by Peter Marks
Try: Gambling
- Races (Horse, greyhound). Fights (Boxing etc.) Football, Soccer etc.
Try: Lotteries
- Tattslotto - Saturday/Wednesday. Soccer Pools - Saturday
Try: Financial Markets
- Shares, Futures, Bonds, Currency
Then try: Women, wine and wealth.
________________
He wasn’t even rich yet. But already his brain was deposited in a safe box somewhere.
Chapter Twenty-Four
EUREKA
NOW THAT WRIGHT had at last woken up to what was going on; for Nathan to stop feeling sorry for himself long enough for himself to acknowledge the potent force that tripped so infrequently into his life, everything changed.
Finally, retardedly, the more he researched the more it dawned on him that these pre-lived days could indeed be more than useful, that they could be seconded into aiding his existence if he only he used the knowledge gleaned from the odd extra yesterday only he seemed to experience. Those fevered insights and future facts which, if used judiciously, could give him easy money and a quick fortune.
And, most importantly, being a vindictive little buggar, revenge on the gone girlfriend.
________________
Days later (when SHE was fully recovered and Wright was correct in not trusting HER again) Wright was reviewing an even more extensive list. On scouring the information he’d accumulated, he settled on praying for a Sunday to stutter (as Sunday was the most useless day of the lot to gain wealth via The Tango tactic).
Wright knew Go, not personally of course, but certainly the power she exerted and the fact that she’d always seemed determined to grant him the exact opposite of what he actually wanted, or prayed for. So he prayed for a Sunday.
Fully understanding God’s contrite nature from bitter experience, Wright clasped four day unwashed hands above a twenty day unmade bed for the next week in plea of the day after Saturday to stutter (but hoping SHE’d miscalculate and throw a Wednesday at him. It seemed perhaps the most lucrative). Greed crazed, he had come to understand that there were any number of potential bonanzas to be found, then used, by the truly avaricious.
Which a depressed Wright certainly was.
‘Listen Mahatma, if I get two days, a Doubleday, I can use the facts of one to earn a fortune on the next.’
‘The meek shall inherit the earth.’
‘Oh sure. I’ve been meek my entire life and the only thing I’ve inherited are a few unsavoury genes.’
‘Thou shalt honour thy mother and thy father.’
‘And their jeans?’
‘Their entire wardrobe.’ Mahatma decided.
‘Don’t worry, I will. I’ll put them where all can honour them. I’ll have mum and dad stuffed in their Sunday best and installed at the Smithsonian. It’ll be the first time they’ve been together since mum spat the dummy and threw pop out. She said he was stuffed then so that should save on the taxidermy ...Anyway, you’re not listening.’
Mahatma was not listening.
‘If I do this properly, I can make my wildest dreams seem bloody tame. I should be able to make more money in a day than a Sheik spends on sheila’s in an entire decade ...and from what I’ve read the women they spend their sperm on cost more than the GDP of our terminal economy. Christ, there’s no end to it. I’ll be rich and famous and no-one will dare mention my socks ...but I’ll have to get to moving. Who knows when the buggar will reappear to grant me my dreams? Oh God, I’m going to be wealthy!’ He sang, prancing about the room.
Oh God, he’s going to be certified, mumbled Mahatma.
________________
Staring out the window at a set of clouds whose grotesque shape reminded him somewhat of his Aunt Beatrice and at the circling vultures 9black crows actually) that reminded him of his debts, Nathan sat hunched over the pad considering the options.
The only real obstacle Wright considered he faced in implementing his vendetta against these wretched unbelievers was the infantile behaviour of Doubleday for the cosmic stutter had the annoying habit of being infrequent, and often insidious, and therefore never gave him any indication of when it would arrive. Or when it wouldn’t.
Wright never knew from one day to the next whether tomorrow would be a normal or Double day, and he usually only discovered which was which when he’d already wasted most of it. Or all of it. Doubleday only revealed itself on the day it arrived, the previous twenty-four hours never giving a hint or the slightest indication as to what was to follow. Wright just didn’t get any hints because The Tango was as sneaky as Wright was.
It never gave any.
Nathan got no gut feeling, had no sixth sense, no intuitive sensations and no warning; his palms didn’t sweat, his urine didn’t turn purple, his glands didn’t expand. There were no clues, just hiccups; hiccups in his space/time continuum so any planning, any remembrance of things past was unnecessarily complicated.
________________
Nathan’s one redeeming characteristic was that he was mad. And therefore receptive. Had the ‘Tango/Doubleday’ occurred to an Accountant, the history of the world may well have been different. Surely she or he would behaved responsibly and would have ignored the insane; calculated that it didn’t add up so it didn’t exist. Simple. Or had it attacked a Dentist it would have had black holes in it’s logic so vast not even an amalgam earth fill could cure. Doctors? They would have said it was terminal.
Politicians? They would have done what they always did - lied and told every-one it didn’t exist. Or referred it to a Royal Commission, or a Cabinet Committee. Or consigned it to a time capsule in a file marked: “Open in the Year 3000” as they tend to do with anything requiring immediate attention.
Public Servants? Well they would have required evidence in quadruplicate then still have rejected truth in favour of a further delay. Psychiatrists? Abnormal. The product of a sick mind.
Nathan? Wright thought it was perfectly reasonable. Wright was crazier than any-one anywhere.
________________
The door shook and Nathan opened oak slab before the hinges gave way.
‘Gosh Nathan, you look dreadful’ Nathan looked worse than dreadful, Nathan looked like he’d passed on.
‘Flattery will get you no-where,’ he scowled, ushering Nicola through the door, much relieved that it wasn’t a scouting party for the Mormons who were still after him because God told them they should be.
‘What sort of word is gosh anyway?’ Nathan enquired, fixing coffee, clattering around the kitchen.
‘It’s a more civilised form of saying what you swear. My mother trained me to be lady like,’ Nicola replied, making herself comfortable on the couch next to Marilyn.
‘Your mother was a wrestler.’
‘My mother was a gem!’ Nicola defended.
‘Mine was stoned.’
‘Your mother’s a Saint to even acknowledge she knows you.’
‘And I’m a sinner, so what? Gosh gee whiz,’ Nathan mocked, adding Scotch to the coffee.
‘It’s better than your idea of an adjective,’ she replied, pulling Marilyn’s dress back down over wire frame knees, making the dummy decent.
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah’ Nathan responded, tottering through the lounge carrying two full mugs, spilling coffee on the carpet every few steps. ‘Like what?’
‘The S word. That awful F word and the never to be uttered C word!’
‘Don’t be so coy Nicola, you’re too well mannered.’
‘Fuck off Nathan.’
‘That’s better. So what’s happening?’
‘Stacy gets married next December.’
‘This December?’
‘Next December’
‘Is that birth control or cold feet? Shit, she could have had me and dumped me fifty times over in that time,’ he submitted, setting what was left of the contents of the two mugs of coffee on the small table where
they sat chatting over coffee and biscuits before Wright finally plucked up the courage to tell her about Doubleday. Looking weary but serious he explained the significance of the lost letter as he sat playing nervously toying with Marilyn, adjusting her frock so that the hem was again near her painted navel waiting for Nicola to laugh or deride. She did neither. Although Nicola thought Doubleday, The Serepax Tango or whatever the hell this thing was, and the scheme Nathan had subsequently hatched to harvest its seemingly manifest advantages, was the craziest ever, she’d never known him to be wrong. Misguided maybe, slow in achieving maybe, but never, ever totally wrong. It was the most disturbing feature about Nathan. He did what he said he’d do.
And if he did what he said he’d do this time, she’d buy him a straight jacket and have him immediately locked away.
________________
Wright’s life really did change dramatically. With the acknowledgment of Doubleday, the mental midget at last he had a dream, a focus, a purpose. And something better to do than sit around and moan incessantly. Embracing the idea with all the energy of an amphetamine addict, he now thought he understood the improbable theory well enough to audition it before friends. Again.
But they didn’t believe him. Again.
‘Oh ye of little faith,’ Mahatma said. And Wright agreed.
As his friends showed good sense in not choosing to believe him, or The Tango, he retreated from them (not that they noticed. He’d been so reclusive in the past many months that Wright was the only one to notice the difference. And even the difference he noticed was none).
Theory rejected, Nathan stayed shut in his small asylum and planned his revenge on the disbelievers, wandering around with Marilyn on his arm muttering things like ‘come the revolution’ or ‘come in my face’ when he was feeling particularly frustrated.
Marilyn told him to go fuck himself.
________________
Really, it was rather sad that people who had once believed in Santa, the Tooth Fairy and Trolls and Gremlins and Ghosts could no longer cope with anything beyond the rational. Even good Christians who readily believed in Christ and Eucharist questioned his faith in Doubleday.
Strange logic indeed.
________________
The Serepax Tango (nee Doubleday) was a spectacularly spontaneous phenomenon, an irresponsible manifestation that behaved as badly as its benefactor. Its peculiarly irregular visits forced Wright to gather all the information his scheme demanded from a dozen or more daily papers, twelve weekly magazines and the television on a daily basis in a studious fit of sifting and sorting that demanded he work harder than he would have chosen, or liked, or wanted to so it was lucky he was so stupendously greedy for otherwise he would have surely surrendered to the work load.
But he didn’t. He accepted the rules begrudgingly, labouring heroically through the many hours of daily research before retiring to bed, fully aware of the grim fact that unless Doubleday appeared the next morning, the entire day’s struggle would prove nothing but an exercise in futility. Strangely, although the farcical nature of what he was doing and the fact that all his intensive efforts would probably be for nothing, didn’t overly disturb the overly disturbed Nathan.
Thus-far, or so it seemed to him, his entire life had proven nothing but an exercise in futility anyway so what the heck? This daily detailing was merely a predictable companion to the lack of success encountered during the rest of his existence but undaunted, dulled by too much drink, the fact that he was used to life fucking up on him anyway and the hideous effects of Kelly withdrawal, Wright worked through the weeks waiting for the big day to arrive.
________________
Dour and diligent, the man possessed worked every hour of every uneventful day cataloguing an enormous amount of information which continually proved completely useless because Doubleday refused to arrive. Every 24 hours, Nathan, bottle in hand, catalogued all the pertinent information, updating every fact and figure before he disappeared beneath the covers following a rigorous routine of filing that soon became obsessive.
Over time, the information he filed never changed, just the methodology of his storage.
It only took him about two days into the project to realise his head hadn’t been designed for such responsibility. Wright, well acquainted with the erratic behaviour of his brain, was quick to admit that his mind was a fallible and unreliable retrieval system so he sought something more trustworthy so on the third day of his efforts he began to hand write every-thing on large sheets of clean white bond paper. But even that proved inadequate. The supply of paper soon ran out and Wright was too pissed to bother to walk outside and replace the sheets he’d now exhausted so he found a new pad. His.
Nathan took to scribbling on the walls and it wasn’t long before the entire flat ended up with wall to wall words until it resembled the inside of Tut’s Tomb so he was forced to repaint or change tactics. Laziness decreed which.
It had taken him only four weeks to cover every inch of every wall with greedy graffiti and although, momentarily, he considered doing a Leonardo Da Vinci and attacking the ceilings, his brain came to the rescue and saved the higher plane. It told him to buy a computer instead of sampling the ceiling and performing any chiropractic contortions.
Unfortunately Nathan had returned the computer he used to own months back because he’d needed the money, having exchanged memory for cash needing to bank roll this mad plan but now he had to have it again.
But it was as gone as he was.
Staring at the war and peace walls he accepted that what he really needed was a brain that was tailor made for this great purpose so he had two choices; a neuron transplant or a new computer. The latter, more practical and also cheaper convinced him so with sunglasses firmly set, pale cheeks rinse blue and veins coursing with whisky torrents, the Wright Off His Tree staggered into the sun that balmy Tuesday and brought another set of humming circuits he called Erg (but was later to call Judas).
________________
‘Nathan, what the hell have you done!’ The lounge was stark naked.
‘What’s happened to the furniture? Who were your last guests, Ali Baba and the forty thieves?’ She said, shaking her head, stunned. ‘You shouldn’t have let them take souvenirs you know,’ she advised, her eyes slowly adjusting to the gloom.
Nathan keep the flat dark in the daylight in case it cheered him up. Depressed, he was happy in his dark little world and was only suicidal when something happened to cheer him up. And show him how unhappy he was, so he hid behind curtains or dark sunglasses. Or both.
‘Jesus Nathan, it’s as dark as the rings under your eyes in here. What the hell are you wearing sunglasses for?’ Her head was sprung, it kept shaking and shaking. Crossing the lounge, Nicola opened the curtains. Nathan screamed but she paid no notice to the howls of displeasure. The couch was gone. The lamp was missing. And the TV and the coffee table. Everything.
‘What happened?’
Nathan, dumb smile plastered across chalk features, just smirked. ‘You like it? It’s the latest trend, late poverty. Or early vacant, depending on your taste in decor.’
Christ, he’s really gone this time Nicola thought walking about the empty room, utterly mystified by the deserted carpet. ‘How long has it been like this?’
‘A while.’
‘Fuck Nathan, what’s a while? I knew you weren’t to be trusted. Look at you, look at this place. Jesus Nathan, I always knew you were weird but I never actually believed you’d show this much talent,’ she confessed, trying to find a chair. ‘Where the fuck are the chairs.....’
‘I got hungry..’
‘You’ve gotten beyond crazy, you crazy buggar. Where is everything? There’s nothing but floor and the odd dead pizza. Where’s your couch? Where’s the table and the stereo? Where are the shelves and the coffee table? More to the point where’s your brain vacationing?’
Wright kept smirking his damn self satisfied smirk.
‘It’s your what?’
She had no idea so Nathan explained.
________________
He’d stripped the place bare to bankroll his venture. Nathan had, over the weeks, sold off the lounge suite, the tables, the chairs and appliances, pawned two of the three televisions, traded his car for cash, disposed of a seven piece stereo and all his tapes and records (the ones left after Kelly’s culling of the collection).
He’d disposed of anything and everything. All he could sell, he did and that which he couldn’t sell, he gave away for Doubleday was to be Wright’s final fling, a do or die effort, so he lived a Spartan existence in an effort to pay for the glittering prizes he was certain awaited him.
What awaited him was shock therapy and a straight jacket according to the few friends still interested enough to observe Wright’s sorry demise.
They’d watched curiously fascinated while his bent brain led him steadily down the path of majestic insanity. If they tried to help, Wright told them he didn’t need any and told them to help themselves. So they left. With a chair or a cushion or a dozen records.
Wright’s friends weren’t crazy, they weren’t about to hang around for the will to be read.
Desperate and alone since Kelly had left him, despairingly lost and in search of something to make life worth living, or life worth extinguishing, he’d decided on one last desperate roll of the dice, Nathan honestly believing that since love had evaporated, he had nothing to lose.
Nothing but the bank roll, nothing but twenty-two grand anyway.
________________
Parked on the floor by the large bay windows, the sun casting a bright light over the empty room (because he hadn’t been able to convince bloody Nicola to close the bloody curtains again) they sat drinking the coffee he’d made in an old saucepan he used to boil the water and one of the few possessions he’d kept. There was no refrigerator so no milk, there was no sweetheart in his life so there was also no sugar so the coffee was as basic as Wright’s now hidden humour.
