The Short Stories Club: 2018

Saturday 1 December 2018

Farewell

‘“Those who are reckless for themselves are generally ten times more so for their friends.’” Charlotte Bronte, The Professor

Cassidy was for the first time in his life thoroughly disgusted with himself. He had just finished off a bottle of Jamison’s whiskey and he was still unwittingly sober. He was also angry. Very angry, maybe being so angry that it absorbed the alcohol. He was angry because he had been humiliatingly sacked from the local Jewell supermarket, Newtown, inner city Sydney, that day, an otherwise ordinary, but an unusually cold, early spring day, 2016. Mind you he deserved to be sacked, having turned up over an hour late for the past tenth straight day, the result of getting into the phase of partying harder than usual. But he did not deserve to be verballed by the assistant manager, in front of the customers, and summarily sacked. It really was no wonder that he couldn’t help going over and over such trauma. But what was the worst thing was that his work colleagues, his ‘friends’, just stood by and watched, not even looking like they wanted to intervene to stop the brutal scene. Typical. They deserved to be taught a lesson for that. Yes, indeed, they richly deserved to be taught a lesson. One or two of them could have easily stepped in to say the manager was out of order. Especially in front of the customers.

The planning started instantly, Cassidy staring at the blank television screen, imagining how he could greatly hurt his so-called friends. And since all of his imaginings involved all the Jewell mates gathered together somehow under his dominion he soon decided to invite them all over for a party, a ‘Farewell Party.’ The irony was delicious when he saw how he would make them bid adieu to their their self-respect.

Having bought another whiskey, it was starting to have a small part of its intended effect around midnight, making Cassidy feel that his vengeance was more assured. After turning on the television and flicking across the pointless channels, he decided it was probably best to get into his pyjamas and go to sleep. When he did quickly fall asleep it was to the sound of derisive laughter from an approaching dream, laughing over the pictured horrible fate of his fickle friends. Yes, indeed, they so much deserved the humiliation.

Cassidy’s ‘Farewell Party’ was reasonably well attended by six people and his plan for their shaming was proving easy of fruition. He had bought a few bottles of cheap whiskey for the celebration, lacing two of the bottles with crushed Rohipnol tablets, a strong sedative, well before his guests arrived. He had no problems getting the prescription drug. The party continued in full swing while they all gradually passed out. He continued drinking from the unspiked bottle, gleefully imagining the next step in the plan. He was going to undress them all and drop them off naked in the local park, Camperdown Park, Newtown. He’d probably have to do the job in two runs but the bastards were worth the price of their deserved humiliation. Let’s see how they liked being cowed now. The cold spring was a bit of a conundrum, not wanting to cause hypothermia in his victims. So he chose a forecasted warm night and hoped for the best. Naturally they would all know it was him who had victimised them but they’d all awake sooner or later and eventually get their clothes back. And what could they do when they did find out? He wasn’t pummelling them after all or making an attempt on their lives. If they did decide to involve the police those officers would probably think it was just a practical joke. No harm done. Case closed. Hopefully.

It came time to test this hypothesis when he saw a police car slowly driving past the park whilst he was offloading the second load of bodies. Could they see him discarding his vile, spineless colleagues? It was quite possible, the area being well lit. But there were trees obstructing the police’s view. He could only trust to that.

Yes, they must have seen him. The police car stopped. Cassidy watched them. Two officers stepped out.

Thinking quickly Cassidy took two of the remaining three Rohipnol tablets he had on him (in case he had to knock out any of his bastard friends that came to early) and then partially undressed, laying down and waiting for the drugs to take effect. He hoped that the police would think they had disturbed the real culprit, who had run off before being able to fully undress Cassidy. The fact that all of the others clothes were nowhere near available was a bit of a problem but Cassidy would find some way around that.

The two officers approached with one of them requesting three ambulances. Cassidy found it easy to drift away while the two police discussed why he was the only one dressed. They felt his pulse and Cassidy successfully managed to convince each of them that he was passed out like the rest. He eventually really did pass out on the Rohipnol and alcohol when the ambulances carted them all away to hospital. He felt safe.

Cassidy tossed around a bit before he awoke, and then was instantly alert. He asked the police officer watching over him,

‘Where am I?’

‘Royal Prince Alfred Hospital,’ replied the officer. ‘You fully awake now?’

‘Yeah. What happened?’

‘You know what happened, mate. Care to make a confession?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We found the Rowie on you, mate. It’s pretty clear you drugged and stripped your pals. Why?’

Cassidy decided to make the best of it; obviously his ruse had not at all worked. They’d probably go easy on him if he confessed.

‘Those bastards aren’t my friends,’ he said. ‘I thought they were. Maybe I got carried away though.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They all just watched me being verbally abused when I was sacked from work. It was so embarrassing. But I suppose I just got too caught up in the anger they caused me. Are they all right?’

‘Yeah. I’ll have to charge you, mate. Recklessly endangering life. I’d have you charged with assault too but your pals talked me out of it.’

He was formally charged and appeared in court two days later, the day after he was discharged from the hospital. He represented himself and humbly begged the court’s pardon, freely admitting that he had completely overreacted to a trying situation. The magistrate was not to be impressed though with his remorse, saying he would like to give him a custodial sentence for Cassidy’s sheer bloody minded behaviour to his friends, irrespective of the cause. But seeing that New South Wales jails were too overcrowded presently he gave Cassidy a two year good behaviour bond. Cassidy thanked the magistrate for his leniency and thanked his lucky stars on the way home from court.

When he was at home he headed straight to his laptop to email invitations to the friends he’d wronged, to another ‘Farewell Party’. He explained the reason for his crime and told them that he obviously overreacted to what was really not such a big deal. He was going to move to Western Aus and wanted to leave his friends on a positive note, making up in any way for his unwarranted hostility.

Funnily enough most of them accepted the second invitation, four of them, but all declared they would have no alcohol. They were willing to attend his party and to forgive him, especially since they really should have stepped up to defend him while he was being roundly abused so publicly. Both sides had made mistakes, so they may as well get together one last time to deeply bury the sordid hatchet. Cassidy was viciously pleased.

Cassidy had no intention of leaving his bastard friends without completing his vengeance and was even more determined to somehow ruin as much of them as he could before he fled to Western Aus. And this time he would put more thought into his revenge. The party was planned for three days’ time, a Saturday, and by the Saturday early morning he had what looked like a foolproof plan.

The four friends arrived together and thankfully two of them brought handbags. He was easily able to drop almost a full packet of Rohipnol, missing four tablets, into one of them unobserved, and in such a way, from within his right shirt sleeve, that left none of his fingerprints on the packet. While he was making everyone a coffee he downed four Rohipnol himself, and once the coffees had been served brought out a fresh bottle of Jamison’s, not expecting the more dire results that eventually ensued. He told them he was drinking to sins forgiven and helped himself to large gulps of it while they all sat around drinking their libations, recalling the good times they’d had at Jewell. They would even be sad to see Cassidy go after all; he was always friendly to everyone and was good for any party. But maybe if he hadn’t liked partying so much he wouldn’t have kept arriving late to work, and so not started a whole vicious cycle of events. Ah well, it was just one of those things, best forgotten entirely.

When Cassidy slumped to the floor, his guests thought he was making some sort of joke. But they promptly enough saw that he wasn’t joking and that he’d inexplicably fainted. They called an ambulance and the police, the police being called in a bit of a blind panic. Cassidy was soon taken back to Royal Prince Alfred and the police asked questions, conducting a brief search for any drugs, taking the almost full Rohipnol. Cassidy entered a coma when the ambulance arrived at the hospital and could not be revived. He died a day and a half later and the hapless Tina, into whose handbag he had dropped the fatal drugs, was eventually tried for murder. The evidence was damning against her, too damning. She received seven years imprisonment and Cassidy was buried by his family. They would ever after think of him as a needless victim, far more sinned against than sinning. He was only twenty-three years of age.

~~~

If you have been enjoying Fitzpatrick's stories here you may also enjoy his short story collections, and other books, available online as both Kindle books and paperbacks (go to http://amzn.to/1NfodtN). Other ebook and paperback options are available at http://bit.ly/1UsyvKD Fitzpatrick has also had a collection of short stories, Aberrant Selected, published by Waldorf Publishing, available on Amazon.

Thursday 1 November 2018

Seeking Delusions

When Toby’s voices suddenly stopped - the voices that only he could hear - he was miserable. He now no longer had friends in his head, always engaging him in a friendly badinage, and generally making him - honest and plain (except for a predilection for hallucinogens) - Toby Maddox, the centre of their attentions. It was simply divine always hearing one well-spoken of, even by imagined voices.

Toby had been hearing these voices from the age of twenty-two, three years ago, and had quickly been diagnosed as being schizophrenic, having a few other of the other symptoms as well, and a family history of it, which he only learned of on his twenty-first birthday. He was prescribed an antipsychotic, Fluanxol, 20mg, injected into a muscle, but the medication only turned the volume down on the voices, never banishing them. Toby, of course, knew he wasn’t crazy, that the voices were real, and only took the so called medication because it would obviously have no effect upon him. He wasn’t crazy. He had also been told that if he didn’t take the injection he would be forced to do so in a psychiatric facility, and was monitored accordingly by being placed on a Community Treatment Order, where if he did not take his dose he would be involuntarily committed to said psychiatric facility in order to do so.

He realised he had not awoken to the voices, on a nice, hot, early summer day, 2015, a few years after his diagnosis, in Surrey Hills, inner city Sydney. Their departure was sudden and unexpected. The bastard medication must obviously have been at fault. When he realised what was off-kilter he instinctively and desperately hoped he could get the voices back, whilst also feeling that no-one could ever be that fortunate. It would take something extraordinary, as well as ordinary, to get them back. Maybe a unique, perfect thought would serve the purpose, providing something to which the voices would readily respond? But that just raised more questions; what’s the perfect thought? Does it have to be completely perfect to attract back the voices?

He, however, already knew the answer, or at least was fairly sure he knew how to get back with the voices. Just take LSD for a few weeks. It was the quickest, and perhaps the surest, way to invite the voices back, but he was loath to use the method. True, he’d had a lot of acid over the past three or so years and was always fine with it, but he was presently on an indefinite break for a while. He had become more aware recently that it only takes one bad trip to fell you, leaving you a wreck of what you could have been. So while Toby felt fairly confident that he could take the acid safely, based on previous occasions, he wasn’t completely certain that he’d always be okay on it. But, yet again, it really was the surest way to allure back the voices.

He considered how to get some trips, finishing his coffee.

Toby had been on his acid regime for three weeks, taking a four of five tabs spaced over a week. Having recently acquired a casual job at Flemington Markets, twenty minutes from the centre of Sydney, five nights a week that paid cash in hand, as well as receiving unemployment welfare, and sharing a rent controlled apartment with a friend, it was no problem financing the extra outlay for the trips. He was also easily able to get it thanks to a friend’s housemate, and it was an absolutely fantastic three weeks on the renewed acid. When it came time to attend his job at night the trip had largely worn off, enough so that he could attend to his duties well enough. But the acid had unintended consequences. Instead of regaining the voices, he had, three weeks after the treatment began, become always followed by three small faeries. He could almost always feel, at an icy centre between his shoulder blades, when the faeries were following him, sometimes turning around to watch them, hovering in mid-air, regarding him with much apparent concentration. The faeries were dressed as they are usually portrayed, except each little lady had a diaphanous crown, and each had purple shoes, flats.

The faeries, though, soon stopped watching him mutely and attentively, and instead (but without speaking, and appearing clearly in his mind’s eye, instead of following him, out in the ‘real world’) urged him to commit suicide. The voices weren’t coming back so he may as well give up the search, and then instantly end a life that would be meaningless without them. In fact, the only way he could be happy, the faeries implied, was if he suicided. He was going to die anyway, right? No-one really wanted him either, they also somehow made him feel. They told him all this in pantomime and liked to dumb show various ways of ending one’s life. One of the little vixens could even manage to turn a faint purple in the face while clearly being barbarously hanged. Another one showed him how to properly cut his wrists, by cutting up vertically. She always mimed laughter while she pretended to open her veins with a knife. And then suddenly ceasing mirth and wiping the imagined bloodied arm until it was clean again. Ready for more suicide.

By a few days of this gruesomeness, he had had enough. He had no intention of committing suicide, and became very worried when he briefly mused over giving in to the faeries. Just end his life and the horrors filling his days and nights, for whatever reasons the wee ladies had. He called in sick to work and rang for an ambulance, pleading psychosis, and flushed the three remaining acid tabs down the toilet while he waited to be rescued. The faeries had been scared off, thankfully.

The ambulance arrived quickly and the paramedics were rapidly able to see that Toby, when he explained his situation, was in the grip of psychosis. They took him to the nearest psychiatric hospital, Rozella, but they had no room for him there. They tried a few others and he was eventually able to be taken in at Cumberland Hospital, a half hour’s drive west from Surrey Hills, in Westmead. Even then Toby had to wait two hours before he could be formally admitted. The faeries appeared to him constantly while he waited, in probably all possible attitudes of self-destruction. Closing his eyes didn’t help, he just saw the same violent images in negative. It really is a wonder that Toby was not by now weeping from sheer despair.

Toby had been in a psychiatric facility only once in his life, about two years before. He had been taken there against his will when a police officer saw him sitting in the lotus position in the middle of a footpath in Surrey Hills, apparently meditating. When she asked him what he was doing there he couldn’t very well say he was so very high on some really good acid and was thus now engaged in giving thanks to the Supreme Beings whom were showing him such utter ecstasy. Instead he replied,

‘Being a calm beacon of hope to everyone rushin’ around here. Chillin’ by example, givin’ other choices.’

‘Do you have any drugs on you?’ asked the officer.

‘No.’

‘You know some people would say it’s very strange to be meditating in the middle of the street, especially in this heat.’

‘Nature is as nature does.’

‘Have you ever been to a psychiatric hospital?’

‘No way, man, I’m way too chill for that.’

‘Well, it seems to me, sir, that you’ll have to go there with me now.’

Toby hung his head, still in the lotus position, and asked,

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

He was only six nights in the psychiatric hospital that time, in the Missenden Unit, the psychiatric wing of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, in Camperdown, the nearest psychiatric hospital to Surrey Hills. The hospital didn’t do much, except to increase his Fluanxol to 30mg. He was surprised to find that the loony bin wasn’t at all loony, the patients all appearing more or less stable. True, they all had their idiosyncrasies, but the place was generally pleasant and welcoming. In fact, a very ‘chillin’’ place. Thus, he was expecting Cumberland Hospital to be similarly pleasant and welcoming when he eventually arrived there in the ambulance.

The hospital was indeed pleasant, and when they found out upon his admission that Toby was on an antipsychotic, and a CTO, but still having hallucinations, they automatically increased the dose of his injection, to 40mg, and generally left him alone after that, letting the new dose take effect. After all, the Fluanxol was very effective at controlling such symptoms and a higher dose was certain to solve the conundrum. So, Cumberland kept him only for five weeks and prescribed him Risperdal as well. Toby was always compliant with his medication (since he really had no choice, the medicine being useless anyway), and he was also compliant with taking the new Risperdal, always one of the first to line up when then medicines cart came out of an evening. He was prescribed five milligrams per night, but was initially still taunted by the faerie hallucinations. Their jeering, mocking faces though began to lose outline after a week, and after a further week they had completely vanished. He awoke soon after the start of this second week, feeling something was not right while he had his morning coffee. Taking the last sip of the brew, he knew what it was: he could no longer see those murderous vixens with his mind’s eye. He was discharged from Cumberland three weeks later, still free of the horrors. He had, though, lost his job.

He was at peace now, only vaguely hoping his happy voices would still return, a calmness and serenity that lasted all too inconsequentially. His voices did eventually return, one week into only intermittently using the Risperdal at home (it made him very, very drowsy. He was aware that he really should be more compliant but felt sure he could safely risk the irregular use of the Risperdal, since he was also on the Fluanxol.), but they were not happy to be with him again. They were now hostile to him, making derogatory comments on his person, his clothes, his hygiene, anything to make him feel small and worthless. He initially tried to argue with the voices, to show them that they were patently wrong, were in fact being needlessly spiteful. But the voices didn’t listen, calling him a coward for not seeing how vile he really was.

Unlike the positive voices, these nasty ones were not with him all day. They were with him when he awoke late each morning and gradually insulted him in decreasing waves until they disappeared in the early evening. This lack of constancy was even worse as Toby spent the entire night dreading the abuse he was to face the next day. He felt that at least if they were going all the time he could put them to the back of his head, becoming just background static. But their brief appearance tended to highlight their vile abuse, made him feel it the more in contrasting it against the calmness of his evenings.

It was in feeling like this - that his life was now to be an endless round of abuse - that he slashed his left wrist. He slashed up vertically, not horizontally, as the faerie had shown him, but his primal, animal brain couldn’t bring him to slash all the way up. After a two inch gash, he stopped. And almost viscerally felt the voices laughing at his weakness, shaming him as a hopeless coward.

So, whilst bandaging his wrist as best he could, the voices became louder, as if they fed on his blood, and their derision was even more caustic. They filled his head and Toby could see no escape, not even death. Was he, he thought, tying off the clean dishcloth he used as a bandage, really in a living Hell?

He took a Risperdal and went to the local doctors’ for some stitches. He would tell the doctor that it was an accident, a knife that had got away in cutting up some vegetables. The voices laughed at him all the way there.

He noticed immediately when he awoke, two weeks after slashing up, that the voices weren’t berating him. He knew instantly because he had been dreaming of them the entire previous night. With sure dream like ability he had tamed them. How he had managed this he did not know. He suspected it was taking the Risperdal regularly, and its mixing with the Fluanxol, a potent combination that was bound to end the torture, given time. His local doctor agreed with him when he mentioned it at his next Fluanxol injection appointment, the day following having awoken to silence.

But his mornings still made him nervous for a while, expecting the worst to suddenly explode in his head. He was all the time on the lookout for them, even being somewhat jumpy when he was out and about. He had also by this stage given up all desire to regain the friends he used to have in his head, and was more than pleased to have them gone. Nothing, nothing at all, was worth having to put up with that depressing, internal, inescapable tirade that his search for those friendly voices had led to, albeit indirectly. No, he had lost the good voices permanently and they could only be recalled in a bloodied guise, intent now only on debasing him.

The night of his first full day freed from the internal abuse he had another powerful dream, dreaming he was filled with great magicks and shaping great, vague, moments of history. Such dreams then continued every night, to the point where he now often goes to bed early, just to return to a Universe where he is so very important. He continues to awake late each morning with neither hallucinatory voices nor hallucinatory visions, and instead feeling great, motivated, that the world has a special place for him alone. He remains to this day enclosed by his dreamtime powers, even when he is working at his new cash-in-hand casual job, as a kitchen hand, and is determined to take his boon medications properly, and on time. He owed Reality that much.

~~~

Monday 1 October 2018

Seeking Paradise

“‘I could not wish for that which I have not yet experienced,” he said.’ Ivan Goncharov, Oblomov

It was, and still is, quite understandable that when June came back from death, and the ensuing Paradise, she should have a dominating fervour to return to this Paradise she had so lightly touched. After coming back from this death, and Paradise, she slowly blinked a few times and shook her head.

‘It’s okay, miss,’ said a young and pleasant female. ‘You’re in an ambulance. We’re going to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. You were hit by a car.’

June closed her eyes, and remembered the accident.

The accident, unexpectedly, though, had led to the entrance into Heaven for her, and this was the only thing she could focus on, feeling blessed. She thus soon came to view each day as a possible path back to this Paradise, Its actual presence being the justification for her sentience. She could, of course, suicide, and attempt Heaven that way, but her instincts told her she would just return forever to the moment of her suicide.

Then she began to consider living rough, just leaving everything, all the modern clutter, to better find some semblance of Heaven here on Earth, hidden somewhere in the wild, or to enter It once more. The prospect seemed exciting. She could have a real adventure where she would both be on Earth, and either close to Heaven in the urban wilderness, or once more having found her way back There. She also jokingly considered taking up some illicit drugs while she was on the streets, and so making her search for Paradise even easier. And when she arrived There she’d be able to celebrate in such sweet, fine style, hopefully with enough drugs to share. Indeed, maybe actually something seriously to consider.

When she did decide to ‘go homeless’, three weeks after dying, she also decided she must do so instantly. She also had to literally burn all of her bridges behind her; she had to enter the jungle virtually naked, the more ready to robe herself in the vestments of Heaven.

So she burned her house down. The one that she had inherited from her mother. The one where she had lived very quietly and very well, without needing to work for all of her twenty-one years, another legacy of her mother’s.

She left her old life, to seek an eternal life, when all of the curtains in the front living room were ablaze. She was not there when a crowd began to form and she was not there when the fire brigade eventually arrived. And none could ever trace her.

June didn’t know it at the time but she had terrific luck in finding squats around the inner city suburbs of Sydney. Counterpoint to that luck, however, was the fact that the squats always had tenants already, which tenants would not let her move in. They, without differing, all said that she ‘looked like a cop.’

In fact, her ill luck became so bad that she soon had no choice but to sleep in parks. She tried a few, and had bought a sleeping bag for the occasion. She was looking for a park that seemed to have the quickest path back to Paradise. She eventually came to choose Royal Prince Alfred Park, Redferne, to sleep in. The park had a massive fig tree at the entrance, an obvious, massive hint for the searching June.

Sleeping in the park was initially the great adventure that it promised to be to June. It was a month or so after the start of a very hot spring, 2015, and she went to sleep each night easily, after staring at the stars for a little while, wondering which of them held Paradise. She was warm atop her sleeping bag every night, and seeing that her only expense was food, she was saving most of her trust monies.

Sleeping in the park, however, also soon became unbearable. It was the rain. She had been camping there a week or so, contentedly, very contentedly, feeling Paradise’s sure pull, when suddenly the heavens heavily rained upon her sleep. She was drenched, awaking in a panic, feeling attacked and abandoned.

The shock also made her realise that there was one squat that she could live in: the burned wreck of her home. She didn’t know how badly her former home was burned but it seemed a surer thing than remaining here to get thoroughly more drenched and maybe catch pneumonia.

Luckily she was within walking distance of her former abode and soon enough returned. It was not too bad. For a squat. The roof had partially caved in and the place was now basically just a charred box, littered with ashes.

She moved under the safety tape fence and entered her childhood home.

A lot of the things survived the fire, a clear call that they expected her to return. There was one sofa that was usable, all of the plates were fine, blackened, but washable, the large, glass and metal dining table was similarly blackened but washable. There were also a lot of other useable things. All a clear sign that her journey must begin here.

She was so comfortable in her home that she was not surprised when she was gently shaken awake on the first morning after her return. She awoke expecting an angel.

‘Hey,’ said a gruff, bearded, and unkempt man with a gruff voice, ‘who are you?’

‘June.’

‘June what?’

‘Spalding.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘This is my home.’

‘No, it’s not. Me and Stewey live here. You’re pretty obviously a cop.’

‘I’m not a cop. I get that a lot.’

‘Well, cop or not, you’re leaving. Now. Cop.’

‘Look, this is really my home. And I’m really not a cop.’

‘Then why do you want to find out where Stewey and I get our heroin?’

‘Can I somehow prove I’m not a cop?’

‘By getting out. Especially since Stewey’s less mild tempered than me.’

She really had no choice. She quickly packed and left, rudderless.

While she continued idly wandering though laneways and streets in Redferne she was thinking of heroin, prompted by the squatter who had evicted her. Maybe it was time to try some drugs to better reach Nirvana? Indeed, they seemed like the only answer left that would fulfil her desire. Going back to Royal Prince Alfred Park with a very nice friend in her system, and taking the chance of being awoken again by the rain, seemed to her like a sure way to attain Paradise. Indeed, the only way.

She didn’t know where to get any heroin but she did know that one could get marijuana, maybe, from a pub. Pot may be the only drug she could get, at least for now. She was willing to try as many pubs as it took, also asking if she could get maybe some heroin whilst also getting the pot. She had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

She got her pot at the first pub she tried, and with the first guy she asked. He had long blond hair and a fulsome, waxed, and curled moustache, a dark leather jacket and dark jeans, altogether of the bohemian set, nursing a schooner of dark ale. She had no idea how to smoke it and, after handing over the requested twenty dollars, explained her situation to the guy, the fact that she was trying pot for the first time. He was obliging, telling her to get a hash pipe from a tobacconist and then to chop up the pot finely into a bowl. He recommended she only have a third of a pipe to begin with.

So she went back to the park, after buying scissors, a small bowl, and a hash pipe, and followed his instructions. It was the worst experience that she’d ever had. The pot came on soon after she drew it in, and she felt nothing but anxiety. The pot made her feel horrible, fleeing Paradise and its fundamental meaning instead of reaching It.

She felt so terrible that she had to be taken to Rozella Psychiatric Hospital. She rang an ambulance, after throwing the pot away, explaining what she had just done. The Hospital discharged her after the second day, the hospital not realising the address she had given as her residence was a husk.

She didn’t leave the hospital altogether though for she saw potential in the many nooks and crannies of the hospital’s extensive, natural grounds. She could live easily in one of those crannies, sheltered from the inevitable rain.

She had spent six weeks there, never once discovered, and eventually met a patient that could introduce her to someone who sold heroin. She still felt that drugs could easily take her back to Paradise, or very close. She easily learned to inject herself, after the patient was paid with a shot to show her how, and never had any problems with getting clean needles from chemists. The heroin was the closest she ever did get back to Paradise and she was eventually found overdosed, the needle sticking out of her left arm, by a hospital domestic. She was located by the stink of her decay.

~~~

Saturday 1 September 2018

For Old Times' Sake

By far the best pot that I’ve ever smoked was from Sydney University. It was the most amazing, Universe launching, pot that I’ve ever had. The buds had a good bit of purple in them, were hairy, and you could actually see the crystals on them. Yeah, definitely the best smoke I’ve ever had.

It was sold by an education student, Nicole, and she sold this dynamite smoke just to pay the rent. She soon mentioned while we were initially getting to know each other that she had a casual checkout job at the local Quinnswerth, in Redferne, and so, along with dealing pot, she had her finances under reasonably good control. She didn’t smoke at all herself, didn’t even drink except at someone’s birthday party, and then only enough to be sociable.

Nicole and I weren’t really close but we often came to have a good talk together. I was doing a creative writing degree and bought the pot to help me come up with weird ideas for stories. I showed her some of my writing, which she liked, and she also pointed out the obvious flaws in them. Well, obvious to me.

And since we weren’t really close I was thus surprised when she confided in me one day, soon after I began buying from her, telling me a secret that seemed very ironic but which could also cause a wee nastiness to the university. She had, not an hour ago, sold a twenty dollar deal of pot to a new psychology lecturer, there in the Manning student bar. Not only that, he had got it on credit. How he knew to ask her, Nicole had not the foggiest idea. His asking for credit she also could not believe, but all of her clients were thoroughly earnest and noble young ladies and gentlemen so Nicole felt confident in trusting him as well.

Nicole though had a reason for telling me this, however. She would like to keep this guy, Ward Devans, in unlimited supply in return for his passing her in her required psychology units. Should she broach the topic, and risk alienating him, and possibly earning consequently poor marks thereby, or should she go for the big prize, all high marks in psychology without the need to study? She’ll spend the resultant free time reading novels; perfect!

Well, it seemed clear to me. Since she had this guy in her debt already with his illegal purchase it was but a short step to more devilry. Ward would probably accede to Nicole’s request. I knew I would with the prospect of an endless supply of her unique, potent pot. Basically, I told her to go for the easy marks, that she should have no trouble winning her wish.

Nicole thanked me and we talked about the best novels she should read instead of having to study her psychology. Soon after that I drifted away from the Manning bar scene as I was drinking too much. It had stopped being fun. I still smoked pot, though, but I got it elsewhere, from my housemate’s guy. Not as good smoke but potent nonetheless. Still, I never went back to Nicole and soon drifted from her.

I met Nicole again for the first time yesterday, several days before the start of what promises to be a mild spring, 2016. She still looked and dressed the same. She also still sold pot, for she invited me over for a smoke. I accepted and after Nicole had bought the bread she stepped out for we were back at her share house around the corner, near Redferne train station.

And would you believe it, she still had that good smoke, just as hairy, just as purple and green, and with even maybe more crystals visible on the buds. Naturally, the smoko being the same got us to talking of old times and she told me that Ward had been a big mistake. Getting into a romance with him had been a bigger mistake. He was a nice guy all right, intelligent, always polite and well groomed, but he was also a bastard. He was a bastard when he fled after learning that she had fallen pregnant by him. He fled the same day that he learned the news, probably being so skunkish as to flee within an hour of hearing the news. Within half an hour.

‘Now,’ she said after putting the bong away after I had three cones, ‘Ward is back.’

‘How is he back? Is he here to cause trouble?’

‘Not from his point of view, he just wants to see his five year old daughter. Wants to be a “real father.” Says he has a right to, and that he’s thought about his “wife and child” every day for the past six years.’

‘How did he find you?’

‘He hired a private detective.’

‘They’re not cheap. He must be making good money. Maybe your daughter could do with that?’

‘Ward is not at all trustworthy. He’s shown that. Besides, I told him that I was married.’

It was then that Nicole revealed the real reason for inviting me in for some of that good smoko. She wanted me to play the part of this fictional husband, whom she named Lesley, for the sake of the good old times. She said that she had no male friends that she could ask, all being married (and whose wives undoubtedly would have to be asked for permission, probably instantly denying the charade.) She also didn’t want to unduly distress her child, Jessie, who had always been high strung and wasn’t adjusting to the new routine of school as well as one would hope. She needed me to play the part because Ward kept calling over, not believing that she was married and wanted the fact confirmed or otherwise. She was in a real fix. Could I help? Was I already married?

No, I wasn’t married, hadn’t even had a girlfriend for a few years. I had no difficulties in assisting this distressed damsel, and when I replied positively to the request she offered to give me a fifty of smoko, three grams, for the trouble.

‘No need for that, Nicole. I’m just doing it for old times sake.’

‘Thanks, Vince, but if you pay peanuts then you get monkeys. So you have to take the fifty, which then should make you act well the role of the adoring spouse, because I really don’t want Ward around. I want it just to be me and Jessie. We’ve done great so far.’

We quickly agreed that I should move in with Nicole temporarily to properly look the part of the husband. It would most probably be only for a short while, for Ward had called over four times in the past three days, so he’d probably call over again soon.

‘I hope he’s shocked when he sees you answer the door. And deflated,’ she said.

We invented a whole story for Lesley’s courting of her but we just remembered the broad points of the story, to bring up in front of Ward. Jessie was over at a friend’s place, Nicole wanting to keep her as far as possible from a daddy with no backbone. When Jessie did come home for the night, the whole house went promptly to bed soon afterwards, avoiding having to let Ward in if he called late. Nicole and I lay in bed together, reading. Neither of us had any idea of going further than that.

Eventually Ward once more showed up, on a school day, two days after my newfound matrimony. I knew instantly it was Ward when I opened the door to him, for he had a certain sheepish air to him. He didn’t react to my telling him that I was Nicole’s husband, and I politely invited him in.

I made some coffees and when it was ready we sat around talking about university. It was while Ward was about halfway through his cup that he asked me,

‘How come you don’t wear a wedding band, Lesley?’ It was an obvious oversight.

‘That’s a simple story,’ I replied, making up a story as I went. Good thing I’ve been trained in story making. ‘I was at the beach just last month and, as usual, I took off all my jewellery before going for a swim. I know there’s no real need to, except for your watch, but it’s just a habit I’ve got into since my late teens. Anyway, I left my neckchain, wedding band, and watch just under my towel. When I got back, about twenty minutes later, they were gone. I asked around but no-one saw anything.’

‘I don’t wear one either,’ chimed in Nicole, obviously thinking on the spot too, ‘out of sympathy for Les.’

The conversation continued pleasantly until Ward became high handed. He didn’t wish to disturb our peaceful family but he was still Jessie’s real father, and as such he had certain rights, least of all the right to meet his progeny. He was willing to go to a lawyer to secure those rights, but if Nicole and I co-operated we could all get along well, save the costs of a legal battle, and Jessie would be bound to be pleased to get to know her natural father. Had we told her that I was just her stepfather? Nicole reluctantly confirmed such.

Nicole, also reluctantly, assented to what Ward was asking for and promised him he would meet his daughter the next night. I then let Ward out and returned quizzically to Nicole.

‘There’s no way I’m letting him see Jessie. She wouldn’t take it.’

‘So what’ll you do?’

‘We’ll go to the other side of Aus, to Western Aus. He won’t find me or Jessie if I change my name.’

‘He probably will, Nicole.’ Nicole looked glum, knowing I was mostly right, if not wholly.

‘Well, he’s not going near Jessie. We’re still going to WA tomorrow.’

‘Why not write him a letter explaining everything. I’ll see him here tomorrow night and can give it to him. I’ll do my best to talk him out of following you.’

It seemed like the only solution.

‘Ok,’ she said. ‘Meet me at Central Station tomorrow morning at eight and I’ll give you the letter. Meet me at the Devonshire Street entrance. I’ll also give you your fifty then.’

She gave me the letter and the fifty the next morning and when I saw Ward that night (after waiting all day at Nicole’s house in case Ward turned up early) he was not happy after having read it, also asking me to confirm that I wasn’t really married to her, that last night had been a sham to misdirect him. But I talked to him man to man and made him see that a gentleman never hounds a lady whom is wary of that gentleman. That if she wants nothing to do with him, and has clearly said as much, then he, as a gentleman, should simply walk away and learn to recall only the fond times with the lady. Nicole’s letter obviously said she wanted no part of him, that he had had his chance, and it was now time for him to move on. Some mistakes simply can’t be corrected.

I let him out of the house an hour after he had arrived, and he clearly saw the path a gentleman must walk. He swore to me that he’d forget her, chalking the whole thing up to experience. He looked crestfallen, but resolved to make the best of it.

When he was gone I shut up the house and returned home with the fifty Nicole had given me. She had actually given me four grams (or so it looked) instead of three and I decided to savour it for as long as possible. There’s probably no way I’ll ever get such good smoko again.

~~~

If you have been enjoying Fitzpatrick's stories here you may also enjoy his short story collections, and other books, available online as both Kindle books and paperbacks (go to http://amzn.to/1NfodtN). Other ebook and paperback options are available at http://bit.ly/1UsyvKD Fitzpatrick is also having a collection of short stories, Aberrant Selected, published by Waldorf Publishing on September 01, 2018. You can follow its journey at www.aberrantselected.blogspot.com

Wednesday 1 August 2018

Every Begging Night

Begging every night had always been very easy for Yvette Angelique Temps, but tonight she had worked up absolutely nothing, not even five cents. She had been at it for around an hour, by which time she should have had around twenty dollars. She had a very simple and productive system for begging up money, simply approaching passers-by and asking them for a dollar for train fare. Most of them said no but Yvette always managed to raise twenty dollars quickly enough. She raised it in the evenings and then had enough for a good dinner and a good breakfast to look forward to. She had become homeless a few years before after a former boyfriend, high on ice, went at her with a knife. This was the third boyfriend in a row that had done such, but she again escaped safely. She spent that night in a local abandoned house, Redferne, Sydney, and had come to love the house’s character. The then twenty year old Yvette was fascinated by the fact that the now derelict house had probably once raised many families, families that were happy and normal, the opposite of her love life and current destitution. She felt obligated to keep those happy family memories alive, a necessary counterpoint to the messes all of her romances ended in. Besides, maybe a radical change would radically change her dreadful love life? It was certainly worth the try. She then took to moving from squat to squat, and found the squatting life was also moderately easier, with all of her time her own, as well as more exciting than the shelf packing job at the Redferne Quinnswerth. She never really had had her heart in that job.

Tonight was the first night that she had been so unsuccessful with her begging and after fruitlessly trying for another hour, she gave up. She did receive welfare but had only about five dollars of that left and she wasn’t due to be paid for another five days. She was in Newtown, inner city Sydney, and decided to call it a night and walk back to her squat in nearby Standmore. She walked home dejectedly, her head down, wondering if it wasn’t time to get off of the streets. It was with her head down that she saw the twenty dollar note, lying casually in the gutter at the corner of Enmore Road and King Street. Well, why leave the streets when they were throwing money at her! She approached the money and picked it up. Yep, it was real.

Now, what was the absolutely best way to spend it? After all, she had enough with her begging. She’d just wait an hour or two and try again. She was bound to raise her nightly twenty dollars. She always had before. She’d think best what to do with the extra money when she got home.

By the time she got home fifteen minutes later she had a plan. In the morning she would open an interest bearing account at a bank and add one hundred dollars to it each week, at twenty dollars per day. Pretty soon she’d be wealthy and her squatting life would be even better, more so with her additional regulation daily twenty and her unemployment welfare. It was perhaps because she was now bright with enthusiasm and anticipation of her rich future that she eventually, and soon, raised her twenty dollars that night, in under half the time than usual. Yep, things were again looking rosy.

Not only did the bright enthusiasm last until the next day, when she decided to get up early to beg her savings, but over the ensuing weeks. Eight weeks in fact. With such success that by the end of that time she had a little over a thousand dollars in her account. She also had her daily ration of twenty dollars, plus the dole, which was quite sufficient for her.

But by the time her balance reached three thousand dollars it also became problematic. Had she, Yvette asked herself, in fact become a miser? Was her choice of the homeless life nothing more than her expression of greed, wanting to become rich without having to do anything serious to get the money? She probably was indeed becoming a miser since she went to sleep every night with the printout of that day’s bank balance in her hand. And it was the first thing she looked at when she awoke the next day.

Yep, it certainly looked like she was heading down the miser’s path so the best thing to do would be to spend that three thousand dollars. She would spend all of it on herself though. But seeing as she really didn’t need anything, what could she buy? She didn’t need the money for movies, or clothes, so what could she spend it on?

She decided to buy a car and travel the great Aus. She would probably need around another two thousand but that would be easy to get. Things were just getting better and better.

After she bought the car she still had five hundred dollars left over. It was an old Holden (the model of which she didn’t have a clue) and after filling up the tank she more or less headed out of Sydney straight away. She planned to drive all through Aus, begging her way across the country. She’d always have a place to sleep in her car, without fear of being moved on by the place, so, after collecting her few clothes into her duffel bag, she headed off north, up to Queensland.

She picked up Gerard about twenty kilometres from the Queensland border. He was a talkative guy who was also travelling around Aus, doing odd jobs on the way.

‘I’m begging my way around,’ Yvette informed him.

‘Oh yeah? Isn’t that hard?’

‘Nah, I’ve never had any trouble with it. Except once and even then I made some good money.’

‘I couldn’t beg. I’d feel so ashamed.’

‘I’m used to it by now. What sort of odd jobs do you do?’

‘Pretty much anything. I’m a jack of all trades and master of none.’

‘You know, we should team up?’

Gerard looked quizzical.

‘Well, we’d halve our costs if we worked together and bought things in bulk. We might even increase our profits,’ pointed out Yvette.

‘And we’d always have someone to talk with.’

‘Yeah, true, it does get lonely sometimes on your own.’

So they soon agreed to team up and travel Aus in style. They parked near the Roma Street Railway station and agreed to meet there again at six that night, to pool their day’s income. Yvette went about her work with an enthusiasm that was starting to become endemic and the money seemed to be literally flowing into her begging hands. After three hours work she had a little over eighty dollars and decided to visit the University of Queensland and see what it was she had missed out on in a university education. She bought two shepherd’s pies from the cafeteria and spent the time until about five pm in reading the complete Sherlock Holmes. She was expecting even greater things when she headed back to the car.

She was not expecting to see her duffel bag in place of the car, its few clothes spilling over its side. She looked desperately around. Yep, the car had been stolen. Gerard, the bastard, was not such a nice guy after all. Mind you, someone else may have stolen it but then why wasn’t Gerard here to meet her? She looked around again, feeling the notes in her pocket while she walked briefly up and down to make sure she wasn’t losing her mind. Yes indeed, the car had been stolen.

She went back to the university formulating a plan after waiting a half hour for Gerard’s possible return, which didn’t happen. She used the internet in their library to find instructions on how to hot wire a car. Finding the information was easy, as was the actual hot wiring. Then she made her way across the university grounds looking for a car that she could safely steal. She found one easily enough, another old Holden, and headed off next door to the Northern Territory. Gerard once mentioned during their brief relationship that the NT was a great place to live. The people were even more relaxed than the average Aussie and finding work was easy. It was warm all year round so sleeping under the stars was usually never a problem, and was in fact an experience that the average Aussie simply ought not to miss.

Halfway to the NT she was picked up by the Highway Patrol. The bastard of an owner must have quickly found his/her car stolen and reported it. Yvette’s luck might well now be on the downswing. With this seriously in mind Yvette faked having a mental illness while talking to the officer, intermittently talking to an imaginary ‘Agatha.’ The officer suspected she may be shamming it but had to do his duty nonetheless. He took her back to Brisbane and involuntarily admitted her into the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital for suspected schizophrenia.

Yvette had no choice now, she had to keep up this schizophrenia sham. But not knowing any of the symptoms she was in a bit of a tricky position. No matter, she realised while getting into the hospital pyjamas, there’s probably some pamphlets around about schizophrenia, she’d learn from them.

She learned well and when she came before the mental health tribunal she was committed to the hospital involuntarily for six weeks. Yvette was pleased with the outcome as it was nice having everything put on for her, food, clothing, shelter, companionship, without having to work for it. The police would also no doubt forget about her, neglecting to take her before the court again once she had ‘recovered’ from her psychotic episode.

The police did not forget, however, and exactly six weeks after her committal the same police officer turned up at the hospital to have her once again committed, but to remand, until she had her day in court. She had her day of such and was fined two thousand dollars for the car theft and a conviction recorded. No problem, she thought on the way out of court, she’d beg the money very quickly. She headed into the Brisbane CBD with that in mind, planning to pay off the fine in a few weeks. She paid it off in four and a half weeks, and after again quickly begging up for another car, headed back to the NT. She would not pick up any hitchhikers this time.

~~~