Getting Even

Getting Even is not about right, or wrong, or revenge.  Sometimes, really bad things happen to very good people.  And sometimes, Karma needs a helping hand to set things right.  That’s what we do.  We’re just getting even.

Excerpt from Getting Even: “The people of the street are a mixture of every possible combination of people, professionals, tradespeople and family people who went through hard times.  They all have this in common; they are homeless and live on the street.”

Bernie stood as he spoke to them, Sam, Julie, Paul, and Leoni. He had their full attention. He spoke from deep within, from years of living a life they could never have understood or perhaps even survived.

“When you think about homeless people, you need to think of the street differently.  Consider it firstly like a country, where you have citizens and residents, tourists, intentional visitors, and accidental visitors.

Some people have become permanent residents, call them citizens.  They have been here for so long, they earned their right to citizenship and couldn’t imagine or cope with anything else; this is their life now.  They know their way round and are part of the establishment.

Some go there by default when their life as they know it, falls apart and they have nowhere else to go.  They are visitors, accidentally mostly.  They lose their membership to the outside world and end up there because it’s where you fall to when you lose everything.  Nowhere else to go, no resources to turn to that they know of.  Marriage breakups, health issues, bankruptcy, drugs and so on.

Some people choose this place as a refuge, hiding from whatever it is out there that frightens the bejeezus out of them.  It’s mostly a safe place to hide, anonymous.  Some are criminals, some domestic violence victims, some we never find out why they come to hide here.

There are the casual visitors, who just want a break from the other world, but they can go back if they want, and they do have somewhere to go back to.  They just don’t like it.  Kids with unhappy family situations often, who restart life in a way, sometimes back with their families, sometimes they never see them again but they rebuild their confidence and resilience to start over somewhere else.

The thing is that while it has a lot in common with a country, it also does have differences.  There’s no database with everyone on it, like the police or Centrelink.  That’s good if you want to hide, but bad, if you need to be found. 

There is no law here, except for the law we choose to make.  The police don’t come.  The bad guys ignore the rules and play by their own. To survive, we have to make our own laws and our own luck.  Nobody comes to help. There is no umpire. There is only the law of survival.

I chose this place as I needed to hide.  It was necessary that I didn’t get found or at least, that I could hide most of the time and get help when I was found.  I developed a support network around me.  We communicate with and keep tabs on the rest of the community, here and elsewhere, so we can look out for each other. 

Next, you need to think of it also like a huge, silent organism, lots of moving parts, but from the outside, just a confused fog that few people can see into.  But think about it.  You have an itch in your shoe, and you can know it and feel it elsewhere in your body.  But nobody else need know about it.  They can’t feel or see that itch you have – it’s all within the organism that is your body.  In the same way, we have developed that nerve system within the community that talks to each other and it’s pretty much invisible to the rest of the world.

However, the homeless folks are very underresourced and we would like to change that.  Make their lives a little more livable and where possible, get some justice for them and anyone else who we find in trouble.”

This is the essence of the novel and series, “Getting Even”.

This is an extract from the forthcoming novel “Getting Even” by Ray Jamieson. There’s a reason this is so important to him – he visited this ‘country’ once and discovered that many people are only a paycheck away from being residents there. They are living week to week and absolutely relying on their current job to hold out, relying on their health to remain good, relying on the car to start each day so they can get to work and earn that pay, so they can stay living in their homes. This book is for them too.

It’s all about making a difference where we can, giving a hand-up, not a handout, to those who find themselves in trouble, homeless or disadvantaged for whatever reason. It’s about empowering people in trouble to take back control of their lives and be respected for doing so, to have some dignity to pull through this tough time, to choose once again where in this world they would like to operate from.

It’s about giving them a helping hand and getting even, not getting revenge, not evening the score, but getting even with the scorecard, getting even so they can start again and rebuild the lives they choose.

It’s about us, you, and me, changing our perspectives on this taboo topic and making the changes we can too, to help these folks, and ourselves, with getting even.

Take a peek inside Getting Even

This novel is destined for a series, and the whole series is aimed at creating an ongoing TV series. You can look at the storylines and heroes in each chapter, on the next page – Getting Even With Life. There is a core cast of characters to fall in love with, some of whom you have already met earlier on this page. Other heroes and heroines have a chapter or series episode dedicated to them and their challenges and how they overcame them. Meet them all, see yourself in their lives and challenges.

Further pages on this site will show how you can make a difference and a contribution to this very worthy cause. Follow all the links, learn about it, make a difference and help some people with Getting Even.

To make a contribution to Getting Even, visit:

GoFundMe Campaign Link

Author: Ray Jamieson