by Peter Marks
‘Sure I’m sure,’ Colin said, unsure that he should tell Wright the truth, the truth being one of Nathan’s least favourite responses and when Wright reacted to the information by slumping face first into a palette of fresh paint (ending up looking like an Apache brave turned chicken, face striped green and orange in cretinous camouflage) Colin knew with some certainty how he should have phrased the response.
Knew without a doubt that he should have lied. Although he was happy that at least there was some-one as depressed as he was.
Colin, like Wright, could be a major sadist.
Chapter Ten
WATERING THE VEGETABLE
LARGE GREY CUMULUS haunted a stained sky. Again. Bloody rain, doesn’t God realise that I’m not a flower so I’m not in need of such constant watering the vegetable Wright griped tucking himself neatly into the car. Grasping a cold steering wheel firmly between wet palms, he ignited the beast and hurtled out the drive. It was time for work. Again.
Time to bloody retire Wright grumbled, threading the car through snarling traffic that wound in never ending cues either side of the serrated white lines that clung like paste pancakes to the sodden road in guidance to the certainly blind who seemed to fill the driver’s seat of every car crazily travelling the motorways of Melbourne.
A few near collisions later, he pulled up in front of the Milk Bar and switching off the engine, straddling the gear stick to get to the passenger side glove box, he searched in there for some money. Reaching into the black recess he searched for anything resembling dollars or cents. Or Kelly’s purse which he’d stolen from her the day before she’d disappeared from his life.
Treasure hunting for a few minutes, he found enough coins for his lung leadening purposes but couldn’t find his wallet, or her purse, which he was sure he’d put there. Then he remembered. He recalled that Kelly had stolen his wallet in retaliation for him pick-pocketing her purse but since she’d gone into hiding (from him and his peculiarities basically) Wright hadn’t been able to retrieve it yet so he was wallet-less - so credit card and money-less and poor, he was just about to exit when a song he’d long liked pulsed in rich volume from the car radio, so Wright hesitated. Instead of leaving he sat relaxing, humming along with a Beatle’s track he’d first heard snuggled in the back of his mother’s borrowed Mini which, on a date, he’d parked hidden amongst thick tee tree scrub that grew uncontrolled on the cliffs overlooking Sandringham beach. He was attempting to seduce a Sandra. He was young. And she was a virgin.
He tried, she judged. Six out of ten. Sin a la Sandra.
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Time flies. Virginity vanishes. And Sandra? She changed her name by Dead Pole to Cemetery Sandra when her orange Datsun mated with a lamp-post one night on her way home from the shot-gun wedding of her best friend to her best friend’s parents worst nightmare. Mashed, she was turned to pink putty. C’est la mortar.
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Memories, reminiscences, vibrations of things past. The older he got, the more they encroached and it worried the crap out of him for Nathan knew it was a sure sign that excessive age in all it’s disgusting, demented, incontinent, inevitable grotesqueness was invading his earthly tenure. He now realised that his life was being stolen from him with all the stealth of a paid assassin and cursing such encroaching obsolescence, he sprinted from the car for canvas cover.
‘Alpine Lights,’ he wheezed at the old women busy stacking the shelves with chemical condiments. The old hag was, as ever, dressed undertaker exuberant in a throat to feet costume of funeral black.
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Wright harboured a strange desire. One which hid in his head but threatened to escape every-time he entered the shop. What he really wanted was to sneak up on the shelf stacking bleak widow, drug her, then, while she was out of it, dress her up in a bright floral gown so that when she awoke she’d look more like Danny LaRue than Dismal LaGreek.
But he never did. Always, on reflection, after the playful thought skipped naked into his frontal lobe, Wright realised that such an action would only exacerbate the problem. Knew that the shock of finding herself dressed in any fabric more colourful than a burnt chop would kill her, and that, in consequence, one of her cousins would be seconded to fill her place behind the counter.
And the cousin would be dressed in funeral black.
Nathan would walk in to the place to be greeted by yet another woman decked out in traditional Greek garb, this time in memory of the dearly departed Danny he’d frocked to death. So the whole sorry cycle would begin again. Wright knew this would happen if he let the idea loose so he didn’t give it rein. It was yet another loony scheme like so many others he was constantly shunting into the repository situated at the back of his brain for all such bad ideas.
It was as full as a woman’s handbag.
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She turned accusingly toward him. ‘Yu shoulda gif up ya know. Smoking very bad for ze lungs,’ the diminutive mother substitute stated in concerned tones to a breathless Nathan whose only thought was here we go again.
‘Very bad tings cigarettes,’ she reiterated advisedly, handing him the packet face up so he could clearly read the health hazard warning plastered in large gold letters across the bottom of the cellophane protected pack.
‘SMOKING CAUSES LUNG CANCER,’ it read. Brilliant! That’s stating the bleeding obvious Wright snorted thinking the Health Department could at least hire a decent copywriter to pep the message up a little. Something more subtle, or more asinine. Something like: ‘SMOKING DAMAGES YOUR CHANCES OF LIVING LONG ENOUGH TO BE A BURDEN ON SOCIETY’, or ‘SMOKING IS TAXING - IF IT WEREN’T THE GOVERNMENT WOULD OUTLAW IT’, or ‘SMOKING: THE AIR YOU BREATHE WHEN THERE AREN’T ENOUGH CARS AND FUMES AND FACTORIES AROUND TO REALLY FUCK UP YOUR LUNGS.’ Wright’s humour should also have come with a health warning.
The woman in witch cat black continued to lecture. Idiot woman, why doesn’t she give up! She lectured me yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that. (Wright was beginning to feel persecuted). Christ, if she doesn’t want me to smoke then why doesn’t she refuse to serve me or even better, offer me some incentive like free food or cash - or her sixteen year old daughter who was attractive and well stacked and was one of the few people on the planet who found Wright’s jokes funny. Or failing that, why didn’t she just offer to dress up like Danni LaRue then he’d certainly consider considering give up.
‘We’ve all got to die sometime,’ Nathan said, wearily. ‘Anyway, I’m giving them up soon...’ he lied through his yellow-tan teeth adding: 'One of these days ...when you wear a fabric that doesn’t coincide with the colour of my lungs,’ he whispered turning to leave, clutching the cigarettes to a sure to be buried chest and counting his change.
Hell, things were becoming predictable, he thought. Same woman, same shop, same admonishment. Life was so bloody routine.
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‘Mornin’ boys,’ Wright yelled, deciding he’d been short changed so started counting the money Dismal LaGreek had given again, heading for his desk in search of the calculator Kelly had given him for Christmas (so he could add up to something she’d said).
Phil nodded hello. Colin, smiling gormless from the desk next to Alan, who was absent, turned in his chair (Wright wishing he’d turn in his grave) to stare at him.
Wright knew what was coming. Eyes narrowed, the stick man grabbed for the ever empty coffee mug then, leaning forward obsequiously, offered the thing to Wright so Wright offered to separate Colin’s skull head from an emu neck. Then said: ‘Go find a parrot and teach it to percolate in your pants.’ and sat down. Words spoken, Wright sighed here we go again, yet another mindless moment he thought despairingly.
Colin shrugged and informed Wright he’d allow any bird over 5’4’ with large breasts and ample thighs to boil the liquid he hid in waiting his trousers before getting up and wandering toward the kettle which was in the kitchen downstairs. Returning a little
later holding a mug of steaming brown ooze cupped between the octopus digits, he settled back at his type strewn board, searching the desk and, finally finding what he was after, read to Wright from a crumpled piece of note paper.
‘Nicola from I.P.R. rang, said you were a lazy buggar...’
‘Is that a message or an opinion?’ Wright queried.
‘....a sad indictment,’ Colin sniggered and continued. ‘Sid from Pre Press called to tell you something ...bad news I gather, something went wrong with that brochure they’re doing the colour separations on...’ Wright groaned, Colin read on. ‘Your mom rang, your sister rang, the bank rang.’ Colin laughed.
Wright was mystified. ‘Again? What’s their problem? I spoke to them yesterday.’ Wright grouched swivelling in the chair. ‘Colin you moron. I want today’s messages not the regurgitated mumblings from the recent past.’
Now Colin looked mystified. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘What? They all rang again this morning?’ Wright frowned in cross examination.
‘None of them rang yesterday.’
‘Crap.’
‘Moron.’
‘Ignoramus.’
Wright, having lost the Intellectual Handicap run over 2 few neurones, slumped on the desk and went to sleep, waking up momentarily a few snores later to ask if Kelly had rung.
‘No’
‘Bitch,’ Nathan spat, teeth clenched in sad reaction.
‘All not well in fairyland?’ Alan asked from the door, just arriving. Wright groaned and refused to be swept into that one again, immediately going back to sleep wondering why those around him were beginning to sound like a stuck record. A dream about naked girls feeding him succulent purple grapes later, the phone by his ear rang. Loudly. Stubbornly enough interrupt his lust crazed dreams.
It was the grapes of wrath. ‘Yeah,’ Wright answered, pissed off at having his fantasies interrupted. It was the same man trying to sell him the same imbecilic insurance. God, don’t you people ever give up! He grumbled, immediately lapsing into deterrent mode.
‘Fff..u..u..ck ..Orf!’ He suggested. ‘I t.tt...told yyyyou y..yyes yyess ...yessterday I w ..w ..wasn’t interested,’ he told the man he’d told yesterday and exasperated, putting his head to the desk and clutching the phone, tried to explain this salient fact to the idiot echo.
The echo denied it. ‘I tt.old you....I...d..d...don’t....nnnneed...any..’ said a Gattling Gun Wright, becoming less and less comprehensible with each passing letter until the man got the hint and hung up.
‘Salesman?’ Colin asked. Wright nodded. ‘Y...y..ou..b..bbb...bet,’ he smirked, nodding off again until the phone rang again. Wright shifting slowly, cautiously picked up the phone and, holding it to a deaf ear, was greeted by a question he’d already answered - yesterday!
Nathan was overwhelmed by the futility of the repeated interrogation. ‘What do you want? A bathing cap so your mind doesn’t lose information through that vast hole in your canyon cranium with the ease it seems to be currently enjoying. Christ Nik, I told you yesterday .....hang on I’ll write it down so you won’t forget ......you can read can’t you?’ he enquired snidely before telling her exactly what he’d told her yesterday. As calmly as he could, considering his confusion and her obvious senility, Wright restated that the brochure was nearly finished and they’d agreed on a bottle of Moet to buy him a day’s grace.
Nikkie told him he was a moron and that she’d been home ill yesterday and that she would hardly bother ringing him from her deathbed. Unless it was with an offer to join her. In death, not in bed, she added smartly.
Wright told her she was lying and she told him she was lying yesterday. In bed. Then reiterated that he was a moron.
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Hovered over the work strewn desk, Colin kept himself busy writing to his solicitor.
‘My wife has....’
‘...certain unsavoury habits.’ Wright completed.
‘How did you know?’
‘How did I know she has certain unsavoury habits?’
‘No. I know why you know that. I’ve told you often enough about her vile behaviour,’ he knew. ‘No, I mean how did you know I was going to write that?’
‘ESP.’
‘Garbage.’
‘Scientific fact. The Russians have done extensive controlled experiments..’
‘Good, now they’ll have time to dissect you.’ Colin countered.
Wright looked at Colin looking sceptical thinking that he did look earnest in his enquires so now Wright was perplexed and he only relaxed when he remembered that Colin was Methuselah ancient so senility had obviously finally found him. God, they were all going troppo.
‘Come on. How did you know?’ Colin wanted to know.
‘Well, its a repeat of yesterday’s drivel for a start.’
‘What are you talking about. You’ve been sniffing glue again haven’t you?’ Colin looked at him accusingly.
‘Beats sniffing bicycle seats as you do.’ Wright responded.
‘Jesus Nathan, stop being a pain in the arse for once. Explain yourself’. So Nathan tried. He told Colin he’d seen the letter yesterday, saying that Colin had shown him the damn thing already, so Colin told him he was as nutty as a fruitcake ‘cos he hadn’t written anything until today. Wright said frogshit. Said there was proof, asking Colin if he’d like to read the page response he’d left in the top pocket of the denim jacket, YESTERDAY! Colin reached behind him to the jacket draped over the back of his chair and searched every pocket. There was no letter so Wright said Colin had lost it and Colin said it was never there, looking at Wright strangely (which, in itself, was nothing unusual. Every-one looked at Nathan strangely).
‘Alan saw it,’ Wright exclaimed, suddenly thinking he’d be saved by a witness but Alan had been got at. Brought off. Bribed. Heavied. Intimidated some-how for Alan said he’d seen nothing and besides he’d been out of the office most of yesterday.
It was a plot.
‘Yeah sure boys, you must think I’m really naive. Quit playing games. I know you two, you’re the greatest bullshit artists I’ve ever competed with.’ Nathan proposed. ‘But you’re still only novices. Remember I’m a Grand Master! I don’t lie straight in bed. I tell fibs politicians would be proud of. I speak with a forked tongue. I have certificates and medals to prove my prowess. The Liberals want me and the Labor Party said I could make Prime Minister with my talent. Christ, I’m the bull in bullshit! I know all the tricks....’ Nathan ranted.
‘Nathan’s on medication again,’ Colin whispered to Alan as they watched the performance.
‘Its that woman you know. She’s unhinged him. She shouldn’t have buggared off and left him like this.’
‘She’s driven him over the edge.’
‘Definitely.’
‘Should we shoot him.’
‘Its the humane thing to do.’ They agreed then, rushing Wright, the two of them picked him up (even then he didn’t stop or shut-up, he simply kept ranting) and carried him out the door, his arms waving in epileptic motion, Wright yabbering like a demented chat-show host. Alan held his legs, Colin trying to control his aimlessly flailing arms as they hauled him out onto the stair-well, down the stairs and out the front of the building and rounded the corner before tossing him in the green dump bin which lived in the alley that ran by the side of the studio.
He was still in there half an hour late lecturing the garbage. Speaking rubbish to rubbish.
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When he finally returned to his desk nothing had changed. It went on like this all day this repetition of yesterday events and conversations. Very weird. Wright was catching a bad bout of chronic consternation but this was one affliction he wasn’t about to brag about to anyone. (Especially to Nikkie who’d tell all her friends and they’d start ringing him again to tell him he was crazy).
Madness, Nathan knew, was not something to be shared. Or divulged.
Chapter Eleven
WRESTLING THE ALLIGATORS
NATHAN WAS NOT ENJOYING THE EXPERIENCE. Kelly had decided to force chastity upon him by ensuring she was absent from between his blue flannel sheets.
Alone, he’d awoken to a sun drenched morning pouring in at him in a dazzling flood from the curtain-less windows. Groaning loudly, he dragged one of the blue wrapped pillows over a frightening hairstyle.
Nathan lay there, hiding from the gun rays for a few minutes before finally coming to the conclusion that, solo, he had nothing to do except wake up. And get up.
Kelly was A.W.O.L., Nathan was A.W.A.K.E. and badly missing her soft presence.
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For reasons he was yet to fathom, Kelly was obviously angry with him. Weeks ago she’d stormed from the house and, though too many lonely days had now passed, she still hadn’t contacted him (though Wright held seances every night in habitual hope). Scratching a hair raised scalp, he wondered if she was still asleep then thought, darkly, that maybe she was, at this very moment, being pounded by some work-out wonder with Atlas biceps and endless prong.
Jealousy was taking hold and Wright found the grip foul.
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Dressed and showered, he was snuggled in front of the television glimpse watching a sanctimonious religious program ‘The Hour of Adulation’ which preached God’s all consuming interest in money and mortal donations.
Nathan wondered why the Almighty didn’t get off his backside and do something himself for a change instead of leaving his good works to these ill suited missionaries? These reverently dressed salesmen who seemed more cash crazy than Christian and Wright thought that if God indeed existed, then this lot would be the first to be smitten for the program, the pastor, the cretinous congregation were absolutely awful. So absolutely awful in fact that Wright found it all rather funny and so he spent most Sunday mornings rolling about the lounge laughing in horrified wonder that humanity could be so gullible.
