The Angel and The Gambler (part 1)

The Angel and The Gambler

Lessons in forgiveness, life, love and that you can NEVER judge a book by its cover (or it's colours).

      When I met you I thought somehow that God had answered my prayers.

I was in Church, and you had come along from Mooroolbark with your ailing grandmother.

She could no longer drive herself sadly due to multiple heart-attacks over the past few months.

You had been orphaned early in life, about age 7, and she had raised you.

You were 30 now.

I had come along with friends whom I lived with in Heathmont.

        I had met them after completing an Office of Corrections corse in Automotive - which is ironic since I had been in the company of a car thief and in a stolen car when I was caught by the police.

( Now I knew how to pinch my own car - thanks to the Victorian Justice system!! And ultimately the taxpayer paid for me to be trained how to next time not only steal the car, but how to strip it so as to sell the parts)

     

    This lovely couple regularly attended this Croydon church and were part of the extended network of  "good people" I met through the "youth councillor" the court had set me up with. (God sticks to sinners like glue - and no matter what you do wrong, He is there fixed on you like the talons of an eagle in a rabbit's butt).



    I had dreamed my whole teenage life that one day a man would love me and hold me and make a world, a lifetime, a family with me.

Dreaming never ended once we kissed.

All the time, all day, every day.

I felt you holding my hand even if you were miles away.

      And miles away you often were.

Sometimes, especially when we first fall in love, we don't see clearly.

We do not want to know that anything could possibly go wrong.

 
Further and further you'd go.

Promising to return by night time or swearing adamantly that you'd come around to see me the next morning.

I had believed our friendship was like the two rivers that well-up from the Holy Land.

Then together we'd flow into the endless ocean.

"I don't believe in Jesus" you snapped one day.

You said you'd rather stay lost and never get found and then you laughed.

You told me quite bluntly that death was final once we're in the ground.

I didn't see a problem with this at the start.

Blinded by love for a green eyed older man with thick blonde hair who introduced me to all kinds of worldly wonders, some of which I had and others which I steadfastly refused to inject.

I was taught to accept sinners as children of God.

To forgive them and be supportive.

Church values which are repeated every Sunday as a child, to young adult, to young woman.

Forgive as Jesus would forgive.

And you, the first man I ever thought I loved, were constantly asking for forgiveness.

And forgive you I would.

(Sometimes I used to fear that when I fell asleep that you'd fill the needle and force yourself and your poisons into me.)


We went for a drive.

You told me not to start talking.

Not to go looking at other men.

Not to speak about you or I.

"Find somewhere to sit and shut up" you ordered.

It looked like a party.

A party of dark leathers and loud machines and men with drink for blood and breath.

Of laughter in snarling voices and eyes that prowled all over me like hungry wolves.

I was 16 years old.

I was your property, yet you cast me adrift in a sea of strangers tonight so you could "fix up something".

I focused on the bikes.

Alas, knowing very little about them, there was not much chance of just nicking off on one and disappearing up the Dandenong's.

However I much delighted in looking at such beauty.

"If God himself made machines, then these are it" I thought to myself.

I kept my eyes averted from those of other men so as not to stare for too long and attract a crooked paramour.

Perhaps virgins have a stronger scent than willing women in season.

For no sooner had I found a seat on a fallen old gumtree, that a voice spoke cold, firm, yet inquisitive.

"What's the bet I'm right in saying you've never been here before?"

I grinned. "I have nothing to bet. But you are right. I came with Colin"

I looked up towards the voice.

The stranger looked back to the bonfire and repeated your name a couple of times.

"Ah, the tall skinny nob with the blonde hair? That fool?"

I sucked in my breath.

"Yep. I'm his girlfriend"

The stranger sucked in their breath, and slowly shook their head.

I all of a sudden realised as the conversation changed to all manner of chit chat, that you weren't very popular.

I felt like laughing. I felt like curling up into a ball and dying.

You were very sensitive about who said what about you.

You hated the idea of anyone talking behind your back.

This stranger was half your hight, stocky and lightly featured with big blue eyes.

Like an Irish rebel or something else from an even more noble and ancient bloodline.

Quite your opposite in a way I couldn’t yet pinpoint.

My age, or close, yet somewhat older from the feel of his spirit.

And he seemed to have a lot more clout and confidence to speak his mind.

His eyes never shifted from one place to another as he spoke to me, like yours often did.

Nor did he look at my breasts, but instead looked me directly in the eyes.

And there I swam in his for a guilty moment, like a lost traveller.

You came out of the house, scanned the yard, I thought you were looking for me.

I called out to you but you did not answer, but instead disappeared again.

The company beside me sighed.

"That'll go on all night. He's an idiot."

When you finally found me you greeted him with a restrained openness.

You introduced me to him by name.

"Nice to meet you Rebekah" he smiled holding out his hand for me to take, his blue eyes glittering, his brown hair short, his eyebrows danced with merry facial expressions.

The grip in his warm, large hand was firm yet gentle.

You took me away and led me to the house.

You asked a woman in the lounge room if you could borrow a spare bed room.

She answered through the wall, without even checking who we were or who was with you or how many.

I thought I was in for another lecture and it pained me that all I had done was sit on a log and get spoken to.

I hadn't looked for conversation, it found me.

No, you wanted something else.

I didn't.

Not here with people stumbling drunk past the door which had no lock.

Not here after you had ignored me all night to (as I now knew) deal your speed, heroin or dope.

I tried to get up to leave.

Suddenly I wanted to sit outside amongst the wolves.

You were rough, nagging and getting abusive.

You were trying all kinds of pleas and emotional blackmail, some almost valid but the rest crude and disgusting.

You were trying to put my hands on places I was not interested in touching at that moment.

You pushed me off the bed and ordered me outside.

The candle of my confidence in you and the innocence that I would have offered you had it's flame snuffed out that night.

I went.




I found a seat outside on the decking, a three seater couch with a view of the party below.

    The bonfire, the old bath filled with ice and alcohol and a couple of large barbeques sizzling away down the back of the yard near an old iron shed.

All n all everyone seemed to be having a great time.

I watched him below me, chatting away to people, weaving in and out and amongst the crowd as if he were all things, friend, host, motivator, comic amusement even peace negotiator, councillor and medic.

He fetched bandage and wrapped some busted knuckles on an older bloke whose temper had got the better of him.

Then he sat and talked another bloke back from anger to laughter.

Time drifted slowly, almost still, in that moment as my utter essence seemed to flow from me, around me and wavered about him. My breath stolen.

My heart hurriedly etched every detail of his face into my memory, lest I never  breath nor see him again.
And when he glanced upwards strait at me my breath returned with an ecstasy I'd never felt before.

I did not hear you approach.

To be continued.......................