Yellowstone Waits

CHAPTER 1: WITH NO MALICE AFORETHOUGHT

The Present—Early 2014

The closed, locked door had only a small window constructed with the inhospitable wire mesh within the heavy-duty glass pane. It was the only porthole to the hallway that was the section’s corridor housing dozens of similar cells to his. The compactness of the room could become a problem as time went on, but he had survived smaller quarters than this in his life.

Bed, shower, toilet and radio—he’d have to get a TV later—basic, but not like what he had seen while on a now-in-the-long-distant-past Western Australia holiday at the old Fremantle Gaol, a relic of the sadistic prison days and their hideous, degrading and sub-human conditions. To address those stone walls, those damp and smelly floors and filthy steel pails by the term amenities was a misnomer.

At Wacol Correctional Facility the ever-present odor of antiseptic used in attempts to always keep the place hygienic was a reminder of the concept of institutionalization. The allowed out-of-cell hours during the day besides meal times are more than sufficient even if it meant requesting approval to spend that additional time in the cell in addition to the mandatory lock-down from 6:30pm to 7am. Deciding to mingle amongst or opting to avoid the other specimens held here was always a disturbing thought. Certain aspects were not going to be easy. Becoming invisible will be an art to be mastered.

Remand—on remand awaiting trial. Justice is not served quickly and it seemed distant while awaiting the further proceedings in these legal matters. As of now, nothing had been set for a court date. The uncertainty was overwhelming; it created trepidation.

Looking out of the window were the ever-present reminders, the impassable steel bars. Beyond them the drabness was stultifying, an unceasing message of hopelessness. Color was non-existent. The system knew its methods in breaking the human spirit. It had to follow national and state rules regarding humane treatment, but there were the downsides as well. Razor wire on the tops of the walls was a grim and disheartening sight.

But in reality, doing time did not appear initially to be as bad as expected. Square meals, not the greatest, but OK. Wacol really does have both radio and TV, available for a price, for the incarcerated, a fact that the free people love to bitch about. Those on the outside want those on the inside to be out breaking rocks with sledgehammers or sitting and staring at blank walls. The new reality was vastly different. Hire a TV set and videos can be streamed in. Exercise and educational programs were there to occupy the time of many of the inmates. To top it off, a couple of Pay TV channels were available, meant to obviously mollify the most tense of the inmates were on hand. After all, Pay TV is needed, the authorities would have figured, because the normal free-to-air commercial stations would really drive the deprived insane. Then horrible atrocities would be committed. With good reason, it could be said. Imagine the newspaper headlines: Jury declares perpetrator innocent—commercial TV blamed.

Oh, God. Here they come again. The uncontrollable and bizarre thoughts just seem to creep in, a mocking and diabolical taunt, a reminder that freedom is no longer a part of life. Get it together, man! Or maybe it is important to try to keep a sense of humor. Just don’t try to entertain the captives with whom you have to blend each day. Stay calm. Stay out of harm’s way. This is not a place of good humor.

Eddie Horvath knew he was going to have to battle the mental strain of uncontrollably alternating between being clear of mind and mixing it with the muddled state that sometimes overtook him. He knew he could do it, but the idea of being detained for an indeterminate time was overbearing. It would take all of the intellectual capacity that he possessed to deal with it. He told himself that he had the capability. He could do it. He feared depression more than anything—the hopelessness that could envelop him like a thick fog. He repeated to himself that he could do it.

A few days prior to beginning to sort out his thoughts he wondered what had caused him to act as he did in that dreadful situation in which he had found himself. Was it the influence of people he had known and with whom he had shared differently sized parts of his life? Was he taken in, maybe even seduced by the worst things he had come across in his life? Was it what he had learned from the sociopath who had no conscience whatsoever and would unconscionably beat people to within a whisker of their lives? Was it the up-and-at-em style of the gamblers who feared no consequence? Was it the knowing that there was always a price to pay—a sacrifice—as the cost to offset a benefit? Was it those with a death wish? Worst of all, was it that supercilious thought he knew he held deep in the recesses of his own mind that he was one of the few in possession of the tools necessary to decide who should live on and who should not be allowed to continue to pollute the human mosaic?

On the other hand, there were those who foresaw the future, who gave uncannily accurate advice; those who dealt with hardships and rose to the apex of the triangle; and those who unselfishly provided help in the most dire or stressful times.

There had been so many. He always knew he had a wide range of associates and to him this was a source of pride. He had friends and knew of no one he could call an outright enemy. Live and let live, he always said and it had worked. He could blend in with innumerable strata of humankind. He knew the very good and very successful; however there was that streak in him that told him that wealth and success were nowhere near as important as being comfortable in one’s own skin, doing what had to be done. So he had never insulated himself from the less-than-savory types who would sometimes do their best to lead him astray. He liked their company; they were entertaining, but he knew where to draw the line. He had avoided major trouble all his life. Sometimes it meant having to avoid or to escape from the situation. In other times it meant having to confront it. All those people and all their craziness—they were part of the problem; they had no choice.

When was it that the phrase culture of blame came into the lexicon?

He could not recall any exact time, however recent, but made a mental note that it may have to be employed as a part of the defense effort to extricate him from the legal ramifications of what still appeared to be a heinous crime.

There were so many widely diverging and varied souls he had known. But could he blame any of them? Really, could he blame them? Was there anyone who fit into the way of thinking that he could actually find blame in someone else for his association with them? When in his dark hours, when sleep would just not come and his mind raced unabated, he did blame them. When awake and lucid, he did not. That culture of blame that he had seen develop for so many years of his life, where people simply did not accept that it was their own actions that created some form of havoc was a crock. Most definitely. It really was. No one can blame anyone else. There were those who decried the abuses of childhood. The lame, yet oft-used excuse that alcohol made a villain do the wrong thing was shameful. Not my fault; something else is responsible they wailed. Some blamed fate, at least those who believed in it and Eddie was a great proponent of the idea of fate. He believed in it for the good and the bad. He committed to it. He embraced it. Had it been fate that got him here? Certainly. He had no one to blame so an effective defense may have to be a compromise.

The hardest part of all was the yearning, the dread of being unable to see his family. He missed his wife and the girls and their partners and tried to keep thoughts of them out of his mind, for the pleasure and love that they offered did not match the surroundings in which he now found himself. Thinking of them was far too difficult and was an addition to the torture of being detained. He did not want them to see him in this place and had pleaded with them to not come for visits.

His mind was conflicted. Distant in his future, he could see Yellowstone. Its great mountains and forests of pine. Its hot springs and geysers. The wildlife—bison, bears, wolves. Old Faithful. Yellowstone Lake. Yellowstone Lodge—no, that had partially burned in those blazing forest fires and had to be rebuilt, modernized. But it still incorporated some of the beautiful timber that procured from the trees of that park. It gave him hope. He had to return there. The greatest national park in the world. His planned trip there had been ruined by that violent incident on the train. He was derailed, he thought ironically. This was a shutdown for a temporary time. He would be able to handle it and get out of it. He was sure. He was hopeful.

He had been able to handle all of the tough spots in the past. Now he would have to be at his best, his most convincing in order to take care of the jam he was in now, in the present. The past was only a light practice for this. This was the big leagues. It was scary.

CHAPTER 2: PREMONITION

October, 1961

There was nothing visible—not a discernable form. It was as if a black thick curtain was the only possible backdrop to this void-of-life picture. A completely dark background; no light, no movement until two shapes materialized. Longo and Katie appeared suddenly, coming out of nowhere, both of them walking slowly towards him and coming into clearer focus against that unchanging backdrop of black. There was no other earthly creation visible. Eddie Horvath knew these people well; they were the parents of his friend Roger Lessar. Eddie’s neighborhood and boyhood chums were the three Lessar boys, Roger and his two cousins, Jimmy and Frankie.

Eddie was often called Bronko, which became his nickname for most of his life, at least the twenty-five years while he lived in the United States of America. He was dubbed as such for there was a player in the National Hockey League whose last name Eddie shared. Bronko Horvath played on at least one of the original six teams that made up the NHL, including the Chicago Blackhawks, New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadians, Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins in the nineteen-fifties and early sixties. Every player in the NHL at that time was a Canadian. American players did not make it into that tough, skillful and ferocious sport until much later, although many players from Eddie’s home state of Minnesota preceded the present all-Canadian make-up back in the thirties and forties; however the supply of these worthy ice skaters did not last.

Longo and Katie continued their slow pace, plodding towards Eddie Horvath. He stood frozen, unmoving. Longo was wearing his usual work pants, the ones the grown-ups called khakis, which were a light beige and loosely fitting, held up with a black leather belt. His graying hair, combed back, had its usual tufts sticking out for he eschewed the use of a large amount of hair oil, like the old reliable Brylcreem. He had on a white singlet, soft and well-worn in, for it was a part of his clothing for work and was usually unseen under much outer clothing, for he was, like most of the men in that town, a mine worker. The neighborhood kids used to call them old man tee-shirts. They just did not know any better term for them.

Longo and Katie were now very close to Eddie. He could not speak. They gazed at him with vacant eyes. Then they seemed to find purpose and they scrutinized him. They were ready to deliver a message and their earnest looks did not indicate that it would be a message of happiness.

Bronko, said Longo, it’s much better if your father dies. Your mother is more needed. You can get by without your father. You need a mother.

Eddie found this message very unsettling and also unusual, for Longo never called him Bronko in any of his encounters at any time. To Longo, he was always Eddie; sometimes Edward. Longo’s real name was Johnny and his own moniker had evolved from Long John, for he was tall. Longo was also a father to Roger and his sister Eileen.

And then the husband and wife, parents of his friend Roger, faded out of sight. They vaporized, dematerialized right before him. He had not replied. He had not heard a word from Katie, and did not notice how she was dressed. The whole image was rather frightening, off-putting. It was also not clear, merely a surreal blur. He felt a sense of dread run through him.

Both Longo and Katie Lessar were dead. This was not good. Longo had hanged himself in the basement of his house about two years after Katie had died of lung cancer, her condition brought on by a lifetime of smoking cigarettes. She liked Pall Malls, unfiltered version, and slightly longer than most other popular brand cigarettes of the time, like Lucky Strikes and Camels.

Pall Malls. Outstanding. And they are mild. That was what the early TV ad said about them. Just a few words, but unforgettable—for advertising is designed to create lasting impact.

People said Longo was depressed and could not cope with the loss of his wife and with his having to bring up two kids as a widower. He once, when he was half-drunk, blurted out something that he should not have, to his sister Milly, who lived across the alley from Eddie. He had ranted, I hate you! I hate the kids! I hate everyone! This sent waves of shock through Milly, the only one who heard him say this. It also deeply disturbed those who later learnt of Longo’s admission from Milly, who despite having a good soul, had a difficult time with keeping things secret.

Eddie knew about hanging as a means of suicide. His own grandfather on his mother’s side had hanged himself one Sunday after church out in the garage of his Clay Street home. The cluttered garage had a big stuffed owl in the rafters that had a nasty, predatory look with its sharp eyes and hooked beak. Eddie knew of the owl, a fierce-looking thing which he had seen but a few times, and it scared him. He was never permitted to go into the garage after the suicide of his grandfather. That was okay with him.

Eddie Horvath awoke with a startle. He was breathing hard. What had just happened? This was a bad dream. That’s all. No, it wasn’t. It was too real. What did Mom say they called it? He couldn’t remember the word she had used, while he tried to fathom what had just run through his head, there in that hazy time between heavy sleep and just awakening in the early hours of the school-day morning.

Eddie lay in his bed, virtually frozen and in a state of confused thought, but his perception was clearing. It was the third week in October, and he was twelve years old and the year was 1961. The house was silent. He lay there for what seemed hours. He could feel his heart beating. It was more of a thumping than it was a usual rhythmic beating. He could hear himself breathing, not gasping, but breathing harder than he would have been after just waking up without having had a nightmare.

He could hear muffled voices coming from his parents’ bedroom. The house was small. He looked at his alarm clock, which had dimly glowing hands that allowed visibility in the dark and it said it was quarter to seven. It was time to start getting up, so voices were not unusual, for it was a school and work day. His mother got up first and came out of his parents’ bedroom, walked through the tiny living room into the kitchen, opened Eddie’s door as she did to rouse him for school, but found him lying there, awake. There was no usual request to start getting out of bed and washing up and dressing and getting ready for breakfast. She spoke in a very strained voice that morning.

Dad’s not feeling well. I’m going to have to call a doctor and get him into the hospital, I think. The usual routine was not going to happen on this morning.

Eddie knew at that instant that his father was going to die. And it would be soon. He had been told in so many words of that terrifying event in his dream that seemed to have been playing out just a few minutes ago. His movements to freshen up, have breakfast and get dressed over the next hour were mechanical, a person stumbling in a detached-from-reality state.

He went to school that day as usual, but his ordinary Grade 7 thoughts had now been driven into a part of the background, and the health and well-being of his father took the foremost of positions of concern. He completed his lessons of that Friday and went home hoping for the best but Mom told him that they had to admit his dad into the hospital due to more chest pains. Things were not looking good. Definitely not looking good. The worst was going to happen. Eddie felt sick to his stomach, and added to that, he felt guilty. He knew but dared not say a word. His mother would have lost it. An over-reactor, she was the kind given to near-hysteria at times, despite the fact that she was pretty smart. She had, after all, been the eldest of six children born to immigrants from Slovenia, and the only one in the family to attend junior college for two years, back in the early 1930s at the start of the Great Depression, defying the notion that only the most fortunate were able to further study.

What if he does die? What if Longo was right? Was it really better to have a mother than a father?

Eddie trawled back into memories. Dad wouldn’t have been able to do much if Mom had happened to die first. He had gone through suffering a sequence of conditions—gout, back problems, kidney stones and worst of all, a series of heart attacks and was put onto a disability pension from the Johnstone Mining Company because he could not be counted upon to do his foreman’s job any longer. He was so sick so often, it was demoralizing. The trip to Canada back in 1955? Barely over the border into Kenora, a small city in Ontario, and he was gasping for breath. One crummy meal, one night in some tourist cabins and then the need to turn back, and then drive the hundred-fifty plus miles back to the Range. Forget this idea of taking a vacation. Just stay at home next time. Don’t even bother. He is too sick to do anything fun. Accept it that you’ll never go on vacations like the other kids did, even if it was something as simple as a fishing trip.

Last summer, on the last day of sixth grade and at the very start of the summer vacation in early June, his friend Tony Antonelli had his semi-gruesome and debilitating accident on a bicycle that he was riding as a passenger. Dougie Vuksanovic was pedaling and steering and Tony got his foot somehow twisted going down Camp Hill and the spokes, spinning full-speed, tore into Tony’s right Achilles tendon leaving a shredded mess.

Tony was too tough to succumb to tears, but he moaned in both pain and shock, having seen the gnarled jumble of flesh his foot had become.

They all had to get him some help! The boys virtually carried him to the alley behind Eddie Horvath’s house, the closest one to the scene of the accident and Eddie called to his dad to help. His dad was standing idly just outside the back door, looking at the scene unfolding about twenty yards away.

He could not even summon the energy and strength to help out his son’s injured and distressed friend. So weakened was he from a lifetime of bad health, heart problems, deafness—the list seemed to go on forever—he had to even pretty much exempt himself from helping a twelve-year-old friend of his son who was writhing in pain, bleeding, and moaning in panicky semi-shock, but refusing to cry.

Eddie’s dad could not help. It was as bad realizing this as it was watching one of his best friends bleed, with an injury that would turn out to be as bad as it looked to the eyes of these sixth-grade graduates. One of the neighbor ladies appeared, coming upon the scene as she set out to dutifully hang out the wash on a nice summery day. The lady, a rough-as-guts woman named Sylvia Morton, gasped and immediately called out the word tourniquet and took a wet, waiting-to-be-hung pillow case from her wicker clothes basket and bound it snugly around Tony’s lower calf and wrapped a second one around the wound. Then she said for someone to call an ambulance.

Eddie’s dad was at least capable of that, so he got into the house as quickly as he could, and did make the call. Eddie had watched his dad as he hobbled back, out of the house, trying to hurry, but unable to move too quickly. His slow movements made Eddie feel not only sad, but also both angry and apologetic.

When all the dust had settled, Tony was put into a cast for many months, had to learn to walk normally again which took many more months, and carried an injury that would keep him out of the draft and away from the dangers of the war in Vietnam still a few years away.

Back in the present, Eddie started to wonder if he had done something very wrong, to have been criticizing his father for his shortcomings, and now knowing that this fifty-one year old man was going to die very soon. His dream, really more of a nightmare, was going to happen; he knew it. He now remembered the word—it was premonition. His dad was a dead man, and Eddie knew it. No one else did, at least not for certain. Only he. He felt the heavy weight of responsibility.

Looking back on this grim detection a few years later, Eddie realized that this, even counting Grandpa who hanged himself, was the most dreadful encounter with death on a very personal level—an immediate family member. It would not be the last. He was to become very conscious of death. He was not afraid of it, but he felt pain when it did enter his life by snuffing out the lives of those whom he knew. It would be everywhere. It was so constant an occurrence. It seemed so inevitable. No one could go on living very long, it was assured. All life spans seemed to be short no matter how many years they lasted.

Eddie had to go to the city football stadium that Friday evening to watch a game that the senior high varsity players were playing on their home turf, but he went mainly so he could fulfill his junior high team obligation to play at halftime for about fifteen minutes to keep the crowd entertained while the varsity and their opponents had their spell in the field house, their coaches more than likely shouting at them about the quality of their play and berating them about their manhood, should they be on the lesser total on the scoreboard.

Dinner earlier that evening with his mother was a somber affair. It was still a Friday and since they were Catholics, there was not any meat. Cream peas with tuna and sliced eggs. Nabisco saltines on the side. He still had not revealed the substance of his dream. It was far too difficult to do so, and he knew that the reaction from his mother would not be helpful to either of them.

His team was the Maroon team; their jersey color and he wore number 40. They were playing the Gold team and all of these youngsters were seventh and eighth graders attending Woodville Junior High School who played gridiron football and this was their job that night. They had to play in front of the crowd that probably did not care much about these little kids scrabbling around bashing into each other. The spectators would have gone to get their drinks and hot dogs and popcorn, smoking their cigarettes and discussing the first half of the high school game, ignoring the short on-field exhibition during the intermission of the main event.

Eddie was still preoccupied, but he managed to overcome the ominous thoughts in his head to make a tackle from his left linebacker spot trapping his friend Paul Dukowski of the Golds in the end zone for a two-point safety late in this short exhibition game. The Maroons won this scrimmage by the score of 2–0. When it was over he thought it was unusual for a football score, more like a baseball result, the latter sport being Eddie’s favorite.

He hurried for a shower in the locker rooms and got back to the grandstand where he half-heartedly watched—feeling the anxiety and frayed nerves—the rest of the high school game. He did not really see much of it, for he was lost in thought and concerned, worried about his dad and he did not remember the result. He ran home, about six blocks, at the end of the game after bidding his buddies a hasty farewell for the evening. He had hardly heard a word of their conversation as they watched the second half of the varsity game.

The dread encumbered him. The premonition. The darkness of the hour, the cold signaling that winter was not far away and the biting wind he faced while running did nothing to help his state of mind. The cold of northern Minnesota came early and it could be very cruel.

The Northern Lights were fanning over the skies that night. Aurora Borealis, he thought without giving it much more attention. They were an observable fact, a thing of beauty, but not tonight. Though they were rare, when a person did see them they were both spectacular and awe-inspiring, but not tonight. Even this natural phenomenon could not impress Eddie Horvath.

Mom had been at the hospital all of this time while he was at the ballpark and when visiting hours were over, she made her way home. She did not have any good news. Dad was pretty sick, and the hospital would notify if there was any development. She had been warned by hospital staff to expect the worst, she said. Hope for the best, but expect the worst.

Sleep was fitful, but kids do get tired, and Eddie slept. At about five in the morning on that Saturday, the telephone sent out a ring that was terrifying—and loud. Eddie froze. Mom rushed to the ringing phone, which at this time was an extremely portentous harbinger of doom with its nerve-jangling manner. While hanging up, she unconsciously spoke aloud the information just relayed to her from the hospital personnel: Mary, come quick. Frank is failing fast.

Her voice was constricted and anguished as she faced this reality, but she also needed to alert Eddie of the gravity of the situation in their lives.

They raced to the hospital in the 1960 Ford Galaxy. (It was a two-tone—aquamarine blue with a cream colored top—he absently recalled his parents’ description when they were in the process of ordering it from Thompson Motors, not that long ago. A car buyer could actually request the color in those days, and the car would be given the paint job that was the buyer’s choice.) They pulled up in the parking lot, close to the illuminated main doors of the small-town twenty-bed hospital. They got out of the car and made their way with great haste through the double doors and toward the patients’ rooms.

It was too late. The two nurses met them at the door of the corridor where Dad was now just a mere body. A corpse. Finality. It was over for him. The hurt was not going to be resolved very easily. The two experienced nurses held Eddie and his mother individually, offering solace. Eddie felt some comfort from their efforts, the uniform giving off a sanitized soothing smell.

Then he went through the next few days rather numbly, hearing all of the messages of condolences. The visitors, the tears, the bringing of foodstuffs to tide them over in this time of grief, the arrival home of his sister, who had just begun laboratory technician training, and the horrible acceptance of actuality.

On the second afternoon of the mourning period, Eddie sat on the stoop, just outside the back door where he was taught by his father to take a sponge ball, toss it at the garage’s back wall—low for grounders’ practice, high for fly ball practice—and catch it cleanly. It was where he spent hours honing his elementary baseball skills. Along came Cindy, the next-door neighbors’ little dog of indeterminate breed. Cindy loves spaghetti, thought Eddie. I wish we had some to give to her. She eats it all the time when they have it, and Rosie, the woman of the house, made it twice a week.

Even Cindy, through her animal instinct, knew something was amiss, that Eddie was grieving. She showed this in her very measured, almost painful stride, slowly approaching her young neighbor kid, as if to offer understanding to one who was suffering loss. Eddie appreciated Cindy’s presence and he patted her soothingly, with feelings for each other easing his pain.

And then came the burial after four days, the standard grieving time after the death. Then it was over. There was a hole left in the lives of the survivors and a new phase was about to begin.

Would having experienced death at such a young age, with both Grandpa hanging himself a couple of years ago and now with his Dad dying at a relatively young age, affect Eddie Horvath in ways that he had yet to fathom? Longo and Katie were also known by him, and they were gone, but had both come back in some mysterious way to warn him of this calamity. They had predicted it, and had revealed to him a prophetic truth, for which he felt very guilty due to his inability to express what he intuited. Four dead and Eddie was only twelve years old. No, not just these four—Grandma and Grandpa on Dad’s side both passed away much earlier and he had only vague notions of who these people were because of their early demise. So many dead! Was this normal?

Was the frightening specter of death going to become a constant companion, taking people away, like it currently seemed? Would it become an obsession to him? Would it become some morbid fascination? No, not a fascination, but at least an intriguing presence, hanging about, not ever leaving; it would be there, taunting him, having let him in on at least one of its mysteries. Pre-cognition. He now knew about death coupled with the fact that death could be foreshadowed so implausibly clearly. Eddie felt it would be a relationship with a fearsome yet inevitable presence—a dark spirit. Maybe it would be the driving force in his life. Maybe, since he had had a premonition, he could actually do something about it, like maybe altering the unavoidable. Maybe. Could he find a way to influence it or to control it by forcing a different outcome?

He felt this to be a very odd sensation—a weight he would have to bear forever. He suddenly felt a lot older than he was. Death—was it to become a critical force in his life?

Could he actually have some control over a sometimes horrible, yet wickedly fascinating and inescapable stage—the final stage—of life?

So many questions.

CHAPTER 3: SHORT CONVERSATIONS

October, 2011

Getting out of his car in the shopping center car park, Eddie Horvath felt good. The weather of the summer had been unseasonably cool, but it was dry and rain was badly needed to replenish the vitality and restore the color off the area’s flora. The lawns in the suburbs were starting to take on a stressed look, turning brown in patches; some homeowners desperately tried to nurture the plant life with minimal water, for the local city councils frowned upon indiscriminate and excessive water use and lifted their prices for it commensurately.

It was not easy living in the subtropics when the weather was not cooperative, but rain was coming and therefore Eddie did feel optimistic. The humidity was building, but was not yet to the point of discomfort that arose just before a much-appreciated drenching rain. Here in his new home area, while summers could still get hot, he did not have to put up with the constant oppressive heat of the northwest of the state, where he had dwelt for nearly four decades.

The main doors to the shopping center from where he had parked were maybe a hundred meters away and when he crossed the traffic laneway that separated the car park from the actual building complex, he saw ahead of him a raggedy bunch of young not-quite-men, maybe of the late teen and possibly early twenties types, but all of them looked like the usual lower class suburban not-bound-for success types. Not one had exceptionally notable clothing that made any sort of statement, and in general, it was a collectively disheveled look. Nearly all wore tees with carefully selected subversive, disrespectful and aggressive drawings and slogans that, due to their slumped-over, unimpressive postures, Eddie could not read, but had seen many times. Meant to scare off the citizens, he supposed. He imagined that it worked with many older people, especially if they had not had much contact with the generations that followed them. They would have been shaking their heads in resignation and simultaneously fearing for the direction that this generation and how it would impact upon the world.

The young ones’ hair styles were a hodge-podge; semi-dirty, some buzz-cut, the odd mullet, some recklessly trimmed and one with a Mohawk that had already started to grow out, sitting on a head that appeared accustomed to being neglected in regards to any serious grooming. Several had the hair hanging down right onto their faces, hiding the eyes, which was a ridiculous look, Eddie thought.

He looked at them with a degree of curiosity and bemusement. These notions were bracketed with fleeting feelings of sadness for their situations, annoyance at their laziness, and a touch envy for their youth and which was of course, going to end in a few short years. They would then face the reality of their becoming the downtrodden adult no-accounts, to which they appeared to be undeniably destined.

Eddie looked briefly at them as he walked past. He had no fear of them. He had seen their type forever, it seemed. He had dealt with this category of kid all his life in a long public high school teaching career that eventually wore him down, to a point where he said to himself that he did not want to do the job any longer for it provided not much in the way of job satisfaction. He had always hoped he could continue to handle the intergenerational changes needed to get some indication of their way of thinking. He had found that not to be easy.

Being in a classroom situation at his advanced age, especially among teachers where the current youthful new breed of colleagues seemed to figure that a five, at the outside, a ten-year career would do just fine, thanks very much, was no longer fulfilling. The increasing complexities of the job wear down those who are in the last years of their careers as Eddie had been before calling it a day.

Through the years, he found an almost amusement park delight in going to the mall in the city CBD to watch and study the various groups of hip-hoppers, break-dancers, wannabe musicians, jocks, skaties, and his favorites, the Goths and their successors, the Emos, their sad countenances a picture of a cultivated and disturbed detachment. They were so obvious in their intent to attract attention; it was a sad and worthy of pity act. Still, they were a diversion.

Too many within these collections of youths had the same defeated look on their faces just like this bunch of no-hopers, he thought as he walked towards them. These were just like so many of the kids of the area and of today. No jobs, no great desire to get one, not much money, but plenty of cigarettes to help kill time and boredom, and clothing smacking of the Bogan life. Tight jeans—skinny jeans— were the dress of these rabble who were usually not the type to get fat, for they did not have much money and hence, did not overeat, preferring to keep their limited resources for other extra-curriculars, like the odd score of an assortment of controlled substances that they could abuse, escaping their daily grind of combating boredom and having very little of importance to do or to say about anything or anybody. Getting out of it, even temporarily, was a priority.

To Eddie, it was understandable. He could accept it unlike so many older people who always seemed to think that their own generation was just so superior to this current one. So Eddie adopted a mantra for them, as he did for all people for the past God-only-knows-how-long, of which he was proud: Live and let live. It applied most of the time.

It was not unusual to see so many of them gathered in front of the shopping center, for the idleness of youth was rife in these times. Employment could be hard to secure, firstly if one was not actually looking for a job, and secondly if one had no skills or experience. It was so much easier to give bullshit excuses to the Centrelink people who continually breathed down their skinny tattooed necks, that they were, yes, really out there all over the place looking for work, but no one wanted to give them a chance. They had not done much in school, and were basically unemployable. They were of limited or zero skills, next to no ambition and their pasts, however short, had already come back to haunt them. They would be haunted by the indiscretions of their educational years, for unless they took some menial job, the world had moved far too fast for them to be of much use to it with their non-existent skills.

The job-seek agencies knew the stories and had heard them all before, several times and over several decades. Governments and their programs designed to reduce unemployment did not seem to have too much effect upon this particular demographic—young, unmotivated and undertrained. Meaningful employment in these times often meant leaving home and drifting off to some mining center as Australia’s wealth was lifted by the vast embellishing of coffers of the nation by the boom times in the resources industry. But to the untrained, unskilled and uninformed, the extraction of coal seam gas and coal meant little and offered no salvation whatsoever.

It still meant that with the unemployed not willing to relocate or to sell their souls to the mining industry, some of those jobs went unfilled while unemployment still remained, creating a veritable conundrum. This situation would lead to companies pushing forth the desire to hire from overseas, which in turn, created howling within the indignant sectors of the Australian population.

The young unemployed would also wail that they were marginalized; all those jobs are for skilled workers with experience, so how can those possessing neither attribute pick up and leave home and comfort zone (though little comfort actually entered their lives) and head off expecting the big dollar mining companies to hire them, let alone pay the fantastic wages given to their workers?

So these human social problems gravitated to the likely gathering places, invading games arcades and shopping centers, waiting to see if anything would provide them contentment on the day. Such dreariness of life had to be a discomforting load to bear. No future, no cash, no chance of making it. Most of them looked like they did not seem to care. Like when they were in school, it was still a matter of getting by with the least amount of effort that they needed to expend, happy to be the flotsam and jetsam of the world of their time. It was bound to continue. One of those vicious cycles of misery and pessimism.

As Eddie walked in their direction along came a car, moving very slowly observing the 10 kilometers per hour speed limit. The figures inside craned their necks gawking in the direction of the group of boys, seemingly with purpose. A thin girl, a skanky-looking specimen with a head shaved in the back and the remainder of the dark locks swept forward, leaned out of the open window of the back left seat, looking like she had nothing but bad intentions, and was about to give this lot of lingering louts a reviling mouthful, for whatever reason she had devised.

Loudly and brazenly and for all to hear, she cried out at the top of her lungs, HEY, FUCKFACE!

Several heads turned in her direction. All attention was now focused on her. She had that hard look—too hard for someone so young. Dyed black hair. Untanned skin decorated with a few small do-it-yourself tattoos. There were the usual piercings to give a hoped-for distinction to her ears, nose and lips, and most likely others that were not visible.

Was she addressing one of these targets specifically, or was it just a stir-up type of insult, designed to elicit a response, whatever its nature? Was it just for kicks? Was she just goofing with them? Did she know them?

It happened just as Eddie was walking almost right in front of this male group of the young and unwashed, so this outburst could conceivably even have been delivered at him. Did she see him as a fuckface? Nah, no chance. He knew it wasn’t a comment directed toward him. The adult world is just background in the low-grade You Tube movie playing out in the minds of these young ones. A lot of thoughts ticked over in his mind as to the possibilities of her insult and its target audience, for he was still very quick at processing situations.

He could not help but grin, for his study of this particular and immediate segment of humanity, including this day’s chapter, was borne of years of observation while on the job. There was going to be rebuttal, he knew it. He could feel it coming. So did some of the other adult types who were waiting for taxis, gathering up their little kids, carrying or wheeling their purchases, walking in the zebra crossing zone to head to their cars, some smoking and talking, a few eating snacks from the food court just inside this entrance. They had all had their attention diverted by the vocal assailant, wondering what would happen next.

The response came nearly instantaneously. One of the mainly black-clad and scruffy street urchins had a refutation. Aroused from his dulled morning state, his slender body began to coil and he readied, rising like a cobra charmed out of a large invisible wicker basket by an invisible flute-playing snake charmer.

He had been provoked. Eddie watched his momentum build; his form of wind-up was vaguely reminiscent of a pitcher in a baseball game, who went through deliberate motions to gain impetus to deliver a blazing fastball. It was as if he was rearing up on an undetectable pair of haunches that pushed him upright, ready to deliver the comeback, the second salvo in this now unavoidable and developing battle of insults. He delivered it with all the vitriolic energy he could muster at the time. It would sound like it was coming from deep inside him, gaining strength by being drawn out from innate hostility, a massive and superheated eruption from a long dormant volcano.

A-a-a-a-r-r-r-r-ah! FUCK YOU, YOU BITCH! yelled this slightly-built cast-off there on the footpath, the vengeful power in his voice belying his non-imposing stature.

As far as famous debates and speeches have gone throughout history, this confrontation was not going to reach any great heights. The opening bursts gave no credence to forthcoming gravity should there be an ensuing conversation. It would be at best very basic, certainly vulgar and totally lacking creativity or any higher order thought.

Several of the more middle-of-the-road, civilian audience turned their heads after hearing not only the invitation-to-a-verbal-confrontation from the car-riding girl, but also the answer from the self-designated alpha male spokesperson of the young and unsuccessful in their slouching, skulking postures. Their leader had returned serve. Had he been the Fuckface who was addressed? Was he just mouthing off back at the bitch who abused him? Was there a reason for this exchange?

The bitch unloaded again, "Fuck you, dick-h-e-e-e-a-d!" The sound of the last syllable was dragged out, to maximize the insult. While there may have been facility for just a quick retort, she made sure it was lengthy to draw maximum attention. The driver of the car was operating with perfect intention—not driving so slowly as to be caught by a pursuing pedestrian should one of the targets take up a physical challenge—but slowly enough to elevate the situation’s drama.

This was met with the counterattacking youth profoundly returning, You’re a fucking whore! There was a pause and then he loudly added, with as much venom as he could now muster as he tired from the exertion of it all, Slut! The effect was being lost as the car was now getting out of reach for further short conversations.

Since he was still new to the area, Eddie wondered if this encounter was just part of the local color, or had there been an actual prior event that had precipitated it. Was it boredom? Was it just a task for the day—their form of entertainment? Was it everyday speech in this part of the world? Did the kids know each other or not?

He had not been living here, in the metropolitan area, for very long. The Outback had its crazies at about the same age, no doubt about that, but this exchange was really in-your-face.

There was no holding back by either of the two antagonists. Was it just natural to communicate as such in this suburb, in front of adults, kids with their parents, single women on their own? Was it a wanton lack of caring who heard what? Who knew? Did they want the audience? Did they need it?

The incident was over, at least temporarily, as the carload of girls who originated this verbal joust moved onward past the taxi rank and out of the car park and back into the feeder street that would lead onto the major road in the area. It was over, for now, but would probably have provided enough excitement for them for the day. It would more than likely reignite given the next opportunity.

Eddie Horvath had heard exchanges like this between young people for his entire career. Being around high schools made such undeniable baseness unavoidable, but this one was really blatantly public, and with no restraint of language nor consideration for the presence of other citizens whether young or elderly.

It was only just recently, and after many months of pondering, that he seriously wondered if it was necessary to do something about this craziness. He certainly had seen and heard enough of it. It wasn’t the foul language. It wasn’t the fact that it was a lesson in open-air public defiance. It was a general problem with these types of people. He had seen what he secretly acknowledged as the deterioration of too many aspects in the lives of evolving generations in his association with the younger set during his entire career and he had become pretty jaded with having to put up with it.

He thought to himself: You are getting old—admit it. You sound like the oldies when you were a kid. Every succeeding generation cops it from those before it. None of them are any good, according to the elders.

Then again, this subset of the generation known as the millennials really did seem to possess a particularly significant percentage that was admittedly out of control, even for a person who thought he had seen it all. Maybe that old biological maxim of man being a product of his environment was true—the gradual disintegration of substance could be the result of workings of the human race and time simply exposed it for all its weaknesses.

He would someday take on the problem on his own. He would have to, it appeared.

Yes, he could do something about it. He knew he was capable of doing that. It was now a matter of what and how.

CHAPTER 4: FIGURING IT OUT

The present—Early 2014

Eddie woke when he heard the god-awful noise that one of the inmates from a lower level was making. He thought that it was just another freak flipping out. It was not uncommon and even in his limited time at this place of detention, he had learned rapidly that there were a lot of events like this and the noise sometimes was unbearable—an aural punishment seemingly prearranged with the intention of driving even more of the prison population to the brink of insanity.

Maintain an even strain, he thought. This will be the difference between getting along, staying invisible as best as possible and seeing a very bad situation through or simply crumbling, giving up and losing whatever faculties he possessed. Many of the inmates were of nothing higher than a reptilian order—their deficiencies were manifest. He would have to transcend this.

But how do I go about transcending it?

As so often was the case, a song was running through his head and this one was from the Rolling Stones, but Mick wasn’t the lead singer. In this one, Keith Richards was singing about a girl of whom he said, She’s my little rock-and-roll, aha, haaa. Eddie had long ago heard Keith being questioned in an interview, when he was asked where he got the inspiration for his lyrics. After all, Jagger and Richards were among the most successful music and lyrics combinations in the history of the world so his answer would be interesting. It is almost unthinkable how old the Stones are and they are still prancing around the stage wowing their audiences world-wide, and they’re in their seventies, for God’s sake!

Eddie recalled Keef’s explanation. He described it as the random arrival of an idea surging into his head. The