11th November 1990
"You know how it is, you want to look and you don't want to look. I can remember the strange feelings I had when I was a kid looking at war photographs in Life, the ones that showed a lot of dead people lying close together in a field or a street, often touching, seeming to hold each other.I remember the shame I felt, like looking at first porn, all the porn in the world."
Michael Herr , Despatches
It had been a long day and the day's work was stretching into the night. A night of drinking beer with homicide cops. Journalistic necessity. Sean Dinan was sitting at the front bar of the Esplanade Hotel. He looked out through the large plateglass pub window at the Palm trees swaying in the St Kilda seabreeze. In the distance he could see the scenic railway's rickety white palings careering around the huge laughing face and gaping mouth of Luna Park.
Sean's head jerked forward as his elbow slid along a slick of spilt beer on the white and black tablecloth. "Shit," he said involuntarily and wiped his bloodshot eyes with his crumpled paisley tie. Scratching his blonde stubble, he tried to forget how tired he felt. Instead he concentrated on listening to Freddy Dobbenstein as the Detective described the killing spree.
"The shooter, this Dino D'Agostin guy, methodically moved from one cubicle to the next," said the investigating officer. "Bang, bang...got another sucker and moved on.Only while D'Agostin had a semi automatic rifle of the type that professional roo hunters use. for some reason he forgot to switch on the automatic reload...Understand. So mechanically he discharges his weapon shot by single shot. Right. He aimed pretty carefully though. There weren't too many rounds lodged in the furniture. Moving from one office worker to the next, placing some poor bastard in his sights and then trying to hit the chest or the upper back. Puncture their heart. Then moving to the next dumb bastard. Some of them obviously hid beneath their desks. Others just sat there, still - like rabbits caught in car headlights," said Dobbenstein who was a bit drunk and talking a bit too much. He paused for a couple of seconds. "Eight victims right.Eight poor fuckers...One of them was four months pregnant. Eight and a half I guess."
No-one laughed. Not that they took offence either. It wasn't meant as a joke so much. Just a bad taste comment. Accepted behaviour with homicide. Not much was distasteful for the special squads. They wouldn't joke about child molestation or rape victims. Criminals, politicans, lawyers, judges and journalists were all fair game. Ghoulish tales, part and parcel of the business. Sean and a couple of other journalists sat listening intently for reasons other than colourful expressions. News reports, colour stories and analytical pieces were needed to fill the front pages for the next couple of weeks and they - like any journalist worth his salt - wanted to write them.
Earlier that day a 24 year old lone gunman named Dino Joseph D'Agostin had shot to death several employees in a Australia Post tower block where he had once worked in central Melbourne. Already D'Agostin was known as the Postal Killer.
"Y'know the thing that struck me .on the 12 th floor of the tower remember, said Freddy, "seeing the corpses and the blood stains in these plastic cubicles. Dried blood just like dirt, right, and all these computers and spreadsheets and those special chairs built to stop bad backs.ergonomic chairs right.with these bodies sprawled off'm. . their blood had seeped out onto the carpet. Blue carpet and fucking orange partitions for chrissake. he said taking a gulp from his pot of Victoria Bitter
"Crime scenes aren't normally so bright," he whispered to himself and wiped his pink hairy hand across the eczema and bristle of his moist jowls.
*****
In a belated mercy, one of the Postal staff tackled D'Agostin from behind. Unlike a previous fatal attempt at self defence a mere five minutes and two lives earlier, this time the man managed to pin D'Agostin's arms so he couldn't fire the gun. As the Post worker struggled with D'Agostin, two other men rushed over to help wrestle the gun from their former colleague. Dino. The quiet guy.
'Agostin broke loose but without his gun. The office accountant had already handed it over to one of the secretaries who raced to the female toilets and sensibly locked it in one of the cleaning closets. But the death count was not over yet. Let me fucking go,"he yelled although no-one was holding him now. D'Agostin was a large man. His weight had ballooned on a diet of hamburgers and fried chicken. This bulk had become embedded through endless repetitions of lifting dumb-bells and barbells. Throughout his killing spree, he had been icy cold. 'In the zone' as his old football coach said. Now it was nearly over and he was panting. Panting like a dog in the midday sun. His shirt was soaked. There were large dark rings under the arms. Dino stared at the people in front of him and then turned around. He launched himself at the plate glass window and smacked it with the full weight of his body and bounced back. His nose was bloodied, perhaps broken in the collision. The glass however had cracked as well. The postal workers who had just prevented D'Agostin from killing them now tried to stop him killing himself. But he tore loose once more, and this time broke through the window and jumped twelve stories to his death.
*****
Neat green lawns. Acres and acres of them. Suburban grass sliding past as the Argus photographer and journalist looked out from the front seat of a 1987 Holden Kingswood station wagon. The jumbled photographic gear thrown in the back. Household front gardens. All with the same dullness. Rows and rows of them. Freshly shorn and well kept by tidy families who bred office workers. Some of whom went to work one day and got shot. The two men were doing a death-knock. In newspaper jargon, this meant knocking on doors of victims' families, people caught in some awful bloody crime, to ask for comment . That was their job anyways. And there wasn't much else for Sean to do but sit and think and watch those neat green lawns while Max drove.
Max MacManus had a sad sack of a face that poured down into his beer gut. A sullen and disappointed man, Max had lived in a downtown hotel since his divorce. Photographers in the old days used to all live in pubs he had told Sean a dozen times on a dozen jobs. Once they had done a feature story together on sharkfishing off Lakes Entrance. Sean had bought Siobhan with him to the trawler boat town and the three of them had spent a night at a local motel. The Grand Entrance .
Max had knocked on the couple's door around 7 o'clock in the evening with a bottle of overproof Bundy in his hand. Sean opened the door and saw Max's red face and salt n'pepa beard and the big white wagon parked behind underneath the porch light. The car more at home at the motel. They sat around drinking the sweet dark rum and Max had taken black and white closeups of Siobhan who looked lovely with her black hair swept back in a white band. Sean always wanted to see the prints. Later he asked Max for them a couple of times. The photographer promised to develop them soon but responded hesitantly. Sean smelt the ripe cheese breath and guessed Max had fucked it up somehow. Lost the negatives or over exposed the film. That sort of thing. After the second time, he didn't ask again.
This morning Sean stretched his long-legged frame and brushed his hand through his messed up hair. He wasn't the brightest of company either. The fact was he didn't like this particular job. But that was the least of it. His mind was on other things. For one, Siobhan had left . Gone to India to work as a volunteer nurse with the sisters of charity for chrissake he thought . For another, his job sucked. Newspaper reporting was ridiculous and this particular job exemplified all the bullshit. Last and quite probably least, the sink in his house was full of unwashed dishes. Sean and his housemate were stuck in a domestic stalemate. Both refused to do the washing up. All that prick, Walter's fault!
So Sean watched the front gardens roll by. clipped hedges. Brick veneer. Gum trees. Occasionally an ornate fountain or concrete dwarf .and thought what the fuck am I doing here. Two degrees in economics and politics.for what? Asking dumb questions to poor bloody relatives of murder victims. "Please tell us how is the family coping? What are your feelings about your loss? What message would you like to give to the government and the police about community safety? That kind of crap . More than the bare arsed crassness of the questions, it was the sheer inanity that annoyed him most. He had always wanted to write but this wasn't writing. More, a communal death gloat. One that all the different journalists from the various media outlets would deliver with false sympathy and serious tones. And if they found some salacious angle to put out. Well that's the public's right to know and damn everything else.
Hibiscus. Chrysantheums. Vines and creepers. A real array of plant life in some of these gardens.
"Get in, get smart, get out," Hemingway said. Sean wasn't getting any smarter but he sure as hell was thinking of getting out. Out of the country. He wanted to work in Asia. There were plenty of jobs if you had the gumption to just get up and go. So what was stopping him. Certainly not his work. He was bored stiff. The other day he read a survey which found the most exciting part of the day for most people was when they drove to or from work. Shit. That was too fucking sad.
Asia wouldn't be so boring. That was for sure. Ok, there was a lot of other bullshit. Corruption, bad bureaucracy and robber barons. But at least it would be totally unlike Melbourne. Different parts of Asia appealed for different reasons. Tokyo's Rippongi glitz or the energy of the Kowloon skyscrapers in Hong Kong. Sean particularly liked the chaos of Southeast Asia. The traffic jams. The street vendors. Even the colourful litter. Lean to houses piled on top of one another.Sean's stepfather said disparagingly they liked to live like that. Slanty eyes he called them just like the aborigines were boongs. Sean hated the expressions. Often they would spill out while the family were having their Sunday roast together.
They would argue until they hardly knew what they were arguing about. Sean's mother would look on sadly until she cried and left the table. His grandmother would then clear her throat and say, "The evening meal should be eaten with tranquility of the soul." Just another good reason to go away.
In Southeast Asia, humanity was on display. Community. In a city like Manila, one adult with a job was enough to support a whole family. No poor, poor pitiful me. They couldn't afford to be. No dole or pension programs. Life was literally on the street. Not behind tepid neighbourhood fences. In the morass of suburbia, it seemed that all that people cared about were the football scores, their gardens and home renovations and pictures of Kylie Minogue's pert bum. That is until a guy walked into an office block and killed eight people.
Asia wasn't so depressed or depressing either despite the CNN stereotypes. People watched the premier league. Often a few families looking at a television at the warung or local food store or the rich uncle's house. Sure they liked their football and MTV too! Most people ate their rice sitting on plastic stools or on mats in the streets. Their kids played next to rubbish dumps and laughed anyway. The parents complained about their jobs, their neighbours and the government..and at night time lovers sheltered in each others arms like anywhere else. Sean looked up and a weatherboard house passed him by with pine trees lining the side fences and rose bushes at the front.
*****
The other damn thing were the dirty dishes. After Siobhan had left, Sean had lost a companion and his rent had doubled. He offered the spare room to the new business reporter who had just joined the Argus. A bad decision. Walter Zemunic was a undomesticated 23 year old pot smoking slob. Sean was equally indifferent. Their apathy resulted in an overfull sink. Walter and Sean would leave for work late and return home late. They hardly ever ate together. Mostly takeaways or work dinners outside. After a while, Walter had stopped cleaning the dishes. Sean got tired of washing for both of them. The dirty plates and cutlery built up in the sink until no clean ones were left. If one of them needed to eat, they washed one dish, one fork, one bowl and one spoon. After finishing, they put the dirty dishes back into the cluttered sink.
A couple of days earlier, Sean said to his housemate in what he thought was a reasonable tone. "Walter, you need to contribute to the house and wash some bloody dishes."
His housemate folded his paper and looking up from his usual slouched position on Dinan's grandmothers green sofa, he said. "I'll pull my weight when you start doing some cleaning, mate."
Sean couldn't believe what he had just heard. "Me? What the fuck do you mean," he said. "Why the fuck don't you wash the dishes. You never lift a fucking finger around this joint." Three fucks in pretty much one response. Even Walt raised an eyebrow. They argued for 10 minutes but as usual they were running late for the office. Calling a halt to the discussion, they walked sullenly to the train station together. They both wanted to catch the 9.28 from Hartwell on the Alamein line so they could walk into work at 10.05 and only be five minutes overdue. The cheap china remained unwashed.
*****
On the way to visit the families of the deceased, there were a couple of half hearted affirmations between Max and Sean. " If we're going to do this job, we might as well try and do it properly. Get words and pictures of the families." A fter all it was their job to go after a story. That was what they were paid to do. A logical course of action. I think therefore I am. The reality however was different. They didn't care so much. Didn't care too much about getting a story and to be honest, they really didn't care much about the victims or their families. Perhaps Sean should have but he didn't. He didn't know them and they didn't know him. He felt fed up and frustrated. The deathknock was just a way to kill time. In the office that morning, the newspaper chief of staff, Bob Boyle, had spoken to all the available journalists on the general newsdesk. He asked if they were prepared to knock on the doors of the victim's families. Three teams were needed to cover twelve addresses in total as there was more than one contact for some of the families. A reporter and a photographer in each team. Ask the families for comment and get a photo story. One of the journalists there, Dr Roy, said no. He actually was a real doctor. Roy had a medical degree. Nobody could work out why anyone would give up a general practitioner's paycheck to bother with yellow journalism. Anyway Dr Roy wasn't interested. When he heard Roy's response, Sean smiled wryly and thought, fair enough, you smug bastard. Maybe he didn't have the Doctor's ideals but he also knew he wasn't going to hound any of the families...Christ, to be an arsehole like that required an enthusiasm of which he felt incapable. Sean would knock and introduce himself and the newspaper he represented. He would say he was sorry to disturb them and ask if they had any comment to make about this terrible crime.They were the exact words he would use.and if they said no, then Sean would say fine, sorry to bother you and walk away. No second tries on this job ..and if they said yes, they would like to say something, then he would say please go ahead, and by the way, can Max take a photograph? and ok next day the paper would have its colour story.
Boyle stood behind Sean's rickety chair as he typed into his terminal until the irritation became too much. He swivelled to face the big galah. Boyle's shirt, as always, was rumpled and partly hanging out of his pants. His tie was askew and a large ginger beard covered a hole which emitted sounds in a strange South African pitch. He had the impression Boyle liked him because he thought they were similar. In your face news reporters. Not pussy feature writers. Hard News Men. But Sean didn't want to be anything like him.
Bob Boyle read out the victim's names that the police had just released and reminded Dinan their competition, a crime minded tabloid would be "hard out there, hard getting the news".
Sean looked up from his computer terminal at this excitable idiot in front of him. Boyle was nearly twitching in anticipation at the thought of such a big news story on this fine autumn morning. Getting hard. The stupid cunt.
"Sure, I'll do it," said Sean.
*****
As they drove through the outer suburbs on the sunny fresh morning, Sean watched the houses go by, and thought about Siobhan. They had been good together. Almost too good. Everyone expected them to get married. For a while they had lived on the northern New South Wales coast together while Sean worked on a small town paper and Siobhan, a trained maternity nurse from the Richmond hospital in Dublin had found a job at the local hospital. Later when Sean landed a job with a metro daily they moved back to Melbourne together. Siobhan passed on her travel bug. In their vacations they travelled around Asia and Europe together. He had visited Siobhan in Ireland after she had gone back home. They had hired a car and driven along the west coast and along the Conemara. Sean had kissed the lumpen blarney stone. They visited her family in Cork city. Siobhan's mother, Mrs O'Meagher had had eight children and three stillborn births. This practical, hard working mother who ran a smalltown grocery and bar firmly believed her unborn children had been God's will. "They are angels in heaven, flying in heaven," she said with faith in nthe brick and hearth kitchen where a large copper pot bubbled on the fireplace. Siobhan and Sean travelled to Dublin and stayed at O'Riordans hotel in Dublin. A poverty stricken James Joyce had once taken a suite there and drank champagne. One of the few times Joyce had any spare money after his publisher had given him a 50 pound advance for Ullyses.
Everything was so right, them Sean had messed it all up. He was part of a special investigative unit doing a series on drug related crime and he was researching a story about security staff trafficking speed at nightclubs when he had met a red haired arts student working at one of the bars. Liane was young with lovely white skin and mermaid green eyes. She seemed happy to go out with him without asking many questions. One weekend Sean invited her to accompany him while he researched the dope feuds between the bitter old hippies growing marijauna crops on the Victorian west coast, in the national forest foothills. A cove called Red Johanna. He remembered that Liane had worn a purple dress and black lingerie like he had asked her. Sean ran his hand along her leg as they drove along the coastal road and tried not to think of Siobhan when they fucked woodenly at a cabin at the Great Ocean Road camping ground later that day.
A couple of months later Sean told Siobhan about his infidelity. He didn't know how to explain it. There was no rational explanation. They went through a rough patch but continued to live together. Still a nagging doubt stayed in Siobhan's mind. She decided to go home. With a detour though. She would stop in Calcutta to do voluntary work with the Sisters of Charity. After she told him of her plans, he said, "Go and do your Mother Teresa act for the homeless in India".
Sean wished he hadn't told her about his sexual deceit. He didn't know if he told her to make Siobhan or himself feel better. Either way it didn't work. That moment, Max interrupted Sean's thoughts. "How do you reckon this thing will play out," he said. The police investigation and the media coverage that is."
Sean paid attention. This was his business and he still prided himself on it, despite the questioning. The lines on his forehead stood out as he collected his disparate thoughts.
"If it goes as usual, there will be a slow steady drip feed from the cops at first. Endless press conferences. But normally about basic stuff like process. Some of the detectives will let stuff out. Deliberately because they're pissed off. They don't have to be too careful as there's no need to build evidence for a case," he said.
"If the guy was still alive they couldn't release stuff that may prejudice the jury, right. So the media will do the reportage and flesh it out with comment pieces. Of course, all the papers and TV guys will be trying to grab stunning scoops during the investigation," said Sean emphasising that particular phrase. "Saturation stuff on the prick's personal life naturally.In effect, D'Agostin's meagre existence will be examined in all its fucked up entirety."
"How many investigations are needed, asked Max half turning to look at him. "After all the guy was guilty as fuck right."
"Two rounds I guess," Sean replied. "First the coronial report and quite likely some form of police investigation. They may work together. the different investigating teams comparing notes. His guilt is irrelevant in a sense. He's dead so they can't charge him."
Sean wanted to say how endless it would be. Vicarious entertainment The cops would talk to D'Agostin's old schoolfriends. Someone would find a year book photo pointing him out as the surly kid on the third row. An ex girlfriend would be located. She would be the best. Particularly if she had ditched him. Maybe she had set him off? What about the mother. Did he have a demanding mother? Did his father gamble. Did his father abuse him? D'Agostin might have kept pornographic magazines and second rate action films under his bed. The titles of the films would be reported. What type of pornography? Sadistic maybe. Perhaps stuff showing women with animals.The inherent crap of the detail would be never-ending. He figured if all the newscopy of the murders were squeezed out, there would be enough mucuous shit to drown a large town. D'Agostin was probably someone who had become more and more of a recluse. Perhaps spending time in a bungalow at the back of his parent's brick veneer house.like the ones that Sean was staring at now.as his life and his mind closed in to encompass him. If the court reporters were really lucky D'Agostin would've kept a diary filled with his consuming hate.
Worse than the actual background and circumstances of the crime would be the analysis and interpretation. Trying hopelessly to explain the act. Police spokesmen would demand greater powers of apprehension. Gun lobby groups would blame anything but gun culture. Anti-pornography and anti-violence in film groups would be contacted and trace it back to the influence of their respective anti enthusiams. Politicians from all sides would comment on the "terrible crime". Most would call for more police, as if that had anything to do with it; so they would still be around after the next election to get asked about the next terrible thing. Sean could see it all unfolding so clearly and he knew that many people thought it made a lot of sense to write articles like that but he no longer saw the sense of it. No sense at all.and he wondered why he didn't care about any part of it, anymore. Not a thing.
*****
The radio in the car crackled. It was Boyle. "Maxie, can you hear me? Where are you guys. There's a midday news conference and we need to know asap if any of the families want to make a comment.
"Okay Bob. We hear you. We're about five minutes from the first location and then the second house is just down the road, another ten minutes or so. And the third is not far away either. We should know if we have anything within the next hour and a half or so.
"That's fine, Maxie, said Boyle. "Just do your best. No need for any hassle. Nice and polite with the families. just remember to bring back another lovely wedding dress picture . It's a lovely day for a white wedding after all," said Boyle and laughed. "We don't want the competition getting something special like that. Give me a call if something turns up. Good luck fellas."
The creases in Max 's face tightened as Boyle spoke and he made a small grunt. But all he said was "Sure, we'll give you a call Bob." But he had already hung up.
"Stupid prick," Max said unexpectedly into thin air. "I wish the fucker wouldn't call me Maxie."
Sean asked "what's a wedding dress got to do with anything?"
Max glanced over quickly and at first he wasn't going to say anything but then he changed his mind.
"You remember that last arsehole. The guy who did the Hoddle Street massacre," said Max in a flat tone, referring to the last murderous rampage in Melbourne. "A failed army wannabe right. After being brushed off by a girlfriend he ended up taking pot shots on a Sunday night."
"Sure," Sean said. "Julian Knight in combat mode. Shooting at cars and late night revellers along Hoddle street. A dozen people dead and Knights trying to kill himself but failing."
"Yeah. Well it was the same kind of job, wasn't it.Ronny Taylor - she's the state reporter now but she was on the general desk then - and myself went to talk to the poor bloody families," said Max. "We visited the first family and they were polite but no thanks. You can't blame them either. Who'd want to talk to the press after a thing like that."
Max was driving slowly trying to find the first house. A car behind blew its horn. "Shit..what does the map say? Are we near Burnside avenue?"
"Its two streets ahead on the left. Go on with the story," Sean said and looked at Max.
"Well, the second family we visited was nearly the same. Didn't want to talk to the press. But you know Ronny. Very serious and polite. She told this guy, one of the cousins of a young woman who had been killed how sorry she was and she meant it. She was sorry. She asked if she could talk to one of the family members.
The cousin said no and we started to leave when this older man, standing in the hall behind the entrance told us to come in. So we went in. Anyway this other guy was the father. A small guy wearing a brown cardigan. We walk in and it's kinda dark with all the curtains closed. There's a lot of family around. You know these Italian families. All the women are wearing black and crying their eyes out. But they offer us a drink so we sit down and have coffee . Then the father tells us their story. He and his wife emigrated from Italy in the 50's. They have.not had, he didn't say had.four kids and very proud of them all but especially the daughter. She was smart and hard working. A prize winner in accounting and a university graduate and a good girl. He said that several times. She's a good girl. Then they tell us this other thing. The daughter was getting married in three months time.
"Christ, the fiancée was even in the room. This poor pasty looking bastard sitting in the corner with his head in his hands. Not saying anything. Just sitting and listening. The father says to the mother. Show them our baby's dress. He called her his baby. And the mother goes and brings in the wedding dress. Its white of course and full of frills and stuff. The whole paraphernalia. The veil. The shoes. The thing you put on your head. All of it. And they tell us about the wedding plans. How many people were going to be invited. The reception centre which had been booked. About the priest whose a cousin of the mother. All this stuff. So Ronny is taking it all down in the notebook and finally I have to ask the question. Do you mind if I take a picture of the dress. The father says no, he doesn't mind. He wants us to take a picture so people can see the dress that his baby was meant to wear on her wedding day. So I take a picture with the father and the mother holding the dress. He's short and she's fat and everyone's crying. Ronny's crying and the parents of course and I'm so fucking emotional that I can hardly hold the camera still .... Anyway we got the picture. It was page one the next day." Max looked at jis partner. "That's what the stupid prick was talking about."
Sean knocked on three doors that morning. He actually rang the door bells on each occasion but he also knocked. It was just a thing that Sean did. He always knocked on doors. Anyway, the first time, there was no answer and the other two times, a relative came to the door and quietly told Max and Sean that they weren't interested in speaking to them or anybody else from the media. It's a private matter they said. No offence. They understood they were doing their job. While Sean stood at the doorstep, neither in nor out, he thought they should be angry. Tell him to fuck off. Leave us alone and stop disturbing us! That's what they should have said.
*****
In the police investigation that followed, combat magazines were found in D'Agostin 's bedroom. The police also found a diary. "Today is worse. I had another argument with her. She doesn't understand what I'm going through. I feel like there are two of me. The man who walks around and eats and talks and watches television and the other man inside my head. Running around my head with nowhere to go. I want to be one."
Excerpt from Dino D'Agostin's Diary.
*****
Whether D'Agostin understood the misery he manufactured on that Spring afternoon was unlikely according to a police psychiatrist. Sean interviewed Dr Sam Samuelsen about the killings the following week. Sameulson said the public needed to better understand these "modern afflictions".
He said killers on a shooting spree normally locked their minds into simplistic, dispassionate modes. This was one of the reasons they were able to coolly kill total strangers or people they shared a coffee with in the morning he said. In such a state, D'Agostin didn't understand the suffering he extracted on that afternoon. The pain of ordinary people. He certainly didn't think about the families left behind. Sean had read the short biographies of the victims and two stayed in his mind.
20 year old son, Anton, had been shot through the neck and suffocated in his own blood while lying in an office corridor. Anton had his 21 st birthday planned for the following week. On the following day, a police women from the homicide squad found it difficult to explain to twelve year old Sally McAdam, how her mother, had been killed.
She didn't describe how Sally's mother had been shot at close range through the chest as she crouched next to a filing cabinet pleading not to be killed. Sean wrote a feature story based on his interview with Samuelson and included the case studies of those two victims. It was the last story he wrote for the paper. Boyle told him it was a good piece for a feature story but said in the same breath, "we really wanted hard news mate".
*****
There were two things Sean didn't understand. The first was self-evident. What makes a man so demented with the despondency of his life that he walks into an office building or a shopping mall or a takeaway restaurant and kills one or half a dozen or 20 people. Only the locations and the numbers seemed to change. Perhaps I'll never work it out, he thought and wondered if he wanted to. The other thing he couldn't work out was his own apathy. In this sense, the postal murders was the start of his journey. He realised that he was not someone he particularly liked anymore. His compassion only extended to the bathroom mirror. He wondered why he didn't like his job and wondered why he had screwed up so badly that Siobhan had gone away. Most of all, he was simply tired of his tidy suburban life. So tired all he could think about were the front gardens he passed by on the way to asking a mother how she felt about the murder of her daughter.
He always seemed to be wondering why things had gone bad for him . I want. I need. I deserve. "I" everything. Me, me, me! Fuck. When he thought about it, he was well off. He could wear loud check suitjackets to work and no-one really gave a stuff. He had just spent three years with a beautiful, smart and funny Irish girl who had loved him. He could eat some beef fillet with honey and pepper sauce and drink a cold beer in Little Saigon in Victoria Street for ten bucks. He could go away. Somewhere fantastic. Go and lose himself in Asia for a while.Yes that was a thought. He didn't wait around for the coroner's report. There was no point. A week after the death knock, he gave his notice. There was an obligatory resignation period of eight weeks but it became less than four after the Argus counted the holiday leave they owed him.
So pretty much a month after the murders he walked out of the brown brick newspaper building to catch a plane to a place with very few neat green lawns. Bombay. The night before he flew out, he walked into the kitchen at home. Walter was smoking a Dunhill and reading the sports pages in the loungeroom that looked through to the kitchen. The dishes as usual were piled high. Sean entered the kitchen with a wry grin. He took an armful of the dishes from the sink and carried them five paces to the back doorstep. He dropped a bread plate on the way but it just clattered uselessly on the lino floor. He looked out into the backyard with the kitchen window to his right. A white stone path wound its way to the tin garage. Walter looked up from his usual position on the green sofa wearing a quizzical expression on his face but he didn't say anything. Sean stood on the back step and slowly threw the dishes one by one against the brick wall in the backyard. Walter had got off the sofa by this time and stood silently next to Sean. A bemused look on his face. Sean continued throwing the crockery agains the wall in casual motions. One by one. The two men listened to the satisfying crunch of ceramic breaking. When he finished, Sean wiped his hands on the back of his black canvas jeans and turned to his housemate. "I'm outa here Walt.lets go buy some fish and chips, open a bottle of wine and celebrate. No fucking plates required."
THE END.
© All Copyright on this work besides stated excerpts belongs to The Hotel Travel.com of 1/4 Mary Street Hawthorn 3122, Australia.
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