The Friday night activities continued to be extremely popular and continued to operate without any trauma until a particular Friday evening about six months later. All activities were coming to an end when a young white male, accompanied by two Aboriginal youths of the same age, appeared and began pushing past the parent at the door. Surprised and worried, he called out to Eddie.
“Hi!” greeted Eddie with a smile, thinking quickly of ways to deal with what could eventuate.
“Hi yourself, nigger!”
Taken aback, Eddie took a deep breath. “Sorry, but you and your mates will have to take your drinks outside. You can watch the kids game of basketball if you like. But no alcohol is allowed inside the hall.”
“Who says!” the boy said as he took a swig.
“Rules mate!” Eddie was holding tightly to his temper.
“Don’t mate me, darkie!” With that the boy dropped his drink to the floor and threw an unsuccessful punch at Eddie.
“That’s enough!” Eddie ordered.
“Haven’t started,” smirked the intruder. “I’ll show you, won’t I guys?” But his companions had fled. Jim had also slipped out – to phone the police.
“So take this,” as another punch missed the mark.
“Time for you to go.” Eddie spoke softly as he took the intruder’s arm to guide him out of the hall. Shaking off Eddie’s arm, he began punching wildly. Eddie realized the time had come to end this charade. In seconds, with Eddie’s karate expertise, the boy was on the ground, held in a tight grip.
Minutes later the police arrived and soon had the hand-cuffed young man in their van.
“A bright young lad, this one,” the sergeant began. “Sorry, Father, you had this disturbance. This young man is from Dubbo, son of a fairly well known and respected businessman. The family have tried to get him back on track but it’s a losing battle – twice he’s gone into a programme but, each time, breaks out and booze and drugs win again. You’ll be pressing charges, no doubt?”
“No!” Eddie spoke quietly, but with determination. “No”, Eddie repeated. “I will not be pressing charges. But… How can I help him?”
“Right now, Father, I’d say he hates your guts. He often finds he can throw his weight around successfully. You’ve reversed that tonight. We’ll take him back to Dubbo lock-up.”
“Will you keep me informed?”
“Sure, Father, but don’t expect miracles.”
Eddie occasionally looked back in memory to that night. He did not realize at the time that he had been in mild shock. Jim had taken charge of finalizing the evening, waiting until all their young athletes had been taken home by parents and locking up.
Monsignor Shamus insisted on Eddie returning home with him.
Once home Shamus insisted, “Sit down Eddie,” as he thrust a glass of amber fluid into Eddie’s hands. “It’s only brandy. I’m no doctor. So you’ll have to make do with my medication. And, by the way, just in case you’re wondering, you did the right thing tonight.” For Monsignor Murphy, this was final acceptance.
Eddie had faced the next Friday night with trepidation. But, with the support of Jim – and now Shamus – the night proceeded with no problems.
As the weeks passed, what had seemed a major event, faded into an incident and finally was forgotten. But Eddie never forgot the intruder – and similar young people he met through the years – who were always remembered in thought and prayer.
Eddie had endeavoured to follow the future of the young intruder. The police Sergeant – ‘off the record’ he advised – had kept Eddie informed of the progress of other cases against him. Eventually, he had escaped a jail sentence and had headed for Sydney, still disregarding any orders of taking part in a detox programme.
The incident had made Eddie more aware of the problems of alcohol and drugs. Many times he became involved with families in programmes to help the young offenders. He shared the joys of successes, but also suffered the intense sadness and helplessness of the failures.
As the months faded into years, Eddie’s dream of sport involvement for the young boys and girls of the district – in particular the Aboriginal youth – became more and more a reality. With persuasion, Jim took over the role of president of the newly founded sports club. “I was ordained for priestly ministry, not to run a sports club!” Eddie commented with a smile.
The sports club grew from strength to strength as more of the fathers and mothers of the district saw the potential for the future health of their children and became involved. The hall became available for indoor sports for two, three and eventually four nights a week, while, at the same time, teams were formed and trained for outdoor sports of rugby, cricket, soccer and netball.
When Eddie moved from Brewarrina as parish priest elsewhere ten years later, the sports club, of which he had dreamed, had become a happy and healthy reality.
But, as Eddie had commented, he was not ordained to found a sports club. Guided by intuition, the main aim of founding the club was to help the people of his parish find their worth in the positive side of sport. Eddie would not accept the fact that his personality, his care for people, helped. Ultimately, congregation numbers trebled, numbers in sacramental programmes soared.