COLIN'S STORY
I had been debt-collecting for an ex-army pal but despite the good pay, Melbourne dock area is not a long-term option in my line of work. The situation got fraught so I bolted with the Melbourne Dockers Union hot on my heels. Max, my mate and boss told me that henceforth I could be 'Our Man In Sydney.'
I gotta text on my mobile to phone a strange number. I dialled knowing it'd be a job. "What's happenin', Max?” I asked.
“A job in your area, Al. Interested?”
“Yeah Mate.”
He gave me the information. An overdue gambling debt.
To fill the day in, I went to Centrelink to see if they had any jobs that would suit an ex-soldier who's resume includes my major skill: killing and maiming people. Not a lot of call for that in civilian life. Nothing doing at the moment but my contact, Madge, told me to come back later. ---
The following morning a short train ride and a ten minute walk brought me to the middle of
working-class suburbia. Mostly fibro cottages on quarter-acre blocks. I read that they had been built
for returned soldiers and their families after the Second World War.
A polite knock on the door. It opened maybe six inches. “Hi Colin, a word please, mate.”
“No Colin here,” he said, closing the door. But I was too quick. I got my shoulder to the door and
burst it wide open. Colin, it was him alright, went staggering back down the hallway. I lunged after
him, punched him lightly in the stomach to knock the wind out of him and to get his attention. I
kicked the door shut and then bundled him, gasping and wheezing down the hall-way and into a
kitchen.
The kitchen was prehistoric, well old anyway. A lino floor, a wooden table and four chairs, old brass taps and a rusting fridge. I bent him over the sink and frisked him. Only a wallet.
“Well, what do yer know. Here's a driver's licence with a photo of a Colin who looks just like
you.” He was tall, skinny, balding, sallow-complexioned and 50ish. Talk about death warmed up.
I sat him down and had a sticky through his cupboards and fridge. Not much. A couple of cans
of beans, a half a loaf of stale bread and that was about it. “Gees, you're spoiling yourself Col,” I
told him.
He never said a word so I asked him, “do you know why I'm here.”
“Yes. You're a debt collector.”
“Spot on Col. Now it would seem that you owe a Melbourne party ten grand including interest.
Do you have it?”
“What do you think?” He gestured at a pile of paper on the table. I riffled through it. Electricity,
water, rates, a medical bill and on and on. Lots of them were headlined final notice. “Turn the lights
on,” he said. I did: nothing.
“You're an idiot,” I told him. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Up to you, I'm past giving a damn,” he told me.
“Mate, get a bloody job. They're screaming for fruit pickers out west.”
He put his right arm on the table. I noticed a clenched fist. Surely he's not going to get stroppy.
Nope, he rolled his sleeve up to reveal a totally buggered fore-arm. Withered, skin and bones
and heavily scarred.
“What the hell happened to you?” I asked.
“I.E.D.,” he said. “I wouldn't be much good at fruit-picking or anything else for that matter."
He was talking about An Improvised Explosive Device. A home-made Arab bomb. I'd seen a few and been very lucky. “You were army?”
“Iraq. Where were you? Afghanistan?”
“Yeah, how do you know?” I asked.
“The short hair-cut maybe and your age, just a feeling,” he replied.
“Okay, down to business. Yer got no money?”
He shook his head.
I was thinking, “Colin, have you been onto Veteran's Affairs? They're supposed to help us vets.”
“I've got an appointment in a couple of weeks. But they can only help me so much. They can't
help me with the house.”
“Why, who owns the house?” I asked.
He riffled through the paper on the table and held out a piece headlined in red: Notice of
Foreclosure. “The bank owns the house.”
“How did you manage that?” I asked.
He pointed to a picture hanging on the wall.
I stood up, walked over and looked at it. “That's you a few years ago? The missus?” A pretty
young woman with a baby on her hip and a toddler peering out from behind her. “So what's the
story?”
“I received a Dear John letter while I was in Iraq closely followed by a letter from her lawyer
offering to arrange the sale of the house and split the money or to front the bank and arrange a
mortgage to pay her out.”
“Gees Colin, that's brutal,” I said. I'd heard these stories. “I reckon that I'd hunt her down and kill
her. That's why you were in Melbourne. You were hunting her down?”
“Not to kill her. I just wanted to get back together. Or even just to see my kids.”
“Lemme guess. She took out a restraining order on you? And you took to the demon drink and
gambling to see if you could get some survival money together.”
He nodded. I was sitting there trying to think. I came up with nothing. I looked at him and there
was a tear running down his cheek. Bugger the man. He was a fool and not my worry. Protocol dictates that I slap him about and tell him that I'll be back in a week's time to break his legs in default of payment. I stood up, I was off. I'll ring Max for further instructions. Hang on, a thought.
“Colin, I'll make a phone call and see if some sorta compromise can be reached. I'll get back to
you. Maybe they'll let you make a small, direct allotment from your pension to 'em.” In the
meantime, I thought, go and find yourself a nice shopping trolley to put your bedding in.
He just sat staring into space as I left. The poor bloke's gutted. The best thing that could happen to
him is if I put him out of his misery. It really would be but I couldn't bring me-self to do it. Not to
a fellow ex-digger.
The next morning, I was still depressed. I didn't even sleep well last night thinking of that poor sad sack. Maybe if I didn't have a couple of crazy parents and their house to come home to --- Nah, I was made of sterner stuff!
I phoned Max and told him about Colin. “He's struggling. Up to his butt in debt. Eviction notice
and he's a couple of days off sleeping in a park.” I asked Max if he could arrange with his creditor
to accept a small fortnightly allotment. There's nothing else! Maybe honour would be satisfied in
the breach. I mentioned that Colin was an ex-soldier like us who'd been injured serving his country.
“Are you getting soft? You know that there's no compassion in the debt industry,” Max snapped. A pause, “Damn it, I must be getting soft, too. Yeah, tell him to do the allotment thing. I suppose something's better than nothing. I'll make it right this end.”
“You're an old softy! I'm gunna tell everybody.” Then I hung up before he could threaten me. ---
The next morning I headed out to Colin's place. I rounded the corner and thought that the street seemed busy. Then I spotted the rear of an ambulance and a couple of cop cars choking the narrow street. Nicely timed. The ambos wheeled a stretcher out of Colin's house with a body on it. It was a body because the face was covered. I walked up and stood by a middle-aged woman wearing an apron, a neighbour, I guessed. “Is that Colin?” I asked her.
She nodded.
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“Well, Ethel over there,” she nodded at another middle-aged woman talking to a cop, “was taking him some scones and found him dead on his bed. He had a lot of empty pill bottles on his bed-side table, Ethel said, so she hurried home and rang 000.”
I turned and walked away, in a turmoil. Sad, disappointed that I couldn't do anything. Angry with his wife. I should find her and break her legs. But no, I sighed as I trudged home. The world's full of bitches and bastards. Get over it Al, you can't fix the world.