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THE CLIP CLOP STOPPED

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THE CLIP CLOP STOPPED
 

AUDIO HORIZON
 

and THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR OPERA
 

 

 
She woke me at about half four to tell me I was lying on the wrong side (supra – pubic catheter) and that she was leaving. I said thank you and rolled my body. Normally I would be grateful for being woken early but lately I have been having trouble getting to sleep at night so I was not grateful. I had just entered my sleep and was woken from the slumber. I watched her leave my room and I heard the front door slam as she left. All the pills that I have to take at night prevent me from dreaming so I lay on top of my sweaty sheets trying to remember what I had dreamt about. I could not remember so I turned onto my good ear and tried to go back to sleep.

I woke with a jolt to find I was lying on the wrong side again. It felt comfortable and it was still dark so I closed my eyes and I managed to fall back to sleep. SNORE SNORE SNORE. !!!!! I was woken as I heard a woman start singing scales in a Soprano voice. She was loud too. Her voice had broken my sleep and the silence of the pre-dusk. She sounded like an Opera singer. La la la la la la la !!!!! Why was she singing Opera in the middle of the night? She kept repeating the pitches in sequence. The darkness was silence apart from her booming voice. She sung her scales loudly and it sounded as if she was singing them outside my window. La la la la la la la. It was confusing. She had the voice of an angel and it sounded so beautiful but all I wanted her to do was shut up so I could catch up on the sleep I had lost. She stopped doing the scales and started singing an Opera in her big voice. Why didn’t somebody else call the cops? I would not call the police but I wanted her to cease and desist. Her voice wavered up and down like she had a bird stuck in her throat. She was singing a fat woman’s Opera but I could tell by the tone of her voice that she wasn’t fat. I imagined a big braided blonde woman wearing a golden Vesko helmet holding a trident and a shield. The highest pitch of her mezzo-soprano would not let me get back to sleep so I lay on my bed listening to her sing before I rolled on to my good ear. I am deaf that way.

I finally woke for real had a shit and a shower then dressed and went down the road to get a pouch of tobacco. The man in the shop knows me and gets it out from behind the big black screen when he sees me coming. I can’t get in because there is a big step that is too hard to navigate in my wheelchair. He normally raises his eyebrows for me to tell him how much money I have so he can organise the change. I yelled out what notes I had and he buggered around with the till. Everybody knows me in Bondi but that only helps sometimes. Next to the cigarettes there is another shop with a woman that specialises in metaphysical healings. The man came out of the tobacconist and gave me my change and the tobacco. I said thanks and placed it on my lap and turned to go home. I had only pushed the wheels on my chair nine times uphill when I turned the corner and saw the healer’s boyfriend walk out of her shop. I said hi and he looked down at the tobacco and the change on my lap. It is hard to describe the look he gave. I should have put it straight in my pocket. His gaze went to mine as I told him not to tell anybody that I was a dirty smoker. He half-smiled then coughed in a daze as he said, it’s just that it doesn’t fit your image.

I am used to people staring at me. They used to stare at me when I walked at six foot three. As a younger man it used to make me paranoid until I started playing rugby and learnt that people were staring at me because I was tall. It took meeting a mate that encouraged me to use my height and looks to realise that I had a power. Magnetism. The best nights would end with me in bed with a babe. I don’t remember how I did it but I have had a lot of fun. Every time a woman stared at me I knew what she wanted. Now women look with hope and determination when they stare. Most of the women I meet cock their head like they are talking to a dog when they call me an inspiration. They don’t see me as a man, with big hairy smelly testicles, but as a standard of never-ending hope and determination. I can’t even begin to tell you how that makes me feels. Because I don’t remember having an accident I don’t see myself as a disabled man, I should really go get help to overcome that. I want to meet a woman who will try and fit both of my balls in her mouth as she jerks me off. Sit down and I will tell you a story.

I pushed my wheelchair further up the hill and thought about how other people see me. The reason I go to the gym is because I have a goal to one day walk again. I go there as a task and am not a part of gym culture. Image? I am just a stubborn fool that doesn’t know enough. My friend laughs as he tells me that when I woke out of the coma I would whisper to him, just one please, just one, and hold two fingers up to my pursed lips. I can’t remember so I laugh. The story is funnier to my friend because I was lying in a hospital bed paralysed from the waist down with a tracheotomy wearing a nicotine patch. My de facto’s mother told me that I regularly wanted a cigarette and a beer when I had the tube in my throat. I woke from a brain-injury induced coma paralysed wearing a plastic skull piece and a plastic torso cast with a piece of plastic in my throat to help me breath and apparently I still wanted a smoke. The patches that I woke wearing never really worked. The patches may have stopped my physical cravings but they could never satiate the need. I still enjoy smoking a cigarette, I try not to think about the fact that it is just death a little quicker.

OHO

I got home rolled one and was enjoying it. I already know that people are now anti-cigarettes but I don’t smoke Hashish or Opium so I don’t consider myself to be any kind of monster. They sell it I smoke it. All I do is Inhale and Exhale. If you are reading this and judging me then you are a prude. I inhaled again then blew a plume skywards when I heard her coming down the street towards me, clip clop, clip clop, clip clop clip clop clip cop clip. The clip clop stopped. She had stopped walking, bugger I wouldn’t get to see her. I could hear by the sound of her footsteps that she was short and she was wearing heels, clip clop clip clop. I have a big thing for small women. I have been with tall women and I have been with short and believe me there is no difference. Well that isn’t exactly true, the difference between a tall and a short woman only lies in their neurosis, that and the things you can do with a small woman’s body when you’re fucking them. She started walking again. Clip clop clip clop. Where was this short woman going? The pace of her steps indicated that she was a woman going places. Most of the women I have met since I have become disabled have wanted me to serve their purpose and steal my thunder; they all hang on like limpets. I want a woman that needs me to accompany her. She will love me and we will share the pace. She will know where she is going and will be wearing blinkers but for me. I have always been attracted to smart women with drive and determination. A few different women (not all short) have made me their man and they have all been smarter than me. I want a woman that knows where she is going and I want to make her happy on the way. I always give the best of me and I know that I have made the women I have been with happy on the way to where they were going with my love. The short woman walking towards me was going somewhere; she was going somewhere fast. I could imagine her in her high heels as she click-clacked towards me at pace, she walked well in her heels and it seemed that was her personality. She was 100%.

It is a horrible thing to live your life in fear. A hostile woman once told me that I write too much about being disabled but this is all I now know; this is what’s real and tangible. Every fucking aspect of my life revolves around being a man with multiple disabilities. These are the only things that matter. I don’t write wanting people to feel sick when I write about being forced to have a supra-pubic catheter; I write about it because it dictates where and how often I have to go to the bathroom. I live in fear. The leg bag only holds 750 ml’s of piss and when it is full I will urinate out of my penis. I once had a bladder infection so bad that the piss came flying out when I hopped in the shower. I was so excited to see urine coming out of the right place but knew it was a bad thing because I could not feel or control it. It is a horrible thing to live your life in fear. My penis, my penis, my glorious penis once dominated all I surveyed. Veni, vidi, vici. I have only been with one woman since crushing my spine and she told me that it was confronting seeing the s-p c, no shit. Hearing a woman say that has put the spook in me. The physical disabilities I have incurred will require a strong woman to be with me. My Mum once told me that she is going to be “special”. It was a nice thing of my Mum to say and I do believe her but I resented the implication that I am now “special needs”. How special will she have to be? Will any woman love me enough to see past my physical flaws? If she lets me be her man I will give her everything. If she can withstand the horror of my reality I will make her the happiest woman alive.

The doorbell rang so I placed the cigarette down went inside and opened the door. It was my mate. He sat down and grabbed a beer when offered and started talking about her. He was talking to me as only two men can talk about a woman and making me laugh. She’s a nympho, he kept saying. That’s all she wants to do. All she wants to do is fuck two three times a day. When I walk in the door she literally jumps on me, he said, I feel like I’m being raped. I asked if he made her cum? Yeah, he said, she cums all the time but she can never get enough, she always wants more. I’m drained, he moaned, and my dick is red raw. I go to work building houses ten hours a day and when I come home she hasn’t cooked or even cleaned up and I still have to fuck her. She’s a lazy bitch, he said, she gives me nothing but her pussy. The only thing she wants is my sperm, I need somebody made of more than that. Centuries ago she would have been burned at the stake for witchcraft. I couldn’t control myself and laughed out loud. He raised his beer in front of his mouth then said, some women our age go a bit potty when they haven’t had a kid, before he took a slug. I laughed again out loud because it was true. I thought a moment then said, you selfish bastard. I raised my decibel as I shot back, what I wouldn’t give to be drained from too much fucking. I haven’t had a woman in years. They now stare at me without wanting to have sex. It’s horrible, I feel like an exhibition or as if I am in a circus. I shook my head, raised my shoulders and said whhuughughgh!! He laughed so I went on, if you think I’m joking or being dramatic I will lend you my wheelchair so you can push your arse down the street. It’s horrible the way women stare; it’s kind of a mix of pity and admiration. I can’t even stand so they can see the bulge of my dick. Do you think I feel sorry for you having a batty woman that wants to fuck all the time? Feel sorry for me wanking into my sock. He was laughing so I continued my bit. You selfish prick, I said smiling, I’m going to remind you of this the next time you haven’t got any. The next time you say, I can’t get any, I’m going to remind you of when you were getting too much pussy and were complaining. You selfish selfish bastard, I’m starving outside the window while you’re licking the plate clean. He was still laughing as he put down the empty bottle walked up to the chair and hugged my head as he left. I had cracked him up with my way. The funniest stuff is always true. Only the horny will know the meaning of life.

I picked up and put his and my empty’s down by the front door then went back to the balcony and relit the cigarette. I had to go to the toilet, my leg-bag was full and I knew it would be coming out my penis soon but I had to wait and see if she came back and what she looked like. The beer made me have to urinate. Beer is my enemy and still my best friend. I am horny all of the time but I cannot help that because I am a man. I miss the smell and the taste of a woman, I miss the things that only a woman has. The only time I am not thinking about sex is when I am asleep. Your husband or male partner, if you are a woman, is just like me so think about when you say, not tonight dear, that you are actually doing your man a disservice. Men love to fuck. Clip clop, clip clop was still in my mind and I could feel my dick had gotten bigger with my bladder almost fully expanded. My hand felt the width under my pants. Does clip clop love to fuck? I put the cigarette down. My balcony is in full view but I had to see so I elevated out of my wheelchair with one arm and pulled my pants down with the other hand. It was a third of its size and I wasn’t even excited yet. Yes, it looked big again. One of these days when she lets me into her knickers it will be full size; it has to, I have a big one and was born to make love to a woman. It started growing as I watched it proudly but I had to put it in my pants and sit back down because I am not a pervert. The best relationships start with sex, that is something real and tangible. The leg bag kept bulging and it started to hurt my bladder. The hurt travelled up me as gullet acid. My face flushed as I gulped it down. Hurry up, I whispered to her, let me see you and let me fall in love. I burped hot acid a second time and it made me feel bad. The click clack started again; good she heard me. I could picture her, a short petite woman that knows she’s sexy but full of indignation at man’s treatment of her sexuality. Her inferiority complex will make her better in bed, she will feel that she has to try harder and will go wild for a big man’s sex. She stopped walking again. Stop start, stop start. What was she doing? I hadn’t even seen her and she was already driving me crazy.

I had started sweating and the stomach acid was still burning my mouth when the clip clop started coming down the street again. The cigarette had gone out in my hand so I reached for the lighter when I heard it, la la la la la la la. Clip clop and the skinny fat Soprano at the same time. La la la la clip clop la la la. I could hear her coming towards me. Why does the skinny fat Soprano only start singing when I can hear her? I needed to go to the toilet so badly. The pain had shot from my bladder into my penis directly. I looked at my groin and the bulge was huge, yes. I looked down past the bulge to the street to see her. Was the la la clip clop? Is the petite sexy? Will she let me love her enough? The pain in my groin sent acid back to my throat again and I gulped twice. I relit the cigarette and elevated out of my chair to see her. I had to see her. Was she my sort of short woman? Clip clop clip clopped right past me and I saw that it was a five-foot Asian man wearing a shiny silver suit and black boots with a heel. La la la la la la la. My entire body flushed as I sat back down. I looked past the bulge of my penis to see the urine bag had burst open and my pants were wet. Bugger, I had pissed myself on purpose to see a woman that only exists in my imagination. I softened. My big penis had gone just like the urine down my leg. Obviously I need to get laid, I am hearing mirages. I sat back in the chair and my hand went down my leg to see how much I had wet my pants when it felt like she was about to sing again. My pant leg was saturated. Don’t, I said aloud, don’t you do it, not now that I’m covered in urine. I bent down and picked up the leg and found my shoe and sock on my right leg wet. Please do not sing now, this is not the time for Opera. I put my foot on the other knee and started to untie my shoe. She cleared her throat loudly and then started. She only sung two bars but she sang them loudly, La la! It sounded like a full stop. I removed the other shoe, the dry shoe, and left them both outside. Thank God tonight’s over, I wheeled inside and transferred from my wheelchair to the shower chair and took everything off. I had a shower to remove the urine and changed the urinary drainage bag.

My dick looked big as I showered thinking about her crazy sex and when she lets me inside. I was born to make love to a woman and I need her to let me prove my worth. When she lets me I will make her delirious for these are the only things that matter. These things are too silly for me to make up. Everything has become internal when all that I want is inside of her. I need to feel inside of her to feel inside of me. Inside of her is and will always be inside of me, it is the only thing that will make me complete. I am all alone but for these things inside of me and all these things that happen. Just give me one night baby. If you can give me one night of yours I will make you my woman. If you are reading this I am talking about you baby.

Come spend the night so that we can both hear the skinny fat Soprano sing in the morning. All I need to make you love me is inside

 
Aka – one night only: My GLOURIOUS PENIS la la and the clip clop urine jamboree
 

 
 
Andrew Stuart Buchanan II

THRUSH

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THRUSH

 

 

 

The stress is starting to manifest physically. I haven’t left the house all week. I’ve got a cold, my face is covered with pimples and my feet look like a corpse’s. By that I mean they are black and look dead. My mind is blacker and is just as dead. My body does not like being disabled and has been dieing in spots all over me. I just keep smoking fags and drinking to help me not notice. Neither actually helps but to me it does. All a human needs is distraction. We only need to take our minds off of what is happening. We are all dieing a little each day. Take me to the sun and let it burn

I shake off the shackles and open the front door. I am wearing a singlet and tracksuit pants. The sun is shining but it’s still cold. My lungs are wheezing and it sounds like I have emphysema but I am addicted so I have to get more. I had three different people stop and want to talk on the way to the tobacconist. They could not tell that I am at war. It made them inquisitive seeing me do what I have to do each day. One was a lady who gave me a handshake like a bloke’s. She then asked me questions that I am too dumb to not answer honestly. She kept asking me if I wasn’t cold? I said, no I’m from New Zealand

I stopped in at the tobacconist. I can’t get my wheelchair into the store so I just cough and beckon and his wife comes out to serve me. She is from Japan so would have a hairy one. She passed it over to me and then said goodbye to her husband and stepped down on to the footpath. I always forget so I asked her how much it was? She curled her finger inwards before she walked away from me. She started to half-skip down the road. I sat there with seventy dollars in my hand. Did she want me to follow her? I was watching her arse wobbling when she turned around, stopped, and beckoned with her whole hand. I hurried after her and finally caught up. I only married him, she said, for a visa. He can’t get it up and he beats me. I’m sorry, I said. What for, she asked, for beating me or for having a soft cock? No, I said, you gave me the wrong tobacco. I gave it too you for free, she said. It is still the wrong kind, I replied. Are you not sorry that he beats me, she questioned? No, I said, I’m sorry that I don’t beat you, as I smiled. She handed me a piece of paper and told me to write down my address. She pulled up her top. She wasn’t wearing a bra and had saggy ones. She started squeezing her right nipple and gasping. You, she asked? Maybe later, I said, off the street. I saw two fist sized bruises on her abdomen. She saw me looking at them and pushed her index finger on one of them then winced then giggled

I got home with the tobacco burning a hole in my pocket. I saw Death walking towards me with Yoko walking behind. He saw me and smiled. He said, watch out Andy there is a lot of corruption, as Yoko silently shuffled him towards the door. I feel better being dumb. Being dumb makes you brave. I am not afraid of anyone. She walks behind him but leads the procession with one hand folded over the other. I see too much. He cannot see that he has been corrupted. All she wants is money and all he wants is her pussy. She is younger than him and it makes me think of what a woman will endure for rent. He treats me like the black sheep while she treats him like a master to his face

The intercom buzzed so I went over to it. I looked in the monitor and saw it was the Japanese woman. I pushed the button and watched her stand there. Open the door, I said at the screen. She just stood there until the monitor went black. Stupid bitch, I said under my breath. The buzzer sounded again so I held the button down longer and watched ‘til she looked surprised hearing it. She opened the door and entered. She walked in my door with a bag over her shoulder. She placed it on the ground, pulled out a tripod and a video camera. I tape these, she said as she extended the legs, and then I make my husband watch them. That’s a bit cruel, I said. No, she replied as she placed the camcorder on the stand, that’s the only time that he gets it up. She placed her hand under the bottom of the base and heard a click; it was locked in. She placed her keys on the television stand and I saw she had a One-Direction key ring. Have you had a shower, I asked? No, she replied. Well you better, I said. She walked into the bathroom while I went to the kitchen sink. I got back to the bathroom and heard her singing a U2 song. I put a hand into the shower cubicle handing her a bottle of methylated spirits and a Goldilocks. What’s this for, she asked? The metho’ is for you to douche with and the Goldilocks is to scrub the outside of your pussy. Okay, she said, then kept singing. I heard her sing three different songs and then she came back out fully dressed. I muttered under my breath, what the fuck’s going on? Houdini died because he wasn’t ready. I wondered if I was

Now that I had her I didn’t want another crazy woman. She stepped out of her dress and was naked. No undies-yes. Her pussy was hairy, but it wasn’t curly like a white person’s it was long black and fine and it smelt like the bottom of the prover in a bakery I used to work in. Like simmering yeast. She bent down and ran her opened right hand down the inside of her right leg and then back up again. She stopped with her palm next to her bush and grunted by question. I looked up and saw she was smiling and nodding. It’s very nice, I said. She was beautiful besides the bruises. Why didn’t I want her? What am I looking for, a third tit, a vagina I can back crawl back inside? What’s wrong with crazy? I guess it’s just because I have been spoiled by choice. I like women and women used to like me. I bent down and licked it. It felt like I had a mouth full of sherbet

I am surrounded by the East and am still mystified. I watch If You Are The One and I now know less. It’s hard enough to know what a white woman wants. She asked me if I believed in God? I looked up and saw that she still had the Goldilocks in her hand. I do normally but tonight I don’t, I said. What do you believe in, she asked? I don’t believe in anything, I said. I’m just waiting for Bono to put on his cape and save us. Angelina Jolie and Bono are still trying to save us from ourselves and failing. Nobody knows how to fix humanity properly but the Iranians are trying to build the bomb. You know, she said, that it is a sin to worship a false idol? Sure, I replied, but what about your One Direction key-ring?

 

 

 
Andrew Stuart Buchanan

DECEMBER UP THE HILL

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DECEMBER UP THE HILL

  

 

I met a woman on Sunday. I was pushing myself up the hill from Icebergs when I saw a man and a blonde woman walking alongside pointing at me and asking something. I put the brakes of my wheelchair on and took my headphones off so I could hear what they were saying. The man was asking if I would like to be pushed up the hill? I laughed and told him it was nice of him but I considered it to be part of my day. We talked all the way up the hill and then stopped and continued talking on the corner of Bondi Rd. The conversation was running out and it was feeling uncomfortable when the man told me that he would go for the woman if he weren’t already in a relationship. My mind raced. Was that a hint for me? Did that mean I should ask the woman out? It’s all a new experience for me. I’d never asked a woman out before I broke my back and hit my head at work. It was always easy. They all asked me out. I never had to try. I never had to face the possibility of rejection. The man also told me that she wasn’t like most women and wasn’t looking for a man to support her. He told me she had her own money. Sunday smiled at me and asked for my phone number. I smiled and gave it to her and told her to leave me a message with her name otherwise I would forget who she was.

 

These days I am constantly misreading situations. I will have a woman flirt with me so will ask her out to be told no. I had a woman walk besides my wheelchair all the way from the corner of Penkivil St to the corner of Bondi Rd and Notts Ave. I would have called the talk flirting but obviously I am no longer aware. I have been made to see a psychologist recently. I was telling him about this. I told him I had never asked a woman out before; they had all approached me. He told me it’s a numbers game. He told me I might have to ask a dozen women out before one will say yes. What I didn’t tell him is that every woman who says no is considered a loss to me. Every woman who says no is a chip off my already fragile ego. I really can’t handle it. Maybe if I had been rejected as a boy I might have built up a resistance, tolerance, to it. Every time I am rejected I question my ability and the way I must be seen in my wheelchair. There’s been a long line of rejections that have made me feel this way. I can now see how some men remain virgins for life.

 

I saw a woman I used to know ages ago today. She used to go out with a friend of mine from New Zealand. She told me that I am too negative and that I am not attracting the positive. She might be right but she is probably wrong. I felt comfortable enough to share the negative that is happening in my life at the moment with her. I try really hard each day to be positive and meet a woman, the woman (where are you babe?) who will love me. Anyway she gave me a necklace with stones on it and told me it would heal me. She pointed to and named each of the stones and told me the healing properties each stone carries with it. She took it off her wrist where it was doubled over and put it around my neck. She stood behind me and started to tie it up. She choked me. As she was putting it on she told me it would be tight and that I would have to cut it off I didn’t like it. I don’t like it. When I got home I looked at myself in the mirror wearing it and laughed. I will cut it off tomorrow.

 

I rang another friend from New Zealand for some advice about Sunday. I rang and told him that I met a woman who gave me her phone number. I told him that I liked her and asked if I should call her that night. He reminded me of Swingers and I laughed. Three days is money. I thought about her all night and rang her the next day. She did not answer her phone. I didn’t leave a message and called her a slut after I had hung up (shit maybe I am too negative). I decided it was worthless and contemplated suicide for a few minutes. I reckoned that the Gap was probably the easiest way to do it: a few seconds exhilarating free fall and then a millisecond of pain. Yeah, that would be best, I said aloud to myself as I pushed my wheelchair to the fridge for a beer. I’d forgotten about beer, that’s worth living for. I told myself I should join a monastery as I twisted the top off the bottle, either that or I should chop my penis off and sell it on Ebay.

 

Sunday eventually text me on Monday (what’s happened, don’t people talk anymore?) and in her text apologised for not answering my call. I felt bad for calling her a slut. I told her I was going home to New Zealand for Christmas and that we should meet up for a drink when I returned and waited for a response. That’s what I don’t like about text messaging, waiting for a response. It’s almost like I can feel my brain ticking while I wait. The phone lay silent. I told myself to forget about her as I put my phone down. I wheeled my chair into my bedroom and started rolling a smoke. I was straightening the tobacco out in the paper when I heard my phone beep. I said, slut, aloud (alright I am too negative, so what?) and decided to finish rolling it before I saw what she had said. I licked it and liked what I saw. The hand-rolled cigarette was as good as a bought one. I pushed my wheelchair out into the lounge and picked up my mobile and put it on my lap (not too close to the balls, that’s one cancer I do worry about).

 

I got up over the ramp and slid the ranch door closed behind me. On the balcony I lit, drew and exhaled. The nicotine coursed through my veins. It was just what I needed. If she wasn’t too fussed about quick replies, why should I be? I put the phone down on the air-conditioning unit on my balcony and decided to finish my smoke before I cared. I couldn’t do it. I do care. After three drags I picked the phone up to see what she had said. She suggested that we go out for a health drink. Oh fuck; I said aloud to myself, I’m sitting smoking fags while she wants a spirulina smoothie. My hormones got the better of me so I replied telling her, that that would be great. I suggested we meet up at Gusto. She didn’t reply for a good ten minutes. I thought to myself that I’d blown it when she text me. She told me that she used to work there and wouldn’t feel comfortable going back. She asked if I would like to meet at Gertrude And Alice instead? I text back that that would be fine while wondering why she wouldn’t feel comfortable there? Maybe she pissed in somebodies porridge?

 

I didn’t want to be late so arrived there early. Sunday wasn’t there. I saw the owner J and said hello. One of the waiting staff asked if I would like to sit inside or outside? I told them I would prefer to sit outside. All the tables were occupied so I sat in my wheelchair and looked at the bookcase full of second-hand books. There weren’t any good ones but I had to occupy myself so I studied them all. Eventually a staffer told me that there was a free table so I went and positioned my chair. I faced looking down Hall St towards the ocean and ordered an orange juice. It arrived at my table in a bottle with a large glass filled with ice. I filled the glass and wished I’d brought vodka with me. I started to take sips of the juice. I’d stopped in at the Bondi Hotel to empty my catheter bag on the way there and hoped she wouldn’t be too long. It gets embarrassing to have a bulge on the side of your leg. I drained one glass of the juice and was filling another when I saw her coming up the road smiling at me. She wasn’t as pretty as I remembered her to be.

 

She walked up to me and lent down, touched my shoulder and kissed the right side of my cheek and waited for me to kiss hers. I put my arm around the back of her waist, kissed her and asked how she was? She said she was all right and apologised for being late. I told her that she wasn’t late and that it didn’t matter. She smiled. She had felt wet. I questioned wether she had just come back from swimming? She said no. Silence followed behind her as she stared at me. Sweaty bitch. She seemed manic in her every movement. I asked her if she wanted a drink? She said yes and got up and walked into the café. She was a good minute and a half before she came back out. She sat down. She was wearing a beautiful sleeveless halter neck top and a pair of bright pink Daisy Dukes. She didn’t have much breast but had good legs. She had a hint of a black moustache over her top lip. I had remembered her as being a beautiful blonde but now she was sitting in the morning sun I wasn’t too sure of either.

 

I started the conversation. She was from somewhere in Europe and had a thick accent. I made out that she was from Russia. I would tell where from but I’ve forgotten. I turned the volume up on my hearing aids. The talk was uncomfortable. It seemed laboured. I asked her what type of music she liked? She said anything but heavy metal. I love heavy metal. I asked her to be more specific. She said pop. I asked her if that meant Justin Bieber? She laughed and said no, no, she meant Indie pop. It was a bad start. She kept looking down and to the left. I looked down to my right and saw nothing down there. I wondered what she was looking for? Her drink arrived at the table. She had ordered a pot of chai (fuck) soy (Jesus) latte. She put the stainer over her cup and poured some in. I’ve never drunk what she ordered but it looked like something that would come out of an unclogged drain. Bits of the loose leaves filtered down into the cup though the stainer and floated on the top. I wondered if it tasted as bad as it looked. She took a large teaspoon of honey and stirred it in. She raised the cup to her mouth quickly and took a loud slurp before slamming the cup back down to the saucer. I watched the contents ripple like Jurassic Park. I asked her how long she had been in Australia? She said she had been here for four years. I asked if that meant that she was a resident or a citizen? She told me she was on a travel visa. I would not have to read her tealeaves. I knew why she had come on a date with me.

 

I’ve met a succession of women in Australia looking for visas. They must think I look dumb. Most of them have been from the former USSR. They all try really hard but I haven’t liked any of them. Sunday had come out on a date with me thinking I might be her ticket. I’m not rich but I am indifferent. Some women confuse the two. I had come on a date thinking I was going to fuck her. You can call me old or indifferent again but I’m over dating. I’m too old to beg. If the conversation’s good I might try. I can tell by looking at a woman’s body if it’s worth it. I hadn’t acted with any of them until now. I am blessed to have been with some incredible women. I know what it takes to be with a woman. I know what it takes to be with a woman but I still haven’t found her. I keep going on dates where I sit and wonder what the fuck they’re talking about? I have become lonely horny and desperate for love. I haven’t the courage to ask the woman I really want so I stay floating chin-deep in ordinary. I keep going on ordinary dates with ordinary women. It’s horrible sitting looking at a face that I don’t or won’t remember. I’ve sat in my wheelchair at tables watching women’s faces talking and not been able to hear a word and have been glad. I love women but women are mad. Does that make me mad too?

 

I’m deaf in one ear and have twenty-five percent hearing loss out of the other. I now wear hearing aids. I’m deaf in my left ear but I wear a hearing aid in it anyway. The one I wear in my right ear has a transceiver at the bottom of it that picks up the hearing from the one I wear in my deaf ear and morphs it with the hearing I have in my right. I can hear stereo in the mono. The café was loud where we sat. She seemed well known there. People kept walking past and touching her on the shoulder. She kept slurping and slamming. Throughout our date I kept (I thought I did) hearing her mentioning some man’s name. I had to ask her whom she was talking about? She said it was a man she knew. I asked if she was talking about a boyfriend? She said no. She told me nothing about herself but asked me a hundred questions to reveal myself. I thought it was worth a shot. I am horny and lonely. She kept talking telling me nothing. I’ve got to ask questions. That’s what I told myself. All the answers she gave me led me round and about. I’ve only had one woman since I was broken and she told me to be open, she told me to give women a chance. I kept asking her questions. She kept slurping and answering.

 

I hate myself so wonder what women see? Dating is horrible for me. It’s a ritual that I have never been initiated in. I’ve been lucky enough to have a life of sex and relationships without dating. I am old enough to know if a woman is the one. She was not the one. I knew it and I think she knew it too. She kept looking down to the left. I kept checking to see what she was looking at. There was nothing down there. The light of the sun had shown the holes in our attempt. I don’t know what she’d expected. I don’t know what I’d expected either. The weight of our expectations had strangled any chance we had at conversation. We were two lovers without love. Every time I floated an open-ended conversation towards her she shot it down with a one worded response. I didn’t mind because I couldn’t hear her answers anyway. I was getting sick of asking her questions. Silence fell between us as she stared at the brown sugar. I couldn’t think of anything more to say. I was bored and wanted the date to be over. She could tell and started asking me questions. I finished the rest of my orange juice in one swallow. The last of the ice burned my lips. She had started asking me another question. I did not answer her. She asked me what it was like in a wheelchair? I raised the glass to my lips to my lips and the ice burned me again. A drop of watered down orange juice dripped down on to the tip of my tongue. Eventually I got the courage to tell her that I had to go. She stood up and looked at me. I pushed my wheelchair up to the till and drew my wallet out. The person used a calculator to draw the bill. She had paid for her own drink.

 

As our date ended she told me she wanted to be friends on Facebook. I have no idea why I gave her my email address. She friend requested me so I accepted. When I read her profile it said she was in a relationship with a man called Richard. What the fuck? I think i know nothing. The older I get the less I know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andrew Stuart Buchanan

BEAUTY IN THE ORDINARY

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BEAUTY IN THE ORDINARY

My left foot fell off today. It snapped off. It snapped off like a dry dead twig. It happened when I was drying myself after a shower. I said, oh fuck, when I looked down at the bathroom floor. There it was, my foot. There was no blood. There was no blood coming from the foot or from the end of my leg. It hurts to bend down but I knew I had to. I bent down and picked my foot off the bathroom floor. The foot was as cold as ice. I put it on my lap, transferred and pushed the commode chair into my bedroom. I transferred onto my bed and sat there a while. A sudden gust of wind blew in my bedroom window. It was a southerly and it sent goose bumps down my right side. I asked myself how I would cope now? I did not answer myself. I was glad. That’s the second sign of madness. I wondered what I should do with my foot? Everybody knows that you should put it on ice. My left foot already was ice. I pulled myself onto my bed. I took the foot and placed it where it had fallen off. I pushed it as hard as I could against the leg. I placed it there and thought of faith healers priests and preachers who heal the dead. There is some feeling in my foot. I said it as I let go of my foot. The foot dropped to the floor. I picked it up. It was covered in lint and tiny brown pieces of tobacco. I ran my hand over my foot and blew on it to get it all off. I saw lint sparkle. The sparkling lint made me remember that there is beauty even in the ordinary. I decided to say it again but aloud. I held the foot against the end of my leg and said, there is some feeling in my left foot. I held it there for as long as I could. I held it so tightly against the bottom of my leg that it was making my arms hurt. I said aloud, my foot is my foot and it is a part of my body. My arms and hands would not let it go

Andrew Stuart Buchanan

STOPPED

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STOPPED

A carer drove me to the shops yesterday. She drove me to Chinatown so I could buy all my fruit and vegetables. There were no mud crabs. After driving into the city we went to Westfield to buy all the dry goods I needed. I shop at Coles but I don’t know why. We had to drive three levels down before we could find a wheelchair spot. We waited for a lift. We always wait for a lift. Nobody likes to walk these days. The lift finally brought us to level one (or is it level two?) and the celebration of light. I pushed my wheelchair into the star spangled lane. I had to get some booze first so I looked around trying to remember where the liquor store was. I found it, turned around and started pushing towards it. As my eyes narrowed I saw a man in his eighties sitting hunched in a wheelchair outside the pet-shop. He was sitting by himself. His head hung down on his chest. His hands sat folded upon his lap. People were walking past him like he didn’t exist. I wheeled up to where he sat and asked how he was? He looked up to face me and said, nmw nmw nmw nmw. I asked him what he had just said? He said, nmw nmw nmw nmw… Nmw. Yeah, I said. He said, nmw nmw nmw nmw nmwa. Yeah, I said, it gets like that doesn’t it? He said, nmw nmw nmw nmw. I said, you should roll it into little balls and try and push them back in. His face darkened. I told him I would turn my wheelchair around so I would be listening from my good ear. When I could hear him properly all I could make out was more of the same. I told him I was deaf in one ear and pointed to the hearing aide in my good ear. I leaned my body towards him. He spoke into my good ear. I couldn’t make out what he was trying to say. I told him, no it’s the medicine that will do that to you. I looked back up at him. His face darkened. I said, either that or wring it out on a Tuesday night. He smiled at me. He fingers went to his pursed lips. I said, no you’re not allowed to in the supermarket. I told him, they have security. He smiled. I told him I had tobacco at home but had overcome the urge to carry it with me. He shook his head and leaned in towards me. He smiled and I thought I heard him inhale. I told him no, no, not me. I smiled and told him that I didn’t carry a crack-pipe. He smiled and said, nmw nmw nmw nmw nw.

You wouldn’t believe me but I was felt-up by a lady senior citizen today. It’s not that I minded so much but I would’ve preferred to have been felt-up by someone born closer to the same decade. She stopped me on Bondi rd. She told me I was a credit to myself as I pushed up the hill. She’d asked so I told her how I wound up being in a wheelchair. I smiled as I talked to her. She liked that. Little white pieces of dried saliva collected at the corners of her mouth as she licked her lips. She couldn’t stop licking her lips. She kept saying, ooh you’re so handsome. I said, no I’m not. She talked about my arms and shoulders and reached out and felt them. She licked her lips again as she told me how developed they were. I told her I had no choice. She licked her lips. I could see a fire in her eyes as she asked me where I lived. I am a dumb man so I told her. Ooh, I live close to you, she said. My face dropped as I realised what I’d done. She asked, so what happened to your legs? I told her about the fall. I told her I was incomplete. I told her my legs were weak. My legs are not as weak as she thought. She bent down and ran her hand, firmly, over my left knee. She started rubbing the inside of my knee and then started travelling up the inside of my leg until she was half a centimetre away from Mr Jolly. I looked up to see her staring at my crotch and licking her lips. It’s a good thing she stopped short of him. If she hadn’t you would have probably have seen me on Sixty Minutes revealing this tale. You would have seen me crying. I am actually ugly.

Andrew Stuart Buchanan