3.
To my surprise, I didn’t make it completely into town later that afternoon. Instead, I heard a train whistle as I neared some tracks and when a freight train rambled past a few minutes later, hopped aboard, completely unaware of where it was headed.
The air was still warm enough to sleep on the roof of a boxcar and as the countryside slowly slipped past, I laid on my back and stared up at the stars that began to light up the evening sky. I was genuinely happy, James. If I had a choice to return to any moment of my life, it would be back on top of that boxcar, back to a time where nothing felt more perfect to me.
I had money in my pocket, I owned a home and it felt like I had nothing holding me back. I could go wherever I wanted, whether it was another city, another state or even another country. I could take as long as I needed, travel the world if I so chose, do whatever my heart desired.
But unfortunately, there was something holding me back. There was something in my life that would make sure any happiness I could afford would never come to fruition. Because a monster lived inside me. One that didn’t care for fun, for memories, for creating a worthwhile future. The monster that lived inside me had only one purpose. Revenge.
I knew the moment would come when Loui would return. I knew that the day would come where he once again took control, to unleash the anger I always felt lurking deep inside him. He wanted to revisit all those people that stood opposite from us, pointing their fingers, snickering behind their hands. He wanted to kill them all, leaving none in his wake.
My own battle to control this body and mind was only just beginning. I knew that once Loui was unleashed, both me and Eddie would be nothing more than passengers, watching through the windows of our mind as he tore the countryside apart.
Do you know what I considered at one point as I rode that train, James? I actually considered running to the front of that train and throwing myself off, falling beneath its steel wheels as they sliced their way along those tracks. Imagine. I could have ended the terror that I helped unleash on your world right there, back before anyone who mattered died.
But as we know, that never happened. In a way, I too, wanted my own vengeance. It was me that lived through those years as well. Listening to the constant torments, the teasing, even the teachers getting in on the action. Yes, James, even some of the teachers made their feelings towards me known.
Which brings me to Mavis Toomey.
4.
Mavis Toomey was the Cider Hill primary school librarian from 1894 until she retired in 1917. Her husband had been an army colonel or something and had gotten himself killed in some distant land during the war. It was when she learned of his death that she decided to retire and move back to Melbourne.
What I remember most about old Mrs Toomey was a comment she made to me back during 3rd grade. I’m sure it was the year the war began, or maybe just after. The time doesn’t really matter. What that old battle-ax had said to me, happened during our weekly library visit. We were always allowed to take a single book back to the classroom after our visit. Whatever we chose.
I loved library day because it gave me a chance to find my weekly escape. My mum had been dead 3 years by then, although most of the community still believed she’d met some stranger and ran off with them.
The day Toomey made her comment was one of complete insignificance. There was nothing special about it when it began, and there was nothing special about it when it ended. And that was because I didn’t understand the comment at the time. It made very little sense and it wasn’t until I was lying on the bed with that disgusting whore gnawing at my dick that the comment returned.
We’d lined up with our books and were handing them to Mrs Toomey so she could stamp the back of them. As each kid took theirs back, they ran towards the door where our teacher waited for us. It wasn’t a very long process, simply telling the librarian your name, then waiting as she noted it down and delivered that final whack of the stamp before handing it back.
I was the final kid in line that day, everyone else already back with Mrs Smith, restlessly waiting for the door to open. I handed Mrs Toomey my book, then began to say my name.
“I know who you are,” she snarled through her contemptuous lips. She snatched the book from my fingers and began to do what she needed to. I remember her taking a quick look to where Mrs Smith was trying to calm the class. Then she knelt down a little with her stamp held firmly, looked at me and said “You’re the only one here conceived at Rita’s.” That’s what she said.
Like I said, at the time I had no idea what she meant. I was just a kid, not even 10 years old. I thought she called my mum Rita, completely unaware of what ‘conceived’ even meant. I remember thinking at the time that I should have corrected her by telling her my mum’s real name. But that’s not what she meant, was it, James?
That bitch was calling my mother a whore in her own special way. She told a 9-year-old child, who had witnessed his mother’s murder, that she’d been a whore. It was that very comment that flooded into
