Sanctuary from Harm - 9. Sanc Chapter 9

With Charles taking the lead in the Tarago, the automatic door opened just as we turned into the driveway, and this is when I noticed a red car parked on the side of the street, as I followed Charles in my vehicle, and I saw Greg step out of his vehicle as I drove up the drive an into the garage.

“I will be with you guys in a moment,” I said to Charles and Scott, as they climbed out of the Tarago and headed for the side door for inside, while headed down the drive towards Greg, and I stopped when I saw the passenger door open and a police officer steps out.

“What is all this Greg? I thought I was going to give you a call in about half an hour?” I asked, but what I saw next caught me totally by surprise, when the police officer put his hand on Greg’s shoulder and the other around his waist. “Hunter, this is my husband, Julian Brand, Jules, this is an old Uni buddy of mine, Hunter Langston,” Greg said making the introductions, as the officer stepped forward to shake my hand.

“Nice to met you, Hunter, excuse my untidy uniform, but I too was at this fire last night, as my partner here, so we haven’t slept last night,” the police officer said as he smiled. “Ok, any reason for this unannounced visit?” I responded.

“Yes, both of us are wondering if you heard anything last night, like before the fire started? And when did you become aware of the fire?” Greg asked. “You see, we suspect arson, so any clues that you can give us would be really helpful,” Julian added. “A joint investigation? Well I can’t really help you, as we were all asleep, I woke up to the sound of glass breaking, and my apartment window looks out over the front carpark, so directly opposite the fire, but it was well and truly ablaze when I looked.

After waking up my son, and telling him to get dressed, I went to wake up the others, but Nathan was already on it, he was still in his sleeping gear, but he was banging on the other doors,” I replied. “Others? How many of you live in this place?” Julian asked me.

“Well last night there was five of us, as the other two are part-time staff and they were attending a dinner party and were staying overnight there, and they live offsite,” I explained. “Ok, can you tell me what this facility is all about?” Julian asked me, “Well as I mentioned briefly to Greg yesterday, we are an NGO, working with homeless young people. We provide short-term accommodation, food, clothes, education and training support and counselling, plus recreation and sports activities.

We have a Board of Trustees, with 7 members, who assist with financing this facility and they oversee all of our programmes, to make sure everything is running smoothly, and we would like to keep it low key as possible,” I replied, “Sounds very interesting, how come we have not heard of your facility before?” Julian asked me.

“That would because we are brand new, and we are supposed to be starting today, working with homeless young people, and we would like to keep it low key as possible but we may have to delay it because of the fire across the road, depending on how much smoke we have inside,” I replied. “I can answer that, we have none at all, all the facilities are clear of smoke, hello Greg, good to see you again,” Nathan said as he approached.

“Ah, now I remember you, sorry I didn’t recognise you last night, I had too much else on my mind,” Greg said as he shook Nathan’s hand, “So, do you know anything about the fire, and how it started?” Julian asked Nate, who looked at me first, then to Greg.

“Sorry, Nathan Porter, this is my husband and the arson squad investigating officer, Julian Brand. Jules, this is another one of my mates, from Uni days,” Greg said, making the introduction, but Nathan made no move to shake hands with the police officer, who stared and frowned at Nate.

“I know that I woke up with the sound of crashing noises, and then the smell of smoke, before opening my blinds and seeing the warehouse fully alight, then I slip[ped on a shirt, before banging on Scott’s and Charles’s rooms, to make sure they are up, that is when I saw Hunter exit the apartment.

Once we were all dressed, we headed towards the admin centre and drove the vehicles out of the garage, before I went to activate the roof sprinklers on the warehouses, while Scott and Charles when to water down the roof of the admin building,” Nathan explained. “Why did you not help them?” Julian asked me.

“Because my son had just settled into the back of my car to get back to sleep, and I was keeping watch on him, that is why,” I snapped back in reply. “Oh, ok sorry, didn’t mean to imply anything, that is all I need to ask,” Julian said.

Nathan now had his arms crossed across his chest and glaring at the police officer, and his mouth had formed into the snarl that he makes when he is angry, and Greg laughed when he saw this. “Whoa, down boy, all is good,” Greg said having remembered this reaction from Nathan before, and he turned to his partner.

“Nathan here can get very overprotective of his close mates, I have seen him like this a number of times before, so you don’t want to cross him,” Greg explained to Julian who nodded his head in understanding, and taking a step back, to indicate that he wasn’t going to any threat to anyone, and I just grinned broadly.

“Good puppy,” I whispered, soft enough for just Nathan to hear, and Nathan growled back at me loudly for all to hear, before grinning, and Greg and I just laughed. “Doesn’t like to be teased either, by the looks of it?” Julian commented, which had all of us laughing.

When all of us had calmed down, Greg turned to me, “Any chance that we can have a look inside, this place has me intrigued?” Greg asked me. “Only if you promise, truly promise that you will not tell any of your family, friends, colleagues or superiors about it,” Nathan responded before I could say anything.

Julian and Greg looked at each other and smiled, before holding out their pinkie fingers, “We pinkie promise we won’t tell a soul,” they said together, and I rolled my eyes and groaned, while Nathan just snarled. “Get a room you two, that is so not appropriate in public,” Nathan said, and I just smiled, before walking towards the garage.

With everyone in the small lounge, adjoining the garage, I pressed the button to close the garage door, as Nathan went looking for the others. “All the staff are multi-skilled, I have degrees in Medical Science, Psychology and Education, while Nathan is an Executive Chef and a Psychologist like me, Scott is a Plumber and a Social Worker, and a colleague of mine from our former jobs, while Charles is Civil Engineer and an Electrician.

The other two staff, are partners, with Brent being a Builder and Landscape Gardener, and Kurt is a Chef and a Paramedic, so amongst all of us, we have all the training and skills to run this facility with no difficulty at all” I explained to our two guests, just as Nathan, Scott and Charles appeared, with Nathan holding two blindfolds.

“Right now, to get to the rest of the facility, we will have to blindfold you for a few minutes, and Scott and Charles will lead you through the way, which involves some stairs. Once we are there, we will let you know when to take them off” Nathan said as he handed over the blindfolds.

A few minutes later, we arrived in the lower level of the sports and recreation warehouse, and the two guests were instructed to take off their blindfolds. “Welcome to Discover Project, as I said before, this is an NGO Facility for homeless young people, we are currently standing in the gymnasium, and as you can see through the thick glass walls, we have two indoor soccer fields, and in here we have a climbing wall and a fitness gymnasium.

Above the soccer pitches, are two mezzanine levels, which are just open space at the moment. There is one level below us, which has a multi-purpose hall and four basketball courts, now if you will follow Nathan, we will take you to the lower level.” I said starting the tour of our facilities.

Once we had shown them the lower level, the blindfolds went back on, and we led them over to the lower level of the main building. “Right, you can remover the blindfolds again, we are now in the main building of the project, on this level we have the education centre, with two classrooms, an activity room, an arts room, four study rooms, a library and a music room” Nathan explained, before leading the way to the classrooms and the library.

Once this level was shown, we headed upstairs to the ground floor, arriving in the main atrium. “Holy crucifix, I did not expect to see this,” Greg gasped, when we entered, “I have to agree with you, this is absolutely stunning,” Julian added.

We aim to make the place look and feel homely for all of our clients, as well as for ourselves since we live here too. At the end of each end of this level, we have two tennis courts, to our left we also have the main kitchen and dining hall, and sports changerooms,” I stated.

“Follow me please,” Nathan said as he led the way to the right. “Here we have an open lounge area, plus some staff office space, a staff lounge and one set of tennis courts,” Nathan said as we entered the area, before heading the opposite direction to the dining room.

We can accommodate a total of 40 young people in twenty - twin share bedrooms, each with its own small bathroom, which is on the next level up. The living area for the clients is split into two sections, with both sections being identical,” Nathan said as he headed for the stairs.

“As you can see, we get plenty of natural sunlight from the glass roof of the atrium, for all but the lower level of this building, which only gets a little bit from the entry foyer,” Nathan said as we stepped onto the boardwalk, overlooking the water feature and the atrium below us.

“Wow, that is quite a site from this level, whoever did this should get an award,” Greg said, “We all contributed to the building of the atrium garden, and everything else in this building, as we all have the same goals to help those young people who are homeless and in urgent need,” I responded.

Nathan opened the door into the billiards room and stepped inside. “This is an additional recreation space for the clients, we also have table tennis tables that can fit over the top of these two tables, and we also have darts, and in the back-right corner is the laundry.

All clients will be required to do their own laundry, as well as keeping their bedrooms clean and tidy at all times. The other room on the left is a storeroom with the table tennis tables, plus some chairs, and a few round coffee tables, so the clients can sit down and chat,” Nathan said before heading out of the room and turning left.

Once everyone had caught up and we were in the accommodation wing, Nathan continued. “Here we have ten of the twin client bedrooms, plus an open lounge area, with large screen television, and plenty of seating area for all. One of these accommodation wings will remain locked until we have enough clients to open it,” he said, before leaving the room and heading to the stairs again.

“On this final level, we have two sections, the area to the right has the potted fruit trees, and the staff accommodation, while on the left, we have the raised vegetable gardens, two workshops and the large chick coop. With all of this that we grow, we will be able to provide about 40% of all food that we need to feed 40 clients and all the staff, at the moment, we have a fair amount of extra supplies, which we have been donating,” I explained from the boardwalk on the second level.

“I am glad that you have high barriers for overlooking the atrium, as it is a long way down there,” Greg commented, and Julian nodded his head in agreement, before following us towards the veggie garden. “Brent is in charge of looking after our gardens, while my son Jonah is in charge of looking after the chooks, to make sure they are fed, watered, and the eggs are collected, but he is with my parents for a few days, so I will have to take care of those duties” I said.

“Well, I must say, this is a lot more than I expected, and I congratulate you all on a magnificent job with building this place,” Julian said to us, as we watched the chickens dash out of the pen, looking for somewhere to scratch. I checked the water bowls and the feeder bin, to make sure they had plenty of both, before collecting a large number of eggs, while the visitors looked around.

When we had made our way back to the lower level of the main building, I asked our guests to put the blindfolds back on, and we led them back to the administration centre entry lounge, before allowing them to take the blindfolds off.

“Well, I must say that I am very impressed with everything that I have seen today, and I hope that it all goes well for you all. I agree with Nathan with his earlier statement, that there is now smoke around to cause any delay in you opening up your facility for your first clients,” Greg said.

“I am very pleased to hear that, and thank you for your encouragement with this project,” I replied, as we headed out to the garage, with the door now opening, to let them out the front of the property.

“We would be interested in keeping tabs with how things are progressing with the project if you don’t mind?” Julian asked, “I see no problem with that, we just have to run it past the Board of Trustees first that is all,” I responded, as I shook their hands, and saw them head for their vehicle.

Once the garage door was closed again, Nathan and I headed back downstairs and across to the main building, where Scott and Charles were relaxing sitting on the edge of the garden planters in the atrium. “We really need to have some seating in here, maybe a few garden benches, here and there so people can just sit down and enjoy the garden,” Charles stated when we arrived.

After some discussions on how many and where to place the garden benches, we agreed on having six triple seat garden benches, with two at each end against the large tree boxes and sun shaft, and two near the middle against the large tree boxes, so there is seating for a maximum of eighteen people.

With that decided, we headed to the staff lounge, where we could sit comfortably and have a cup of tea while we discussed the final arrangements for the entry of the first four clients this evening. Traditionally, the homeless gathered at one of three locations every evening before dark, to get some food from the soup kitchen van, that provides a hot meal for all the homeless in the region, and this is where we would try and locate the first four clients to be part of the project.

Liam, at 15 will be the youngest of the group, having left home over six months ago because of his abusive father, an alcoholic mother, and he is also gay, which his parents do not approve of, and they don’t want anything to do with him no longer.

Toby, is 19 and he has been homeless for nearly two years, having left the home environment, when his parents decided to move interstate, and Toby wanted to remain where he is. He was renting a small apartment, but was evicted when the owners decided to renovate his and two other apartments that they owned in the block, and shortly after he lost his job, because of his untidy appearance and falling asleep at work.

Ezekias is also 19 years old, he is gay and he had left school at 16 to take up a carpentry apprenticeship, but lost his job after two years because of the downturn in the house building industry. Finally, there is Marcus, who is 17 and he has been homeless for just a few months, he works part-time as a café worker, but he hasn’t enough money to rent an apartment.

I have known all of them for at least three months or more from my rounds as a youth counsellor, mainly to check on them and give any advice and sometimes they will use that advice, and sometimes they don’t. We are not sure if they will take the offer to stay at the project, but we are hopeful that they will.

As we were preparing to head out to the first soup kitchen site, passing through the atrium, a lightning flash, the rumble of thunder and the sound of hail on the glass panels above us, made us aware of a storm outside, and I saw Nathan quickly checked the weather app on his phone to check the situation.

“Damn, it appears that a sudden storm has hit the area, I doubt that anyone will be outdoors in this rotten weather, maybe we should delay this for one more day,” Nathan stated. “How about we just do a quick run around to make sure that everyone is safely out of the storm, I would feel a lot happier if I knew that no one is caught in it?” I suggested, and Scott and Charles agreed, so we continued on towards the admin centre and the two vehicles.