Lane Boy - Locked Out
‘Stormy Landscape with Ruins on a Plain’ by Georges Michel
Locked Out
He ran into the mouth of the black laneway, terrified of what he could not see. He threw his arms out in front, pre-empting a crash and prancing like a high stepping show horse careful not to drag his feet lest he trip on one of the bumpy cobblestones. If he ran fast enough perhaps all that lurked and waited for him in the wings would not have a chance to gobble him up. He came to the corner of his back fence where it met with the neighbour’s. Just a few more minutes and he would be in. He lifted his foot up and shoved it into the creepers covering next door’s hole filled fence, expecting it to go straight through and onto the horizontal support but his foot slammed into a hard wall.
‘Owww’, he yelped as his toe crunched on solid wood. ‘What the …’
The ‘ol reliable gap was gone. It had to be there, it was the only way to get back in. Like a panicked blind boy, he pushed his hands into the creeper, feeling around, up, down, then along each side, thinking he must have missed it. A feeling of dread worked its way up his arms and into his stomach. There was no gap, and in its place a smooth, cool newly painted plank. He could even smell the paint. The fence had been patched up.
A heavy numbness washed over him as the cogs in his brain tried to find a lower gear to engage with; to deal with his rising fear. Getting out of his back yard - to do what he wanted to do with Chris and Brett earlier that evening was easy. Two big leg hoists on the cross braces on the inside of the fence, a nifty flip scramble over the top, and one was hanging for a short springy drop down into the alley and to freedom. He had been doing it for months. However, tonight, things had changed.
He swore he was not going to go to the front door to surrender. No way. I mean, really, what would he say when his father answered to find his nine-year-old son standing there at 1 a.m. in the morning?
‘Oh hi Dad, I was just out on the town at midnight, having a bit of fun with my mates, after having escaped the house over the back fence, despite you thinking I went to bed at eight pm. Unfortunately I couldn’t get back in because that grumpy old bitch next door fixed her fence and blew up my plan. Am I alright? Yeh, sure, Dad, no worries, I’m fine. Thanks for asking!”
To which his father would not reply, ‘That’s fine son, I’m just glad to see you are okay.’
That, Peter knew, was not how it would go. He would be minced; the consequences unimaginable, for all of them. All five kids paid when one had done ‘the thing’ so as the lessons were never wasted. It was a kind of economy of discipline Peter had often mused. His nickname at school was ‘Calc’, because he liked numbers and working things out, and he had long ago worked out his father’s methods for parenting when it came to punishment. So no, the front door wasn’t an option.
He looked around now that his eyes had adjusted to the low glow coming down the alley from the street lamps on Moore Street. He scanned for something he could use to create a step up. An old plank, a piece of a crate, anything would do. He saw nothing, other than a few cardboard boxes that were piled up behind the milk-bar stores back fence but they were flimsy and useless and would squash if he stood on them. There was only one option, stealth.
He walked back as far as he could across the lane, which was just wider than a car, and ran at the fence, leaping up. He managed to grab the top of the palings, and wrenched his legs up like Spider-man, trying to get purchase, but his tread-worn runners just skidded down the palings, and he hung there, like a crucified pig in a meat room until he let go, his palms sporting painful splinters as payment for his pathetic efforts. He tried again and again, but it was the same.
He slumped down opposite his homes back fence and stared at it. Sweat prickled his forehead. He sighed and blew out a gut full of hot air, which turned into fog in the chilly atmosphere. He wasn’t strong enough and his feet were not sticky enough but he could not give up, not yet.
He went back to the neighbour’s fence, and tried to haul himself up using the creepers as a foothold but the delicate honeysuckle tore and fell away leaving his hands sweet and sticky. He dragged his hands over his face and his mouth. The sap stung his skin. He could feel the panic rising again, and as if by instinct, he licked his palms and tasted the nectar from the sweet flowers he had crushed. He thought of his mother patiently showing him how to pick the flowers and suck their bottoms for a sweet treat. She knew all these things, the little details that would have otherwise been lost to them all. In this moment of despair that sweetness mattered. She would be so disappointed in him. There was no way she could find out about this, no way. He would not give up.
He slumped down in the two-foot dip in the corner of the fences, fitting neatly into it like a pot plant. He drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his corduroy trousers. He would just have a think for a bit. He could feel the cold night air descending as it bit into the bluestones below turning them into ice boulders.
I’m gonna freeze to death, if I I’m not murdered, he thought, and as if he had summoned the horrors with his thoughts, he heard the sound of irrational men enter the lane.
“Leave it be Mick, it’s nothin’ you can’t get back.”
“Bullshit.”
“I didn’t know, believe me mate, I did’n know.”
“Right, right, sure, sure… like fuckin’ hell you didn’t …”
“Come on bud, lets jus …”
Scuffling broke out, and there was a great thump as a body hit a fence, only meters from Peter. He pulled back in as far as he could, trying to drag the creeper over himself, hoping they would not see him. Peter knew only too well that the sound of flesh hitting flesh is not like in the movies, it’s not a crisp snappy sound. There was another horrible sick thud, and grunting and panting as a man fought for his life. Peter dare not run, it was far too late. The best he could do was just stay still and hope they would tumble past with their punch up and not notice him. The growling, snorting beasts hauled and flung each other against the fences on one side, and then the other. He could smell sweat, beer, and blood. Suddenly the smashing stopped, and he heard one of them running off. The discarded man groaned. Peter could see the silhouette of the crumpled loser, which was hard up against the milk-bar fence. He rolled over and then onto his side facing him. Peter put his head down, to hide his pale pink face. The man was not ten feet away. Then he heard him haul himself up with a loud
‘Arrgggg’.
He lurched forward slamming into the fence right next to Peter. He leaned there for a good five minutes, panting and sniffing. Suddenly as if the sense he had had knocked out of him returned, he spat three times into the drain and then staggered off, weaving this way and that, cursing and swearing as he headed back to the streetlight.
Peter shivered. He was miserable. His toes were numb. His second hand gym-boots were thin and his socks were soaking wet from running through the gutter. What a terrible mess. He felt so stupid, and wanted to start everything again, yes, and never ever go out again - that’s it. He made a promise to the dark lane, which was a bit like a prayer that this was what he would do if he got out alive. The tears welled up in his eyes. He could not stop them this time. His super powers were weak. They puddled up, and blurred his sight, and then they overflowed and spilled down his cheeks. They were strangely warm until the night frost hit them, then they became cold stripes branding him a failure. His nose filled up with snot and he had to breathe through his mouth like a fish. He hated it.
You made a huge mistake, and this is what you get for it, he scolded himself.
He knew he would be found stabbed to death in the morning like old Ray Buckley the drunk, and they would all say, he deserved it because he really, really did.
Maybe Dad was right about all that Lane Boy crap he goes on about, he thought. Then he quickly corrected himself, Na … it’s all bullshit, he just does it to scare us and for good reason.
He thought about going to the front door again, but there was no story he could make up that would cut it. It was impossible. He knew what would happen. It was not worth it. He just couldn’t. It really would be better to just stay here and die.
He didn’t really want to die, but he had no idea what to do. He pulled his legs in tighter to his body, and tried to wriggle his toes but they felt like cold plastic Lego blocks. They were frozen and would all fall off, but it wouldn’t matter because he would be dead anyway. This did not make him feel better. He was so tired, so very tired. He lowered his head into his knees.
***
Eternal sirens wailed in the background and traffic roared and purred away as it came up to the lights on Brighton road a few streets over. He fell asleep to this urban lullaby every night of his life. He knew nothing else, but he wished he did. Each summer the school had a camping trip up in the bush in the Dandenong’s, and his mates always went but not him. The kids in his family were not allowed to go on these things. His father reckoned that they got enough outdoor activity at the local cricket club each weekend, where Stan was the Captain and Treasurer. Peter didn’t agree. He knew nothing else, but he knew there was more than this. He shivered and wondered how he would ever find out for sure. He was sitting here trapped, and unable to get out of his own life.
Just then a gust of warm air swirled around his back, like a hot breath. It lingered in his little corner and then spread outwards and over his legs. He frowned, a distinctive deep furrow creased into his brow, passed on from his father, and already forming at nine years old. The warmth began to rise, and he felt it move around his arms, and then up and over his face. He snuggled in deeper, not sure what was happening but happy for it anyway. It was as if a blanket had been draped about him. He was so beside himself facing his own demise that he accepted it, he let it come over him, that glorious warmth. He let it soak through the threadbare fabric on the knees of his trousers, and he let it throw itself over his dirty hair and warm his toes. He leaned in. His tears stopped. The freezing cold snot on the end of his nose dried up, and he could breath easily again. He relaxed. He dropped his arms, which had been tightly gripped, around his knees and as he surrendered his hand fell to his side and landed in the rich black fur of the sleeping animal that had crawled in next to him, but he did not notice, as his head slouched and he disappeared into sleep.
***
The boy ran, he ran as fast as he could … he could hear the shouts of the troopers and the squealing of their protesting horses in the distance above the ferocious winds and the exploding thunder above his head.
His legs ached and burned, and his heart was pounding in his head as if it would explode. Sweat poured from his forehead, his neck and his chest and he felt faint. The fever had him properly in its grip. He lay down in a little shallow dirt gulley, to just rest awhile, and to stay out of sight of the Sergeant and his men as the inky night sky boiled and blended into massive storm heads. He thought of his dead Father and Mother as well as his older siblings Daphne and William and the ominous yellow flag they had sailed into Port Phillip bay under. He worried what would happen to his baby sister who he had tried to see but was not allowed due to having been quarantined. What would happen to her now? He slept fitfully, his heart racing. Horrendous nightmares churned end to end, in between him trembling with cold.
When the sun came up, he could not move. He closed his eyes, and at last he felt a little peace. The storm heads had rolled back out to sea, to make way for a benevolent morning sun, which sipped over the edge of the gulley he lay in and warmed his face. With his eyes closed, the inky terror of the previous night was replaced with a soft orange glow on the back of his eyelids as the morning sun kissed him. He would go back to sleep again … just for a little while … perhaps he would feel better then.
He did not wake.
Later that day, the black skies opened their low slung nets, and delivered the last rites, the gentle rituals of the undertaker and the hard graft of the grave digger all in one God forsaken storm. The gulley filled with mud that ran over from the swamps. Cockle shells and small kangaroo bones swirled about him and put an end to his horrible fever, burying him deep inside the land he and his family had so fatefully sailed to in search of a new and better life.
***
I need another place, where there be peace
I need another world, this ones nearly gone
Im gonna miss the birds singing all their songs
Im gonna miss the wind, been kissing me so long
Another world… another world, another world, another world
(Ane Brun)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csJS9wT2gZY
****
The Melbourne morning sun peeked over the fences at the end of the lane, checking to see if it was a good time to start. Delicate fingers of soft yellow light tickled over cobbles, turning the trickle of water down the center drain into a magical silver stream making its way towards the small huddled bundle in the corner of the fence. The little pile of boy gently moved up and down in a steady and slow rhythm, as Peter breathed his way out of a long and strange dream. A ginger cat bounced silently past him on ballerina feet on its way for breakfast, giving him a cursory glance. A white-plumed honeyeater burst into a cheery curly twirly song above him, beckoning him back to life. He stirred.
Clip clop, clip clop, clip clop, Peter raised his head to the sound of the horses pulling the milkman’s cart as it trotted up the laneway to the back of the milk-bar.
“Wooooo … woooo,” the milkman commanded in a low deep tone. Peter was staring right into a horses rear end, and watched as steamy manure spilled miraculously out of what looked like an open tube in its arse right in front of him. He knew his Mum would be out to pick that up for her garden as soon as she got up. The thought snapped him back to reality.
He stood up, and remembering where he was - feeling dizzy as he tried to shake the bizarre dream from his head.
‘Christ,’ he whispered, ‘I’m alive.’
He had to get back inside before it was too late. The back of the milk-cart was pulled up right outside his back fence as the milkman exchanged loaded crates for empties at the back of the milk-bar. He could hear voices and bottles clanking as old Barney dragged a full crate off and staggered up to the back fence of the shop.
‘Good mornin’.’
‘A very good day to you sir,’ said Harry the Greek, the owner of the milk-bar.
‘Just the four then mate? Any other empties?’
‘Maria’, Harry yelled back to his wife …
This was it; he had to act now. The cart was parked so close to the top of his fence, he might be able to just get up there and leap right over. He eased past the horses, trying not to upset them, but they were oblivious to his presence with their eye blinkers hiding anything to the side of them. He scrambled up the side of the cart and crawled over the back, slipping and sliding between the crates, trying not to make a noise on the rattling empty bottles. Yes indeed, it was only a few feet from the top of his fence. He leaned over and hauled himself across, landing his feet firmly on the top beam on the other side, inside his backyard. He was home.
The back door was locked, and no one was up yet but they would be any minute. He could not go back inside through the bedroom window, as it was daylight and for sure at least two of the other kids would be awake. He would have to wait. He would say he got locked out going to the dunny which was at the bottom of their yard. Yeh, that would explain him being dressed. He sat on the back step and waited.
Shortly after, his little brother Col wandered into the kitchen and then opened the backdoor to go to the toilet. Peter stepped right past him as naturally as the day, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Not saying a word he went straight to the kitchen table and took down the breakfast cereal from the shelf.
Unexpectedly his father walked into the room. He never rose early, ever. He glared at Peter who was quietly tucking into his breakfast, reading the cereal packet.
‘And what have you been up to?’ he asked in a snarly boisterous tone.
Peter stopped eating and felt his stomach roll over. His father then walked over to his chair and fell asleep at the table in a grog saturated drunken stupor. He had just got home after an all night bender.