life
The Upside of Down: ‘Falling to Safety’
Take a look in the mirror. Notice anything about your orientation? That’s right: you’re upright, like the rest of us. Relax, it’s just the way we grow; up, it seems, is the way we go.
Okay, step away from the looking glass.
While you were admiring your anthropomorphic erectness, you may not have twigged to something else: our feelings are vertical, too, or at least they are in the ways we think about them.
We’re up or we’re down. Our spirits are high or they’re low. Our mood is elevated or depressed. If our metaphors are anything to go by, our emotions are like mercury in a tube. (Ha, there’s another one! To be mercurial, of course, is to have sudden changes in mood.)
Why so much Y-axis in our thoughts about feelings? It comes back to gravity, methinks, to that perpendicular pressure which drags us down – down to die, if we’re not careful, our brains dashed out on a rock somewhere. For if down equals death and death equals despair, then down clearly equates to despair.
Clearly.
Which is why, one Sunday past, I went and stared at a bridge. An irresistible force was weighing me down, and part of me wondered whether gravity would flatten me if I gave it the chance.
But as I sat in the car, dog-walkers wandering idly by, my thoughts turned from the bridge to the page, to the net that catches me when I dive for oblivion. Because stories, for me, are the upside of down.
Falling to Safety
I met him at the park. He said it was near his place but he couldn’t face his girlfriend so he’d come here instead. He was on my seat – the one with the view of women pushing kids on swings. Only he wasn’t watching.
When I arrived he had his head in his hands. I didn’t encourage him to talk, he just started. Told me he was a fireman; asked me if I’d heard the news. I told him I hated the news. So, after a pause, he filled me in. Fire, apartment block, trapped mother, trapped baby. Straight out of a comic book. Then the crazy bit: mother dropping her baby from a window to a fireman.
This fireman.
That pulled me up.
Hold on, I said, go back a bit. You caught the kid? The fireman groaned. That’s the thing, he said. I almost dropped it.
But didn’t, I said.
Listen, he hissed. I almost dropped that thing; I almost killed it. Next time I won’t be so lucky.
Next time, I said, you won’t be so unlucky – you won’t be the poor prick stuck underneath. You don’t know that, he said. True, I said, nodding. I don’t know a lot of things and that’s one of them.
We went quiet for a bit. I watched a mother try to coax a boy down the slide. The fireman watched with me. You any good at sport, he asked, after a while. Not as good as my brother, I said. And that’s all that counts. You reckon, he said. I’m fucking useless.
I looked at the size of him, the wide shoulders, the monstrous arms. Bullshit, I said. It’s true, he said, with a shrug. I can pump iron but I can’t catch to save myself. I’m a clutz.
That’s not cool, I said. Not in this country. Don’t I know it, he said. I copped hell at school. And fair enough too, I said, with a grin. You gay prick. Sometimes I wished I was, he said. Least I would’ve had a few decent mates. Yeah, I said, I know what you mean.
He turned to look at me, just as the boy went down the slide.
So, he said, you’re finally getting it? That my career’s over? That my cover’s blown? That all this flab, and my uniform, is a disguise? That I’m going to drop the next baby?
Everything’s a disguise, I said. Look, what if you weren’t lucky. What if the catch wasn’t half empty but half full?
I almost dropped it, I tell you, he cried.
But you didn’t, I said.
He thought about this for a while. But how can I be sure, he said finally. Catch another baby, I said, knowing straight away where I was going and not knowing if I liked it one bit.
Don’t tell me, said the fireman, looking at the pram beside me. You live in a two-storey house. Sorry, I said, it was my wife’s idea. I hate climbing stairs.
And you’ve got a baby. Sorry, I said, it was my wife’s idea. That’s pretty piss-weak, he said. Sorry, I said, that’s me. My wife’s idea.
The fireman snorted, got up and walked away.
Catcher in the Rye, I called after him. Ever read it? He kept walking, that big body of his blocking out the sun. Then he came back, mothers turning to look at him in a way they’d never looked at me.
It is funny, though, he said. Me running into you like this. Isn’t it, I said.
But you can’t be serious, he went on. You don’t want to take that risk, surely, with your own kid. You’re a fireman, I said, squinting up at him. What’s not to trust.
You trust me, a stranger?
Okay, I said, maybe I’m just trusting full stop. I even trust in trust. You’re a fucking idiot full stop, he said.
Ah, I said, now you’ve seen through my disguise.
He stood there, flexing his fingers. I would like to know, though, he said. Before I throw it all away.
Then he turned to me, his eyes shining with hope. You think I can do it?
More to the point, I said, do you think I can?
On and on we went, round and round the mulberry bush, until, trembling and quiet, we up and walked to my wife’s two-storied house, me pushing the pram.
Here, I said, pointing to a spot below the bedroom window. Try not to put your feet in the garden.
As I turned to go, the fireman grabbed my arm. I was top of my class, he hissed, his eyes glittering.
Hold that thought, I said, and took my son upstairs.
It was here, let me tell you, that I almost lost my nerve. I went to a shelf, I took down a bear. I turned it over and over. It was real enough. Then I saw the note you’d left and I put the bear back.
My throat was burning as I scooped the boy up. Three lives, I said as I clutched him to my chest, as I walked with him to the window. Three lives and the whole of humanity. Surely, Ben, we have to take the risk, just to find out.
I opened the window. It’s all right, said the fireman, I’m here, I’m here.
He looked massive as he stood there looking up, hands big like baskets filled with bread and fish.
How could I miss?
No, the fireman screeched, as Benjamin fell. Holy fuck, I cried, as he tumbled out of the fireman’s grasp.
When I got down there the bastard had gone. But Ben lay in the rushes, asleep and unhurt.
I turned and saw the fireman, who had crept back, massive hands hiding his mouth.
It’s all right, I said. He’s alive.
But I dropped him, he cried.
No, I said, he’s been safely caught.
But I dropped him, the fireman said.
So did I, I replied.
We stood and looked at each other, in something like wonder.
Then Benjamin woke with a cry.
At once, the fireman became a fireman again, and me, well, I went back to being a dad.
Which I did, having experienced, yet again, the upside of down.
Humble Pie: How I Got My Just Desserts
These days, fans accost me in the street. Rick, they say, how did you do it? How did you get where you are today?
Waal, it wasn’t easy, I reply, adjusting my codpiece. The bus was late and I missed my stop. But I got here. Eventually.
Clever, huh?
The fans don’t think so, oddly enough. They look at each other and edge away, leaving me wondering why I can’t come clean about my sudden ascent.
You haven’t heard about that? Think about it, you nonce – what else could prevent me publishing a post here since mid-May last year? Illiteracy? Lumbago? Wild horses?
Nay, nay and nay. Nothing but success, pure and simple. For let’s face it: a bloke who hits the big time doesn’t need to blog. (Or beg for that matter, which is much the same thing.)
Now, as I bask in the glory from the isolation of my grandiose grotto, I feel a plectrum of guilt. One that picks at my nylon nerves. I mean, don’t my fans deserve better?
Yes, you do – you know you do. Well, here it is: a retracing of my path to prominence. Follow it, and you too might aspire to greyness. To greatness, I mean.
Milkman. If cheese is made from milk, big cheeses are made from milkmen. Delivering milk, midnight to dawn, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue swinging me along – such was my first job of work. A month or two on the dark side set me up for an enlightened life.
Trolley-boy. Nothing’s harder to handle than twenty shopping trolleys in a row, especially in the swirl of customers and cars. My short stint at a supermarket taught me that control is an illusion. Holding on is the best we can hope for.
Administrative Officer. After accidentally acing a public service exam, I wrote letters for the Minister of Police. Few of us are truly happy, it seems. In almost a year I discovered that, for many, life is a complaint for which there is no cure, judicial or otherwise.
Law Clerk. Speaking of the law, I was in it for a bit. Just long enough to learn that every firm – every group big or small – has its own unwritten rules. Which I broke. Stuck out the back with the stationery, I wrote satirical news stories until I earned the sack.
Assistant Resident Boarder. Living with fifty teenagers gave me a good gauge of my own mentality. The results weren’t pretty. Clearly, I’m no leader of boys, let alone men. Which is why it’s best to go it alone, all the way to the asylum.
Investment Relations Officer. God is not always the best guide, especially when it comes to gold. I discovered this while working for a posse of preaching prospectors. Tasked with placating doubting Thomases – irate investors seeking imminent earthly reward – I realised that the faith of others is never enough.
Medical Typist. To be a good listener, you need someone to talk to you. For months on end I had doctors whispering in my ear, dictating letters. After a while, I thought they were talking to me. But they weren’t. They were talking through me. Dodge the dictators – this became my motto.
Writer. Okay, so I wasn’t a real writer. For a time there, though, my words did earn me some dough. Three kids’ stories netted me $800 (one was reprinted), at about 40 cents a word. Evidently, this invaluable experience taught me nothing, as I ain’t published anything since.
Data Entry Operator. Data – it’s everywhere. And it needs to be entered and operated on. That’s where I came in. For ten years I dealt with botanical data, sampling along the way something of the poetry of science. Lesson No. 9: there’s an art to everything.
Casual Research Assistant. To zone out, that’s what I learned while casually assisting a friend with her research. Numbers aplenty cried out for input and, as an aimless Arts graduate, I was ready to put in. As I daydreamed, my digits became, well, the digits. Truly, trying too hard makes trying too hard.
Ten sure steps to success or a beagle’s blighted breakfast? Call it what you will, this serpentine, potholed path has made me what I am today: a humble Passport Officer (ongoing), no less. Which is perhaps more than a trifler like me deserves.
And yet, as the Lonestar Hitchhiker himself, Don Dilego, puts it:
I want to build a brand new road,
But I’m not so sure I know where it goes…
Teenage Me: Living for the Line Well-Sung
There comes a time in a man’s life when he has to face facts: he’s a teenager and always will be. He ain’t never growin’ up, so he’d better get used to it.
For me, that time is now.
I’ve been back in the workforce for over a year now, you see. Long enough to be reminded that all the well-adjusted adults out there ain’t nothing of the kind. They’re selfish pricks, really, just like me.
So why bother trying to become Mr Maturity? Better to admit that all I’m interested in is ecstasy. And adulation. In music, I mean.
Because, for me, life lives not in a job well done but in a line well-sung. A line like the one from ‘Jeremy’, as belted out by Eddie Vedder: ‘Try to erase me from the black boar-oar-oard’.
Know what I mean?
Anyway, the time has come for me to return to my roots, stunted though they may be. That means more guitars, more songs, more singing, more stupidity.
As I’ve put it in a dodgy song-to-be:
The teenage twin I never had
Has come back,
And twice as bad.
Or, in the words of my new favourite singer, the late Gavin Clark of Clayhill:
How do I feel?
I embrace my destiny.
How do I feel?
I feel like me.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, you pricks!
Imaginary Friends: The Perils of Putting Books in Boxes
For someone who has a lot of friends, I get pretty bloody lonely. Okay, so all my buddies are imaginary, but what has that got to do with it?
Years ago, I made a big decision, and probably a bad one. I decided that real people suck – as pals, at least. Phantoms, I felt, make better friends. What led me to such a pretty pass? Was it the misanthropy of my parents or my own social awkwardness? A bit of both.
Mostly, though, I put it down to the crazy ideas I had as a teen. Back then, all my friends – bar two – seemed to lack a couple of crucial qualities: complexity and concern.
No-one called me, you see. No-one came after me. No-one seemed to care. The friendships I had were fed solely, I believed, by me. And, in my youthful eyes, one-way streets inevitably led to dead ends.
Sure, there were no smartphones in those distant days, but I wasn’t that hard to contact. No, my unpopularity had nothing to do with my remoteness and everything to do with the way I perceived my pals: as shallow and lacking in seriousness.
You wouldn’t know it now, but back then I was an intense individual, one obsessed by the quest for, err, Beauty and Truth. I was, in other words, a pompous git; amusing at times, but definitely not someone to chat to about your holiday plans or family news.
People who thought about such things were superficial – such was my elevated opinion – and no doubt I made it clear to my friends that I felt this way. Thus they didn’t call me. Why would they?
Like nature, culture abhors a vacuum, and into the breach stepped books.
When I was little, my mum gave me a bookmark whose inscription I took to heart. You might know the poem. It begins, ‘Books are friends/Come, let us read’. What hope did I have?
So, over the years, instead of making friends, I bought books. Second-hand ones, of course, because they have more character. Books became my imaginary friends.
And now I’m lonely. Why? Because just as, years ago, I categorised my real friends and lost them, I’ve gone and put my books in boxes. Somehow I’ve managed to distance myself even from my imaginary mates.
Come, let us read. If only I could!
Where There’s a Will: Escaping (or Embracing) the Facts of Your Birth
I’d been away from home for a week, working. Over breakfast, and out of idle curiosity, I asked my five-year-old son to tell me what he thinks I do for a living. ‘You make books,’ he said, playing with his porridge.
‘Well…’ I began, and stopped myself. His answer was understandable, I supposed, since he knows about the stories I’d published and about the book I’m trying to write. Understandable but awry.
‘Well…’ I started again, before stopping a second time. I sat and sipped my tea. Whether my son knew it or not, he was actually right. In its own way, my employer is the biggest publisher in the land, pumping out two million titles a year. I just hadn’t thought of it that way before.
‘Spot on,’ I said to my son. ‘Your dad makes books.’
What’s the simplest story you can think of? No, not Hemingway’s six-word classic, ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’, which probably isn’t even Hemingway’s. I’m picturing the modest passport, and the spare biographical details those slim volumes contain.
Name, sex, date and place of birth – now therein lies a tale. Think of Homer’s heroes, for instance, and the thrills and spills their lineage bequeaths them, as they try to live up to their names, and to being both Greek and male. (Odysseus’s son, Telemachus, has it really bad.)
Think of almost any pre-modern story, in fact, and note how its characters strive to meet the expectations laid upon them at inception. Expectations encoded in the facts of their birth.
Identity – it’s part of our inheritance as humans. An inheritance that, in recent times, we’ve come to resent and reject. Today, we change our name and gender at will; today, we fudge our age and our origins on a whim. Which is why the modernist (literary) text – yikes! – is invariably about escaping our ancestry by trying to ‘make a name’ for ourselves, however ugly or empty the new one might turn out to be. For, as Eliot puts it in ‘The Wasteland’,
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images . . .
All this (and more) brings me to Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley, which I happened to read during my recent time away. Its hero, Tom, yearns to be a ‘living, breathing, courageous individual’, not a ‘cringing little nobody from Boston’. He hates the reality of his impoverished existence, and he’ll do almost anything to escape it – he’ll even alter his identity by becoming Dickie Greenleaf, the son of a rich industrialist.
Sadly, I know how he feels. There have been a few people in my life who, I’m ashamed to admit, have known me only by the wrong name. (I mumble, you see.) I’ve never corrected them – then or since – because I prefer to be seen as someone other than myself. Call me a coward or just call me Will, as one of them used to do.
It’s kind of ironic, then, that I now work for the Passport Office, helping to make those shrewd little books that authenticate identity. Like Tom Ripley, I’ve tried hard to escape the facts of my birth, and yet they’re still with me, a kind of passport, perhaps, to another life – possibly even my own.
Just don’t tell my son about my real job or he won’t want to grow up to be like me. Then again, maybe he Will.
Conflicting Interests: What Happens When You Want What You Don’t Want
Study. I thought I’d learnt my lesson, but here I am again yearning to return to the unreal world of deadlines and demands, arguments and ideas. Am I mad? No, just human. For although I couldn’t wait to finish my undergraduate degree, I waited twenty-five years to do so. Indeed, I was in such a hurry to get to the end of it that, in the end, I didn’t want it to end.
I’ve been reading David Lodge’s A Man of Parts, a novel about H.G. Wells. An avid womaniser, ‘Wells’ holds contradictory views about sex – for him it is ‘just fun’ as well as being a sublime spiritual experience – and Lodge has him explain this inconsistency thus:
I oscillated between those two attitudes to sex without ever reconciling them – but that’s the human being for you. We’re a bundle of incompatible parts, and we make up stories about ourselves to disguise the fact. The mental unity of the individual is a fiction.
Incompatible parts, conflicting interests – this goes a long way towards explaining why, now and forever, I want what I don’t want.
I’ve been training at work, you see. Cramming so that I can take on a new role in the near future. All the thinking and note-taking has sent me back a year or two, to a time when I was studying from home, while helping my working wife raise our two kids.
It was the best time of my life, despite the stresses and strains. And why not? I spent most of my time reading, writing and thinking about the finest things life has to offer: literature, history, philosophy. When I wasn’t deeply depressed or drowning in self-doubt, I was happy, oh-so happy. And when I graduated, in 2014, I was happy, oh-so happy.
Now, though, the light has gone from my life. Yes, I have kept on ‘reading’ and ‘writing’, but I lack the guidance, encouragement and criticism that comes with formal study. Without these things, I am – to my great shame – lost.
I have attempted to explain this to myself once before, in a short piece entitled ‘An Uneasy Ego’. Here it be.
Into bondage we are born – this much is known. But whom do we serve?
‘It may be the devil,’ Bob Dylan intoned, ‘or it may be the Lord.’ True, I suppose, but not true enough. For, in reality, we have a second master: damnable Self.
Whose?
Why, mine or thine own. For years, I have sought to serve the former – myself. Alas, I have failed to do so well, and my higher needs remain unmet.
Why?
This is a sharp question, and it needles me. Am I, perhaps, a poor servant? Nay, I think not; for, at times, I have served with success. Am I, then, a poor master? Yes, almost certainly so.
Any man who would be master must dominate and control his menials. I do neither for long; my thoughts are unruly and my passions headstrong. In short, I lack self-control. Also, I do not dominate my selves, of which I, like you, have many. In short, I am rarely myself.
The rub, Maud? That an uneasy ego makes a good servant but a deplorable master.
What happens when you want what you don’t want? You seek help – from your masters. For me, that means I must go back to ‘the books’ and to those who can teach me to read and write them better.
Postgraduate study is horrendously expensive and time-consuming. It’s not as costly, though, as life without learning.
A Mere Domestic Convenience: Parenting and Its Pitfalls
Love kids? Then clearly you’ve never been a stay-at-home dad. I have, and the whole weird and wonderful experience has taught me an important lesson: that when it comes to children, a little of them goes a long, long way.
Which is why, after four years in the saddle, I’m breaking out of the stable. Don’t get the wrong idea – as a (part-time) stay-at-home parent, I’m the beast here, not the rider. It’s just that I’m tired of doing the donkey work.
And my kids are great. Happy and healthy, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, they’re all I hoped for and more. The only problem, of course, is that they’re children. Dependent, demanding and – most trying of all – distracting. I mean, how’s a bloke supposed to think?
By going back to work, that’s how. Before long, I’ll be a full-time employee again, having spent two days a week at home for the past five years. Sitting at my desk doing my mundane work, I’ll soon be able to daydream in peace – all through the week.
It’s sad, really, but true. And yet I’m not the only one who feels this way, you can be Shaw of that. George Bernard Shaw of that, in fact. Ever read his essay, ‘What Is Wrong With Our System of Education‘? You should. In it, GBS cuts close to the bone, his tongue only half in his cheek.
‘That children and adults cannot live together comfortably is a simple fact of nature,’ Shaw writes, instantly making me feel a little less guilt. Fortunately (for me), he carries on in much the same vein.
. . . if I have to be medical officer of health, wardrobe mistress, sanitary inspector, surgeon for minor operations, fountain of justice and general earthly providence for a houseful of children . . . I shall be so interrupted and molested and hindered and hampered in any business, profession, or adult interest, artistic, philosophic, or intellectual, which I may be naturally qualified to pursue, that I shall have to choose between being a mere domestic convenience and getting rid of my children somehow.
Well, I have chosen. Rather than ridding myself of my kids, though, I’ve decided to rid them of me – Monday to Friday, at least. Out I go and in comes that mere domestic convenience, my more-than-willing wife.
She loves kids, you see.
Frightening to the Power of X: How I Saved Civilisation (Again)
Sometimes the deadliest things seem the most harmless. Take the whale shark. On the surface, this fat fish resembles a peace-loving kale-nibbling mammal; peer into its blowhole, though, and you’ll catch a gut-churning glimpse of the real thing: a malevolent predator bursting to bite you in two.
Frightening.
Then there are ‘innocent’ messages like the one I whisked away from a desk today. At first glance, this little note speaks of a simple adhesive slip-up and the chance misplacement of a mug. Sad but insignificant. And yet, when fully decoded, it tells of something infinitely more sinister – of a family ravaged by addiction and, egad, of a civilisation whose innards are being eaten out by moral corruption of the vilest kind.
Frightening plus 1.
To make matters worse, this message was left in the open, totally nude, a veritable spark itching to ignite the imaginations of passing public servants, one which would do them – and society – no end of harm.
Frightening to the power of X.
Luckily, I was on hand to whisk it away, and, as usual, I reproduce it here as a warning to the unwise. Now that’s how you take a message!
Shocked and want to know more? Try Mother Knows Best and Off the Couch.
As Thin as Thieves: From Sausages to Civil Society
What do sausages and civil society have in common? A lot, I reckon, if the following story is anything to go by. Set in a butcher’s shop, this telling tale has a cast of three: Mal, Muir and me…
It’s a Sunday morning, and I’m out shopping for food with my omnivorous offspring, Angus and Eliza. Having gathered groceries from the supermarket, we go hunting fresh meat, tiptoeing across town in the Magna-Carter. The trail ends, unsurprisingly, at the door of our pet butcher, Mal.
I park on the street where the kids can see into the shop. Handing them two super-sized apples, I utter those famous last words: ‘Won’t be long.’
Mal himself is behind the counter.
‘Now I know why I pay my staff extra on Sundays,’ he says, as I pass him a tray of lasagne ($11.95), two packs of dog’s mince ($19.60) and a carton of eggs ($5.20). ‘It’s bloody hard work.’
I glance around at the crush of customers and grin. ‘Looks like it,’ I reply, trying to remember what’s next on my unwritten list.
Mal pauses in the totting up, which buys me more time. ‘Usually I’m such a neat freak,’ he confesses, ‘but it’s been go go go all morning. I wouldn’t normally leave this tray of chops here – I’d have to put it straight back where it belongs. It’s just been that kind of day.’
As he fiddles with the register, I wave at my curious kids, who are watching me intently over their hot-air balloons. A fellow customer almost waves back, out of instinct. Almost.
‘Get you anything else?’
‘Bacon,’ I say smoothly, as if I’d known all along. ‘A pack of your smoked stuff [$4.90]. Oh, and about 300 grams of your ham [$5.25].’
As Mal weighs it out, I notice a sign behind the glass advertising a freebie: one peri-peri chicken burger per customer. An award-winning peri-peri chicken burger, at that.
‘Not happy being National Sausage King?’ I ask him, in jest. ‘You gotta be Burger Baron as well? Talk about greedy.’
He looks a little sheepish and slows down on the ham.
‘Just trying to stay on top,’ he says. ‘Actually, the awards were only the other week. Talk about nervous. There I was taking selfies from under the table and up on stage. Almost dropped my phone, not to mention the trophy. Very happy, though.’
‘Keep this up you’ll need a new shelf for your silverware,’ I joke, looking at the full one above his head.
‘Funny you should say that,’ he replies. ‘I’ve been thinking about making room on the wall over there…’
‘It must make marketing easier,’ I add, perceptively. ‘All these prizes.’
‘Well, that’s it. It’s so competitive these days.’
The only competition I can see is for first place in the queue at the counter. Short-sighted, that’s me.
‘Get you anything else?’
I ask for a dozen beef sausages.
‘Thick or thin,’ Mal wants to know.
And this is where Prof. Muir comes in – figuratively, of course, as befits his theoretical status. ‘Thin,’ the Prof. hisses. ‘Go with the thin.’
So I do. And while Mal is out the back securing the snags, Muir states his case.
‘You wanna live in a civil society? Of course you do. Well, here’s the thing: it’s not your relationships with friends and relatives that matter so much. Nope, it’s the interactions you have with your acquaintances that really count.’
‘Okay…’ I mumble, thinking back to the journal article in which I’d first encountered this idea.
The Prof. snorts, and charges on.
‘It’s not okay, you ninny, unless you work on the “thin trust” you share with others. By that I mean the relationships you have with virtual strangers. Forget the “thick” stuff – the bonds you form with those you know and love. They’ll tend to be civil anyway. Always go with the thin. Got it?’
‘I think so. Try to empathise with the people you meet, and society will be all the better for it.’
‘Something like that,’ Muir says, disappearing into thin air – yes, thin air – as Mal returns.
‘That the lot?’ he asks, weighing the sausages ($8.40).
I respond with my customary closing rejoinder. ‘Yeah, I’d better stop there.’
‘That comes to sixty-one,’ he says, bagging me my free peri-peri chicken burger while I’m fishing for the cash.
‘Thanks, Mal,’ I say, taking the bag from him. It’s the closest we come to shaking hands, our exchange having come to an end.
‘Enjoy,’ he says. ‘Now, who was next?’
Back in the car, the kids have given up on their apples. ‘That took a long time,’ Angus points out.
‘It did, didn’t it,’ I say, rather proudly.
I sit for a moment and ponder the thick and the thin. Thing is, I think I believe all that stuff. Why? Probably because, for me, ‘thick’ relationships have always been a bit thin on the ground. Connecting with strangers – that, I muse, is more my cup of tea. After all, it’s only when we face the unfamiliar that our moral mettle is truly tested.
Sixty-one dollars? I reach into the bag for my receipt and, closing my ears to the chorus of protests from behind, I do the sums.
They don’t add up.
What price a civil society? Oh, about six dollars.
Cheap at half the price, I tell myself as I drive away. Mal and me, we’re as thin as thieves, and I’m going to do my best to keep it that way, even if it leads to a miscalculation or two. Our future might just depend on it.
Halfway home, I remember my free peri-peri chicken burger, which puts the icing on the cake. I’m hungry too. Saving civilisation – or even simply shopping – sure gives a bloke an appetite.
Intermission (1): When Depression Isn’t the End of the Show
The last time this happened I managed to grind out five lines of verse.
When the curtain descends
the performance ends.
Strutting player becomes
shadowed puppet,
emptied of itself.
Sounds like the show’s over, doesn’t it? Not so. It’s merely intermission – as the rest of the poem was supposed to reveal.
That was a month or two ago. This time, though, I’ve got nothing, which is more normal. No ideas, no emotions, no energy; no patience, no confidence, no hope. Okay, I’ve got plenty of self-pity, but we all know lots of a negative doesn’t amount to much.
Depression’ll do that to you.
Churchill called it his ‘black dog’, yet the metaphor doesn’t work for me. Mild concussion – that’s how I think of my condition. Many of the symptoms are the same: confusion, sluggishness, irritability, difficulty concentrating, slowed reactions. And like concussion, depression passes.
I remember reading an essay about mental illness and writing. Its author tried to dispel the notion that the first is good for the second, that depression is a creative force. She argued that it ain’t good for anything, really, since it stops things happening.
That’s my experience, I’ve got to say. Usually, I can’t write a thing. Can’t even think a thing. Can read and listen, though, which means I try to drown my sorrows in novels and classical music during my ‘downtimes’. I used to, at least. I’ve got a job and a family now.
Having started this post with bad poetry, I’ll end it with something good. Here’s an excerpt from The Merchant of Venice which, somewhat perversely, makes me happy. Hope it does the same for you, especially if you’re feeling blue. Take it away, Antonio…
In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.
Sounds like intermission is over.
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