Wright Left

by Peter Marks

  Wright took a deep breath and considered his whereabouts, checking the addresses printed across the various envelopes strewn across the bench in front of him and confirmed where he was.

  ‘I’m in hell,’ Wright said.

  ‘You’re in trouble.’

  ‘Your interrupting,’ Nathan corrected, taking another swig from a glass dancing with clear fluid in a trembling hand.

  ‘You’re supposed to be here.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here you shithead!’

  ‘When?’ Wright asked, amazed he could still put a word of four letters together knowing of occasions when he’d been so drunk that not even he could understand what he was saying.

  ‘Over an hour ago,’ Simon said, disgusted.

  ‘Why?’ Three letters, things were getting worse Wright thought.

  Simon knew why. Because you were bloody well invited you ignorant prick he thought but didn’t give Wright the satisfaction of a reply. He could smell Wright’s demon breath wafting through the phone lines at him and realised Nathan was pissed so beyond competent conversation.

  ________________

  On realising Wright was pissed, Simon was quite relieved that Nathan had forgotten lunch knowing that in this mood, this drunk, Wright could be a dangerous guest. This depressed, this drunk Nathan was usually obnoxious (a Wright pain in the arse Simon said). Like this his vocabulary would be either expansive or non-existent. He was either limited to either grunts or monosyllabic replies of staggering abruptness or, even worse, overflowing with lengthy diatribes on the state of the economy, or the taxidermy of politicians, or the peculiarities of women, or some equally tedious topic of Nathan’s choice and other’s disinterest.

  The most infuriating aspect of Wright’s behaviour was that, until he arrived, no-one could be sure which he’d be. Would he be normal or Neanderthal? Or just never ending?

  Not present Simon’s wife hoped.

  ________________

  Diplomatically, Simon slid from the conversation. On hanging up he started up the hall heading for the kitchen to confront an irate, apron’d wife who was hunched over the sink emptying the percolator; a sink which was empty when it should have been full of the dishes from the lunch she’d prepared. Hours ago. She’d invited four guests who’d arrived, one guest who hadn’t (guest who?). Thanks to the missing link, no-one had eaten yet and Debra was not happy.

  When Simon arrived in the kitchen, she turned from her duties to glare angrily at him waiting for an explanation. Sheepishly, Simon related the story, telling her that Wright was too lubricated to move and had simply forgotten.

  Yet again.

  ________________

  Simon was sheepish because he knew he was in strife. With the wife. For some mysterious reason Debra always blamed him when Wright misbehaved and usually, in sour retribution, refused Simon sex for weeks afterwards. (Wright said this was a blessing not a punishment and wrote letters to Simon telling him to try Yoga, or wanking or sheep. They were all eminently preferable to sex with the sour in Nathan’s opinion).

  Nathan was an unwelcome contraceptive in Simon’s opinion.

  ________________

  Removing a spitting roast from the warm oven, overdue so over cooked, Debra fumed.

  ‘So what’s new, the buggar’s always pissed these days,’ she said, laying the silver tray on the redwood bench. ‘He’d better hope his kidney’s kill him before I do,’ she recommended, ramming a large knife between the crisp ribs of the dehydrated chook, an evil grin finding her face as she twisted the blade. Simon, standing behind her, laughed nervously knowing she wasn’t kidding.

  Handing the knife to him, she took the cream from the refrigerator and, emptying the contents into a blue china bowl, she was struck by a terrifying thought. Turning to Simon, she asked whether Nathan was now coming, more concerned for the welfare of her guests than Wright’s non-appearance. Simon shook his head to assure her of Wright’s absence.

  ‘Thank god,’ she sighed and began humming to herself.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  SIGNS OF THE TIMES

  ANOTHER WEEK WENT. Still depressed, Wright took up signing. He was sick of talking to those who tried to help him so he gave up hearing. And speech. And any semblance of normality.

  Nathan had by now alienated just about every-body, sending them spiralling from his life and become mute. No-one was interested any more. They weren’t sincere, weren’t speaking sympathetically to him or so his addled brain said so he refused to exercise his larynx with them.

  His friends had tried to help: Simon, Martin, Ceil, Fionna, Nicola, Alan et al. Even the enemy (i.e. Jenny) had been around to try and harass him from his depression but neither friend nor foe had been able to rouse him from his black mood.

  ________________

  June 20th. Wright couldn’t be sure, but he was fairly positive that this was Armageddon. The end. Finito. Exit time. If it wasn’t then he was in trouble for surely things could get worse. He had no friends, no girlfriends, no money, no future and he was positive there was worse to come.

  Of course it was his fault, he was retarded. He hadn’t achieved anything in his thirty (very) odd years so never would (or so the paranoid Wright said others said of him). He was so positive that he was indeed handicapped in some invisible way no doctor could diagnose that he decided to embrace a more visible impediment. And became deaf. Signed didn’t talk. Held silent conversations with any-one foolish enough to ring him.

  ‘Hello’.

  Hello Wright signed, hands waving in noiseless greeting.

  ‘Hello....is there any-one there?’

  Of course there is, you idiot arsehole Wright replied hands, fingers, wrist and arm semaphoring madly.

  ‘Hello’

  Jesus, is that the extent of your vocabulary you illiterate daughter of a bastard bear, the madly waving Wright responded, hands cutting thin trails through a tobacco impregnated atmosphere.

  ‘Hello......’ He waved good-bye.

  ‘Okay..... don’t speak you cabbage’ they screamed, and the line went as silent as Wright was.

  ________________

  Seated at the desk he wrote:

  “..........Uncle Max said life is simple, people just like to think it’s complicated. Right and wrong, good and bad, there shouldn’t be any confusion or overlap - yet there seems to be. Uncle Max said this was the devil’s doing, I say it’s people’s doing. Those who shrug their shoulders at the incalculable injustices about them and say “ that’s life”. It isn’t, it’s defeat.

  People. You out there. It’s time to act, to tar and feather politicians who treat us as pets and patronise us. Let’s get the bastards. Show ‘em who they’re working for.

  Australia is a goddamn joke. The people (you - sure as hell not me, I’m well balanced, I’ve got a chip on both shoulders) re-elect these dupe merchants then complain. Personally I think you get what you deserve. Shit. You elect the stupid, the incompetent, the egocentric, the not terribly latent megalomaniacs. They aren’t the sort of person you’d invite to dinner so why let ‘em cook our bacon.

  Take a hard look, it’s your fault, you let this happen. You whinge, you moan, but you do stuff all to address the problem. If you elected me I’d fix things. For a start, there’d be no more politicians, I’d have ‘em all vivisected. There’d be just me: Adolf Wright, Fuehrer.

  Boy, would I give you something to moan about. I bet you’d be marching in the streets then. I wouldn’t kiss babies or pretend I’m pleasant but I’d see that lies didn’t rule our lives. I’d tell people the truth and lock up anyone who called me a liar. I’d be egocentric, a not in the least latent megalomaniac. I guess such qualities go with the territory but surely there’s something we can do to protect ourselves.

  Maybe its time we gave women a go, banned all men from ruling. Honestly it’s our only alternative (unless the chosen one reappears to save us. Or you elect me. Same thing really
).”

  ________________

  The bottle was as empty as his head was. Trundling downstairs to the kitchen, he found a fresh dose, made some cheese on toast and went back to write.

  He was so angry at the world that this was the only way he could attack although he wasn’t crazy enough (not yet anyway) to believe any-one would be swayed by his opinions (if any-one ever read it) yet he didn’t feel as impotent writing. Hitler must have felt much the same way when he wrote Mien Kampf. Powerless, locked in a small cell in a dank prison, at war with the world, he wrote to feel strong. To express his disappointment with a world which refused to recognize his genius.

  Unfortunately, his rantings were taken seriously.

  Fortunately, Wright’s would be taken as senility.

  ________________

  “Just take a look at our new Parliament House. What a ghastly, grand memorial to the inhabitants lack of taste and peacock pompous vanity. Course it wasn’t their money that built it so what do they care so long as the seats are comfortable and cost the gross national product of some third world country? (e.g. Australia the way we’re heading).

  What staggers me is that every-body puts up with these mother fuckers and their mother fucking system. Good. Welcome to the Asylum. Welcome to graft and corruption and people with the mind of a Mongoloid tree stump parked in my Parliament.

  It is mine, they do work for me though they don’t seem to agree. Every time I’ve tried to contact one of them it’s been leper time. Write a few thousand requests for an audience, have three blood tests, donate a few thousand to the Party, marry one of their daughters and don’t ever tell them their mistaken and then maybe, maybe they’ll grant you an audience. But don’t bank on it.

  Sadly, it seems bad everywhere. Some countries are okay, some worse, but being the perfectionist I am, being as idiotically optimistic as I am, I wish governments governed better. Even the odd murmur of real democracy would be a pleasant change but the system doesn’t allow it. Even here, unless you sell out, unless you join one of the major parties and agree with policies you find personally disagreeable, you’ve got as much chance of being elected as my mother has of reforming me.

  I don’t care much about anywhere but here, it’s my home, my country. And my right as a citizen to bitch.

  As Hitler once said closeted in his downtown Berlin bunker, thoroughly disgusted with the way things were working out: “Aufeidesen all, I’ve had my fun fucking things up now piss off and let me sleep”. Adolf knew. Stalin knew. Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, McCarthy and Attila the Hun knew. Knew how easily the tribes were led, so led them over the abyss. History teaches us nothing apart from how susceptible we are to words.

  My advice is force politicians to shut-up and take up signing, its less apt to endanger us

  It’ll also ensure they’ll finally be judged on what they do and not what they say...”.

  ________________

  Nathan took another huge swig from the fast decreasing bottle then slamming it to the desk, admired the label. Great artwork his brain stated in slurred appreciation.

  Gazing at the typed page, he smiled, deciding that being bitter, twisted, vindictive and truthful was good for the soul then began searching the floor for a cigarette.

  Nothing like gross generalisations, he thought, satisfied with the scribbled crucifixion. He hoped that getting his anger out on the page would dissuade him from buying a shotgun. To make party pie filler of the lot of them. It was a violent urge and all too familiar these days.

  Love lost really shattered any trace of humanity. Or civility. Or lucidity.

  ________________

  Wednesday. The sun rose over dark eyelids and with great effort, after throwing the alarm clock out the window at a black bird singing a selection from Verdi outside his window and making as much of a racket as the clock was, he dressed in the same clothes he’d dressed in for the past two weeks and went to the office. In the other bedroom.

  Painted pale green, with inadequate lighting and junk everywhere, it now served as headquarters for a fast failing business with a door for a desk top and a new computer for his drivel.

  Nathan had given up working in a real office when his real world had collapsed. After weeks of simply not being interested enough to attend work, he decided, in a rare demonstration of rationality, that rent on premises he didn’t visit was wasted so he packed everything and hid at home.

  He didn’t want people around him. He didn’t want to be constantly reminded that life went on with or without him contributing. Nathan refused to socialise and refused to recover.

  Watching the gnarled nimbus sprint across the lush green of the treetops, despondent and decimated, he considered the probability of living death. Thought that if there were such a thing he was it and began drawing coffins on a large pad sketching solid oak boxes with gold handles, solid silver caskets with phone and stereo, some with beds and bath.

  Then drew one with a television knowing the dead must get awfully bored just lying about, staring at the ceiling.

  ________________

  One in the morning and he’d cooped himself in. Gathering several large cardboard boxes that the computer had arrived in, Nathan made a large white death box for himself and with the lounge for a funeral parlour, candles lit atop table and television, he crept inside this cardboard casket. Lying silent in the darkness, he wept.

  He could no longer function. He felt paralysed and pathetic. Every long hour of every long night was at best an ordeal, but usually an agony. He didn’t know how much more he could take, how much longer he’d last.

  Nathan had never thought himself weak or without will but now, with his emotions an unstoppable cancer, his present a sorry re-run of another past history, he felt utterly defeated, sickeningly lost. Too many hours of too many days were spent hunched in a corner, curled cocoon depressed, an utter wreck.

  But the nights were still worse. Tonight he lay in there trying to think of a reason to go on. Nothing came to mind He decided to have a smoke and cremate himself.

  ________________

  The phone was ringing, Nathan awoke to black. Christ, as if I haven’t got enough problems, my girl’s gone, my head hurts, I’m dehydrated and hungover and now I’ve gone blind, brilliant. He searched for some sign of sight. He knew it was day but the light was darker than a pitch night. He blinked, it was still dark. Maybe I’m dead and gone to Telecom hell he thought, lifting his head, hearing a strangely muffled phone still ringing in the background. His head met a ceiling, an extremely low ceiling. Christ, I’m blind, my girls gone, my head hurts, I’m dehydrated and hungover and there’s been an earthquake and the sky’s fallen.

  I really am in hell.

  By now panic had set in. ‘Oh god, I don’t want to die, let me live, let me see,’ he shrieked. Then remembered he’d moved into premises more suited to his current condition last night.

  He’d fallen asleep in a Macintosh coffin but nothing computed. His brain was still sleeping. Finally, he crawled free of the box, staggering out, wondering how dead claustrophobes coped with such internment. Groggy, risen from the dead, he lifted the receiver, held it to his ear, and as depressed as ever, silently told God to ignore his last plea for life.

  ‘Hello..’ the receiver said.

  Shit, I’ll be glad when life’s adequate enough for me to start speaking Wright again sighed, holding the phone, wondering what the hell to do now. Signed bonjour.

  ‘For pity sake Nathan, will you start speaking,’ Nikkie said, not believing her ears, having just said something to Nathan she’d never thought she’d utter. She’d actually requested he speak.

  Normal: You couldn’t shut him up.

  ________________

  She was concerned about him. For months now he’d been a complete hermit removed and reluctant to have anything to do with anybody. He wouldn’t even speak to the Mormons when Jenny sent them around to cheer him up, he just signed them away.


  God, he really had finally flipped!

  Nicola had looked on with compassionate interest, watching sadly as Nathan had sunk lower and further into the bog of despair and self pity. She’d never seen a man suffer quite so badly from heartbreak and thought this was certainly peculiar having believed since birth, and personal experience, that only women suffered; that only females were decimated or destroyed.

  Now she knew better.

  Nathan was dying and there seemed to be no way to help him but she did what she could. She rang every few weeks and listened to him breathe just to make sure he wasn’t decomposing upstairs and smelling out the entire neighbourhood. She sent him food parcels, creeping silently to his door and leaving them on the mat when the hibernating Gin Still Wright refused to answer her knocking.

  Lately she’d taken to reading the obituary columns to see if he’d died. She felt positive it wouldn’t be long because Wright wrote her it wouldn’t be.

  ________________

  Nathan had now replaced signing with writing finding that it was less tiring and a trifle more adequate substitute for speechlessness. He’d also discovered how appalling his spelling was but how few noticed.

  Nicola always did though and posted them back to him corrected and graded.

  ________________

  Today the beast within did open up when Nicola threatened to batter the door down if he didn’t show himself and like the Ghost of Kidneys Past, he appeared from behind the flywire wearing a pad strung around his neck (on which he wrote replies when the situation demanded he communicate).

  ‘What the hell is that?’ Nicola exclaimed, pointing at a pair of small black shoes atop orange socks that were dangling out from under a white sheet on his arm.

  “Project X!” Nathan wrote on the pad around his neck. Sitting in front of the television, between fleeting and thoroughly pathetic attempts at suicide, he’d spent weeks working on it.