Hero

Guilt is worse when everyone thinks you're wonderful.

For weeks, Sydney's major newspaper was on my sofa, folded in half with the page 5 headline 'Local Woman Saves Mother and Child' staring up at me. I remember speaking to the reporter for about two minutes. Everything he's written is technically true, but he's made it sound like I dragged two unconscious bodies from a crashed car that exploded seconds later (the car didn't even catch fire). And of course there's something he doesn't know. Something no one knows.

That day, I was walking home to save money on bus fare. I'd just been to the real estate agent to return the spare key to the building and get the $100 deposit, which I then gave as payment on that month's rent.

"That's partial payment," the scowling receptionist had told me. "You'll still be written up as delinquent unless you also pay the balance."

She'd sat there as if waiting for the balance - wouldn't even give me the $100 back. So I'd walked.

On a quiet stretch of road there'd been an intersection. I'd seen only a few cars for 20 minutes or so, and then two came out of nowhere and collided in front of me - one at high speed, one travelling normally. They were together for a split second then thrown apart by the force. Travellingnormally skidded a long way. Highspeed spun like a top across my path. I wouldn't've thought a car could spin that fast. It stopped against a lightpole. And then there was silence.

Slowly, I moved. Bewildered in unreality, all I knew was I had to help quickly. Highspeed was nearest and worsely crashed. In the dark interior, I saw my first dead body. Through the popped-open passenger door, a lifeless, crumpled form had its head turned away from me at an impossible angle. In the passenger footwell, I saw a $50 note. I registered it all and felt nothing.

There was still the other car.

I could smell the petrol as I approached. The mother, Lorraine as I know her now, couldn't turn around in the driver's seat and was shouting questions at her son, who was bawling in his child seat in the back. She screamed at me to help her son. I remember thinking he was too big for a child seat. I unbuckled him. The petrol fumes were nauseating. I thought about how unhealthy it was for trapped people to breathe them in, but fire never occurred to me.

Getting the son out was easy. That child seat was well-designed. I sat him on the nearest kerb and paced back to Lorraine. She was desperate to get out. Somehow, her seat belt was wrapped around the steering wheel and intertwined with a deflating air bag. I pulled at the seat belt ineffectually. My emotions were slowly turning back on and were like a tidal wave seen at a distance. I wasn't brave enough for this. As I repeatedly pulled harder, my gaze was on a triangular mirror shard on the roadway. It took a while for my mind to have the idea. It took what seemed like a long time to cut through the seat belt (it was tough), and then Lorraine was free and rushing to her son, ignoring her injuries. My approaching tidal wave seemed to get smaller and then we were just three people in the street and in the silence. It was surreal.

Lorraine called triple zero. I remember saying 'he's dead' to her at some point, and her passing that on. The image of the $50 note appeared unbidden in my mind. The only possible witnesses were gripping each other and focusing on a phone. I'm not normally like this. I walked toward the first car.

The dead body would still be there, too far away to reach or see clearly. It would be worth it. As I picked the $50 out of the darkness, a heavy cube came with it. The whole thing was a thick bundle of $50 notes tied together with a thin rubber band. I hyperventilated. This was too much on top of that tidal wave, and excitement was kicking in. I stuffed the heavy bundle in my jacket pocket. In the darkness of the footwell, I could now also see a little black book. 'The key to more' my overexcited mind told me, and I stuffed that in my other jacket pocket. Then I zipped closed both pockets.

That was when the guilt started.

There were sirens in the distance. The fire brigade got there first and sprayed white foam over the spilling petrol. The police arrived next then the reporters and I lost track after that.

I spoke to the police and to the reporter. Lorraine spoke to him for a long time. Eventually, one of the policeman drove me home. The heavy, rectangular lump in my pocket made me tense up, especially inside that police car.

"You're a hero," the policeman told me.

I said almost nothing the whole way. At home, I put my jacket and its contents in a distant corner of the room. All that money made me queasy. A month later, when two vicious gangsters I've just met are beating me, that queasy feeling doesn't seem so bad.

The newspaper story came out the day after. Lorraine read about why I'd walked along that stretch of road and started an online fundraising campaign for me. $583 by that afternoon. I think most of it came from her. She called me with a website login and password to access the money, and thanked me for an hour. I made sure to sound happy. The money would get me to my next paycheck. My queasiness doubled.

I left the jacket in the corner, untouched, for days. The police don't tell you who the dead crash victims are. At night, I'd lie awake for long stretches. One night I listened to a whole rainstorm from start to finish then went out on the balcony in the dark to see the freshly-washed world. Back in bed, I heard mosquitoes. I'd let them in. I decided to let them bite me.

Eventually there came a day when I opened the jacket. It was like probing a festering wound. I placed the bundle in the middle of a table and stared at it for a long time. My queasiness got better.

I counted it. Someone had taken loose notes and stacked them all together. The faces on the notes would be upside-down then upright, sometimes the woman and sometimes the man. Partway through counting, I realised none of the notes was a new fifty - they were all the old kind. I needed a calculator for the total. Four-hundred fifty dollar notes is $20,000.

There was a knock at my door.

I literally leaped then crashed down again on the chair. My heart was hammering its way out of my chest. I realised there was no reason for it, and my queasiness returned. I was sick at the sight of the money again. I stuffed it into a makeshift hiding place and answered the door.

"It is you," said the man standing there. "I'm from number 19."

He pointed down the stairwell at his own door. This was Phillip, who'd read about me in the newspaper and heard about me at work. My heart jumped a little when he told me he was a policeman. He'd seen me around the building and wanted to congratulate me just like everyone else had. My heart sank and my face smiled.

"Phillip," I said, "do you know if the dead man had any family?"

His face ran a gamut of expressions that ended on something like concern.

"No, he didn't," he said. "Listen, don't worry about him. He was a bad man."

I wandered back inside. A bad man. That didn't tell me much. All old $50s. The black book!

I scurried to my jacket and got it. Inside, each page typically had a name, usually an address, phone number and an amount, or amounts listed underneath with some crossed off. There was other stuff in the book, but mostly names, contact information and dollar amounts. I searched some of the names on the internet, but nothing significant came up except I realised all the names in the book were men.

That night there was another rainstorm. I listened until it ended then went on the balcony again. Afterward, I lay in bed spraying insecticide at the buzzing noises in the darkness, then fell peacefully asleep.

Life became normal again. I kept the money hidden and unspent, and I put the black book in an envelope and left it outside a police station one night. I stopped checking Phillip's door through my peephole every time I went out. Then the normality of life was obliterated when I met Toby and Wade.

They were waiting for me in the stairwell. From the bottom of the stairs I could feel their malignity. Something animalistic may have carried in their voices as they chit-chatted together, or maybe they just radiated something primitive. People don't loiter in the stairwell of my building, and these guys didn't belong there.

'Get to your door' I told myself. 'Get on the other side of it'. I also told myself that there was no reason to be afraid.

They were suddenly silent when I came into view and I could feel them watching me openly. They didn't speak until I'd unlocked my door and then they were right next to me.

"Hey there busty, you're gonna help us."

Fear coursed through me. As I got manhandled through my own hallway, I hear the familiar closing door behind me. I panicked. They were violating the place where I lived. It felt awful, sickening. They still had the power to do worse. I was thrown into a sitting position on the edge of my bed. They stood in front of me. I was afraid to look up. They stayed silent until I did.

"Did you take the book?" one of them snapped. "You were at the crash."

"Cops are asking questions," the other one said.

"I don't know," I said. It sounded stupid - out of context.

I got backhanded. My cheek stung and I hit the bed before I knew I was falling. I was so terrified I was going to lie there and let them do whatever they were going to do. Then my eyes came into focus and there was a can of insecticide spray. It was under the edge of a pillow. At first it seemed useless. These guys weren't cockroaches. Then it came to me - the eyes, aim for the eyes.

I knew what my fear wanted me to do, but I had to make myself fight. I started hyperventilating, but got it under control. The guys were talking to each other, but I couldn't make out the words. The insect spray filled my vision.

The rest is a blur until I was downstairs pounding on Phillip's door, but I remember me spraying and them screaming. Phillip was home, and quickly took over. Then more police came. And more reporters, but the police shooed them away for me.

I was a hero again, but this time it felt true.

That month, I paid my rent in cash out of the bundle, and it didn't bother me in the slightest.