Wright Left

by Peter Marks

  Up front, the groom to be so drunk that even Nathan couldn’t compete, gaudy lights lit the dim stage.

  ‘Take it off baby...’ Simon was sitting next to Nathan as drunk as he’d ever seen him. The combination of sex and grog was perhaps the most intoxicating mix available to man become beast.

  ‘Show us your tits!’ The pervert at the table next to Wright shrieked. Simon again. Just wait ‘til I tell Debbie Wright smirked then remembered that she was the very reason Simon was behaving so extraordinarily uncharacteristically. Tammy Faye did as Simon said though, peeling the fake diamond encrusted sling from heaven then hell bound bosoms.

  ‘Wow, great tits!’ he wailed. (God, thought Nathan, knowing Simon had only ever seen two real sets before, his wife’s and those of the one other girlfriend he’d ever coupled with so of course this pair were great. Greatly overrated by Simon Nathan thought).

  The crowd went wild chanting ‘Get it off! Get it off!’ as if this were the most natural thing a man could say to a woman.

  Nathan knew better. Nathan knew more than his fair share of women he’d pay to keep their clothes on.

  The show over, every-one finally crawling out the door slurring good byes and making gross suggestions to the future groom, Nathan managing to pour Simon into a taxi and somehow managing to communicate where the drunk in the back needed to be delivered staggered off into the lust raised evening.

  The joint was only a five minute walk (a half hour crawl, stagger) from home so Nathan, still trying to conserve as much money as possible so he could Tango when the time came, had declined to share the cab. Out of cigarettes, he headed for the shops but twenty paces on his legs failed him.

  Slumped in the gutter, laughing the loud laugh of the clinically pissed, Nathan squatted smiling and vomiting chunks of the just ingested dinner to the tune of Ol’ Man River much to the amusement of the hookers and wino’s who crowded about cheering and clapping his every melodic regurgitation.

  Only the police refused to clap (while most of the pro’s really didn’t need to. They already had it). The cops, tone deaf philistines they were, collared him for drunk and disorderly (and very bad singing) and chucking the chucking him in the back of the blue van which was packed with others as drunk as Wright was, hauled the lot of them off to the St Kilda Police Station.

  ________________

  Once inside, two burly uniforms ordered him to stop singing and start praying, hovering overhead and telling him to roll up his sleeves so they could see if he was an addict. Wright was certainly acting in manner peculiar enough to justify their suspicions.

  What the cops didn’t know was this was how Wright was. Wright was naturally peculiar. Wright didn’t need any substance swallowed, sniffed or syringed to behave like an imbecile.

  Sitting him on a large wooden bench amongst the other drunks and loons, Wright rolled up both sleeves and an obese cop with hair cut so short that obviously the wife had run the lawn mower over it, searched Wright’s right and left arms for any telltale tracks. Although there were no incriminating punctures, there was plenty of colour amongst the red rashes which spread in technicolour chaos over the entire arm, a picture which puzzled the frowning cop who suddenly pulled away from the still singing mural as if Wright had plague or leprosy.

  Wright smiling stupidly, kept singing as the examiner of his arm’s artwork wandered off to confer with the other cops whose wives had also been given mowers for Christmas. One thought they should lock Wright up for drunk and disorderly, one thought they should plaster him to the ceiling Sistine Chapelesk. Another suggested they call in the shrink while “Bull”, the senior sergeant, said they should just shoot the bastard and turn him into colourful splatter sculpture.

  They couldn’t agree. So Bull took charge. Through a megaphone from behind the booking desk metres away, big blue asked him if he shot up with hypodermics or crayons. Safely distant, Bull demanded to know what all the gibberish on his arms was about. Pissed and intimidated Wright, was in no position to lie so told them the truth. About Doubleday. About his bodily filing system.

  He should have lied. And certainly he would have had he not been so drunk. He should have been more discriminating with whom he confided his theories. The nervous plod pronounced him crazy and probably on drugs and cautiously, from a distance, herded him to the back of the station house with the other addicts and whores and warbling Al Jolson’s. Which suited Wright fine.

  Half an hour later he was having a fine time rehearsing the stage version of The Jazz Singer, fully choreographed with music apparently arranged by Stockhausen, until the police recalled him and made him strip his shirt off. Again. Wright did as ordered, then rendered the shirt useless by chucking a few regurgitated bars of Hello Dolly in it which convinced Constable “Tex” Striesand that Wright was as crass as he was crazy so sent for a doctor who didn’t believe Wright either.

  No-one believed him. No-one believed in Doubleday. No-one was that dumb.

  Percival M.D. was about to sedate, then certify the rainbow man when a real loopy was dragged drugged through the front door by another couple of huge coppers. (Wright wondered if this police station was sponsored by MacDonalds. Or Pizza Hut. Or the Elephant enclosure at the Zoo).Wedged between them was this frothing, wailing apparition with two deeply disturbed eyes of solid distress. Wearing a torn and tattered violet, green dress which clung around her ankles like a shroud to a dead Hindu, she / it breathed extruded amphetamines on Tex who smartly decided that this wretched thing was a more genuine case. So called for Dr. Percival. Just in the nick of time for Wright who was about to be punctured by a needle the size of drum stick when the doctor lost interest in him. And shoved the drum stick in her.

  Later, having bundled the mindbent mannequin into the back of an ambulance, the police again asked Wright why he was turning himself into mobile graffiti. He stopped mid-melody to tell them, yet again, about Doubleday. And about the girl at the party and how her phone number had stayed with him when the computer hadn’t. As best, at his worst, he reasoned with Tex, between choruses of Camptown Races, that anything that was on him would remain - anything that wasn’t would perish. (Or wouldn’t perish. In Tex’s reality would never have existed).Because of this, Wright kept all information atop his epidermal layers awaiting the big day. The illusive Doubleday.

  Striesand said nothing. He just sighed, shook his head and wandered back to question the other head cases being brought in. The cops still thought he was crazy, not as loony as the girl they’d just sent to the head hospital maybe. But not sane either so they heaved him into a small dark cell until morning when sober and sick he was sent into the sunshine with the warning not to go mad on their turf again.

  In parting Striesand told Wright to stop painting himself and start therapy. Wright told him to get fucked (when he was two blocks away and out of ear ...or gun shot). Started running realising he’d forgotten to update his armpit and hailed a cab. He asked the driver what day it was and almost ended up back in the clink.

  But following an exchange of bills, the taxi driver relented and took him home. Told Wright what day it was. It wasn’t a Doubleday much to Nathan’s relief.

  Weeks passed and Wright wrote, Keeping his skin catalogue up to date and his rashes swathed in Calamine Lotion. A few weeks later, a couple of chemists calamined out, and countless itches on, Wright woke to a shimmering dawn.

  It was a cold morning when drifted from his four week sheeted bed at six on the dot and found it was Wednesday.

  Again.

  ________________

  It WAS a W..Wednesday and THIS time Wright was prepared. THIS time he was ready, willing and, covered in ever expanding rashes, almost disabled but nothing was going to spoil his triumph. Breathing deeply, he strode off on his appointed rounds smiling and whistling sure in his purpose. Armed, legged and torsoed with the relevant facts Wright spent the day examining his extremities with an ivory grip magnifying glass then went shopping for wealth, goin
g slowly and deliberately about his various tasks; Wright was a maniac with a mission.

  Smoking, eating a pineapple doughnut, he waited patiently outside the bank until the doors were opened. Signed form at the ready, he made his way to the teller and withdrew every cent he’d saved so diligently from selling his every worldly processions. $30,021.21 in a now bulging pocket, it was time to shop for a new life.

  First stop was the newsagent where, stooping by the till, Wright pulled down his left sock, red and not matching the right which was blue, and read his fortune from amongst the multi-coloured veins of biro’d numbers etched his ankle. Wednesday again, he copied the six numbers noted last night, and also Wright Wednesday, onto ten Tattslotto coupons for that evening’s repeat Superdraw.

  Next call was the TAB where he shouldered his way between the other mug punters and grabbing a form, reading from his right arm, he carefully selected the various horses in the events on the card at Sandown that day. Followed this with choices in races at every meeting across the nation, paid his money and left smiling.

  Arriving home, shirt off, reading from a fat depleted stomach, Wright briefed a stockbroker and brought up big. Spent his life savings, invested every last cent on his plot to became the only profitable mobile library in history.

  Then waited.

  With the curtains drawn, smoking and boozing and praying that the plan would work, he shut himself in his bedroom all day, lying on the bed waiting, and counting his chickens, busy hatching nest eggs and deciding what to do with such a windfall.

  ________________

  8.07 pm, Wednesday, July 12. Nathan rocked back and forth in exultant reaction. Wedged on the floor in the same dark corner he’d spent so much of his recent past curled depressed in, surrounded by a high wad of documents verifying the greedy triumph, Wright held tight to a 3 million dollar paper fan. In front of a mad smile, he waved just some of the evidence of his wealth - winning Tatts Tickets and race stubs, and a thick listing of profit rich share transactions, toward God who was apparently hiding in the light fitting of his ceiling. Giggling, unsteady on his bum, he rocked back and forth smoking, drinking and chanting the mantra of the nouveau riche.

  ‘Fuck you, fuck me, fuck ‘em all. Fuck you, fuck me, fuck ‘em all.’ He had a strange look ploughed across his face. Drugs couldn’t mimic this look. Nor could death. Only money brought this look.

  ‘I’M RICH, Fuck you, fuck me, fuck ‘em all. Fuck you, fuck me, fuck ‘em all.’

  Wright’s life had changed overnight. He was too pissed to be hang-over, he was deliriously content and 28.5 million dollars richer so wealthy, and still single and still a still, the time had at last come for him to put his vengeful fiscal theories to the test - after he’d purged the alcohol from his system and lifted the putty fog from a Whisky handicapped brain.

  Squatting there, bridge grin connecting left ear to Wright ear, Nathan thanked God. And gave her some advice.

  ‘Oh God I’ve done it. We’ve done it. It’s a pity you’re stuck up there amongst the saintly and serene. Can’t be much fun,’ Wright giggled, rolling onto his side, spilling the Moet cuddled maternally to his heaving, happily pissed pectorals. ‘Shit, why is it only the dull are saved? Shouldn’t salvation be expanded to include the naughty but fun? Like moi for instance!’ He laughed, then thought about the future D Day had given him. Certain responsibilities went with wealth and Wright was more than willing to do his bit. ‘It’s time to spend up big, to womanise, to strut and be superior. To paaarrty!’ he shrieked, rising unsteadily to bare feet and strolling out to the balcony where he stood waving in the breeze like a fragile willow, drinking champagne and boasting to the wildlife.

  ‘I’m rich, I’m rich. I’m wealthy. I’m financially flush, affluent, moneyed, opulent. I’M RIICHH!’

  ‘You’re target practice if you don’t shut-up!’ Replied an irate voice from the balcony of the flat opposite.

  ________________

  Obviously it didn’t take much (much more than $28.5 million anyway) to keep Wright content. He was happy at last. Every-one could tell for he’d stopped moaning, began smiling like a kid with a new toy. Which he was - was a kid with a new toy, many of them really including one in particular, a shiny red, very expensive, very exotic gleaming new Ferrari. A vehicle more suited to his new image and ancient delusions, than the bare feet that had until Doubleday been the poor mode of transport.

  ________________

  It was 3.07 pm, Thursday, August 13. Arriving at the phone box, Wright fed the green can with a dozen coins, and dialled.

  ‘Shambles, guess what?’

  ‘The Mormons have you and are demanding a $5 ransom for your release, but they can’t find any-one willing to pay that grossly exaggerated amount to spring you.’

  ‘Wrong.’

  ‘Ah, you’re going to Tibet to gain wisdom.’

  ‘Nope. I’m writing you a check for $100,000 so you can buy yourself a new wife.’

  ‘That’s most generous of you Nathan. I’ll tell her you think she should be traded, you can expect a ticking package from her in reply. Anyway, what would I do with a cheque you’ve written? Use it for a place mat or take it to tennis tomorrow and watch it bounce all over the court?’

  Nathan grinned. He knew the best thing about giving any of his cynical friend’s a cheque was that they’d not dare cash it presuming the bank wouldn’t honour it. So, by default, any money he gave them, he kept.

  ________________

  ‘Mum, guess what?’

  ‘Guess what, Nathan?’

  ‘I’m rich mum.’

  ‘That’s nice. Now tell me the truth, what’s wrong? You never ring your poor old mum ....unless you want something.’

  ‘Christ mum, can’t you find anything else to say to your only son?’

  ‘You’re adopted’

  ‘Then you’re not my mum so you don’t get a share. Bye stranger......’

  ________________

  ‘Fionna, guess what?’

  ‘Society has finally realised the error of it’s ways and locked you away in a small padded cell somewhere and you want me to come and visit you. And bring you chocolates and flowers because you’re sick in the head.’

  ‘Of course I am, but I’m not locked up and I don’t need gifts from any-one. I’m filthy, stinking rich!’

  ‘Yeah, sure you are. Filthy? usually. Stinking? undoubtedly. Rich ...only in odour.’

  Smartarse.

  ________________

  ‘Alan, guess what?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because God wants you to’

  ‘God wants you too. By his side amongst the clouds playing a golden harp in an Idiot Orchestra upstairs so you better do as he wishes ...and suicide immediately.’

  ________________

  Finished with the Cynic’s line, Wright spent the last coin phoning his friends at the Crisis Counselling Service. There was no answer. No ‘what a wonderful day’, no ‘life is worth living.’ No reply because Wright’s recent bout of uncharacteristic optimism had shocked them to eternal sleep..

  ________________

  It seemed an eternity before he could persecute Nicola with the good news. She’d been holidaying in Queensland for the past three weeks and so had missed all the excitement. Nicola, lying on a beach in a red polka dot bikini, sipping cocktails from a bent straw, was oblivious to Wright’s success - and subsequent spending.

  ‘Nathan, I can’t believe it! What the hell have you done?’

  What the now returned Nicola, tanned and sorry to be back from the crystal sands of a sun days resort, couldn’t believe was the Porsche 944 she’d discovered gift wrapped with a giant card advising her to be grateful for Wright’s grand generosity, sitting in her drive-way when she’d scrambled from the taxi on her arrival home from the airport.

  ‘Ensured the few friends who stuck with me during the bad times are rewarded.’

  ‘Don’t you think a Por
sche is overdoing it a little? I know I’m worth it, but, when will it be repossessed? Did you rob a bank or exterminate a rich relative?’

  Wright sighed heavily. ‘There’s gratitude for you. I donate a set of wheels that will lure any man into your clammy grasp and you accuse me of being a bank robber or an Aunt murderer. Damn ingrate. If you’re not more gracious about my fabulous gift I’ll reposes it.’ Wright frowned, miffed by the accusation.

  ‘I’m sorry Nathan. I am grateful ....in fact I’m beyond grateful ..I’m ...I’m overwhelmed. It’s just that you’ve never been exactly swimming in money, so I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘Think yourself lucky. And thank Doubleday.’

  Sitting in the driveway, settled on the leather clad front seat of Wright’s gift black Porsche, speaking to Nathan on the mobile phone attached to the dash, Nicola gasped. ‘You’re kidding? You don’t mean to tell me that lunatic idea of yours actually worked. That you really do suffer from days that stutter,’ she stammered, her faith in nature, the laws of logic, physics and Wright’s obvious insanity, suddenly in curious question.

  ________________

  Meanwhile, across the globe, on the other side of a polluted globe, Kelly was oblivious to Wright’s fortune. Kelly, like Nathan, was searching for someplace where her dreams would flower to solid shape and so had left Australia and was living in a poky flat in the London suburb of Swiss Cottage, sharing the rent with the English damp and a equally disillusioned girlfriend. And her bed and favours with a new man, one Daniel P. Futa, a middle aged but exceptionally wealthy American Merchant banker who was slick and smooth.