by Peter Marks
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Nathan, excusing himself from the conversation, left to organise some alcohol. Pushing by the people who were bouncing about the room, all jumping up, coming down and on heat with the beat, he saw that Everest was still introducing herself to anybody who came near her (which was just about everybody seeing she took up most of the lounge room and there was no way, short of levitating, to avoid her). Wright smiled as he squeezed past her royal blubberness, wondering what it would be like to fuck it.
Like trampolining on a Zeppelin, or swimming through custard he thought. Or exploring the backside of a buffalo, he grimaced wiping a stray hair from a dry mouth wondering why fat people were usually such fun. And why they always claimed to be on diets but they never were. Or if they were, they were failing abysmally.
Wright thought the jolliness was a sham. He suspected it was a friendly diversion, an effort to get him on a diet. Theirs.
He worried that behind the acres of smiling flab there lurked a consumptive carnivore just waiting to add Nat au naturale to their menu for Wright was convinced that they’d eat him if he survived the holocaust with any of them.
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The kitchen was tiny. Fortunately the crowd in there just about hid a revolting colour scheme of purple walls with lime green cupboards and bright orange cupboard doors. Christ, who the hell chose the colour scheme, Leonardo Di Sgraceful? How could anyone eat surrounded by such puke inducing tonings Nathan wondered, thinking that maybe who ever lived here was some quiet genius who’d figured out that the best way lose weight was to try and eat in a room reminiscent of a ritual disemboweling. God it was horrible.
Sensibly, the throng censored much of the decor by lolling about and hiding the full hideousness of the room from vomit inducing view. Wright thought Phil would be quite at home in here. He was perfectly camouflaged, it’d be vomit on vomit.
Wright, not yet as full as the room was, pushed his way forward. There were bodies everywhere. The tall were sitting on the shelves, the mid sizes sat on the kitchen appliances while the midgets rattled about in the cupboards. There was a girl on the hot plate, a bloke in the garbage bin and a hippie hovering somewhere over Tibet thanks to the pungent cigarette he was swallowing. It was chaos. There were plates of food and snacks littered over every bench forming mush seats to be sat in. And sat in they were. There was food hanging from the backsides of many of the dancing hordes who’d been in here. Wright suggested to one of the girls sitting there that she should take a plate of crackers around so that every one could enjoy each others bum scrapings.
She recommended Wright find his and shove his head up there. Nathan, advised her that her head looked like it had already been there and made for the fridge. It was packed like a peak hour tram and was almost exploding under the mass of cans of Swan and Fosters. And some strange foreign jobs brought for their snob value. But there was no wine. Wright, unable to find any to steal, returned to the lounge to retrieve the bottle of Chateau Tres Cheap Kelly had forced on his Bankcard that he’d hidden behind the sofa on arrival.
It was a standard Australian party ploy and the only way to insure some light-fingered shitarse didn’t help themselves to Wright’s booze (as he would theirs if he found it).
Mission accomplished, he sloped back to the kitsch kitchen to search amongst the carnage for a cork screw. He needed to release the sparkling contents that lay alcoholic and untouched inside the tacky green bottle. That not achieved, not found, he hunted for a couple of glasses but was informed by a tiny woman who was wearing a full length brown kaftan and looked like an upright sausage roll, that there were none, directing him to the sink by the far wall. Wright scrounged about there looking for anything that could hold a drink. Or remove a cork. Nothing.
Finally he had to settle for two wilting paper cups and a fork which he rammed down the neck of the bottle to drown the cork and release the wine. Which he did all too successfully.
The sticky contents flew all over the kitchen. And all over the people who were parked from full fridge to hidden french window. The women screamed, the men threatened reprisal so Wright ran bidding a hasty retreat and gibbering profuse apologies and, trying to avoid a riot of retribution, Nathan scuttled off in search of safety and sanctuary. And Kelly.
He reconnoitered, she’d vanished. Magically she reappeared five minutes later stationed above the two long limbs Wright loved climbing. She was parked in a corner, her lips locked in frantic conversation with yet another stranger - an even stranger stranger.
Obviously this was some visitor from the planet Ghastly. Or so Wright deduced though he’d never actually met one (and if this one was any example, he’d never want to).
He could tell she was alien by her spiked hair, leather flying suit and the cleverly disguised breathing apparatus strung about its crane neck. The life pumping implement was a green and red chain of large and small boulders which must have allowed the poor thing to breathe Earth’s fetid air. It had just landed face first by the look of it. He got closer then, courage before creature, he was introduced to the beast from beyond Betelgeuse.
‘Nathan, this is Dianne,’ Kelly smiled sweetly, pulling the reticent Wright closer.
Kelly, this is an abomination Wright almost said, but didn’t. Politely he said hello and shook the mandible presented to him. Diabolical this Dianne, Wright reviewed. Must be the English translation he decided, thinking that the name wasn’t half as exotic as the creature attached to it and he bowed low just in case it was royalty. He was just about to enquire about the state of the Ghastly economy and mention to her that one of her compatriots was currently in charge of the Australian finance portfolio when Kelly dragged him away.
‘Christ Kelly, where do you meet people like that? At the Planetarium? Is she human or just visiting? Hell, she looks like a chook on steroids!’ Nathan offended, chasing Kelly’s blue dress through the leaping crowd. Before he remembered that he’d left the bottle with the grizzly from Ghastly.
Smartly Wright turned and returned to the scene of nature’s crime. He wanted to get there before the interloping life-form drank the equally ghastly stuff for Wright had read some-where that a drunk Ghastly was a volatile beast, prone to undressing in public when pissed, so he played Sight Police and Intergalactic A.A. and removed the temptation (and the temptation to remove) from it. Snatching the bottle from the claws of the beast, he looked around to find that Kelly had disappeared. Again.
It took him ten minutes of frantic body searching to locate her amongst the dancing dervishes. When he did, he found her talking again. This time she was involved in yet another passionate discourse, this one about teachers.
Now Wright hated teachers. He believed they should remain locked in the classroom where they could keep their opinions firmly on the blackboard or rub them to dust where they belonged so as not to inflict them on him as they so perpetually did.
He looked at the woman Kelly was talking to and immediately he knew what this one did during daylight. She taught. Expressing his not too high opinion of her or her chosen career, Nathan stuck a finger down his throat and pretended to reach. Kelly saw him and flexed a foot in deliberate warning. Wright stiffened, contemptuously he removed his finger and braced himself for more introductions (which Wright felt were the dysentery of divisions, the plague of identity and the anarchy of unfamiliarity. And a right royal pain in the arse).
‘Debra, this thing wet nursing the wine is Nathan,’ Kelly giggled, pointing in the direction of a stooped Wright who was actually suckling it. A bloody gracious introduction Nathan frowned. He found himself nodding again, shaking sweaty palms again and, feeling like a politician during the electoral sucking-up season, searched for a baby to kiss. There were no shrieking infants available so he kissed his cup instead, draining it dry.
More names to forget, Wright groaned.
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Ritual introductions intrigued Nathan. He’d noticed how nervous most peopl
e were with them. How they either took a step forward or one backward, depending on their first impression of the person they were meeting. How that no-one ever remained stationary even if sometimes this was the illusion. No-one ever did. Sometimes they twitched, sometimes they arched their back or hid their unease with the crab response - a sideways movement instead of the forward or backward crawl.
Most, on meeting Wright, just wanted to run.
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Kelly interrupted his intrigue and asked for a refill. He was distant and disinterested. Then wasn’t. He was too busy acknowledging two newcomers (more names he’d donate to the vacuum in his head). He nodded a greeting at a Daniel and the sausage roll by his side who was apparently the man’s wife. She was a minuscule thing tiny enough to live in a cigarette packet. Wright remembered her from his fountain frolics in the kitchen. She, in turn, looked accusingly at the human hose, remembering him from the stains on her kaftan. Wright stood looking as innocent as possible, looking at her. She sure was small. The girl, who could have been a woman had she decided to grow, was fragile and mousey and so not about to remind Wright of his spouting incontinence.
Bored with the proceedings, Nathan felt it was time for some drastic action. So he decided to partake, decided to talk. He finally joined the conversation that was floating about him in thick verbal strands. He knitted with them, did his best to be amusing for Kelly’s sake (and his own safety for he knew she’d kill him if her friends told her he was rude, or mute. Or just plain boring).
For a while Wright tried his damnedest to make a good impression but he soon found that this new couple were smiling back at him so woodenly that it was difficult to tell if he was making any impression at all. (In fact, they were so quiet it was almost impossible for Wright to tell if they were even alive still).
The wife blinked, then raised her glass to thin snail lips and Wright sighed in relief, pleased that he hadn’t been wasting his laser breathe on the definitely deceased. He was also thankful that he wasn’t about to be charged with murder for boring them to death (although he felt they could achieve that without his humble assistance).
Suddenly, the taller cadaver spoke. In subdued tones, he asked Nathan what he did for a job. Nathan immediately applied.
‘I’m an air hostess,’ he speculated, having harboured a secret desire to be one, or screw one, for most of his life. Silently, he congratulated himself on gaining his wings. Wanton wings which Kelly smartly clipped.
‘Nathan, don’t be ridiculous! Don’t you ever give a straight answer to a reasonable question?’ She cautioned, asking the impossible.
‘We air hostesses are straight,’ he argued, horrified at the accusation. ‘Any that are bent become stewards, or are sent back to the factory,’ he testified. And Kelly was getting furious but Daniel, who resembled a stretched ferret, looked convinced. And his wife? Well she still appeared to have died about the time the armistice was signed.
Nathan grinned, trying to look innocent. Which he wasn’t so Kelly invaded his left shin with her Wright aimed shoe and replacing innocence with pain. Considering Wright’s conduct over the years, and the fact that all his girlfriends had found violence the only sure way to keep him under control, that Wright wasn’t a complete cripple was a miracle ranking with the fishes and the loaves or his first fuck.
‘Okay,’ he wailed, palms outstretched in furtive apology to the enraged stiletto before he turned back to the ferret in the black polo neck sweater.
‘Okay, so I’m not an air hostess, not really...,’ he admitted, somewhat sad at having been forced give up such a promising career. He paused to examine Daniel and decided that had Kelly not fired him, this furball would have allowed him to pursue his high flying ambitions.
‘....actually I’m a female impersonator,’ Wright stated flatly, cupping non-existent bucket breasts and flexing his verdant eyelashes.
‘Actually, he’s an arsehole,’ Kelly interjected so loudly that it woke up Dan’s dead wife. Seeing the resurrection, Wright crossed the non-existent chest and recited a silent prayer for her. Then he tried to evade the threat of another swift kick by being honest. He said that he was only kidding and told the truth to the beard on the face of the ferret (before Kelly crueled him for life).
As succinctly as possible, he explained to the bush that he was a Graphic Designer. Daniel, in dire need of defoliant, looked confused. He peered confusedly at Wright through his plate thick spectacles, his two bug eyes staring blankly at Nathan as he spoke. Seemingly, the half-wit was having more difficulty with the truth than either of Nathan’s two prior bits of bullshit.
‘Sorry...a what?’ he stammered mystified, brow furrowed, small ferret brain working overtime. Nathan could almost hear the ailing computer in his head frantically searching through the files there for any information on what a graphic designer was. Or did. Smugly, Wright refused to give any clues. Instead he watched as the twit squirmed, saw him going through the encyclopedia in its skull and decided the man was a few volumes short. A through to X apparently.
Just when Nathan was at last enjoying himself, Kelly buggared the fun by explaining all.
In public, she was always exuberant and effusive about his job and she seemed genuinely proud of Nathan’s creative talents.
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Strangely, Kelly never mentioned it in private. She never said anything reassuring to Nathan who really needed it - constantly. But it was different amongst others, then she flowed ebullient with pride and compliments. Then, she actually seemed in awe of his gifts.
In private, she never even bothered unwrapping them.
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It was no use. Even after what was an expansive explanation the lobotomised ferret still looked mystified by Wright’s profession.
‘Advertising,’ Kelly coaxed. Nathan saw a bulb begin to glow dully in the dim recesses of the stretched one’s brain.
A small gasp of recognition escaped. ‘Ah...’ He scratched. ‘You make television commercials?’ He guessed, head bowed, neoprene hands folded under a chinless jaw still a little unsure of his answer yet silently pleased with himself for apparently at last solving such a complex mystery.
‘No,’ Wright said. The man’s jaw hit the floor.
With a demon grin loitering across an angelic face, Wright watched the man squirmed anew. Nathan was enjoying himself, but again Kelly ruined such good sport.
She explained to the feral one that Nathan certainly could do television commercials. (The man smiled). Then said Nathan could, but he didn’t. (The chin hit the floor again. This time there was resounding thud).
Unfortunately, as far as Wright was concerned anyway, Kelly rescued his dislocated chin. She finally managed to dispel all lingering doubts by explaining in vivid detail what a graphic designer did. Or didn’t do (and Wright didn’t do anything that didn’t suit him. So Wright didn’t do commercials).
‘Oh,’ the ferret nodded, quietly stroking the growth on his face, an almost smile appearing where his chin should have been. He still wasn’t sure but he was growing more confident that he was getting closer to the truth minute by explanation.
Wright gave up thinking the idiot would never know if he didn’t know now and so drifted off.
His mind removed from it all, he listened for a while to the garbled voices that sped about him. He was well aware of why he’d acted so churlishly. He knew he was, had been, bored so had purposely goaded the man in the polo neck with the frail wife with no life.
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Wright had a motto: “T’is better to be despised than forgotten”.
Where others chatted amicably, he goaded. It was his way of dealing with vacuous people in loud places and whenever he got bored, at megaphone parties, or meat market disco’s, he’d try to liven up the proceedings by being a complete pain in the arse. He’d cajole, needle, or insult any-one within striking distance in a noxious attempt to elicit some response, any re
sponse for Wright firmly believed that aggravation was as good a way as any to get people animated.
His success rate was stunning. Usually he pissed people off so adroitly that not even his mother would speak to him.
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Lighting another cigarette, inhaling deeply, he looked about the room trying to decide who to set fire too. The crowd had thinned but he was still stuck here and almost asleep, he decided to flambe some unsuspecting soul in in an effort to liven up the party which had now lulled to a quiet roar. On more serious reflection, he decided to keep his pyromania to himself just in case the fat one tried leap on whoever Nathan had decided to make a Roman Candle out of to smother the flames. And so crush to death whoever Wright had chosen to ignite.
That idea shelved, he considered snoring but he knew that such an unsubtle hint was a trifle unfair for the words currently swapping mouths for ears about him weren’t all that tedious. It was just that he was tired. And bored. So he nodded politely for two hours in loose necked reply to anything any-one said to him.
At one thirty, feeling more like Noddy than Nathan, he lent over and kissed Kelly. Kelly recoiled in shock.
‘What was that for?’ She enquired, surprised by the sudden show of affection then, adjusting her scowl, turning it to a smile, gave him a hug. Nathan was looking lost and lonely.
‘I think you’re wonderful,’ he said wrapped her in his arms. Kelly was shocked. Nathan hadn’t said anything this nice to her since....since...
