An Insensitive Ass

Sometimes the past rolls over me like a gentle wave.

Long forgotten moments bob just in front of me. They are washed-out pastel images of a world long gone but are so close that I can reach out and paddle to them.

The simple act of travelling to primary school in the mornings, and the weary trudge home in the afternoons, is one such memory.

The distance to the small rural school from my house was just over one mile but it seemed further then. Some days it was hot, with flies circling us; others it was icy and windy. We were occasionally driven to school, but we rode when our pushbikes were working.

Mostly, though, we just walked.

I see myself, flaxen haired with slightly chubby cheeks, healthy from a diet of home-grown meat, fruit and vegetables, fresh cow’s milk, and butter. I’m rarely alone in these images. Siblings walk with me as we skip along the rutted track through the dense bushland before emerging onto the bitumen road leading to school.

Directly across the road from our place, a long straight driveway leads up to Gio’s* house. The house is timber and painted pink. There are no trees. Gio is a small, nut-brown boy a year below me at school, an earnest little fellow. I like him and often walk home with him in the afternoon. He hops along beside me asking endless questions. I try to sound wise as I answer his polite queries.

Gio’s dad, Dominic, is a stereotypical southern Italian of that era, dark with jet-black curly hair. He sings Italian operas loudly and beautifully as he drives his grey Massey Ferguson tractor between the rows of leafy apple trees, cultivating the soil. He is probably unaware that his voice carries in the crystal-clear mountain air, but more likely he just doesn’t care.

I can smell the aromatic freshly tilled soil as we walk. The sky is a deep blue and there are fluffy white clouds. I see the shapes of various animals or faces drenched with character in these clouds. I’m aware of the shadow my body casts as I walk.

Soon we pass what used to be Grandpa’s orchard, also on the opposite side of the road to our place. I say ‘used to be’ because Grandpa, with his booming voice, was killed in a car accident when I was three. The orchard is now owned by my father, Laurie, and row after row of apple trees abundant with heavy fruit stretch as far as I can see to my left as I walk past on the way to school.

We soon pass yet another apple orchard to our left, this time owned by the small, dapper Frank, another Italian Australian who migrated here just after World War Two. Dad has a warm friendship with him. Frank has confided to Dad that he was a captain in the Italian army during WW2. It is easy to imagine him younger and in uniform, with his neat bearing and pencil moustache.

Frank’s wife, on the rare occasions we spy her, speaks excitedly in broken English, and calls my father ‘Mr. Laurie’, much to our childish amusement.

In return we think of her as ‘Mrs. Frank’.

We turn left into the school road and continue walking, ubiquitous apple orchards on our left, bushland on our right on an untamed block which has a creek cutting through the middle of it. My dad owns this land too and refers to it as the ‘creek paddock’.

The school looms in the distance to our left, an island of buildings and gardens amongst a sea of apple orchards. Several cars are moored out the front, as are children’s bicycles in a bike rack. A small creek divides the school grounds, separating the main part of the school from the sports oval. The two parts of the school are joined by a small timber walk bridge which straddles the gully.

Typically, I look for and find some friends from my year to play with when I arrive. The twins, Dino and Franco. Stephen. Greg. Another Frank.

A hand-held heavy brass bell is rung to signal the beginning of the school day. We assemble on the asphalt area in front of the school and stand solemnly as the national anthem is played.

The Principal gives his usual brief pep talk. Then it is off to class. The day is underway, a fascinating blend of activities by excellent teachers. In a blur it is suddenly afternoon and time to trudge home.

Today I’m walking home with Gio.

I’m 11 or 12, and the end of my primary years is near. It is just the two of us today and Gio is chattering to me and asking his usual serious questions. I give considered responses which he mulls over carefully, nodding slowly and looking at me, before accepting. His smooth brown face looks up to me, eyes wide as I pass to him the wisdom of my extra year on the planet.

I’m flattered by the weight he places on my opinions. Maybe this makes me extra-insensitive.

Just before we get to the right turn which will take us past Frank’s orchard, I notice that he is unusually twitchy.

‘Mick, Mick, I need to go to the toilet!’ he says suddenly.

‘Oh okay. Just duck into the bush here, Gio’.

I gesture to the wild creek paddock on my left.

‘No, no, Mick! I need to do a poo!’

‘Okay. Well, it’s not that far now’, I say breezily, only half listening. ‘We’ll walk a bit quicker. Just hang on. You’ll be okay’.

‘Hmm. If you think so, Mick’, he says, albeit with some uncertainty that I completely miss.

We make our right turn and are passing Frank’s driveway, when he turns to me, looking up at me, eyes like saucers now.

‘Mick, Mick! I really need to go now!’ he shouts.

‘Oh, okay’, I frown, surprised by the raw emotion.

‘Mick. Oh, Mick. It’s too late, Mick!’

As he speaks there is an explosion, an eruption of volcanic proportions, of orange-brown excrement running down his legs, a lava flow engulfing his grey school socks. Once unleashed it just keeps going.

‘See you, Mick! I’ve got to go!’ he then yells, turning and running into Frank’s yard. He knocks frantically at the door. Mrs. Frank materializes immediately, as if she was somehow expecting this moment.

She processes the situation in a nanosecond and ushers him inside.

‘See you tomorrow, Mick!’ he turns and yells before disappearing.

Always so polite, Gio.

I walk the rest of the journey alone, struggling to comprehend. I feel guilty. I had no idea that he needed to ‘go’ that badly or that he was clearly suffering from a severe stomach upset. Did he value my experience and wisdom so much that it overrode his body telling him that he was ‘that’ close? Or was he just so bloody polite?

I struggle with this for at least half an hour before something else takes my attention and I move on.

Gio and I never spoke of this again. I did not talk about it at school. I instinctively knew that it was not right to do so. At home my siblings and I quietly discussed the horror and embarrassment poor Gio must have felt.

Then I very quickly forgot all about it.

Gio’s family sold their farm before high school began.

I’ve never seen or heard of him since.

As those pastel images of long ago wash over me, I admit that I’m shocked.

I was not the wise older boy that I thought I was at the time. The true self which came through that day was not exactly sensitive to a friend’s needs.

It could even be said while Gio had an insensitive ass that day, I was the insensitive ass.

I can rationalize it all, of course. I’d only been born 11 or 12 years before, so I was on a steep learning curve. It is no great surprise that I wasn’t as empathetic as I could have been. Gio probably learned something from that day. Hopefully he gradually forgot all about it and wasn’t scarred for life by his ‘explosion on a country lane’ episode.

And no-one died, after all.

But that isn’t what shocks me.

No.

It is that it has taken me nearly fifty years to remember that it even happened.

My journey to empathy is definitely ongoing.

*Name changed to protect identity.