by Peter Marks
‘Christ Nathan, will you stop that! I am not a pen friend and I don’t need some crazed lunatic writing me cryptic notes.’ Nicola was just about ready to strangle him with the string that attached his paper voice around a soiled collar. Then she saw that she was too late, it looked like some0one had got there first.
‘God, you look terrible. What have you been doing to yourself?’
Having sex with myself the pad replied.
‘Nathan, I’ll insert that pen somewhere it will write even more crap if your not careful. Now what the hell is that growth on your arm?’
With a flourish, Wright removed the covering. Project X stared at Nicola.
‘Hi, I’m Dummy,’ X said.
‘Pleased to meet you dummy,’ Nicola said, avoiding the doll and shaking Nathan’s hand as she was ushered inside. It was the first time she’d been invited in weeks.
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Wright had made a ventriloquist’s dummy from an old orange juice bottle and papier mache. With great patience and skill, and obviously with nothing better to do with his dementia than shape and mould it, he’d painted the thing and made it work with springs and levers and called it Dummy. He’d dressed it in collar and tie and dinner suit and taught it to talk. To speak to him and for him.
To console him and keep him sane.
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‘You’re mad,’ Nicola concluded, examining the dummy, walking about the lounge. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she was astounded by the magnitude of the mess. The curtains were closed but the place wasn’t in total darkness and anyway she could tell by the various telltale dark shapes that there were empty bottles, cans and wine casks spread all over the lounge floor. The place looked like the entire suburb had used Wright’s lounge as a communal trash can.
In the middle of the floor Kelly almost fell into three large cardboard boxes which seemed to be taped together. Curious she thought then went into the kitchen where there were dirty plates piled high (in height and odour) in the sink. On the benches, strewn all over the place were emptied cans, moulding pizza containers, tide ringed coffee cups and food glued cutlery. Garbage everywhere.
Nicola was relieved to find that, at least domestically, Nathan’s life was normal.
‘What’s this?’ she said, pointing at the long box.
‘It’s my house,’ X told her.
She turned to Nathan. ‘I think I liked it better when you wrote to me. That thing’s creepy.’ Nicola said, suddenly noticing the spent candles dotted about the room.
‘Had a power black out? Or were you holding a black mass to locate a lost soul to live within dummy?’ Back in the lounge, she bent over and peered in the boxes. Aside from a blanket and an overflowing ashtray, they seemed empty.
‘For god’s sake Nathan, open the curtains’.
‘I can’t,’ the dummy said.
‘You will if you don’t want your head rotated 360 degrees!’ Nicola threatened the paper and plastic midget then moving gracefully to the large drapes, she flung them open.
The sun burst in, Wright shrieked. In escape of this explosion of light he raced to the large cupboard by the door, grabbing a pair of carbon lens sunglasses from the table on the way, and leapt into the closeted darkness where he placed them on the dummy, shading the two painted ping pong balls from the furnace in the sky just in case Nicola did something stupid and forced them to leave this sanctuary.
Nicola was laughing hysterically wondering what the hell the two dummies were up to.
‘Come on Anna Frank. The war’s over, you can come out now.’ Nothing. No reply, no re-entry. ‘I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down,’ she threatened, gathering some of the dishes scattered about the lounge and adding them to the collection in the sink.
‘Nathan, if you’re not out in 30 seconds, I’ll go upstairs and set fire to your stack of Penthouses’. Nathan and his talking arm were out in 2, Nathan removing the glasses from Dummy to put them on himself feeling he needed them more than the blind man.
Nicola, telling them to sit down, sat at the table facing dummies one and two trying to figure out which head was emptiest.
‘Nathan, for gods sake, what are you doing to yourself? You can’t go on like this. Your crockery can’t go on like this,’ she stated flatly, observing the dump sink.
Hands clasped tight in her warm lap, she leaned forward to speak. Nicola was quite pretty and if it hadn’t been for Kelly Nathan certainly would have made a pass at her.
She was quite pretty, even sexy. She was sitting there in a blue denim skirt, a minimum of material stitched in fine rows with tan cotton which short and slinky, hugged her taught thighs like a koala to a gum. Her jumper was red and tight. Her shoes matched. Sheer cream silk loitered over her long legs and Nathan suddenly realised how long it had been since he’d seen legs. Or been between a pair.
He watched intently as Nikkie crossed them, as she brushed a few stray strands of long dark hair from an attractive face and Nathan decided he didn’t mind being lectured so long as he could letch after the lecturer. Dummy agreed and sunk into her chest.
‘Get that thing out of there!’
‘Great view,’ the dummy said, ping pong balls searching the hills. Nicola patted it warmly. Then ripped its head off. Wright cried murderer and snatched the head from her hand. He said a prayer for the deceased, she laughed, so Wright handed her the face with ears and a moveable mouth.
‘I don’t want it,’ she squealed before finally accepting the gift between loud protestations and asking Wright what she should do with it.
‘Give it back,’ he said. So she did and Nathan started laughing so she asked him what he was laughing about.
‘Head. You gave me head,’ he giggled uncontrollably.
‘A head,’ she corrected, grabbing the thing to bash Wright over his.
‘I thought you were too depressed to be deviant,’ Nicola said, adjusting her bra, replacing an escapee breast to its crisp cotton wrap.
‘I’m DEpressed, not REpressed,’ he replied, watching her adjust and, momentary voyeurism ended, he attempted to recapitate Dummy.
‘You really are crazy Nathan,’ she said gently. Smiling.
Nathan was awash with strange sensations. Primal utterances which weren’t new or unknown, merely stored. It had been months since he’d felt human. Or male. A seeming eternity of dormant senses.
He hadn’t noticed until now. Hadn’t noticed how long it had been since he’d smelt the mating waft of woman and perfume, since he’d ogled legs or eyed breasts. It had been ages since his hormones had last hatched - he just hadn’t realised how long. He’d missed Kelly, had missed sex, but the vacuum in his existence had been more spiritual than sensual.
Wright realised how sick he’d been.
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Nicola, driving through the traffic the next morning, decided it was time to get Nathan up and about again. Get him to a party before he was labelled Whisky and stuck on a shelf some-where. She’d spent all night soaking his sorrow for Nathan wouldn’t stop drinking, or smoking, or talking about Kelly, or just being thoroughly miserable so Nicola took it upon herself to resurrect him.
She was very fond of him. She hadn’t forgotten how Nathan had helped her through a similar disaster last year when, on the exit of her boyfriend of five years, she’d been similarly decimated and had cried on his shoulder for weeks. She’d wept rivers over the loss and found that Nathan was the only person around her who understood. Also, he was the only insomniac she knew so the only one who was crazy enough to be awake at two in the morning when her hurt was worst.
Nicola was really worried about his welfare.
She wanted him sane again, even if it did mean he’d be weird again. It was strange, she thought just how normal he was when he was depressed. Nathan was almost civilised. He made the odd joke or coarse remark but not the constant stream he was infamous for.
He was
too quiet, and too serious and not Wright. She hated him like this, he was just like the other millions who were quiet and serious and chronically dull. The world didn’t need another so she decided on her crusade.
Nicola, parked at the lights, made up her mind not to leave him alone even if it was what Wright wanted.
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Wright was lucky. Fortunate that he still had one friend good enough to make his life a misery.
Chapter Twenty-Two
DOUBLE VISION
‘OKAY NATHAN, PARTY TIME.’ Nathan had made the mistake of leaving the front door unlocked. He was lying on the couch, bottle of whisky on the floor, wearing a pair of soccer shorts and QPR shirt, watching television and talking to his hand.
‘Put the dummy down, we’re going out.,’ Nicola yelled, sweeping into the room like an avenging angel.
‘He’s the dummy,’ the dummy said, pointing at Wright.
‘And he’s also the one needing to be put down,’ Nicola added, agreeing with the dummy. ‘Ask Nathan to remove his hand from your rectum will you. Tell him there are more fascinating orifices to be found.....’ Dummy’s one and two looked straight at Nicola.
‘Not mine you perverts. I’m not offering to play ventriloquist dummy. Get someone else to sit on your hand Nathan. Try it with me,’ she went to the kitchen and returned wielding a large, mould encrusted, carving knife, ‘and I’ll amputate.’
Sensing the danger, Dummy One shoved his hand down the front of his shorts. Dummy Two went with it and suddenly Wright’s shorts started screaming.
‘Help, help. Let me out, let me out. It smells like something’s died down here!’ His shorts shrieked. Dummy One had to agree for it had been so long since he’d used the area that it may well have died and not bothered to inform Nathan of the funeral.
‘God Nathan, don’t be so cruel. Let him out, you’ll suffocate the poor thing. What a way to die, gassed in your underwear! Then again, you could leave him there, the bulge is rather impressive. The girl’s you’ll meet tonight might just be drunk enough to be fooled by such a ridiculous growth.’ She suggested.
‘No, no, don’t leave me here! I’m hungry and there’s nothing worth eating in here. Let me try Aunt Nicola’s tuck shop.’
‘The dummy’s as depraved as you are Nathan. Let him out. The snack bar in your underpants only serves entrees anyway and the poor buggar will starve to death on the tiny tit bit you’ve got hiding down there ...that’s if the gas doesn’t get him first,’ she sniggered.
Certainly it was a strange feeling having something ferreting down there. Nathan was beginning to enjoy it, how many people had experienced the joys of having a tyrant rifling through their shorts? Aside from Eva Braun. Aside from Eva Braun, who the hell would want to?
‘Jesus Nathan, what have you done? Last time I saw it looked like Fred Astaire. Now it’s...’
‘A. Hitler. Potentate,’ the dummy introduced itself, saluting to the heavens, dressed in full Fuehrer uniform.
‘Potent anyway after your visit down there,’ Nikkie gasped, holding her nose between thumb and forefinger.
‘Oh my God Nathan, you really have flipped,’ she proclaimed.
Mad I may be, Wright grinned, but how many people do you know have famous guests staying with them. Living in their underwear. Nikkie stared at the two of them. Adolf and Wright Off.
‘You’d better not meet any-one Jewish tonight. If you lure them here and they find Adolf in your shorts, the invasion will be off. And so will they!’
She had a point there. Nathan got up from the couch and went to the cupboard. Then returned to the couch.
‘Am I more ideologically sound?’ Adolf’s replacement asked sweetly, seated regally on Wright’s knee.
‘How many of these damn things have you got?’ Nicola enquired surprised by Wright’s latest. Going to the cupboard, she opened the door and discovered an entire township asleep in there.
‘God, you have been busy,’ she exclaimed. She was amazed. So this is what he’s been up to for the past few months, surrounding himself with people as mute as he was.
‘She’s cute Nathan. Given up dating your pillow? What is this, a do it yourself lip service? Good figure though, what’s her secret?’
‘I don’t eat.’
‘You don’t live or breathe either,’ Nicola said, waiting patiently for Wright to utter a single word directly from his two lips; for him to quit communicating via puppets. ‘You’ve also fallen in with bad company my little papier-mache mistress,’ Nicola observed, willing to play the game and out idiot Wright. Pulling another of his creations from the cupboard, she tightened the miniature tie around a miniature neck. It was a perfectly recognisable replica of Richard Nixon, nose and all. Switching the light on, walking in there was like visiting heaven - and hell. There were relaxed replicas of the famous everywhere. Gandhi, Mussollini, Napoleon, Churchill (plus Ronald McDonald) all perfectly outfitted, stared back at her from lifeless eyes from the crowded shelves.
‘Who dresses them?’
‘The cleaning lady.’
‘He doesn’t have a cleaning lady.’ Nicola shrieked. Christ, now I’m talking to it she cringed.
‘We have. It’s just that she’s not very good,’ the small woman with the huge chest sitting on Wright’s knee said, applying lipstick to red pouting lips.
‘Nathan, that’s my best lipstick. Tell Marilyn she’ll be wearing a baseball bat if my property is not returned immediately to my handbag.’
‘What’s your problem sister?’ Ms. Munroe asked, crossing two slim legs, perfect replicas of the famous pins.
‘One more word out of you and I’ll sew your lips together,’ Nicola said, starting toward Marilyn and the man on the couch with his hand up her backside.
‘Now, up you get Nathan.’ She hauled him from the couch. ‘Time for your annual shower,’ she advised, hauling him up the stairs.
‘I don’t want to go,’ Nathan mumbled.
‘Hosanna. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. It speaks! It’s a miracle! Thank-you Lord for delivering this poor mute from his silent world,’ she giggled, dancing about like a convulsive Krishna and stopping to pray on an upper step. Nathan tried to escape but Nicola was to quick for him.
‘Unless Marilyn wants to disintegrate faster than you are, I’d suggest you leave her high and dry.’ She grabbed dolly and put her on the bed then stood there making sure he undressed until he’d undressed enough and Nicola’s stomach told her it was time to leave.
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Slowly, with all the enthusiasm of a laboratory rat, Wright wafted down the stairs showered and dressed in fresh clothes for the first time in weeks. Much as he hated to admit it, he felt nearly human (for a rat anyway) for the first time in ages but in keeping with his basic mood, he was wearing nothing that wasn’t funeral black.
‘See, that wasn’t too painful was it?’ Nicola said, discussing fashion with Marilyn on the couch downstairs.
‘Don’t ask her about Kennedy, she gets a trifle defensive. And a trifle violent,’ Wright whispered advisedly.
Nicola looked at Marilyn, patted her head then stuffed her under the cushion of the couch. Rising to stilettoed feet, she grabbed Nathan by his over exercised hand and dragged him out into the world beyond his walls.
It was a chill as he remembered it.
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He thanked God he was pissed as Nicola hauled him through the crowd and Wright felt terrified. It had been a long time since he’d last mixed with people who spoke with their own tongues (or were over two foot tall).
‘Let’s leave.’
‘We just got here.’
‘We’ll catch something. Look, they’re all breathing.’
‘Very observant Nathan.’
‘No, look. They’re exhaling germs and microbes and god knows what else into the air we’re sharing.’
‘It’s preferable to what your lungs are lo
osing on these poor unsuspecting party goers. Now shut-up and follow me.’
Nathan, head down, did as he was ordered staying as close as he could without coupling with her as she strode confidently through the packed room. God, he hadn’t seen this many women in one place since the day he’d judged the Penthouse Pet of Decade. (When he’d spent the day surrounded by stapled women, having completely covered the entire lounge, kitchen, bedroom 1, bedroom 2, bath and shower floor with every issue he owned and then wondered about the house in search of a winner).
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‘What do you do for job?’
‘He makes dollies,’ Nicola informed on him.
‘I make dollies,’ Wright agreed. The girl wasn’t very pretty so he didn’t care what his career was. She wasn’t pretty enough to lie or exaggerate for, and although there were occasions he felt guilty about being such a visual chauvinist, he had enough ugliness in his life at the moment without adding to the list. With Nathan being as boring as he could, and he could be coma inducing when he felt like it, the girl soon took the hint and left. To have her flea collar replaced Wright said.
‘What’s happened to all the good looking women? Some bastard’s harvested them and left me with the bags,’ Nathan observed, surveying a room where all the unattached women seemed to be members of the local kennel club.
‘What, are you blind? There are some really pretty girls here.’
“What, are you blind? I wouldn’t let any of these dogs play seeing eye with me.’
‘Jesus Nathan. What do you want?’
‘I want a pack of beauties, not a pound of flesh’.
‘What?’
‘Listen Nik, I’ve got mould growing in my kitchen more attractive than this lot.’
‘So go sleep with your utensils. Just how long are you going stay in this mood?’
‘Until God stops persecuting me.’
