Tales from the Punchbowl #5
Her Favourite Song Was Mercy
After three days and nights in the incubator of the lower bunk at Roamers, having met writers, snow boarders and wilderness enthusiasts from Canada, Switzerland, Colorado and beyond, having invented several new dishes from the free food tub, including Kraft singles Ramen, I ran out of money.
I used the teddy bear key to unlock the storage room in the basement, next to Wax Museum Records. I scooped up my gear -mattress, blanket and clothes- and crossed the road for Flinder’s Street Station. Platform 7, Vic line train. I swiped my Myki card and boarded. I snoozed shallowly as my eyes gathered occasional vistas of cows, paddocks and silvery skies.
I’m too sleepy for this train, my movement-sedated brain protested. I got off and locked myself in the station disabled toilet, to charge my dead phone. Sitting against the wall, I snoozed, dreaming of seaside laneways and epic stretches of sand, in what dimension I know not. A few hours later came a nerve shattering assault on the door, thud, thud, thud! Station’s closed! Came an annoyed voice from outside.
I slunk away down the hill and purchased an eleven dollar kebab from an impressively bearded Indian, then strolled into the park. A tremendous grey memorial in concrete stood for the Anzacs, a bronze soldier standing valiantly at the centre. On the horse shoe wall the inscribed declaration: “Age shall not weary them, nor time condemn”.
I made a camp and lay down, peering at the soldier, considering the impressive war attire. My eyes glazed over and I slept again. 2 am, my eyes peeled open, like a revivified zombie awakened by the midnight moon. I heard a voice in the distance. “Fuckin smash it”. My mind reeled and my neck craned to see from whence this bold instruction had emanated. Two seconds later a sharp flutter in the leaves overhead and a ball drops down, next to me, bouncing on the concrete. What the? I thought.
I got up and grabbed the ball, now settled at the edge of the horse shoe wall. I looked up and down the street, then up towards the station. Three characters emerged from the shadows, one woman wheeling a big white suitcase and two blokes laughing, one on a little scooter. “Are you guys doing your tennis training at 2:30am? Is this your ball?” I yelled at them in a friendly way. Hahaha maybe, they chortled. Here’s the ball, I said, chucking it to them. They disappeared into the streets, but later one of the two men returned, the one on the scooter.
He pulls up next to me and asks how I’m doing. Yeah oright. I queried him about the ball. Did you hit that with a racquet? No, I kicked it over the tracks. Where did it land? he asked. Dropped through the leaves and bounced over there, I pointed. I just lost me daughter, seven years old, car crash, he confessed. Sorry to hear. I just got out of the hospital. She’s gone. What was her name? Layla, from the Eric Clapton song.
He opened his bag and showed me colouring in they’d done together. Now I’m not gonna see her grow up, he whimpered, tears glinting in his eyes in the light of the street lamp. What am I gonna do? You’re gonna look after yourself and start new, I proffered. I’m gonna get her unicorn drawing tattooed on me leg. Do it. I’m glad I met you. I’d be smashing shit ‘n going off me cunt otherwise, he said. He reached into his bag and gave me a bead bracelet he’d made. She loved music. Her favourite song was Mercy. We fired up the Bluetooth speaker and listened to the tune…
adamdaniel 