BLADES IV
AFTERMATH
(The autobiography of a rescue-helicopter pilot concludes)
‘as told to’ J. William Turner
Copyright 2012 by (James) J. William Turner
Smashwords Edition
(Original version copyright 2008 by (James) J. William Turner)
My two-week visit to Los Angeles, California, had been far more dramatic than I could ever have expected. I had logged fifty-five hours of helicopter-flying time, saved the lives of five adults and one child, received two potential job offers, found a second 'adoptive' family, and had a marriage proposal accepted from the girl I loved. Now, I was heading home to the waiting arms of my Australian adoptive family and to finish my secondary-school education. Then, hopefully, I would be returning to the U.S.A. to live with Alison, as man-and-wife, and to fly. But first, I would have to face my demons.
Chapter Three - Hitting Bottom
This story is fictional. Any similarity to historical events, or to any person, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional.
Other works by J. William Turner:
Dangerous Days I (Storm Ridge)
Dangerous Days II (Paddle Hard)
Dangerous Days III (Outback Heroes)
Dangerous Days IV (Enemies Within)
Blades I (Street Kid)
Blades II (High Country)
Blades III (California Dreaming)
Fat To Fast
Jake’s Magical Easter Adventure
Thursday, 28 September 2000 – The doors to the restricted area for departing international passengers closed. My view of Alison Clifford, the girl I loved, as well as her parents and three younger brothers, was obscured. They were people I had come to bond with. But I had promised Alison to keep our intended marriage a secret, and keeping secrets was about to become a way of life for me.
My heart was still aching from our separation as I headed for Los Angeles Airport’s passport control area. As I passed through, I was given a nod of approval and respect by two officials who had recognised me from the cable-television broadcasts on the previous weekend. I acknowledged their gesture, headed for Gate 122, and was slumped down on a seat by ten past ten after a quick glance through the large window at my aircraft. This was an hour before my departure time.
Seat 41C, an aisle position this time, awaited me for at least fourteen hours of sitting. But I was quite content to remain where I was until boarding commenced, rather than go walkabout around the area. I even thought briefly about going to the bar for a beer, but dismissed the idea. The drinking age in America was twenty-one, yet eighteen on the Qantas aircraft, so I decided to wait.
But with the inactivity of waiting, came the recent memories of my time in California. Once again, I saw the flames and the face of a dead child, heard the crackling of the massive flames that surrounded the Furnace, smelled wood smoke, tasted ash in my mouth, and felt radiant heat on my face. I sighed, wishing desperately for the images to go away. Help only came, eventually, when the public-address system announced that flight QF100 was boarding.
As I rose to my feet, a happier memory came to mind. It was Alison and me on Venice Beach, and the smile on her face as I had my butt tattooed with her name in a little green boomerang. I strode along the aerobridge to the aircraft and took my seat, resigning myself to the expected, unavoidable bombardment of questions from family and friends to which I would be subjected upon arrival at Melbourne. I knew these questions would stir up the memories and cause me to relive some of the horrors.
Talking to the counsellor, Simon Black, at Matt’s base had not been difficult, as he was a trained professional, but it had not been easy, either. The grilling back home was something I was not looking forward to, and I hoped some more quick counselling sessions as soon as possible would help. For the coming flight, though, after the previous night with Matt, and having rejected the offer of alcohol at the now-destroyed hotel in Lake Isobel, I decided to bluff a few shots of bourbon from the flight attendants during the meal service. As the jumbo jet backed away from the terminal, there was no hint of the coming controversy that was about to erupt. It was a controversy both in Melbourne and California over my presence at the fires.
Saturday, 30 September 2000 – QF100 cruised quietly over the western suburbs of Melbourne, having entered the circuit pattern for Tullamarine Airport after an uneventful flight. The time was approaching eight thirty in the morning. The city was a welcome sight after thirteen hours of darkness outside as I peered across the two passengers on my left to look out through the window.
I had slept better than expected. This was due, I reckon, to the four Bourbon-and-Cokes I had ordered and been served without question by the flight attendants during the meal service. I was actually surprised that I had been so successful in obtaining alcohol. All the adults in my life had often said I looked younger than my seventeen years, despite being a hundred and eighty centimetres tall. Still, I felt slightly guilty about breaching the liquor licensing laws, but did not complain. I had enjoyed a relaxing journey home after some quite reasonable food washed down with very adult booze. I breathed a big sigh of relief when the aircraft pulled up to a gate and stopped. In less than half an hour, I would be reunited with the foster family I loved and my life could return to normal for at least the next eighteen months.
I cleared Customs and Immigration without incident. But I was also slightly mystified when the officer gave me an extra nod and a smile as I did so, like his two counterparts back at Los Angeles Airport. Had he recognised me? I shrugged it off and headed for the sliding exit doors that opened onto the public waiting area.
The first thing I noticed immediately was a cluster of television news cameras and security staff, and muttered, “I wonder what celebrity they’re waiting for,” before looking around for my family. I saw their welcoming faces as they waved to me a second or two later. They were all there; Kath, Paul, Wesley, Graham, Scott, Linda and Kim, both pregnant at the same time with their first child, Dwight, Veronica, also pregnant again, and, best of the best, little Wendy. As I unexpectedly felt my eyes moistening, and a lump developing in my throat, I hugged each and every one of them and listened to their words of greeting at my safe return. I even saw small tears in Kath’s eyes as she said, “Will you ever be able to go on holiday without making news?”
It was only then that I became aware of not just being the centre of my family’s attention, but those TV cameras, also. What was going on?
Thankfully, the security guards were able to shepherd our group from the terminal as the reporters began bombarding me with questions. They were asking about my time at the fires and the investigation that had been opened only a few hours earlier, whilst I has halfway across the Pacific Ocean, into my involvement therewith. Needless to say, I had no idea what they were on about. Quite frankly, I also couldn’t have cared less at that moment, and so resented their intrusion into what was supposed to have been a private reunion. But remembering my outburst at the Lake Isobel airport media on the previous Saturday morning, I kept my emotions in check, avoided eye contact, thought to myself, “They can all get stuffed,” and continued on silently to where our cars were parked. Once we had escaped the media pack, I asked Kath and Paul, “What the heck’s going on?” They didn’t know either, but Wesley Auld, always the journalist, had the answer. He began, “It’s like this mate, and you’d better brace yourself.”
A couple of hours earlier, as my flight was crossing Australia’s east coast directly above Sydney, he had received a long-distance phone call from, of all people, one of my journalist friends at KMAC, Dean Haggarty. Apparently, the man had started corresponding with Wesley while I was at the Cedar Grove fires. Thus, he had been able to give Wesley early warning of what was now unfolding.
There had been convened, not just two County Coroners’ Inquests into the fatal fires at Lake Isobel and Cedar Grove, but also my ‘recruitment’ as a ‘front line’ helicopter pilot whilst under eighteen-years-of-age, and a foreign national without a Green Card. It seemed that local agencies of California’s Child Protective Services (C.P.S.) had started to investigate the matter on the afternoon of my return to Los Angeles from Cedar Grove. But it had taken another day and a half before the “Mud hit the fan!” as Wesley said discretely. That was when the detailed official report of Gareth Stokinez, the Fire Chief at Lake Isobel became public. The fact of nearly being shot by the arsonist, later identified as a known psychiatric patient named Cody Bilson, and then seeing him killed by police had been bad enough in the authorities’ eyes. But it was the graphic nature of Fire Fighter Johl Ashley’s account of our dangerous extraction of the injured women in the burning CRV, and her dead six-year-old son from the Furnace of Lake Isobel that had really upset the C.P.S. Her name was Sylvia Goodall. The little boy’s name was Thomas (Tommy). Also, being exposed to the horribly-charred remains of the four young hikers at the Lake Isobel fire’s ‘ground zero’ by that memorable search-and-rescue leader from the Deep South, Zeke Gillespie, helped stoke the flames of outrage within this bureaucracy. By that time, however, I was well away from U.S. jurisdiction, cruising at ten thousand metres somewhere over Samoa or Fiji, and still in a sleep induced by those four shots of hard liquor.
The allegations were that I had been exploited by fire authorities at both localities and, also, by KMAC for ratings purposes. But worse, Matt and Susan Clifford’s names had been mentioned together with the word “negligent,” for permitting me to go. What a total load of nonsense, or so I thought! At the time, I had not felt like a child in need of protection, but a young adult who knew exactly what he was doing. The coming months, however, were to show the concerns of California’s C.P.S. to be quite valid, not just for my physical safety, but my emotional welfare, as well. But at that moment, I felt a lot of anger at the thought of my much-loved ‘American parents’ being so falsely accused of neglecting me, whilst I was in their care, by not demanding of KMAC my immediate withdrawal from the fire front. It was clear from the tone of Wesley’s voice, as much as his choice of words, that he expected no good would be coming of this. I said, “This is a major over-reaction, Wes! I’m not a little kid!” But events over the following weeks would show that Wesley was both right and wrong in his assessment of the C.P.S.’s action.
It was mid-morning when we turned onto my street in Brighton. The house I had called ‘Home’ for more than four years was a most-welcome sight. Some of the neighbours appeared briefly to offer their greetings, which I appreciated. Their comments included, “You sure had a big adventure,” and, “You’re a real top gun, eh?” But it was Molly Hopkinson, the very elderly, yet alert, English lady from across the road that I heard say to Kath and Paul, “Something’s wrong. That boy has aged five years.”
Now, Molly’s eyesight was pretty good, despite having recently celebrated her seventy-ninth birthday. But my well-meaning foster parents chuckled reassuringly and told her I must have bad jetlag. It was a pity they didn’t heed her early warning, as it seems that Wesley’s parents, Pam and Frank, had also noticed the subtle change in my appearance, but also shrugged it off. I found out later, that early in the previous evening in Brighton, as QF100 was accelerating down the runway in Los Angeles, Matt had phoned Kath to advise her of my safe departure. He had also advised of my need for follow-up counselling upon my return after my initial session with Simon Black. I don’t know whether, at the time, she misunderstood the exact nature of the traumatic incidents I had been apart of, or just went into denial about the potential for long-term problems. All I do know is two alerts that I may have been in trouble were ignored.
With my backpack slung over a shoulder, I led Kath into the house. We were followed by Paul, towing my suitcase, and the rest of my extended family. The first thing I really needed right then, however, was a quick toilet break. When I glanced in the bathroom mirror as I washed my hands afterwards, I noticed some lines etched in my face. I guess I did look older, which explains the ease I had found in obtaining alcohol on the flight home, but why? Where had these creases around my eyes and mouth, and on my forehead, come from? I decided not to worry about it. To me, being seventeen-and-a-half yet looking over twenty-one had an obvious advantage, the procurement of alcohol. Possibly being more attractive to girls, though, was not on my list. My heart belonged to only one, and I had no intention of being unfaithful to Alison now that we were to be married.
Returning downstairs to the lounge where the others were gathered, I slumped into an armchair, closed my eyes as little Wendy climbed up onto my lap, and said, “I need a drink.”
The others chuckled, and Kath brought me a can of Coke in a polystyrene holder. I accepted this with thanks, but regretted not being able to spike it with some spirits from Paul’s cocktail cabinet. It was then that the real question-and-answer session started, while I disregarded the fact that this was the first time I showed any real interest, whatsoever, in the contents of the cocktail cabinet.
I had already e-mailed all of them from Cedar Grove about my activities at the fires. It was the growing interest by the media, and the prospect of an official inquiry or two, that prompted the interrogation. It was something I really didn’t need, but I did my best to explain how it had come about. I also emphasised all the free flying hours logged, saying, “I was in the right place at the right time.”
I deliberately down played the dangers and horrific sights I had witnessed. This was as much to allay the adults’ fears about what I had been a part of, as to avoid talking about the painful memories. Admittedly, Wendy’s presence was also a good excuse for lying by omission, so I spoke in general terms, without going into specific details. They seemed satisfied with my answers as I had told them what they wanted to hear. That is, all except Wesley. From the look on his face, I knew that he knew more than the others, and yet he, too, was keeping secrets, which was typical of the man. I suspected that Dean Haggarty had given him a far-more-thorough briefing than he had let on earlier at the airport. It turned out that I was right. Dean had told Wesley, in explicit detail, absolutely everything that had happened from the previous Saturday morning to the Wednesday afternoon. Dean’s intention was for Wesley to give me the full heads-up on what to expect, and to provide me with whatever support I might need on behalf of KMAC, when the time came. It was as if KMAC was, perhaps, covering its own backside.
For the moment, though, I was content to relax at home with family and talk about other aspects of my trip away not connected with the fires. The bad memories subsided and my desire for something stronger than a cola disappeared. I felt my life returning to normal after the roller-coaster ride of the previous two weeks.
Lunch came and went, as did a couple of visiting school friends. Fortunately, they were unaware of the growing controversy, and so asked no questions about the fires. Instead, we talked about America, especially the teenage girls, and what they (my friends) had done during the holidays. We also made plans for the coming week after school resumed on Monday, especially the next Saturday evening. This had become the traditional night for me to go out ‘on-the-town’ socialising. As always, there was a condition. I had to meet a strict midnight curfew, either at home or at a friend’s house by prior arrangement with his parents. Often, we would sneak a few cans of beer without getting drunk. I would have gone out with them on the very night of my return, but could feel jetlag rearing its ugly head, so declined their invitation. Instead, I hung-out at home, unpacked my suitcase, and made a brief phone call to my closest friend, Brian, in Darwin. Then I had what was for me quite an early night, going to bed at ten o’clock after a long hot shower.
Sunday, 01 October 2000 – I was suddenly awake at twenty-five minutes past midnight. My eyes were wide open and I was breathing heavily. I was also bathed in sweat, and yet the air temperature in my room was less than twenty degrees. I had just carried the limp body of little Tommy Goodall to the luggage compartment of the KMAC helicopter amid the roar of its engine and the Furnace’s smoke, ash, and flames. All of this was in my nightmare. The dilated pupils in his open unmoving eyes, and the froth in his mouth surrounded by blue lips, were as vivid as when I had first been confronted by them seven days previously. I thought how Tommy’s fate, a precious young life cut short, could so easily have been my fate in Dingley Village four and a half years earlier. If it had been, I told myself, then, at least I would have lived twice as long as Tommy had. As my heavy breathing slowed, it was replaced by a few small tears from my eyes, and a physical pain in my gut. I knew, then, what I wanted, what I felt I needed. I grabbed the plastic cup, half-full of water, from my bedside table.
The house was in silence as I crept downstairs, without making a sound, to the lounge room and Paul’s cocktail cabinet therein. Into the cup of water, I poured smallish amounts of scotch, bourbon, rum, and vodka from each bottle so as not to alert my parents by taking too much from just one bottle. I then went to the kitchen, added a measure of concentrated lemon juice from the refrigerator, and chugged my ‘cocktail’ down in three gulps. After rinsing the cup and re-filling it with water, I returned to my bedroom and pulled the covers back over me. I felt the relaxing warmth spreading throughout my body as the alcohol was rapidly absorbed through the blood vessels lining my stomach. Tommy’s lifeless face was fading. The noise of the helicopter was fading. The smell of smoke and ash was fading. The sight of flames was fading. The feel of radiant heat was fading. The Furnace was fading. Finally, my nightmare was gone, and I was soon asleep once more.
I awoke in the morning feeling refreshed, and spent the day catching up with the rest of my close friends. I also worked on a school assignment, not geography this time, that had to be completed by the coming Friday. The phone seemed to ring more than usual, and my parents made a point of answering it before I could. For that, I am now grateful, as the calls were all from journalists wanting to speak to me. My mind was able to remain free and clear of anything and everything American.
Monday, 02 October 2000 – With the start of Term Four, came the option to wear summer uniform again. It consisted of a white, open-necked short-sleeved shirt, with the royal-blue school crest embroidered on the pocket, tucked into royal-blue walk shorts with belt, and short dark-grey socks with royal blue and white stripes near the top, inside black shoes. On cool mornings, the regulation school jumper could also be worn before lunchtime. Compared to the uniforms of students at rival schools in Melbourne, I felt that it was not too bad, and wore it down to breakfast without a second thought, as the expected maximum temperature that day was in the mid-twenties.
Unfortunately, I had suffered another nightmare, again just after midnight. This time, it was the arsonist, Cody Bilson, being ‘blown away’ by the police at their roadblock as I hovered nearby. Johl’s exuberant yell, “Yes! Yes! Kick ass!” as the slaughter happened had rung in my ears for many minutes until another visit to the cocktail cabinet brought silence in my head and the return of sleep. Fortunately, my theft of the liquor had remained undetected, thus far, but for how long? So I decided to try to go and buy a bottle of cheap stuff after coming home from school that afternoon and changing back into casual clothes. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was actually becoming quite desperate, such was the growing sub-conscious fear of more night horrors if I went to sleep totally sober. And it was not just images of the fires I feared, or being burnt in Dingley Village. Bashing the dingo to death, my decision not to wait for the SES rescue team below Mt Baw Baw, which may almost have killed Colin Clifford, and pulling the comatose child from the car at Venice Beach were still on my mind. Before leaving the house, I did something that I hadn’t done for a couple of years. I gave Kath a goodbye kiss and hug. She seemed pleasantly surprised and put it down to my two-week absence overseas. I suspect, now, that it was another small cry for help from my sub-conscious. Consciously, as I mounted my bicycle, I felt that I could not deal with having more counselling sessions. This was the exact opposite of what I had told myself a few days earlier at Los Angeles Airport.
Elwood Grammar was a quick ten-minute bike ride from my home that I had completed hundreds of times, always without incident. On this occasion, however, there were several TV cameras and other media waiting at the bottom of the driveway. I knew what they wanted, ignored their questions, and sped away. But as I approached the school’s main entrance, I saw more reporters waiting, so detoured to enter via another gate in a side street. After parking my bike in the racks with several dozen others, I was heading for my house common room when I was intercepted by my housemaster, Bob Phelan. He was the same teacher who had told Paul of poor marks at the end of first term. He politely, yet firmly, told me to report immediately to the office of my school principal, Dr Rodrick Forrest (PhD).
Nicknamed Gump, after the award-winning Tom Hanks movie, Forrest Gump, he wasn’t a bad sort of fellow. Only tough when necessary, Gump enjoyed a mutually respectful relationship with my fellow students and me. He had also gone out of his way to compliment me after my rescues of the baby, Christopher Barnes, from the dingo at Kata Juta, and the Clifford boys in the mountains.
Still, being bluntly summoned to Gump’s office at any time was never considered by us to be a good thing. This was even less so when one had only just arrived. But my conscience was clear, and although bewildered, I was not expecting to be verbally caned by the man for any unpunished wrongdoing left over from Term Three. I wondered if the media’s presence was the reason. Two minutes later, I was being ushered into his study by the receptionist, to see Gump seated behind his desk.
“Ah, young Moreland, come in,” he both greeted and beckoned me at the same time as he arose and offered his hand. “I will assume that you had quite an intense holiday in America, judging by that mob of journalist people at the front gate who all want a piece of you.”
I could only mutter as I accepted the handshake, “Yes sir, you might say that.”
He smiled slightly, said, “I thought I just did,” and congratulated me on my performance during the fires, having seen news coverage in Australia. He then continued on to get to the point about why I had been summoned. Kath had seen the media accost me outside the house as I left. Correctly guessing there would be more waiting at school, she had phoned Gump to tell him everything that Wesley had been told by Dean Haggarty. It was not until the annual Valedictory Dinner at the end of Year Twelve, fourteen months later, that he told me how much older I had appeared, and that he knew something was wrong, but not the extent of the problem. Having filled me in on his conversation with Kath, he then reminded me of the support services available at Elwood Grammar. These included the school counsellor, the chaplain, the on-call doctor, and himself. The counsellor, chaplain, and doctor, I understood, but offering himself was surprising.
I knew that Gump had served for three months in the Vietnam War on National Service before the incoming prime minister, Gough Whitlam, withdrew all troops after the 1972 federal election. But I did not know that he had a good understanding of associated emotional problems as a result. He had seen such outcomes in some of his old comrades. And just like Matt, another war veteran, five days earlier, Gump had sensed in me the potential for trouble. So he was willing to provide whatever resources the school had to assist. But, at the time, I was just too immature and macho to acknowledge my need for help and to accept this lifeline being thrown to me. Unfortunately, he did not communicate his concerns to Kath and Paul. With hindsight, at the end of Year Twelve Valedictory Dinner, he later admitted he should have done so, almost apologising for the omission, in fact.
One other thing that Gump did do whilst I was in his office was to tell me that, in his opinion, my various rescue activities during the year had made me a role model for all students, especially the younger ones. He concluded by saying, “Julian, you’re on my shortlist of candidates for the positions of Boys’ School Vice-Captain, and, maybe, even Captain. Keep up the good work, my lad, you’re a credit to your family.” He offered his hand again, while I tried to control my emotions, as I replied, “Thank you, sir.” Just being on the short-list was an honour in itself, and my mind was racing for a few minutes afterwards.
Once we had finished our business, I left Gump’s office with just enough time to go to my house common room, put my things in my locker, and roll up to our daily school assembly in the main hall. Standing on stage in front of the student body, with the other senior masters seated behind him, Gump made a point of commenting on the media presence, their reason for being at the gates, and welcoming me back from America. And once more, he praised my efforts under what he described as, “Dangerous and difficult circumstances.”
This public acknowledgment left me feeling embarrassed, if not very stressed. This was not just from being stared at by all those around me, but by the images brought to mind, and I would have much preferred him to keep his mouth shut on the subject. But it was a long-standing tradition at Elwood Grammar that outstanding achievements by students outside of school activities be recognised. Perhaps he thought that I would appreciate the praise. So, just as Wesley, Graham, and Scott had been publicly acknowledged eighteen years earlier in 1982 by a previous principal for their bravery on the lake near Ocean Grove and in the New South Wales outback, it was now my turn. Those acknowledgments had been in addition to Wesley’s rescue of his classmates on Mt Feathertop in 1981. But as I heard Gump’s words in the present, I remembered the reported last words of outlaw, Ned Kelly, as he faced the hangman in 1880 at the Old Melbourne Jail. I said to myself, “Such is life.”
After assembly, I headed to the gymnasium for my first class of the morning, it being P.E.S.H. (physical education/sport/health) this term, instead of geography. Along the way, I was bombarded with questions from my classmates about Gump’s comments in assembly. Even junior kids heading in a similar direction who normally wouldn’t approach more senior students such as I were coming up and asking the same type of questions. With a bit of shame, I admit that I did not respond in a very friendly fashion, even telling a couple of them to “F…Off.” Normally, I wouldn’t have behaved that way, but I really wanted to let things go and not talk about it.
My own peers, however, were a bigger problem. I was popular in my year group, so there was no way I could really tell my classmates to “F…Off.” I decided, instead, to give short, monosyllable answers to as few questions as possible in the hope they would lose interest. It didn’t work, and the questions continued. Even our very British middle-aged P.E.S.H. teacher, David Mustard, had a couple of queries. Nicknamed ‘The Colonel’ after the character in the board game, Cleudo, he asked, “How close did you actually get to those frightfully awful fires, Moreland?”
Knowing that The Colonel liked smoking a large Sherlock Holmes pipe, affectionately referred to by us as The Crematorium, I replied, “Close enough to light your pipe, sir.”
A titter of mirth drifted across the gymnasium, to which The Colonel drawled, as he looked over the top of his glasses, “Then perhaps, young man, you should receive the Distinguished Flying Cross.”
Not to be outdone, and wanting the final word, my reply was, “I say, that would be really jolly nice, wouldn’t it?”
Unsure whether or not I was being cheeky, which I was, the Colonel muttered, “Yes…quite.” He then had us all commence forty-five minutes of intense physical activity. This proved to be particularly therapeutic for me, not just the actual running around, which cleared my mind, but more so exchanging those smart aleck comments with The Colonel.
This particular period of P.E.S.H had involved a fair bit of exertion on the sports oval, instead of bookwork in class. So the Colonel ordered us to “Hit the showers” ten minutes before the bell was due. That was always fine with me, but not so with a couple of obese students who suffered from low body image. Anyhow, we all headed for the boys’ changing room. Although the showers along the wall were individually partitioned off with curtains, the fat kids hated stripping naked. The rest of us were generally sympathetic and tried to ignore their appearance without commenting. But I have to admit that it wasn’t easy at times. I often wondered how they could have let themselves get so big, and why they were doing nothing to fix the problem. Now, as an adult, I do have some understanding of the complex emotional issues often associated with obesity, but not then. In Year Eleven, I was just glad to have a really good body, and no longer shy as I had been when younger. So I had little reluctance to show it off, perhaps even to make the other boys jealous. And so it happened, that as I emerged from the shower cubicle to begin drying myself, just about every pair of eyes in the room was staring at me, but why? It was not as if I was standing there with a spontaneous uncontrollable erection, as happened to one embarrassed classmate in Year Ten, earning him the nickname, ‘Horn’. That was, until he got the girl in my class pregnant earlier this year, and thus became known as ‘Stud’. And they had all seen the skin grafts on my back often enough, so what was it? I said, “What are you lot perving at?”
Finally, it was a kid named Carl, who spoke. He could be a real pain sometimes, like Alison’s high-school classmate, Douglas, who I humiliated during my visit there. He pointed at my nether regions and asked, “Who’s Alison?”
The penny dropped. It was Ink Man’s little green boomerang tattoo surrounding the name of my bride-to-be, and permanently displayed on my right buttock, that had attracted everyone’s attention. So I reminded them that she was the American girl whose brothers I had rescued and with whose family I had stayed. I added that I’d had the tattoo done on Venice Beach during our afternoon together. The other boys, though, thought it was a bit wussy, not that I cared. But I did care about Carl’s next question when he asked me bluntly if we had had sex. His exact words were, “So, tell us, did you bang her?”