A Million Versions of Right (11 page)

I’m screaming at the top of my lungs to a wall that really doesn’t give a shit. “What the fuck do I have to do to you? What do I have to say? WHY DON’T YOU SCULL A CAN OF ELEPHANT NIPPLES YOU GIANT PIECE OF ELDERLY SHIT, WHY DON’T YOU GO AND BLINK PISS!!!”

My efforts strike me as particularly fruitless. I punch the wall, skinning my knuckles and leaving a streak of blood behind. To my addled mind the blood appears to spell the word
pathetic
and I really have to agree.

The urge to resign from this sham of a job multiplies within me. In the end its pure fear that stops me. The status quo may fill me with hate but there’s something to be said for comfort.

I stare hard at the instrumentation, willing it to fudge a reading. I’m sure dodgy instrumentation accounts for every reading registered by every other employee to date. I seem to have been cursed with instrumentation that refutes Astenberger’s theories even more vehemently than I do. In a way we’re allies in a house of fools. I can’t deny that a large part of me would feel incredibly disappointed if a reading were to occur. I still have some semblance of pride.

I cast my mind back to my psychopathic night spent with the headphones. My mind is far too sleep-deprived and hazy to formulate any meaningful theories. I know what I heard but I won’t discount auditory hallucination, except that Nadia heard it too! She clearly said that she heard it. Unless I was hallucinating Nadia’s reaction too. She may have been saying the exact opposite and I was contorting her words into what I needed to hear, in which case I am the very definition of crazy. She’s probably packed up her bags and left. I’ll arrive home to find that bitch gone with a hurriedly scrawled note in her wake:

Michael,

You make life hell. I’m outta here.

Fuck off and die!

Die! Die! Die! Die!

Sincerely,

Nads

It’s just like that bitch to fuck off when I need her more than ever. She could make it so much better. All she has to say is, “Michael! You’re right, I hear it too. Let’s fuck.” Instead she pisses off with a carload of dirty perverts. She’s telling them the most vulgar lies and the lousy cunts all snigger and fidget while they feel her up en masse.

Breathe Michael, breath
… I feel as if every screw has come loose. I’ve worked myself up into an unbelievably stupid, inane panic. I’m too scared to go home…
but I need her. I need her more than ever. She’s my anchor – she’s an unmoveable calm, devouring my pathetic tumults
. I think my thoughts are trying to kill me.

The walls refuse to respond. Nothing I say is good enough.

* * * * *

The train ride home was wretched. I had to fight the urge to ask strangers what I should be yelling at my walls. There’s a perpetual feeling that everyone knows exactly what to say except me. My decisions are wrong, my choices are wrong – everything I have a hand in is wrong. I anticipated Nadia with equal parts intense need and dread. She wields the power to proclaim me sane or other. 

Approaching my front door I slow down exaggeratedly; like a mime walking against invisible wind. I fumble with the house keys, dropping them on the doorstep. I can only assume this is a deliberate ploy to buy more time. The time I try to buy seems to correlate directly to the creeping dread expanding within me.
I just have to open the fucking door!
The door is a clotted bandaid, which I’ll tear off as fast as possible. I don’t care how much skin it takes.

I step cautiously over the threshold and enter my dimly lit house. The curtains are drawn, only slits of dying sunlight are granted entry. The vibe in this room stings my brain. The walls and furniture seem to cut at Dr. Caligari angles. I pick up on a bread trail of empty, contorted CD cases. I follow the trail through the house, arriving in the bedroom. I’m confronted with the hunched, shivering shadow of Nadia cowering in the corner with strips of daylight cutting searing lines through her body. The image chills me to the bone. I flick the light on, trying to douse myself in the safety of its basking glow. I wish I hadn’t.

Under the stark illumination lie hundreds of horribly shining CDs. The viscera from the empty cases which have led me to this point. I notice ten or so headphones like my own strewn about the refuse. Nadia stares directly into my eyes. She seems lost. Her eyes are choked with thick, jelly-like tears. She’s wearing the headphones. Unseen pressure building within her forces her upright like a tortured jack-in-the-box. She rips the headphones off, throwing them against the wall.

“Babe, what’s wrong?”

“They never cum, Michael! They just keep wanking and wanking but they
never
cum!”

She keeps repeating they never cum, lost in delirium. I take quick, nervous strides toward her and shake her hard by the shoulders.

“Come back to me Nadia. What the fuck is this?” Something registers in her eyes, the light of reason shines.

“I’ve tried every CD in the house. They all do it! I thought perhaps the sounds were coming from the headphones themselves but…”

“…but what, Nadia?”

“They all respond to volume control, track skipping and random play. The wanking stops when the CD stops. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Nadia gestures toward the other headphones with a shaking arm. “I went to the store, the store where I purchased your first set. I got every one they had in stock. None of them do it. It’s just the set I bought for you!”

I stand a while, pondering Nadia’s maniacal words, an uncontrollable smile dances across my face. “You know what this means don’t you, Nadia?”

She stares blankly, I answer for her, “This means that I’m
not
fucking crazy!
You
hear it plain as day. So the only question is, where the hell is this shit coming from?”

“You tell me, Michael! I’ve been asking myself that question all day. I can’t stop listening to it. They NEVER cum!”

I hadn’t thought about it before but Nadia was right. The masturbation was ceaseless without any hint of climax. There was just perpetual momentum; a clockwork toy, winding up without release, without breaking. It was a disturbing thought. Who did these disembodied auditory signals of self-gratification belong to? Why were they being channelled through those headphones? These questions simply led to new questions, like rancid bog bubbles rising to the surface.

Looking at Nadia, wrapped in a blanket and warming her hands with herbal tea, I feel uncontrollably choked with tears. I resent her for breaking down. She’s my rock, Nadia’s not allowed to crumble. Whatever we’ve subjected ourselves to has affected us in a deeply psychological way.

“Nadia?”

She slowly turns her head to face me, waiting for me to continue.

“Let’s fuck.”

After gently placing her herbal tea on the coffee table she crawls on top of me, cocooning us both within her blanket. We claw at each other ferociously, trying to dig deeper into the other’s body. I bury my nose into her raw armpit, allowing the miasma to thrive within me. As we fuck, we cry. Our unstoppable tears intermingling. We thrust in agony, achieving a mutual orgasm, unlike the poor souls in the headphones. Afterward we remain entangled, sobbing and quivering. This is how we remain until morning.

* * * * *

I choose not to shower after I wake up. I’m steeped in Nadia’s scent and I feel safe that way. Nadia returns to sleep on the couch after calling in sick. I’d follow her lead if my position at work wasn’t so vulnerable. I move in for a goodbye kiss, inhaling her morning breath deeply. She smiles warmly at me before drifting back off. I stop to stare at her one last time before leaving for another day of demeaning, disempowering labour.

I arrive at work dishevelled but on time. It appears my next assignment is a residential wall. We don’t usually get residential assignments and the fact I’ve been handed it has me thinking that I’m getting wound down, faded out. Give Michael the ephemeral shit while the
real
employees focus on the commercial walls. I fill out the necessary paperwork and head back to the train station. 

My mobile rings half way through the trip. It’s Mr. Hayes.

“Michael! How are you today?”

“On my way to the job I was assigned, sir. I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

“No rush, no rush. Treat yourself to a nice cup of coffee on the way.”

The smarmy bastard!

“I personally requested you for this job, Michael.”

“You did, sir?” I feel like saying, ‘no shit!’

“Yes I did, Michael. I like you and I would like nothing more than for you to succeed. This residential address is a shoe in!”

“Why’s that, sir?”

“The house I’m sending you to is nearly ninety years old! Those walls have had plenty of time to suck up some emotional waste. You can’t fail. I doubt whether you’ll even have to insult them, just tip your hat. The meter readings will be off the chart!”

“I’m not wearing a hat sir.”

“Michael, you really crack me up! I’ll talk to you soon sport. Don’t disappoint me!”

“I’ll endeavour to do my best s…” He hangs up before I finish the sentence. What a cunt!

I turn into a small residential street lined with large oak trees that form a canopy of sorts. The whole damn place is doused in shade and sickening happiness. The street itself is quite short and I reach my destination in a matter of minutes despite my amble. On the way I step on a dead bird. I consider this an omen, although I can’t decipher it. The house in question certainly looks as old as Mr. Hayes said it was. I half expect him to be waiting inside with a stopwatch saying,
this was a test and you’re late
! I wouldn’t put it past the prick. I pass through a decrepit wooden gate that still holds endless charm despite its decay. The front garden is noticeably overgrown, yet it feels deliberate.

The elderly lady who answers the door smiles warmly before proclaiming, “Astenburger is a wonderful man. Thank you ever so much for coming.”

Great, who else but an Astenburger nut would pay for this sham service?
I keep these thoughts to myself and slide past her fat thighs. The house smells like a holding cell for those about to die. I attempt to enter my ‘professional’ mode, which to my critical ears sounds painfully forced.

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs Webber, I’m Michael. It’s always a delight to meet Astenburger admirers among the general public.”

In my head I envision my clone performing a sloppy operation on me. Afterward my family gather to celebrate my transformation into the world’s most pathetic eunuch.

“My husband and I have been avid followers of Mr. Astenburger for many years now.”

I nod politely. What else can I do?

“Which wall will I be working on today, Mrs Webber?”

She claps her wrinkled hands together joyously. “Follow me! T     his way, this way!”

Mrs Webber has more life and energy at 80 than I’ve ever had. If she dropped into the splits I wouldn’t be surprised. A childish desire to push her over rapes my mind. I slap the thought hard, putting it to rest.

I follow Mrs Webber through a long hallway into a well lit, sparsely furnished room. She gestures to a large wall and begins to reel off her story while I set up the instrumentation. I pay little attention. It takes on the ambience of muzak.

“That wall you’re looking at has quite an incredible history. I’ve lived in this very house since the day I was born. My father built this house with his bare hands. Do you have any idea what dedication such an act entails? Of course you don’t! The younger generations are all impatient and lazy – no offence intended. It’s just that you all want things right away – now! You’re all more willing to pay someone else to do the job for you than to do it yourself. That’s all by the by I suppose.

“My father, god bless him, lost something in that wall. My father was obsessed with limes, had been ever since he was a nipper, or so I’m told. He had a tree out back in his childhood home. He loved that dear tree. He was never happier than when he was harvesting limes. He was involved in a never-ending search for the perfect lime. At least he thought his search would be never-ending. Shortly before the construction of this house began he ventured to the very same lime tree from childhood for one last harvest. Like a gift from god he saw it – the perfect lime! Did he snatch it up? Yes, indeed he did! In the weeks leading up to the construction of this house, he wouldn’t be seen without that lime in his proud, working man’s hands.