by Peter Marks
Nathan, hauling himself upright from the floor of the limo where Gus and Bruno had deposited him, pulled himself up into the seat, then, leaning over, hit the button that wound the window down.
‘Hey Gus, what’s that?’ He asked, pointing to Christy.
‘It’s mine.’
‘I know that Gus. Only what are you doing with it?’
Gus stuck his head through the window into the car and winked. ‘I’m gonna fuck the arse off of her boss...’ he whispered conspiratorially through broken teeth, a hungry grin widening. Nathan didn’t have the heart to tell him there was only a front to the Christy cut-out. So Christy didn’t have an arse to speak of. (Or find for that matter, it had fucked off already). And she was flat as an ironing board so Nathan didn’t see what the attraction was anyhow.
Wishing Gus luck, wishing the two of them would occasionally offer him whatever they were on so he could mate with cardboard, certain it was cheaper than bribing the real thing, he tapped the darkened pane before sinking contentedly into the rich black upholstery.
The chauffeur nodded acknowledgment and the car lurched forward.
________________
Morning arrived swiftly. The mute rays of an Asian sun slunk lazily through the curtains. Nathan groaned loudly and pulled a pillow over his head at the welcome.
Last night, after a seemingly endless round of interviews, he’d visited friends and thickly recalled getting exceedingly pissed.
Jane and Michael had been their usual hospitable selves and the kids had seemed as excited to see him as he was to see them. But Nathan had been amazed at just how quickly the kids had seemed to be outgrowing his image of them. It was always a shock to him how much the children of friend’s grew between his infrequent visits. Now Michael Jnr and Olivia had outgrown their midget status. Now Wright was beginning to worry that next time he saw them they’d be older than he was.
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It was important to Nathan that he hold on to old friends. They were the anchor in his life. Part of a relatively sane past in his weird present. They were links, they were bonds. They reassured him. They were the sharers of memories and the keepers of his times.
And they gave him hell.
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‘You’re still a fuckhead...’ Michael advised, gulping a Bundy and coke, the two of them draped in green director’s chairs on the balcony of twelfth story apartment. ‘Money doesn’t change anything but...’
Nathan interrupted. ‘People’s opinions. And the until wealth arrived couldn’t be swayed mother’s of beautiful girls. And the attitude of banks, blondes and buggars who used to fuck me about.......’
‘Not forgetting our lowly opinion of you until you struck gold,’ Jane prodded, handing Nathan a beer.
There was a spectacular view of Repulse Bay from where they sat and looking out, this high up, Nathan was pleased he was rich. So no longer in the mood for suicide nor pissed enough to think he could fly and sitting drinking, thinking, Nathan was struck by the thought that Olivia and Michael Jnr. had seemed more pleased to see him than either Jane or Michael had.
No matter, he decided, deciding the answer was obvious. After-all, he’d known ma and pa longer. Even more to the point, ma and pa had known him longer.
So it was only natural the kids liked him better than they would.
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Wandering into the bathroom, switching the light on, he was probably hung-over. But the reflection in the mirror seemed no worse than usual so he walked off, waiting for his brain to confirm his worst fears.
By doing what it usually did. By pounding his temples with a baseball bat.
After ordering breakfast from room service, Wright showered and dressed.
________________
The lights of Hong Kong disappeared over a hot orange horizon. Michele, rotating gracefully on the heel of her left stiletto, turned to Gish. A quizzical look adhered to her powdered cheeks, she asked Gish what she thought of THE BOSS.
Gish, opening the oven door, thought for a moment. ‘He’s not as ancient as I’d imagined,’ she considered, bending to gather a tray of steaming croissants. ‘I thought all the magazine shots I’d seen of him must have been old. Or retouched. He’s terribly young to be that RICCHHH.’
Danielle was about to push the trolley out of the galley. ‘That’s what you said about Prince Ratu Khan...’ She remarked, laughing and leaving. Carrying a bottle of Benedictine and two liquor glasses, she fled before Gish amputated some much needed portion of her for having resurrected the embarrassing memory.
‘That was the Bahrain Run!’ Gish screamed after her. ‘I was not of sound mind!’ She yelled, defending her aberration.
‘You’re not kidding.’ Michele smirked, adjusting her make-up in the reflection of the lockers. ‘Fancy proposing to that porky potentate. He already had fifty wives ...thirty of whom he’d already sold into slavery.’
‘Can you imagine the alimony?’ Anna asked.
‘EXACTLY!’ Gish howled. ‘That’s why the bastard sells them! He auctions the wives off before they can sue him for a few trillion petro dollars.’ She imagined before changing the subject. ‘Anyway. His regal Wankiness can’t possibly be as crazy as RAT Khan was. And he doesn’t look as whacko as I’d imagined he’d be, given that he calls his company after an action every mother warns against. In fact...’ She paused, a wicked leer meeting her face. ‘...I’d be quite happy to give our good King a tumble.’
‘So? Gish honestly, you’d give a porcupine a tumble if there was a penthouse and platinum AMEX in it for you.’
‘Shut it or lose it Danielle!’ Danielle had cruised back through the curtains. But she was gone again before Gish could dissect her. Michele, pausing momentarily from stacking a pile of clean dishes, told Gish to ignore the interruptions, asking her to go on.
‘Well, for a start, I thought anyone crazy enough to call a company Wanker would arrive dressed in a clown suit...’ Or a straight jacket, Michele thought.
‘Michele. What is he doing all by himself up the back there?’ Anna asked, curious.
‘Nothing sinister. His hands are visible. He’s still on that portable computer, merrily tapping away.’
‘What’s he tapping?’
‘Oil?’
‘Shut-up Anna... So what’s he typing Michele?’
Michele was now carefully arranging the silverware on silver trays. ‘I have no idea. Mind you, he didn’t seem too reassured by my safety lecture when we left Melbourne. So perhaps it’s his will?’ She conjectured, placing the crystal glasses by starched and folded serviettes. Anna, about to leave, pushing another loaded trolley through the gap of the grey curtains, stopped suddenly. She was loyal if not discerning.
Foolhardy, she decided to defend good King Wanker.
‘Personally...’ She started, withdrawing a clutch of dollars from the left pocket of her jacket and waving them at the others. ‘...personally I don’t care if he’s typing death threats to my dearest Aunt. He pays us like we’re his relatives anyway.’ She lectured, leaning against the lockers. ‘Listen Gish, we get the best rooms in the best hotels. We get chauffeured limousines to and from every airport. And I get a red 944 Porsche Turbo to play with when I get home...’
‘And what about our outrageous clothing allowance?’ Danielle agreed, arriving. Gish glowered at her and Danielle left. Immediately.
‘Personally, I don’t care if he dresses as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Our esteemed employer can appear as the Queen of England, Hitler the housepainter, Vlad the Impaler or the Devil incarnate and I’d still be content...’ She said, emptying several bags of crisps into several small silver bowls atop the trolley. ‘Also, thanks to the generosity of the Wanker health scheme, I don’t have to worry what happens to me if God dispatches lightening strikes at me next week. When I’m back in Stockholm at my little sister’s wedding. Jesus, it will be my first visit to God’s house since I was ...um
m ...arr ...fifteen I guess. And some sour supreme being may just take offence at such a delayed visit and decide to roast me.’
She was worried that there was a reasonable chance this could actually happen, so she paused. Lifting clasped, well manicured hands in silent prayer, she prayed for HIS forgiveness. And her safety.
‘Well, we can live in hope,’ Gish laughed. ‘Anyway, don’t you think church is the ideal place to confess? It’s about time you admitted that you really are a Wanker ...it’ll make a refreshing change from every-one whispering it behind your back....’
________________
Wright’s fondness for Hitleresque attire, as modelled by Michelle, Gish, Anna, Danielle and the rest of the Wanker flight crew, had naught to do with old Adolf’s chronically demonic behaviour. Even the occasionally right wing Wright knew a bad thing when he read of it.
But you have to give the little dictator his due Wright says. For a house painter, the fucker sure knew a thing or two about decent design. The pageantry, the uniforms, banners and multitudinous flags were, in Wright's blind mind anyway, all far more impressive than the Allied offerings. So he imitated the style.
The Corporate look was late Third Reich.
According to Wright, the Italians, had they taken the war a little more seriously, could have helped the cause of design excellence had they simply put their pens to it. But neither their nibs nor hearts were in it seems. Instead of becoming a force to be reckoned with, they simply became the brunt of some of the first jokes Wright ever heard (eg. How many gears has an Italian Tank got? Six. Five reverse and one forward in case they’re attacked from the rear. What’s the Italian flag? A white cross on a white background. Et al).
In the taste stakes, Wright’s Australia ran a poor last. What it really needed was a good dose of the Antichrist to awaken the country’s non-existent visual cortex. The flags, the banners, the spastic cross on a white circle background. These were things Australia needed. Some style, some pageantry.
Some nationalistic killer instinct.
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The high mountains of the Hindu Kusch drifted white and rugged below.
‘Lunch sir?’
The wanker was still seated by himself. There were two empty bottles of way expensive champagne lying on the subtly vibrating floor and Wright was too busy forcing his dubious reminiscences into the silicon chips resting in his lap to notice her arrival.
But Michele persisted.
‘Lunch SIR,’ she repeated, louder this time. SIR remained oblivious and continued composing. She didn’t know it, but the problem was that she was speaking a language Nathan was unfamiliar with. Her terminology was quite foreign. Prior to his bank balance exploding, no-one had ever called him Sir so, quite naturally, he assumed she was talking to someone else (fairly idiotic seeing he was the only person for half a plane).
As much as Nathan enjoyed such new found respect, it continued to be quite alien to him. It was almost as incomprehensible as anybody taking any notice of his advice (which no-one ever had. Until recently anyway).
‘SIR!’ She tried yet again, her blonde haired, model perfect head tilted delicately, provocatively to one side in curious deliberation.
Just what sort of cretin was she was working for? Was he just visually retarded? Or queer perhaps? Or just plain deaf?
No, just dumb she decided as this time the cretin finally acknowledged her hovering presence.
‘Oh, sorry. You mean me?’
Michelle sighed. Le Fuckwit, No? I’ve been asking you this same question for nigh on twelve hours flying time and you still don’t seem to comprehend simple English. Is this man on drugs? Or simply simple? She considered the options as she handed him a menu. Contact at last, it’s a miracle she thought silently.
Wright, putting aside the keyboard, looked up into the blue in blue eyes. God she was beautiful. Thanking her, he grasped the coloured cardboard, black with silver trim, large winged W top, centred, to search the list although he was finding it difficult to concentrate with an apparition direct from the pages of Penthouse so close. She was graceful, she was elegant and her butt was deliciously rounded under the short black skirt and as she disappeared through the polished black door, Nathan closed his eyes, imagining her naked. Again.
Michelle, making for the galley, also imagined. She imaged him horizontal.
Tied to a bunk and under Psychiatric care.
________________
Of course as Nathan adjusted to wealth, he’d learn wallet confidence.
For the moment though, in his own mind at least, he remained as poor as he was accustomed. A poor second. He believed she was way too beautiful for the slightly drunk him to imagine hooking so Nathan decided on an old, well tried and usually successful means of acquiring courage well beyond his actual ego. He decided to get really pissed. Then he’d have the confidence to make a pass at this one.
Either that, or just pass out, dependant on just how stewed he got.
Just imagine it, if the Allies hadn’t assisted in the demise of Nazi fascism there’d probably have been no MacDonalds dotted about the world and Wright, for one, would have missed them (as would his fat cells).
Try and imagine a planet bereft of MacDonalds. If that’s possible. Hell, if the damn Allies hadn’t interceded so successfully, there’d be no MacDonalds anywhere, just sombre MacStrudles on every street corner of every town on the planet each tastefully decorated in Wagnerian tonings with beer house tables and cuckoo clocks stuck to fake wood beam walls. Pepsi would come in huge steins and goose stepping waiters wearing lederhosen and grim faces would march about. Giving, not taking, orders.
Out in the playground, there to amuse the MacStudle Youth, Ronald MacStrudle, in neat uniform, clipped moustache, would hand out lollies to well disciplined children who’d salute in gratitude. (And not dare shove ‘em down Ronald’s pants as seems to be the case these days).
Of course, there’d also be plague of death camps scattered about the countryside.
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She scooped the plates from the cluttered table. Placing them on the trolley, she turned to Wright and leaning, her perfume pounding his senses, asked him if he wanted anything else.
Yeah, a fuck. But that’s not what he said. ‘Another bottle of champagne, thank-you.’ He dodged, suddenly perturbed. He guessed he really couldn’t help it but it annoyed the crap out of him that wealth hadn’t reformed him, aggravated that the word thank-you had slid so easily from its tongue cave. By now he’d rather hoped that he’d begin to act in a manner more befitting his billionaire status; i.e. that he’d have no manners at all. That he’d now feel so superior that he’d behave as most grotesquely wealthy people behaved.
Appallingly.
Such desired bad behaviour was yet another peculiar wish Wright had harboured for decades. He had rather hoped that when he was at last rolling in it, as rich as Rockefeller and as amiable as a piranha, he’d treat others as he’d been treated - that he’d treat others with the same dismissive contempt he himself had been subjected to throughout his long years of his devout poverty.
Wright was a sad disappointment to himself.
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Wright was a sad disappointment to himself mainly because I told him he was. The man listens to no-one but me and I’m forever telling him what a sad disappointment he is.
It’s my job. I’m his minder.
Really I’m not malicious, merely meticulous. There to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground - even when he’s 30,000 feet above it.
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Nathan was growing bored with himself. He’d spent the time between Melbourne and Hong Kong, aside from the odd break for his diary-etic rambling’s, attending to business. Now, London next stop, he wanted to relax. To enjoy himself.
Adjusting the seat until he’d exhausted all the alternatives, Wright thought about going down to the front of the aircraft to mix with his sta
ff. But it wasn’t what he wanted.
Sure he wanted company, but very singular company. The airhostess he fancied wasn’t anywhere to be seen so he swilled back another champagne, lit another cigarette and spoke to Wander:
I am Me, he is Me.
He is my burden, he is The Voice. He’s the one that never lets me forget I’m the same moron rich as I was poor (no matter how much I spend to deny it).
He’s the Satan of Sentences and the cross I bear. He’s the lunatic who lives at the back of my brain who never sleeps and never shuts-up. He refuses to holiday without me and the more I enjoy myself, the more the ‘orrible little bastard nags me about responsibility and maturity.
Some call him Guilt, some know him as Conscious. I know him as the herd in my head. He is omnipresent and on call.
And mad as a hatter.
Sitting here, looking about this flying palace, The Voice and I can only guess at what happened.
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Imbecile! The man’s got the brains of the two year dead. I don’t need to guess at what happened for I am The Voice. And I know every damning detail.
Me? I’m not human so I don’t have any morbid preoccupation with logic. It happened, that simple. No debate, no correspondence entered in to. No obsessive requirement for an answer to the unanswerable.
Sure IT was fantastic (as in fantasy remarkable. Not as in “her tits are fantastic!” remarkable). And yes, IT was unbelievable and utterly beyond any rational explanation but there are more things on heaven and earth as the saying goes.
And don’t get me wrong. When I mention that I’m not Homo sapien, don’t jump to conclusions. I’m not alien. I simply don’t exist in any physical, tangible form.
I’m not measurable. I exist only in the grey jelly jail Wright claims for a brain.
Perhaps I’m his soul, perhaps I’m the devil. I’m chemicals and neurones and rampant electricity. What I am is him - the collective thoughts, passions and prejudices. I’m the commentator, the narrator of this epic and the, Wright claims, too often heard in his head. I am the all knowing, all seeing smartarse. I’m greed, I’m guilt, I am the voice of sin and the sound of temptation. I’m doubt and despair, I’m pain and I’m pleasure.