September 2010 Issue 102

by Colleen McMillan

Uncle Ernie was the meanest man I’ve ever met. Everything about him was mean, even his stature. His weedy frame did not benefit from his choice of “Vinnies Seconds”, his permanently grubby sandshoes, or some deceased relative’s small round spectacles.

He lived out of town in a small grey house set amid a large untidy garden. Now I say, “grey house” but it was hard to tell because it had only seen paint once in its life, and that was long ago. As for the garden, it would appear that Uncle Ernie was mean with his time and energy as well.

The house was quite near the railway line. Uncle Ernie had worked on the railways all his working life, and when I knew him his main occupation seemed to be sitting on his back verandah watching the trains go by. He would boast that at one time he’d known the timetables for every country train leaving Central Station.

My mother used to go to check on Uncle Ernie now and then; see that the place was reasonably clean, and that there was some food in the old kerosene fridge; that sort of thing. (He was her father’s brother.) They always finished up having a few words. He accused my mother of interfering, because she nagged about the benefits of having the phone on, or even the electricity connected. Sometimes she wondered why she bothered. Sometimes she’d shout, “What are you saving your money for, you old fool?”

Then old Ernie would grin slyly, and say, “Oh yes, I’ve got a little put by, but that little has to go a long way.”

One day I was cheeky enough to ask if he didn’t get a pension from the railways. He didn’t answer, but my mother snapped, “Of course he does; he’s just plain mean.”

Years went by and I had long since left home to work in the city, when I received a fairly hysterical phone call from my mother. Uncle Ernie had been found dead by a neighbour, and the police suspected foul play.

I caught the next train home, and when approaching a little siding where the train paused momentarily, but did not stop, I thought that perhaps I would jump off. I often did this as a boy because it saved me from going further into the town, and then having to catch a bus back. However the decision was not mine to make. The train stopped, and there was a series of rather vague announcements begging for our patience because of an unforseen hold up on the line.

I grabbed my bag, and jumped off, and to my surprise found that the area had been cordoned off by police. I approached a young policewoman and politely asked what was going on. For a minute I thought she was not going to answer me, but then she shrugged and said, “Some clown tried to board the city train from the siding this morning. Wiped himself out.”

Well, this at least told me that whoever it was who had “wiped himself out” was not a local. Not even the most foolhardy school boy would attempt to board the city bound train from this point.

“Any clues as to identity yet Sarg.?” called the policewoman to an approaching colleague.

“Just found this by the track,” he replied holding up a brown Gladstone bag.

He held it up for her to see, and I read the faded gold words on its side; Ernie Munro.

Inside that brown Gladstone bag was Ernie’s “little.” The little that was expected to go a long way. And the $ 300,000 it contained would have gone a long way had his murderer’s plan succeeded — perhaps the trains owed Ernie one.

© Colleen McMillan 2010

This entry was posted by cmcmillan on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Theme of the Month. You can be notified of any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment in the box at the bottom of the post.

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