Annette Sharp: The day our ‘village’ lost its innocence
THINGS had already become tense in Annette Sharp’s quiet Sydney street because of ‘Josh’, but things became a lot more intense when she found a heap of cops chasing the young neighbour into her backyard.
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MINE is a fairly typical street in a fairly typical Sydney suburb.
There is a small church, recently revived by a reverent and rigorous Asian community; a park, filled with children and families most weekends and boys playing cricket in the summer months; a government bus that rattles up the road every hour; and three large houses currently under construction, bringing large bitumen battering trucks to the street from 7am most weekdays — only slightly later at weekends.
Like most neighbourhoods, mine has its characters.
For a decade the pillar of our community has been the local government councillor who was always mustering our kids into the local scouting club and sporting teams, rolling out the welcome mat to newcomers and organising community barbecues.
Then there’s 91-year-old mild-natured Don, our own Forrest Gump, who swears he won his humble fibro house in a lottery in the 1950s.
Six houses up the hill Greek-Australians Jim and Ena perch on their front porch in the afternoons and wave to the neighbourhood kids as they are walking home from school.
Jim, in his 80s, only recently stopped demonstrating the Zorba dance to my daughters — a kindness really, for it had become an imagined dance, infirmity preventing any movement in Jim’s lower half and the terror of losing his balance preventing him from releasing his grip on his walking frame to permit movement up top.
Jim’s Zorba is basically a two-note hum, with some head wobbling and the occasional “oi!” thrown in for effect.
I can very nearly name at least one member of every household in my block — the neighbourhood kids have claimed our backyard cubby as their clubhouse — and my neighbours know me, the newspaper writer who sometimes keeps strange hours, occasionally begs a lift to the local taxi rank and sometimes gardens in her pyjamas in the dark.
Lately our sunny neighbourhood has a new character. He’s not the kind of guy to suffer a polite introduction.
In his twenties, the man is heavily tattooed, has a shaven head, seems always to be angry and is apparently jobless.
Perhaps to help manage their fear of our new bald, angry neighbour, our primary school-aged kids have given the man a name, something whispered like a coded warning when he strides through the local park shouting obscene threats into his mobile phone, as he often does, while they play nearby.
They’ve dubbed him “Josh” — not the name I’d have given him but the kids are pretty pleased with it.
The unlikely “Josh” and his parents moved into our formerly peaceful street about four years ago and from day one Josh attracted attention.
When he wasn’t shouting abuse at his father in the street or at his girlfriend in the park, he was climbing into or out of one of a steady stream of ludicrously expensive sports cars that regularly scream up to his front door to take him out for the afternoon, often noisily burning rubber when they drop him home later at night.
At some point Josh’s father must have warned him off these flashy friends because Josh started walking a few houses up the road and hiding inside the front boundaries of our yards — just out of sight of his father who was standing in the middle of the road watching and waiting for these unwanted friends to pick the grown man up.
Police soon conducted a raid of his parents’ house — the contents of the family’s garage strewn across the driveway as they searched for something we could only guess at.
Regular police patrols of our street began soon after.
While we welcome the police, their presence has made us a little sad — they serve as a reminder our children can no longer enjoy the free-range play they once did.
We have advised our kids to stay out of Josh’s way and this was working well enough until last Saturday when Josh put himself in our way. It was about 11.15am when my phone rang. It was my neighbour.
“Quick Annette. The police are after Josh. He’s jumped the fence and is hiding in your yard.”
I checked the doors first and then looked out the front window.
Sure enough there were three police cars parked outside. I could see at least five police officers on foot and many of my neighbours out having a gander.
I nudged my husband: “The police are out the front. Josh is apparently hiding in our yard.”
The husband was swiftly up and off — ready to do his part empty-handed in a tracksuit and a pair of Ugg boots, a veritable armour of snugly lambskin softness.
The outfit was a good choice.
After heading out the front door to talk to the police he turned to survey the front yard.
On a whim he decided to check the side of the house, where he came face-to-face with Josh, crouched low in the shadows under a window.
Perhaps sizing up the threat my husband posed, Josh rightly concluded he was more likely to cop a hug than a hiding and immediately bolted down the side of our house and into our backyard, five police officers in close pursuit.
A tense half-hour passed before the officers caught Josh and took him away. He was arrested and charged and remains in police custody.
For the past week the neighbourhood has been enlivened by talk of the drama. Our children have checked CCTV footage from a neighbour’s house for evidence of Josh’s alleged crime and bungled getaway, new locks have been installed on doors, dogs have been put outside on cold nights to earn their kibble.
For the time being the kids have their park back and we parents our peace of mind.
As a neighbourhood we’re probably a little closer than we were — galvanised by our shared need to protect one another and the cherished “village mind” that we believe keeps our children safe.