Chapter Nine
“Transits, Home, Jen, and Tony”

Moving On Billy called it. The term described shifting between the parallels or from one location to another within the same parallel. People, normal people have this conception that ghosts, spirits, whatever you want to call them, can appear wherever they want to. Well, whatever you think they are, they can do that. But there are limitations. They can’t decide that Tahiti looks good and just go there! They must have some history at the location first, in Life, then they can return whenever they want, if they want. Hence the commonly known “haunted house’ scenario. Most of them did exactly that for the first couple of years, (return that is, not haunt, a debateable difference) until things change so much that it begins to hurt. Survivors in Life, the widow, the widower, the girlfriend, boyfriend, whoever, always found someone else eventually. These transitory beings, transits, would usually give up after that, and after days, months or even years would finally pass on to wherever.

The Transits were the ones Billy saw moving into and out of Life as they checked up on their Reality. As soon as that was gone, so were they. Which helps explain why Billy was always so composed at such a young age. He needed to keep his feet on the ground, metaphorically speaking, but what he knew, what he alone saw and experienced granted a boy maturity beyond anything Life could give. He opened his front gate and walked slowly toward the front door, the front fence, garden and the outside of the house had been completely refurbished. He looked around in wonder.

“Who is it?” was the response to his tentative knock.

Billy didn’t recognise the voice and moved on into the house so he could see. The inside had also changed considerably. New paint, furniture, his Dad’s chair and TV were gone. His room was now a nursery; colourful mobiles hung from the ceiling and gaily painted animals and letters of the alphabet splashed over the walls. He returned and stood beside the woman as she opened the front door, and was greeted by nobody, of course. She peered around, up and down the street and then closed the door.

“Damn kids!” she muttered.

She walked back to the renovated kitchen where Billy had interrupted her cake making. He watched as she hummed to herself and resumed beating the mixture. It felt comfortable and Billy thought he might stay awhile but then shook his head.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he admonished.

The woman stopped beating and frowned. She looked around the kitchen, shook her head herself, and continued beating again. Her humming was softer, more restrained.

Billy looked around the house one more time then went to Tonys’ place. There was no mistaking that Tony still lived there. His room had not changed but his drum kit was bigger and more expensive, as was his sound equipment. Billy sat down at the messy desk and wrote a note, then took a deep breath for his next visit. This was going to be the difficult one. He went to Jens’.

He sat on her bed and looked around the room. Very little had changed but enough to know Jen wasn’t there anymore. Her photos were still there on the wall and the mirror of her dresser, exactly as he remembered them. He saw one of them together at the tennis courts as well. She was so beautiful. He quietly opened a few drawers of her dresser. They were empty. Her wardrobe was empty. Everything was completely empty. The room was like a shell, a facade. It didn’t feel like she had just moved out of home or anything simple like that. Billy thought that she would have taken the photos, and her parents wouldn’t have left her room looking like a mausoleum. Something felt wrong, even smelt wrong. He took one of the smaller photos from the mirror.

He could smell that cake cooking back at home, his old home, and remembered how hungry he was. His note for Tony, if he got it in time, would see them catch up before the weekend was out. Billy went to his other favourite place, the tennis courts, or more precisely, the clubhouse.

It wasn’t small anymore. It had more than doubled in size, and there was six courts now all green concrete with permanent painted lines. A lingering aroma of food remained and Billy assumed that he’d just missed the ladies morning comp. The smell reminded him again of his hunger. That’s the trouble with Life, you have to maintain it or die, or at the very least suffer in some way. There was a fridge and a freezer and a proper kitchen in there no less so he helped myself as well as he could. A frozen steak out of the freezer was soon sizzling on a hot plate. Some left over salad from the fridge went straight into his mouth. He ate the steak half raw and still part frozen in the centre, slapped between two slices of bread warmed over the cooking steak. The juices ran through the bread and made it fall apart but he didn’t care. It was a feast, and he made an appropriate mess eating it!

Billy’s ability to move in and out of Life used to give his Mum and Dad the heebee jeebees that’s for sure! His Mum would be pushing the stroller along only to find her toddler, Billy, gone less than two minutes after she’d strapped him in there! They got used to it eventually, but he remembered the looks of confusion they used to get from hospitals and doctors, counsellors and psychiatrists, as his Mum tried to explain that their “baby’ could disappear and reappear at will! Of course Billy never did it in front of anyone else – nobody would understand!

Before jumping to any conclusions, Billy is not dead. He hasn’t died, been killed, or anything like that. He was just born to it, and whatever or however it happened, not even the guys Over There can tell him why. They look to him with a reverence, naturally, because he is alive, and they are not. To Billy, it is all perfectly natural.

Chapter Ten
“The Reunion”

He checked his watch. It was almost time to meet Tony – if he’d got the message. His watch always read the right time. Reality time that is, but it didn’t work at all on the other side. Billy never questions it – it’s just normal. He went to the all nighter in Ballina, a service station, the only one in town that was open all night. Guess that didn’t need explaining?

When he arrived he mingled into a recently arrived group from a tour bus, a young kid the only one to notice him. It rarely happened, where he appeared in somebody’s focus, and when it did, such is Life, most assume he had always been there! Kids, though, kids are different. They are still questioning Life and normalcy. It wasn’t normal for Billy to have materialised like that right before his eyes. The kid tugged at his mother’s sleeve and she gave Billy a quick cursory glance. There was a busload of people and she hadn’t seen them all on their short leg down from Brisbane. She pulled her kid away sharply and Billy felt sorry for him – she’d probably take him around the corner and give him a belt across the backside now, for lying. Sorry kid!

Billy sat down outside the packed cafeteria and watched. The people moved past him, in and out, making the most of the chance to stretch their legs. Probably the only place busier would be the loos. He saw Tony drive up searching the throng, unable to drive closer than the fuel pumps because of the crowd and the parked bus. Billy blessed him for being reliable and stood up, waving his arms so that he wouldn’t miss him. That was a possibility – Billy hadn’t forgotten his appearance had changed a little, and it had been over four years since Tony had last seen him.

Billy didn’t look like a faggot anymore either. He wasn’t so dumb that he’d left the hospital in those backless gowns they dress you in. Actually, and embarrassingly, he did! He’d forgotten, and that’s why he hadn’t let the lady at his old house see him. Later, he borrowed some of Tonys’ clothes, had his first ever shave – a very painful experience – a shower, spruced up totally. His long, dark hair was clean and brushed. He had to look good for Jen, and Tony of course.

Tony stared at him in amazement before recognition hit home. He leapt out of the car and raced over, hugging Billy embarrassingly in front of everybody. Billy was brought up with little or no physical affection and he was uncomfortable with this scenario. Tony hadn’t grown much, or maybe it was just that Billy had – he stood half a head taller than him. It was fortunate he dressed like a dag so at least his clothes fitted both of them. Tony stood at arms length looking Billy up and down, his hands cupping his shoulders as he carried out his inspection. That Cheshire grin he possessed was plastered right across his face.

“Fucking hell man, that is you in there isn’t it?”

“Of course it’s me you idiot,” Billy told him.

As soon as he heard the retort his smile widened. “It is you! Jeeesarse man, where ya bin, wow, look at you!”

“Let’s get outta here Tone.”

“Yeah, yeah, c’mon, we’ll go down to the Aussie, no somewhere quieter and you can tell me all about it.”

He remained looking at Billy, in awe almost. He had hardly changed, except for a wispy goatee. He chatted non-stop all the way to the pub – only once did he pause, after he mentioned Jen. A quick glance at Billy then he carried on talking as if he’d never stopped. But Billy knew Tony. It may have been almost four and half years for him but it was still only mere months for Billy. There was something about Jen. Something had happened that he didn’t want to talk about. Billy thought about Jen’s bedroom, how empty it had been and made a mental note to bring it up later, but he ran through the possible scenarios. The most likely one was that she was with someone else, married probably. Billy was patient enough. He knew he would find out in due course.

They walked into the pub and Billy was about to make a joke that this was his first time legally on licensed premises. Now that would take some explaining! Their early years familiarising themselves with the interiors of such establishments meant it wasn’t such a big deal anyway. However, like most teenagers, and he still thought of himself as one, Billy had been looking forward to this very occasion. The Aussie, as he had known it, had been flashed up a bit since the last time. Tony had said they would go somewhere quieter but it’s where they ended up. Billy didn’t bother questioning it. Tony had almost exhausted his chat and begun to ask questions. Billy replied as best he could, having quickly prepared some set responses.

“Nah, just shared a flat with some old guy on the Gold Coast for awhile.”

“Yeah, worked around doing odd jobs. No, no singing.”

“Yeah, I was gonna call so many times, but you know, I thought, I didn’t know what to say to you man. Like, I buggered off and all on you, I thought you might hate me!”

“Yeah, I heard about Mum. After the funeral though. You went hoping I was going to be there? Why thanks mate.”

“No, by myself. No sheilas. Have you seen Jen? What? No I haven’t heard. You thought I already knew? About what?”

“So, she married? Got knocked up, had a kid? What?”

Tony was shrinking on his bar stool – if it hadn’t been there he would have been under the table by now. It was very obvious that he did not want to discuss Jen. For some reason he assumed Billy already knew. Billy thought he knew why. Tony would assume that Billy had already contacted her, or kept in contact even.

“Tony?”

“She’s, ah, gone Billy. Coupla years ago now. No! More, longer, same year you left.”

“Gone where?”

“Gone. Gone gone. Um… dead. Killed. God, I’m sorry Billy. I thought you knew. She, she and some, some guy, got killed, down at Riley’s Hill quarry. Murdered. Cut the guys head off too they did! Um, Billy, I’m so sorry man.”