Crazy Cornelius & the Magic Pills Ch. 08

Neither Faye nor Danielle, who miles away was getting into her car to drive home from the school in Cabramatta as the first drops of rain fell, nor Gavin and Erica who worked at their part time jobs had any idea that the truck carrying Cornelius to Melbourne had crossed the New South Wales -- Victoria border. It went over the bridge that spanned the Murray River and linked Albury in New South Wales with Wodonga on the Victorian side, before continuing south.

Inside the wardrobe, Cornelius pounded on the door and shouted as he thought the vehicle was stopping again. He of course had no idea that the vehicle was slowing for road works, and in his desperation to attract attention was thrown off balance when the truck turned and was thrown against the side of the wardrobe, hitting his head and knocking himself out.

Cornelius remained slumped unconscious on the floor of the wardrobe and unaware when the truck stopped for real in Wangaratta. The skies overhead were grey, spots of cold rain falling and Derek and Scott pulled down the canvas tarps on the side of the vehicle to prevent their cargo getting wet during the rest of the journey. The two men refueled the truck, filled out their driver's log books and switched positions, Derek taking control of the truck on the rest of its journey into Melbourne, neither he nor Scott aware of an extra passenger definitely not listed on the manifest...

*

Cornelius's presence may not have been noted by the truck drivers as they continued to head through regional Victoria, the weather getting increasingly wet, but in Sydney as night fell and where it was now raining hard after a fine day, his absence was certainly noted by his wife.

Danielle knew her husband hated work for the dole and would be the first to escape when it ended for the day, but it was now getting dark and Cornelius still was not home, nor had he called her either on her mobile phone or on the home phone. Irritation was now turning to the first feelings of worry.

Faye was considerably less concerned about her son, assuming he was hanging out with his slacker mates and hadn't bothered to call. "I wouldn't worry about it Danielle," said Faye to her daughter-in-law as she prepared dinner. "He's probably gone to visit some of your friends and not bothered to call, or has gone out for drinks with some of the others he's working with. Cornelius isn't exactly known for being reliable, I shouldn't need to tell you that, you're married to him."

"Cornelius never said anything to me this morning about going to visit his mates," said Danielle. Although given her mother-in-law was correct in her assessment that her husband was unreliable, Danielle thought it possible that he had met friends at the last minute. The weather had also turned wet and the radio was reporting traffic problems throughout Sydney, so maybe he was caught in traffic? Plus his car was a piece of crap, maybe it had given up the ghost and Cornelius was walking through the rain or trying to catch public transport home?

Erica and Gavin were currently studying together before dinner and enjoying a Cornelius-free evening, and both expected him to turn up any minute, full of self-pity about being forced to do work for the dole. However, as 5 minutes turned to 10, and 10 minutes to 15, 20, 30, 45 and 60 minutes and still no word from Cornelius, Danielle was becoming increasingly concerned.

With worry causing her to lose her appetite, Danielle paced up and down on her bare feet, talking on her mobile phone calling their friends to see if anybody had seen or heard from Cornelius. None of them had, and didn't know where he was. In the front lounge room as she paced Danielle saw headlights in the driveway and breathed a sigh of relief, assuming it was Cornelius. But as she looked out the window through the rain it was not her husband, just another driver who was using the driveway to turn around.

Danielle checked her watch. It was now gone 7 pm. Where the fuck was Cornelius?

"I'm getting really worried now," said Danielle to her mother-in-law. "What if he's in hospital, what if he's had a car accident?"

"I wouldn't worry too much yet," said Faye. "I bet he's just crossing the bridge, there was a lot of traffic both there and in the tunnel so I heard."

*

Faye was correct that Cornelius was crossing a bridge, but she obviously meant the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The bridge Cornelius was on at the moment was another famous bridge, but this one was Melbourne's Westgate Bridge. The truck had entered Melbourne in the early evening and was now on its way to its destination, the freight and transport yards in Port Melbourne.

Like Sydney, Melbourne had enjoyed a fine and unseasonably warm winter's day, but the clouds had rolled in all afternoon and the weather had turned foul, the cold rain pouring down across the Victorian capital and through many areas of Country Victoria too.

In the wardrobe Cornelius was awake now, although nursing a sore head and feeling quite dizzy, and wondering if this vehicle would ever come to a stop. Where the fuck was he, and what the fuck had he done to deserve this?

Derek looked at the illuminated Melbourne city skyline across the Yarra to the South East. "Nearly home," he said. "I can't wait to get home to the missus and a warm bed on such a wet night."

"Same for me, can't wait to see Mandy," said Scott, thinking about his nice warm bed and his hot girlfriend waiting for him.

Cornelius noticed the change in the truck's engines and the vehicle slowing down as Derek took the exit off the Westgate Freeway, and Cornelius noticed as it stopped, then heard the beeping noise as Derek reversed the truck into the freight yard and into the enormous shed where it would reside the night and its cargo would be unloaded early tomorrow and dispatched to their final destinations tomorrow.

The truck stopped its engines, and Derek and Scott climbed out. They were greeted by two freight yard workers, one a middle aged woman and the other a middle aged man.

"Hey Derek, Scott, did you have a good run down from Sydney?" the woman asked.

Derek nodded. "Yeah thanks Maggie. I can't believe what beautiful weather it was this morning up in Sydney and we come back home to this. I feel like I'm back in Manchester."

"It was pretty much the same down here today," said the male freight yard worker whose name tag read 'Barry', he and Maggie pausing as they heard something, a knocking sound, very faint but discernable from the back of the truck.

"What's wrong?" Derek asked them.

"I heard something like a knocking sound," said Barry. "From the back of your truck."

"I heard it too," said Maggie, as the sound was audible again.

"So did I," said Derek. He looked at Scott. "Maybe the lady was right and the furniture is haunted after all?"

"Haunted furniture?" the disbelieving Maggie asked.

"Apparently, from what the lady was saying back in Sydney the antique furniture that's going to that museum on the Mornington Peninsula is cursed," said Derek. "She and her late husband had nothing but bad luck from the moment it was brought into the house, and that's why she gave it away."

"It's beautiful furniture," Maggie observed as Derek and Scott pulled up the tarps and the antiques came into view.

"Yeah, and curses are ridiculous," said Barry.

His confidence at this statement was shattered when there again came a loud banging from within the wardrobe and a muffled male voice. "Help, help, I'm in the wardrobe -- let me out!"

"What the fuck?" Derek asked, he and the others getting up on the back of the truck and removing the ropes and packaging that had held the wardrobe in place during transit. Derek opened the wardrobe door unsure of what to expect, and to the astonishment of everyone out stepped a tall, lanky young man dressed in a shirt, tie, trousers and leather shoes, like he was on his way to work at an office.

The young man looked at the truck drivers and the transport yard workers, grinning vacantly and walking across the back of the truck in a robot-like way. He then said, "Thank you for getting me out of the wardrobe," before climbing down off the truck.

"Um, young man, are you okay?" Maggie asked, she and the others following him as he ambled through the shed towards the doors. "How about you sit down and we call a doctor for you? Or is there a family member or friend you would like us to contact?"

"Maybe you could call my wife to come and collect me?" Cornelius suggested, continuing to walk through the shed and then out into the wet, seemingly not bothered by the cold temperatures and heavy rain.

From the transport yard the illuminated Melbourne city skyline could be seen through the persistent rain. The Rialto Towers, Melbourne's tallest skyscraper were all lit up at the west end of the city, and other tall buildings were all visible -- Bourke Place, the unusual black Melbourne Central Tower, the two art deco towers at the eastern end of Collins Street, the headquarters of two of Australia's biggest banks one a plain grey power the other in an old gothic style and many other tall buildings throughout the CBD.

Cornelius pointed at the unfamiliar skyline. "We're not in Sydney, are we?"

"No, that's Melbourne," said Derek.

"Wow, Melbourne, I sure am a long way from home," said Cornelius.

"Yes," said Derek. "Mate, you don't seem so well. Please come inside, and we'll get you something to eat and drink, call a doctor and your wife to let her know where you are. She must be getting worried."

"No thanks, I need to get home," said Cornelius, clearly out of it. "How can I get a bus back to Sydney?"

"You'd need to go to Spencer Street terminal, but it would be a bit late now," said Scott. "Like Derek said, stay here with us."

"Yeah mate, you don't look well," said Barry.

"No thank you, I need to get home to my wife," said Cornelius. "So how do I get into the city?"

"There's a tram runs right by here that goes to the city, you could catch it to Flinders Street Station and from there catch a train to Spencer Street," said Maggie. "But I really don't think..."

"Thanks for your help," said Cornelius. Without further word he strolled across the yard and out the front gates, staring blankly ahead and seemingly oblivious to the rain.

Derek, Scott, Maggie and Barry all stared at each other, not sure what to do in such an extraordinary situation. Never once had they ever encountered anything like this, a person concealed inside freight transported interstate, it was so bizarre that there were probably no guidelines for it.

Scott, the youngest of the group thought that the very strange young man who came out of the wardrobe looked familiar from somewhere, but just where Scott could not ascertain. He looked at the wardrobe and the other allegedly cursed furniture and shuddered. Perhaps his superior was right when he asserted that objects could be haunted?

Outside the transport yard, Cornelius staggered through the rain and soon saw the tram lines and stop, and an approaching tram headed for the city. Cornelius thought the best way to hail the tram was to stand in front of it on the tram lines, waving his arms around and shouting, 'Stop tram driver, stop!' before the urgent ringing of the tram's bell indicated that perhaps this wasn't the best place to be and it would be safer to get onto the tram from the stop.

The large green tram pulled in and the doors opened. The tram driver really didn't want to pick up a male passenger drenched to the skin who had a very strange look about him and who had been standing on the tracks trying to get it to stop, but thought hopefully he would just sit there and not make a fuss.

The tram driver felt more disconcerted as the young man grinned vacantly at him and initially tried to pay for the small fare into the city with a 100 dollar bill, before apologizing and paying with some coins.

Cornelius shambled to his seat and took his place, the tram bell rang and it took off. Other passengers on the tram looked at this very strange young man as he sat in his seat, wet through, grinning vacantly and rocking back and forth. None made eye contact and none attempted to speak to him, staying away from somebody that weird seemed the best option.

The tram made its way into South Melbourne and then onto St Kilda Road towards the city, the tall buildings getting closer and closer. When the tram reached the stop opposite the Arts Centre Spire at Southbank, the other passengers were relieved to see him alight and walk across the road.

The rain was getting heavier and many people on the Southbank Boulevard and around the fully illuminated Flinders Street Railway Station ran for cover. But the passengers on the tram as it continued into the city observed the strange young man from their tram was in no hurry, strolling in the teeming rain across the Princes Bridge over the Yarra River, grinning vacantly before all sight of him was lost in the crowds as the tram went on its journey, headed for Swanston Street.

*

Up in Sydney the rain was also torrential now, and Danielle was pacing back and forth, again calling friends and relatives to see if any of them had heard from her husband, the time now past 8.30 pm.

"Cornelius will be back in his own sweet time," said Faye, remembering how her son had somehow gotten all the way to the Gold Coast as a teenager when he ran away from school one day. "There's not much we can do about it for the moment."

Danielle sat down in a chair in the front room. "I am waiting right here, the moment he sets foot through that door I am kicking his arse, making me worry like that."

The front door did open, but it was for people to exit, Gavin heading for home, Erica beside him.

"I'll give you a lift," said Erica, the rain teeming down.

"Thanks Erica, that would be great," said Gavin, the teenagers leaping into Erica's car and she drove the short distance from Number 9 to Number 24, dropping off Gavin and driving back home. Erica half expected Cornelius's car to have pulled in but the vehicle was still absent when she returned, and her fuming sister-in-law still waiting in the lounge to kick his arse when he finally got back.

Erica's relief at an evening free of her brother and his antics were now turning to curiosity and concern. Where could he be? Why was he so late? The young girl shrugged her shoulders. Knowing that brother of hers, no doubt it was something stupid.

*

At the Baxter house, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter had gone out for dinner with friends and Lisa was there alone, entertaining her boyfriend Pete, Gavin passing his sister's boyfriend and the two of them wishing each other goodnight. Inside, Gavin noticed that his big sister had that look about her, presumably she and her boyfriend had made their own entertainment after dinner rather than watching TV or a video.

Gavin thought about that weird Austrian psychiatrist who seemed to think Gavin had some sort of weird sexual fixation about older sister Lisa, and he shuddered at the recollection, trying to banish the Freudian thoughts from his mind.

"You lazy little shit," Lisa laughed at her brother.

"How's that?" Gavin asked.

"Erica lives at Number 9, we live at Number 24 but somebody -- a fit and healthy 18-year-old man -- needs his girlfriend to chauffer him such a long distance home," smiled Lisa.

Gavin laughed. "Come on Lisa, have you seen the rain out there tonight?"

"A little bit of rain never hurt nobody," joked Lisa. "Anyway, how are Erica and the rest of the family?"

"Good, except something funny happened."

"Funny? What was so amusing?"

Gavin qualified his statement. "No, not funny ha-ha, funny peculiar. Cornelius didn't come home, and nobody seems to know where he is."

Lisa didn't seem bothered. "You know Cornelius, he's probably sulking about doing work for the dole, got drunk in self-pity and is sleeping it off in his car or crashing with one of his loser mates."

His older sister's theory seemed a sound one. "Yes, I could believe that."

"Plus Cornelius isn't reliable," said Lisa. "Trust me, he'll be back sooner rather than later."

Had Lisa's idea of sooner rather than later been a timespan of over two decades, then her assessment would have been correct. And if Danielle Hawkins had stuck to her vow to sit in the armchair in the front room of the house to kick her husband's arse when he got back, she would still be sitting there as a middle-aged woman.

For after getting off the tram in Melbourne and walking across the Princes Bridge, Cornelius Hawkins was neither seen nor heard of again. Danielle Hawkins contacted the police the following morning when he still had not returned, while down in Victoria police had to respond to a very strange report from a Port Melbourne transport yard of a young man who emerged from a wardrobe brought down on a truck from Sydney that day and who wandered off in a dazed state.

Other police reports started to add to the picture. A Maori family had contacted them on Thursday about a confidence trickster operating on Sydney's North Shore going around selling expired raffle tickets for a kids' cancer charity and had scammed 150 dollars from their dementia-afflicted mother. An elderly couple had made an unrelated police report having purchased raffle tickets from a young man the previous day, only realizing later that the ticket dates had been altered.

Then there was a call from the staff of a northern Sydney library on Friday morning to report that a decrepit car had been left in the library car park since early Thursday morning, and they were worried that vandals had dumped it there. A check on the registration revealed the owner to be a certain Cornelius Hawkins.

Police investigations and statements from the work for the dole supervisors, the New Zealand family and other complainants, two parents in Goulburn who claimed their kids had been terrorized by a man hiding in a wardrobe in the back of a truck, the truck drivers, transport yard workers and driver and tram passengers down in Melbourne were able to put a chain of events into place. Rather than go to his work placement, Cornelius Hawkins had lied to his family about this and called in pretending to sick, spending the days selling expired raffle tickets to old people. When confronted and chased by the angry Maoris, Cornelius had hid in the wardrobe and become trapped in there when it was collected and transported down to Melbourne. Spending nine hours locked inside a closet would have led to his disoriented and confused state when released.

Of course, when the press got hold of this and when it was revealed that the weird son from the very weird Hawkins family who had made headlines across Australia and around the world with their bizarre road trip that culminated in the father dying by spontaneous human combustion was now missing, the Hawkins family were again headline and front page news.

As was often the case in high profile missing persons cases, reports of sightings of Cornelius Hawkins came in from all over Australia. Some were in Sydney and Melbourne, but he was also allegedly seen in McKillop Street in Geelong. He was sipping on a latte at a café in the Rundle Mall in Adelaide and jogging in Perth's Kings Park. In Queensland he was seen by the banks of the Brisbane River in Queensland's capital; riding a jet ski on the Gold Coast Broadwater and hitch-hiking on a remote highway halfway between Townsville and Cairns in far North Queensland. In smaller states and territories Cornelius was seen in a nightclub in Darwin; in a museum in Canberra and hiking through a national park in Tasmania.

None of the alleged sightings could be substantiated, and the last confirmed sighting of Cornelius Hawkins was security footage of him walking past a row of shops at Melbourne's Flinders Street Station a couple of minutes after getting off the tram, before he faded from view into the cold wet winter night. Extensive police investigations of the case, both in New South Wales and Victoria could not find any useful leads or the slightest clue as to what had happened to him. His bank account was never touched, and as days turned into weeks, then into months, years and decades, Cornelius Hawkins remained an unsolved cold case for the missing persons' squad. A Coronial inquest returned an open finding, the court unable to determine if he was dead or alive with any certainty. Cornelius Hawkins was declared legally dead in 2005 seven years after his disappearance.