Hunting In Packs
The sins of the present were best left unsaid, only staining the past. He was a hunted paedophile and we the pack had been deliberately let loose on him. The police minister wanted to make an example. He was cheap bait. And nothing could redeem this most recognisable of characters; known for his hunted, rodent demeanour on the evening news clips played repeatedly; found guilty of molesting three young children in a Brisbane hotel room. Six, seven and eight. The press secretary made sure we knew that, if nothing else. There wassn't any moral equivalence about this one. And of course we all knew her, she'd been on the other side, our side, for so long. The good times were all gone. Well they weren't really, but none of us drank like we used to. Into clever oblivion.
Every news outlet had been fully alerted to the time when he was expected to be released from a western Sydney jail, where, after the 15 years for the Queensland events he had been imprisoned for breaching his parole conditions; to wit selling cleaning goods to schools. There isn't such a thing as privacy with something like this. We all lined up out the front of the centre; the shooters from Fairfax, News, ABC, Channel Nine, Seven, Ten. All the radio stations; 2GB, 2UE, young blokes, nice most all of them. In those zippy little black four wheel drives and zippy black hair. Half an hour before he was due out the press secretary came out to give us our final instructions.
He would walk from this door to the car, where he would be transported of the property. Where? To the local train station. There were flies everywhere, you kept having to block them away. Can you park the car further away, so that he has to walk right across in front of us. He might want to answer questions. He might want to protest his innocence. He's done it before. I'll do my best; she said. And finally, in a farce, in the heat with those damned flies, we all stood in a line behind an imaginary no-go zone, a crack in the concrete. Minutes passed, the flies kept getting in the way. We were all lined up, all waiting, coralled. The minute he appeared predictable pandemonium broke out. The TV crews were right in his face, do you still maintain your innocence? Are you a danger to the children of this state? What are you going to do now? He kicked out; hunted, as the corrective services staff bundled him into the back of the car. Mad dash to the vehicles. A cavalcade out of the prison, right left several kilometres down to the Windsor train station.
There even more predictable mayhem broke out; as the authorities deliberately abandoned him to the media. Hunted he ran up and down the platform. A bullet would be better, a person emerging from the station said as I frantically parked the car, having dumped the photographer at the front. He lashed out again, everyone getting good shots, some getting a few bruises. Then he said: I'll give you one thing, and went on to say that he wanted to see someone in jail. Then he kicked out again, with his two plastic bags, all the possessions he had in the world, no one to pick him up, not a friend left, kicking out and hunted until finally he sought refuge in the station master's office.
The police sped him away from the station. We tried to follow but they were gone before we could get out of the carpark. We made a desultory search of the suburb, other news cruise had also lost track of them, and judging the task hopeless headed back to town. Our job was done. We had all the pictures we could ever want of a hunted man. Where was he going, that man with his two plastic bags and a face which ensured he would be hunted the rest of his days?
Christmas came on for most everybody; the bombs kept going off in Iraq and Rumsfeld couldn't even be bothered personally signing the letters of condolence from the government. Merry Christmas. If I was one of the parents who had lost their child in that useless war, I would be very very angry indeed.
The kids and I are driving up to the ex's tomorrow for Christmas, into the Australian landscape with storm, flood and hail warnings literally going out tonight. Is this the skirmish to wreck shreds in the fabcric, screaming, screaming? Or peace under the pepper tree? The sins of the present are best left unsaid, only staining the past.