Just out from the five year anniversary of this event, I feel it is finally time to publish this and be done with it. This was written a few days after it happened. It is raw, emotional, graphic, long and full of bad language.
I had always had an ambivalent relationship with the word “hero” until people started calling me one. Then I came to loathe the word.
Perhaps an odd reaction but I love words and feel infinitely more comfortable having strong relationships with words than with people.
It wouldn’t have mattered if the word “hero” was preceded by “accidental” or “unwilling” or “reluctant” or even something stronger such as “angry”, “furious” or “indignant”. No matter what word came before hero, in my case I didn’t want to be one.
I had gone to work that morning. There was something slightly different. Our company’s MD (and one of my dearest friends) was in Brisbane, up from Melbourne and was staying with me. This happened in a kind of regular routine. M would stay with me, work in the office and make sure any wheels which had fallen off the proverbial track in the machinations of our business were back rolling along as they should.
That morning we left my place with the usual discussion – should we take the CityCat or the bus to work? A first world dilemma if ever there was one. I don’t remember our reasoning but we opted for the bus. Perhaps it was likely to rain and the bus seemed a drier option. It was a brutally hot day in Brisbane. It was October 24, 2012.
Our bus drove past the house of our colleague John. He lived across the road from me – or rather I lived across the road from him. I had bought my townhouse the year earlier after having shared John’s house for a tortuous 18 months with my teenage son, dog and cat. John is a good enough bloke. Messy, stuck in his ways and has lived in this rundown, ghetto-like house for about 13 years. The rent was cheap and the place close to town so the trip to work was a short one. But they were the only redeeming features of the place. John and a succession of dubious housemates had not cared for the place and the landlord didn’t seem to much care either as he waited for an opportunity to pull it down and develop the block with townhouses.
We arrived at work at about 7.30am. Pretty usual. We work in an online publishing company. I am the editor. It was a Wednesday and Wednesday is one of our biggest publishing days. Our flagship weekly publication is produced each Wednesday and a lot of leg work went in to preparing for Thursday’s publication of multiple other publications.
I was already in a bad mood. I had woken at 2am from a terrible nightmare where I was alone and terrified. I was terrified I was alone. I am alone a lot and terror is not something I experience as a result, but in this instance the terror was palpable. I couldn’t shake the sickening feeling which had accompanied the dream. I have always been a very detailed, visual dreamer and often emotions which rise to the surface do cast a pallor over my day but this was unusually strong and would not abate. I had been under enormous pressure in the last few months at work and in my personal life and already felt I was hanging on by a thread so this did little to improve my general disposition.
It was odd John, one of our journalists, was not in the office. On Wednesdays he usually beat me in there. By about 8am as other staff started to wander in, there were some odd murmurings about John’s absence. But he had been showing signs of real weariness of late and I figured he was giving himself a late start. No biggie given he works his hours and I am pretty flexible as long as the work is done.
By 8.30am I was getting pretty annoyed. We were already a man down due to a journalist being on sick leave and I was depending on John. He wasn’t answering his mobile phone but this is not unusual in itself as he rarely had the thing turned on. Not a lot of people call John. Someone mentioned they had heard him on the phone booking his car in for some time that week. I called the mechanic and was told it was booked in for the following day.
Perhaps he had a doctor’s appointment and thought he had mentioned it. Hell, I was so stressed that perhaps he had mentioned it and I had forgoten. M thought there was a chance he had said something to her about an appointment and she may have forgotten. Stress had become prevalent for everyone in our office and we were at a loss to bring it under control so some things had started to slip.
I alternated between concern for and anger at John. As the morning progressed and my calls to his phone continued to be met with voicemail, both my concern and anger grew. I tried in vain to contact a couple of neighbours to ask them to walk across the road and just check John was alright.
He was a big guy who did not look after himself. I started to fear he had suffered a heart attack. Or perhaps the calamitous old house had finally claimed him. Once I had fallen through rotting floor boards on the landing at the top of the stairs. I fell up to my knees and had to be pulled out by my son. I hated that house with a passion.
My son Jake was coming in to the office that morning. I figured I would wait for Jake to get the keys and ask him to check on John when he got home. We had a spare key to John’s so it made sense.
But time kept ticking and the unease kept growing. M and I were becoming increasingly concerned and there was a ripple of worry working its way through the office.
I turned to M at 10am and said I was starting to get really worried. She said one of us needed to go to check on John. We just about tossed a coin as to who it should be. We looked out to the floor of the office and debated the virtues of sending each staff member. But in the end we decided it needed to be one of us. For the sake of ease, I decided it should be me. I knew where the spare key to John’s house was. Rather than giving instructions to M, I would just do it myself.
But our ritualistic 10am morning tea was ready so we sat and had a cuppa along with the rest of the staff before I was to set off. At morning tea we sat around the table in the conference room and talked shit as we often do. John’s name was mentioned a few times but it was in passing as there was some conjecture about what was happening with him. The heart attack theme was recurring. But we also talked about politics and a book M had been reading about the way dogs think and function. Normally I hang around for the full 30 minutes or so morning tea is in swing, but I had an enormous amount of work to do and was increasingly anxious about John so I left the office at 10.19am.
It was an odd taxi trip. John’s place is only about 10 minutes away but I had such a strong sense of disquiet descend on me on the way. When I had left the office, my biggest fear was that John may have had a heart attack and I was going to find him dead and naked. I have seen more than enough dead bodies in my lifetime having been a news journalist for a long time. But I imagined it would be quite different knowing the person. And I really could live without ever seeing John naked.
I had intended to go to my place first and grab the spare key. But for some reason I asked the taxi to stop out the front of John’s. I don’t know why. Maybe I figured I would just have a look around and if I needed to I would get the key. I also nearly asked the taxi driver to wait. I recognise now that was part of me hoping this would be a quick trip and I would be back in the office in no time. That was not going to happen.
I got out of the taxi and saw John’s car was in the driveway. Expected. I had a look downstairs around the old weatherboard Queenslander. I couldn’t see him hanging through the landing or any of the rotting stairs. Again, I wavered on whether to go home and get the spare key. But hey, I was there so up the stairs I walked, carefully as I always did on the rickety old things afraid they would not be able to take my weight.
I reached the top of the stairs and was so busy looking at where my feet were placed on the landing avoiding the most rotten of the wood that I didn’t even see the man walking down the hallway inside the hours towards the front door.
It was not John. Very weird. John lived by himself and doesn’t have a lot of friends. He would surely have told me if he had a new housemate. I didn’t have to knock. The stranger came to the door and opened it. Very calm.
“Is John home?” I asked.
“No, he’s not,” was the response.
I was already off kilter. Who was this guy and why was he in John’s house? I didn’t have enough time to draw breath before something behind him caught my attention. I moved slightly to my left to look around him and I could see John at the end of the hallway, lying on the floor and waving his arm.
“I can see John there,” I said pointing down the hallway towards the back of the house.
“Well you had better come in then,” the stranger said, calm as you like.
My brain was in high gear trying to work out what exactly was happening. Who was the guy? Why the hell was John lying on the floor? I surmised John had hurt his back and that’s why he was lying on the ground. I could see from a distance he had a pillow under his head. I wondered why if he had called this guy – perhaps a new friend – why the hell hadn’t he called the office to say he wouldn’t be in. And again, who was the guy?
I left the front door open and followed the stranger down the hallway. On the way to where John was lying, the stranger said something about an ambulance. My head was working so fast I hadn’t caught all the words which had come out of his mouth.
I was getting closer to John and the closer I got, the more I realised I had walked into a situation which wasn’t making sense.
I had nearly reached John when I realised there was blood. Lots of it. John was covered in it. There was a large pool of blood to the side of his body which went all the way to his feet. He had large pools of blood congealed on his shirt and his pants. His left ear was mangled beyond recognition and while there was a lot of blood pooled inside what had once been his ear, my attention was drawn to a trickle of dried blood from the ear. The trickle went across his face, ran along the contour of his top lip as if it were lip liner which had been carefully applied, and ran down the right side of his chin and off onto his chest.
John was conscious and his arm was shaking quite violently, involuntarily. But he was not moving his body or his head. I realised the stranger had placed himself between the front door and myself.
“Um, did you say you had called an ambulance or should I?” I asked trying very hard to keep my voice calm.
“I haven’t called one,” the stranger replied.
John spoke for the first time: “Angie, this is Daniel”. I knew at that moment I was in trouble. We both were. Daniel was John’s old housemate who had lived in the house before I moved in with my son and dog and cat. He was unstable. A certifiable psycho. At one point he had been living in the roof of the house. John had talked of some of the trouble he had with Daniel before. Because of him we very nearly didn’t move in, but desperation makes us make unconventional choices.
“Yes, I am Daniel and this is my bag,” the stranger said. At this point he walked towards his bag and John’s arm started to shake more violently.
“Okay Daniel, I’m Angie. I’m going to call an ambulance. Is that alright with you?” I asked as calmly as my voice and reeling head would allow all the while a voice deep inside of me repeating over and over, breathe, just breathe.
“Yeah, I guess you had better do that,” Daniel said.
I asked John if he was alright. I could see he was conscious but had no idea what his mental state was; how he was. “He assaulted me”. It was a simple statement but gave me the information I needed. We were both in trouble here and how I reacted was going to make a huge difference to how this turned out.
“Alleged assault,” Daniel retorted quickly, just starting to lose the veneer of calm.
I had dialled 000 at this stage and asked for an ambulance. “I am in the house of a colleague who says he has been assaulted,” I told the operator. “The man alleged to have done the assault is also here with me.”
“He is in the house with you?” the operator asked.
“Yes.”
“Is he in the same room?
“Yes and there is quite a lot of blood so I think it would be good if the ambulance could get here quickly.”
“Are you in danger?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Do you fear for your safety?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will stay on the phone until the ambulance comes.”
“That would be really good,” I say working hard to not let my voice betray the rising panic I am feeling. “Let’s do that.”
Then I turn to Daniel. “Daniel, should I get the police as well? With John saying it’s an assault, you should be able to have your say about what happened.”
I will never understand why he said yes. I will never understand why he allowed me to call an ambulance. I will never understand why I had to walk in on this situation. He nodded.
“Could we get the police here as well please,” I tell the operator working hard to keep my voice calm. Breathe, just breathe.
“You’re doing a good job there,” the emergency services operator says. “I’ll just stay here on the phone with you and ask some questions, okay?”
“Sure,” I respond. Then Daniel, who had taken a seat when I started talking to the emergency services operator, stood up and started walking towards his bag again.
“Daniel mate, I need you just to take a seat mate,” I say, working like the devil himself to keep my voice calm. “I just want us all to be okay here and for me to feel comfortable, I need you to just stay in your seat. Can you do that for me?”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said sitting back down again.
“That’s good Daniel. I’m really pleased to hear you say that, but again, for me to feel comfortable here, I need you just to stay in that seat okay.”
“Sure,” he says calm as you like.
The room is hot. Hotter than hell. It is a stinking Queensland day and this house always had shit airflow. The back door, which is right behind me is closed. And the smell of blood is starting to get to me.
“Man it’s hot in here,” I say to Daniel.
“It’s the roof,” he offers. “No ventilation.”
“Is that so?” I say like I don’t know. “I’m just going to open this door to get some air in here. Is that okay?” I ask Daniel. He tells me that’s fine and while I am aware I could never outrun him, at least I have some hope of a quick exit if it comes down to it. He is still sitting down but his chair is just one step away from him being between the open front door and my escape route. I open the back door but there is no relief from the heat or the smell or my fear.
The operator asks me if I can find out what happened.
“John, Daniel, can you tell me what happened?” I am looking at the blood and crouch down to hold John’s shaking hand. I am reassuring him an ambulance is coming.
“I’m okay,” he says. “Daniel assaulted me. He hit me.”
The operator asks me what John was hit with. I ask Daniel.
“It’s there,” he says pointing to the table. I look but can’t see anything. “It’s there,” he points again, just a tad agitated. I stand up and take a step to my right and to my horror look down and see a weapon covered in dried blood on the table.
“It’s a, it’s a, it’s a hammer,” I stammer trying to tell the operator, pleading with myself to stay calm. But it’s not a hammer. My brain can’t find the right word. “No, not a hammer, it’s a, a, an axe. No not an axe, a, a,” I’m panicking and need my voice not to betray me and feeling desperate to keep calm so Daniel stays calm. A voice in my head tells me it won’t take much to set him off.
“Hatchet,” John says from the floor. “Hatchet.”
Always feeling safer in words than reality, hearing the correct word finally is oddly comforting to me while the sight of the hatchet horrifies me. I know I can’t touch it. It is evidence and if move it, it could set Daniel off. But it is within his reach from where he is sitting. I keep telling myself to keep my shit together here. John’s life and my life depend on how I respond here. I have got to stay calm. No matter what, I have got to stay calm. Breathe, just breathe.
“It’s a hatchet,” I tell the operator. “John was allegedly hit with a hatchet.” I look up and see Daniel is standing again and at his bag which is on the lounge, just out of reach from Daniel when he is sitting. John’s shaking becomes more violent again. I realise John becomes more distressed when he sees Daniel at the bag. I don’t understand why but if John, who is working hard himself to stay calm, is upset by this, I need to be wary.
“Daniel, mate, I need you sit down please. For me to be comfortable, I need you to sit down. Can you please do that for me?” My voice has to sound authoritative but not demanding and not pleading. He sits. I am trying to keep him calm.
“Daniel, are you hurt? Do you want me to get an ambulance for you? It’s no problem to get a second ambulance.” He needs to believe I am trying to look out for him as well. Anything to keep him calm and not angered.
“I’m fine,” he says. And my head is spinning. Why does he keep going for his bag? And then something on the floor catches my eye. It is about 5cm of a blade of a very shiny, very sharp knife. I instinctively know this is also a very large knife. Curved unlike an ordinary kitchen knife. One of John’s sarongs is covering most of the knife.
Whose knife is this? Is it another weapon of Daniel’s? Is it John’s that he had grabbed it in a bid to protect himself? WHO THE HELL OWNS THE KNIFE? I put my foot over the knife and resolve not to move my foot until the police arrive.
I am holding onto the phone for grim life. The operator’s voice again. “How is John?”
I ask and John tells me he is okay. Daniel tells me he has checked and John’s blood pressure and pulse are steady; he is fine. This guy is fucking demented, I think to myself.
“That’s good Daniel. It’s good you checked.” John is conscious and lucid but the shaking in his arm is getting worse and every now and then his whole body starts to shake.
The operator asks me a series of questions.
“What are his injuries?”
I am dumbstruck. I don’ know. I don’ know what the injuries are other than his ear, but that is not enough to stop John from moving. I don’t know where he is hurt. I ask John and he indicates the back of his head. I pass this on to the operator and try to process this. John has been hit in the back of his head with a hatchet. He can move his arm and is conscious but he isn’t moving the rest of his body. Good God, how bad is this? Is he paralysed? Does he have brain damage?
The questions from the operator keep coming.
“When did this happen John?”
“Last night,” he says. I look at him incredulously. But it’s coming on to 11am. He must be confused I think but then I realise he is wearing the same clothes he wore to work the day before. The horror dawns on me and it is all I can do to not explode at Daniel for leaving him there all night. “8 o’clock,” John adds. I count it up. More than 14 hours John has been like this. What the fuck happened last night?
I tell the operator, “last night, 8pm. Is that right Daniel?”
“I’ll tell my story to the police,” he says.
“That’s fine Daniel. You don’t need to say anything now.”
“Did he lose consciousness?” the operator asks.
I ask both Daniel and John and both assure me he did not. Again Daniel tells me he checked and his blood pressure and pulse are steady. His pulse he can check, his BP he can’t. How deluded is this man?
And then it is quite. So very, very quiet. The operator checks I am still on the phone. I tell him I am. The silence is agitating me and I can see it is starting to get to Daniel. So I start talking. Just dribble is coming out of my mouth.
“It is hot as all buggery in the office,” I tell John as I lean down to hold his hand again, being sure to keep my foot on the knife which I realise Daniel cannot see from where he is. “The air conditioning is broken and you know what that place is like when the air con isn’t working. And I don’t know if you have noticed, but it’s a bloody hot day.”
John is smiling, engaged.
I ask Daniel how he is doing. He tells me he is fine. That’s all I want to hear.
“Jake has a job interview today,” I tell John who knows the issue of my son Jake not working has been a serious bone of contention in my home. “Oh yeah, where at?” he asks. We pass what seems like hours like this. Small talk, watching Daniel, holding John’s hand when the shaking is at its worst.
“So how far away is the ambulance?” I ask the operator. “Because John has lost quite a lot of blood here.”
“The ambulance is around the corner but they can’t come in until the police clear the place.”
“Oh,” I say trying to not give anything away. “Ok, when do you think that might be?”
“They are on their way.”
“Yeah, you have said that. So how far away is that ambulance then?” I ask again. I am not prepared to use the word police again in front of Daniel. I don’t want to spook him.
This operator knows his stuff. The police are not far away, he tells me.
“Ummm-hmm. I reckon it would be good if we could get that happening. I am a bit concerned about the blood loss.”
“Are you concerned for your safety?” he asks.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Are you in danger?”
“Yeah, I think so. Not sure, maybe. Can’t say for sure.”
Daniel gets up from his seat again and moves towards his bag. “Come on Daniel, we’re all going to stay where we are,” I say. “We talked about this.”
“I am not going to hurt you,” he repeats.
“And again I am glad to hear you say that, but I do need you to stay in that chair okay?”
He docilely takes his seat again. I can see him thinking but have no idea what the hell is going on in that head of his. It scares me. I haven’t smoked for seven years but I would do almost anything for a cigarette. Or a scotch. Or a joint. Or the police. What the hell is taking them so long? We are five minutes at most from a number of police stations.
And M must be wondering what the hell has happened. She would know I have been at John’s for a while now and would think it curious I haven’t called her. Oh my God, I think, I nearly sent Jake over here to check on John. And immediately some rational part of my mind tells me there will be plenty of time to think about that later. Stay present. I need to be right here, right now because a couple of lives depend on it. And for God’s sake, stay calm. Breathe, just breathe.
Daniel tells me he can hear the sirens, it’s the ambulance he tells me. Dumbass, I think. And I am trying not to look at his face because it is making me angry. Why the fuck didn’t he call an ambulance? Why the hell did he do this? Was there a struggle or did he blind-side John? And what the hell injuries does John have? There is blood but I can’t see from where or what. John must have been terrified. I know I am and I wasn’t hit in the head with a hatchet. I have been in the house for I don’t know how long but John was attacked nearly 15 hours ago.
Seriously brain, not now. Stay present. Right here, right now. Fucking breathe.
But the sirens are not the police for us either. The sirens move closer and then they move away. Then there are more sirens and they move closer and then away.
Then incredulously my mobile phone starts ringing. I shake with terror realising I had been cut off. My hand is shaking so much I can’t answer the phone. John is looking at me anxiously but my fingers will not make the phone respond. Daniel stands up and my panic grows until finally, I hear a voice on the other end. It is the same operator. He checks I am okay. I repeat it would be good if the ambulance would hurry.
I am sure my voice is starting to betray me by now. I am finding it harder to stay calm and the heat and the smells in the room are starting to overpower me. I start to feel faint and know full well it will be the end of me if I pass out.
“Okay, sounds like those sirens are getting closer,” I say and it is enough for Daniel to take his hands off his bag and sit down again. But I can’t hear any sirens. Things really are starting to whirl for me again. Breathe Ange, just breathe and we’ll get through this.
And then there is a policeman at the door. He is looking straight at me and calls out “is anybody home?” I stare at him disbelievingly. “Yes,” I answer with one hell of a smarmy tone. He calls out again and I answer again. Then he asks if there anyone is armed. I say no, it is ok to come in.
And then I want to fall apart but there is still business to take care of. Two policeman walk down the hallway and I indicate the hatchet on the table and once both are next to Daniel, I take my foot off the knife on the floor and point it out to the police. Then the ambulance finally arrives and I step out onto the back deck and call M.
“There is a situation here,” I tell her feeling completely on edge and aware I am possibly just moments away from hysteria. “Daniel broke into John’s house and took to him with a hatchet. He is conscious and lucid. The police and ambulance are here. I can’t say much more or else I will fall apart. I will call you back as soon as I can.” I can hear her suck in her breath as I am speaking. I want to tell her I have been terrified and I want desperately to cry but I need to take care of business. I have come this far, just gotta keep breathing.
I walk back inside and the police are talking to Daniel. The ambulance crew is working on John. John motions for me. I kneel down to him and he tells me Daniel had said there was a gun in his bag. Did we know about the gun, he asks.
I immediately jump to my feet and approach one of the police, call him away from Daniel and tell him what John just said. Reflexively he puts his hand on his own gun. They check the bag and I see knives and scissors fall out. It is more than I need to see. I feel sick. Daniel kept moving towards his bag. Was he planning on taking one of these weapons and using it on me? John couldn’t have helped me. John couldn’t move. The full extent of my vulnerability hits me and I want to vomit and cry and scream like a lunatic all at once. And I am trying so hard to just keep my shit together. One of the officers has Daniel up and in handcuffs on the back deck. I am taken to the front door. I warn them to be careful of the landing and the rotting wood.
And then the questions start. The ambulance woman is coming and going. I keep asking how John is. She tells me it is a serious injury. They won’t know until they get him to hospital. She asks me a number of times if I am okay. I can’t answer honestly. I just meekly say yes. She hesitates a couple of time but she returns her attention to the man with the hatchet wounds to the head.
Then one of the police officers approaches the officer talking to me and shows him a pic on his iPhone of the head injury. I tell him I want to see it. He refuses. I am clear – show me the pic or I walk in there and look at the actual injury and I would prefer to see the pic. He shows me. I wish I hadn’t asked. It is deep. It is horrifying. It is in the top quarter of the left hand side of his head. It is gaping.
At the police station I check my phone log. My call to the emergency services operators was 14 minutes and 25 seconds. I feel sick. It was such a long, long time. An eternity of uncertainty. It is only three days later that I remember I haven’t factored in the call back from the operator after I was cut off. All up I waited 20 minutes for the police to arrive. I am angry then.
I don’t know what to do now. I cry a lot. And I drink. And I am having nightmares and every time I see or hear John all I can see is him lying there covered in blood and helpless. He seems to be doing fine. I don’t get it. How can he be doing so much better than I am? It makes me feel weak and pathetic and useless.
And every time someone calls me a hero, I want to scream. Because I don’t feel like a hero. I feel like someone who was put in an awful position. Who didn’t want to be there. Who doesn’t know what to do with her life now. Who keeps wondering why and is receiving no answers.
There are a hundred thousand aspects of this I do not understand. A hundred thousand questions I will never have answers to. And one image I cannot shake.
I was able to breathe that day until the police came; through the police interview; when I got home and fell apart; when I went to the hospital with M to see John; when we went to John’s to try and clean up; when I went to bed and kept seeing John lying there covered in blood over and over and over.
But now, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to respond. I don’t know how to be. And I am angry
NOTE: Nearly five years on, I’m sober, much less angry and still learning to live life again. John is doing well. Daniel is in jail.
Australia is a pretty casual society when it comes right down to it; and the closer you get to the Coast and those beautiful beaches we Aussies adore, the more casual the vibe is. Which is awesome, unless you are trying to find work or have fallen into the uncertain lifestyle and irregular income that is an ever-increasing casualised workforce – or as the optimists and spin merchants like to say, “the gig economy”.
Angie Kay's travels 