The Damaged

Her world was raw and fast. She was more alive than anyone could ever imagine. She filled my life with the wildest days and conversations. She was a host of people who’d lived a vast and exciting existence and a blend of poetically charged images. A life of the most heartfelt and subtle music, but always, a life on a knife-edge - I helped destroy her. Her father named her Gale. The first time I asked why the odd spelling, she said she was like a windstorm, a cyclone that could be violent and destructive. Later I found out the real reason. Gale’s father was an artist, a self-taught man. His education constricted by his love of the arts, he never learned to spell correctly. But he knew how to spell her name, like a strong wind, like a gale. She was born on a tempestuous day that mirrored her existence. On the day of her birth, her father rushed off to the registry to place her name among the living. The clerk smiled as he wrote it out, but said nothing about the spelling – she loved it too, she understood. The first time I saw Gale, she was rushing across Park Street, in the centre of Sydney. Screaming out the most passionate and moving words. I, like most, watched from my detached view, too scared to get within her reach. I stood and watched her, fascinated. Her words were not like the ones coming from other homeless people. Gale never begged for money; she never accosted anyone; she never swore at you. She yelled out her words as she marched past you. But she looked at you; she looked through you, with her eyes and with her words. I lived in the centre of Sydney for fifteen years. Only in my last two months there, did I get to know Gale. Her favourite spot was outside Woolworths in Park Street. It was a part-time home to many homeless people. The shop barely closed. Thousands of customers rushing in and out every hour; passing her, looking down at her. Gale never begged for money, and she never spoke when she sat there. It was all in her rhythm: when the movement of her body got to a certain speed, then, she started to blast out her words. You could hear her coming from across the street. It wasn’t the volume of her words, but what she said. It was mesmerising to hear such passionate words yelled out so loud. Most times, there seemed to be little rhyme and reason to her verbal onslaught. But on the odd occasion a single poignant word or two, she yelled out, those cut you in half. Where, hate this, love what? These were the things she was thinking. Gale’s words – they came at you and pushed you out of your unconscious existence. It took me months to rake up the courage and approach her. That first time, it was like standing in the path of a speeding train, getting in its way and not moving. Her eyes looked directly into mine. There was no use trying to approach her while she was sitting down; you could tell she wasn’t interested in anything or anyone. She was just resting her body, and most likely her voice too. It was when she was taking those long steps, and when she was madly telling the world of her strange and beautiful place; it was only then that I had agreed with myself to approach her. That day, we headed towards each other. I wasn’t getting out of her way, not this time. I don’t think she saw me until I was right in her face. Alarmed at what I was doing, she changed direction. So did I, until we ran into each other, she was never going to stop. We hit, she curled around me and just kept screaming at me, looking at me, directing her flowing words at me, into me. ‘’What’s it for? Where’s my life?’ I was speechless, confused, I thought maybe she’d attack me. We stood two meters apart, and her volley of words almost filled my eyes with tears. But I resisted.