Thank You, Gabe

CALL ME NAÏVE, but seventy years ago, when the world was a kinder, less hostile and dangerous place, I believed that things would always work out for the best without much effort on my part.

Why? Because from as far back as I can remember I had a familiar unseen guardian angel presiding over everything I did, someone with whom I had brief personal conversations, when I, or rather we, were alone in some secluded private place, preferably behind a locked door. I’d spell out what I needed help with at the time—an upcoming hundred yard race at the school sports while I was putting on my spikes; a Maths exam I was about to sit (Maths being my weakest subject); a bully twice my size I’d decided to confront and was practising clouting on a swinging punch bag.

When I say ‘spell out’ and ‘personal conversations’, I mean telepathically, but no less charged with emotion and echoing loudly across the aether that separated us than they would have been if they’d been vocalised and he was real. And I say real, but to me he always seemed much, much more than real.

I was convinced he was an Australian pilot I’d read about, on loan to the USAF aboard the aircraft carrier Yorktown, shot down in the Battle of the Coral Sea on my birthday in May, 1942. His burning Grumman Wildcat trailed plumes of black smoke before it struck the ocean with him at the controls, wounded, and struggling to save himself.

He was now assigned to protecting me—among others, but I believed I was one of his favourites—and he always came through with the goods. I’d win the race, ace the exam and demolish the bully with a surprise straight left and a right hook he never saw coming. And I never failed to thank him after the event and commend him for his effective multi-tasking.

I sensed him in his spirit form still wearing his flying gear, his helmet on with the chinstrap loose and his goggles on his forehead, his black leather flying jacket unzipped, his hands casually relaxed in his trouser pockets, occasionally taking one out to make an elegant gesture of appreciation as he listened and told me once again that it was, ‘No problem, to be honest, no worries at all… any time.’

I’d recognise him anywhere. His brown, expressive eyes with their direct perceptive gaze beneath straight dark brows, his prominent cheekbones triangulating down to a slightly pointed chin with a cleft that made shaving difficult. His mouth that broke easily into a knowing grin, or a smile displaying a chipped front tooth. He was the picture of debonair cool—and when we did communicate across the spiritual airwaves I imagined his lips as motionless as those of a ventriloquist.

For no reason that I could fathom, I felt prompted to name him ‘Gabe’ sometime after we first met. He approved without hesitation and it stuck. I came to wonder later if the name may have applied to him and all his peers, assuming they existed, or to their Commander-in-Chief.

On occasions he’d operate without being called upon, always with such subtle and unobtrusive skill it didn’t look as if he was interfering with the normal course of events.

For example, when I was twelve and was crossing Sydney’s hectic Parramatta Road at Ashfield on my first visit there and looked the wrong way, I took an unexpected misstep at the last moment as if he’d held me back—and the rear mirror of the truck that would have struck and killed me if I’d taken another step whistled past my right ear.

Or when I dived from the ten metre rock wall beside Dalmanyi pool in the Kimberleys, its water brown and murky after the first drought-breaking rains, and I wrenched myself upwards at his whispered warning just in time to save myself from striking the bottom and breaking my neck. Scraping the skin off the left side of my face as I grazed the rocky bottom proved an unforgotten lesson. I still bear the scars. They show up clearly when I have a suntan.

There were other times when he’d arrange a sequence of apparent coincidences with the lightest of magical touches with immediate effect—then follow them up with long term consequences that revealed themselves years later.

Publisher: ‎ Dune Publishing (15 January 2025)

Language: ‎ English

Paperback: ‎ 324 pages

ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0975621646

Brief Summary – Elevator Pitch:

From magical realism to humour, from love and loss to bittersweet observations of human nature, Thank You, Gabe entertains you with 24 memorable stories and short pieces written with emotional intensity. Covering themes that include racism, genocide, empathy, spiritualism, Aboriginal culture and heritage, and colonialism, the research into historical events and contemporary social and political concerns is deep and accurate. Here are some delightful examples of writing at its best: passionate, insightful and deeply felt, each with a subtle twist in the tale.