Dad says the first time I saw a tram after we moved to Melbourne from the farm, I ran and hid behind a bush. The screeching of the steel wheels on the tracks as it lurched around a corner and shot sparks out the back sent a shudder through me. And for the next two years, still a primary schooler, I caught these Victorian antiquities from my new home in East Melbourne to school in North Caulfield and back again each day. 

Catching a tram on my own as a ten year old was pretty scary at first. I grew up on a farm and was more comfortable riding a motorbike being chased by two dogs down to Lake Hume than I was sitting in an electrified train-bus full of grey faced city slickers with one seemingly chosen at random to be locked in a glass cage at the front to steer the thing.

Dad walked me to the end of our street down to the Flinders street tram stop near Jolimont Station, right by the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Living so close to Melbourne’s most famous landmark felt significant but I couldn’t and still can’t tell you why. It made me feel important somehow although, obviously, it didn’t. I could catch any tram along Flinders street until I reached Swanston street. There, I waited in the cold shadows of St Paul’s Cathedral – straight out of a vampire movie – for the number 3 or number 67 tram to rattle along. The number 3 was better because it went all the way to school, but I could also catch the number 67 down to Balaclava road and then get onto the number 16.

Working out the different ways to get to school by tram was one of the ways I entertained myself in the pre-mobile-phone era. I also used to love looking at the colourful tram network map at each end of the tram. All the names seemed so strange and exotic. I used to wonder what it would be like spending a day going end-to-end on a tram, passing through all the different stops and distant suburbs.

On one particularly sleepy morning, I found a spare seat easily and sat down near the front door. I always preferred sitting by the door because of the consuming fear of being too far away from it to get out before the doors closed and I missed my stop. I don’t know how that fear came to take such a strong hold over me, but it dug its claws in and didn’t let go for quite some time. Being too far from the tram door when it was my stop elicited the same response as something touching my foot while swimming in murky water.

I was tired, so I leant my head against the glass barrier next to the door. The rattly old tram rocked back and forth and side to side like a lame heifer trying to walk up the muddy hill from the bottom paddock. It made my head drum against the glass and, now and then, a bump was violent enough to jerk my head to the side and smack it back against the glass. I plunged my hand into my school bag and found a wide-brim hat – no hat, no play – put it on and folded the brim up on the glass side for some padding. The most comfortable position was leaning forward so I could stop sliding around by resting my forehead against the pole with the stop button on it. 

I wandered in and out of a blissful sleepy fog. The fear of missing my stop kept me tethered to reality and away from the cliffedge of unconsciousness. The jarring shudder of the tram slowing down at each stop opened my eyes at first, but I knew I had a long way to go before my stop. So after a while those vibrations became a humming sleep song.

It was only twenty-five years after the incident when, one day, the memory popped into my head that I realised how many details I remembered about the man sitting opposite me. His chin gently uplifted and a calm but attentive face. He was as tall as dad, maybe, and had the same brown hair. He had a black Eastpak backpack on his lap and a tall white cane leant against the wall next to him. He had heavy lids half-blinked over milky grey eyes – he was blind.

His cane slipped as he stood up, it swung around and gonged the pole next to his seat. It stirred me and I half blinked an eye open. He slung his backpack, grabbed his cane and walked towards the door to my left. My eyes fought the urge to rest and stayed open. I hadn’t seen many blind people in my life, maybe three, so he was a curiosity to me. I was also a bit worried the tram might jolt and throw him to the ground – not that I could’ve caught him, but maybe cushioned his fall somewhat.

He reached out his right hand to push the door button. He had immaculate nails, I bit mine – still do sometimes. Dad said I’d stop eventually – maybe one day when stress stops existing. Something was off about his hand. Not his hand, the movement, it was tracking wrong. It was drifting closer to the tram’s stop button but not quite lining up. Before my sleepy brain could connect the dots, he poked me right in the eye. It wasn’t a gentle poke like when you’re testing if a sausage is properly cooked either. We breezed right past the first knuckle before he realised the stop button was squishier and wetter than usual. Right in the eye.

My head jerked back so hard it hit the window. I rubbed my eye to get the dry sensation of his finger out of my eye socket. He apologised, wiped his hand on his top, foudna and pushed the real button and quickly stepped off the tram and into his day. I remember the faces around me – a middle aged business woman looked like she was about to split in two trying to hide a laugh. Another younger man stared deadpan like he couldn’t believe what he just saw – maybe he didn’t care. An old man looked at me with a smile, ‘is your eye alright?’. I nodded, my eye was still blurry from the poke and all the rubbing, I tried to grin. His smile broadened, he leant in closer and said, ‘you should’ve said ding.’