You go through Life with all the best intentions, selfish as most of them may be. Life; that anomaly of being alive. You live Life by striving to do better, earn more money, screw as many girls as you can, buy that flash sports car, go on that debauched holiday, living Life to its fullest.
Sometimes they can tell straight away if someone is going to make it or not. It doesnt take long to figure out who has it and who doesnt. Theyd seen mothers, fathers, teenagers, toddlers, grandparents, politicians, council workers, real estate salesmen, all and sundry come through here. Some stay mere seconds, some for a couple of hours, but by the end of their first day most, if not all, have gone. And its not that they all arrive together either, like on a tour bus or something, no; its more like they are coming and going, and going and coming at all hours of the day or night.
You had to feel sorry for the ones that arrived at night they have no chance, no chance at all. Of those that watched over them, there stood one that knew better than any other individual, because there had only ever been one that survived a night arrival and it was he.
It isnt night now. The sun has risen, striking his piece of dirt before any other on the Australian mainland. Once again there had only ever been one that knew what was going to happen, and that, as you may have guessed this time, was he again.
Chapter Three Old Billy
Its not the sort of thing he used to worry about, thats for sure. Hed lived, and it had been good. Hes an old man now and had enjoyed his Life. He missed Life; he just didnt let anyone else know it.
Let me tell you a little more about who he is. His name is Billy, at least it was Billy Billy Nelson. He arrived for the last time about four or five years ago near as anybody can figure could be forty or fifty years for all he knew and cared anymore but others have been there so long nobody can even remember their last names! At last count there was about two hundred of the more permanents but constant arrivals and departures every day made it hard to keep track.
Billy spent his Life with abilities that would have made Superman envious, but they were abilities that remained oblivious to the majority in his time as a mortal entity. As a baby, a child, he could see and do things that would have seen most committed to the nuthouse. But hed been born to that Life and remained, relatively speaking, quite normal. Sure, he used to disappear at times when the desire to do so crossed his mind, and he understood the spoken language almost immediately. He could even hear peoples thoughts, but it was the visual world that was the most dramatic to him.
Billy could see and hear the other people who were no longer mortal souls, who waited for whatever was their reason to pass onward. He learnt quickly not to let on that he could see them. Experience taught him that whenever he did so, a mob would immediately form demanding he relay messages of advice, love, or desperation to living relatives.
As a two year old it had been simple to ignore them (he may have understood language but communicating it to others remained as mysterious and frustrating as for any toddler his age). It was impossible to disseminate the things they wanted him to. As the years progressed he came to bless the insight that enabled him to switch off to their presence in his Life.
Anonymity became Billys friend. Not even his parents accepted his abnormal behaviour and it taught him to be cautious about who knew. Such caution became easier as he grew, firstly through puberty then into an early maturity well beyond his years. He was 15 when things changed dramatically, the change so dramatic that only the whole story could possibly make it clearer.
Chapter Four
Tony and Jen
Where the fuck? It isnt?
Told ya!
Fuckin fantastic man. Cmon, lets get in there!
No, wait! Billy! Hang on " His best mate Tony was always willing to please, to try anything. He always had his ear to the ground, so that nights like tonight were not a surprise for him anyway. Tony loved doing this sort of stuff. Yesterday afternoon as he and Billy walked home after jumping off the school bus he just up and said it.
We gotta be at the Top Pub tomorrow.
Why?
Youll see. Pick ya up at three.
I was gonna come over for a jam session before lunch, remember?
Yeah, yeah, okay. You still seein Jen?
You betcha. Seeing her at tennis in the morning. Dad wouldnt let me go out with her tonight her brother was gonna take us to the drive in and he doesnt even know him but he still said he doesnt trust him, so I cant go. Sucks man. And Jen was pretty pissed off too.
Shes a looka Billy. Does Wendy know?
No way! Best thing about Jen goin to school in Lismore is nobody else around here knows her!
So, tomorrow night, is one of them comin with us?
Billy slapped him on the back. Tony hated the fact that Billy always had a girl, or two, or three! It wasnt that he was bad looking himself, it was, well, the fact that he never gave them a chance to get to know him, really know him, know him like Billy did. Theyd strike up a conversation with the girls Tony and Billy and the first question Tonyd ask is if any of them wanted a fuck! The girls usually drifted away about then but curiosity would almost always bring one of them back, eventually to Billy that is. Hed go to the loo or to the bar and run into one of them and shed say something like; Is your friend always that crass? And theyd end up having a conversation and hed end up with the girl. If not that night in the back seat of a convenient car, or once, even the ladies loo at the Workers Club in Lismore, then at some other venue at some other time. As the ice had already been broken it was pretty easy for him to go up and introduce himself again. Worked like a charm just about every time and Billy wouldnt change Tony for the world! One day, Tony was going to wake up to it, thats for sure. Billy always hoped it wasnt sooner rather than later!
It wasnt that Billy needed his help. Jen for one, he met at the local tennis courts just after her family had moved into the area from Lismore. Tony didnt play tennis or any other sport so Jen was safe from his unique approaches. Her folks didnt want her to change schools at this stage, being Year 10 and all that, so while she caught the bus to Lismore the other locals like Billy and Tony caught the bus to Ballina.
Billy earnt pocket money by watering, rolling and marking the local clay tennis courts and aside from the money, pushing and pulling that roller around endowed him with more defined muscles than most boys his age. There he was that morning, finishing with the heavy roller on the courts in his shorts and tennis shoes, arms and torso pumped, tanned and flexing from their efforts when a voice drifted across the court from the small clubhouse. He hadnt seen her arrive because she walked across the park while he was pushing the roller in the other direction. She stood in the shadows of the clubhouse and it was difficult for him to make her out.
I said, it looks hot out there, she repeated.