A Jack Burgoyne Story

Time moved slower back then. Or so it seemed. It’s only now, now that I am older, that I can truly hear the infernal ticking of the clock. There is evil in that sound, I am sure of it.

Ah, but we were children once!

We were young, innocent and carefree.

What a time it was…

It’s been many years since I last visited the town of Jurrah Bend – the town of my youth. I was born and raised there, semi-wild amongst the trees, many worlds removed from those city lights.

My parents, Pete and Loretta, owned the Burgoyne Bed & Breakfast, although it was more affectionately known then as “The Lodge.” They had built it by hand when they were young and starry-eyed.

Nestled in amongst the trees, and hugging the river that ran along the northern edge of the town, The Lodge was a large, sprawling series of timber cabins and outbuildings, all surrounding the main building – the beating heart of the place – which was the administration lobby, the staff quarters, the function hall, and the riverside restaurant. Access to The Lodge was only possible over a small, rickety old timber bridge, which ensured the guests their privacy from the rest of the population of Jurrah Bend. It was a place for the city slickers to travel on the weekends to escape the hustle and bustle. To “get away from it all,” as they liked to pontificate in the lobby.

Us kids, we were intrigued by the out-of-towners.

Living in a travel lodge was an adventure all on its own. My brother and our little sister would join my charge as we barrelled around the buildings and the grounds, searching for new, undiscovered hidey holes. Often times we would sneak out at night and see owls sitting atop the old street signs which offered directions to the guests of the lodge. This way to the river, that way to the restaurant. The owls would suddenly tense, their prey spotted, and a moment later their wings would unfurl and they would launch forward on silent wings, swooping low to the ground before rising again into the trees to swallow their catch in one large, gruesome gulp.

We would invite all of our friends from the town.

My brother and I were kings of the town back then – or so we liked to believe – and when the call went out that the Burgoyne brothers were on the march, the others would come, even if it meant sneaking out of bedroom windows in the middle of the night and quietly traversing the town, sticking to the shadows… All to be a part of the goings-on that we had organized out at The Lodge.

We would build treehouses and rope swings over the river, and when the summer heat was relentless, we would strip off our clothes bravely in front of each other and then swim for hours, the young boys and girls in the nude and looking for reasons to sneak up on each other from under the water, shrieking in delight, because we knew that nobody could hear us out there, and nobody ever came looking. We were free to play.

Hell, we were free…

We had phones and things back then, but not the way the city kids had them. Ours were mostly attached to walls, and we would be required to answer several questions from an adult on the other end of the line before we were finally put on to speak with our friends. And we built bonfires the way the city kids built resumes, easily and carelessly, and just for something to do. We fished in the river and we ghosted bottles out of the liquor cabinet, and one of the boys from the town was learning to play the guitar, so sometimes we sang the same song over and over again by the crackling fire. We were as tight as thieves, us kids of Jurrah Bend. It was the best of times, and we were the best of friends.

The adults used to tell us how stressful their lives were, with bills to pay, businesses to run, responsibilities on all fronts. None of that was any of our concern, and we had our own issues to deal with – our own anxieties to keep us awake at night.

I was thirteen years old and my friends called me Jack.

I remember that summer like it was yesterday.

We were home for the Christmas holidays, summer in the southern hemisphere, and all was going according to plan up to that point. The seconds, minutes and hours moved at their proper pace.

Maybe it was inevitable that we would grow up. Maybe it would’ve happened one way or another. Maybe everyone experiences it in much the same way.

That summer, we crossed a line somewhere. We stopped being kids, but we weren’t quite adults yet, either. We saw things, we did things… and nobody ever warned us about those things. We never saw them coming.

Now, people call me Mr. Burgoyne.

But it wasn’t always the case…