Westpoint Tales - Jon & Bobby's Tale, 6

Jon didn’t go home that night. Nobody noticed, they didn’t keep that close a watch on his quiet comings and goings, but Billy and Bobby Lyons came looking for him, just after dark; he was not there. He still wasn’t there when they came back early next morning.

Next morning, the local radio reported the name and age of the missing, presumed dead, man. He wasn’t a local, just a visitor. But they also reported the name of a second victim of the shark attack, and she was a local. Mary Hales, aged 32, died of the injuries despite the best efforts of the hospital staff overnight. The other two wounded were in a ‘satisfactory’ condition.

Mrs. Lyons and her daughter, Justine, drove out to the North Beach for their usual, early-morning, brisk walk. Her sons, Billy and Bobby, went with them, for once. They didn’t want to walk, they just wanted to check-out the beach. They had pleaded with her to go to Carver’s Beach, for once, but she wouldn’t, so they went with her anyway, to the North Beach. There was nothing to be seen there; just the usual sand, surf and the skeletons of a thousand dead trees.

Mrs. Lyons and Justine strode off down the beach, leaving Billy and Bobby sitting on a log next to the car. Billy jumped up and stood on the log, looking out to sea.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Bobby stood up next to him.

“Oh, nothing. I thought I saw something. It looked like blood out on the water.”

“It’d be a bloody lot of blood for you to see it from here. I can’t see anything. No, wait! What’s that coming?”

Something was coming in on the surf; then he stood up. A person staggered up out of the water and dropped to his knees on the wet sand. As they got closer, they realised that it was him. “Jon!”

A bedraggled, bloody and obviously exhausted Jon looked up at the brothers and grinned weakly. “Hey guys.”

“Jon! What the hell happened to you?” Bobby dropped down next to him.

“Not much,” he shrugged. “Well, she did – she happened to me.”

He looked back to where the waves were pushing in the carcass of a huge gray shark.

“And I happened to her. In the words of Edmund Hilary, “I knocked the bugger off.”” He bent forward, vomiting on the beach.

“Oh, shit! Billy, get Mum.”

“What do you mean, ‘get Mum’? She’s away down the beach.”

“Get in the frigging car and go and get her! Hurry up, Billy, he’s hurt.”

“I can see that! Okay, okay – I’m going.”

Billy ran back and got into the car. Before he drove off down the beach, he stopped and passed out the first-aid kit to Bobby, and then sped off down the beach to get their mother.

He soon found her, that wasn’t hard to do on the long open beach. While she was not happy about her car being driven on the salty sand, Mrs. Lyons soon caught his urgency. She was a doctor’s wife, and an ex-nurse, after all. She got into the car, pushing Billy out of the driver’s seat, Justine got in the back and they circled around and sped back to where Bobby and the strange kid were.

They poured out of the car and bent over Bobby and the other boy. Jon was lying on his back, one arm bent over his eyes. He was naked but Bobby had laid a scrap of material over his groin. He was covered in blood – not deep cuts, just angry red patches where the skin had been scraped off. Well, mostly. Bobby was busy swabbing the wounds clean and covering them with patches of gauze and he was crying as he worked. (?)

“Hey! It’s Jon, from Craddocks’ Supermarket,” said Justine. “Oh boy, what a mess! That’s going to hurt. What happened to him?”

“Umm, that did.” Bobby wiped his eyes and pointed to the dead shark lying on the beach. “Please Mum! We have to help him. What can we do?”

She inspected her boy’s handwork so far. “Looks like you’re doing pretty well as it is. That first-aid training wasn’t a complete waste of time and money. Just keep on cleaning him up. Billy, get my cell from the glove-box and ring for an ambulance.”

Billy climbed back into the car and got on the phone. Justine stood looking at the long, bloody lump on the sand.

“What is that thing anyway?”

“It’s a shark of course, Doofus. What do you think it is? It’s a gray-nurse or something like that. Jon killed it.”

“He did? Wow! That must be the shark that attacked the people at Carver’s Beach yesterday. Looks like it’s fucking near killed him too.”

“Watch your language, Justine,” said her mother as she worked away, swabbing a wound on the boy’s right shoulder. “There’s no need for that sort of talk. He’s far from dead, these are just flesh wounds. Well, mostly they are – I don’t like the look of that gash on his side here.”

“Is he going to be all right, Mum?” Bobby pleaded.

“I’m all right. I’m okay,” Jon croaked through salt-dried lips. “I’m just tired – so tired.”

“Well good,” said Mrs. Lyons. “You just lay back and rest. He’s going to be fine, Bobby. Give him some water, Billy. Where the fuck is that ambulance?”

She lifted her head and smiled as she heard the siren screaming. The ambulance was coming up Derby Street. “Well good, about time too!”

“Watch your language, Mum. No need for that sort of talk,” Justine grinned.

The ambulance arrived at the back of the beach and the medics came running down and took charge. As they lifted the stretcher and started back, one of them said, “Well done, Mrs. Lyons. You’ve looked after him well.”

“It wasn’t me, it was my boys,” she said proudly. “Well done, Bobby and Billy.”

“Yeah, good job, Boys,” said the medic. “Maybe you’ll be doctors like your dad.”

They slid the stretcher into the ambulance. Bobby and Billy wanted to get in too, but they weren’t allowed.

“Sorry, Kids. There’s no room for you.”

“Come on, Boys,” said their mother. “We’ll look in at the hospital on our way home.”

The four Lyons got into their car, buckled up and followed the others back into town. Justine looked back at Billy and Bobby.

“What the hell are you crying for, Bobby?”

“I dunno,” he sobbed. “It’s just not fair. He’s so beautiful and he’s so hurt.”

“He’s going to hurt all right, but he’ll live. He will get better.” Mrs. Lyons looked, wondering, at Bobby in the rear-view mirror. (Her kids were growing up but the mirror was still set so that she could watch them in the back seat.)

At the hospital, they sat and waited, forever, while the boy was being tended to. Mrs. Lyons hated this place. She used to work here and her husband still did, but she hated it. So much pain and suffering had come in through those doors and they didn’t all walk out either. At last! Dr. Lyons came out to see his family.

“Hey, Guys.”

“Bill,” she said, standing up. “At last! How is he?”

“The kid’s fine – no worries. I’ve just stitched him up and we’ll let him sleep a while – 24 hours at least, I think. What happened to him? A shark attack, wasn’t it?”

“”Yeah, it was. He attacked the shark and he killed it too,” Billy grinned.

“Someone should do something about that too,” Justine said. “That carcass is probably worth a lot of money. I’ll get granddad to go and recover it. He’ll know what to do.”

“Yes. Good thinking, Girl.” Her father agreed. “Your granddad will know for sure. He’s been hauling fishy things out of the sea forever. You boys did a really good job there. I don’t think he was ever going to die, but you’ve saved him a lot of pain and discomfort. Scars too, probably.”

“It wasn’t me,” said Billy. “Bobby patched him up. All I did was to run away and get Mum.”

“That had to be done too,” the teary-eyed Bobby replied. “Is he going to be all right, Dad?”

“Yes, of course he is. He’s going to be fine, but he could have bled to death if you weren’t there you know.”

“Thank goodness that we were there then. But, someone would have found him. Someone would have done something.”

“Someone did find him, Bobby. You found him and you did exactly what needed to be done. Well done, son.”

Bobby started crying again and his brother wrapped his arms around him, holding him and comforting him. Mrs. Lyons looked over at her boys, and then turned as Sergeant Jamieson came in.

“Hello Lyons,” he grinned. “Looks like we’ve got another injured boy-hero. How is he, Bill?”

“Hello, Paul. He’s fine, sleeping comfortably. He won’t be so comfortable when he wakes up, but he’ll survive. No worries.”

Mrs. Lyons looked aghast at the policeman. An injured boy-hero? Oh, Lord! Memories, old long-forgotten memories came flooding back. Bobby? Billy? Damm! Her boys couldn’t be gay, could they?

She looked intently at her crying teenagers. Could they? How did her mother ever cope with that? She wished that she was still around. Sometimes she really missed her mum. Sometimes, she still needed her, but she was gone.

Well, other boys were like that and they coped, they managed. Mostly. Sometimes. But – her boys? They weren’t babies anymore, they were growing up – Fifteen. Well, 14 and 15 Where had the years gone? They were both older than Peter when he . . .Peter was doing all right now, but it hadn’t always been like that.

Her boys? No, Billy wasn’t gay, definitely not. She wasn’t so sure about Bobby though. He was so upset. And, this boy might be a hero, he stopped that armed robbery and he’s killed the killer shark, but he’s so – weird! So strange. Swimming all the time with the seals and things. She’d like to see her dad meet him, he’d give him seals!