Jessie Character Analysis

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised
by anything anymore.
The kid must be fifteen,
or sixteen at the most,
and here he is,
living in the Bendarat Hilton
with a bag of clothes
and some smokes
to give away
to a bum like me.
And when he gave me
those smokes
I almost cried,
a kid like that
with nothing
giving stuff away.
But I took them
and I sat in my carriage
smoking
and trying to place
the past five years
and my memory
flickered and grew dim
like the cigarette
and I stopped remembering […]

But look at me.
Kids fall out of trees
all the time.
They sprain their ankle,
or get the wind knocked out of them,
but my Jessie,
my sweet lovely Jessie,
fell
and I fell with her
and I’ve been falling
ever since.

And this pub,
this beer, these clothes,
this is where I landed.

He gives me advice
on how to live cheap,
and how to jump trains
late at night,
and how to find out
which trains are going where,
and which trains have friendly guards.
He encourages me to travel,
to leave here
and ride the freights.
He makes it seem so special,
so romantic,
and I ask him
why he doesn’t do it,
you know,
if it’s so special,
and he tells me
about his Jessie
and his wife
and the house he visits
when too much drink
has made him forget
because without his ghosts
he’s afraid he’ll have nothing to live for.
And at that moment I know
I am listening to
the saddest man in the world.

I almost laughed
when they arrived.
The two neatest hobos
I’d ever seen,
with their hair combed,
slicked back,
and their faces rubbed shiny clean.
Old Bill called me ‘Miss’
and offered me a box of chocolates
he’d brought
and he looked around the house
as though he were visiting the moon.
Billy saw the wine,
already open,
and he poured three glasses
passed them around
and as we raised our glasses
Billy said,
‘To the richest house in Bendarat’
and we laughed.
My cooking even smelt good […]

Jessie and I stood on the verandah,
Jessie holding the bird gently.
She opened her hands
and it sat on her palms
looking at her
then it turned and flew
high into the wattle
where it perched.
Jessie waved
and the bird flew away.

I thought of Jessie
helping that bird
and how, after it left,
Jessie turned to me
and said that
when she grew up
she wanted to be a vet,
she wanted to heal animals
and to help people.

I wasn’t always a hobo.
I worked in town.
I dressed neatly in suit and tie.
I understood the law.
I earned a lot of money
knowing stupid rules and regulations
and I’d studied for years
to make sure those rules
were enforced
when someone came to me for help.
But all that knowledge
and all that training
couldn’t stop a young
beautiful child from
falling out of a tree,
or a wife from driving
a car too drunk to care.
All that knowledge
couldn’t stop a man
from drinking to forget
to forget the life
with the suit and tie
in his office in town.
But today
the knowledge
that hasn’t been used
in five years
could come up
with a solution
to where a sixteen-year-old boy
could live,
and what his legal rights were,
so all that knowledge
is finally worth something,
finally.

Today he ate three helpings
and drank the thermos
and on his last cup
he told me of his plan
to head north, taking his time.
And he said,
‘Don’t worry about the house
and its ghosts,
I’m taking them with me,
they need a holiday,
and so do I.’
I didn’t know what to say,
so I sat there
looking at the freight train
shunting carriages in the distance
across the tracks
where
months ago
an old man
dropped his beer
and sat down to cry.
I said to Old Bill,
‘I love the house,’
and I left it at that.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised
by anything anymore.
The kid must be fifteen,
or sixteen at the most,
and here he is,
living in the Bendarat Hilton
with a bag of clothes
and some smokes
to give away
to a bum like me.
And when he gave me
those smokes
I almost cried,
a kid like that
with nothing
giving stuff away.
But I took them
and I sat in my carriage
smoking
and trying to place
the past five years
and my memory
flickered and grew dim
like the cigarette
and I stopped remembering […]

But look at me.
Kids fall out of trees
all the time.
They sprain their ankle,
or get the wind knocked out of them,
but my Jessie,
my sweet lovely Jessie,
fell
and I fell with her
and I’ve been falling
ever since.

And this pub,
this beer, these clothes,
this is where I landed.

He gives me advice
on how to live cheap,
and how to jump trains
late at night,
and how to find out
which trains are going where,
and which trains have friendly guards.
He encourages me to travel,
to leave here
and ride the freights.
He makes it seem so special,
so romantic,
and I ask him
why he doesn’t do it,
you know,
if it’s so special,
and he tells me
about his Jessie
and his wife
and the house he visits
when too much drink
has made him forget
because without his ghosts
he’s afraid he’ll have nothing to live for.
And at that moment I know
I am listening to
the saddest man in the world.

I almost laughed
when they arrived.
The two neatest hobos
I’d ever seen,
with their hair combed,
slicked back,
and their faces rubbed shiny clean.
Old Bill called me ‘Miss’
and offered me a box of chocolates
he’d brought
and he looked around the house
as though he were visiting the moon.
Billy saw the wine,
already open,
and he poured three glasses
passed them around
and as we raised our glasses
Billy said,
‘To the richest house in Bendarat’
and we laughed.
My cooking even smelt good […]

Jessie and I stood on the verandah,
Jessie holding the bird gently.
She opened her hands
and it sat on her palms
looking at her
then it turned and flew
high into the wattle
where it perched.
Jessie waved
and the bird flew away.

I thought of Jessie
helping that bird
and how, after it left,
Jessie turned to me
and said that
when she grew up
she wanted to be a vet,
she wanted to heal animals
and to help people.

I wasn’t always a hobo.
I worked in town.
I dressed neatly in suit and tie.
I understood the law.
I earned a lot of money
knowing stupid rules and regulations
and I’d studied for years
to make sure those rules
were enforced
when someone came to me for help.
But all that knowledge
and all that training
couldn’t stop a young
beautiful child from
falling out of a tree,
or a wife from driving
a car too drunk to care.
All that knowledge
couldn’t stop a man
from drinking to forget
to forget the life
with the suit and tie
in his office in town.
But today
the knowledge
that hasn’t been used
in five years
could come up
with a solution
to where a sixteen-year-old boy
could live,
and what his legal rights were,
so all that knowledge
is finally worth something,
finally.

Today he ate three helpings
and drank the thermos
and on his last cup
he told me of his plan
to head north, taking his time.
And he said,
‘Don’t worry about the house
and its ghosts,
I’m taking them with me,
they need a holiday,
and so do I.’
I didn’t know what to say,
so I sat there
looking at the freight train
shunting carriages in the distance
across the tracks
where
months ago
an old man
dropped his beer
and sat down to cry.
I said to Old Bill,
‘I love the house,’
and I left it at that.