“You freak me out sometimes, Churchie.” Wally stared at Churchie, then turned and looked up at the large wooden entrance doors. “You know, I’m not sure if I’ve ever been inside a church . . . is that where you find God?”
“That’s a big mistake people make. Church is where people go to worship God, but God is everywhere, Wal.”
Wally nodded. Scratched his streaked rusty-white beard, “Yeah, maybe one day I’ll find him. I’ve made lots of mistakes too, a real Wally. I always seem to make mistakes. The biggest one was being born, and since then the mistakes have just kept rolling in.”
“That’s rather negative stuff, Wal.”
“Nah, it’s just the truth, Churchie. There’s one mistake which hangs around in my head a lot.”
“And you can be sure, Wal, that thing down near the gate keeps reminding you of it.”
“How does he do that, Churchie?”
“He puts those thoughts in your head. What does he say?”
“I should have been nicer to my mum’s boyfriend.”
“How weren’t you nice to him?” Churchie asked.
“I told him I hated him quite a few times and I kicked him once.”
“Why did you kick him?”
Wally started to fidget a bit, fiddling with the chest hair that stuck out of the top of his shirt. “He was hitting Mum.”
“Well, I would have kicked him too.”
Wally continued. “I yelled at him, told him to stop and then kicked him in the leg. He turned around and slapped me so hard I ended up sliding across the room.”
“What did your mum do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing . . . I think she was scared of him. She lived with him for a long time after Dad died. I tried to like him but I hated him. There came a day where Mum had to choose between me and the man—she chose the man, and I believed it was all because of me kicking him.”
“Don’t think so, Wal. She would have loved you, but was probably confused about life.”
“But how could she do that to her own son? I was thirteen when I was shown the door. I remember standing outside the house, looking back at the house, the door closed. I ran back up the stairs and banged on the door. I yelled out saying how sorry I was, but there was no answer. And then the plan came.”
This got Churchie’s attention. He felt Wally was getting to the crux of the matter. “What plan, Wal?”
“I slept the night in the park. I had done that a few times before. I knew they would be gone to work by eight-thirty so I went back to the house. The shed’s never locked, so I got in there and found some petrol. I went round the back of the house, poured petrol on the balcony and back door. I smoked, so I had matches. So I lit a match, threw it on the petrol and ran. At one stage, I stopped and looked back and I could see the smoke and could hear the sirens. I kept running.
“Did the whole house burn down?”
“No . . . I went back to the house later in the day. A few people were standing looking at the house. Only the back half was badly burnt, so I don’t know what they were looking at. I heard my mum behind me, asking me if I was happy now and that I was a brat and belonged in hell. She slapped me in the face. After that I just walked away and kept walking. That was the last time I saw my Mum.”
“How long ago was that, Wal?”
“Not sure.” Wally thought about it. “Must be close to twenty years.”
Churchie sighed. What had happened here? Why would a mother desert a child, put him out on the streets?
Wally was still speaking. “They found me a few days later, in the city.”
“You know, Wally, you were screaming out for attention. No one was listening. The fire was your last call for help.”
“I know, Churchie . . . I blended in to the streets after that.”
Churchie put his hand on Wally’s shoulder. “Can I say a short prayer for you, Wal?”
“Mel and I spoke about this a while ago. We’ve noticed that you’re really getting into this prayer stuff. We aren’t sure if it works but, I’m happy for you to pray for me.”
“Lord, what a mess we have made of things. I bring Wally into your presence and ask that you may start a work in his heart so that the truth will be revealed to him. I also ask, Father, that you bring healing to his heart. Healing and forgiveness. I ask these things in the name of Jesus.”
“Thanks, Churchie. That was nice. I suppose you believe in hell, too?”
“Yes, I do, Wally. Do you?”
“No, because if it’s real, that’s where I’m going. Then again, I sometimes think maybe I’m already there.”
Churchie reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a small notebook. He held it up to Wally. “My favourite sayings. I write them down because my memory isn’t that great.” He flipped through a few pages. “Ah, here it is . . . a description of hell for you.”
“Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the fire, now raised into the air by the flames with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear.”
Churchie closed his notebook and, putting it back in his shirt pocket, he looked at Wally. “Pretty gruesome, hey? That’s a vision of hell given to three young Portuguese shepherds by an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the early 1900s. The Virgin Mary was the mother of Jesus.”
