Difficult lives.

Melbourne Street Art by Kranky.  It doesn't have anything to do with the story, but it looks like those dolls are having a difficult time.
Melbourne Street Art by Kranky. It doesn’t have anything to do with the story, but it looks like those dolls are having a difficult time.

 

Looking back over my blog posts, I’ve noticed the station stories are much darker these days.  In the old days it used to be about getting cakes from men in wheelchairs.

This Thursday when I got to the junction they were running all the trains through Platform 4 until the ambulance came for the man who had passed out right on the edge of Platform 2.  The police arrived and recognized him as someone they’d just booked for assault, which made the ambo’s a bit jumpy.  But when he woke up he went away quietly enough, though with a police escort in the ambulance. The trains switched back to Platform 2

The saga of M and C continues.  C has disappeared again and M has reported her missing to the police.  He used my phone to call her father who denied knowledge of her whereabouts but said he’d look. M worries that she has gone back to her violent ex.  I worry full stop. Who knows what goes on between a couple?

I like them both especially M who is outgoing and personable in a kind of larrikin way. He seems to have a tremendous urge to take care of people which is sad because I see in him a nurse or elderly care person wasted.  I’m not sure how he comes to be living on the street and can’t find out without seeming to pry.  Perhaps it’s the lunchtime bourbon and cokes.  Certainly from the stories he tells me it seems that when he has had choices to make, he’s always made the wrong one.

Still this is a judgement free zone so I give him change for the phone and store his spare iced coffee in my fridge (the kind of thing lots of station staff do) At the moment I’m asking around to see if I can get him a new backpack because the straps on the old one which holds all his worldlies is broken.  I have a strong sense that you should be the change you want to see, as the saying goes, but if I was a truly good person I’d invite him to live in my spare room.  I want to be helpful but at the same time I’m worried – about not crossing boundaries and about whether I’m being a fool to trust M as much as I do.  My bosses would certainly not be pleased if he set up house in my waiting room.

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