Wright Left

by Peter Marks

  In utter despair, whimpering like a relative left out of a billionaires will, Wright dimly realised the error of his compulsive gathering. He’d neglected to observe Newton’s Third Law of Doubleday - it was his; an intrinsically personal experience not shared by any others, animate or inanimate apparently. Even computers were exempt from its influence.

  Hours later, awash with Whisky, after he’d tried everything to coax the information from Erg, having done all he could in a futile effort to recover his investment from the bowels of Erg’s senile circuits, Wright prayed to God for guidance.

  God, in full remission, just laughed hysterically.

  ________________

  The disasters of the day drove Nathan to drastic measures. He was about to touch water twice within 12 hours, a new record and a good indication of just how dangerously depressed Wright was.

  ________________

  Attached by insert speakers to blue ears, Leonard Cohen sang songs of misery and death from a waterproof yellow Walkman. The water was calming. This was it. No hope, no redemption. Sitting in the bath, his left arm draped over the edge of the tub holding tight to a half full bottle of 70% proof Rum, his eyes were the colour of hot lava. His will was written, his life done. He’d spent most of the day after failing to get Erg to cough up drinking himself into oblivion and now, suitably suicidal, Wright was ready to join his maker (who thought Nathan was funnier than a famine).

  He couldn’t imagine a life without Kelly AND money. One would have done, either would have kept him alive but the two had deserted him so the cause was lost.

  Immersed, bottle drowning his sorrows, he was fully dressed in a plastic nappy, soccer shorts and QPR jersey wallowing in a bath that had taken him three hours to fill as he only had the hot water from the pot on the primus to act as a tap.

  Lying back in Artic waters that had already chilled beyond freezing, but pissed, Nathan hardly noticed that his flesh was bluer than he felt. On the sink above and to his left, coiled amongst a black chord, the instrument of self death was ready to give him the best blow job he’d ever had. Plugged into the power lead running from the generator in the office, a small domestic hairdryer was set to volt Wright to paradise.

  Settled amongst rum suds, removing the earphones, he started saying his farewells to the dummies which he’d seated on various sized cardboard boxes against the tiled wall of a flooded bathroom.

  ‘Whhell folks, this is iiit. I’m about to meet the maker of bigger dummies than you lot. I’m not sowwy to leave you ........when yeww gotta go, you gotta go gone, so I’m orfff,’ he slurred taking another swig before offering the bottle to the cardboard crowd. ‘Wwrhat is it with you lot, joiwned A.A.? Givvven up the demon drrinkkk?’

  ‘We’re waiting for something to celebrate,’ Marilyn snorted. ‘When you’ve passed on, then we’ll party.’ The entire row, nodding, clapped heartily in delighted agreement.

  ‘Grreaat. Thankkks you lot. Even my own creations haf teerned ahhgainst me....’ Wright wailed, submerging beneath the waves, thrashing about like the wounded whale he was.

  ‘Vhen are yoo goink?’ Adolf asked when the Wright whale surfaced. ‘I’ve got a sree o’clock appointment vit Poland und I don’t vant to be late.’

  ‘Oui, vite, vite. Get on with eet whill you, moi has better theengs to do than sit aground whaiting for vouxk to zzuecide,’ Napoleon agreed, suggesting Marilyn play Josephine in his pants.

  ‘Oh yeah? Like what ...grrroow?’ Wright sneered, catapulting the soap at the midget.

  ‘Make ze luv not ze war?’ Napoleon suggested to Marilyn in an advance as reckless as Russia.

  ‘Invade Abyssinia,’ Mussolini suggested.

  ‘Defend the beaches!’ Churchill suggested.

  ‘Warmongers,’ Mahatma suggested.

  Dummies Wright suggested, threatening to drown the lot of them in his abysmal sorrow. Marilyn, swatting the flying hands of a besotted Bonaparte from her thrill curves, stared curious at the whale’s wet suit.

  ‘What’s with the plastic pants?’ She asked, slapping Napoleon away from the two temptress tits.

  ‘Youu shhould know. You leffft your mortal remains lying on a ...on a bed some ....somewhere. Dying’s a pretty frightening experience .....but Nathan N. Wright ain’t about to ssshit himself. And if I do, these pwasstic containers will make sure there are no bwown morsewwls floating around the bath when they find me ....gone.’ Nathan pointed to the ceiling.

  ‘EEER, THAT’S DISGUSTING!’ Marilyn groaned, wondering about the sheets on which she’d expired. Had they gone to the cleaners, or some glass cabinet of some vulture collector?

  ‘No, it’zz natural. Life’s the only thing wwhat holds what’sss in - in! When you sshuffle orff the morwtal coilss, what’s in often wanders out ....an all Nafan M. A. Wite wants is a cwean death.’

  ‘You want a clean slate.’

  ‘Trrrue, so I’ll be rebworn somewhere.’

  ‘As a toad.’ Churchill.

  ‘As a turd.’ Marilyn.

  ‘As a pwwair of young gwirlees ....underwear.’ Wright. ‘No-one’s gunna to find me dead surrounded by ....by littwle bwown boats expwelled from my uncontrolled ...ed innards.’ Wright again.

  ‘EEER, THAT’S DISGUSTING!’ Marilyn again.

  ________________

  Pathologically depressed, ambivalence overwhelmed any remnant grip on self preservation evaporated. He didn’t care any-more. He didn’t care to live or loiter any longer. Didn’t really even care now how they found him. Or when. Or in what state.

  ‘Bye all,’ he sniffled to the cardboard cheer squad. Closing too weary eyes, he took one last look at this world then one long last breath then tugged the R.I.P. chord.

  ________________

  Pulled a shocking swimmer into the bath with him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  AN ALMIGHTY BLUNDER

  FALLING IN ALMOST HALLUCINATORY stilted motion toward Nathan and the erg conducting pool, the fatal fan, frantically blasting its death current through gilt plastic teeth, tumbled peacefully toward him. The bronze three setting hairdryer, the weapon of Wright’s determined doom, fell in graduated motion toward the welcoming water.

  Recklessly, God intervened.

  The misguided missile deviated, rolling slowly left as it freefell and struck the edge of the bath with a loud thud before falling harmlessly to the damp floor. Nathan couldn’t believe it, he was ready, he was willing but apparently unable to go. Arms crossed, tears mingling gently with the surrounding water, he knew something was wrong. He didn’t feel dead.

  But maybe death was like this? Maybe there was no wrenching transition? Perhaps the cross-over was gentle and peaceful? Maybe, hopefully he was indeed dead.

  Opening two flooded eyes he saw the horrible truth. He was still here and the deliverer of his so desired doom had fallen harmlessly to the tiled floor.

  What an anti-climax.

  Nathan, lying prepared for paradise amongst the iceberg suds, eyes closed, tears floating down pillow cheeks, had heard the racket but imagined it was the sound of the Pearly Gates clattering open in welcome of his ‘watt soul?’

  Typically, it took five minutes for the dead to determine he was still alive. Cautiously, he’d opened the waxen eyelids. There was light, there was sun, there were the unmistakable sounds of world and life. Shit. Bungled again, what a bummer.

  Nathan was more revolted with his failure than relieved.

  ‘Great isn’t it, I can’t even achieve my own death without screwing up,’ Wright stammered, suddenly sober, stepping from the bath to recover the screaming hairdryer from the pond wet floor before God changed her mind and electrocuted him just as he’d wanted. Two milliseconds ago.

  Turning the screaming hairdryer off, Wright placed this door to death back on the top shelf above the basin, and beyond celestial intervention, and reached for a shroud towel. Stomping about in the puddle parlour, Wright wheeled cowering to the inanimate audien
ce.

  ‘Christ, I can’t even die with dignity. Oh God, what a failure!’ he cried sullen but oddly alive. ‘Sorry kids. It’s bloody typical.’ Wright said softly, drying himself, pivoting apologetically to the gathering of disappointed dummies. ‘Don’t look at me like that ...I was quite prepared to frolic fatal with the electric eel but God had other ideas. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it was destiny, maybe fate, maybe it was just bad luck for future females.’ Drying himself he searched the sorry faces surrounding him. God they looked disappointed.

  ‘Christ, I really am sorry I didn’t deliver but you’ve got to believe me ....before bath, SHE’S never interceded on my behalf no matter how hard I prayed ....but when I don’t ask her, when I don’t plead and grovel and show her that I understand I’m nothing but a mere speck in the cosmos, when I don’t capitulate to her wanton indifference, what does she do? She does! She decides to turn lifesaver and rescue me from a premeditated but thoroughly coveted premature end. She’s gonna make sure I hang around and suffer....’ He muttered, stealing some champagne from Marilyn’s glass, joining in a now premature, but positively welcome, wake.

  Nathan wasn’t superstitious but even supposedly dead, this was one corpse who knew a sign when he survived it.

  ________________

  Basically, everything Nathan felt and had undergone was all so unfair. He felt so used, he felt so pathetic. He wasn’t stupid and he knew that rationally the loss of the one he loved and had imagined a future with shouldn’t shatter his life. But he also knew with terrified certainty that it had.

  How terribly weak and unmanly he was.

  What Nathan had never been able to understand is just what it was that made him such a god damn awful person as to warrant the pain the lose of some-one he loved bequeathed him. What was even more troubling was why that some-one, Kelly this time, seemed so unconcerned with the real agonies he had to face because of their departure. Was it something he’d done or something he hadn’t? Hell, he knew he was imperfect but he’d never met Jesus so he’d never met any-one that was so why the hell had the women in his life so regularly abandoned him? Why, simply because he was now redundant, were the years spent with them so trivial, his hurt so weird to them?

  Surely they should understand? Maybe not. Maybe women simply didn’t hurt the way he did or rather maybe the women Nathan chose to involve himself with didn’t. God, he just didn’t know.

  He simply couldn’t comprehend how quickly they left him, how quickly they ignored him. There was so much over the past few months Kelly could have done to relieve the agony her leaving had caused him yet the more it was made apparent to her how dismal things were for him, the more she’d rejected any pleas for help.

  Life is hard and sometimes people can be even harder.

  Why a few generous words or sympathetic actions reflecting kindness or concern, or simply the slightest effort to understand his sorrow from Kelly which would have made his life, his sense of self worth at least bearable, had all proven so impossible for her?

  Did she hate him that much? Did he simply deserve it? Why can’t you love people and hurt when it all goes wrong without the world or ex-lover thinking you were some sort of psychopath? Why didn’t I tell her I loved her more often? How could she not understand that she was so much a part of me and my future? Why?

  Oh God, what ever happened to compassion?

  There was no dignity in shame or sorrow.

  ________________

  These were the thoughts that coursed, alcohol assisted through a chemically imbalanced brain as he lay there still alive, going over and over the disaster of the last months. Strewn wet and disgusted at his own cowardice, embarrassed at his failure to demise himself lying atop the ten week old linen of his board bed, staring at the ceiling, Nathan hunched crying for an hour or two.

  Feeling desperately sad, he lay convulsing in tears tossing up whether to have another shot at a watery grave before recovering sufficiently to give himself a stern lecture, telling himself to pull himself together.

  Taking another swig on yet another fast draining bottle of petrol Rum, he and himself tried to decide what to do. Next. He couldn’t decide but himself could. Himself sent Wright shrieking through the house like a cannibal who’d just learned he was the next coarse tongue on the menu. Arriving in the kitchen, overtly suicidal again, sentient that all was lost again, that not even God wanted him upstairs, he stepped sluggishly to the drawer and, removing a wife rebuke sharp blade, threatened an innocent wrist with a bread encrusted carving knife.

  What would SHE do this time? Dull the knife? Have a beautiful nun, naked aside from suspender belt, stockings and unfulfilled urges, burst through his door to convince him life was worth lusting? Obviously God doesn’t want ME upstairs ruining HER social events until I’m too old to molest her winged and without sin, and god awfully tedious guests; so I’d better go downstairs and show the devil a thing or two about the evils of drink, and loose sister’s of the cloth, he thought, bottle to straw lips, swallowing enough alcohol to give an elephant a dinosaur sized hangover.

  Standing at the window, wrist held shaking over the stainless steel sink, gazing vacantly at the lime green blind which hid the day from him, Wright considered whether he should carve his name, or an epitaph, upon the pallid, pathetically without muscle, privately owned flesh. With the blade about to slice, Nathan suddenly stared at the arm. Eyes alight, the undead bellowed like Tarzan on steroids and the madman began pounding his chest in victory as his ever decreasing logic saw the one flaw. Nathan suddenly remembered the wrist to elbow way to beat the D Day system.

  Dumping the blade, suddenly revitalised, Nathan ran again optimistic (about as fast as a snail on nails) upstairs.

  Where he gave up computing to take up scribbling.

  ________________

  From that day forth Wright, reformed and reluctant to trust technology, stored the information elsewhere. What he’d suddenly remembered was that when he’d met Stacy that first evening the information had still been there on the subsequent evening. This was the flaw, this was how he could retain all the information Judas had junked. All he had to do was become a human black (& blue board).

  The man, fantastically fucked but deliriously undaunted, took to scribbling every greedy fact on a now often unfed, feeble, pale and skeletal body.

  It was ironic. Nathan, suddenly lighter, suddenly the wearer of a physique he’d so longed for, wanted to be thirteen stone. Again. He wanted his old outrageously excessive body back, a body that was capable of storing ninety million bytes of information so he could be the bearer of his own good news. He was trimmer than he’d ever been and more correct per kilo but he wasn’t the right weight for D Day’s profound pursuit and Wright now realised weight had its gain. Now, with a use for excess flesh, he wanted to be gross again for, apart from being warmer in winter (but revolting near naked in Summer) there’d be more room to write on a ten ton self than the current healthy weight him.

  Wright, although more spunky weight wise, was also less library than he used to be. Just when he needed to be as fat as the Tent Peg he was as scrawny as a tent peg.

  ________________

  In the beginning, following the same daily routine of scouring and collecting, Wright used only his left arm, puny and pathetic as it was, to record the relevant data down the entire length of the thin limb then washing the information off the following day if Doubleday hadn’t homed in like some adoring pigeon.

  Unfortunately such constant, consistent marking with ink pen or dark marker, and the resultant hard scrubbing it took to eradicate the sub epidermal stains took its eczema toll. Such compulsive cleaning gave him a massive rash so splendid in its itching mayhem that he was soon forced to park the information anywhere the skin wasn’t erupting and Wright took to body painting in rational hues.

  He wrote in bright blue ink on Monday, garden green for a Tuesday and so on, so stained, changing shades for each day of the week in indeli
ble scratching’s that weren’t easily removed so that he wandered around for weeks looking like the tattooed man.

  Or a moronically mutilated rainbow warrior.

  ________________

  Nathan was well used to being slightly askew, so the toxic tattooing was of no great consequence. One night, weeks after the disappointment of an unprofitable T ...Tuesday, a rain drenched but temperature mild Thursday, Wright joined the ranks of the not married celebrating the soon to be suckered in to marriage.

  After a buck’s turn at a sleazy strip club called The Soiled Underwear, Nathan, blood stream pissed constant and thoroughly beyond sobriety got arrested.

  ________________

  His apprehension by the long (and bloody hairy as it happened) arm of the law had happened after Nathan had spent the evening squeezed into a dingy strip joint wedged shoulder to shoulder with others just as temporarily deviant as he was permanently, sitting watching naked women using all sorts of implements as surrogate cocks.

  Nothing seemed too ludicrous or beyond their lascivious pseudo oral, vaginal or anal attentions as the fake phalluses did their tricks and the boys loved it. They cheered, they whooped, they hollered. They drank. And drank. And drank some more just in case they could still walk without falling over.

  It was male bonding at its most primal

  Spotlight’s following every succulent move as the girl’s sucked, pretended to insert, sexually tensed and teased the zoo out front. Tits bounced, legs spread, every dick in the place raised to attention at each cavorting curve, each curve owned by some exotic girl with names like Venus Du Anything, Angel, Fifi L’amour, Dallas Debbie, The Snake Lady (and one called “Shit That’s My Bloody Wife!’ The guy was immediately bundled screaming and swearing out the back door. Obviously punishment for getting Randy Rita’s name so wrong).