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Intro
At just 16 years old, Billy Luckett loads his backpack with some clothes and food and writes a goodbye note to his alcoholic, abusive dad before running away. He jumps a freight train, hiding in a boat strapped to one of its cars. Ernie, the conductor, discovers him during the long, cold night and treats him compassionately, offering him a warm place to rest and food in the guard’s car. In the morning, Billy disembarks in Bendarat. He spends his first day at the local library, reading under the watchful but kind eye of chief librarian Irene Thompson. That night, he establishes camp in an abandoned freight train car near the train station.
The next day, Billy visits the local McDonald’s at dinnertime, where he quietly helps himself to uneaten fries and other scraps left behind by other patrons. His actions draw the attention of Caitlin, a local teenager who works there. Caitlin comes from a wealthy but emotionally cold family. She feels as out of place in her world as Billy seems to be in his. She chooses not to report him to her manager, and the two become friends.
Billy wakes up early one morning to the sound of shattering glass. He stumbles outside where he meets Old Bill. Old Bill has lived in the train yard—or, as he calls it, the “Bendarat Hilton”—for four years, between bouts of drunkenness. Over months of shared meals, Old Bill and Billy grow close. Eventually, Billy learns Old Bill’s tragic story: five years earlier, his twelve-year-old daughter Jessie fell out of a tree to her death. Within a year, his wife also died in a drunk driving accident brought on by her grief. Old Bill quit his job as a lawyer, abandoned his house, and moved to the train yard. He drinks to dull his grief, but he also clings to the memory of his family.
Eventually, Caitlin and Billy become romantically involved, and Caitlin meets Old Bill. Billy fears that he will have to leave his adopted home, Old Bill, and Caitlin after a police officer suspects that he’s an underage runaway. But Old Bill invites Billy to live in his house then convinces the welfare officer to leave Billy alone. Caitlin and Billy prepare to live in Old Bill’s home while Billy figures out if he wants to go back to school or find a job, and Old Bill leaves to travel the country, visiting places he never got to take Jessie.
