An Accidental Parent

The hitch-hiker.

It had been nearly two years since my life partner of two decades had died, and in February 2014 I had finally made the move away from the Australian capital to rural eastern Victoria.

The sale of my previous home had allowed me the luxury of buying suitable land in the quiet seaside village of Marlo, where the Snowy River meets the ocean. I'd had a large kit home erected and fitted out, and had specified a lot of energy-saving features like double-glazing and lots of insulation. I wanted to be comfortable without spending a fortune on heating and cooling.

When I chose my kit home I had elected for a four-bedroom job, even though I was living on my own. I was thinking about resale value, in case I ever had to go into a residential care situation. And I had insisted on an extra-large double garage with plenty of room for storage - you can never have too much garage space.

The downside to living in Marlo was that the nearest hospital was in Bairnsdale, a hundred kilometres away, but I was banking on not needing the hospital any time soon. At the age of 66 I was still fit and healthy, and drove to Bairnsdale every Tuesday and Friday afternoon to do my boxing training class there. I had settled into a comfortable routine in the five months since the move. Grocery shopping was on Tuesday after training, so I didn't get away from town till after 6.30pm. I usually had my oven timer at home programmed to cook or re-heat a dish of food so I would have a hot meal waiting when I arrived home around 7.30pm.

This particular Tuesday I was heading home from Bairnsdale on a chilly mid-July evening, and it was already dark. As I left the built-up area of the town, I spotted a hitch-hiker thumbing a ride. It'd been years since I had given anyone a ride, in fact it was quite uncommon these days to see anyone hitching. But there was plenty of room to pull over to the side of the road, and I did so without a second thought.

The hitch-hiker was a young lad, probably only about 15, carrying a large backpack. "Where'ya headed" I asked and learned the boy was going to Sydney.

"I'm only going as far as Orbost, about an hour from here, then I have to turn off for home, that ok?"

"Better than walking, thanks" replied the boy, and added "my name's Luke".

"I'm Denis, and I don't mean to pry, but isn't it a bit risky hitching at night in the middle of nowhere?" I ventured, to which he responded tersely "Got nowhere to go, so it'll have to do".

I turned up the heating and the music and settled into the drive I'd come to know well since moving here. Luke had closed his eyes and seemed to be sleeping. A little while later, he asked if there was a McDonalds in Orbost. I laughed, and told him Orbost was barely big enough for a McDonalds.

I probed a little by asking "so, how long since you ate?" and he slowly replied "This morning, before I left Melbourne". I followed up with "so you've been on the road all day?" to which the response was a rather dejected "yeah".

Soon the Orbost turnoff appeared ahead. "Hey Luke, this is near where I turn off, I'll pull up in a minute, ok?" I announced as I steered the vehicle to a spot where I could safely stop. Luke undid his seatbelt, and I felt sick in the gut imagining the kid hitching on such a cold night.

"Luke", I said, "stop and think about this. You could freeze to death out there, or fall in the dark and get badly hurt. Why not stay at my place tonight, there's a spare bedroom, then I can drop you back here in the morning. There's no catch, no strings attached. I'm not going to hit on you or anything sick like that. And I have a big dish of lasagne in the oven on a timer, should be almost ready to eat when we get there."

Luke hesitated for a few seconds, but the thought of a hot meal and a bed won out. "OK" he whispered, then added a "thank you". The boy had some manners at least.

Fifteen minutes later we arrived at my house and I showed Luke the spare bedroom. I put a towel on the bed and suggested he have a hot shower to freshen up, and then we'd eat.

I had a quick wash in my en-suite , then took the lasagne from the oven so it could stand for five minutes and whipped up a small salad for us. Luke appeared at the door and I asked him to put out some cutlery for us. He commented that the kitchen was "nice", then added that "I used to cook for my mum and me, just simple stuff".

"Your mother didn't do the cooking?" I queried, and saw the boy's face fall. "Sorry mate, I don't mean to be nosy, I guess maybe you like cooking then?"

"Not especially" came the reply, "but if I didn't do the shopping and cooking she'd just order takeaway every night. I got sick of takeaway pretty fast."

"O-Kay" I murmured, then "well let's serve up and you can tell me whether my cooking is any good".

We tucked into the lasagne and it was obvious the boy was ravenous. I'm not a slow eater but Luke was finished in no time. He looked up from his empty plate, and found me smiling at him. "That hungry, huh? Better serve yourself some more".

Luke wasted no time dishing out another helping of pasta and some more salad, and I couldn't help pressing him for more information about his family circumstances. I asked Luke who he was going to stay with in Sydney, and the reply was disturbing - "I'll find something".

I had visions of this kid ending up on the street in Sydney, begging for money to buy food, and anyone can see what could go wrong with that.

"Luke, please level with me. Where is your home?"

The boy seemed to freeze for a moment, then almost whispered "I was living in Melbourne but my mother is mostly out of it on drugs, and her latest boyfriend isn't a nice person". He paused for a few seconds, before continuing. "He caught me looking at porn on my phone yesterday, and he called me a faggot and said he'd bash me if I did it again. So I packed a bag last night and I headed out first thing this morning. I'm not going back there, no way."

"Jesus, Luke, you should never have to put up with that sort of shit, that guy is an arsehole".

I watched Luke's face as he clearly struggled with his thoughts, then he blurted out "but its true, I am a faggot".

"Luke", I answered "there's nothing wrong with being gay, except that some people have fucked-up attitudes to gay people. I know because I'm gay myself. And I meant what I said earlier, I would never touch a teenager. You're safe here, Luke."

He seemed to relax a little after this exchange. We had some apple pie and ice-cream while the boy opened up a little and told me he was halfway through year 10 study but now he'd just try to get a job somewhere. I told him that I thought by law he had to finish year 10, and that we really ought to figure out some better options than ending up on the streets in Sydney's winter.

"Please trust me Luke, I need to ring one of the guys from my gym, he's a cop and he should know what we can do to help you."

Luke was clearly afraid of being sent back to his home, and said he'd rather be dead than go back. I told him not to panic, that I was on his side and we'd work something out.

I texted Brian, and asked if it was convenient for me to call him - he answered affirmatively so I dialled his number, switched it to speaker mode so Luke could hear both sides of the conversation, and explained the situation. I said I had no reason to doubt what Luke had told me, and I wanted to help him.

Brian told us he needed to file an incident report just in case there was a missing person bulletin for Luke, so I handed the phone to Luke and let him provide his details.

Brian told us we'd need to come to the police station in Bairnsdale and see the duty officer in the morning to make a detailed statement. Then we should see the child services people at DHSS and apply for an emergency temporary care order. If that was approved Luke should be able to stay with me for a while till DHSS had time to fully investigate Luke's circumstances. I thanked Brian and ended the call.

I told him "Luke, if the child services people let you stay here with me, then maybe we can get you into the college at Orbost and you can finish year 10."

Luke was a brave kid to do what he'd done, but he was exhausted and more scared than he'd admit to. He sat silently for a moment, then said "if I can stay here, maybe you could show me how to cook lasagne". And I said he'd soon be making the best lasagne ever.

By now it was after 9pm and I said I was going to crash for the night, as I'm an early riser. "Luke", I said to him, "Try to get a good night's sleep. I promise you I'll do everything I can to give you a safe home for as long as you need it." His eyes filled with tears, he stammered a thank you, and bolted for his bedroom.

Jumping through hoops.

Come six o'clock on Wednesday morning and I woke for the umpteenth time. My mind had been hyperactive all night, thinking about what we had to do today. God, what had I got myself into? I knew nothing about looking after kids, especially a teenager! I threw on my trackies and headed to the kitchen for a coffee. Shortly after I heard the door close in the main bathroom and Luke appeared in the kitchen looking as sleepy as I felt.

I offered to cook eggs and bacon with sausage and tomato - not the healthiest maybe but we were both in the mood for a "big brekkie". Afterwards we had a coffee each and he told me he was "scared shitless" about going to see the child services people in case they made him go back to Melbourne.

I needed this kid to know I was on his side. "Luke, don't stress, I'll fight for you, believe me".

We had our respective showers and got cleaned up and I collected all the ID papers I guessed I would need for me to prove who I was, etc. We were ready to leave by 7.45 as I wanted to be at the DHSS office in Bairnsdale as soon as they opened the doors at 9am. I hoped like hell that we could make a good case for an urgent decision in Luke's favour.

Once we arrived it was nearly an hour before we could see Cynthia, the person who needed to assess the situation, and another hour and a half before we finished talking with her.

I had pointed out that Luke was adamant he would not go back to his mother's house, and that if he was forced to do so he would undoubtedly take off again, and that I wanted to do whatever it took to keep him safe.

I filled in a pile of paperwork including a "working with children" assessment, and as I had expected she wanted some referees who could comment on my suitability. I nominated my coach and my old mate Alex who was a priest in Melbourne and had known me for many years. Cynthia said it would take several more hours to get things moving and suggested we stay in town while she phoned my referees. She took a note of my mobile number, and Luke's as well.

Since we had time to fill, I drove down to the walking path beside the Mitchell River, a spot I had walked before. It was a bit cool, being July, but we had coats in the car and we took a long walk by the river, and managed to get through the patch of forest where all the flying foxes roosted, without getting poo'd or pee'd on. By noon when we headed back into the town centre we were both ready for lunch and I spotted a sushi restaurant. Luke said he had never had sushi so we headed in and had a pleasant meal, Luke being pleasantly surprised to find he liked the food.

After lunch I suggested we have a look at St Mary's Catholic Church. Luke looked a bit pained and said he really didn't "do" religion, so I reassured him that the purpose of visiting the church was to see the amazing paintings on the walls and ceiling of the church - a local version of the Sistine Chapel you might say. They were painted by a visiting Italian artist looking for work in the 1930s. Fortunately there wasn't a service in progress when we arrived so we had the place to ourselves. Luke was stunned by the artwork, as I had been when I first saw it years before.

We had just left the church round three o'clock when Cynthia called to ask us to come in to the office. We got there in record fast time, both of us a bundle of nerves. But the news was reassuring. DHSS would seek an order to appoint me as Luke's carer as a temporary measure and if that was approved I would have to undertake a 2-day training course for carers. After that there would be more paperwork and hoops to jump through but at least it was a start.

Cynthia had checked with Luke's previous school who had told her he was a good student but never had money for excursions or any extra activities, and they wondered about his family as his mother had never had contact with the school since he was enrolled.

The school had emailed a copy of Luke's year-9 results and his last year-10 progress report to Cynthia. She had then called the college at Orbost who agreed they could enrol Luke into a year 10 class when the new term started the following week.

There were things still needing to be arranged, like getting Luke his own Medicare card, but we'd sort that out over the next couple of days. We would need to get a school uniform and who-knows-what-else for Luke so I rang the school to find out what we needed and where to get it. And all the kids would have laptops or tablets, so the next morning I took Luke shopping and after we bought a school uniform, new school shoes and decent sports shoes, I got a shiny new ipad for him.

Things were starting to fall into place. I was excited and pretty nervous about this - hell, I was about to be a kind-of-parent for the first time in my life.

Luke goes back to school.

Luke hadn't played much sport at school in Melbourne, partly through lack of interest in team sport but also because there was no money for tuition, or equipment or excursions. He confessed he had no idea about how to play either football and cricket. But he had done athletics despite apparently not having decent quality running shoes, and said he liked running.

In his first week at Orbost College there was an athletics day and he took part in that. To my delight he smashed the competition when it came to sprints, and that got me thinking. Good sprinters inevitably have plenty of fast-twitch muscle so they can move explosively fast, and that's a big advantage for a boxer too.

So on Friday I persuaded Luke to come to Bairnsdale to do the 5pm boxing class with me. He agreed to come, but was obviously reluctant. But after the session had finished he said he had enjoyed it, and asked if he could come with me next week too. After a fortnight had passed he was training hard and he told me he really liked it; so I bought him his own 16oz gloves and a head-guard.

After another two weeks had passed, with Luke continuing to train solidly, I decided to blow a stack of money fitting out half of my garage with rubber gym matting, a couple of heavy bags, and some dumb-bells, medicine balls, and focus pads. And I made a dental appointment to get him fitted with a proper mouth-guard instead of the cheap "boil and bite" mouth-guards that some people use.

We continued going to the Bairnsdale gym twice weekly but also trained together at home, especially on weekends. Luke turned 16 in early November and we celebrated with dinner at the local hotel in Marlo, just the two of us. I had suggested he could invite a couple of school friends but he said he didn't have anyone he wanted to be with more than me. That really tugged at my emotions.

Since Luke was now old enough to get his learner's permit, I had booked proper driving classes for him in Bairnsdale once a week, as a birthday present. We fitted in a lesson each Friday before we went to the gym. In my day there was very little formal training needed but nowadays there's a mountain of logbook entries that have to be completed and you can't get a probationary licence till you're almost 18. I hadn't realised how much more controlled it had become.

By mid November Luke was doing regular sparring at the boxing club, and his confidence was growing rapidly. I was pleased to see he had developed good defensive style. Without good defence you get nailed, so I always emphasised defensive drills when we worked out at home.

As the school year came closer to ending, I was keeping tabs on Luke's academic progress and it was looking good. I pressed him a few times about his social engagement at school - did he feel welcome, were there any issues, etc. He seemed to be doing fine, though he didn't really have any close friends yet. Luke had apparently kept his personal life close to his chest at the College. He hadn't told anyone about his boxing training, or that he was gay, but one of the footy jocks had made an insulting comment about "faggots" one day when Luke was near enough to hear it.

Then one afternoon in late November, when I arrived at the college to pick up Luke there was a teacher's aide waiting for me and no sign of Luke. "Mr Williams?" she queried and I immediately felt sick at the thought that something must have happened to Luke. She reassured me that Luke was ok but was in the principal's office, and she would show me the way. On being ushered into the office, I found Luke there with another student, and the other boy's mother was there already. Luke had been in a fight.

I asked what had happened and was told that Luke had taken umbrage at a verbal slur and had thrown a punch; the two had obviously given each other some decent bruises before a teacher broke it up. The principal seemed a decent person. He explained that neither boy would be disciplined this time but a repeat incident would have consequences. He asked the other's boys mother and myself to have a good talk with our respective charges and teach them better manners.

Outside the office, heading to the car-park, the other boy approached Luke and said he was sorry he called him a poof, since he obviously wasn't because he could fight. I held my breath as Luke said ever so calmly "But I am a poof. And if that's a problem for you, go see a counsellor". The other boy looked stunned and we walked to the car and headed home.

Once in the car, Luke hung his head and asked "Are you angry at me?"

"Well maybe you shouldn't have thrown the first punch" I said, "because then you get blamed for starting the fight. Better to respond when the other guy takes a shot at you, then its self-defence. And no I'm not angry with you. I'm bloody proud of you for standing up for yourself and proud that you came out just then. But try not to hit the next idiot who mouths off, ok? That last smack-down comment you made was more effective than any punch. Now let's go home and put an ice-pack on those bruises."

Luke was quiet during the 15-minute drive to Marlo. I got an ice-pack out of the freezer, wrapped a tea-towel over it and told him to hold it to his cheek, to reduce the swelling. But I couldn't help asking him "so, did you land some decent punches on the other kid?". He smiled and said he reckoned he gave better than he got. I suggested that maybe he should register for competition and get a few proper fights under his belt. He didn't hesitate - "yeah, I want to have a go at that".

When I pulled into the car park to pick Luke up the next afternoon, I recognised the boy who was standing with Luke. It was the beefy young guy Luke had punched yesterday. This time there was no aggro however.

Once we were on the road I asked what had transpired between them. The other youth, Robbie, had sought him out and struck up a conversation. He admitted that Luke had been getting the better of him in their school-yard scrap, and Luke revealed that was because he had been doing boxing training.

Robbie had asked Luke where he trained because he reckoned he'd like to have a go at boxing too. He was a bit dismayed when he heard he'd have to go to Bairnsdale for it, because his mother worked at a local shop in Orbost till 5pm every night so couldn't drive him to training. Luke had done the decent thing and suggested that maybe I would be able to give Robbie a lift with us. The boys had exchanged phone numbers and Luke promised to text him later.