her head turned to the side. Her motionless eyes stared absently toward where Simon now stood in shock.

  “Mum?” He called softly but there wasn’t even a hint of a response.

  Simon lunged forward and dropped to his knees beside his mother. He tried to shake her gently but her skin already felt cold to the touch. Her long black hair lay strewn across her shoulders. He brushed it to the side and saw that her glassy eyes apart from being bloodshot were as cold and lifeless as the rest of her face. Without needing to check to see if she was breathing he knew she was dead!

  “Oh no!” Simon cried as he buried his nose into her soft, black hair, tears already streaming down his face. “Don’t be dead Mum, please don’t be dead!”

  “It’s too late to go crying to Mummy.” A voice colder than the touch of death suddenly spoke from across the room.

  Simon’s head jolted up sharply to see Ron leaning against the wall on the far side of the lounge room. A second man who Simon was sure was one of the three men he had seen earlier in the afternoon joined him, appearing from around the corner of the hallway. Without warning he was suddenly wrenched to his feet by a third man who appeared from behind him. He grabbed Simon by his arm and twisted it behind his back until it hurt.

  “What did you do to my mother Ron?” Simon yelled at him. “You killed her!”

  “Keep your voice down kid! I don’t want the neighbours over here asking what all the yelling is about. That won’t make me look good now will it?” Ron snapped back at him coldly. “As far I’m concerned she did this to herself. See she was already high, she just didn’t know when to stop. My problem is that the cops will figure out I was involved and they’ll come looking for me. I’m not going to hang around and risk looking at up to five years behind bars, because I already have an arrest for drug possession on my record.”

  “Why are you telling me this like I’m supposed to care?” Simon began to cry. “That’s your problem, not mine. My Mum is dead!”

  “Well that’s where you’re wrong.” Ron smiled evilly across the room. “I need to disappear, and you’re the only problem standing in my way. So before me and the boys get as far away from town as we can, we’re going to make it look like you and your Mummy were having your own little party, if you know what I mean.”

  The other man stepped forward on cue with a syringe in one hand. Simon noticed that he was wearing a pair of gloves. The whole scenario had been well rehearsed. The man holding Simon tightened his grip and shoved him forward. Panic gripped his body as he realised the situation appeared hopeless. It was one boy against three grown men.

  “Jesus please help me!” Simon trembled, his eyes wide open in alarm at the sight of the needle that was fast approaching.

  “There ain’t no Jesus here to save you boy.” The man with the syringe smirked as he moved in to give Simon the shot of heroin. “Keep still and if you’re lucky, you’ll wake up and this will all be just a bad dream. But if you don’t, maybe you’ll end up looking like your Mummy.”

  “Jesus save me!” Simon screamed again.

  Immediately the front door burst open and the figure of his next door neighbour Laurie loomed large in the doorway. Fire burned in his eyes as he scanned the room, glaring in contempt at the three men who stood terrorising a young boy.

  “Right, that’s enough! What’s going on here?” He bellowed.

  “Alright!” Ron laughed in Laurie’s face. “Looks like things have just got better fellas. We can take the old man out of the picture too, shoot him full of heroin boys and plant some stuff in his house next door. The jury ought to buy that one. Just make sure he ends up as cold….”

  Before Ron could finish the sentence Laurie had picked him up by the front of the shirt and flung him halfway across the room. The other two men immediately forgot about Simon and turned their attention to the silver haired man who was now coming straight at them. Simon watched in disbelief as Laurie countered every attack the two men launched at him like a trained Kung Fu master. Ron scrambled back to his feet and joined the others in trying to bring the old man to the ground. The three men encircled Laurie and let loose with a series of kicks and punches, none of which connected.

  Simon stepped back in awe as Laurie cart wheeled backwards, feet dancing across the ceiling as he somersaulted through the air over the head of a visibly stunned Ron who stood mouth wide open, watching as the old man landed on his feet.

  Ron turned around just in time to receive a full blow to the stomach leaving him winded and short of breath. Without having any time to suck in some air, Laurie had him above his head and a moment later sent him flying across the full length of the room. Ron crashed heavily on the dining room table and was out cold.

  One of the other men lunged at Laurie with a tiny pocket knife, trying several times to plunge it into deep into his chest. Moving as fast as lightning, Laurie danced away from each potentially fatal swipe and in a matter of moments had stripped the man of the knife before sending it flying across the room, lodging deep into the wall out of harm’s way.

  “Simon!” Laurie shouted across the room. “I’ll take care of everything from here, get out of here.”

  “But what about my Mum?” Simon shouted back. “I can’t just leave her here.”

  “There’s nothing you can do for her.” Laurie shouted in between landing consecutive blows on the chin of one of the two remaining men, sending him crashing momentarily to the ground. Without realising that Simon’s father no longer lived just on the other side of town, he remembered what the frail old man had said to him just a few minutes earlier. “You won’t be safe until you reach your father, you need to go now!”

  “But I….”

  “There’s no time to explain Simon, you have to get to your Dad’s house, it’s the only place you’ll be safe, trust me. I’ll take care of everything here when I’m finished. Now go, get out of here.”

  Amidst all the panic Simon took one last look around the room. The body of his mother still lay on the floor in the centre of the room while all around her waged an epic battle of supernatural proportions. Ron lay unconscious across the dining room table while Laurie appeared to be gaining the upper hand as he battled valiantly to bring the other two down. Without thinking where he was going, Simon turned and slipped out of the house through the back door.

  Simon tore down the driveway on his bike and pedaled madly up the only street he had ever called home. Since the day his mother had returned from the hospital with her newborn baby boy wrapped carefully in a cotton blanket, the white weatherboard house at the end of the street had failed to live up to the normal ideals any young boy held of a place to call home. Pausing at the crest of the hill Simon looked back sadly, listening to the feint strains of a struggle drift softly across the fast encroaching evening. His only reason to remain behind lay motionless on the floor of the lounge room. One by one his family and friends had slowly deserted him, leaving him paused in this moment, alone for the first time in his life and very afraid.

  Looking down at his feet poised on the pedals of his bike, his options seemed few. Brian’s Mum would still be mad with him so he couldn’t go there. He didn’t know where his Uncle Barry’s house was in Sydney, he’d only get lost trying to find it, and Melbourne was out of the question, his Aunty Gail was just too far away. There was only one place he really wanted to be anyway, and that was with his Dad. Guilt hit Simon hard as he began to blame himself for everything that had gone wrong since the day he lied to the principal at school to protect his mother. In the end it had cost her life. Maybe if he had been with his Dad all along none of this would ha
ve happened in the first place.

  The streetlights flickered to life along the street as Simon pushed down on the pedal of his bike. Slowly he rolled forward over the crest of the hill and the white weatherboard house at the end of the street disappeared behind him. The wind, warm and gentle, breezed against his face as he gained momentum. The BMX glided easily downhill, tyres humming softly on the bitumen road. By the time he reached the main road that led into town he felt a sense of freedom overwhelm him. He could almost hear the shackles and chains that had bound him in a life of sorrow and hurt fall by the roadside. Emotion caught up to him and tears began to fall down his cheeks. He was going to do what Laurie had instructed. He was going to find his father.

  Crossing the road he steered his bike toward the railway siding that followed the highway into town. His BMX slowly bumped along the edge of the roughly ballasted track until he came to the carriage sidings that butted up against the rear of the football grandstand at Graham Park. The lights shone down on the small freight yard which was largely empty. Simon’s thoughts went back to when he was eight and had run away from school, and he found himself walking along the same track that he had five years ago on that near fateful night.

  Simon kept to the far side of the railway yard and slowly made his way toward the signal standing in front of the steel girder bridge. To his left, the lights of the leagues club shone through the row of giant canary palms skirting the football ground. Beyond them the railway line stretched out into the night, the lights of the town dancing across the inky blackness of The Broadwater.

  Up ahead a piercing headlight swung into view and the rails lit up like two ribbons of shining silver as a train made its way onto the long causeway leading into town. Keeping to the shadows of the mangrove trees that lined the right side of the tracks, Simon hurried in the direction of the bridge until it seemed that the train would soon be upon him. Dropping his bike gently down the side of the embankment as the two huge locomotives rumbled noisily onto the steel bridge, he watched in horror as his BMX slid uncontrollably down the gravel slope. He tried in vain to grab at the handlebars as he slid after it, before watching the bike topple over the rocks at the bottom of the embankment and fall into the shallow, muddy mangrove flats.

  “Oh man!” He groaned aloud as he stared in disbelief at the sight of his shiny chrome BMX partly submerged in the muddy water.

  A short horn blast from one of the locomotives had his attention returning to the tracks above him. He looked up in time to see a dirty brown and yellow diesel slowly creep into view, air brakes hissing as the huge locomotive drew alongside him. Simon watched as the two locomotives slowly idled by, close enough so that if the driver was to look down out of the side window he would have been able to see Simon lying crouched on the side of the embankment only partly obscured in the shadows of the mangroves. The ground shook momentarily beneath him as the two locomotives slowly passed by, the rumble of their engines giving way to a steady, rhythmic click of steel wheels passing over the rail joints until gradually they slowed to a halt. With a procession of heavy thuds that ran the full length of the train, the coupler slack between each freight car caught up with the locos that had come to a complete stop at a red signal at the end of the small railway yard.

  “Hello Simon.”

  Simon jumped at the sound of his name. He looked up frightened at the sight of a man standing in the open doorway of a louvered box car that had stopped directly in front of him. Simon stepped out uncomfortably from the shadows of the mangroves, ready to forget about his bike and run for his life.

  “Don’t be scared.” The man spoke gently as he leaned out of the carriage door enabling Simon to see his face more clearly. Despite there being only a little bit of light filtering from the railway yard up ahead, Simon could make out the familiar outline of a face he had seen before. His short black hair, thick heavy eyebrows, dark unshaven stubble and radiant olive skin immediately eased the fear that had choked his entire body.

  “Peter?” Simon asked dumbfounded. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to help you reach your father.” He replied.

  Up ahead the locomotive sounded a short blast of the horn and a procession of heavy thuds followed as the sound of the couplers taking up the slack ran the full length of the train. With a green signal now showing, the train began slowly inching forward to the sound of the locomotives roaring to life.

  “Here, take my hand.” Peter called to him, leaning down from the doorway of the box car as it lurched forward, its steel wheels groaning in protest.

  Simon stepped slowly toward the side of the railway line while his mind wrestled with the idea of throwing all caution to the wind and trusting a man he hadn’t spoken to since that day at Sunday school over two years ago. He still remembered the two train tickets he had given him before strangely disappearing, only to reappear now in even stranger circumstances. The train was slowly gaining momentum, and he had to quicken his walking pace to keep alongside the open doorway of the boxcar. By the time he broke into a gentle run he had cast aside any last minute doubts and lifted his arm to grab Peter’s outstretched hand. In one clean swoop, Peter lifted him off the ground and his feet landed seconds later on the solid timber flooring of the box car.

  “How’d you know I would be here?” Simon asked puzzled as he stood beside Peter. “Was it just a fluke that I happened to come along when I did?”

  “No Simon, it’s all in God’s timing.” Peter replied warmly as he placed his arm around Simon’s shoulder.

  “I don’t understand.” Simon asked. Nothing made sense, it felt as though Peter had been expecting him to be waiting in that exact place, at that exact time, waiting for the train to arrive.

  “I’m sure you’ll understand everything by this time tomorrow.” Peter smiled reassuringly. “For now enjoy your triumphant exit, take a look outside Simon. Heaven itself has come out to witness the beginning of the next chapter in your life.”

  Simon carefully peered out through the open doorway as the train slowly threaded its way through the maze of track work behind the grandstand of Graham Park. It was a perfectly clear night. Without the moon to bathe the night in its soft glow, it was possible to see every star in the sky. Simon had never seen so many stars shining so brightly at the one time. They glistened and sparkled against a blanket of rich black.

  “You’re not just leaving town tonight Simon, you’re closing the book on a life of struggle against those who have sought to keep you from being all that you can be. Tonight you are riding out on a train of victory and into a better life that God has set aside for you. You’re safe in God’s arms now son. It’s time to take you home.”

  Simon didn’t say a word as he soaked in the meaning of what Peter had just said. The long freight train passed smoothly under the Donnison Street overpass and rounded the curve into Gosford station passing by the multi-deck car park. The town paraded past, filling his head with a procession of memories, his old primary school, his Dad’s old real estate office, the Leagues Club, his friends, high school and the sad thought of his mother lying on the lounge room floor in the white weatherboard house at the end of the street.

  “Look, an old friend has come out to say goodbye.” Peter said pointing ahead to the station building on the platform.

  Simon carefully leaned his head out of the open door to be greeted by the sight of the station master standing proudly on the platform in his neatly pressed blue uniform. His round face and tiny spectacles peered out from under his round, blue hat. He looked the same as he had on the day he helped his Poppy to board the train for the trip to Newcastle. His face lit up in a huge smile and he waved excitedly at the sight of Simon and Peter leaning from the door of the louvered box car as the train rolled slowly through the station.

  “Shouldn’t we be getting in trouble for doing this?” Simon asked confused as he waved back at the station master.

  “Normally we would.” Peter replied. “But you see, he is actually an
Angel.”

  Simon looked at Peter in disbelief before quickly returning his eyes to the station master standing on the platform as the train passed by. With a polite tip of his hat and a final wave goodbye, he turned to walk back toward the station building. Simon’s eyes were wide open in amazement as he watched the figure of the station master slowly fade away until he had vanished completely in only a few short steps, leaving a deserted platform in his wake.

  “Whoa!” Simon exclaimed. “So he really is an Angel?”

  “He was your Poppy’s guardian Angel.” Peter corrected him.

  They stood in silence, watching the station recede into the distance. At the head of the train the driver opened up the throttle, and the locomotives began to accelerate away. The lights of town disappeared around a curve in the track leaving the two of them in relative darkness with only the warm summer’s night air rushing by and the constant click-clacking from the steel wheels gliding over the rails as company.

  “You may as well get some rest.” Peter was the first to break the silence. “There’s a nice old railway blanket to keep us warm for the night in the corner. It’s been a long day hasn’t it.”

  Simon didn’t need any further encouragement. It had been a long day, and right now he was exhausted. He slumped down in the corner of the carriage against one of the steel paneled walls. Peter crouched down beside him and pulled the grey woollen blanket up over his legs.

  “Peter?” Simon asked as he fought off a sudden feeling of tiredness. “Do I have a guardian Angel too, like Poppy had?”

  “Yes you do.” He replied as he sat down beside him. “You see, I’m your guardian Angel Simon.”

  Simon closed his eyes and quickly succumbed to the gently rocking motion of the train as it headed north. Within minutes he was asleep. The future and all it held could wait until tomorrow.