by Peter Marks
I was asleep and comfortable and warm and cozy and certainly this was one baby who wasn’t going anywhere. Christ, my parents didn’t even have a television in the house so I wasn’t about to leave the Womb Hilton for Wireless Only Highett so slept on content. And malingered until the fourteenth (when dad separated mum’s knees with a large axe).
You can’t blame me for being hesitant, even then I had some idea of what awaited me.
My name for instance....”
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Wright was madly thumping the keys now, scoffing the gin and letting the alcohol pickle his brain so proficiently that he was beginning to think that what he was writing was worth writing.
Which we know it wasn’t.
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“....My star sign for another for without warning, without my consent, I was born an Aries. Bad Karma, bad vibes, bad timing. Apparently we, the Rams, unrelated by gene or football, are to be avoided at all costs. We are dangerous - black lambs, ill conceived follies who are maudlin and maladjusted and most in need of incarceration (or so I’m told by Librans, Aquarian’s, Cancerians, Capricornians, Texans, Cretins, Martians and the check-out girls down at the Supermarket)”.
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On a roll but wanting a fag, Wright stopped to rest. He looked out the window, stared at the ceiling, glanced at the clock. The clock said three, Wright screamed ‘fore’ and with a deft swing of a now grasped hockey stick, he blasted a fluorescent orange golf ball at the far wall. It hit with a resounding thud, travelling at the speed of light, bouncing straight back at him with the velocity of a dishonoured cheque.
Wright hit the floor, it hit hyper-speed. It was face to the carpet, hands over head as the crazed sphere ricocheted around him knocking over cups and bottles and lamps and decimating all in its path (which was no hard task considering Wright’s normal standard of decor amounted to something best described as Late Armageddon anyway). With the attack finally over, the ball finding rest in the pot plant by his bed Wright decided he was lucky to survive such temporary swipe at insanity so resolved to putt, not drive, next time. Then, as a precaution, just in case his brain decided to pull another life threateningly stunt, he shoved the lampshade on his head, wearing it as a helmet and so some protection if his brain failed and grinning broadly, heart thumping, the crazy Arnold Palmer went back to work.
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“.......I’ll admit that we Aries are a rum bunch (though personally I’d prefer we were Whisky but that’s the trouble with being born under this particular astrological configuration; we never do get what we want).
For instance another couple of notables, two giants of history, Herr Bismarck and the No Longer Heard Hitler share my astrological inclinations.
And look what happened to them!
It’s all so unfair. All Adolf wanted was to rule the world and all Otto Von wanted was to spend his twilight years chasing women in the Bahamas but what happened? Fate happened, their star-sign intervened. I, Adolf and Otto were destined for disappointment from day one. We were Aries, fire and lice, so we were doomed to failure from the start.
What a group. What a debacle. A real horrorscope!
Now just how many other pathetic persona’s populate this sorry star sign I shudder to guess, though undoubtedly millions of others do share this precarious period so we must be a fairly formidable lot (though sadly women have always seemed particularly reluctant to formidable with moi. Or moi's manhood. Ho hum, sex wasn’t meant to be easy....or available).
One good thing about Arians is that they’re pragmatists. When faced with truth we lie. When asked what star sign we are..... we’re Liarbrans”.
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Totally frustrated with such a disappointing figure, Jenny dreamt of getting her thighs streamlined. Of working off the fat she saw cruelly clinging to her every curve. Standing almost naked in a pair of skimpy lace panties before the full length mirror which, polished regularly, stretched high and gleaming to a painted pink ceiling, she gazed disappointedly at herself.
She was alert to her faults, too alert for her own ego’s health, posing at every angle to find a profile which pleased her but none satisfied her jaundiced judgement so desperate, she touched her stomach with outstretched palms as if the laying on of hands would miraculously dismiss the excess. Closing her eyes, she made a wish.
Opening them, she looked sadly disappointed when her hands shifted to reveal that no amazing transformation had settled her stomach. Flat. Perhaps miracles were slow to translate she thought silently but ever hopeful, she wondered if maybe, by tonight, her bosoms would sprout, her thighs become taught, her figure turn hour glass.
She hoped that when next she looked, Elle McPherson would have replaced Jennifer Wilde as the mirrored reflection. Next to her observations the bed was still unmade as if in untidy memorial to last night’s Wilde gyrations with the today exhausted boyfriend. Dragging herself from her image, Jenny scrounged in the heavy cedar-wood drawers for a pair, THE pair of leotards to wear to the gymnasium. Because she considered them the most flattering pair she owned they were her favourites and, as Friday was the best class of the week man wise, Jenny forever on the prowl steady boyfriend or not, she wanted to look her best. They weren’t there.
So she searched. Under the bed, behind the chair, amongst the leaves of the rubber plant then in the wardrobe. Thought maybe they were hidden amongst the soiled laundry dumped in the cane basket by the window so she tried there. Without success. Hunted the room from top to bottom but they were no-where to be found.
In despair, she sunk to the bed where she noticed something white and written tucked under her slip frilled pillow.
Dear Ms. Wild,
If you’re searching for your pet tights I’ve given them a better home. We ran out of tea bags and the strainer has disappeared so I used them to strain the Earl Grey this morning....
yours gratefully
Tommy the Teaman.
‘Right Nathan,’ she hissed, the curse hardly escaping from teeth clamped tight in obvious anger. Start praying mate, this time you’re cemetery bound! You’ve overstepped the bounds of decency once too often you bastard, she swore, tearing the note into tiny shreds.
Wilde stormed from the room absolutely livid and certainly would have killed Nathan, closet or no closet, had not a pair of black dotted white leotards fallen in her face when she flung the bedroom door open.
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“.....another interesting thing is that I’m not human.
Moi est non homo sapien. Well according to the Chinese anyway who claim I’m reptilian. They say I’m a snake! (Which is no news to some of my ex-girlfriends who are of exactly the same opinion).
This astounding piece of zoological trivia was gleaned by me, the indigent, from them, the inscrutables, one night last week while I was sitting on a slab bench by the laminate top counter idly minding my own business substituting salt for sugar, sugar for salt, down at the local Chinese Take-away. While waiting for a double serve of Sweet and Sour, pork I think, I noticed an ancient, almost Ming Dynasty ancient, Chinese calendar hanging listless and yellowing on the far wall behind the packed the tables. Ceasing substituting, I went to look at it.
Studying it, I found that the calendar listed years; then mated them with an appropriate animal. Or reptile. Or anything else that goes bump in the night.
Me, I was born in 1953 so I’m a snake. So they say. Personally I suggest we ignore this system. I mean who wants to end up a pig? Or married to one I say, only I don’t say anything, not even thank-you when I get the call and collect my dinner.
On the way home in the car I began wondering about the proprietors of this establishment, the Ho Bang’s, a Cantonese family who immigrated here several generations ago and use cats in their cooking. (They deny this vehemently every time I accuse them of catabalism but I’ve seen the evidence. Seen dogs dining late at night when the humans ha
ve gone home. Seen them sitting at tables with serviettes and forks munching Cantucky Fried Cat. Or so I tell Mr. Woo Ho Bang the owner who tells me to chew arsenic then calls the police).
I always thought the strangest thing about them, aside from their menu, was their name. Ho Bang. I mean do they have a relative, a distant cousin perhaps who runs a house of ill-repute? Probably. Probably calls it Bang, Bang, Pay...probably there’s also has an uncle who has a fire-works factory; a business simply called ‘BANGS!’.
Who knows? Who cares, I know I don’t because I’ve got more important things to do. Like eat.
And worry.
I worry a lot. I worry about growing old, about becoming impotent, about money, about crime, about the ozone layer.
I fret about work, I’m anxious about women. The decimation of Brazilian rain forests is of major concern to me and the hazards of smoking torment me. I worry, I sweat. About so many things - like what the Chinese tell me, about being a snake I mean.
Now a snake conjures up all sorts of nervous images but no matter what others may contend I do not slither, or shed anything (not even a few pounds unfortunately) nor is my tongue split through its centre (even though I am prone to speaking with a forked tongue which probably explains the accusation). I don’t bite, I don’t rattle my tail, I never got to tempt Eve and I gave up hissing as a futile gesture eons ago”.
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Tectonic broom. 5.2 on the Richter scale. Wright stopped typing, suddenly remembering that he’d taped Jenny’s favourite leotards above the door of her room. More trouble. He prayed that the crude sling made of masking tape stretched between door and frame, tights atop, had worked as he’d guessed and dumped the leotards on her head after she’d found the note. The earth moved, he grinned and searched the room for a girl to share the experience. The were none available so he lit another endless cigarette and waited. The floor shook, the boards wavered like keys on a piano as Jenny and the brutal bristles clashed with the lounge ceiling.
Nathan snorted, then grabbing the lamp which stood ibis necked next to his desk to begin to echo the pounding. Lamp made jackhammer, he returned each wallop until the earth stood still and he made a note in smeared blue biro down the side of the black type page.
N. B. That woman needs urgent counselling. She believes she’s the San Andreas Fault. A bloody marauding earthquake. Bet the KGB used her for that Armenian job...
One bombardment quickly followed the other. Thump. A small sparrow bounced loudly off the window, pained. Directly in front of the desk, closed to wind and weather (and kamikaze sparrows) the window had halted the small feathered fuckwit mid flight.
In startled slow motion, mildly comatose and very bewildered, the rudderless missile slipped inch by quarter inch down the dirt coat pane onto the ledge where tepid puddles of city rain soaked its shock spread feathers.
Startled by the sound of beak on glass, Wright looked up just as bird became accordion and disappeared below the paint peeled frame. The blunted sparrow shook a befuddled bird brain and stood up. Then fell over. Then lying down again, shook its tiny head again, tried again before finally staggering to its wings and taking off.
Wright laughed and advised it too see an optometrist. Or a neurosurgeon. Watched it fly south and wished it a safe trip yelling that it should rent a guide dog as it disappeared over the rooftops.
He began typing again wondering why the day had turned so violent.
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“....so much for the year of the snake. Year of the sloth would be more appropriate if I’m indicative of that particular 12 months.
These days, as I said, I have more important things on my mind. Things like children, a wife, a mortgage and death now preoccupy me - though I’m not a father, I’m not married and I don’t own a thing worth mortgaging. (And also I’m not dead. Not yet anyway though there are a number of people who would gladly help me achieve this solid state if I let them).
Due to my outstanding lack of achievement in the aforementioned areas, because I’m 35 and therefore, according to my friends anyway, clinically dead I often wonder what it would be like to be a father, or a husband, or rich. Or a corpse.
I think that if I did manage to manufacture a child, if some dozy female decided to fertilise her egg with my tadpole; create a junior Frankenstein - then I’d run like hell. Catch the first slow boat to China.
But maybe not, maybe I’d surprise myself.
I mightn’t flee, I might become curiously paternal and give thanks for such a novel situation. Might (....though there’s more chance I might not) actually consider myself lucky (again its more likely I’d consider myself gone...) in fathering a child.
It would be Pot Luck for she’d be potted and I’d be lucky. Ergo: if I fathered a blind baby it’d be Blind Luck, or if it was deaf and sightless it’d be Dumb Luck (or brain damaged - Incredibly Dumb Luck). Were it still born it would be Still Wright, crippled it’d be a Wheel Right. Mongol? Left (on a Hill) Wright. All mine maybe, all birthed Wrights’. Gone wrong.
Which reminds me. At primary school, Miss Ann Thrope, my sixth grade teacher, an aging and bitter old crone, used to call me anything but Nathan. Or Wright. Wrong she’d yell when she wanted my attention, Sit Still Wrong when she wanted me for target practice (so I never did sit still. I may have been young but I wasn’t stupid. Even then, only ten, I was well versed in basic military strategy - knew it was more difficult to hit a moving target than something that sat like statue so I remained restless. And alive).
It was Miss Duck Or Die who taught me about furniture avalanches and their effect upon the bone structure of young males when she finally had me collide with Paula Henley’s desk one day when Miss Placed Rage tossed it at me. Forced me to give it lodgings between my upper and lower molars. It was my first taste of defeat, my first taste of pinewood, and my first taste of Paula Henley as she’d had no time to jump ship when a rampaging teacher had catapulted her and her scholarly texts (Noddy In Bondage as I recall) at me. And found me. (Paula tasted better than the desk if you’re interested).
Paula was also a better fuck but I wouldn’t find that out for another five years so I continued having intercourse with her desk after school until the cleaners almost caught me, dick in desk. In Ignorant Delicti. This, and the fact that the splinters were taking a terrible toll on my, by then, porcupine penis finally persuaded my small but growing intellect to accept celibacy as a more viable (and less disfiguring) alternative. So it was that I, the young Nathan No Desk, remained chaste until turning eleven when I discovered a less dangerous, less painful way of relieving these hormone induced urges.
It was fate. Kismet. I met my hand. Madame Palmer and her five daughters, it was love at first tug and masturbators monogamy. Boy meets hands to live happily ever after. Nearly. Fortunately, before I went blind, the real thing arrived to replace palm with passion.
I discovered girls and grass. How to roll and grunt. Found delirious pleasures with teenage nymphets. Found out they were better value and less guilt inducing.
I’m now too old for young girls but I’m not too ancient to produce them. When, if, I finally do succeed, have a girl, or maybe a boy, I think I’ll call the first one ‘First Wright.’ Name it after my favourite direction. Call a second ‘Turn Wright’ then get lost before the kid gets old enough to hit me with a Wright uppercut to a glass jaw, for giving it such a turkey of a name. It would serve me Wright.
Still, my name being what it is, all is not lost. Any daughter would be Miss Wright. So perfect. Any boy would be Mister Wright so the man every mother dreams of as deserving of their daughter. (Mind you this is exactly what I am but fat lot of good this has done me to date).
Time is running out. Kids aren’t mine. Others own them and I’m childless. And stuck with a major production problem. Morals. Society sadly deems it unspeakably crass to produce children out of wedlock (and the girls I go out with refuse to indulge in sex out of headlock) so
being as moral the next hypocrite I presume that if I’m to ever have a family I’ll first have to procure a wife (...with a mental detector probably). This may sound easy enough. But it isn’t. It’s not the simple task the magazines suggest. Or my mother supposes. Nathan knows, Nathan’s tried.
I’ve done everything inhumanly possible to attain the unattainable. I’ve looked in catalogues, haunted singles bars, scoured dark alleys in the dead of night, risked dim discotheques in the depths of drink, I’ve looked high, searched low, peered up dresses, tried dating the blind. I’ve even advertised to womanise. Nothing. No success.
I’ve written my name and number along with a reasonable facsimile of the marriage contract on walls from Werribee to Wodonga and brought new clothes to look good, gone to gyms to feel good (feel anything prancing about in skimpy costumes or tight leotards actually). And failed miserably.
I, the unattached, have worked out only to bomb out so frustrated have chased out every female, eligible or ugly, from every gym in the greater metropolitan area until the proprietors paid me not to grow biceps. Or pursue nymphets so the problem still haunts. Nathan N. Wright has scoured, Nathan N. Wright has searched. But he hasn’t found.
I know, I’m Nathan...”
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The drawer was full of junk. Jenny tossed most of it on the bed as she frantically searched for the blue plastic membership card. Sitting awkwardly, a tight leg tucked underneath her, she wore white socks, a pair of just cleaned Reeboks and the black dotted leotards so nearly lost.
Head down, brushing an encroaching thicket of brown hair from brown eyes, she sorted quickly through the pile of cards and letters she kept along with her diary in the locked drawer by her bed. These were her most treasured, strictly private possessions and were spilled onto the doona in hasty search as she sifted through them. Uneasily. She half expected to find a note from Nathan telling her he’d seen all for she didn’t put it past the sneaky little shit to have picked her lock and pocketed her secrets.
