7th October, 2010….
He`s dead.
It doesn`t matter how much I cry, how much I hate, or how much I scream in my head.
He`s gone.
It doesn`t matter how many times I analyze it, talk about it or about it.
He`s not coming back.
It doesn`t matter if I COULD have saved him, if ANYONE could have saved him.
It`s too late.
ISit my fault?
IS it Wendys fault?
And if not, then WHO`S fault is it?
And HOW THE FUCK did it get to THIS?
Jamie is dead.
I held his widow up while we identified his almost four-day-old DEAD gassed body.
I heard the screams that came from her son the curtain was pulled to the side of the viewing window…
It was Jamie.
Someone I`ve known for 33 years….
My life long friend…..
Dead.
WHAT THE FUCK?
WHY am I having this conversation?
WHY have I just passed through the WORST two weeks of my life to date?
WHERE THE FUCK DID THIS COME FROM YOU KNOW?
You know what…I don`t know anything anymore….I don`t....
Two weeks and one day ago today, Wendy came to me crying…saying Jamie had left her, he didn`t come home that night.
Now he`s dead.
WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?
Backtrack……I`d spent most of the day with him on Monday, he was ok then…. I`d thought so anyway, he didn`t mention any a, he`d often used me as “back up” if him and Wendy didn`t see eye to eye on something. I’m like his “rep” for his side of the story…..and honestly, he SEEMED fine…his usual happy self…
Wendy said he was in a strange mood when he`d come home on Tuesday night, he`d told her he didn`t feel well and went to bed early, he`d gotten up early on Wednesday morning, told Wendy he had an excavator job he was looking at, he came back and kissed her four times before he left.
She hadn`t heard from him since, he`d turned his phone off.
It just didn`t sound like something Jamie would do.
They`d just spent the weekend alone together and from all reports by both sides, they`d had a great time, they were in love last time I saw them together.
Straight away I said to Wendy, “no way, Jamie wouldn`t do that”, I posted a “missing persons” status on face book and my sister sent a multiple txt out saying to let us know if anyone had seen him.
The closest person in the world to him was his brother, Brian.
Brian hadn`t heard from him either.
Wendy went to work, I went about my day….Jamie HAD to be at work by lunchtime, so he WAS ultimately contactable, in my mind, the everything was pretty sweet…Wendy would call him at work, they`d make it or break it…I started cleaning out my spare room “just incase”….(it`s Jamies house they live(d)) in, if they broke up Wendy would move in with me…too easy..
I texted Wendy at 5 that afternoon, asking how things went when she got hold of him at work, giggling to myself a bit, thinking that Jamie was in BIG trouble and I doubted even I could have helped him out of this one….little did I know how fucken true those thoughts were going to turn out to be….
My phone rang straight away…Wendy was crying, she said “he didn`t go to work”
I said “I`ll see you in 5” and hung up.
Jamie would never just “not go to work”.
I organized Dan and Letitia, my son and his girlfriend, to watch Nat, my daughter, incase I didn`t come home for the night, on the OFF BEAT chance that Jamie didn`t come home, I was pretty sure he`d be home some time soon though…NO-ONE would be game to stay away THAT long with no contact..
I packed a few things and went to Wendy and Jamies, same street as me, opposite end…I walked into a scene from a movie…of such surrealism, I don`t think I`ve walked out yet.
Wendy was standing in the kitchen of her and Jamies home, Jamies brother Brian and his girlfriend, looking into their coffee cups….no-one saying a word, the silence saying so much.
When Wendy saw me, she started crying, I hugged her…she said “if we haven`t heard from him by 9 the police are doing a missing persons report,” Brian nodded, as if to confirm her cause for concern. He spoke in a very informative, controlled voice while he told me the details of what a “missing persons” report entailed.
His eyes told his story….he was scared.
His eldest brother had committed suicide 15 years ago, at the same age….his mum was killed in a car accident 4 years ago, his father died of injuries sustained in the same accident 2 years ago,…he knows loss very well…and so did Jamie, Jamie was the baby of six brothers.
The eldest brother was the brother to commit suicide, so Brian is the eldest living brother, and became Jamie’s father figure when they lost their own father.
We sat in silence until 9pm, each of us staring into our coffees, looking up expectantly with every noise that made its way to us from the direction of front door….
9: 05pm Wendy started crying….I held her while she cried and rocked “where is he? Where is he? Why won`t he just come home?”
Brian and his girlfriend left in silence, Wendy cried herself to sleep.
I called Jamies phone a few times while Wendy slept, getting his answering service every time, so I`d leave voice messages BEGGING him to come home.
I fell asleep on the lounge, to be woken by Wendy , Friday morning, huddled on the floor beside me sobbing…”where is he? Please Goddess where is he?
I joined her on the floor, she whispered “he`s not coming back is he?”, I started crying, “I don`t know anymore honey.”
We sat and cried until the police knocked on the door, we froze…my heart started beating in my head…I opened the door, he nodded respectively and said he needed a picture of Jamie to go with the missing persons report, he told us they were in the process of running a trace on Jamies mobile phone, regardless of whether his phone was on or off, they could find a 10km radius of its signal…
We had hope.
I came home to tell Dan, Teish and Nat the news, we`d soon know where Jamie was!
Dan had already made a list of places we could go look for Jamie, we decided we`d check the “river,” our local camping place if we`d heard nothing.
We were on a mission, we were going to find Jamie, and we were starting at the river…
I raced up to get Wendy, knowing she`d want to come, and I promised her I wouldn`t leave her for too long…
I got back to Wendy and Jamies, we decided we`d have a coffee, then go….the phone rang.
It was the detective on Jamies case, they`d tracked his mobile phone to CANBERRA…
WHAT the fuck would he be doing THERE?
There was absolutely no connection with Jamie and Canberra that ANYONE knew of…
Now we were just confused.
The police had sent the local plod out to search for his ute in the area his phone was detected, we cancelled our trip to the river and waited…and waited…
By Friday afternoon, there were still no sightings, and we were sure he wasn`t in Canberra, it had to be a mistake….
Friday night I had my sister call up the local doctor, Wendy needed sedating.
I was scared….WHERE WAS HE?
WHAT THE FUCK WAS HE THINKING DOING THIS?
SCARING US LIKE THIS?
He just wouldn`t.
And that`s why I knew he wasn`t coming home.
Saturday morning started with Wendy laying across my lap, I`d fallen asleep sitting up, she was crying, she said “he`s not coming back is he?”, I started crying “I don`t think so honey”.
By mid morning, the house was full of support for Wendy, I was there, I hadn`t really left her side, My son- Dan, his girlie Letitia was making coffee for everyone, Nat had stayed Friday night with us and so had my sister Sarah, she`d been making enquiries and phone calls that neither Wendy nor I could make, she actually called every excavator business in Canberra to see if Jamie actually DID go there looking for work.
Mum turned up with a tray of cakes, Wendy had lost her mum at an early age, but her mums’ best friend had taken Wendy under her wing, so she was there as well…
Wendy hadn`t heard a thing from any of Jamies brothers, no progress reports, no “are you ok?” calls; they just did their own thing I guess.
Now is the time to point out that Wendy isn`t a local, and some of the locals here are FUCKED IN THE HEAD, small-minded gronks.
At 4`oclock Saturday afternoon Wendys mobile phone rang, I picked it up, saw it said her brothers name on the screen and passed it to her.
She spoke for a minute, started screaming “no, no, no,” I grabbed her as she crumbled to the floor crying “I can`t say it, I can’t say it, noooooo.”
Sarah took initiative of the situation and called Wendys brother back to find out WHAT he`d said to Wendy?
Turns out that Wendys brother was out of town helping a friend cut up some trees, the chainsaw had broken, so they went into this mates shed to have a beer and think about what to do next, this mate had a police scanner in his shed, at the EXACT moment that Wendys brother walked into that shed, it came across that a ute matching that of Jamies had been found at THE RIVER and there was a deceased person inside.
Everyone fell to pieces, Wendy screamed and screamed and squeezed my arms so tight, they still have bruises on them…
Sarah called the police to confirm what we`d been told, a detective got on the phone and confirmed that yes it was Jamies ute and yes at this point a local officer had identified the deceased as Jamie.
The next hour or so passed in a confusion of tears and disbelief.
Jamie had killed himself.
The phone rang again, it was Brian. In a very controlled, precise manner, he said the police had called and they needed someone to “officially” identify Jamie, would I do it?
I said I would, for the same reason I`m presuming Brian asked me to do it…Cos I`m STRONG. There`s not a lot that I can`t deal with, he`s also known me my whole life, so he knows that too.
Wendy wanted to come too, after A LOT of tears, we`d organized to meet the plod at the front of the hospital and they`d take us through to id Jamie. Wendys son, Micko came to support her…she was falling to pieces and I wasn`t far behind her. My sister, Sarah came as well, as support for me, just incase, plus I doubted either Wendy or myself would have been in the mind frame to make the drive home, not after we saw Jamie.
The police officer, who is our local plod, met us at the front of the hospital and took us into a wee room to wait while they finished “preparing” Jamie. He offered his condolences and explained what was going to happen when he took us through to the “viewing” room.
Wendy was sitting on a chair in the corner staring blankly at the floor, Micko sitting with his arm around her. The plod says, “You can all come in if you want to,” Micko decided he`d go in as support for Wendy as well, Sarah, again for me…
Here is where I have to say that to offer to go in and VIEW someone who`d been dead for THREE DAYS in a closed up, hot car, one would presume that the person offering had AT LEAST seen A dead body in their lives, yeah?
Well that`s what I`d think anyway, and that`s what I thought when both Micko and Sarah said they wanted to see Jamie, I actually assumed Wendy had seen a dead body before as well…you know it actually blows me away the amount of people who HAVEN`T seen one….
Turns out NONE of them had, I was about to find that out in a real hurry.
We made it to the viewing room, which is behind the morgue, it`s a cozy wee room with a few chairs, an arrangement of flowers gathering dust in the corner, a cheap looking blue curtain on the furtherest wall, we stood in front of the curtain, prepared ourselves, we all had our arms around each other, crying, supporting, the curtain opened.
So many things happened when that blue curtain opened, the whole world changed for the five of us in that room, at that moment. Time slowed down and I`m serious when I say the world turned in slow motion for such a very long time, I didn’t think it would ever end, nothing else seemed real, nothing outside of the room mattered and nothing inside the room was real.
I heard Micko and Sarah scream when the curtain opened, they both grabbed each other and screamed, a lot, for a long time. Wendy slid down the glass, sobbing uncontrollably, her face pressed to the glass, where Jamies face was closest, she was trying to touch him through the glass, talking to him, whispering to him……I stood with my forehead pressed against the window and cried harder than I`ve ever cried in my life, I couldn`t stop shaking my head, I started hitting my forehead with the heel of my palm…”WHY???? “No, no, no….no, this can`t be happening.”
The plod, who I`ll now call John, helped me sit down, I noticed then that he had tears in his eyes. Sarah crawled up onto my lap, sobbing in a fetal position, “I want my mum”, then she started screaming again. Micko was sitting on the floor, tears streaming down his face, watching his own mother fall to pieces, by this time John had taken Sarah from me and was holding her, while I held Wendy back from smashing the window, no-one had noticed her starting to beat her palm against it, she started yelling “why can`t I take him with me? He`s ok, just let me take him home?” Then she started screaming and crying the worst fucking sound I have heard a human being make, and she started really beating her hands against the glass, she wanted Jamie.
John calmed Sarah and came to me and Wendy, his own tears streaming down his face now, he put his arms around Wendy and said “it`s time to go”.
Well fuck.
She LOST it, she crumbled, she screamed, she beat at Johns chest as the curtain closed.
Four security guards stood respectively back from the door, their presence showing that it WAS time to go, their faces showing that they`d rather be ANYWHERE but there at that moment.
Micko and I managed Wendy to the car, alot of tears and alot of broken moments. John followed close with Sarah, who seemed to be in shock, tears rolling silently down her face.
Oh fuck, it was terrible.
The drive home was behind a blur of tears amidst sobbing and emotional exhaustion.
Wendy sunk into the depths of nothingness, she rocked and sobbed so softly, it tore my Soul to shreds, I`d rather hear her screaming, but even I had started to feel numb.
We got back to Wendy and Jamies house, I called Brian and told him that yes we`d been and yes I`d seen with my own eyes that it was Jamie. He was gone.
Brian said “thank you,” and hung up.
The following day passed in a haze of visitors and phone calls, tears and breakdowns, devastation and confusion.
And the “what now?”
Wendy had decided she couldn`t stay in the house, for a lot of reasons, the main one being it was Jamies house, his family home, left to him by his dad. She would move in with me and take it from there, she needed support and a lot of it, she`s my best friend so there was and never will be any hesitation from me.
So we started packing, she wanted out of the house asap, it was her way of dealing with her loss, everywhere she looked she saw Jamie, she needed to leave.
Still no word from Jamie’s brothers, except when Brian called and asked me to I.D Jamie’s body.
Then the txt messages started, from Jamie’s friend, the local boys.
I understand that they were hurting too, they needed someone to blame as much as anyone did, everyone carries their fair share of guilt, even me, BUT what they did was very unforgivable in my eyes.
Completely the most heartless thing I have ever witnessed and as far as I’m concerned, this town has a lot to answer for, “they” ought to be ashamed of themselves.
The first txt message was sent by Travis, he`s the loud mouth of the group…when he`s sloshed of course, he`s just another pisswreck in this pisswrecked town really, anyway, he sent the txt.
The first one was to my sister, which said, “Why are there so many people at Tubbys?” (Tubby is Jamies nickname)
Sarah replied, “Packing actually”
Travis replied “good”
Sarah replied, “Fuck you”
Travis replied, “Fuck you, fuck everyone there and fuck THE WHORE WHO DROVE HIM TO THIS”
That mean, heartless, cruel person.
How dare he even PRESUME any authority over OUR FUCKING WORLD!
In the grand scheme of things, WHO the fuck does this joker think he is? Really.
WHERE was HE when we were putting out “missing persons” messages? He was LAUGHING AT US because we were OVER REACTIVE bitches!
WHERE was HE when Jamie needed to be identified? At the pub WATCHING THE FUCKING FOOTBALL GRANDFINAL.
HE didn`t HEAR the screaming and the crying.
HE didn`t see the fucking blowfly CRAWL OUT OF JAMIES MOUTH.
HE didn`t see the spots of DECAY eating the side of Jamies face away.
HE didn`t have to watch a son see his mother DESTROYED.
HE didn`t watch the STRONGEST person he knows crumble like a fucking biscuit.
And honestly, he had fuck all to do with Jamie since him and Wendy hooked up anyway, where the fuck were HIS efforts at maintaining his friendship?
I KNOW how Jamie felt about all of that shit, I know what he thought of most of his “so called” mates and you know what else, I know their secrets, straight from Jamie.
So I KNOW that THEY feel guilty also, but they`re mean, nasty people who have to make someone else feel worse then them...
That big mouthed fuck.
So that started a whole new episode of tears and frustrations, and opened a door in Wendys mind entertaining that she might in fact be responsible for Jamies death and that DESTROYED her.
Then the phone calls.
Jamies brother, Brian calls and says he needs Wendy to go to the solicitors the following day and sign off on the estate saying she`d make no claim, as Jamie didn`t sig n his will.....and could she be out of the house by the funeral so they could finish up “as quick as possible”, and the funeral, by the way, has been organised, it`s next Friday at 1:30.
WHAT THE FUCK?
It hadn`t even been 24 hours since WE identified him because THEY were too weak too. THIS is the woman JAMIE LOVED and they were treating her like THIS?
By now Wendy was a complete wreck, an inconsolable wreck.
She called up my landlord, who she knows personally and quite well, they`d been to see her when Jamie was missing, they hugged her and actually told me that she was like “one of their own”.
Now is the time to remember that she isn`t a local.
So she called my landlord and told him she`d be staying with me for a while, shouldn`t have and wouldn`t have been a problem ANY OTHER time......she`s like one of their own remember....yeah.
She came away from that phone call in tears as well, he told her he didn`t think it was a good idea if she stayed at my place!
Small town mentality travels faster than gossip and by the end of the night half the town wanted to lynch her for driving Jamie to suicide, the other half absolutely disgusted in their behaviour.
So two days after her partner kills himself, Wendy is forced to leave town and move in with a friend in town, which means she can no longer work out here, so she had to quit her job as well.
Her ENTIRE world and life had fallen to pieces.
So we packed, we cleaned and we moved Wendy out of her and Jamies home, into her friends in town, and she turned into a zombie.
THEN she received a phone call from Brian telling her that she was invited to the funeral but from the reaction of “the town” she wasn`t welcome.
Well fuck, why didn`t they just burn her at the stake?
It would have been kinder.
We decided we`d have our own funeral for Jamie, if Wendy couldn`t go, none of us would.
Sarah found out from the plod where exactly they found Jamies ute, a friend breeds doves that she hires out for weddings and occasions, she gave us a dove, we all put on flannos of Jamies (they were all he ever wore) , we chose music, took a speaker and went to the spot they found Jamie.
The grass was green everywhere except where he`d parked, other than that, it was a quiet, beautiful, serene setting...a peaceful view to die to, if you like.
I read out a poem as Wendy released the dove, it circled over us, dropped two white feathers and flew into the sky; we played the music and cried. We buried a rabbit trap (Jamie collected old rusted rabbit traps, why I`ll never know, I don`t think HE knew, lol, but he loved rabbit traps, he had over 200 hanging creepily in his shed), I buried a smurf...he`d given me his toy smurfs from his childhood because when we were kids, I`d always get in trouble for touching his smurfs, he HAD to have the one I chose EVERYTIME the wee brat, lol, so as a peace offering years later, he gave me his smurfs, I love him so much for that.)
We all drove back to Wendys new place and had our own wake, it really was beautiful.
The following day was the day before the funeral, the emotions running through me had me thinking about self mutilation, I`d come so far you know, I`d grown my hair, had a normal colour in it, I’d taken my piercings’ out over 12 months ago, and suddenly I had the urge for it all back.
I was angry, I was hurt, I felt like I`D been destroyed. I`d not only lost Jamie, I`d lost Wendy too, nothing would ever, ever be the same again you know?
I sat in front of my mirror with a pair of scissors and started hacking at my hair, Letitia, Dans girlfriend sat on my bed with her hand covering her mouth in horror.
I hacked and I hacked until I got my hair back to the short, spunky style I`d had when it was pink, 7 years of pink hair, of wanting to appear “untouchable” so no-one would bother me, I`d finally thrown down the mask and this happens......
I dyed my new style blue/black, I slashed black across my eyes and red across my lips and called Wendy. “We`ve got a funeral to go to tomorrow, get ready.”
I felt her grow from my strength, “pick me up on the way.”
I called everyone who was “boycotting” the funeral and told them we`re back on, NO-ONE will tell ANY of us where the fuck we can go.
Friday morning came, I got ready in a haze of numbness, and Sarah picked me up to go to Wendys.
Jamies mates were meeting at the pub at 11 that morning and being taken to the funeral by the fucking “booze bus” for Goddess sake. They couldn`t even stay sober for his funeral, TUBS DIDN`T DRINK.
We picked up single white roses to put on Jamies coffin and drove to the crematorium in silence.
We arrived at the same time as the booze bus, which Ben (my boyfriend) was also on. I still don`t know how I feel about him on that day, I don`t know if I ever will. I understand his predicament, but yeah.
*I* needed him.
Alot more than “they” did.
Ben came over and hugged me, he went to the car and hugged Wendy he had no real grievances with her over “it”, except he`s one of the “pisswrecks”.
He then went back to his “mates”.
Wendy and I started walking toward the crematorium, holding each other up, whispering words of strength to each other. “We can do this, we can do this”
Until we got to the funeral book we needed to sign and there was a picture of Jamie beside it, I started shaking so badly that I couldn`t hold the pen, my signature looked like a four year olds effort, then Wendy saw the coffin, her knees buckled “no, no, no, no.” She started crying. I lifted her up, tears streaming down my own face, and whispered “come on, we can do this, you`re strong honey, we can fucking do this.”
We carried each other to Jamie’s coffin, it lay on a marble slab, with another picture of him on it, there were beautiful flowers to each side.
We put our roses on his coffin and both fell to complete pieces, Wendy huddled on my lap on the floor in front of the coffin, both oblivious to anything or anyone, I was rocking her, trying to soothe her, but the sobs I was hearing were my own.
A local elderly man came to us and said “come on, lets get her sat down.” I don`t know where my physical body went, but I couldn`t get up either, I felt drained, my head was so cloudy. Another elderly lady came and helped him move both Wendy and I to the seats at the front, on the opposite side of Jamies brothers. This wasn`t the first time I`d sat in this exact crematorium with them, mourning the loss of another brother. They all sat straight and quiet, all wearing sunglasses, the tears falling from beneath the rims.
The priest appeared and talked about Jamie and Jamie’s life, love and loss. They`d included Wendy as the “love of his life” in the eulogy, even in their hate they couldn`t deny her that because it was the truth.
Jamie loved her SO SO much.
I cried so much I thought I would pass out at one point, Wendy was curled in my lap throughout the entire...ceremony or whatever they call it, I don`t really know, isn`t that weird.
The priest stopped talking, music came on and ever sooooo slowly, Jamies picture started sinking, I thought it was my eyes playing tricks on me, I said “what are they doing now?” Wendy started sobbing hysterically, her voice hoarse from crying so much already, she started to get up, she was trying to yell but the words were coming out as whispers “where are you taking him? No, no. Come back, come back, come back...please come back”...the wounded, pleading cry would have torn a hole in anyones heart.
The coffin sank into the marble table, the man behind us was holding Wendy by the shoulders, the lady behind us had her arms, Sarah layed across her lap while she cried and begged for Jamie to come back, trying to get to him.
I was torn to fucking pieces.
We both managed our way out, through the crowd, everyone looking at their feet, no-one stepping forward to offer support or condolences.
Not even Ben.
That hurt.
I saw Travis, the loud mouth who`d sent the text message, I stared at him with so much intensity and hate that he withered before my eyes.
HE doesn`t know what he`s done. And I can comfortably say that I hate him.
With a vengeance.
And I WILL deal with him at a later date.
And I sit here now, writing this, a week to the day after Jamie was cremated and I’m emotionally exhausted.
I was called ands rushed into Wendy last night to find her on the floor of her bedroom, hugging a picture of Jamie, rocking, broken and crying “I don`t want to be here anymore.”
I spent 2 hours rocking with her, listening to her, crying with her and in the end giggling while I tucked her into bed before I left.
She`s meeting up with a suicide support counsellor today, I PRAY that she`ll be ok.
But I don`t THINK she`ll be ok.
I don`t think it`ll be long before I bury another friend, my best friend.
And you know what, it won’t be suicide, it`ll be murder.
Because this fucking town has already killed her.
Blessed Be Jamie.
