Got 'Em Read online

  Uncle Pete, sitting just in front of me, looks lost. I know his pain for Pop is real, just like mine, especially after all these years of tirelessly trying to tell him to quit smoking cigarettes; but he never listened, I gave up about two years ago.

  It’s now 10.29 a.m. and the celebrant just walked into the chapel; the funeral is about to commence, starting with the song ‘It’s My Life’ by Bon Jovi. Pop always loved this song, mainly because it illustrates that ‘It’s his life’ and he can ‘do what he wants to do,’ I’ve always admired him for that.

  After the song has finished, the celebrant speaks his kind words, then asks for speakers to come up and say something, like a fond memory, for Pop. It is now that Aunty Karat gets up to reminisce some strange memories about him. In her rather unique, I’d say, high pitched but low volume voice she starts to speak, “Now, Russel, he was good—” nodding her head with a tear falling down her face, “good to many people, a memory I have of him is when I was younger,” as she tilts her head down to a tissue she is holding, “he is working on his old ride on.” She takes a soulful breath as she continues, “Anyway, he undoes a nut on somewhere in there he is working on, and bam! It splurges out with all this oil, and he is screaming at me saying ‘Kay! Go grab me a rag quick!’ And I just stood there on the front step, laughing.”

  Looking around for some kind of response, Aunty Karat stands up there looking dopey as everyone is looking at her with a shocked look. Still looking around, ten or so seconds later of really awkward silence, in an embarrassed voice as she gestures her arms, “Uh, I’ll just step down now, I think.”

  The celebrant then calls upon me, in a suggestive voice, “Oh, okay, thank you, Kay, for sharing your fond memories of Russel. Now I’d like to call up David, Russel’s grandson.” As soon as he mentions my name, a gut-wrenching feeling swallows me up and is keeping me in my seat. As everybody in the chapel is staring at me, waiting for me to take the stand, I swallow the feeling for a second and ask myself, What would Pop say if I didn’t get up and tell people what I thought of him and shared my fondest memories with him?

  That same gut feeling turns into my grandfather’s will power and drives me up out of the chair on the second row, and guides me to the stand where I stand in front of all the people that filled all the rows, and there were even more people standing around the back and outside of the chapel. I really didn’t know that Pop knew so many damn people. I start going red in the face. Then in a stuttering voice, I glance at everyone in this large room and start to speak.

  Clearing my throat from the frogs covering my voice, “Pop was a top bloke. He looks after you, even if you weren’t his own.” I look around, and I can’t believe that from the top of my head I splurged out a sentence that made sense, even with how I’m feeling—I normally don’t do this kind of thing in front of people—and so I continue with pride but still stuttering a little, “My mother and father passed away as most of you know, quite a few years ago, and this man, my Pop, took me in as if I were his own child and raised me like one too. He taught me the good from the bad, and a lot of other things too like, how to ride a motor bike, how to drive a car, and the fun we had on the ride on; the same one Aunty Kay was talking about. That man always had a smile on his face, without a doubt, unless you touched one of his prize possessions in the lounge room.” I giggle a little bit, as the rest of them slightly giggle with me, “And one of them is a damn porcelain doll.” Everybody laughed, as they all knew about that porcelain doll. I continue proudly, “I’m proud of you Pop, but you’re in a better place now. I love you.”

  I start walking down from the stand with a tear or two in my eye, continuing to walk on back to my seat as my Uncle Pete turns to me and says gracefully, “I’m proud of you mate, dad—Pop—would’ve been proud of ya.” I smile graciously as I return to my seat.

  Like most funerals, the song ‘Amazing Grace’ is played. As we all start heading out of the chapel, I hear some people say, “That was an amazing service.”

  Feeling agitated and upset, I approach these people to say, “How could you even say that? No funeral is an ‘amazing service.’ I wish this never happened, I wish he had never been taken by the fires.” As I turn to look at each of these three men and women in disgust, for some reason, I start to develop some anger. At that point, Aunty Karat approaches me.

  Politely and slightly excited, Aunty Karat says, “That was a smooth service, wasn’t it? But so sad he is gone,” in that weird, high-pitched voice of hers. In my head, I was thinking to myself, Another one to say the same thing, it was not an amazing service! He shouldn’t have passed away or burnt away for that matter.

  With a fake smile on my face, I agree politely, “Yes it was a lovely service.” As I grit my teeth together, I think, Now that took a lot of guts to keep down what I was really thinking, especially to the Aunty that denied custody of me because she didn’t want anything to do with me, or any child for that matter.

  So I try to completely ignore her and walk over to Uncle Pete, who is near the garden talking to some older lady whom I don’t know or have never met before. As I come up to him, Aunty Karat pushes on past me and says excitedly, “Oh hello, Peter, I have not seen you in such a long time!” Holy shit, didn’t she sound like a Pom when she said it. Uncle Pete replies, “Oh hi, yes, yes. It has been a long time, hasn’t it?” Extending his neck out in sarcasm, the look on his face says it all, he really does not want to be talking with her.

  I butt in to say my goodbyes to Uncle Pete, mentioning that I’ll be at his house later for the wake, as he is holding it at his house pretty much straight after. But everyone is going to be there for a while and hopefully Aunty Kay won’t be there for too long. Fingers crossed.

  As I start to walk away, I come across the front of the flower shop which is in-between but in front of and conjoined to both south and north chapel. I hear a voice say loudly, “Hey! Wait for me!” I turn around knowing that voice is coming from Lucas, as if he had been stranded or something, which he is.

  Making our way back to the car, we both notice that Amanda and Andrew had already left without saying goodbye or checking to see if I, or anyone for that matter, is okay. At this point, confused and a bit empty hearted, I grab out my phone which isn’t turned on. So, I turn it on and go to Amanda’s contact to call her. There is no answer, so, I call again. There is still no answer. I go to Andrew’s contact in my phone to call him. No answer from him either so I call him again; still no answer. I leave him a voicemail saying in a worried and aggravated voice, “Hey dude! Where are you? Why’d you leave so quickly?” Then I go to Amanda’s contact, select ‘messages’ and write her a message saying, ‘Hey, where did you go? I needed you…’ then press send.

  After that, Lucas and I hop into his car and he drives me home. He stays with me for about an hour before saying he is going to go home and get changed. Not long after Lucas leaves, I start feeling a little sick, a little bit mind-blown by how today went and what had happened, and how strange everything is with Aunty Karat, Amanda and Andrew, and just the whole damn thing. It is all making me feel uneasy and unwanted. Nobody really gave a damn! Being lost in thought, my mind blanks for a while. I decide to go down for a rest; it was only a small part of the day, but man it took it out of me.

  Meanwhile on the other side of the fence; Amanda and Andrew are snuggling in bed together just laughing, watching a movie and mucking around. Which leads to what everybody would expect, just like in the movies, they have sex. No one would have expected Amanda to go through with such a thing, knowing how guilty she’d feel for cheating on someone that she loved and had been with for such a long time, but you can’t really put your finger on someone that you know so well and say to yourself, ‘I know you.’ Because do you really know someone as much as you think you do? In this case, no.

  Unfortunately, Lucas is home alone, playing Xbox One, COD ‘Call of Duty,’ not knowing what his girlfriend is doing; or maybe he does know what she is doing, who knows… He’s j
ust a box of mixed feelings. It’s kind of like eating a box of mixed chocolates; there are the really yummy ones, and there are the ones you just don’t eat.

  Waking me up from my rest, Lucas calls me and asks with concern, “Have you heard from Amanda?”

  In a sleep-deprived voice, I reply, “Nah man, you literally just woke me up!”

  With sympathy, Lucas replies, “Sorry man, I’ll call you later.” I rudely hang up on him, and fall back to sleep, weirdly dreaming about what Amanda and Andrew are up to!

  I sleep the rest of the day and into the morning. I wake up half an hour earlier to what I normally wake up to go to work. I think, I might actually commence work today, it’ll keep me up and occupied from what has just happened. So I get up and search through my clothes on the floor and throw on my work clothes. They were only worn once, so it’s okay to wear it again as they didn’t stink.

  After throwing them on, I look at the time and it is 5 a.m. Walking out of my bedroom, I continue down the hallway to the bathroom-toilet, and go to the toilet which is at the foot of the bath tub-shower. Yes, I have a conjoined shower-bath. Thereafter, I continue dragging my feet back up the hallway and into the kitchen, grab the kettle and fill it up, then put it on its base and flick the switch to boil.

  As I’m waiting, I grab my cup and do my usual routine. Staring into the sugar canister, I think, Hmm I feel like two sugars today. Which is quite strange, especially after all these years of having two and one. So I add the extra sugar, by this time the kettle comes to a boil, so I fill my cup with hot water and think again, I don’t want to have milk either, and so I don’t.

  I make my way to the couch holding my coffee, and kind of linger for it to cool down, then I drink it. Now normally, Andrew would pick me up, maybe I woke up earlier for a reason. So I flick Andrew a message, and wait about ten minutes. Normally he’s up at this time and replies almost instantly; only this time he doesn’t. So, grabbing my stuff I start making my way out the door after finishing my coffee and placing my cup in the sink. Just out the front about two houses down, there’s a bus stop, where I used to catch a bus before I met Andrew, so I catch the bus I used to, and head to work.

  By the time I get to work, I see Andrew’s car there, I don’t think anything of it, and I continue into work as per normal. Andrew is in the boss’s office as I walk in to say good day and tell him I’m commencing work. Andrew looks at me as if I was the bad guy and have done something very wrong, then he smirks at me and pushes past me. Anyone would think it is him who has lost someone close.

  The boss greets me back and asks how I am feeling, before sending me back to work—usual hours, usual expectations. Though whenever I glance up at Andrew, he just smirks, then proceeds to a different section of the work place.

  Then comes break time; as I go out, I feel the urge to have a cigarette. So I ask another colleague if I can bum a cigarette from him. His name is Douglas, but everyone just calls him Doug. I ask him politely, “Hey man, can I bum a ciggy off ya, and a lighter too?”

  He asks propitiously, “You a smoker now, bud?”

  I reply a tad heated, “Just sorting through my shit, man.”

  Doug replies stubbornly as he hands me a cigarette and a lighter, “Yeah, right.”

  As I light up the cigarette, it is like I have been smoking for a long time, just haven’t had one for a day. Copping a head spin, I inhale the smoke but don’t cough, and it felt so good! As I puff away, drag by drag, I notice Andrew is chatting away to the same sheila from before. So I go and sit kind of back to back with him and got in at a pleasant time. I pull out my phone, and this is where everything started.

  Chatting away, I go into my voice recorder and enhance the sound so I can pick up better sound and press ‘record.’ And the conversation proceeds;

  The sheila says in a seductive voice, “Hey Andy, how are you going?”

  Andrew replies with a smile on his face and a happy voice, “I’m going really well. Met that chick you were going on about and so far, everything is going as planned, I didn’t know at first who it was until I met your partner’s brother.”

  She replies, smiling gladly, “That’s good, you’ll be great for her, and as I said to both of you yesterday, cut ties with absolutely everyone.”

  At this point I can’t take anymore. So inconspicuously, I put out the cigarette I’m smoking, and place it in the ashtray work supplies for the smokers, then make my way back inside. Andrew’s back was towards me, so he didn’t know I was there, thankfully, otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten the information which is enough to cut ties with both of them if that’s the case. Though for some reason, I want to do something far worse.

  After work—as I work hard doing what I do—ignoring everyone I have crossed, I make my way out of the work building to head towards the bus stop. I see Amanda run towards Andrew and jump on him with excitement. She is kissing him and is all over him. This really puts me over the edge, especially now that they are both looking over at me. I can see Amanda wants to come and say hi but Andrew says something to her which stops her from coming over.

  Hopping into Andrew’s car, he takes off like an idiot doing a massive burnout in front of work heading towards me, literally making me jump out of the way before he collides with me. This sends shivers down my spine and scares the living soul out of me. Worse off, Amanda sticks her head out the window and yells abusively, “Get up and go home, you loser!” Then, using her right-hand, she formed ‘L’ with her thumb and index finger.

  Blown away by it, I gaze around as a few other people witnessed what just happened. I am honestly thinking that I’ve lost my mind or something; but I haven’t lost my mind, what happened was real and I was without a doubt, saved by a few inches, by my grandfather.

  I continue to walk in shock to the bus stop. As the bus pulls up, I make it to the bus’ door and the driver clearly sees that I’m going to jump on. He closes the damn door in my face and aggressively takes off without an indicator, cutting two cars off. I think to myself as I look down at my hands, No, I can still see my hands, so I clench my hands together for feeling, Yup I can still feel my fucking hands. Am I losing it? Everything is falling apart around me… but why?

  So I linger around the bus stop waiting for the next bus back to Ashfield. I flash back to school where I was in a sports class, in the middle of a circle, and everyone is yelling profanities at me, and throwing basketballs at me, calling me a loser. In fact, even Amanda was with them, calling me a loser. I didn’t notice back then, but now I realise Amanda was one of the bullies.

  Appearing around the corner, a bus shows. My flashback ends, and the bus pulls up in front of me, hopping on as soon as the doors open. The dark lady bus driver says in an abrupt voice, “Can’t you wait for everyone to get off before you get your ass on?”

  I reply apologetically, “Sorry ma’am,” then continue to find a seat.

  The yelling of the kids on the bus, and other couples screaming, comes to an end as the bus pulls up at my bus stop; off I hop and walk down the road to my house. I open the door, then continue to the kitchen to put the kettle on again as it still has water in it. I make myself a coffee before sitting down on the lounge to relax after a very abnormal day.

  After relaxing for a while, a car comes screeching down the street, as loud nasty words are yelled and I hear banging on the glass and walls outside. I think, What in God’s name is that? As I stand up, a bit winded and confused, I approach the front door as a similar noise repeats, like the same car is coming past again and more things are thrown at my house.

  Unlocking the front door, I walk out to see that my house is covered in eggs, toilet paper and a mix of fruits and vegetables, obviously light enough to throw. As I looked around at the mess that had been created, I drop to my knees and burst out in frustration, anger and tears. Glancing around I question myself in a low defensive voice, “Why is this happening to me? Why? What have I done?” As I crouch down, I bring my hands to my head in contemplation.
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  Getting up, stressed out and completely confused, I march back in to see my TV turned on and a band called ‘Florence + the machine’ playing ‘Shake It Out’. Listening to a little bit of it, I decide to turn it off. I haven’t heard of the band before, nor the song. Gathering my thoughts, I bring it upon myself to go to sleep, regardless of what has just happened. I’m exhausted and I need sleep. Today has just overwhelmed me and I just can’t handle it anymore.

  Chapter Four

  Working Things Out

  A fresh day to start. What I thought was a nightmare, is going to remain a nightmare, because I don’t really want to remember it as reality. Again, I wake up at the same time as yesterday. Get up, have my coffee then head off to work. During lunch break, I approach my boss to mention that I may take a little while, as I’m going to go and sort out my grandfather’s will. He lets me go and tells me to do what I’ve got to do. My boss is lenient at times.

  Walking over to the bus stop again, the image gets into my head about what happened yesterday and in a way, I re-imagine it. Only this time, he does hit me and a random rocket comes from the sky above, aimed at me and annihilates my body, which blows me out of that train of thought. Sitting at the bus stop waiting for the bus that drives pass the lawyer’s office that I’m going to see. I again think to myself, I must be going insane or something, or maybe it is just how my body wants to cope with all that has happened, and that, for some reason keeps on happening.

  The bus pulls up at the stop. I wait for the exiting passengers to get off, and the passengers before me wanting to get on. This time I make sure that I’m getting on the damn bus. As before, when the man deliberately closed the door in my face, which is extremely disrespectful and demeaning, I use my opal card: the ridiculous new technology these days. I mean call me old school, but I’d prefer to pay the man or woman than use a card.