When I was 13 we moved house. We moved from the three bedroom, 1 bathroom house that my dad built with his own hands, to a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house on 3/4’s of an acre with a pool and garden that back onto a tributary of the Canning River. Even though this new house was only a 15 minute drive away from our old one, the small tracts of agricultural land separating them made it feel like it was forever away.
For half a year Lil Sis and I refused to change schools, getting up early to catch 2 buses and walk quite a distance. Mum even shopped at the old shopping centre we used to frequent. We were excited to be in this lovely new place but we hadn’t counted on being homesick for our old life.
We met our new next door neighbours on the day a young man lost his life. 2 weeks in the new house and we were awoken by the crash and grind of metal. Mum’s bare feet padded quickly to the phone as she called an ambulance without even venturing outside to see what had happened. Mum and dad shooed us inside and asked us to get blankets. His name was Clint and he was only 16. There wasn’t a mark upon him, even though he had been thrown a clear from the car. What mum noticed was his clean white socks, exposed after his shoes had been knocked off. Dad noticed the gurgle in his throat as he left this life.
The neighbours gathered in our driveway that November day, trying to make sense of how the cool, crisp Eucalyptus smelling morning had heralded the death of a boy. One set of neighbours included the District Superintendent of Education in our area. He was quiet and unassuming and there was his raucous red-haired wife who would yell out to him when they were gardening and pull a finger sign if she felt it necessary. The neighbour next door was an older gentlemen with white hair and bushy beard. His name was Albert. They all seemed very nice.
The new garden was very big and in it Mum discovered an almost obsessive love of gardening. One day she was watering by the wooden fence. Albert too was by the fence. Except he had a hose out of a different kind. Mum calmly walked away. Dad calmly went next door and told him if he ever did anything like that again he would kill him.
So from then on, Albert was renamed. We already called him Alby Mangoes. This was a bastardisation of the Australian adventurer Alby Mangels; he was also a film-maker and conservationist who was never short of a busty vixen in Daisy Dukes and bikini top. My sister thought his surname was Mangoes. So next door neighbour Albert ‘Alby Mangoes’ was henceforth known as Pervy Mangoes.
When my sister left school at 15 I was left to walk there by myself, and wouldn’t you know it? Pervy would walk his dog at exactly the same time. He would tell dad ‘Bee is such a lovely little school-girl’ and my skin would crawl. However as we got older he seemed to lose interest. Being innocent my sister and I didn’t even question why – we just thought it was nice to be able to go for a walk without being not-so-surreptitiously followed, or go for a swim without having to see if he was loitering at a decent vantage point in his garden.
When he died some 10 years later, dad went to his funeral and I am not sure why. Perhaps out of respect for his long- suffering wife. When I moved to the country to teach she sold me their funky retro octagonal dining table.
I adored that table.
Pervy Mangoes sounds a lot like some of the old men in one of the neighborhoods I lived in as a child.
What would a childhood be without a resident pervert?
HAHA, I love the name. That’s so weird he said that to your dad, after your dad said he’d kill him. Fucking weirdo.
To Pervy’s credit he did leave a few years before he said it!
Ah yes there is a crusty old man perve in most situations isn’t there?
The clean white socks must be a very haunting memory. Poor kid.
Every year his parents would leave flowers but that stopped after a while. His friend who was driving the car visited us once too.
Oh dear God in Heaven. Creepy!
He was rather!
A couple of stories you mention which I can relate to. There was a man in his mid 30’s that would approach me when I was about 12 years of age that would join me when I would go for a bike ride around the neighbourhood. I could never figure out whether he had a thing for young boys or whether he just wasn’t all mentally there. My old man put a stop to him harassing me quite quickly. My version of pervy mangoes.
7 years ago when I came to Sydney, I drove to a local shopping centre during my lunch break. On my way back to work, I stood second in line at a traffic light in the left most lane turning right. Problem is that lane results in those on the left encountering parked cars on the left of the major road we turn into. The guy in the commodore in front of me decided he was going to try to manouvre as quick as possible post the turn so he can go into the middle lane, instead lost control of the car, went up the footpath and knocked a pedestrian at least 10 metres clear after the pedestrian hit the windscreen of the car. I was immediately behind and watched the man bleed & die in front of me as the ambulance officers eventually arrived & tried to revive him. The imagery is still carved in my skull & I don’t think I slept properly for a month post the incident.
Was it Kenny? There was a guy who used to hang around our old neighbourhood who was in his mid 30s, curly hair, not all there, called Kenny. He was sorta ‘famous’ but not dangerous that I knew of.
Woah Mr H! That is full on
Yeah, u know me Bee, my life is always full on. The guy I’m referring to did have curly jet black hair, coloured eyes even I think. Did u live close to us? We lived on Barson court, next to the park that wasn’t far off Yale Road
Bee, now that my goldfish is in overdrive, I’m recollecting that you lived down the street, at the end of that long street with the cul-de-sac at the end. I used to even see you at times. Is my memory playing tricks on me?
I think it could be the same guy – he got around on his bike a lot. But we lived on the other side of the railway tracks. But you never know, you may have seen me, Lil Sis, Nursey Chick and Stinky riding around.