Nathan thought it was a great sport though. He wanted it included in the next Olympics but when he suggested the idea to the International Olympic Committee they rejected the dwarf to take up Nathan throwing instead. And hurled him out the door.
Nathan watched everything. Gold Medal Lawn Bowls, Intercontinental Frisbee Throwing, World Championship Linen Folding, Superstar Crocodile Wrestling, Under Twelve Kick Boxing, Under The Table Sherry Swilling - the most obscure, the most asinine, anything so long as there was a winner.
Never having been one, Wright gained his victories vicariously.
________________
Lounging in the chair, now eating marmalade smothered toast, he was trapped in an ad break too indolent to move or censor by changing channels. Chewing loudly, Nathan wondered why any client in their right mind would pay good money for this shit. He was aghast at the truly majestic waste of money he was witnessing as bad followed appalling. Sure, there was the odd piece of excellence, the occasional gem, but most of the ads. were about as entertaining as a baby’s Baptism (and about as original as Wright’s sin).
Most of them seemed to have been written by some-one not of this world. A Martian, or Venusian. Or an Illiterate. Certainly not anyone that cared for the welfare, or sanity, of the damned human race.
________________
In glow attack neon, fixed to the brickwork by two tubular steel framed doors, there was a sign that read: ‘Hang On To Your Wallets Inc., Advertisers to the Elite’.
With sweeping views of bay and city, Anthony stood waiting in a plush office twenty floors above teaming streets. Sorting through a rainbow stack of typed notes in an office the size of his ego (which was the size of his overdraft, which was the size of a minor planet) he was seated at a huge teak boardroom table (that was large enough to accommodate the entire Sioux Nation).
The door opened.
‘Anthony is our Creative Head,’ said a short rotund man wearing a white suit with a crimson rose thrust in a wide lapel, introducing Anthony to THE CLIENT.
‘Does this mean you have a Creative Knee. Or Ankle?’ THE CLIENT asked. Curious.
The short rotund man wearing the white suit with the crimson rose in the wide lapel laughed in stunned amusement at the question. THE CLIENT however seemed unappreciative of such a sycophantic response to his humour so the white man stopped laughing and sat THE CLIENT in a chrome leather chair at the edge of the reservation.
There was an uncomfortable silence until the fat man realised that apparently THE CLIENT was still awaiting a reply to his joke question.
‘No, have a Creative Knee or Ankle,’ he apologised.
‘Why not?’
‘Exactly. Why not? Sounds good to me, make a note Michele to have our people retitled.’
Michele sighed. She’d just finished painting her lips and ensuring that the hem of her dress was sufficiently near her navel to reveal that she was wearing no knickers, so nodding vacantly, she picked up the pad before her then scribbled something into a spirex note pad.
She didn’t know a shred of shorthand but she could draw wavy lines with the best of them, besides, providing a readable history of these moronic meetings wasn’t her job. Her job was to wear cling wrap dresses two sizes too small so that her tits were always seen to be present whenever an important client was being briefed. Then debriefed by her in a hotel room on company expenses.
Michele actually liked her job. And the clients liked her to scream. And the company kept doing business with the clients who liked Michelle to scream so things were just peachy. (Or melon if Michelle’s chest was any indication).
There was a knock at the gate oak doors and in strode a well groomed young woman wearing a black Chanel suit.
‘Ah Daphne, come in, come in.’ Daphne was already in. The Boss was always telling people to do what they were already doing.
‘Daphne here is our Senior Copywriter.’
‘She doesn’t look that old,’ THE CLIENT remarked dryly.
‘I’m not, your worship,’ she said bowing before taking her seat at the vast table, disdainfully glancing at the woman with the note pad and tits who was always putting her job on the linen.
‘This is a sure fire winner,’ THE CLIENT chortled apparently making a joke.
‘Note that Daphne,’ Daphne was already noting it.
‘And just what is this revolutionary product?’ The Boss asked, white suit wobbling over beer girth.
From the breast pocket of an Armani suit, wrapped in crimson velvet, THE CLIENT withdrew an irregular shaped object which he then gently, carefully, laid on the table before flipped the cloth aside to reveal the cold contents.
Daphne gasped in horror. Henry, old white suit that wobbled, knew Daphne. He knew that she was about to grow morals on him so, excusing them both, he instantly grabbed her by her arm and wrenched her from leather seat, hauling her to the far corner of the boardroom.
‘Daphne, calm down.’ Daphne was calm.
‘It’s a gun Henry.’
‘I know what it is Daphne.’
‘Guns kill Henry.’
‘People kill, not guns Daphne.’
‘People kill WITH guns Henry.’
‘People kill without guns.’
‘They kill quicker WITH guns.’
‘Good, we can use that. Guns, for quick relief. Good. Smart thinking Daphne.’
‘You’re kidding aren’t you? You can’t advertise guns!’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s blood money.’
‘It’s cash money.’
Satisfied with this explanation and telling her to behave or become immediately redundant, Henry swept Daphne back to the table, whispering in her ear that there was no need for her to worry. Or hold archaic principles, reminding her that she was in advertising so there was no call for them.
‘Sorry about that,’ Henry said, wedging a pork bum between desk and chair. ‘Now where were we?’
‘We were staring down the barrel,’ Daphne said, wishing that bloody woman with the pad would close her legs. Or buy some underwear. Or at least shave the damn thing so that it smiled instead of looking like a bearded grin.
‘Over to you Anthony,’ Henry said, reviewing the budget, sitting there wringing plump hands in greedy anticipation of the many millions to be made from this campaign. And decided to buy a fresh wife on these pistol profits.
‘Yes well, it’s an interesting concept,’ Anthony replied, wondering if it was okay to murder someone in an ad.
‘It’s a gun Anthony! It is not a damn concept. Hold it to your head, pull the bloody trigger, then we’ll see a concept that’ll blow your tiny mind.’ Daphne screamed.
‘Into mash!’ she added, throwing the metal at him.
‘I know what it is Daphne but do the people? Do they know what it is? That’s our job. To convince them of its benefits. To inform....’
‘To sell!’ Thomas, Account Executive, wailed, his presence completely unnoticed until now so conspicuously silent had he been.
‘Shut-up Thomas.’ Daphne said.
‘Shut-up Thomas.’ Henry said.
‘Shut-up Thomas.’ Thomas said and shut-up.
‘Benefits, what benefits?’
‘Daphne.’
‘Henry...,’ Daphne rose to her feet, ‘Every-one. This.....,’ she hiked across the vast table to recover the item in question, ‘is a gun. It is used to threaten, to frighten, to kill. It murders, it maims. It has no practical use apart from bloodshed. You can’t shave with it, you can’t use it to cook the evening meal...’
‘You can use it to kill the evening meal,’ Andrew interrupted smugly. Daphne pointed the gun at him.
‘You can scatter bone and flesh with it. Turn a man into a thousand quivering jelly fish. It’ll certainly help you remove an unwanted relative or explosively amputate a few limbs but it won’t do anything conversation can’t do with less drama, less noise and less unsanitary carnage.’
THE CLIENT was, by this stage, looking decidedly dubious about his choice of Agency, while, sinking ever lower in the chair, Henry was looking decidedly dubious about his choice of staff.
‘We are not in the business of morals,’ Henry said, jumping to his feet, terrified that she was about to lose him any chance of acquiring a twenty year young wife with blonde hair and tits bigger than Michelle’s (apparently, the man wanted to marry a cow).
‘You’re right Henry. I’m sorry, I forgot,’ Daphne said, turning to Andrew who was trying to slide under the table and away from the gun Daphne was pointing squarely toward his precious testicles. ‘It’s a concept. And we sell concepts. We research markets, advertise products.’
‘Right Daphne,’ Henry chimed reassuringly. ‘Who are we to judge? We’re simply doing our job. An extremely valuable job. We inform. We persuade. We help sell wonderful products to grateful masses,’ Henry said grinning rabidly at THE CLIENT who was now convinced they were all quite mad.
Andrew, hands raised, agreed. ‘Yeah, so point that fuckin’ thing elsewhere Daphne, you know its dangerous,’ he pleaded, hands down now covering balls. Then in the air.
Then covering again as the barrel of the gun followed each up/down movement.
‘Oh for Christ sake, stop waving!’ Daphne ordered. ‘You look like a defective drawbridge. Anyway Andrew, I thought you said this THING was merely a concept,’ she sneered. ‘So now you think it’s a dangerous concept do you?’ she pointed.
‘Anything you say,’ Andrew said shaking, bowing, grovelling. Before making a run for it clutching the family jewels. Hand ball. Daphne wasn’t entirely convinced that he quite understood yet so she pistol persuaded him. Shot him just to be sure. Pandemonium.
Michele screamed. So Daphne shot her (THE CLIENT smiled).
Thomas didn’t do anything so she blew him away for being such an timid little shit (THE CLIENT smiled).
Henry dove for cover to hide under the table pleading for mercy, hurriedly reaching into his coat pocket and grabbing his cheque book and scribbling the sum of $500,000 on one of the blank notes before offering it to Deringer Daphne in a desperate attempt to bribe her into sparing him.
‘Henry, I promise I won’t shoot you,’ Daphne assured him.
And good to her word she didn’t when he wouldn’t come out despite her assurances. So she sandwiched him instead, delicately blasted the legs from the huge teak desk and crushed the cringing fat little bastard (THE CLIENT kept smiling, pleased that his product was, at last, being taken seriously), .
‘See, see,’ THE CLIENT yelled excitedly, leaping up and down like a turkey with haemorrhoids, ‘its BRILLIANT!’
‘It’s good-bye.’
A waft of grey death smoke jumped from the warm barrel as she blew a hole in THE CLIENT large enough to bury him in then, placing the work done gun in an expensive gold handbag, she left the room. Left for lunch tucking the fat one’s fat cheque into her lace bra laughing that indeed it did pay to advertise. She also realised at that moment that THE CLIENT was quite correct, guns were brilliant.
Simply BRILLIANT for pest control”.
________________
Nathan stopped die-dreaming. Wriggling in the chair until he was couch comfortable, he watched the Test highlights until they were replaced by an in-depth (well what the fuck else could it be? Wright sneered) story on synchronised swimming. Which he found about as riveting as gardening. Nathan wasn’t in the mood for such underwater antics so he left the lounge to wander upstairs and with nothing better to do, Kelly remaining so mysteriously absent, he sat at the desk nursing a large mug that was filled to its brim with clear gin. Placing it cautiously by the side of the typewriter, he waited impatiently for his brain to ignite.
Suddenly, tragically for those he’d later force to read the rambling monologue, inspiration appeared and Wright started typing:
‘....allow me to introduce myself. The name is Wright. Nathan Wright, only son of Joy and Sidney Wright (and brother of two sisters. Both carnivores). Nathan N. A. Wright. What a name. What a burden!
My full name is Nathan Never Again Wright. See what I mean? My middle names, the dopey ones, were a prophetic gift bequeathed to me by my mother who, spent and exhausted after twenty-six hours of hard labour, uttered these immortal words to an equally exhausted husband; whispered ‘Never again’ just as Pa was enquiring of her what they should call me (though they still, to this very day, seem undecided for they continue calling me names more horrible than the moron one I was christened with).
What was so wrong with a normal name? Jesus Wright for instance. Or Betty Wright for inanity. Anything but Never! Never mind, I’m stuck with it now and I know it suits me even though most I know accuse me of behaving as if I am Always Wright. Personally I have no such illusions. I am Never Wright - just ask them!
A devout Arian, the product of my parents primal passions and infantile humour, I was manufactured one balmy summer night when the electricity failed and dad’s ergs didn’t. My parents, having nothing better to do so having to find an alternative to sitting listening to programs on an ancient radio as they normally did, they did what came unnaturally. Sex. Me. They made a mistake, they created a summer embryo that made mum grow to a quite outrageous size.
I got her fat in Autumn and I made mum thin by leaving her insides in the Spring (and the winter of my parents discontent). That was 1953. It was April and I was late. (I was also a stupendously efficient diet. When my mum expelled me, she lost an amount of excess flab your normal everyday 22 stone fatso can only dream of).
The Birth of a Nathan.
The Mercy Maternity (named thus because that was what those mother’s hatching within screamed during their agony invaded labour) Hospital was, as most hospitals are, huge and impersonal.
It was a tall cream brick building nestled amongst other less tall, equally archaic cream brick buildings in Carlton, a quiet suburb a short tram ride from the centre of Melbourne.
In a sunless room on the third floor of the West Wing, a short bus hipped women wearing a vampire red cross embroidered on her crisp white cap, busily adjusted the linen that currently contained my mum as she lay preparing for the worse in the cardboard sheeted bed.
Strutting like a peacock with piles, a snotty young doctor arrived to threaten her from a victim clipboard. He told my poor pregnant mother some ominous news. Said I’d be born tomorrow, reminding her grim voiced that tomorrow was Friday; Friday the Thirteenth then sniggered into the collar of his starched white coat. (Apparently this turd thought my birth was some sort of joke, a view which others now seem to share unfortunately). By gesture, he inferred my proposed birthing day was an ill-omen. I was about to be socially outcast rather than born it seemed but mum, as ever, had the situation well under control (and dad had the doctor well under fist sedation when he caught up to the laughing coat later that day). Obviously the doctor didn’t know my mother. She was a determined woman used to getting her own way so she immediately rang father and arranged to have her knees super-glued. Shut.
She kneen’t have ...”
________________
Years later, curious about such a frightening experience as birth, an event women have that men can’t thank God (which was about the only reason Wright had originally presumed that God was male. Which she isn’t) Nathan asked his mum what the sensation was like.
Like wrestling alligators son, she said.
________________
“…she shouldn’t have bothered with the glue for the worm in the womb had no intention of making it’s debut on such an inauspicious date. I was that worm and I also had the situation well under control.
I was asleep and comfortable and warm and cozy and certainly this was one baby who wasn’t going anywhere. Christ, my parents didn’t even have a television in the house so I wasn’t about to leave the Womb Hilton for Wireless Only Highett so slept on content. And malingered until the fourteenth (when dad separated mum’s knees with a large axe).
You can’t blame me for being hesitant, even then I had some idea of what awaited me.
My name for instance....”
________________
Wright was madly thumping the keys now, scoffing the gin and letting the alcohol pickle his brain so proficiently that he was beginning to think that what he was writing was worth writing.
Which we know it wasn’t.
________________
“....My star sign for another for without warning, without my consent, I was born an Aries. Bad Karma, bad vibes, bad timing. Apparently we, the Rams, unrelated by gene or football, are to be avoided at all costs. We are dangerous - black lambs, ill conceived follies who are maudlin and maladjusted and most in need of incarceration (or so I’m told by Librans, Aquarian’s, Cancerians, Capricornians, Texans, Cretins, Martians and the check-out girls down at the Supermarket)”.
________________
On a roll but wanting a fag, Wright stopped to rest. He looked out the window, stared at the ceiling, glanced at the clock. The clock said three, Wright screamed ‘fore’ and with a deft swing of a now grasped hockey stick, he blasted a fluorescent orange golf ball at the far wall. It hit with a resounding thud, travelling at the speed of light, bouncing straight back at him with the velocity of a dishonoured cheque.
Wright hit the floor, it hit hyper-speed. It was face to the carpet, hands over head as the crazed sphere ricocheted around him knocking over cups and bottles and lamps and decimating all in its path (which was no hard task considering Wright’s normal standard of decor amounted to something best described as Late Armageddon anyway). With the attack finally over, the ball finding rest in the pot plant by his bed Wright decided he was lucky to survive such temporary swipe at insanity so resolved to putt, not drive, next time. Then, as a precaution, just in case his brain decided to pull another life threateningly stunt, he shoved the lampshade on his head, wearing it as a helmet and so some protection if his brain failed and grinning broadly, heart thumping, the crazy Arnold Palmer went back to work.
________________
“.......I’ll admit that we Aries are a rum bunch (though personally I’d prefer we were Whisky but that’s the trouble with being born under this particular astrological configuration; we never do get what we want).
For instance another couple of notables, two giants of history, Herr Bismarck and the No Longer Heard Hitler share my astrological inclinations.
And look what happened to them!
It’s all so unfair. All Adolf wanted was to rule the world and all Otto Von wanted was to spend his twilight years chasing women in the Bahamas but what happened? Fate happened, their star-sign intervened. I, Adolf and Otto were destined for disappointment from day one. We were Aries, fire and lice, so we were doomed to failure from the start.
What a group. What a debacle. A real horrorscope!
Now just how many other pathetic persona’s populate this sorry star sign I shudder to guess, though undoubtedly millions of others do share this precarious period so we must be a fairly formidable lot (though sadly women have always seemed particularly reluctant to formidable with moi. Or moi's manhood. Ho hum, sex wasn’t meant to be easy....or available).
One good thing about Arians is that they’re pragmatists. When faced with truth we lie. When asked what star sign we are..... we’re Liarbrans”.
________________
Totally frustrated with such a disappointing figure, Jenny dreamt of getting her thighs streamlined. Of working off the fat she saw cruelly clinging to her every curve. Standing almost naked in a pair of skimpy lace panties before the full length mirror which, polished regularly, stretched high and gleaming to a painted pink ceiling, she gazed disappointedly at herself.
She was alert to her faults, too alert for her own ego’s health, posing at every angle to find a profile which pleased her but none satisfied her jaundiced judgement so desperate, she touched her stomach with outstretched palms as if the laying on of hands would miraculously dismiss the excess. Closing her eyes, she made a wish.
Opening them, she looked sadly disappointed when her hands shifted to reveal that no amazing transformation had settled her stomach. Flat. Perhaps miracles were slow to translate she thought silently but ever hopeful, she wondered if maybe, by tonight, her bosoms would sprout, her thighs become taught, her figure turn hour glass.
She hoped that when next she looked, Elle McPherson would have replaced Jennifer Wilde as the mirrored reflection. Next to her observations the bed was still unmade as if in untidy memorial to last night’s Wilde gyrations with the today exhausted boyfriend. Dragging herself from her image, Jenny scrounged in the heavy cedar-wood drawers for a pair, THE pair of leotards to wear to the gymnasium. Because she considered them the most flattering pair she owned they were her favourites and, as Friday was the best class of the week man wise, Jenny forever on the prowl steady boyfriend or not, she wanted to look her best. They weren’t there.
So she searched. Under the bed, behind the chair, amongst the leaves of the rubber plant then in the wardrobe. Thought maybe they were hidden amongst the soiled laundry dumped in the cane basket by the window so she tried there. Without success. Hunted the room from top to bottom but they were no-where to be found.
In despair, she sunk to the bed where she noticed something white and written tucked under her slip frilled pillow.
Dear Ms. Wild,
If you’re searching for your pet tights I’ve given them a better home. We ran out of tea bags and the strainer has disappeared so I used them to strain the Earl Grey this morning....
yours gratefully
Tommy the Teaman.
‘Right Nathan,’ she hissed, the curse hardly escaping from teeth clamped tight in obvious anger. Start praying mate, this time you’re cemetery bound! You’ve overstepped the bounds of decency once too often you bastard, she swore, tearing the note into tiny shreds.
Wilde stormed from the room absolutely livid and certainly would have killed Nathan, closet or no closet, had not a pair of black dotted white leotards fallen in her face when she flung the bedroom door open.
________________
“.....another interesting thing is that I’m not human.
Moi est non homo sapien. Well according to the Chinese anyway who claim I’m reptilian. They say I’m a snake! (Which is no news to some of my ex-girlfriends who are of exactly the same opinion).
This astounding piece of zoological trivia was gleaned by me, the indigent, from them, the inscrutables, one night last week while I was sitting on a slab bench by the laminate top counter idly minding my own business substituting salt for sugar, sugar for salt, down at the local Chinese Take-away. While waiting for a double serve of Sweet and Sour, pork I think, I noticed an ancient, almost Ming Dynasty ancient, Chinese calendar hanging listless and yellowing on the far wall behind the packed the tables. Ceasing substituting, I went to look at it.
Studying it, I found that the calendar listed years; then mated them with an appropriate animal. Or reptile. Or anything else that goes bump in the night.
Me, I was born in 1953 so I’m a snake. So they say. Personally I suggest we ignore this system. I mean who wants to end up a pig? Or married to one I say, only I don’t say anything, not even thank-you when I get the call and collect my dinner.
On the way home in the car I began wondering about the proprietors of this establishment, the Ho Bang’s, a Cantonese family who immigrated here several generations ago and use cats in their cooking. (They deny this vehemently every time I accuse them of catabalism but I’ve seen the evidence. Seen dogs dining late at night when the humans have gone home. Seen them sitting at tables with serviettes and forks munching Cantucky Fried Cat. Or so I tell Mr. Woo Ho Bang the owner who tells me to chew arsenic then calls the police).
I always thought the strangest thing about them, aside from their menu, was their name. Ho Bang. I mean do they have a relative, a distant cousin perhaps who runs a house of ill-repute? Probably. Probably calls it Bang, Bang, Pay...probably there’s also has an uncle who has a fire-works factory; a business simply called ‘BANGS!’.
Who knows? Who cares, I know I don’t because I’ve got more important things to do. Like eat.
And worry.
I worry a lot. I worry about growing old, about becoming impo