Waiting for John

#1

2500-04-19T19:56:00.000+01:00

It rained this afternoon. I sat in the green chair with my back to the window listening to each drop. Drop... drop... drop... drop... and it just went on like that. At one point I thought about getting up and going down to the shops but it finally seemed too much effort. There is nothing worse than counting flies in wet clothes. At 16.06 a car sloshed by. I tried to imagine who could have been in it. I think a lot of things like that. My mind is always very active, but there is some chemical missing that translates those thoughts into actions. Once I sat for three days looking at the fridge. I tried to imagine everything that was in it and what that looked like from the inside. Then I started playing games where I’d like move things around mentally and completely disturb the arrangement. Then I wondered why is a fridge 8 – 10 degrees in the vegetable container and what would be the worst thing I could put there. At one stage I even thought about the freezer and what the ice cubes did when the lights were out. How the frost must so ever so slowly form crystal layers.

John has been gone 4 days now.... 4 miserable days and I doubt he will ever return. He said that I was a “grey patch in his life”, that he was tired of sitting there watching me watching things and sleeping. He said I would have made a “good stone”. Those were his exact words.

#2

2499-04-22T20:07:00.000+01:00

The leaves are back on the trees. On the silver birch outside there are 3043 and more come through each day. Sometimes I stare at that tree and see if I spot a new leaf forming but I never do. I go to bed and when I wake up there’s another one. It’s a mystery. Life is a mystery. Sometimes.

I blocked the toilet up today. Absolutely on purpose. I stuffed three and a half rolls of that cheap pink paper down and then some newspaper and then took a turd on top. Then I flushed the chain and watched as the water rose up to the rim. I flushed it again and again until my bathroom was swimming in shit. Yeah, it smelt quite awful but with the door locked and sealed it’s not too bad in the bedroom. I suppose tomorrow I’ll have to clean it up. No news from John.... I hope he’s dead. I couldn’t bear being abandoned.

#3

2498-04-25T20:27:00.000+01:00

Woke up this morning and laid in bed until I ached. I read all the medical inserts that I keep piled up on the little table. Apparently Ibuprofen can make your head and legs and cock swell up! I often wish that I was one of these people that always suffered terrible side-effects from over-the-counter products. It’s sad, I don’t even have that ability. Though if I did I would plan natural costumes. For example, on Halloween I’d take 6 Ibus to bloat my head up. Rub on some Camoline lotion to bring my skin out in sores and blisters. a couple of Aspirin to make my eyes bulge and a packet of Hayfever pills for muscle spasms. That’d be fun. I’d just sit around at parties dying and then go home.

Cleaned the bathroom up. 17 seperate pieces of turd washed across 98 tiles. Toilet still blocked and swimming so I triple bagged the shit and laid it with the rest of the rubbish. I’ll take it to the steel bins later. There's a choice of 9 around here.

I’ve not been invited down to the morgue for a viewing and so I suppose HE is alive and somewhere out there. Then I am sad but I am hopeful sad.

#4

2497-04-26T18:19:00.000+01:00

I received an email from Verity today. Apparently John has booked himself into The Maudsley. He has had some kind of a breakdown and says it is my fault. She writes that John is permanently restless and just lays on the bed waiting... waiting... waiting to want to do something. He says he got that from me and wants me completely bleached out of his head. Maybe John even said “we didn’t move more than 15 metres in 6 months!” or “microwave clocks run two seconds slower than normal clocks.” Maybe he even said that I was “life decomposing” a kind of “human compost heap”. I enjoy imagining the things that maybe John would say. When I do that it somehow feels like he is still here.

#5

2496-04-27T08:36:00.000+01:00

I made it out this morning. It is the first time in 9 days. I tossed my bin-bag of turds and picked a little bit of the galvinised paint from the steel bin. Later I’ll upload a photo of it and see how many shades of grey it comprises. I can spot 9 by eye. Though I’m not quite sure if silver is grey?

There was an old woman walking down the road. She wore a beige surgical stocking around her swollen left ankle and had one of those metal frames. It kinda looked like she’d taken the garden gate with her. I walked on the other side of the pavement and matched her halfstep for halfstep. It took us 45 minutes to move 100 yards. Why was she perservering? For what purpose? Her stubborness was irritating, her refusal to stop completely and give up. It’s people like me that have to watch people like her... that have to be reminded of what the future holds. It’s dismal, I tell you. The future is dismal.

#6

2495-04-28T14:11:00.000+01:00

There were three flies in the room today. One had purplish green wings and the other two were just black and hairy. Flies are strange. They never touch each other. Once John said “You’re like a fly.” We were both on the bed and staring up at the ceiling. “Only you don’t move.” I didn’t give a reaction though my soul was shedding tears. Whats that supposed to mean? Why is he being so cruel?. When he said that he was laying with his arms behind his head and an extremely sensitive hard-on. I still didn’t move.

My mother called this afternoon. No doubt to make sure I hadn’t thrown myself out the ground floor window again. That’s my fake suicide trick... my cry for attention. Where others cut their wrists with dessert spoons I fling myself from pathetically low heights. Still, as I never answered the phone I wouldn’t know if it was that or if it were to squeeze a little lemon juice in my wounds. Jesus, if it wasn’t for her John could very well have been Joan and this mess would never have existed.

#7

2494-04-29T00:44:00.000+01:00

The handle on the living room door isn’t straight. I’ll have to inform the landlord about that. I enjoy door handles but they completely throw my day off if they are not perfectly level. My favourite door handles are not handles at all. They are knobs made of polished brass.

Later I will buy some fish. Not tin or frozen fish, live swimming fish. I’ve started coming down with terrible migraines from hours spent staring at my screensaver and figure that some pond life might work a little better.

I had a goldfish once. It never swam, just kinda hung there looking angry and watching me watch it. After about 8 weeks John made a sudden leap of energy, emptied it out on the floor and squished it into the carpet like he was scrunching out a cigarette. Equally crushed, I curled myself up, turned to the wall and cried. Silently, but there were certainly tears.

#7.5

2493-04-29T13:21:00.000+01:00

“My grandmother just had a voicebox fitted, how COOL is that!” I actually heard someone say this as I lay there with my ear to the wall listening in on the world outside.

#8

2492-04-30T04:07:00.000+01:00

The landlord said “That’s how it is... there’s nothing I can do about it!” He said not to bother him with such trivialities again. Will it be a triviality when I don’t pay my rent? Bombard him with nuisance calls threatening to rape and kill him! Open the sewage outlet into the apartment and then hand the keys back after three months. It won’t be so trivial then! Though of course I’ll pay the rent... all pathetic losers do.

The pet shop only had one goldfish. I took that and to keep it company I also bought a blue and yellow sea slug. I christened the fish ‘Jaws’ and the slug I didn’t even bother naming, just dropped it in the bowl and let it sink to the bottom. By noon it was back at the top, floating on the surface absolutely dead. Apparently it needed to be housed in a proper aquarium in waters ranging between 8 – 14 degrees. I’m not sure what one must do with dead sea slugs, so I scooped it out, wrapped it in cling film and then buried it in the window box. For the moment it’s just Jaws and I.

#9

2491-05-01T05:08:00.000+01:00

I’m suffering from insomnia again. I lay awake all night focusing on obscure shapes in the dark and listening to the wind. Finally at 4.23am I surrendered and dragged myself naked into the kitchen. I sat crossed legged on the floor with a glass of milk and a straw. “So this is what the mentally ill do!” I thought... then I decided on an early morning sight test.

From my store box marked 'D.I.Y Health Checks' I dug out my old Snellen Eye Chart and Blu-Tac’d it to the living room door. Standing at the end of the hallway, covering an eye, I began shouting out the letters. “E! T! P! O! E!...” By the sixth line things were getting a little blurred and by the seventh it resembled dyslexic Greek. I think that means I have deteriorated another notch; that I need glasses. John had glasses. John looked just like Elvis Costello.

* * *

“There he is!” I said, my right eye tight against the spy glass. The postman had just come into view and was gradually making his way down the odd side of the street. When he disappeared from sight I counted to 66 then waited for him to stroll by. But not this time. He stopped right outside, took a letter from a separate pile, looked from letter to door... letter to door, and then turned into the yard. I watched his face deform as he got real close. “BRRrrrrrrrIINNNNGGG”. Shit! I felt like I'd been caught; that if I opened the door now he’d realize I’d been obsessively watching him for these past months. So I kinda crouched down below the letter box and remained there like that holding my breath and praying he’d go away. “BRRRRRINNNNNNG!!!!” “BRRRRRINNNG!!!!” This guy was a professional. On all fours, I ever so quietly reversed, and with my hand over my mouth I shouted “Coming!”

Standing outside in a pair of tight shorts and a smile that was a little too happy for the day, the Postman gave me a small pink letter. Next he handed over a machine which looked like something used to print losing lottery tickets. For a moment I thought that was also for me. But no, apparently I was obliged to sign its little oblong touchscreen. I did, though very badly, as since opening the door my damaged eyes somehow, and independently of my brain, kept finding their way to the Postman’s crotch. All of a sudden I had perfect 20/20 vision.

A losing lottery ticket? Possibly. It was a letter from John. I laid it down unopened on the coffee table and just sat staring at it. Maybe, just maybe, he was coming home.

#10

2490-05-02T14:29:00.000+01:00

John is not coming home, at least not in the foreseeable future. He is a very ill man. I have the proof of that here, scribbled across four pieces of cheap pink toilet paper:

So you was hoping I was DEAD!?

You deserve everything your conscience FUCKING brings you.

YOU FUCKING SHIT FLY!

You...

“Human Compost heap!”

‘Human. Compost. Heap.’ Those were MY words. Words I had only imagined John would MAYBE say. And now he has said them. But that doesn’t mean I have some great insight into the man or his nature. That I observed and studied him so meticulously during our years together that I can now second guess his every thought. I can’t. What it means is quite simple: John is reading this blog.

I'm terrified. Since early yesterday evening I’ve been sitting by the window and peering out through the tiny gap I purposely left between the curtains. I know I have certainly ruined everything, but that’s the least of my concerns right now. I have the distinct feeling that John is out there and is watching me. That he’s biding his time and planning something very nasty. And I’m not alone with this thought. Jaws has remained burrowed in the sand at the bottom of his bowl all day. He feels it too.

#11

2489-05-03T12:23:00.000+01:00

I sat picking the little chips of wood out the wallpaper. Got a splinter under the nail of my index finger and now it’s all gone red and sore. Still, I managed to pick enough off to make the shape of a face and a pair of glasses. Tomorrow I’ll put the nose and mouth in. It’s a nervous thing. It’s what I do whilst waiting to have my skull bashed in.

At just gone twelve I phoned Verity. She answered in her happy singing northern accent. She always sounds like she can only ever receive good news. I disguised my voice the best I could :
“Hiya, you deserve everything your conscience brings you... you Fucking Shitfly!” Then I just hung there listening. Waiting for the phone to go dead. It never did.
“Tristram, is that you? If it isn’t there’s someone in your flat making twisted telephone calls to me!”
(Shit! Can’t I do anything without getting caught.) “Errr, Yeah it’s me... YOU FUCKING SHITFLY!” I screamed. And then as sweet and as predictable as she is, Verity said the words I’d been wanting to hear. “I think this means you need help. I’m coming over.”

And that’s just it. That was my point. Anyone who says such things does need help. Real intense psychotherapy type help. John needs help. That’s so obvious now.

#12

2488-05-04T04:24:00.000+01:00

I’ve just finished reading the No.42 bus schedule from 1978. Of course I’ve read that before but had forgotton many of the off-peak arrival times. The number 42 is the bus I would take if I were to go and visit John in the hospital. Though me being allowed to visit John in hospital has about as much chance of happening as waking up with fanny on my face.

There was fanny in the kitchen yesterday. Four full hours of it in the form of Verity. She arrived with some homeopathic calmants and a soggy piece of carrot and ginger cake. She was all cold and smelt of fresh air and life. To make her position between John and I easier she has laid down a few guidelines:

She will ONLY inform me of John’s health and mental condition.
She will NOT be used as a comment form to pass on any personal or hateful messages.
She will NOT have me use her number as an alternative to the Samaritans. (Apparently I have my mother for that.)
She WILL tell John exactly the same.

As she was carefully stressing her rules I sat picking my sore finger and staring vacantly at the fliptop bin. I’ve always enjoyed lists but guidelines, no. And certainly not ones as controlling as that. I was silently furious. Each time she turned around to pour a fresh coffee I couldn’t help pulling faces and cursing her under my breath. Once she spun back around unexpectedly and caught me grimacing and giving her an under-arm salute. God, I just wish she would have committed to my side of the fence. That we could have sat around for 4 hours criticising John and agreeing on how screwed up and dangerous he is. Instead we discussed her new herb garden and how difficult it is growing Thai basil in South East London.

Insomnia still reigns, but at least I manage to get a few hours of tormented sleep each night. Tomorrow I will meet Steve and hopefully that will force me to freshen up and put a little powder on my arse. It is over a week since I last shaved or showered and I’m actually beginning to look like a man who is Waiting for John.

#13

2487-05-05T02:17:00.000+01:00

Met Steve over coffee and tears. He looked just like Dad did after coming around from 8 hours of open heart surgery... only more miserable. Yesterday he caught his brother coming out his wife’s bedroom with no trousers on. He said he’s such a coward for confrontation that he just smiled and said “Hiya Dave, you been here long?” But actually he’s utterly broken.

Steve is my best straight friend. Well straight(ish), because there was that incident in Barry’s nightclub where after 12 Gin & Tonics his cock somehow ended up in my mouth. But that was a discrepancy and I’m sure Saint Peter will forgive him that minor indiscretion.

Steve is also a Spammer. He masquerades as a Ghanaian princess and sends out 1000’s of emails a day. That’s how I first met him. He was hitting my mail box with spam two or three times a week, and as I do everyone, I replied. For over 6 months he kept up the pretence. Then one day he mailed revealing himself and asking if I’d like to meet up. As I sat trying to figure out whether he was queer or not he admitted never having been in a West African Embassy, that his father wasn’t black, but that the plane crash which he never died on was quite real. Of course, by that time he was in possession of all Johns banking and credit card details. That he never used them told me a lot about him. But not of his honesty or integrity, nor even that he had a conscience. No, it was something much more human than all of that. It told me that beneath his virtual tiara, and behind his non-existent fortune, he was just as lonely as me. Now how could I reject that?

Steve agrees that I must be very cautious where John is concerned. He said he read a story like this once where an ex-lover lost his mind and cut the other mans dick off in an underground car park. He cannot understand why I still want John back. No-one can. But the fact is I love him, and as we all know, love is not a rational emotion.

#13.5

2486-05-05T23:15:00.000+01:00

"Fuck, that hurts!" I groaned standing in the bathroom and pressing both my eyes in with my thumbs. I kept the pressure on until there was a pain in the forefront of my brain and then released. At first all was black and then red and then everything looked like it does after coming in from the afternoon sun. Only not orange, yellow... dull, deathly, empty, 40 watt bulb type yellow.

I popped another homeopathic calmant in my mouth, sucked for 57 seconds and then crunched.

#14

2485-05-06T14:10:00.000+01:00

I've been watching Jaws all morning. He's a very lively fish, always on the move. I'm glad I have him but he kinda makes me sad.

Growing up there used to be a fish stool on the corner ever Sunday afternoon. I was dragged along as my parents choose their delicacies. I'd hide behind mum holding onto her pleated skirt whilst peeking a look at octopus tentacles packed in ice and boxes of crabs piled up and dying.

Back home I'd lay the table. It was the only occasion we ever ate together. My father would sit there slurping oysters with mum across from him sucking on jellied eels. That was sex for them. I’d sit in the middle with a single prawn on my plate, trying to bring it back to life. When I realized it wasn’t happening I’d tear it’s head off, pop its eyes and squeeze its slushy brains out. I don’t like prawns. They remind me of loneliness.

#15

2484-05-07T05:59:00.000+01:00

I've spent the last few hours burrowing through my wardrobe trying to decide on what to wear for my big interview. I've tried everything, even a pair of frayed denim shorts and a tight pink t-shirt. Though finally I decided on classic black and white. One cannot go wrong with black and white. It's smart and stylish and professional.

Having settled on colour the following big decision was “underwear or not?” I decided not. Next up was the shirt. I went with my plain white C&A one. It was a little crumpled and the neck was slightly grubby, but no matter as it would be covered anyhow. I gave it a healthy spray of lavender air freshener, pulled it on and buttoned it up to the collar. My trousers I took straight from the wash basket. They were a little damp, a little loose, but not too bad. I slipped into them being careful not to catch my bollocks in the zip. Socks I had to do without as they've all mysteriously disappeared. For shoes I stepped into a pair of classic leather monk-straps. They were actually brand new and ignoring my naked ankles poking out each side looked pretty smart. All then that remained was the jacket. As I only own one it wasn't too difficult a choice. After a twenty minute panic I eventually found it balled up and crusty in the corner of the bedroom. At first I thought slugs had been in the room again and then I remembered I had used it to wipe up after my last wanking session... The one where I had released two weeks of built up frustration in a full 27 second climax. I unstuck the arm from the breast, picked and scratched the dried sperm off as best I could and then pulled it on tight in an attempt to straighten it out.

Ok, it could have all been better, but still it was no tragedy. I peered down at myself and I actually thought I looked pretty cool. I was up for this. I was gonna get that fucking job and turn my situation around. But then I turned around, and in the ¾ length mirror I caught a sight of my reflection and had to do a double take. Staring back at me was not Tristram Spencer, but rather some wretched bum who looked like he'd just got lucky in the morgue. I raised my left arm, then my right and watched in horror as each time he followed suit. There could be no mistake about it; I was looking at myself. I collapsed down on the bed, and in my crumpled, oversized and spunk stained clothes I started sobbing. It was my lowest point yet, and what's worse, I smelt like my grandmother's toilet.

It's now 4.43 am, the world outside is closed and I never really had a job interview anyway. All I ever wanted was a reason to forget.

#16

2483-05-09T17:42:00.000+01:00

Sunday. Sun Day. S U N - D A Y.

Of course it's raining. On my street anyway. Ferocious, vile, lashing rain and my dismal face looking out into it from behind cheap double glazed windows. I wonder if anyone realizes I am real and not some kind of alabaster gargoyle... a permanent fixture that lurks morosely behind drizzled glass. That's what I feel like. A freakshow. The window that kids creep past as a dare. Making up myths and tales about me. When I was young it was Bubbles' house. He was a thirty year old man-child with a thick tongue. “Allo, boys!” He'd dribble, waving. Well, now I am Bubbles. Just standing here, gormlessly looking out into the void. Still, at least I can cry and no-one will notice... unless they think about the window and my face through the streams that is.

I went twelve minutes fifty three seconds without blinking. In all that time I didn't think of John once. Maybe I should never blink again.

#17a

2482-05-10T10:57:00.000+01:00

This was my dream last night. I think it may be significant...

#17b

2481-05-11T00:56:00.000+01:00

It's almost 1am and I sit alone in the pitch dark. There are no shadows because there is no light. Outside nothing moves and nothing stirs. The city is so terribly quiet, like no other night in history. There is no wind, no blowing tin cans and no echoes from high-heeled shoes. The bars are all closed and the drunks have all gone home. All that exists is Me, and so tonight I will have a conversation with myself. The answers will be in the silence, for Silence is always the truth. John, this is all for you... and it always only ever was.

“My name is Tristram Alan Spencer. I am 31 years old.”

Nothing stirs.
Silence is always the truth. I listen to the silence.

“I grew up in London between two unloving parents. All I ever wanted was affection.”

The world remains a hush.

“I done well at school, though could have done better. My main preoccupation wasn't with Thomas Hardy but rather our slender narrator Mr. Farrel-Jones. I willingly gave him a blowjob in the book-store cupboard.”

There's not a murmur, and silence is always the truth.

“At 17, so drunk I couldn't walk, I was raped by two men in a Soho nightclub. After falling through the emergency exit, the police found me face down in the street with my pants hanging off my ankles. I was covered in blood, cum and shame.”

A woman laughs, trees whisper and a dog lets bark.

“I am a good man. I am a bad man. I am an honest man. I am a crook.”

Life's orchestra sits mute.

“27 days ago I wandered into a storm. In those winds and rain I lost the only person I have ever loved. He was a man with angel wings who took me far away. World, I need to know this night: will he ever take me away again? Will his magic soon return?"

I wait for Hell to erupt but the cymbals do not crash.
Silence is always the truth. I listen to the silence.

“My Charming Man, I now turn to you. It's a dark black night, but through it we can make history. Hear me now and answer with no words. John, do you still love me? John, did you ever once?”

The wind whips up and in the distance alarms ring out. My eyes blink wet and I want this night to end. I will surely suffer until the end of time.

#18

2480-05-12T18:26:00.000+01:00

I booked an appointment with Dr Dennis for tomorrow afternoon. I need something to help me pass the nights better. The homeopathic calmants that Verity put me onto are about as helpful as Smarties. I need sledgehammer blows in capsules, not extracts of Piss-the-Beds. I tried to schedule the rendez-vous for an exact hour and minute, but the secretary was having none of it. “Morning or afternoon, Mr Spencer?” she murmured, sounding utterly bored by the fuss people dying make. I don't like people calling me Mr Spencer, it makes me feel like I'm in the bank. “The afternoon” I said “I may be dead in the morning.”

After the doctor I phoned mum. I sat there picking the lint out my belly button as she babbled on about water retention, or worse, the opposite. I don't know why, but without fail, after 5 minutes of speaking to my mother I always need to empty my bowels. Today was no different. “Excuse me mum, I need a shit.” I interrupted before closing the phone dead. That's how every call since I left home at 18 has ended.

John's been visiting the blog again. I didn't want to mention it yesterday so as not to give him the satisfaction of having got to me. But he did get to me, it's been plaguing my every thought. Under post #16 he left a series of ten trailing comments culminating in a threat to cut my eyelids off! Of course it gets more worrying, but in a bizarre way I also took a pleasure from it... just knowing I am somewhere in his thoughts. I would much rather be abused and killed by him than ignored or forgotten. His silence would hurt me much more than his threats. I know that's a very selfish thought, but love is selfish. When it comes down to it, it's the most selfish thing in the world.

#19

2479-05-13T22:17:00.000+01:00

I have just returned from the doctor's and am sitting here reading the information insert from the pack of amitryptalin I've been prescribed. Though I'm lucky I have anything at all. I'm lucky I even saw the doctor.

When I arrived just shy of 2pm and announced my name, the secretary's jaw dropped. “Is this some kind of a joke?” she asked, looking at me as if I were a ghost.
“These?” I asked pulling up at the paisley pyjama bottoms I was wearing.
“No, err... hang on a minute, Mr. Spe....” And with that she jumped up and was gone. A moment later she retuned with a half running Dr Dennis. Peering in at me with a squinted bushy eyebrow, he exclaimed: “Mr Spencer? Good grief, you're alive!”

It turned out that my brother had phoned the surgery this very morning and had told the secretary I had passed away during the night. Understandably my appointment had been scratched. “Asphyxiated. Naked, with a bag over your head...” muttered the secretary turning her eyes to the ground. “But why on earth would your brother make up such a thing. It's pretty bizarre isn't it?”

Pretty bizarre indeed. Especially as don't I have a brother. What could have been one was miscarried 2 months into the pregnancy. Mother farting his prawn-like foetus out into a steel Mcdonald's toilet. Along with the wrapper from a cheese burger he was flushed into history in 1976. So, it's quite unlikely to have been him.

No, my reported death was the work of someone much more formed than that. Someone with a grudge, a heart of vengeance and a twisted desire to unsettle me. Someone deranged, confined and hateful. Someone I used to know as John.

#20

2478-05-14T22:55:00.000+01:00

Whenever I'm depressed or in pain I masturbate. I'm never so sexually charged as when I'm suicidal. Wanking is a cure for mental illness and toothache. It should be prescribed free on the NHS.

#21 Celebrity Suicide Notes - Julia Roberts

2476-05-16T02:02:00.000+01:00

Dear John,

What was once a world of love and light has now morphed into something beyond description. All I can say for certain is that it is black. Even darker. I cannot and do not want to go on any more.

My career and beauty is failing me and I will not be one of these celebrities that waltz around town horrendously sagging and falling to pieces. I've tried surgery but all that seems to do is pause one's features in time, whilst death seeps out through the pores.

It's very hard to believe that just under 10 years ago I was lifting up an Academy Award and now I have to beg and suck to get a minor cameo as a post-menopausal grandmother. I will not sink to those lengths. I will not sink to my knees... not anymore. Not at my age.

I regret all my marriages, even my current one. When the doors are closed Daniel is an absolute monster; possessed with jealousy and rage. It really is like “Sleeping with the Enemy”! The ONLY man I do not regret is YOU. John, my friend unto the grave.

With my drinking now at a stupendous level and with drunken sex-tapes soon to surface I can only escape in a more permanent way. I am taking the emergency exit outta here. haha.

Although I do not remember any of my pregnancies, I have come to cherish my three boys. If I miss anything I will miss them (and you of course.)

John, maybe if the world was more like you I would have struggled on until the end. But it is not. Unfortunately, the world is a callous, sick and plastic place. Behind the glitz is nothing but shit.

I am not sad, or ill, or depressed. I am not even particularly suicidal. I just want to be dead. That's all. It's no more serious than that.

As with everything I have ever done in my life, I will carry this out with the upmost professionalism. I WILL get the part! (laugh)

Please ensure I do not have an open coffin.

I want to be cremated.

Kiss the boys goodbye & take good care of yourself.

John I Love You.

Julia R.
XXX

#22

2475-05-17T18:12:00.000+01:00

I think jaws is scared of me. Every time my shadow passes over his bowl he recoils and descends down low. Just freezes there like that. He thinks that by not moving he cannot be seen. But I can see him. I can see very well. It's almost as if he can sense a great storm is on its way.

#23a

2474-05-18T01:14:00.000+01:00

The last time I received good news was Tuesday 21st October 1986. On that occasion it was a letter on the dining room table containing my provisional bicycle certificate and a badge. “RSA Approved!” it beamed above a huge blue tick. Since then my letterbox, telephone and email has existed for no other purpose than allowing misery an easy entrance into my life. Today was no exception.

“Hmmm” I said, dragging the telephone receiver into bed and under the covers with me.
“Tristram it's Verity. Now you mustn't hang up, this is serious! It's John, he's gotten a whole lot worse.” At those words I sat bolt upright under the blanket; it smelt of stale sperm. “Worse?" I asked "In what way? I didn't think he could get ANY worse!” I heard the flick of a lighter then the feint kiss of lips as she withdrew her cigarette and inhaled. Through a lungful of smoke, she calmly said “He's turned orange.”

#23b

2473-05-18T11:24:00.000+01:00

Of course John hasn't literally turned 'orange', it's a term used in the hospital for patient classification. 'Orange' refers to patients who are:

...experiencing violent outbursts or thoughts.
...considered a danger to themselves or to others.
...withdrawn, irrational and extremely uncooperative.
...displaying signs of extreme psychotic behaviour: hallucinations (audio or visual); excessive self-harm; uncontrollable sexual impulses; self-defecation; nodding along in agreement with Fred Phelps.

Well, that's the official explanation, though what it really means is that John's a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. It also means that he won't be out anytime soon; not of his own accord anyhow. Going from yellow to “orange” removes the liberty to sign oneself out. John is now confined under the mental health act. He's actually been certified insane.

#24

2472-05-21T00:27:00.000+01:00

For two days now there's been road works outside the apartment. Horrendous drilling and scraping sounds wake me up and then terrorize me. From the letter box I've watched the entire proceedings.

A young fit worker in yellow safety helmet and goggles vibrates away to the rhythm of his drill. He's looks like he's on a motorbike which isn't going anywhere. After five minutes of intense muscle therapy he slams the drill down in the dirt, removes his helmet and raises his goggles. He gives his forehead and hair a slow sexy swipe as if he's being photographed coming out the sea. For a moment he just stands there looking like the ultimate queer superhero. Then he pulls his goggles back down, adjusts them and fixes his helmet back on his head. With a huff, he tears the drill out the earth, slams it back down and once again trembles away . Except for two ten minute pauses and an hour long lunch break he remains there like that for 8 hours a day. All that changes is he gradually sinks. Soon he will be completely gone, just a noise coming out the ground. And even that will eventually stop. It all reminds me of the first time I ever met John...

#25

2471-05-21T23:13:00.000+01:00

Monday 4th February 2008 was a dull day. The sky was the colour of a cataract eye. The priest read hurriedly as strong winds lashed and battered him. He fought to keep a hold of his book as if the Devil himself was trying to tear it from his grip. Anything that wasn't bound or nailed down was strewn across the cemetery paths. Flowers, newspaper, small urns and memorial cards. Just as the body was being lowered into the ground, the skies opened up and the heavens fell. Large splodges of rain thudded against the disappearing walnut coffin and sounded like a beautiful bass drum. It was at that moment when even the tough men at the back crumbled and let their emotions run. Twenty four streaming faces and each one dressed in black.

As the other mourners slowly broke up and trailed away I remained with my head bowed sobbing uncontrollably. It was his shoes I saw first. New, immaculately polished black Italian leathers. Without even following them, I knew they would lead to someone very smart and very classy. One can just tell.

“Did you know him well?” he asked standing alongside me and looking down in the hole.
“Well??? I didn't know him at all” I replied “I saw the crowd of mourners and my natural reaction was to join them.” He kinda snorted a tragic smile and said: “I'm John, Luke's younger brother.” And then I did look up, and I knew my world was going to change.

“Your arse is quite hairy” I told John, looking into the second hole of the day. “I don't normally go for that, but yours is different. It's even eatable.”
“You mean edible!” he laughed, parting his legs a little.
“Maybe that as well” I said
“John?”
“uh-huh?”
“A hard on and white tennis socks just don't go. It's ridiculous. But it kinda looks good on you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Really, REALLY!” I said, working my tongue under the left sock and pushing it down.
“ John?”
“Hmm?”
“How did Luke die? Was it a terrible car accident where his head got pushed right down into his chest cavity? Young people normally die like that. Something really macabre. Is that how Luke went?”
John kinda woke from his state of arousal and slowly turned his head. For the first time I saw that look in his face that wondered “Who the fuck is this guy?” and “Is he dangerous?”
“You mean you REALLY didn't know him? I thought you was joking!”
“It was no joke John. I'm a tragic figure. Tristram is from old French, it means sadness. Now, would you like me to put my fist in your arse?”
John rolled over and parted his legs wide. He looked like a beetle on it's back. “Cancer,” he moaned scrunching his eyes up as if in pain “it runs in the family.”

Since that day we never really parted. What time we didn't pass together we spent mailing, texting or masturbating via webcams. We walked around with hard-ons in Paris, Prague and Milton Keynes. Then on the 29th of the month, both of us jammed into a supermarket toilet, he said: “Tristram Spencer, now I don't care what you say, I'm moving in!” And with those words, sex gave over to another joy; the joy of being wanted. I flung myself around him in relief, clinging on like a child with my face pressed tightly into his stomach. It was love, and there wasn't a drop of sperm in sight.

#26

2470-05-23T04:26:00.000+01:00

Modern business is a con! A well arranged, safely stacked, two for one swindle. And what's worse it's carried out at eye-level. Of course, we all know that, but now I have proof of it.

MORRISONS till receipt 27/6/2004

Instant Mash potato mix ......................£1.64
Long life UHT milk   .............................£0.99
Chicken Soup x 4 ...............................£1.98
Rabbit & gravy dog food*......................£0.89
   *2 for 1
Tuna in jelly cat food*..........................£0.78
   *2 for 1
No thrills Tomato ketchup .....................£0.72
Pink Toilet Paper x 6. ...........................£1.49

Total ..............................................£9.27

£9.27! Well according to my calculation it should have been £8.49! I was overcharged 0.78p. And that wasn't the only till receipt showing up an indiscretion. There are at least three others (although not quite as extreme) and I've only verified the last six years at present. Come first light Monday morning I'll be outside Morrisons with my vintage Casio FX-450 calculator. I'll catch the manager on his way in. The last time he stumbled past and I mistook him for a dosser off to take a shit in the doorway. I won't be fool to that ruse twice.

One shaft of light through my increasingly black existence is that the tranquillizers seem to be working. Last night I passed a full eight hours of sleep and there wasn't a single wheelchair dream to be had. Maybe this is the beginning of the 'turnaround'? Maybe Tristram Spencer is on the mend?

#27 Celebrity Suicide Notes - Elton John

2469-05-23T23:58:00.000+01:00

My Darling John,

It is with tremendous sadness that I leave you this note, but I am devoid of the courage necessary to bear this bad wind out. I am not an Iron man (not in that way) I never was nor would I ever want to be. All I am is a potato with a hole, plucked from the dirt and fucked for over half a century. John, if any one will understand that, you will. My Sweetheart, it's all become way too very much. Sorry.

Two full bottles of Babycham... I've downed the lot. Knocked them back from a long cocktail glass, the bubbles tumbling over the rim as if in orgasmic celebration. What a majestic sentiment... even my own poison celebrates my departure. But, I've laughed. Dear have I just! On this last night I've laughed at the pathetic, squeaky, shapeless shit I've become. Sitting here naked, letting it all hang out, my belly at least saving me the sight of my pitiful little willy that shrivelled away into grey pub(l)ic hair years ago. I've half the world's fortune in my bank, but it means nothing when your own skin repels others. Even less when it repels yourself.

A bald glitter queen! Can you imagine that shame? No, of course you can't. When I finally remedied my genetic handicap I had the figure and shape of Sponge-bob... I became ever more ridiculous. The world wants pathetic celebrities... it needs them. It was by looking at me that millions each morning happily traipsed into factory's or blackened themselves under cars for 12 hours a day. Relieved by the fact that at least they were not ME! I could have been a mechanic... I should have been anything but Elton Sparklin' Shit John! What a terrible and outrageous waste of space.

John, It will not be pretty. I will not leave a clean mess behind. I'm gonna stuff my arse full of pearls and hundred dollar bills, then do a swan dive from the top of the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel here in Atlanta. I want to leave the authorities a huge clean-up operation. A dark red splodge of brains, shit and blood, scattered for miles around. It'll not be much different from what I done in life.

Well, the drinks are gone now, lights gradually blink off all over town and one last sleepy classic drifts out into the night. I think it's time for me to go.

My parting wish is this: I hope my impact with the earth will smash the shell of Elton clean from around my body; I do not want to die as that man. I desire it so as when they scoop me up and finally rearrange all the pieces, that instead of an A-list celebrity patched together on the slab, it will instead be the bland, boring, unimportant body of Mr Reginald Kenneth Dwight. A nobody from Pinner without a hope in the world.

I love You My Sweet Darling John.... FUCK this shit of a life!

XX R. K. D XX

#28

2468-05-24T11:23:00.000+01:00

It's Monday and it's noon. I never went to Morrisons to confront the manager and I never will. Like the rest of this dismal world I am passive. I see the injustices, am a victim of them, yet do absolutely nothing about them. Not a phone call, not a letter, not a signature or sound. I just absorb the abuse and slowly rot away. Though maybe that's not so bad? Maybe dying in silence is the greatest statement any man can make?

#29

2467-05-25T14:36:00.000+01:00

It's been a day of telephone calls. First Steve(12 mins 42s); then Mum (4mins 59s); then Verity (7 mins 21s) and finally the doctor (2 minutes 03 seconds).

Steve brings more grief. He's convinced his wife and brother are planning to run away together. Apparently he overheard a late night telephone conversation between the two of them. His wife was drunk and naked in the bathroom, crying hysterically into the cordless phone. He said that when she finally emerged, she looked like “a charcoal sketch that had been left out in the rain.” I had the distinct feeling he was lingering on, waiting for me to suggest we meet or that he comes over. I didn't. The last thing I need right now is a Princess with a tragedy.

Mum, well it pains me just typing out those three letters. There's really not much more to be said there. Though at least she didn't hang on long enough to influence a bowel movement.

As per usual, Verity huffed a lot of hot wind down the phone. Then just as I was about to lay the receiver on its side and go and do something interesting, she said: “I've news concerning John! Good news. I think there could be a breakthrough!” Of course, she also has this thing about never revealing good news over the phone and so she used that as a way of inviting herself around for dinner on Friday. That means I'll need to do a shop. All that's in the fridge at the moment is one shrivelled Weiner sausage and a vegetable box full of mould. That she's vegan will put my culinary skills to the test. From what I understand it means she only eats cardboard.

The call to Dr Dennis actually started out as a joke. I sometimes do that, make prank calls to the emergency services. I was intending to send him out somewhere across London to resuscitate a man who died three years ago. But after the first word that left my mouth the secretary blurted: “Oh, Mr. Spencer! you must be phoning concerning the renewel of your prescription. It's for tomorrow isn't it?” I listened as she tapped her pencil along each calender square, counting. “YYEESS” we both said at the same time. I stopped to allow her to go.
“Shall I go?” she giggled.
Me: Silence
“Mr Spencer???”
Me: “FFFrrrrpppp”
“...Er, ok then..” she faltered, completely unaware I had just farted down the line “Yes, we're quite correct, it is for tomorrow. Now what would you prefer, morning or afternoon?”
“FFFrrrrppp.”
“...rry I didn't quite make that out?” she said
“FFFRRRRPPPPP ffffrrrr PPPfff!”
“...ha ha ha.. No, sorry I still didn't catch it. I'll tell you what Mr Spencer, you come in for whatever time best suits you, OK? The Doctor will se....” And on that drivel I slammed the phone down, cracking the plastic of the handset.

So that's it! Tomorrow (morning or afternoon) I have another appointment with Dr. Dennis. God, if this carries on he'll end up convincing me I'm ill.

#30

2466-05-27T00:59:00.000+01:00

“I've been compulsively wanking again. That means I'm down... really down. I walk around the apartment naked and with a hard-on that seems to constantly pull my hand towards it. Regardless of what it is I'm doing, my free hand will be stroking, pulling and jerking away. I can easily come 20 times a day! My favourite wanking spot is just behind the front door. I stand there peeping through the spy hole whilst knocking one out. Sometimes, when it's dark, I'll actually put my dick out through the letter box. With the correct wind and a finger slipped up my arse No.42 spits out into the night.” That's what I told my doctor today. I don't know why, he just seems to have these ears that pull the truth and a whole lot more from my lips.

“So the pills aren't working? They're having no effect?”
“That's right.” I lied “Who makes these things, Haribo?”
Dr. Dennis looked at me as if I was the last person on earth he should be giving stronger tranquillizers to. Then he slowly moved his mouse around, made a couple of very deliberate right clicks and printed out a prescription.
“Diazepam 5mg. One, two times per day.” he said stamping and signing the paper. “We'll start you out on a six week course and then review the situation. Ok?”
“OK.” I answered feeling like I had won some kind of a victory.
“I would also like to make you an appointment to see someone...”
“A psychiatrist!”
“Well, no... er... I suppose...”
“No!” I said “I'm not crazy and anyway I'd never keep the appointment. I'm not going through all that again. Pulling nails out the fucking ceiling! No, it's unnecessary... really fucking unnecessary.”
On hearing those words Dr. Dennis shot up straight in his chair. It was as if they had registered some learned instinct within him, as if he knew what they meant. With a voice more human than professional, he asked: “Mr Spencer, now I want you to tell me the truth: are you suicidal?”
In a strange way that question hurt. It was like an insult. I felt the tears building under my eyes and knew I must not blink. I tried to concentrate on how many buttons held the doctor's shirt closed, but it was useless. My facial muscles relaxed, my lip trembled and I blinked open a world of sadness.
“No,” I sobbed “I probably should be, but the truth is I have a phobia about dying alone. That would just be the most terrible thing in the world.”

#31

2465-05-27T22:45:00.000+01:00

All my life I have been a very material person. Above all I was concerned with what I had, where I got it from and what it meant. Even my fringe was swept across in such a way so as I looked good sitting outside French cafés. God, how the worm has turned. Now I am pre-occupied with what I haven't got; with what I've lost and may never have again.

If I've learnt anything over these agonizing past weeks, it is that. That your life philosophy can be rendered false and meaningless by one small emotional event. Of course, that's another thing: there are no small emotional events. Those are the blows that sculpt and form us. Knock us into shape or knock the stuffing out of us. It's quite right we are three quarters water. We are 75% tears.

Tomorrow evening Verity will come around for dinner. She'll be getting lentils... Soggy, French green lentils with added pebbles. Verity's a vegan, at least until she gets drunk and want a kebab. In those moments her mouth will open to anything. For a long time she would drink a bottle of Chardonnay and then try desperately to straighten me out. I remember kneeling down in the toilet of a club one night, her polka dot knickers strewn across the floor and her furry pussy at face level. The only thing it aroused in me was laughter. I couldn't help thinking I was looking at a man with no penis. It seems that some women will only believe you're really 100% gay when you've turned them down, recoiled in horror at their 'flying V'. It's a psychological thing: no-one wants to feel rejected. Tristram Spencer understands that.

#32a

2464-05-28T17:20:00.001+01:00

I've always thought that it would be impossible to be depressed in the sun. Today I mooched down to the shops in 27° heat just praying that a stray cloud would drift by and find its way to blocking out the light. It is a terrible thing when the world seems to contradict your entire existence. Thats really what it feels like.

Oh God, tonight will surely be the saddest dinner ever.

#32b

2463-05-29T09:05:00.000+01:00

Kitchens can be very lonely places. That is what I thought sitting at the table staring at a single pan of lentils steaming away on the heat. Outside it was dark, and inside it was bare and empty. Now and again water would foam up over the pan and roll down the side sizzling into the flames. God, has any man in history ever been quite as lonely as this? I poured myself a coffee cup of wine, popped another tranquillizer in my mouth and waited for something to emerge from time.

Verity should have been here 27 minutes ago. 9.00pm she said and now it was 3 minutes before half past. I picked up a fork and ran it under my nose. It smelled of dog's breath. I swapped it for the one opposite and peered down into an anaemic plate. It was the first time in weeks I had set the table and it kinda reminded me of something I had forgot. Like my memory had been jogged by a police reconstruction of the crime. No matter, the doorbell would ring soon and Verity would be here spilling out the good news. I tried to let that thought excite me, but what could she possibly have to say that'd make things better? Instead I found myself wishing that John would wander down the hall in his favourite white tennis socks and hard-on. Outside of that happening, I'm not quite sure how good any other news could be.

As the time ticked on I sat listening to bubbling water and going over The Flaming Chef's words in my head:

“pick through the dry lentils... cover by a few inches with vegetable stock... Simmer for twenty minutes with a little minced onion, a spoonful of canned, diced tomato and a splash of dry white wine. Don't add the salt until the end - salt at the beginning will make the lentils tough!”

Well, I had done all that, but what does The Flaming Chef say about what to do when your guest is three hours late, the lentils have boiled dry and you're sitting there in a diazepam stupor hoping that Elvis Costello will wander naked down the hallway? What's his advice then? Because when I next came properly to that's the position I was in.

“Fuck this shit” I screamed, knocking the clock off the wall. With 'just gone midnight' shattered on the floor, I closed the gas and dumped the saucepan in the bin. The cheap ass Morrison's Jam sponge, that was to be our secret dessert, I scraped out the window for the cats. Tonight would be no different from the rest... hours of terrible insomnia buried beneath a mountain of filthy blankets. I killed the lights and in absolute darkness stumbled down the hall. That's when the phone rang...

#32c

2462-05-30T18:11:00.000+01:00

Late night or early morning phone calls are very scary things. It usually means somebody has died. Fortunately it can also mean that someone has crashed their car into a roundabout, puked up in the passenger seat, been arrested for 'drunk driving' and have pissed themselves in the back of a police van.

“Iwisheyewuzdead..” Verity bawled down the phone, her words all squashy and merging into one another. “'OwculdIavebinsofuckin'stewPID!! 'ow? ... an'they'vetakinme'fuckinshoos! Myfavriteredlesbo's! Darl, imsosorry... reallyfuckinsorry...blahblahblahblahblah”

Without saying anything I just stood there listening, waiting. And then there it was, between her tears and snot bubbles, silence.
“And what about John?” I asked desperately “What good news was you bringing? Has he started eating? Talking?? Has he moved???”
“Err, yeah,yeah, youculdsaythat, kinda. Thethingishe'sturndcompletelybackt'normal. jus' like that!” I think she tried to click her fingers as she said those last words, but instead must have fallen over and dropped the phone. I waited for the receiver to finish bashing itself against the loose plastic kiosk, then shouted/called: “Verity... VERITY!?!?” But there was no reply, just the approaching stamp of running boots, jangling keys and a policeman's radio. A moment after that the phone went dead and all that remained was a feint ringing noise echoing its way down the line; soon even that stopped and then there was nothing: just silence, shadows and a very confused man.

#33 Celebrity Suicide Notes - David Beckham

2461-05-31T06:14:00.000+01:00

Dear John,

I wern't ever one for words. Always fell out my mouth awkward, like my brain was using all its force just to move my mouth. I felt like a badly dubbed film, when behind all the bad sound effects there was something profound squeeking away. At the end of the day I learnt to speak with actions. To show beauty in what I done.

I'm sorry for the mess. my artery has started spraying...

i4M GOING HOME;

Luv, D.
x

#34

2460-06-02T09:15:00.000+01:00

There's a grubby grey patch on the wall. For six hours now I've been sitting here staring at it. I do not want to move because if I move the world will move with me. Truths and falsehoods will come to bear and I'm not sure I could handle either at the moment. I've started doubting every shadow that is cast. What is real and what is illusion? I'm afraid I no longer have any idea.

#35

2460-06-01T16:24:00.000+01:00

My heart is going to get me into trouble. Even at this early stage I know that. It's like I can see disaster, am walking into it, but can do absolutely nothing to stop myself.

“John is back to normal!” That's what verity said. But how can he be normal, just like that? It's not possible, unless he wasn't ill to begin with??? But he was ill. He was very ill. We all saw that.

“There was a storm. A black swirling mass of confusion. But now it has passed...” That's what John said. He left those bizarre words in a comment to post #32c. But then why didn't he call? Why isn't he back home? Why does he still refuse to speak to me when I phone the hospital? No, it's not right. I feel like a man who is being tricked.

Unfortunately I'm of that cut, susceptible I mean... all sad lonely people are. I'm not the only person to get someone into bed on a trail a tears and suicide talk and then convince myself that their kisses came from some place other than pity city. To lay there throughout the night staring into a pale pimply back and thankful for it. So what! It's still better than having nothing but a synthetic pillow to soak up the tears.

And that's it, I ignore logic, excuse confusion and don't think too hard as to why someone is there. That they are is enough. I don't mind someone putting rat poison in my coffee, as long as they touch my hand as they're handing me the cup. To feel wanted, even just for a second, that's my biggest fault. For that, I'd follow my heart right over the edge of the world. And that's how I know: Tristram Spencer is a fated man.

#36

2459-06-04T16:13:00.000+01:00

On a day when it should be raining I awake to glorious sunshine and a bare, cool shady apartment. The place seems cleansed, as if things have been rearranged and made proper throughout the night. Jaws seems to be asleep, if not just lulling calmly, as lazy as the day. I think I am going away, drifting off through centuries of time...

I open my eyes and John kinda squints down smiling. I screw my face up embarrassed by my sleepy features and sink back into the bliss of his soft, warm stomach. He lays back and I stare at the hairs leading up to his chest. Sometimes they move, very slightly, as if someone is gently blowing on them. It is summer 2008, we are alone and spread out in the grass on Hampstead Heath. London stretches off forever in every direction. The world is more beautiful than it ever has the right to be.

“It's kinda just perfect here isn't it? With the insects and all, the grass and shade. In this moment, in this time, we have it all. There cannot be anything more than this.”
I felt John's eyes open. A kind of warm rush went through his body as the sun soaked into him. ”It's like we've crash landed on heaven” he droned, drunk on the sun “almost like the perfect accident.”
“Oh John, I could die! Just like this. Be found here with you. No mess, no blood, no massacre or pain. Just two people at the height of all beauty and art laying together. It makes me sad that soon the evening will sweep in, the light will fade and we'll have to pack up and go. It's like we've found this one perfect moment in time but cannot capture it... cannott preserve it. All we have to remember it by is our heat stroked memory.”
“Yeah, but we have it! Our eyes will always show that. It's like people who have been to war, have seen death and dying up close like that. It remains in the eyes like a veneer of horror. It can be like that for us. Our eyes can sort of reflect this moment forever. Shine with the secrets of this day.”

John lit a cigarette. I lay rising and falling to the rhythm of his body as he inhaled, held for a moment then slowly blew out. Perfect, fanned plumes of smoke right into the blue.

I closed my eyes and over sun-rendered black and red shapes the sounds of the day rung out. They seemed to come from a place far beyond just luck. It was as if there were other forces in play, like it was something bigger than life which had brought us here.

“John, I'm scared,” I said “I've never felt this before and it scares the shit outta me. It's like I could do anything for you... for us. I'm not sure that's a good thing... it may even be a bad thing.”
John's hand reached down and found mine. He gave a gentle couple of squeezes as if he was telling me it was fine, that he understood and it would be OK. But there was also something more, like I'd said the words he'd been laying there secretly waiting to hear. I rolled off and onto my elbow. The cool grass was stuck and milky on my arm. Blocking out the sun my shadow crept over John's face. He opened an eye as he sensed the change of light. “John” I said, now large and dark in his vision “one day I'm gonna kill you, then I'm gonna kill myself.” I waited for a moment then broke out into a smile. John didn't react, not a dicky bird. He just lay there in silence, splayed out under the sun, a squinted left eye looking my way

#37a

2458-06-05T11:48:00.000+01:00

The pills which Dr. Dennis prescribed are starting to affect me badly. I keep momentarily falling asleep and having the most terrible daydreams. Not visual dreams, atmospheric ones. When I come to all that remains is a tone, a feeling... something very claustrophobic. I think I need a holiday.

#37b

2457-06-05T19:07:00.000+01:00

I have passed my day sitting in the chair by the window peeping out from behind drawn curtains. There are three major changes to the world in which I live (four, taking into account the news concerning jaws).

I. We have a new post boy. He's a thin, pimply, red haired lad with cold sores all around his mouth. He looks like he'd leave a rash if he sucked your cock. Apart from his general unpleasantness, he is a full 12 minutes slower up and down the street than the old postie and he's forever knocking on doors asking for the letters back. I'm surprised he's even made it this far in life.
As for the old mail man, the happy fella in tight bulging shorts, one can only wonder what has become of him? He'd been delivering the mail ever since I moved in five years ago and by the look of him one would have thought he'd still be doing it 25 years from now. According to the little journals and notes I took he never missed a day, and in 2006 actually only took 18 of his accrued 20 days annual leave. I just hope his body isn't found all bashed up in a trash can somewhere.

II. Builders, but not your your normal type, these guys were strange - looked like actors or undercover policemen. I saw them coming down the road each holding the opposite end of a huge window frame. The one at the rear seemed to be pointing, telling the leader to cross the road, that he must do that now. As they passed my window they slowed right down to funeral pace and were both peering in my way. How they knew I was even there is a mystery: I was just an eye between an inch gap at the bottom of the curtains. Still, the oddest thing is what they were carrying. It was a window, but broken... perfectly broken. It was like a cartoon break, a jagged star like shape right in the centre. Even now that image sticks out and troubles me. It's as if the world is showing me a future which has already been decided.

III. Verity is free. Actually she was released two days ago but I was still fuming over her drunken disclosure concerning John and secretly hoped she would come around and give me more thorough details. Of course she never did, just shat on me from a great height and left me to climb out myself. She has been bailed until the date for a court hearing is set. Until then she can continue to drive her car into roundabouts. Whether she is well, apologetic or still drunk, I don't know. It was a text I received and I never called or answered back. I get the feeling she's either being duped along with me or else she's in cahoots with the Devil himself. Sadly I think the latter is more probable.

IV. Jaws becomes ever more strange in his behaviour. Now he will no longer touch his 'Top Fin Fish Flakes' if I have so much as touched the packet. I get the impression he would allow himself to starve to death rather than feed from my hand. To be rejected by a goldfish is sad beyond words, especially for the likes of Tristram Spencer.

#38

2456-06-06T11:40:00.000+01:00

I have just cling-filmed a hairy bluebottle fly and buried it in the window box alongside the sea slug. A huge bumbling idiot of a thing that had been buzzing around all morning.

THWACK!!! I got the bastard full force in the face and sent him colliding into the window. “BZZZzzzZZzzZzZzzZZ” it crawled around stunned two or three legs missing. I imagined it was John picking himself up with his Costello glasses all broken and askew. THWAP! And his delicate little belly split open and spewed out a thick yellowish gunge. I stood looking down at My Darling Love. Three seconds ago it was life, a living flying creature, and now it is nothing but a splodge of belly, brains and arsehole. For a moment I felt sad, and then horrified. From out of it's abdomen 32 tiny little lavae emerged, crawling quickly away in all directions. It was like watching some creepy stop-motion animation film. I took no pleasure in the 'THWAP' massacre that followed, it was just something that had to be done. Anyhow, they would never have survived, not that small and out in the open. The birds would have had them before noon... I'm absolutely sure of it.

#39 Celebrity Suicide Notes - Simon Cowell

2455-06-06T14:39:00.000+01:00

Dear John,

“I don't mean to be rude, but...”

Well there is no “but”, not this time. My sick cynical outbursts have no more retards left to abuse and so I do the decent honest thing and turn my failings in on myself. Well, that was always the truth of it anyway. Each time I had a 38 year old crooning nobody goofing away in front of me, I really just saw myself. Any one of those talentless goons could have been me... All of them were.

I'm just a foot with a mouth in it! Yeah that works. Kicking the dreams outta tramps, that's my business. The 33rd worst Briton? Come on!!! 10th most terrifying TV celebrity? Fuck you! I take it up the arse and spit it out my mouth. F**k YOU, yeah F**K YOU! Tristram Spencer you're just a talentless 2inch hard-on!

Well, I'm done and I'm alone (almost) ...

The other three judges chairs are empty. Minogue is on the bog, Walsh is with her (something to do with an apology???). Cole is having something done with her lips and Osborne, Queen Bitch Hellfire Osborne... well, I'm not even going there. The last thing I need is the Women's Lib Lesbo Cancer Brigade damning me in the obituary notice. No, for this one time I'll keep my mouth shut (metaphorically of course!) My mouth has to be open for the shotgun... I'm gonna fire my brains all over the cheap suited executives behind.

John, it's hot under the studio lights... real hot like you'll never imagine. But I'm gonna stand for this one last song, the pêrformance of my life...

I Dreamed A Dream in time gone by
When hope was high and life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving

had a dream my life would be
So different from the hell I’m living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed...

John, I'll see you downstairs... don't forget to bring the lube.
Simon.

© Copyright of Simon Cowell 2010
© Suicide note written by and copyright of Susan Boyle

#40

2453-06-07T10:59:00.000+01:00

Departure Date/time: 09/06/2010 - 12.45pm
Flight: BA2263
Passenger: Tristram Spencer (and fish)
Aircraft: Boeing 777
Flight time: 9hrs 42mins
Flight type: One-way
From: London Gatwick
Destination: Norman Manley, Kingston JAMAICA.

#41

2452-06-08T14:36:00.000+01:00

In preparation for my holiday I made an impromptu visit to the Doctor - nothing more serious than a renewal of my zombie pills.
“Jamaica!” he cried, choking on the word “Well, you'll be needing some inoculations if you're going there!” Then he rattled of a string of diseases affecting the liver and gut. He said I could end up with “blood pouring out my mouth, nose, eyes and stomach!” Why are some people such party poopers? There I was all happy and excited about my get-away and him telling me that I'd be safer staying at home eating raw chicken and drinking toilet water. When I return I think I'll try and have this scare-monger struck off the list, his medical licence revoked.

I replied to John's comment yesterday. I know I shouldn't have but I did. It is the first time there has been any dialogue between us since he upped and left 54 days ago. I suppose at some stage it had to happen. I just wish it would have been face to face or at least via telephone.

Some people think John is a shit, but that's really just because I have painted him in shitty tones. What else was I to do? I was very hurt and in some way needed to make his absence easier to bear. I told all the mean, cruel tales but I never told the good, the great, the magical. But John is that... He is ALL that is beautiful in this rather ugly world.

#42

2451-06-09T12:00:00.000+01:00

9:44am: It has been a morning of folding and pressing, lists and bathroom bags, but I'm finally all packed. My three abercrombie luggage cases are sat neatly in the hall by the door. In just under 13 hours I'll be in Jamaica; England just a place on a map which may or may not exist.

I am sitting in the green chair in the lounge without shoes or socks. I'm wearing beige cotton shorts, a garish yellow and pink Bermuda shirt and a pair of dark shades. My thoughts are on Jaws. He's about 4cm in length and should fit snugly into a sardine paste jar. In one hour the taxi will arrive and I'll lock this place up for a while.

10:43: Taxi arrives. The driver is a an old guy with a big child's 'W' shaped arse. His trousers are pulled right up to his tits. If anyone looks ridiculous it's him.

11:30: Gatwick. Not too busy. I pick Jaws out his jar, pop him in my mouth and check in. “Where's your shoes?” asks one of the airport security. “I'm going to Jamaica,” I reply, sounding like a queer with a gobful of goldfish, “do you suppose Jamaicans wear shoes?!”
“Yes sir, they do!” Was his pathetic response.

11:37: Jaws is alive and safely back in his little jar. I buy some Kingsize Rizlas and practice rolling 'zoots' while I wait. I place a 'fat one' behind each ear.

12:24: We are called to board. I elbow and bustle my way to the front and am first on the plane. 301 seats, the choice is all mine. I sit near the toilet.

12:36: We go through a flight check. I will not describe it, one too many people already have.

12.45: Right on cue we take off. Skies are bright blue and the pilot anticipates a very smooth flight. I close my laptop and forget the world exists.

12:46: Jaws is staring back at me. I think I am crying. The hallway is in shade and my three travel bags look tragically sad sitting there as they do. Outside I hear the large metal bins being pulled and dragged around. Wednesday is always dustman day.

It is 17 degrees. London is overcast and heavy rain is forecast. I suppose I may as well change from out these ridiculous garments, unpack the cases and put my clothes away. There is no holiday and there never was. People like me don't go on holiday and we certainly don't go to Jamaica. But a man can dream can't he? Even in England a man can dream...

#43

2449-06-10T15:13:00.000+01:00

It's the day after the day before. I've been in bed for over 24hrs now, wrapped up like a disease. My three piss bottles are all full and need emptying but I don't have the energy to rise.

In a strange way I wish mother was here, that she'd bustle in, tear the curtains open and flood the room with daylight. That she'd pull a face of disgust as she gathered together my pee bottles and emptied them down the toilet. That she'd make me a tea, pull up a chair and talk/listen to me... about anything, maybe even about John. But mother is far away, 25 years in the past, that's the last time she soothed me. I was six and had fallen off the garage roof, hit my head and grazed my knee. As I watched Grace Kelly scale a building and climb in a window, mother bathed my head and sent me off into a series of little dreams. Father was there too, smoking and with a hand rested on my scrawny legs. As a child, I think that was the closest I ever got to feeling loved, even liked. God, what I would do for that now... for someone to pick me up and care. I think I need to call The Flaming Chef.

#44

2448-06-11T03:52:00.000+01:00

Well, it has all happened so fast that it's still a bit of a blur, but on the 15th June (next tuesday) at 3pm I will be going to The Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital in South London. But not on a visit and not in a straight-jacket of my own. No, I'm going to collect someone very special: John is coming home.

#45

2447-06-12T13:04:00.000+01:00

In Portland Oregon it was 4.31am. The Flaming Chef was sleeping off a Chicken Dumpling stew and mozzarella salad. It was one of those night-time emergency calls that we all have to make at some time or other in our lives. Of course, it wasn't night-time here, but it could have been. The curtains were drawn on the noon sun and once again I was under a mountain of blankets with the phone.

“Hello Chef, it's me Tristram Spencer and my world is a shit one!” I had to stop and compose myself at that point, my bottom lip was wavering at 50hertz per minute and if I'd have gone on I would have risked electrocution on my own tears. As I pulled myself together I listened down the line to 7,000 miles of static. Someone, somewhere was out there, connected to me and listening... actually listening. Surrounded by my own hot air I exhaled, a full 7 minute monologue in B flat minor.

It was a sad, hysterical, raving call; one long sentence with no punctuation. That I was still alive come the finale says I must have stopped for air at some time, but I really don't recall. Imagine sitting down on the toilet and your whole rotten insides spilling out from your arse: intestines-stomach-kidney-liver-lungs-heart, all connected together like a long string of sausages. Well that's what it was like, a complete cleansing of the system. When I was finished The Flaming Chef didn't react, not a word. He just ever so quietly put his receiver down and all that was left was the sound of the sea.

Sometimes people don't need to say anything. Sometimes just their ear and time is enough. Without knowing it this mysterious chef from somewhere across the ocean had helped me make the most important decision of my life. Throwing off the covers and flattening down my hair I dialled The Maudsley and asked to speak with John.

And that's how it happened... how John is coming home. There was no drama, no huge internal struggle, no pros and cons. We spoke as if nothing had happened and quite astonishingly the only tears came from him. I really do think it's going to be quite an unforgettable summer.

#46

2446-06-13T06:57:00.000+01:00

I have the hardest hard-on in the world. It is the kind of erection that can get a man into trouble. John is out in just over two days and my mind has slipped into the gutter thinking of the intense, dirty, dangerous, clean sex we' will have. I shiver with excitement at the thought of my cock springing free from my pants and John's slightly magnified eyes staring at it greedily through his Elvis Costello type glasses. It's weird, but after a forced absence of sex, it is once again the smaller, more innocent thoughts which seem to excite me the most.

On a separate note from John's return there is another local event which is raising some erections all of its own:

A fat bosomed woman with a bowl haircut, bible shaped shoes and a wart put that through my letterbox this morning. Apart from the 'prayer' bit, it seems tailor made for Yours Truly. Ever since winning my first goldfish in a prize draw at the age on ten I've had a kind of fetish for raffles and tombolas. And who knows, maybe even Mrs Abigail Winthrope and the Nerdettes will be there?

#47 Celebrity Suicide Notes -

2445-06-14T16:25:00.000+01:00

Dear John,

There are NO suicidal celebrities this week, not even Britney Spears. The closest we can get is Morrissey, but apparently he's always been like that.

No, for some bizarre reason the A-list, B-list and EVEN the C list stars are ALL ecstatically happy and want to live. Leading this "I want to Live" campaign is no other than US presidant Barack Obama. He has even quit smoking in order to buy himself an extra 5 or 10 minutes smile time.

Hollywood Star paper/magazine says: "it's quite incredible!" and "we've never seen anything like it... everyone just seems diabolically cheerful and full of zest!"

One anonymous commentator, from a toilet somewhere in Southeast London, claimed to know the secret of the smiling stars. “John's coming home!” he beamed “In just under 24hrs My Love is coming home. Oh, I want to live forever!”

#48

2444-06-15T14:12:00.000+01:00

London is under blue skies but there are clouds building up on the horizon. The atmosphere is damp, like there is rain in the air. Nothing seems very real today.

I am sitting in the green chair dressed in a plain cotton shirt and tight, very tight jeans. I am looking down at my hands and wiggling my fingers. It's hard to believe that I have control over them, that it's me who determines their every movement. It's like my limbs and digits are somehow disconnected from ME and are behaving independently of any external control. For a moment I feel like a consciousness just hanging in the room, observing a body that I'm told is mine. Control of one's actions is a very delicate thing.

In an hour or so Verity will turn up in her red Classic Mini Cooper. We'll drive down to the hospital, pick up John and then come straight home. I hope it doesn't rain. Being cramped inside a Mini Cooper in the rain is the worst thing in the world. Water manages to get in through every possible place: the windows, the door handle, the dash-board, the roof. Drip, drip, drip, rain speckled windows and freezing cold feet. Those are my memories of Mini Coopers. Dad had one during my early years, but his was green. I'd sit in the back all scrunched up and cold, the leather seat eating its way through my trousers and numbing my backside. That car seemed huge, like three times as big as any other. But that's it, all lonely spaces are bigger than what they are... That's what's so fucking lonely about them.

Another lonely space thats too big is the crotch of my jeans. I give it a little pat. Still no life on Mars. My mammoth hard-on has relaxed and retreated into an inch of wrinkled skin; a nervous little lump that refuses to do anything other than piss. Damn! These last days I've imagined nothing but this afternoon, me in the hospital doorway, leaned back against the frame with my feet a little crossed and my bulging crotch stuck right out for John to see, a 'whatcha-gonna-do?' leer on my face. But Reality is forever disrespecting fantasy. Either it happens too fast, smells too much or doesn't happen at all. Mine is the latter. Anyway, if anyone thinks that they can fulfil a fantasy by performing it, they are wrong. It will only change shape and warp into something new... something ever more unattainable and perverse.

But I don't want to think about these things, not now. We'll just have to see how it goes. All I know is that it will be a little strange having another person in the apartment again. Me in the kitchen sensing a moving shadow along the hall. It will be weird, but a good weird. The other strange thing will be the bed; there is only one. Until now I've not really thought of it, but until the air is smoothed maybe John will not want to come straight back to the bed. For sex; yes, but will he really want me sleeping and farting besides him? My dream movements imposing upon his space? He's always hated body contact in the heat, sticky arms across a sweaty chest, and we're moving right into that period now. But maybe it will be different? Maybe his breakdown and the time he spent alone out on the fringes will have given him a new appreciation of life and the people within it who love and care for him. If not there is either the floor, the shower unit or the kitchen table.

I pop my second Diazepam of the day, take a mouthful of water and stare down at the floor. “It wouldn't be so bad down there” I suppose, “a few pillows and a blanket.” From outside I hear the turning of a car engine and the slight rattle of a metal bonnet. Then there is a beep, then another. I look at my hands, look at my watch, then look at Jaws. Just like me he is slightly trembling and just like me he knows the time has finally arrived...

#49

2443-06-15T23:42:00.000+01:00

I am back home and I am drunk. Everything is a blurrrr and going wibeldywobobolly! Hahhaha! When I try to steady myself the walls are always a foot t-o-o far away and unreachaballe. I have fallen over in the hall twice (x2!), knocked a painting off the wall <----fuck you !painting! and the kitchen is a mess. The world seems even less real than it did this morning. but of course I have taken quadruple the amount of pills I should <---- fuck you DOCTOR! and have and have finished off an entire bottle of Bacardi <---fuck you Dr (x2!!) , glubglubglubedyglubb!.

John is not here.

John has disappeared.

I don't know where to start and so fuckit I take you back to thz beginning and will tell it as good I can in my state. Just bare with me I'm am trying my best. Now “sober... Tristram be sober!”

The Maudsley Hospital is a big grand building. It is more like a stately home than a mental institution. Verity pulled into the grounds and rolled straight into a parking slot. As usual she was happy as if we were going to a museum or something. I was nervous. My stomach was hollow and I felt a little faint. I remember steadying myself as I stepped out the car, closing my eyes and taking a huge breath. It was the pills, you see, I had already taken too many.

Leading up to the main visitors entrance is a set of thirteen high steps. At the top a thin bedraggled nurse had come out to meet us. She looked at me and smiled. I grimaced and turned my head. From that point on she dealt only with Verity. (1 - 0 Tristram Spencer!) Just as we entered the first specks of rain began to fall.

While Verity spoke to the nurse I stood back examining the fire evacuation plan on the wall. Now and again I'd catch the breeze or the scent of a passing doctor. They smelt of neutral white toilet soap and warm water. As they passed they'd turn their heads and watch me, not sure if I was visiting or being signed in. After finishing with the Plan of Evacuation I dragged myself past a few childish paintings until I was staring aimlessly out a window through layers of fine rain. And then the first in a bizarre series of events occurred.

Out in the grounds, being led around like an invalid, was my old postman. The one who for the past 5 years had not been delivering letters to me. His muscles had all turned to fat and his face looked like a boxer who had suffered a brain haemorrhage. He was completely out of it, one eye pointing north east and the other south west. I just sort of stared on in disbelief as this familiarish figure plodded slowly through the rain, with two blue coated doctors hanging off either hand.

“Mr Spencer. This way, please!” sang a new voice pulling me halfway back into reality. She was a large lady with an even larger arse and a set of keys poking out her right hand. Imagine a church bell in tight trousers and you'll get the picture. Verity flashed me a smile and held up a pair of clenched fists. She was trying to raise my spirits. It meant: We're going to see him! .

I followed Verity, who followed the Churchbell, who followed a familiar tune of corridors and doors. We were led through one? Two? Three, four? I'm not quite sure as by that time I was in a weird daze. I felt like a school child dragging behind his parents and being distracted by everything but the reason we were there.

“And now, if you'll just take a seat and John will be with you in a moment” said the nurse. Then she unlocked a door opposite and disappeared into the room. I sat down and closed my eyes. I was afraid of what might be led out. Would it be John? Or like the postman some kind of spastic version of him, all lopsided and goofy? I felt Verity's hand on my leg as she tried to steady my rocking. And then the world short-circuited and for a while stopped working as it should.

The door to the room holding John flew open and the nurse came running out. She shouted something like “he's gone!” and rushed down the corridor with her boobs swinging like wrecking balls. Before she ever got out of sight she was with a man, a head doctor I suppose. They both sprinted back up towards us. I looked at Verity who was now as shocked as me. “Did she say 'he's gone'?” I asked feeling flushed and dizzy. Verity just shrugged, then we got up and followed the nurse and doctor into the room. And there it was: a full length window with a huge jagged star shaped hole smashed right through its centre. Outside, laying in the daffodil bed, was a black moulded plastic chair with bent metal legs. Inside, clothes were torn up and strewn about the floor, but John was nowhere to be found.

“Well, he was free for release,” said the doctor “and apart from the broken window there's nothing illegal about it. My main concern is his psychological condition. He must have been in some state to have done that. Was he dressed or in his hospital gown?”
“Gown” said the nurse, now sitting and slouched back in a chair as if she needed fanning. “He was supposed to have changed but as you saw his clothes were all thrown around the room. Really, What are we to do? Phone the police?”
“No, let us not jump the g...” And that was it, I'd had enough and was off, on auto-pilot wandering down the hall with my hands over my ears humming... humming so I couldn't hear. Verity came running up from behind “Trist! TRIST!... TRISTRAAAM!” and then she was pulling on my arm and trying to turn me around.
“I have to go” I said tearfully “Please Verity, just take me home.” And for once in this shit of a life someone did what I asked.

On the way home I had Verity stop off at Morrisons where I bought a bottle of Bacardi and two litres of cheap table wine. Arriving at mine she offered to come in and wait for news and make some calls, but I refused. Instead, I entered alone, put the chain on the door, ripped the phone out the wall, popped another two pills and proceeded to get utterly and stupendously drunk. Sometimes getting completely leathered is the only sensible answer there is.

#50

2442-06-16T15:46:00.000+01:00

Last night the most bizarre thing happened. I am scared and think I may be losing my mind.

I was very drunk, zombied out from the pills. The apartment had descended with the light into a place of shapes and shadows. I sat in the kitchen with a night-lite burning, drinking glass after glass of cheap wine. I was unsteady on my legs and unsteady in my head. The dark seemed to be encompassing me, and the more I drank the more it inched closer. I was zoned out in a world of nothing. No thoughts, no feeling, no hope or dreams. Just a night-lite, a hand, a bottle and a glass. Nothing existed past that. And then in a moment I fell or was shaken out my stupor by the night. It began whirring and coming to life.

At first it was a car headlight. It passed across the ceiling and lit up the room. Then I heard the wind, great trees whispering secrets and air conditioning units working away. It was all filtering in, like blinding light, disturbing my numbness and freaking the shit out of me.

I remember it was way past midnight, ten to one actually. I recall looking at the clock and thinking that the shape the hands cut out looked like a quarter of cheese. I blew out the candle and followed the smoke as it writhed up off the dead wick. It was now a night where a door to another reality somehow seemed to be open, like anything was possible. I felt as if I had drank myself into the twilight zone.

I had been thinking of the toilet for a while. A full bladder just another thing annoying my oblivion. I got up and veered and bumped my way down the hallway. I had to concentrate on each step and was feeling along the wall for the door frame to the bathroom. I remember pissing in the shower unit, laughing away at some insane notion that had entered my thougts and then feeling sick. Drunk-way-too-much type sick. In the dark my head started spinning and it was suddenly hard to keep my feet. The scent of cheap sweet wine curled up my nose and vomit rose to the base of my throat then descended again. It was there that my mind became flooded with terrifying thoughts. Thoughts of death and sharp edges and unconsciousness.

With watery eyes and regret I stood swaying over the toilet bowl dribbling and retching. I had horrible visions of falling and smashing my head on the bowl. Me laying there jerking and bleeding to death with blood pooling up across the floor tiles. “I could die this night” I thought “I could quite easily die.” And then I felt a presence, something behind me. A shape, a man, a pair of eyes, something. I turned around but the dark was just blurry. “Who's there?” I yelled “Who is it?!”

There was no answer. All I could make out was the door frame and a rectangle of black that seemed to extend into forever. I stood for a moment breathing heavy, just looking,waiting. Then there it was again, only this time a noise, a squeak. I picked up the toilet brush and stood back, my legs now trembling. “Who's there?!” I screamed “I can see you! I heard you!”. Still no reply. Of course I hadn't seen anybody but unless my drunken, pilled up mind was playing tricks on me, I was not alone.

In a desperate attempt to discover who or what was in the hallway I reached for the brush holder and dashed it out with all my might. I listened as it hit the wall, then the floor, then rolled, span and came to a stop. But nothing else moved or sounded. “God!” I cursed “I can't be stuck in here until morning! I've a body that needs poisoning! Fuck youl” And in a fit of bravery and sobriety I rushed out wielding the toilet brush like a baseball bat. Nothing... just darkness. And then it came from behind: BrriiiIINNNNGGG!!!!!!!!!!

Fuck!!! My bowels almost collapsed under the strain and for a moment I thought the noise was coming from inside the flat. BriiiiIIIIINNNGGGG BrriiIIIINNNGGGG. It was the doorbell, but who the hell was ringing me up like that at 1am in the morning? And then whoever it was put a finger on the bell and held: BrrrriiiiIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!

I flicked the hallway light on. 30 watt bulb, no shade. In a way it was even more depressing and hallucinatory than the darkness. BrrriiiiIIIIINNNNGGGGG. I nervously approached the door and looked out through the spy glass. No-one was out there. All I could see was an open garden gate, a couple of parked cars and the edge of a ripped binbag. Still, my bell was sounding without stop.

I gave the door a drunken kick “Who the fuck is it?” I screamed hitting the door again with my palm. But no reply, just the incessant ringing or the bell, now rattling through the entire apartment. I bent down into a squat and pushed the letter box open. Fuck! Shit! Two eyes greeted me. I left the letter box spring close and fell back in horror and shock bashing my head on the floor. “What the fuck! WHAT THE FUCK!!!!” At that point the bell stopped ringing and I lay on the floor just staring at the door, the box. “Er... who's out there? What d'you want? Mr Spencer's not here... he's dead!” But still the anonymous caller didn't reply. Then BrrriiIIINNGGG BrrriiiIIIIIINNNGGGG BrriiIIINNNGGG!!!!. With a thudding heart and a stomach of slush I raised myself, disconnected the chain and opened the door.

Out on the doorstep, sitting in a wheelchair was a man. He wore Elvis Costello type glasses and looked like John. Well kind of, except he had bleach blond hair and a moulded, rubbery, expressionless face. I took a step back, covered my mouth and started to cry. “John? John is that you???” The man said nothing but pressed a button on the arm of his chair and drove in passed me and down the hall. From behind all I could see was the top of his head and a piece of elbow. Then he turned into the kitchen and was gone.

#51a

2441-06-17T17:04:00.000+01:00

I am sitting in the kitchen in the daylight. The place is trashed. John is not here and if I am truthful I'm not sure he ever was. What I do know is that a strange and troubling wind is blowing through my life.

Last night I was wasted and pilled out. My memory of events is a vague drunken blur at best. I am an unreliable witness in my own life. I do remember some things, though whether they actually happened or not is quite another matter. The confusion is this: I think John was here, but there is a conflicting report stating, that in fact, he was somewhere else entirely...

“Good afternoon, Maudsley hospital. How may I help you?”
“err, yes. My name is Tristram Spencer. I was at...”
“Mr Spencer! We've been trying to contact you, but your phone has been permanently engaged. Now don't panic, it's good news: John is back. He's still a little withdrawn and passed quite a traumatic night, but other than that he's fine. The doctor is with him as we speak. But he IS here, and he IS receiving the best possible care.”
“A traumatic night? You mean he was missing all night?”
“No, not at all! We'd have alerted the police in that instance. He actually wandered back in here less than an hour after you and Miss Cooper left yesterday. He had suffered some kind of neurotic episode. We think it was his desperate way to show that it was further treatment he needed and not home release. I say he passed a traumatic night purely in terms of sleep/dreams/thoughts/anxieties, etc. During the routine morning check we found him naked and shivering in the corner of his room. The day had just been a little too much for him. But he's doing much better now.”
“But no, it can't be. He returned yesterday? Less than an hour after escaping? are you sure? And his hair, what colour is his hair? Has it been bleached blond? And what about a wheelchair? Did he return in an electric wheelchair?”
“Errhhmm, yes, Mr Spencer, we're quite sure!” said the nurse bemusedly, as if the only thing she was unsure about was my own mental condition. “ It was me who received him and booked him back in. Regarding his hair, well that's as black as its always been, and as for a wheelchair, certainly not! Why on earth would he be in a wheelchair? there's absolutely nothing physically wrong with him... I think he proved that yesterday!”

From the nurses voice, and the decisive manner she finished her sentence, I knew the conversation was over. There was no point in going on. Any further questions or doubts would have only left me looking even crazier than I already did. Instead I put the phone down and just sat there thinking, trying to penetrate the fog, to grasp a hold of a concrete memory, something I could be sure happened. At first there was nothing, and then in two heavy blinks it came:

**Blink** Water splodge on the wall **Blink** Jaws flapping about helpless on the floor.

I flushed sick with horror and covered my mouth. A grieving, longing sadness welled up and out my eyes. Please God, no!!! Anything but that! Not him, not my only friend Jaws. Please don't let my little fish be dead...

#51b

2440-06-18T01:02:00.000+01:00

For the entire day, I have been obsessively going over John's visit, trying to decipher whether or not he has actually been here, but the more I try to defog what happened, the mistier in my mind it becomes. Here's what I think happened.

John (or someone kind of resembling him) drives past me, down the hall and into the kitchen. I am shocked at his appearance and shocked that he is in a wheelchair. Outside the night is bright and weird. The street seems eerily deserted and modified, like it is a film-set or something.

I close the door, fumbling to put the chain in its catch. Whether I succeed in doing so or not, I don't know or care. My concentration is on my feet, trying to make them move me down the hall. I have the sensation that I stumble back twice as much as I stumble forward. I am no longer sure what is the floor and what is the ceiling.

I pass the bathroom and flag it as a marker, proof that I am indeed advancing. I am urging myself on: “kitchen.. kitchen... kitchen!” For a moment I entertain the idea that all that has passed is an hallucination, or a drunken/drugged up fantasy. It is only when I reach the kitchen and see the seated shadow of a man in a wheelchair that I sway back into reality (or insanity).

I flick the light on and the man I will now refer to as 'John' is sitting there with his back to me. On registering the light he starts spinning his chair around like it is some crazy toy. When he finally stops he is facing me. He is in his hospital gown and his legs are pressed tightly together and collapsed a little to the left. They look like they could be strapped. In contrast, his head is flopped to the right and there is a string of dribble hanging from his mouth. I feel so out of it that I am not shocked, more bemused, as if I don't know whats going on. I don't say “Huh???” but I look as if I have. Then John sits up, straight as an arrow, completely normal, and smiles. He manoeuvres his chair backwards and forwards, stops/spins, etc, demonstrating he has full control over his vehicle. “Well, aren't you gonna give me a welcome home blowjob?” he asks “It's me, John!”

Now completely composed, not only does he look like John, he sounds like him too. I peer in closer. I want to find something that will emphatically prove it is him, but his features keep falling in and out of focus and the only thing I can register is his bleached blond hair. That is the only constant reference point in all this madness.

I hear the flint of a lighter and then smoke is being blown my way. My head feels badly weighted and it is becoming hard to keep focussed. I feel sick, and then there is more smoke. It is swirling around my head and the floor is rushing. Johns slippered feet keep spinning in and out of picture.

I need a chair. My upper body is threatening to take my legs from me. As I make my way past John, steadying myself on the table, I hear: “Blowjob!” But this time it isn't Johns voice, rather something that sounds like it is being powered by his wheelchair battery. As sick as I feel, I slump down at the table and instinctively reach for the bottle of wine. I can see my arm, the bottle tilted against the glass and the wine pouring out, but now it seems like there is a few seconds time delay on movement and sound. I blink and squint and try to shake my head clear.

“Wuld'jew like uh drink?” I slur at John with my eyes staring somewhere off his shoulder. “Blowjob!” he says spinning around “I.want.a.blow.job!” For a moment his syncopated words bring me to, like some terrible fright that shocks a man sober. He spoke as if there was a full.stop.after.each.word, just as he has done in comments on this blog. .

After crashing my empty glass down on the table, things became even more dizzy and indistinct. In fact, from that point on I only have the vaguest recollections of what actually passed.

I remember crying, but emotionless, drunk, self-pitying tears. Real watery things that just added to my haze. I remember pathetically flinging myself around John and trying to raise his gown up with my head so as I could suck his cock. My tears and cries rising into a crescendo as he pushed me away... denied me a fantasy, a pleasure, a moment. I finally gave up and sunk into his soft crutch crying tears through his dress, and begging his dick to forgive me. I remember being slumped on the floor, crawling, begging and collapsing again. Then the kitchen disappears.

We are in the living room. I don't know how we got there. I am trying to calm John down, apologising. I don't know why. I am pleading with him. The next thing his right hand is dripping wet and he is clenching something. I am hysterical. I hear a thud and see a small wet bump on the wall. Jaws is on the floor stunned. He looks pretty dead.

Flapping. I remember that. I am bending down reaching out but I am off balance. I have a tremendous urge to overcome my drink and drug handicap and reach what it is I am straining at.

Something is pulsating in my hand like a little tiny heartbeat. I am clutching my fish to my chest. Plop. Swooosh. Bubbles. Jaws is scooting away, down low, to a safe place.

John is on the floor. He is half out his wheelchair and both are on their side. My eyes are on his neck. Kill, KILL!!!. Then we are kissing. I have a dick pressed to my face and poking up towards my eye. I am moving my head like a cat, trying to get it down and in my mouth. A pair of Elvis Costello type glasses moves in close and I lose consciousness.

I am pushing John down the hallway. The bedroom is dark. I am thinking of upturning his wheelchair so as he tumbles out onto the bed. I haven't the strength to lift him up.

Bed. Empty Hospital gown.
Chest. Stomach. Hairs. Cock. Arsehole.

The room is spinning. I am on my back. I am a woman. John is thrusting in and out of focus. He doesn't seem very handicapped. I am Puzzled??? Don't matter, it feels too good.

8” multi-speed moulded penis. Remote control. Suction pad. Battery operated toys. Wheelchair.

My bottom is curled up against John's crotch. I am happy. Then I am spinning.

Vomit. Floor. Distant bulb. Lights out.

And thats it. When I awoke in the afternoon I was alone. There was no wheelchair, no arms, and no John. All I had for company was a pile of sick and an 8” rubber cock. It was laying besides me and the batteries were dead. The place was trashed and my mind was shot. I turned over onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. Four cracks, eight pieces of old tape and an air-vent. I wanted it to collapse on top of me. As I crossed my fingers and wished, a warm, desperate tear rolled across my cheek and curled up behind my ear. John, John John... For you I will wait forever.

#52

2439-06-18T15:27:00.000+01:00

There must be a trace, something. A cigarette butt, ash, wheel marks, a hair, some proof. But I can find nothing. The place just looks like it's been the victim to a night of drunken rage. And maybe that's the truth? Maybe that angry sound which rumbles in the breeze and makes drunks shout at walls and beat up dustbins, maybe it was here and I tried to smash the hell out of it? After all, in order to escape me, my lover jumped through an asylum window. That fact eating away at a drunk and sedated mind would rile up anyone! Maybe in my drunk tank I saw John imbued in every object? His influence in every thought and action I made? Blamed him for my drunkenness, my misery, my life. And God, I need someone to blame for my life, because sitting in amongst the wreckage, it's not a pleasant one to be in. damn you! I curse my mother, my father, the forceps and the midwife! Everyone and thing that played a part in leading me here. I look down at my feet, and I curse them too.

#53

2438-06-19T13:54:00.000+01:00

It looks like I'll be going to the Church Fête alone. John is back in hospital and because of his breakout is once again under section. Whether he was here or not, I don't know and for the moment I am putting it out of mind. Until something prooves it either way, if it ever does, there's nothing I can do. I have a fish to look after and without me he would be dead. You could say, he needs me.

I tidied the apartment this morning. It was a hell of a job but had become urgent. With the build up of all the mess and rubbish a smothering claustrophobia was closing in, as if the place was slowly consuming me. For the first time in weeks I opened all the curtains and windows and let the day pour in. I felt exposed and uncomfortable, like the last thing I needed was daylight, but finally it done me well and now my head feels refreshed and clear.

Also I've decided I want to cheer this place up a bit. I'm thinking a few more window boxes, bright flowers, etc, something other than a fish to keep me occupied. Maybe even a tomato plant? Plus, the shit world would look so much better through African Blue Lilies and roses.

* § * § *

(Oh, and yes, the 8” moulded penis was mine. Well, you didn't expect me to fuck the postboy did you?!)

#54

2437-06-20T19:27:00.000+01:00

I've spent the afternoon being chased around the apartment by a huge Bumblebee. It is the first one I have seen this summer and must have gotten in whilst I had the windows open. At one point I very nearly killed it with a Jeffrey Archer book, but not even I'm that sadistic! And anyway, after the pregnant fly incident, I've given up squatting insects.

Well, it's gone now, but before departing its yellow and black body hoops conjured up a recollection in me. Nothing huge, but something very definite:

I am back on the bed and John is falling in and out of the sight. Not only is he no longer handicapped, but there is something else, something even more puzzling. It's his hair. As he thrusts back into view, his hair is no longer bleached blond, but black. That, I'm absolutely certain of.

#55 Celebrity Suicide Notes - Kirstie Alley

2436-06-20T22:04:00.000+01:00

My Darling John,

I will not lie and pretend you have not hurt me: you have (badly). But in my hour of need I know you are not a mean person and will understand my pain better than anyone else. I know I wasn't always the greatest friend, sometimes too distant, sometimes too needy. But I was friend, and you was also that to me... more.

♫♫ Making your way in the world today
takes everything you got
taking a break from all the worry
Sure would help a lot
Wouldn't you like to get away...♫♫

How true are those words! Yes I would like to “get away” and I will.

One could say: Scientology's done me “up the arse”. $5, 000 000 and I'm still pushing 200lb... what a rip off! They promised me “You'll once again be toilet porn for the family” and “Every kid from here to Afghanistan will be 'knocking one out' over you!” Well it hasn't happened! Once again God has let me down.

The very last straw was my Wikipedia photo. Here: Fat Alley smiling
Behind me were two Hollywood executives, one whispering to the other “She's just a Fat Barmaid'” and in front of me I had an interviewer luring me over with a tub of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Munky ice cream (you can see its shadow on my left breast). After gorging the entire tub I felt like a starlett whore. There I was, waddling into a premiere, bursting for a shit and with BJ cream all over my tits! What the Fuck! It was there, at that point, I realised Scientology doesn't work, there is no God, and unless someone decides to make a film with a 50 year old obese heroine, I've no chance of landing another fucking role in my life. No, all that's left is the knife... and I'm not talking about the surgeon's!

John, I will not suffer and sweat any more and want to check out while I can still at least support my own body weight. I don't want to be buried in a wheelchair!

My preferred choice of suicide would be 'hanging', but I'd only end up pulling the ceiling down. I can see it now, me bursting out unscathed from under the debris and staggering off in the direction of the fridge for 'one last' cream cake(s). Nah, it's too risky. Then there's putting myself through a mincer, but that's more a sexual fantasy and not really possible. So, I've decided, it's either gonna be a boring overdose, or the more dramatic/romantic act of slicing my 'wiping' hand off. I think I'm gonna go with tablets... barbiturate overdose is a bit of a tradition amongst us Fatties.

Well, that's it John... my mind is made up. By the time you read this I will be liberated from the donut shaped body I am trapped within. Be as sad as you like (don't hold back!), it's a tragedy and i want people to be crushed and broken by my loss. If any internet site starts up as a place for the bereaved and grief-stricken to meet and console each other, would you please make sure they put my face in the centre of a huge heart made from roses - just like they did when Princess Diana died.

No matter where I end up, be sure I am thinking of You... I am always thinking of You.

I Love You 'till the end of Time, Kirstie A. XXXXXXXXX

#56

2435-06-21T19:38:00.000+01:00

I've got my window boxes, eight long green ugly plastic things. I've also 5 bags of compost, three vials of Baby Bio, a florescent pink plastic waterer, and a variety of plants. As I've missed the planting season, and want my boxes in bloom immediately, I had to go for clippings and not seeds, except Hollyhocks, which I can sow in August. It was all driven home free of charge as part of the Garden Centre's policy on purchases of over £50. Tomorrow I will rise early and plant the boxes according to my plans.

My east facing windows will consist mostly of tomato plants, but with a few Hortensia and Creeping Charlie thrown in for depth and colour. The west windows, which account for the kitchen and bathroom, will be less showy and decadent. I'm going with Dracaena (bathroom) and Heliotrope amongst Artemsia (kitchen). ALL boxes will have a healthy overhang of Sweet Potato vine. Hopefully, come mid-summer, I will have window boxes that will be the talk of the town. And who knows, maybe even a competition winner?

#57

2434-06-22T11:32:00.000+01:00

Nothing can upset me today. My window boxes are all potted out and in under twenty four hours I have the church Tombola and jumble to look forward to. Ok, I will be going there alone, but John will be there in spirit... he'll be secretely holding my hand and urging my numbers on as the caller draws the winners. I think John will always be with me. No matter what happens or where we end up in life, he will always be there in some form or other. I feel like this is a defining period of life... like my legend is being cast.

After putting my boxes out on their ledges I scurried down the hall and stood squinting out through spyhole in the door. I wanted to catch the postboy's expression as he noticed my seedling tomato plants and Hortensia... his surprise as he realised no.42 does have a life and has a slew of exciting creative hobbies to boot. I'm sure at the moment he must think I am some kind of reclusive transsexual, drinking myself to death in the dark and dreaming of a boobjob that'll never happen. Well, my window display will wipe the smirk clean off his face!

But I'm not against the postboy, far from it. I've been watching him each morning for over two weeks now, and he's not such the booby prize I first thought. He's young and spotty and awkward looking, but there's something about him that keeps my attention... even wants his. He's like the greatest reality TV show there can be. You could stand this kid in front of a camera and millions would tune in just to watch his hair grow. In that respect he's not too different from a window box; a kind of distant relative, I suppose. He also has this fantastic delinquent property about him. He looks like someone who would wipe his arse on your letters if you so much as pissed him off. An admirable quality, though not one for the CV. As he passed down and out of sight on the odd side of the street, I started counting...

...93...94...95 and there I heard him, his little trolley first. Three seconds later he was gone, wandered by peering quizzically at an airmail letter, trying to decipher the scrawled address on its front and taking absolutely no notice whatsoever of my prize window boxes. Bastard! But soon he'll have to notice. In six, seven days tops, he'll be opening my gate and approaching the door, my quarterly phone and electricity bills in hand.

#58

2433-06-23T21:26:00.000+01:00

Maybe I won the church tombola, I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that a series of bizarre events are unfolding around me and I seem pushed by some unknown force right into the centre of them. I'm starting to believe the rumours are true, that I am indeed a fated man...

Even in summer, St Mary's church is a cool, shady, damp place. It's like a little retreat away from the steel bins, tower blocks and rat infested stairwells of the city. I arrived early sporting a blue and white striped t-shirt, crumpled beige trousers, no socks and an old pair of vintage green and white Dunlop plimsols. It wasn't really sleeveless weather, but I'd figured on buying a jacket from one of the stalls.

It was the vicar himself who opened up proceedings, welcoming us in from the south porch entrance. Just behind him, sat at a little wooden table, was a small, miserable looking woman in a headscarf, and to her right, a tall, broad man in square specs and a thick woolen jumper. He looked like he'd been cut from cardboard. On the table was a little book of blue tickets and an old ice cream container full of odd change. Behind, and kind of hidden in a small alcove, were a group of three younger people - all submerged in ipad activity. When they saw me, they huddled together in a swirl, whispering excitedly and making strange noises.

The miserable woman looked me up and down as if searching some reason to refuse me entry. On finding none, she gave a little nod to the cardboard cut-out and said sternly.
“Adult plus none. £1.50.”

“Oh, and I'd also like 48 tickets for the Super Bonanza Tombola.” I said pointing to the little book on the table. At this the Nerdette swirl in the alcove became even more agitated and began twittering away frenetically.
“FORTY EIGHT!!!” cried the miserable headscarf “I cant sell you forty eight tickets, there'll be none left for anyone else. Have some consideration for others, please! The maximum is 16. Church rules!”

Begrudgingly I accepted her decision, but not before coughing a “fucking bitch” into the palm of my hand. Sour-faced, I watched as the cardboard cut-out systematically tore my tickets from the perforated book, lined them up along the table and physically counted each strip of four. After receiving The headscarf's nod of approval he pushed them my way. I paid, scooped up my tickets, and entered the hall.

Well, there wasn't much of a jumble! Seven stools and two of them were selling home made cheese pastries and gingerbread Jesuses. But there was one stool that grabbed my attention: “Warhol Wig for sale.”

Amongst a table strewn with old clothes, tops of teapots, and fake jewellery was a wooden head wearing a hideous peroxide hair-piece; all greasy and flattened down.
“Interested, sir?” said a voice “only £15 and a bargain at that.” He went on to tell me it was the 'real deal' and how the church of St. Mary's had come into possession of Andy Warhol's famous barnet. “..and you can take that as gospel," he finished "I'm the vicar's brother!”

I picked the wig up, making pretence that it grabbed my fancy. I erred and ummed and pulled a few indiscriminate faces. “Here,” said the vicars brother, snatching the wig out my hands “it's real human hair, none of your polyester shoop! Sown, hair for hair... A real work of art.” He turned the hairpiece over showing me its filthy interior and its '£15' sticker. “Yeah, and Warhols real hair was black?” I laughed, pointing to a few disgusting hairs that were poking out from under the price label. “And anyway, what the hell would I want with a hair piece, I've a full head of my own, ha!”

I left the vicars brother to his con and wandered around the other pitches searching out a jacket and passing time until the big Tombola. The jacket business wasn't an easy one. There were plenty to choose from, the problem was finding one as crumpled as my trousers. Eventually I did, though, a coffee sprinkled light pink affair – perfect for a leaping, waving, screaming, raving jackpot winner.

By the time we were called out for the tombola there were 87 people (including myself). A quick calculation told me that I was 8 times more likely to win first prize than anyone else, and 50/50 for picking up one of the two 'lesser' prizes. With a dash of extra luck, I could easily scoop the lot.

Outside the weather for once had held up. It was a little breezy but blue and clear. Good! There's nothing quite as depressing as umbrellas going up and the English checking soggy raffle tickets in the rain. There can be no crazy American game show winners on days like that.

The vicar stood on a small platform made from milk crates. Propped up besides him, on a chair, was a box covered in black crushed velvet and with a hole in the top. The crowd gathered around in a semi-circle. I kept in the middle so as my scream of triumph would be more dramatic. Just a noise, and then me emerging victorious from the rabble. Maybe they'd even raise me up and pass me along over their heads? I felt John's imaginary hand grip mine and I beamed with joy and excitement.

My numbers were 225 – 240. Why tickets were numbered in the hundreds, I don't know, maybe to stop any would-be cheats???. I didn't really care. My attention was on the stage... the microphone. And then the speakers crackled to life, there was a “Huh-hmm” and with that the Tombola began.

To kick the event off the vicar gave a little speech about the church. Then he thanked someone for their commitment to the parish and for their help in organising this fund-raiser. Of course, it was none other than the miserable old biddy in the headscarf who stepped forward into a whoosh of clapping and acclaim. She stood there even more unhappy than before, just ever so slightly nodding. “Oh what the hell” I thought, and then I joined in, letting out three ecstatic “Whoahhh's!!! ” and two piercing wolf whistles.

“Ok, OK, OK!” laughed the vicar, calming the crowd (me especially) “Now, if we're ALL quite settled and ready, lets get this SUPER BONANZA TOMBOLA underway!” There was a little ripple of excitement, and as my heart tried to hammer its way out my chest, the vicar reached into the magic velvet box and rustled about.

“The 3rd prize, a year free church organ lessons, goes to ticket holder 1-8-2. One hundred and eighty two!”
From my right, a miserable little shit of a boy was pushed forward and out. He hurried up to the stage and took his prize. As he was about to leave the vicar MC held him back. “Stay here and wait for the others. You're going to be in the local paper, young man!” Local paper??? I looked out from where I stood, and sure enough, right up the front there was a photographer, rushing to and fro and taking photo's. The vicar withdrew his hand from the box for the second time.

“2 -4-2” he said slowly, looking around with a huge grin across his face. I nearly collapsed. “Fuck! Fuck!” The crowd parted to allow a decrepit old couple through to the stage. “Well done! Two hundred and forty two wins our 2nd prize which is a free plot in our ancient cemetery. No-one has been buried there for over 200 years!” The vicar helped the old couple up and handed the man his prime plot of church real estate. There was furious clapping, no less from the old mans wife, who nearly fell off the stage in delight.

“And now, for our SUPER BONANZA TOMBOLA FIRST PRIZE!” said the clergyman, reaching into the velvet box one last time. I closed my eyes and held my tickets in luck. “And the lucky winner, who in addition to a £10 church voucher, will also have a Rectory bench named after them, is: 2–2-....”

And then there was a scream. Someone to my left with his arm raised in victory. I felt kind of feint. I hadn't heard the last number. Along with the rest of the crowd I turned around to get a view of the winner... to watch in pretend joy as he went forward to collect his Bonanza Prize. To grit my teeth and quietly tear my losing tickets up as the photographer flashed away. But as I turned, I noticed he didn't have his arm raised in triumph, but was turned towards the bell tower, pointing. People were covering their mouths and looking skyward in disbelief. And then an astonished hush fell over the crowd.
“What in the...” said someone else pointing and looking way, way up. My eyes followed her arm, up across her hand and off her index finger. And there, 200ft up over London, wound like an insane work of art around the cross on the top of the steeple, was a wheelchair... a black, motorized, battery powered wheelchair.

#59

2432-06-24T19:38:00.000+01:00

#60a

2431-06-27T13:44:00.000+01:00

Summer is here in earnest today. The sun is high and shadows have drawn into themselves. The apartment is cool and shady but outside things are burning up. I can smell the heat. Jaws is lulling peacefully in his water and every now and again will open his mouth into an 'O'. In the distance there is a soft rumbling of life all squashed and merged and melted together. Sometimes there are voices. My tomato plant seedlings are thriving.

I am in my green chair. The local newspaper is on my lap. Some time I am asleep and some time I am awake, but for the main I am in an in-between state, staring out into some far away land of greens and blues and yellows and reds. Every so often I look down at the headline and then to the picture. I try to rationally work things out, put some kind of perspective to all that has happened, but each time my mind becomes fixed on one image: John in a wheelchair – I cannot separate the two. Even the chair on the church steeple, I see John sitting in it, bent over and dribbling blood where the cross has penetrated some vital organ or other. It may seem crazy, may even be impossible, but I believe it was John who put it there. A kind of twisted insane warning to me... like showing me there are no lengths to which he cannot or will not go to ruin my life. But even more than that (John trying to scare me), I think the wheelchair on the roof was a veiled death threat. I cannot justify nor even explain that, but that is what I feel...

#60b

2430-06-27T23:20:00.000+01:00

Death threats. Sadism. Pet killing. Torture. Leaving without word. Twisted messages scrawled on bog paper. Jumping through windows. Feigning disability. Games. Riddles. Numbers. Wheelchairs on roofs. Why the hell would I still want a man who does all that? Who I believe is capable of so much more. Why would I open the door to him tomorrow and forgive him absolutely? Well I have my reasons...

The things is this: John reminds me of someone (or he did)... someone I once knew and once thought I loved. My first weeks with him were because of that. In those days it wasn't John I was kissing, fucking, eating, etc, it was a memory – John gave me back someone I thought I had lost for ever. Through him I was able to revisit a past, a someone that had tragically and accidentally gone the way of history: died. But there was no foul play, what I'm talking about is a series of youthful mistakes, mistakes that tore our dream apart and sent us spinning headfirst into oblivion. John was the reincarnation of that dream (at first anyway). For a moment he resembled and reminded me of something which had once passed through my life. But very soon I was to realise, in my journey to recover something great, I had found an even rarer pearl. Out from the shell of a dead lover, John emerged as a person in his own right, and more; I realized that what I started feeling for John was something stronger than anything I had ever felt before. This was love; everything else was just practice. John made the past and everything in it seem worthwhile, like it was actually meant to happen. There was soon not an act I regretted, or a word I would take back; it all led to him. John was the answer to 29 years of shit.

By mid spring of the year we met, not only were John and I living together, but he had become my life. Just by laying near him I felt entire. My work was done. I had found completion and no man can ever need or require more than that. Just having known John and feelings like those I felt towards him, made me feel that even if I died, I couldn't ever have anymore than I already had. Maybe you will not understand that??? It's a very hard concept to express. But John gave me death; absolute fulfillment. Of course, that was before... before the bastard upped and left! Only then did I see how wrong I was. To taste is not enough ... it's never enough (unless one dies eating). We want/need the fruit, the pips, the skin and the stalk... more than what is ever on offer. In many ways i wish I never took the first bite, although I'll forever be eternally grateful I did. That is the contradiction of love.

Why John left all those weeks ago, I don't know??? Probably only he knows what was in that book which made him realize something so awful, so huge, that it took him and half his mind away. What I do know is that I can only reclaim myself by reclaiming John first. Even if it is just for a week, enough time to realise he doesn't exist, at least not in the way I have built him up to. But that is what must happen. If John cannot be John, then I need him to transform into the most sick, depraved, sadistic, lying, cheating monster this world has ever known. Maybe he will even have to kill me... maybe that's why the world and her dog thinks I'm a fated man

#61 Celebrity Suicide Notes - The Entire English Football Team

2429-06-28T23:39:00.000+01:00

Heil John,

We know football's not your cup of tea, but it's not ours either... really! A 4- 1 trouncing, on the world's largest stage, against our historic rivals, there's no coming back from that! Still, it's nothing compared to what would happen if we were to return home. The English press and local meatheads would quite literally pull, rip, and arsehole fuck us to death. No, we're going to show our national pride and disappointment in another way: A group shower in Zyclon B. What could be more fitting than that: a football holocaust.

It will be a 23 man(ish) team suicide. Our minds are absolutely and unwaveringly set on that. However, we do have one major concern: Wayne “The missing link” Rooney, who we fear may survive (even benefit) from the gassing. Not through choice, of course, but rather due to hundreds of years of incestuous inbreeding, which has produced a creature quite immune to death. The Rooneys of this world don't grow old and die, they grow mushroom noses and go to prison for murder, rape and sodomy. We don't know what the hell that means, but we're grieving, so please spare us having to explain each and every fucking word. Some things just happen. Wayne Rooney “just happened”. Our 4-1 defeat “just happened”. A Wheelchair on a church “just happened”. When will this blood-thirsty shit munching nation wake up, smell the coffee and realize: not everything can be explained, predicted or understood! Give us a break, already... goddammit!

Johnny, by the time your sweet arse has read this note, England's national football squad will no longer exist. We'll just be a mountain of calves, butt cheeks, deflated balls and hard-ons. There may even be a couple of turds dropped in the mix – something quite fitting to the occasion, wouldn't you agree? Shit: stinking, sweating, steaming, semi-solid bum spill, a final tribute to The Kingdom.

John, please take care of yourself. Rest, convalesce, get your head and yourself together and then get the hell out of this fucking country. You deserve better than what it has to offer. We ALL love you John... you are leagues apart from any other man. You are all the beauty that there has ever been – even more than that. You are the rarest of rare pearls and it was an honour to even know you. Until soon My Sweet and Beautiful Man, we have loved you until the bitter end...

The English National Footie Team.
XXXXX WE LOVE YOU! XXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Lord make the nations see,
That men should brothers be,
And form one family
God save The Queen"

#62

2428-06-29T23:35:00.000+01:00

When I was young I wanted to be Liberace. I wanted his rings, his costume, his hairstyle and panache. I wanted to be cheered and applauded and celebrated just like him. While other kids collected and drooled over football stickers and shiny team badges, I took a fancy to a bizarre American pianist in lipstick and tight sequined suits. For a while he was my major preoccupation.

I started a 'Liberace Scrapbook', collecting pictures of him from magazines and pasting them into a book. From his mouth I'd draw speech bubbles with words like “Hi Tristram!” or “Can I be your friend?”

It got to the point where I couldn't wait to be alone. To close my bedroom door, hop up onto my bed and get out my Liberace collection. Surrounded by pictures, drawings and cuttings, I'd lay in the middle leafing through and smelling them. It was all very innocent stuff, except for some reason I always found myself wriggling out my pants – ending the evening completely naked.

One day, as I was playing, Dad entered the room. Before I knew what was happening, I was being pulled off the bed and dragged down the hall to the bathroom. He pushed me violently under the shower and flipped the cold water on full blast. As the freezing cold liquid hit me I screamed out in terror and pain and confusion. I knew I had done something wrong but I didn't know what. I had only been looking at pictures.

After a few minutes Dad turned the water off, chucked a towel at me, then left. I heard him raging about in my room gathering and tearing up paper. I ran in to see what he was doing. All my precious scrapbooks, cuttings and drawings were going into a black binbag. It was indiscriminate and furious. If Dad saw the edge of a newspaper or magazine clipping, poking out a book, it went into the trash. At one point I made a lunge at dad to try to make him stop, but he pushed me away and sent me tumbling to the ground. I couldn't believe it, ten minutes earlier I had been lost in a peaceful world of childhood bliss and now my prize Liberace collection was being torn up and binned. There was no explanation, no words, just my father's heavy breathing and the sound of paper being torn. When he was finished, all he said was, “Get to bed, and put some fucking pants on! The next time I see you naked I'll stand you out in the street for all to see!” I done as I was told and then crept into bed sobbing and wailing over my loss.

Later that night I heard Mum and Dad talking with raised voices. I thought they were arguing and so stood at the door listening.

“He was excited” Dad said “ 'it' was hard!”
“No Dear, it couldn't be,” said mum “he's only 7. He doesn't even know what 'it' is yet, let alone what 'it's' for! Maybe he needed a pee and his 'thing' distended? That sometimes happens with boys.”
“This was nothing to do with piss!” Screamed Dad “He had an erection! If he needed a pee why would he be on the bed with his nose in Liberace's arse and his cock striking 12 o'clock?! No! What we've got is a little faggot in the house... he'll be wearing your fucking knickers, bras and dresses soon, you mark my words!”

That was the first time I heard the word 'erection', and even then I didn't know what it meant. All I knew was that it was wrong to lay there naked looking at pictures of Liberace and pretending he was talking to you, that he gave you the time of day. He never did again. Liberace and all mention of him was banned from the house and soon after that my fascination turned to Albie, a boy two doors down who liked to piss in eggcups and throw it at me. Soon he got banned as well and I spent the next five years absolutely miserable and alone.

#63a

2427-06-30T16:57:00.000+01:00

These last few days have been a dreamy, reflective time. I think that was due to the recent heatwave, all the weird going-ons, being locked in the apartment alone, and doubling up on my medication. It made for a strange atmosphere, one in which I drifted in and out of intense daydreams and reminiscences. Whats interesting is that when I daydream I never go forward, always back. To the right ears, that probably says a hell of a lot.

#63b

2426-06-30T23:34:00.000+01:00

When the telephone rang Jaws nearly jumped out his bowl. I was sitting at the coffee table with my electricity bill and two sets of five digit numbers. I had to remove 53879 from 54427 and then multiply the result by £0.1225. My vintage Casio FX-450 was paying dividends again.

“ ” i said nothing, just held on the line until the other voice spoke.
“Good morning, this is the South London Maudsley Hospital, is it possible to speak with a Mr. Tristram Spencer?”
“Hm” I hmm'd, biting the skin on the side of my index finger.
“What, “hm” you are Mr Spencer or “hm” we can speak with him?”
“Both,” I said “ and please, call me Tristram. Only people I owe money to get to call me Mr. Spencer”
“Err, Ok. Tristram IT IS! I'm nurse O'flaherty, who you may remember from your visit here on the 15th” (I think of wrecking ball tits and a big fat matrons arse) “Well, something has come up, a little problem, though a good problem... a fantastic problem even. As you know, John is here with us at the moment – receiving wonderful care, I may add, but this morning he asked to see the doctor and said he was ready to go home. Well, that's the problem. Technically he hasn't got 'a home' he was bumming up with you. We need to know how you'd feel about having him back? Toe to tailing with him once more?”
“Take him back? Already? I was under the impression he couldn't be released until the 17th earliest. My mind hasn't even got around that yet. And after all whats been happening... phww. And we're talking when? Today, tomorrow? Halloween???”
“Monday, Mr. Tristram, we're talking Monday” said the nurse firmly “ John was detained under evaluation only. He's actually been free for release for more than a week now. We cannot stop him leaving – if thats what he wants – all we can do is ensure he has a safe, welcoming place to leave to. John's desire is back with you, but unfortunately that's out of his hands, it's only you who can decide that – whether or not you feel capable of receiving him back into your life? If not, we'll have to look at other alternatives... possibly his parents.”

I thought, but not of anything. Kind of just a blank pause where I hoped an answer would come, or something decisive would happen. Of course it never did. When life gets down to the crunch, when real decisions need to be made, the world and her dog wanders off to the bushes for a shit. You're alone and the clock is ticking down...

“Yes, alright. I'll have him home. But I will not collect him, not after the last debacle. He will have to come here himself. Also, and before any of that, we will need to talk - he and I. I will not have him back here if he refuses to speak with me. That needs to be made very clear.” Even before I had finished I could sense the nurse beaming. As if somehow she had wound the case up; got the deal that everybody hoped for but nobody thought possible. It was an operatic voice that came singing back.“There's no need to worry on that score Mr Spencer, we'll have John call you tomorrow morning – hospital honour! He'll be head over healed – Thrilled, Mr. Spencer, it means absolutely thrilled!”

I wanted to sing back in bass tenor “My names Tristram, bitch!” but there was no time. Before the thought had even gathered motion the line was ringing dead. There was no “thank you”, no “Goodbye”, no nothing. She just cut the deal then cut me short.I laid the receiver down and sat staring vacuously at a sockless foot. And just as I thought nothing would come, that my brain was off for its second crap of the day, the answer suddenly emerged : £67.13p, my electricity cost for the months of April through to June.

#64

2425-07-02T18:27:00.000+01:00

I have sometimes given up on myself, quite frequently given up on others, but I have never given up on the world. There was always something, some meagre thread of hope that I would find and cling to until better days. It's not that I am a survivor, or any type of outstanding being, it's just that beneath all the shit, all the meanness and injustice, there is something inherently beautiful about this world - and there is always hope in beautiful things.

At 9.38 this morning John phoned. I had been up since daybreak, sitting in the green chair with the phone on my lap, willing it to ring while at the same time dreading having to answer it. Not that I thought it would really come to that. I was certain John would not call, that it would be another anxious day of waiting for something that would never arrive. But today the world cut me some slack, rung up 3 cherries and paid out the jackpot.

John was an absolute sweetheart, a bit excited and a lot regretful. He said he had been a “maggot” and a “shitfly” and an “absolute cock”. I never asked him about the breakout and I never spoke of wheelchairs on churches. That all seemed too surreal for this very sane moment, almost as if it happened in another time and place. Today, John had been in hospital, had recuperated and was coming home – full stop. The only time it went a little backwards is when I said I would not collect him, that I needed the symbolism of him coming home himself. But John stuck to the rules, saying: “I would swim oceans, walk deserts and climb buildings for you! A ten minute bus-ride is nothing! I'm coming home, but be warned, if you're looking out the window, it'll be my erection you see first!” We both laughed, for the first time in almost a year we laughed. And I'm glad we did, because behind the smiles and happiness, my tears were in free-fall. I had gone to pieces and the world was awash with hope.

#65

2424-07-03T23:52:00.000+01:00

With John returning on Monday I dashed around today doing something of a late spring clean. With only oneself for house maid it's funny how the place can easily fall to the dogs. So it was out with the piss bottles, clothes in the machine, everything picked up off the floor and then a healthy mopping of soap, water and disinfectant. The place once again seems free, ordered and clear. Its like the curtains have been opened and a dark room has been thrown into light.

In a addition to a tidy up I also watered the plants. They still look a little bare out front and so I think one of the first things John and I will do together is go and buy some new seedlings. We need some joint interests, something to do other than 'watching things'. If this is going to work we mustn't lay in bed for days on end with hard-ons, masturbating to the wall. I somehow think that was an important part in all this, some kind of sexual frustration on John's behalf. Not me, I kind of enjoy masturbating alone. It's quick, relieving, clean and one can be as selfish as one likes. There's not this horrible sensation of climaxing first and then having to lay there all unsexual fingering an arse and sucking a cock that just won't come. It's like John is perfect except sexually we're just not in synch. I think if I must address anything it is that. But don't get me wrong, the occasional sex marathon is wonderful, just not every day (or every other day). Sometimes I just want to be pissed on, fucked and brought to climax with a reach around – a quick “get up and go.” We don't always need to run the full 26 miles. But we can work these things out together, maybe stick a 'sex agenda' on the fridge or something:
Blowjobs whilst doing the evening dishes; anal on whim (weekdays); mutual wank (every morning pre-cornflakes and pre-10am); beat the shit out of each other (every Saturday night) and reserve Sunday to make up for it all in two 4hr long sessions of pissing, fisting (him), arseplugs, ball weights, paddles, cuffs, spreader bars, dildo's and mouth-gags. I suppose something like that could work and it'd at least be worth a try.

I was going to write how tomorrow I will go shopping and fill the fridge and cupboards with food, but it all seems a little mundane now. Anyhow, that is what I'll do. For the last two months I have been living solely off tinned soup, salted celery sandwiches and Mcvities Chocolate Digestive biscuits – my stomach wasn't up to much more than that. But for Monday I think I'll get something nice in, a Morrison's microwaveable lasagne and a bottle of sparkling house wine. Just something to really celebrate the fact that John is home and to show how much I appreciate that. Through fork loads of three minute express meals and mouthfuls of screwtop champagne we will toast the future and damn the past - condemn this whole rotten saga to history.

#66a

2423-07-04T10:47:00.000+01:00

These last weeks I have seen the crazy, the insane, the unbelievable and the bizarre, but it all pales into insignificance with what has happened this morning. If I thought for one moment it was not the truth I would be laughing, but as it is, I am shocked into complete and utter submission.

Brace yourselves, because you're not quite gonna believe this one...

John is coming home, just not quite how anyone imagined. He will be delivered here in an ambulance, pushed out in a wheelchair, paralysed from the waist down! Sunday marathon sex sessions are cancelled forthwith, from tomorrow I will be sharing my flat with a paraplegic...

#66b

2422-07-04T22:30:00.000+01:00

Having now come down from the shock a little, I am in a much better frame of mind to detail events as I know them.

During the 6am routine patient check in the nuthouse, doctors found John out of bed and laying on the floor in a “Christlike position”. His back was flat against the rubber lino, his arms outstretched, and his legs folded together in an L shape and collapsed to the side. What wasn't so “christlike” was that in addition to having emptied his bladder, he had also lost control of his bowels. Doctors at first thought John was dead, but then he straightened his glasses, turned to one of them and said: “I can't feel my legs!”

After some initial checks by Maudsley staff, John was cleaned up, stabilized and taken to the nearby Kings college Hospital for further tests. All doctors seemed to be of the same opinion: there was nothing wrong with him. Not only did he fail all the reflex tests but his spine and neurological scans showed up normal. One nurse even claims to have seen him “slightly moving”. However, that all means nothing when the patient is adamant they cannot feel their lower body and when stood up and let go off they crumple to floor like the city's best wino. Absolutely bemused, Kings College put John in a corridor wheelchair and released him back into the care of the Maudsley. They concluded it was some kind of 'psychsomatic paralysis' which can sometimes be bought on by periods of “intense or heightened anxiety”. And that's all I know... I guess all anybody knows.

So John is still scheduled here tomorrow morning. Nurse O'flaherty says an ambulance will drop him off between 10.00 and 10.30am. It's not quite as planned, but at least he'll be here. I think more than anything I must just be grateful for that.

#67

2421-07-05T20:03:00.000+01:00

At 10.22 this morning an ambulance cruised slowly down the road and came to stop right outside my flat. I was out in the front garden amongst the bin bags in the suit I had worn to my fathers funeral. My hair was brushed and flattened down with spit and I was wearing my dark shades. I watched intently as the back doors of the ambulance swung open and a steel platform slowly emerged and extended out, a foot above the ground. From out the ambulance, onto the platform, was pushed a man in a wheelchair. He was wearing light cricket trousers and his feet were strapped into foot rests. His face was young and slender and his hair was dark. His Elvis Costello type glasses were staring forward. The man raised an arm, gave a 'thumbs up' and the tail-lift descended to the ground. With strenuous effort the paraplegic worked the wheels of his chair and manoeuvred forward a couple of metres. “That'll do!” he shouted “I'll be fine from here.” The tail-lift rose and disappeared. A fat paramedic poked his head out the ambulance and glanced over at me. I nodded and held up my hand like an Indian chief. With that, the ambulance doors were pulled shut, then it started up, moved off and was gone – I didn't even have to sign for the goods. Out in the street, sitting absolutely motionless and facing the direction of the shops was John. With a smart manoeuvring of his chair he spun around, facing me. Then he broke into a large smile and stretched his arms out. “I'm back” he cried, laughing “I'm home!”

For one day I thought “Fuck the neighbours!” I rushed out into the street and threw myself across John's chest, crushing him with my own embrace and holding on for dear life. I squashed my face in between his neck and shoulder, breathed in a nose full of his skin, hair product and perfume, then blinked a few tears down his back. “Yes you're home, My darling, you're fucking home!”

For a moment I remained there like that. I felt light and giddy, but in a real way. I brailed the contours of John's firm back, his ribcage and shoulder blades. “Oh God, John, I've missed you so much!” And then, kind of in a trance, I untangled myself from my man, went to the back of the chair and started pushing. Up the curb, past the gate, the binbags and tomato plants. Like the groom carrying the bride to bed, I wheeled My Sweetheart home.

Part 2

2420-07-06T01:49:00.000+01:00

#68a

2419-07-09T08:23:00.000+01:00

In the three days that John has been back we have gone through just about every emotion there is, though mostly it has been good. We have talked a lot, of him leaving, of me, our future and lives. During those talks I have discovered that John is either still healing or he is still terribly sick. There is something ferocious bubbling away under his surface, something he is trying his damndest to keep hidden. He says the Cooper book that led to his disappearance opened something up in his head, something undefinable. But not a dilemma, an answer to a question he was never asked. He said it was not words he understood, but “a feeling.” When I ask him “What feeling???” he looks sad, even terrified and says “I don't know, but I knew I had to leave...” he was about to say something else, something that was probably important, but he never did. I know I should be happy, but I have this strange feeling that worlds are about to collide, just like the collision that started all this mess in the first place.

#68b

2418-07-10T23:06:00.000+01:00

Concerning John's paralysis, I don't really know what to think. John is adamant he cannot feel his lower body but there are movements that occur that suggest otherwise. Also his lack of interest in seeing a specialist (even the doctor) concerns me. His only real enthusiasm in the whole affair is getting his manual wheelchair exchanged for an electric one. But I do not want to dwell on this at the moment. I figure: if a man says he's paralysed, then he's paralysed. FULL STOP. So like the Maudsley and Kings College doctors, I must accept what John says. However, I won't do so quietly. If he really does have spinal or neurological problems then it's my duty as his lover to get to the bottom of that. If my man can't fuck then I want a proper explanation as to why not! So regardless of John's desires I have made him an appointment to see Dr. Dennis on Tuesday morning. And if he doesn't want to go??? Well tough bloody luck: I'm pushing!

#68c

2417-07-11T16:50:00.000+01:00

In the first of these posts I said that “mostly things had been good.” Well, now I sit and try to explain what those 'good things' are, I cannot really think of anything. It was a true enough statement all right, but more in the comfort we feel alongside one another, than anything specific which has taken place.

One event though which I can relate is our little evening walks. At 8pm each day I wheel John out and push him around the shady streets for an hour until the light falls. With the heat down and feint breezes coming through the gardens we suck in the air and descend with the sun. On these walks we talk, listen to the city and look in peoples windows. Last night we were even shooed away! A tall, bony, conservative literary type (maybe a historian) turned around to find John and I watching him watching TV. He leapt up to the window and started driving us away with a rolled up copy of The Telegraph. John showed him a fist and then we left. But in a way these walks are the highlight of our day. When we speak seriously, it is usually on these little dallies.

“Do you think of sex, John?” I asked wheeling him around a large dog turd
“Fucking? With you? No.” he replied
“Not at all? Not even after all this time? Because I do!”
“I did,” he said sadly “before my paralysis I saw cocks with wings, rising like angels in great paintings. But since, nah, it no longer comes. Or it does, but it feels too much like a frustration... a conflict. My brain feels sexual but my body doesn't. It's hard to describe. Imagine being so sensitive that one touch could make you come, but by some freak of nature you don't have an organ to come with... That your body doesn't have anything that sensitive to relieve you from your thoughts. Well it's like that. It's like torture. So if a thought comes I chase it away. But it's not you, Tristy, please don't think it's you.”
“Oh, I can kind of understand that," I lied "When I was 15 i caught my cock in the zip of my pants and ripped a small gash in my foreskin. As getting hard meant cracked sores and a vile stinging pain, my body declined any excitement. But that didn't stop, just impeded me. In the month it took to heal I think I sucked more dick than any schoolboy EVER. It was a different satisfaction, that was all.”
“So you want to know will I suck your cock when we get home? Is that it?”
“Kind of, yeah. My cocks on guard duty right now!” i said sheepishly.
“You must give me time. You must let that come naturally and without pressure. It will, I know it, but not tonight. And that's another thing: bedding...”

And there another little dream ended. John went on to say he wanted to sleep alone, him in the bed and me down on the floor for any “late night emergencies”. On his first night out we had slept sitting. Him in his wheelchair and me in the green armchair. I suppose it was our solution to an awkward problem that no-one wanted to bring up first, but now John had said it. So since Tuesday I've been on the floor listening to Johns breathing from up above. I've had to skip my bedtime tranquilizer for fear of sleeping through his toilet call, not that he makes the call much. Usually, from out the dark, there is just a “pssssssssssssssss” and I know John's slept through another toilet. So I carry him out the bed like a child in a bomb blast, strip him naked in the shower unit and wash and change him. John delights in telling me there are two kinds of “mistakes” : SM (small mistake) and BM (big mistake). Well I'm yet to experience a 'BM' though I fear it can only mean one thing. It's true what they say “Love is tough”, but it's still much better than being alone.

#69

2416-07-11T22:16:00.000+01:00

Today John and I spent our afternoon sat near the window staring out at the silver birch. It was a wildly hot summer day and we found solace watching her tiny movements and staring into the dark of her shade. All the while the electric fan whirred away in the background and the feintest of cool breezes now and again washed over us. It was hypnotic. Beautiful. Sometimes I would fall asleep and dream of shapes and sunlight. Things are never as beautiful as when John is besides me. He is like a veneer that covers my eyes and transforms the very way I see the world. In his presence grey turns to green. Just for that he is worth it.

#70 Celebrity Suicide Notes - Stephen Hawking

2414-07-12T00:36:00.000+01:00

Dear John

like you I also found myself wheelchair bound in my twenties, that was 4 decades ago. Then wheelchairs were bulky difficult things, none of these modern hi-tech gabs that are now on the market. But regardless of the chair, how sophisticated it is, the invalid is no less able than before. All technology enables one to say is “I need a shit” in time. I suppose that's something, but who wants 'some thing'... who wants 'some thing' in a wheelchair?

It's been a terrible long and frustrating life, john listen to me, wheelchairs have no future, the disabled are condemned and the sooner you realize that and get off this moving ballbag the better. There is no better hell than this, but there is an end.

Of course through my gradual deterioration, the knowing of what was to become of me, suicide has arisen before. My second year in Cambridge was one long suicidal thought, but I clung on hoping that the doctors were wrong, that science was wrong and that I was a fool for believing in it. Well, the doctors were wrong, and so was every expert from Queensland to Nevada. They had promised my then fiancee 3 years and then she'd be a widow – I'd be dead! Of course, knowing that she accepted my withered hand in marriage and signed herself away to thirty years of my miserable needs and requirements. I didn't want that either, but I needed a hand to wipe my arse, and she was good at that. That may seem selfish, but it is a selfish world and we all revolve in the same way. Was I ever in love? No. When one has glimpsed into this universe, seen it's mechanics, one can be sure love does not exist. It is a human sentiment geared at expanding the implosion, that is all. It was my parents 'booby prize' for giving birth to me.

Well you made me, now I'll kill ME. A real act of independence. It's not courageous, it's just an end. I am sick of responding to questions and writing books with small movements of my arse cheeks. I am sick of seeing my own lopsided face leering out from a million handicap international t-shirts and badges. So I'm going to join the stars.

For this special occasion I've hired an African escort/nurse/rentboy and tonight, before sending myself into orbit on a Chinese Rocket, I'm going to experience first hand some real 'black hole'. I've written extensively about them, what it's like to enter one, the crushing physical demands on the body, but it was all from imagination... an imagination too depraved to have a mouth to communicate it freely. Tonight I will finally discover if all black holes are identical beyond their mass, run the 'no hair theorum' through it's paces, put the 'four laws of black hole mechanics' to test. Tonight physics go back to basics and my brief history in time will conclude.

John, John, John... your name is almost enough to make me reconsider. If i thought I could 'have you' in this world, then I would. But my pain ends, where yours is about to begin. I truly hope you don't last forty years, that you are out of here before your first voice-box arrives. That is the last great wish I can relay to you.

Love is a myth, but revolution is not. John I will revolve around you forever. You put a wheelchair on a church, now I'm going to put one on the moon...

Your faithful damaged satellite, Stephen H. XxXxX

#71

2412-07-13T08:43:00.000+01:00

My apartment is not disable friendly, it's something I must seriously look into. I can do nothing about the height of the light switches, but I can saw a foot of the kitchen table, lower the work surfaces and cupboards and make the bathroom a little more accessible. I've spoken to John about this but he says he doesn't want “any fuss!” that “as long as the route is clear I'm a happy chappy!” That's very considerate of him, but without these changes he will be less independent and more reliant upon me. I hope he's not giving up, surrendering to a fate that is in no way decided. I'll mention that to the doctor this afternoon.

Yesterday mother phoned. She asked some questions about “John” (not “Joan”) and then shocked me into a premature bowel ache by saying she'd like him to come along to the family gathering on the 24th to mourn the fifth anniversary of my fathers death. I may be naïve, but I am no fool. The reason “Joan” is now “John” and also welcome around my mothers table is purely wheelchair related. But not because she has any particular fondness for the disabled, no, she figures that if John is chair bound then our friendship can only be a legitimate one, that we cannot possible be queer lovers. The tragedy is that for the moment she is correct.

As mother rattled on, I spied John nodding asleep in his chair. “Yes mother” I groaned, pulling my erection free of my pants “he's paralysed from the waist down... can't feel a dicky bird.” And as she used up her last 57 seconds of credit, I furiously wanked away, praying intensely that John would/would not open his large brown eyes and just for a second look my way.

#72

2411-07-14T06:03:00.000+01:00

Hand warts, haemorrhoids, muscle atrophy, flatulence, constipation, skin sores, head rushes, worms, lung infections, osteoporosis.

According to Dr Dennis these are just a few of the delights John will have coming his way. John looked shocked. “I thought the chair was supposed to help, not turn me into a cripple!” he cried
“It's a means to an end, that is all.” said Dr Dennis “The body isn't designed to be folded and sat around all day. Each week you spend in that chair your organs will suffer the strain.. your muscles will deteriorate.”
“You mean in 15 years I may end up looking like you?” John asked rudely
“When it happens you won't be laughing!” said the doctor, giving his 'return' key an all mighty wallop. “Now, physio. How are you getting on with that?”
John looked at me as if somehow I had the answer; I looked at the doctor as if he had.
“Don't tell me you're not having any PT, good grief! Why ever not? We'll have to change...”
“...this bulky thing to electric.” John interrupted rocking a little at his wheels.
“Physio first, John. Physio first! Lets get our priorities in order, hmm.”
John gave the doctor an evil glare, like he was wishing his heart to stop.

The outcome of it all is that Dr Dennis has put in a request to Kings College outpatient clinic for physiotherapy. In the meantime, he has given me a used booklet of things we can do at home. Leg exercises, massages, lower back rubs, etc. But the big news, and the one that left John beaming, is that on the 29th of this month he has an appointment with the Riverside Disability Trust to collect a brand new motorised wheelchair. What he wasn't too pleased about was he would also have to go on a one day 'training course' to learn how to use it. John told Dr Dennis he didn't need lessons, that electric wheelchairs are a cinch to drive, “The same as dodgem cars but without the leg protection!” The doctor looked at him as if he were a drunk, or a fake, or just someone very disgusting and not worthy of medical expertise. Then he turned his attention to me. “Ok, Mr Spencer. Diazepam, repeat. How are you getting along with that?” Before I had time to answer John chirped up saying I was “turning into a drug fiend” and that I fart in my sleep. Not only was that cruel of him, it just isn't true. As I wheeled him out the surgery I bashed his knee into the door frame “Sorry” I said, then reversed and done it again.

From the doctors to the chemist on the high street it is 1441 steps or 320 revolutions of a wheelchair wheel. That's 600 metres. I parked John outside and and went in to collect my script.
“Why are you taking that shit?” John enquired on my return.
“What shit? What are you talking about?”
“The tablets, the fucking mong pills? I'm back now... you don't need that shit.”
“John, not everything revolves around you. I've had sleep issues since my teens, neurotic problems since primary. And anyhow, medication has changed. These aren't those old fashioned helpers our mothers used to take and neglect us on... These are different, even non-addictive. The only major side-effect is rage and anger, so watch out!”
“Non-fucking-addictive! They're valium, the same, only stronger!” blurted John, smoke mysteriously pouring up from where he sat. It suddenly looked like I was pushing the engine of the Flying Scotchman home. I poked my head over John's shoulder and hanging out the side of his mouth I saw a half smoked B&H. The tip fizzled orange and burnt down another couple of millimetres.
“Well, if you're gonna have some extra-curricular activity, then so am I!” he said, whipping the cigarette from his lips and blowing out a short chort of smoke in an exaggerated queer way. “I know you don't like me smoking, but tittie, I've got issues too!”
“As you want,” I replied, shrugging it off. “I put up with it before, I'll do so again, just not through the night, OK?”
John didn't really say “yes” but the way he sucked the last inch of death from his cigarette and flicked the dog-end at a parked car was in the manner of a man who had gained a victory. He probably had, but victory can all too soon turn to defeat. He'd do well not to ever forget that.

#73

2410-07-15T10:24:00.000+01:00

Yesterday wasn't the greatest of days. John and I both acted up a little and ended by sulking the evening away in silence, staring miserably at one another's reflection in the blank TV screen. At midnight when I lifted John out his chair and dumped him on the bed I noticed he had a huge yellow bruise on his leg where I had purposely crashed him into the door frame. Laying there with his legs all sloppy and useless he seemed so undeserving of that. So today I thought I'd make good and took John out for a surprise.

“OK, you can open your eyes now!”

Tentatively, John removed his hands from his eyes as if not sure whether he'd uncover to a flurry of baseball bats or a brand new car. When nothing hit him, he opened up fully to find himself sitting in the middle of the Garden centre. “Duh Duh!!!” I chimed, flinging my arms open as if offering him the world “Take your pick... my coming home gift.” I noticed Johns body physically slump. For one moment I thought he would slide off his chair like a raw piece of liver. He looked completely disappointed and just sat there staring forward at a shovel stuck out a bag of compost. “The plants are over here. They've got some real beauties.” I said turning him around. Once his initial abjection had passed John got into the spirit of things and it wasn't too long before he had spotted a lovely pink Flamingo flower. The only slight problem is flamingo flowers are house plants and ideally I had wanted John to choose something we could re-pot and put in one of the window boxes. A plant we could water and nurture together. I had even thought of designating one of the front boxes to John and letting him pot the whole thing out, we could have even put our names on the fronts of them. Still, there's not one plant in the flat so it was probably a wonderful decision on John's behalf, especially as the doctor did say he may suffer chest/breathing problems from sitting in the chair.
“No I'm sure,” said John, blowing a lungful of smoke under the light blanket that covered his legs “I want the Flamingo flower.” I looked at him aghast, then whipped the cigarette out his hand and scrunched it out. “You'll get us barred!” I hissed. John just laughed and with his Flamingo plant propped up on his lap, wheeled his way towards the check-out.

The cashier rung up £19.99. I paid, took my receipt and popped the penny change in the Asthma Garden charity box. Feeling like a man who had made amends, I swung John around and started pushing for home.

#74

2409-07-16T22:33:00.000+01:00

This morning John and I both watched the postboy. Me through the spyhole and John in his chair peeping out the letter box. John agrees he's awkward, even annoying looking, but reckons he'd be a great 'straight rape'. He even said “he'd probably enjoy it!”
“I like his arse,” I said “boring, I know, but for me it's proof. Proof that something so perfectly formed could never have been designed just for farting and shitting. Arses like that would tempt the Gods!” Just as I said that the postboy swept by, pulling his trolley with him. John kind of leant forward straining to get one last peek, maybe eye the underside of his ballbag up the leg of his shorts. Well, he came up against much more than an eyeful of the postboy's sack. What he got for his troubles was my ginormous hard-on throbbing away against the side of his head. And that's when it happened: I got a blowjob from a paraplegic. In the hallway, my body pleasantly trapped between wall and wheelchair, John bobbed hungrily up and down on my cock, his glasses falling off in the frenzy.

#75a

2408-07-17T15:19:00.000+01:00

John's hallway antics yesterday have left him a little sheepish. He's been quiet or pretending he's asleep ever since. I think he's scared in case I start up about the rise in his own trousers, ask how a man paralysed from the waist down can get a hard-on? He doesn't know for sure I saw that, but I did. Before he slyly tucked it up and out of sight under the waistband of his pyjama's it was quite hard to miss. It's not the inconsistencies and questions which that brings up concerning his paralysis that bothers me, it's more about if he can get hard, why will he not fuck me? Am I not even good to be used as a hole? A breathing sex doll? And I'm not talking love, or any kind of emotional sex. Just to be fucked, used and chucked away. I don't care. But when your hole is no longer even seen as an aperture for pleasure, God, it really means you have done something awfully wrong.

But what changed so suddenly yesterday morning? What was John thinking as my dick slipped and slopped about in his gob? Sadly I know the answer to that. He was thinking of a pimply faced, red-haired, baggy shorted, 17 year old postboy, I was barely a part of the equation. But I can be the postboy. If that's what John wants I can hide my face, turn my back and offer it up as good as anyone else. Just to have the man I love desire me, even for a few brief moments, for that I would jump off the world.

#75b

2407-07-18T02:26:00.000+01:00

Next Saturday is the fifth anniversary of my father's death. He died weighing less than 8 stone (48 kgs) in the Chelsea and Westminister hospital.

Unsurprisingly it was his heart that finished him off. It had played him up for years. As a child there were no ball games with dad, no hide n' seek nor piggy back runs down to the shops. He was this remote figure that no-one could go near for fear of exciting; always heaving and having 'turns'. A bronchial rattle, that was my father. But he wasn't old, he just seemed old. He was one of these people that are born with grey brylcreemed hair, glasses and a cardigan. He came out like that, he was always pushing fifty.

The day of his death I was on my daily bedside vigilance. Nothing to do with praying him back to health, I wanted to witness his death, make sure he was really gone. In fact I wanted to play a part in his passing, hold some blame, no matter how small or abstract. I would sit there for three hours each morning and again in the evening, staring at his heart monitor and willing it to flat-line. As fate was to have it, I finally missed the event. It happened while I was out buying a packet of Scampi Fries from the vending machine. Just as my change rattled down I saw two doctors and a nurse rush past and into the room my father was being kept in. Then I took notice of the high-pitched ringing of his monitor and knew that a dark cloud had passed, that somehow I was finally free. I stood in the door watching proceedings, the doctors matter-of-fact expression as they gave up and let his body flop into its final shape. A brown shit stain on the back of his nightgown was the last thing he showed me before leaving for another hell. Why my eyes welled with tears, I don't know??? Just one of those strange things I suppose.

As I mentioned last week, mother has invited John along to the forth-coming commemoration. I didn't think he'd be too enthused about going, but no, he says he'd love to come, that it should be a 'blinder'. So we will be in attendance. I think alongside the three of us, my aunt (mothers side) and two uncles (fathers side) will be present. Father's mother would come but she's in a retirement home dribbling corn mix down her tits. She doesn't even remember she had a son, though sometimes she refers to a huge pain she went down with in 1949, I think that was him.

#76

2406-07-18T18:14:00.000+01:00

People always say things for a reason. That reason very rarely has anything to do with what they say. Sometimes I play a game where every time someone says something, I ask myself “why? Why, did they tell me that?”

“The fish's water needs changing.” John said, tapping something into the computer.
From the green armchair, I lowered my Readers Digest novel and I looked over at Jaws. His water was as gold as he, and there was something swimming on the top. Jaws himself was pressed up tight against the glass of his bowl and looked kind of ill. “What the fuck!” I cried darting over to the bookcase. Floating on the top of Jaws water was a B&H cigarette butt – ash and bits of tobacco had collected around the rim. “John, do you know anything about this?” I freaked, holding up the sopping wet filter.
“Err, maybe it was in his fish feed??? Or, it culd've accidentally landed in there as I tried to flick it into the ashtray?”
I eyed John intensely, trying to decipher if there was any truth in what he said, if maybe he was owning up to a genuine mishap. He looked sort of sorry, like he does when sometimes he doesn't make the toilet on time. “Oh, John! You must be more careful. Why don't you take the ashtray with you? Certainly don't go flicking live cigarettes around the apartment, the place could go up in flames. Jesus! And why didn't you tell me? I could've changed the water instead of having the tobacco stain through like that. Jaws could have been poisoned, even killed!”
“I wanted to tell you, even tried to wake you, but you was out cold on them pills. When I persisted you just got angry and swung an arm out at me. After that it slipped my mind, sorry.” I shook my head in disappointment, then took Jaw's bowl through to the bathroom.

Normally Jaws is hard to catch. He will not let my hand go anywhere near him. I think if he had teeth he would bite. But today he was subdued and let me take him out without so much as a wriggle. I popped him into a glass of fresh water and emptied his bowl into the sink. That's when the smell hit me. But not the scent of soaked tobacco and wet ash, urine... strong golden first of the morning urine. For God knows how long my little fish had been swimming in a bowl of piss.

I flew out the bathroom. I was crazy and wanting to throttle John. It could only have been him. It must have been! I stood in the room, my teeth clenched and the muscles in my jaw pulsating. My anger was fizzling up like lava about to erupt. I felt like I would come. But I didn't explode, nor did I make a grab for Johns neck. Pathetically I just broke down and started to cry. At first a tear, then big whelping sobs. With my face hung ridiculously with grief, John became just a watery blur through a veil of tears.
“What's wrong?” he asked “Tristy, are you OK?” I kind of let out a wail, a sound of pain, and then I collapsed. “I love you John,” I blubbered, thumping the floor in frustration “I fucking love you! But it hurts... It hurts like you'd never ever believe.”

#77 Celebrity Suicide Notes - SIR Paul McCartney

2405-07-19T06:26:00.000+01:00

Hey John,
don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember NOT to let her into your...

HOUSE coz she'll take your money, career, car and accuse you of things like:

"He proceeded to manhandle me, flung me into my wheelchair and wheeled it outside, screaming to apologise for 'winding him up'."

Really, you know, what does one have to be, you know, to get away with sadistic abuse, you know. D'you know what I mean tho?

Errrhhmmmm, like really, how many Mull of Kintyres does a man have to write like, d'you know what I mean?. But yer know yerself 'ow it is, tho. 'course yer do.

You know, I'm not gonna rake up the past, all the Beatles stuff, you know. In fact, like, musics out the equation tonight. It's just me, nowt else. Just me and a bit of conscience, you know, like guilt. Transcendental meditation ain't gonna help me none here, you know. Maharishi's gone to take a shit. It's just me, d'you kinda know what I mean?

O Jesus, how did it come to this, like? I lose an 'orrible scatty fifty yair old minger and ten years later, count em: T-E-N, an ex porn star with a missing leg is taking me to court wanting even half a frozen broccoli lasagne!. D'you know what I mean? Can yer kinda see where I'm coming from tho?

Well, that was a while ago now, man. I know I should bury it, fold while I've still got a missus who picks the early worm, but something is missing, you know. I feel like an amputee merself, you know, like one of those, wots they called... erhhhmmmm, yeh, you know, mineland victims, right.

It's like the peace of the 60's is over, man, like finished as in finito. It's like them days are so far away that they never really existed, you know. Now a new vibe, kind of a new wave anger is passing through me. Like a spiritual happening thing like, you know, like the old days in the cavern, but with energy turned to rage. It's like I can kinda erupt at any minute, you know, and if I do that I would wish I was dead anyway, right? No?

But it's sound. I've got it figured. It's like what am I now, 68, you know. I'm wearing nappies on stage and still writing Ob Li Di la la songs. I figure, something nasty like is gonna swallow me up any minute, like this kind of organic submarine, yeah, with a mouth, you know, teeth and a law suit, and this video, you know, like “never seen before” you know “Sir paul McCartney on video torturing disabled wife!” Nah, you know yerself how it is, you know, dark, scary, histories waiting to consume you. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

I'm in this dark place right now, like, right at the bottom of the descent, you know, like it can't get any worse tho it is. It's like death is calling, whistling a happy scouse tune, like. There's this kind of escape, I feel it, like death is the door to life, like the ultimate White Album. Well, I'm rambling , but you know that yerself like. I just wish, you know, like I culd 'ave slipped in a few scatty jokes like, you know went out with the famous scouse tickle and all. But i've always been, you know, like a miserable cunt, you know, as mean as fuck and twice as ruthless, like i'd stab backs for pennies and sulk for years over royalties, you know. But tonight, ahhhh, tonight “No More Lonely Nights”

John, My Love, in a moment I will restore my honour in death: Hari kari (could there be a better way?). It will be like returning a little of what I took. You know, like where the Queen back-stabbed me, now I'm gonna give her a prick back. It's like “I've come, now it's your turn Ma'am!”

Well, I think I've kinda said enough, but yer know that yerself, like. It's like time to put the fiddle down, give my loose change to charity and walk forward into fate with a million regrets. I was corrupted John, all the adulation corrupted and poisoned me. The same will happen to you! Adulation will turn you into a monster. Don't forget that, like, and don't forget me. You have always been so non_judgemental, and in my last sentence, you know, my last word, I want it to end on You, for You is all there is that's decent in this world. Without You I would have suicided many years ago. Cheerio, My beautiful Man... Ta rah Ta rah...

SIR Paul McCartney – Champion of the little man.

X I X LOVE X YOU X LOVE X ME X DO X

#78

2404-07-20T15:14:00.000+01:00

I have learnt that John being in a wheelchair can at times be used to my advantage. Jaws is now safely housed three shelves up, out of reach of dangerous or misguided hands. That prevents any future re-occurrence of the 'piss bowl' incident, but of course it does not explain why John done that in the first place. I have not even confronted him about it, somehow doing so seems utterly pointless. I feel that John wants to take revenge on me for some reason. That there is something behind these past months which explains it all.

On Thursday Verity will come over for dinner. For once that seems not too bad a prospect. I think John and I really need a mediator. Not because our relation is so broken, rather just an outsider, someone willing to ask the awkward questions. In the whole time John has been 'loose' I've not really been able to get anything out of him. Not on his disappearance, the strange events in the hospital nor his paralysis. He just clams up whenever I ask. I don't press. I feel if I pressed I would find myself nursing a busted nose. To top everything off I think John also has anger management problems, but don't we all???.

#79

2403-07-21T10:29:00.000+01:00

For their summer display Morrison's have stacked a pyramid using 5525 tins of Heinz Chicken Vegetable soup. It's a wonderful piece of corporate art. When I first saw it this morning I shivered with adrenalin, proud that in some small way I had helped to put it there.

“Can vegan's eat pork?” John asked, examining a pack of reduced Lincolnshire sausages. When I said “no” he squeezed them all out of shape and chucked them back. I checked around frantically for CCTV camera's then moved him on. John's always done things like that, even before the wheelchair. He calls it the “little mans sabotage”, everyday things that people can do to disrupt the city. Once he made this huge list which included things like smashing Belisha beacons, blocking drains and blanking out street signs. On paper it was incredible the damage just one man could do if he really put his mind to it. But who the hell would want to sabotage Morrisons? We'd all die!

For tomorrow Verity will taste the delights of a microwaveable garlic and tomato pizza (no cheese of course). For dessert I found some vegan bourbon biscuits and will crush them down in some soya milk then put the mix in the fridge to chill. With Verity's drink driving charge still hanging over her head, and my medication hanging over mine, I didn't think alcohol was a good idea. As grape juice was the bargain of the week, I took five cartons and checked out.

On the way home, just as were passing the self-tanning boutique on the corner, John's hand suddenly shot out and he caught a grip of a pale naked thigh - right up high, his index finger almost touching the ballbag. My immediate reaction was to slap John's arm – make it withdraw. As I looked up to apologise my eyes came to rest on the young red-headed post boy.
“Err, sorry! Forgive us,” I stuttered “My friend, well he's...”
“Oh, its qwite allrite!” he said with a sweet queer voice “I mean, no harm done! Hee hee. An' he is on ma round, if those are the same specs I see sneeky peeping out the letter hole of number 42? Am I rite? I know I am!”
“Er, yea...” I choked, all flustered “As I say, excuse the hand thingy, but we've gotta be...”
“Oh La, would ya take a look at that, VEEgans!” the postboy sang, now nosing about in the shopping bag which was hanging on wheelchair “Garlic tomato pizza, someone IS in for a treat! By the way, I'm Brian – Aristotle to close friends. My grandfather was VEEgan (bless'iz soul) one of the first, ya know! An' before it was 'the fashion'. He used to say “men don't need meat.” Well, I don't agree with that, hee hee, but I do like the idea of alternative lifestyles, ya know, like a break from the norm. I'm SO not the norm, really! But it's hard to convince the world of that with a name like mine! Hehe.” With that he kind of turned his foot out, poked his crutch forward, and stood there looking like a waif prostitute showing off her wares.
I eyed him strangely. Now up close and animated he didn't seem so awkward or delinquent after all. His pimples and mouth sores, which from a distance had resembled a teenage affliction, now looked much more like the side effects from too much oral sex.
“Well, it was nice meeting you, Brian. But we have to get going, some VEEgan cooking to do. No doubt we'll be seeing you around though.” I said mimicking his camp voice and kicking John's chair into action.
“No dowt we will,” was his summer poppy reply “I've no dowt about it at ALL.”

#80

2402-07-22T09:22:00.000+01:00

“John, what's going on with the postboy?”
“In what way, Sweets?”
“In the way that didn't you find his behaviour just a tad odd? Like he kind of knew you?”
“Well he does know me, he said so himself, darling”
“That's not what I mean. It was more than that and you know it .. So, d'you feel like telling?
“There's nothing to tell, not really Love. Just we chatted once, a week or so ago. He was doing his afternoon round and I had wheeled myself out front for some air.”
“And where was I?”
“You was either on the toilet talking to your mother or round the back pruning the Dracaena.”
“And what did you speak about?”
“Oh, this and that... you know..”
“Sex... did you speak of sex?”
“Tristy, how would a five minute conversation turn to sex? And you know my cock is pulled up lame at the moment, you know that!Really! You've gotta curb this jealous streak of yours, it's a mental illness with you and so detrimental to my recovery. But, as we're speaking - me sensibly - there is something...”
“What? what is there? Oh no...”
“From tomorrow, and every weekday forthwith, I'd like you to have me up, dressed and sat outside so I can catch Brian on his morning delivery. But don't get excited, it's just someone to chat to, you know, stem the loneliness. Apart from you I've no-one and sometimes I need to talk too!”
“You must be joking! John! How could you even ask such a thing? If he wasn't as queer as Hitlers famous bollock, maybe, but no chance. That'd be like booking Jack the Ripper into a brothel. No, I won't do it! I won't!”
“Then I'll do it myself! Even if it means tumbling off the bed, slithering across the floor and heaving myself up into the chair, NAKED! But I will not let you control my life by manipulating my disability. You've a very cruel streak running through you Mr Spencer. I've witnessed that quite a bit recently. It's like the mould in a lump of blue cheese. You should be very careful about that.”
“If you can indeed get up and out, all by yourself, then do so, but I will have no part of it. I will not stop you, I will not block you, but I will not help you. What you're asking is awful... Just plain awful.”

John wrapped the conversation up with a flurry of “fucks” a mumbled “cunt” and an inner smile so wide he looked like he had a bone in his mouth. Knowing me as he does, my puny moral resolve and my fondness for absolute and utter humiliation, he lay back in the cool of the fan and chalked another victory down to himself.

#81

2399-07-23T18:45:00.000+01:00

Yesterday evening over a sublime microwaveable tomato and garlic pizza Verity strapped John in the dentists chair and with no anaesthetic drilled away at his molars. She asked all the questions that I never dared and pressed John on points that I would have been too afraid to. I sat there taking a secret delight in watching John squirm, spy his fist clench up in anger and then relax. At one point he even took his glasses off and cleared his eyes. By 8pm he looked like a sixty year old gambler who had lost the lot. Of course he never revealed an iota of useful or honest information, but it was just a delight to see him under the kosh, someone relentlessly putting the boot in.

“So darl, whats going on with the legs? This paralysis? No physio.. no concern? It's not normal John. Someone who has just lost the movement of their lower body would want to get it fixed, yeah, at least know what the hell is wrong. But you, nothing. Whats the deal?”
“Fell outta bed.” said John stuffing a triangle of pizza into his gob.
“Well ok, you 'fell outta bed' but you don't just get paralysed like that. Millions of people fall out of bed each night, especially in Scotland, but they don't phone into work 'paralysed'! So you fell out of bed, and???”
“Don't remember”
“You don't remember. Great! Isn't that great Tristram?” Verity said acknowledging my presence in the surgery. “Fell out of bed. Maybe hit your head. Don't remember. But, I'll go with it... the bar of soap theory, huh. So OK, you wake up, BANG, reality check: you can't move. Then what?”
“Toilet.”
“What you needed the toilet? You was trying to get to the toilet, yeah?”
“No. Too late. The coach had already left the station. I could smell it. It was an accid....”
“Ok, ok, ok. Don't get upset, yeah, I'm not here to upset you. But we need some answers... Tristy too. We love you and part of that deal is helping you when maybe you can't help yourself, ok? So forget any mishaps, thats besides the point. So you're laying there, right? The doctors come, yeah? They lift you up and you cannot walk, and then???”
“Humiliated. Useless. Unsexy. I was soiled and naked and wanted to be covered. My penis seemed super ultra extra small and shrivelled. Really pathetic looking. Definitely humiliation, yes.”
“No, no, no. John that's not what we want to know. Lets forget the psychiatric hospital. You was in shock, not thinking well. Your legs didn't work but as far as you knew that was a temporary thing...”
“Yes. Exactly. Thats what I thought. Maybe its just a temporary thing brought on by the shock. That was exactly it.”

For a moment Verity gave up and just looked at me. I think she was wondering how the hell I put up with it. John had gone all like childish and retarded and was biting into a folded lump of pizza as if nothing was happening. It was like if he acted goofy enough he could get away with saying anything. He does that sometimes. Confuses his paralysis with brain damage. Rather than acting like someone who has lost their legs he acts like someone who has lost their mind. After a few moments thought, Verity continued.

“Ok, JohnJo, hospital – not because of the fall, but because you have lost all feeling in your legs. The hospital carries out some tests, x-ray AND reflex. You fail them both repeatedly – the reflex on 15 separate occasions!. During the reflex test you actually move your leg out the way to avoid being tapped on the knee! So you're not paralysed. That's proof, no?”

“No! It's proof my legs can move, that there's hope. But it's not proof it's ME who can move them. That's as good as being paralysed, worse in many ways.”

“Fine, I'm with that. You're paralysed, yeah, maybe some kind of medical curiosity??? But that leads to the real problem in all this: your attitude. You just don't seem to care. No attempts to discover whats wrong. Signing yourself out of hospital. .Missing your appointments. Your acceptance to life in a chair is just staggering. No physio. No concern for any of the problems Dr Dennis says could afflict you. On the contary, on the same day you are told your contracted chest may lead to breathing difficulties you start smoking again!!! Jesus, John do you really think we can swallow that? And with no questions?”

“Don't know. Suppose not, but I have no answers, I can't just make them up. I suppose I don't care because I don't care about myself... And if I don't care about myself how can I expect others to care about me? I suppose I'm lacking in self-worth.” john babbled, prooving my suspicions true that he's secretly been watching daytime TV.

Verity persevered a little longer, but never really got anywhere. When John kept needing the toilet every other question she finally gave up. Still, one good thing came out of it, Verity no more believes a word of it than I do. By virtue of a Morrison's Garlic & Tomato pizza and the nonsense of a pseudo-paraplegic, I had gained a very important ally. The evening was well and truly mine.

#82

2398-07-24T11:01:00.000+01:00

When I woke up on the hard bedroom floor this morning John was nowhere to be seen. The bed covers were strewn on the floor, the door was open and his chair gone. The hallway, which is normally still a grey place at that time, was flooded in bright sunlight. Voices and floral scents were drifting in from outside as if the windows were up. I jumped into my crumpled beige slacks, chucked a tightish, pinkish t-shirt on and went to see what the SP was.

“Oh, awww, John! hee hee. Yeah, he did seem like a bitofa cock, he he!”
It was the unmistakeable high-pitched squeal of the postboy, and if I wasn't mistaken he was talking about me. I stood for a second just listening and peeping out at the two of them – John in his chair and the postboy leaning over the gate with the bulge of his sex pushing in between the wrought iron bars. Then I saw John put his finger to his lips and nudge his head backwards. The postboy peered over John's shoulder and into the hallway. Trying to think he looked even more stupid than usual. I leant back and out of sight. In the quiet I heard the whooosh as the toilet cistern refilled and decided to use that as my cue.

“So who's been using the toilet? It couldn't have been you John, unless Brian there carried you out the chair and planted you on the throne. Oh, hiya Brian!” I smiled. He gave a limp wave back.
“Er, no, yea... it was Brian,” John stammered “he needed the loo.” I looked at the postboy who looked all flustered and caught off guard. “Aww yeah, was Me. Guilty as charged, yer 'onor. Badly needed a piddle, hee,” he said giving his crotch a gentle squeeze like little boys do. John sunk forward in his chair and adjusted his glasses. “Hmm, OK!” I nodded “Oh, and John... well done for making it out of bed all by yourself. From tomorrow you've regained that little bit of independence!” With that I turned on my heel and headed for the kitchen thinking of blueberry marmelade on brown toast, two things I knew we didn't have.

* * * *

This afternoon John and I go to my mothers for the anniversary of my fathers departure. Why we are celebrating his fifth year amongst the flames downstairs, I don't know. I just hope everything goes smoothly and the brandy shots don't lead to my uncles calling me “a snide little queer” or a “grave digger.” Last year one of them chucked an old shoe at me. The heel hit me full whelly in the ear. Everyone just rocked back in laughter as blood trickled down my neck. I love this world, but in many ways it makes me very, very sad.

#83

2397-07-25T11:44:00.000+01:00

My mother dressed in satin black with purple eye-shadow is a daunting sight. I'm not sure if there is anything more gothic in this town than her in mourning. Fake mourning, I may add. She hated my father just about as much as the rest of us.

My two uncles did not make the commemoration. When they got wind that John would be there they wholeheartedly refused to come. They said he is probably in a wheelchair because he has “colon cancer”. Even my my mother agrees that was a wicked, godless thing to say.

Aunt Jaqueline, my mothers sister, was there though. She showed up an hour late, covered in black netting, with another years worth of wrinkles carved into her face. In contrast to my mothers bulk, she's a frail spindly thing. Her lips are thin and look like slithers of anchovy. She drinks Gin and Tonic like it's water and smokes more than John. Every ten minutes she folds up in a coughing fit and you can see her knickers. Her tongue is dark grey, almost black. She'd make a great funeral flower.

Sitting at the far end of the table, looking like a thunderstorm, mother led us in prayer. She said she'd do anything to have my father back, and five years without him is five years without life. When she finished she uncrossed her legs and pulled a decanter full of brandy from the sideboard.

“To 'Betsy' Spencer!” she said holding forward a large round glass
“To Betsy!”
“Betsy!”
“father.”

Then it was down the hatch.

By three o'clock I was the only sober person left. Aunt Jaqueline was nodding forward off the couch with her eyes nine tenths closed listening as my mother explained to John the medical reason for water retention. “Go on, poke it!” she slurred, slapping a leg up on the coffee table. John pressed a couple of fingers into the thick flesh that surrounded her ankles. When he removed them there were two inch deep indentations in her leg. “It's like plasticine, ” Mum said “and if you prick it water trickles out! The body's an amazing thing, especially a womans!” At one point she even pulled John's head down and had his face resting on her gigantic boobs. I think they had bonded over incontinence.

Sometimes I give my mother a hard deal. She's not such a bad woman, more a disappointed one. She is trapped between The Bible and me. I am her sin and one that will forever test her beliefs. I forgive her because I know her. Her disinterest was the closest thing I had to love for nigh on 22 years. I think if my father had have died when I was young she would have loved me. It was him that suppressed her warmth, crushed her belief in passion, and now it is gone forever.

At just gone 5pm John and I waved goodbye and I pushed him off to the bus-stop. Although a little worse for wear, he hadn't played one wrong note all afternoon. In fact he had been a real sweet heart.
“Tristy?” he asked
“Yeah?”
“The world is beautiful isn't it? D'you remember those trips we used to make to the heath, laying spent in the grass listening to the crickets and insects and life?... the sun beating down on our chests. And the lake, Oh ha! D'you remember the lake and the little island? We'd swim across and it was like another world, our secret place away from even the heath. Oh it was beautiful! D'you Remember that?”
“Of course I remember!” I replied, gripping his hand “When I think of us, I think of that, nothing else. It's like that is my only memory. When I die, I will swim across to that island once more, pull myself up on the reeds and retire. It will be my own little paradise.”
“Mine too,” said John staring out into the distance “It'll be my paradise too.”

#84 Celebrity Suicide Notes - Sonny Bono

2396-07-26T00:06:00.001+01:00

Mr Sweet Boy John,

It is Monday January 5th 1998 and I don't know when you'll receive this note, if ever, but nevertheless it is important to write, even if it ends floating in the Salton sea or flogged in some macabre memorabilia store that us yanks love so much. It doesn't matter, what matters is that I get certain things off my chest before I ski myself into a tree. Pathetic, I know, but it must look like an accident – my life insurance policy is invalidated by suicide.

John, I have been a father, four times, but never a good one. I was neglectful and selfish and unloving. Little bits of myself I treated like shit because they demanded more of me than they already had. But my neglect, hatred of a certain child, is a kind of guilt that has fostered and fermented inside me. Now I am drunk on my own conscience, it's like I am my own eco-system of poison from which I cannot escape. And I have lived and sinned long enough to realize that there is no redemption, that redemption is just the first stage of one's eternal punishment. Nobody has ever quite realized that, but I have!

Was a queer child my fault? Is it a guilt I must carry and let destroy me? Well no, but making that child even queerer, abusing it while it swam in a sea of confusion now seems like the worst torture I could have inflicted upon it. I did nothing to 'heal' it, only pushed it deeper into a world of homosexual depravity, and of course, that child being a part of me, well... are my child's sins also mine? In many ways yes. A parents main influence is an invisible one. It lays behind discipline and nice homes and money and etiquette. There is also the aura of the parent, like an album, a feel/atmosphere which that person gives off. When I close my eyes and think of my aura it is dark and looming and scary and oppressing – there is not one single watt of love which shines through.

But what am I saying here??? I don't even know. What I know is that in many ways you resemble my transgender child, and by writing all this to you it almost feels like I am writing it to him. It is an apology from the grave, but not an apology of who you are or what I made you, but an apology of me, my behaviour and faults. I cannot change the past, but I can affect the future, unfortunately not with me in it.

So I will leave now. There are a set of skis, hard fast snow, and a tree waiting for me. If my calculations are even half correct by the time anyone/you reads this note my head will be pushed inside my chest cavity and I will be frozen stiff somewhere on the Nevada side of the Heavenly Ski Resort.

Please keep yourself well, I will die less painfully knowing that someone like you exists somewhere in this world. For a long time now your beauty is all I have survived on, but now even that fades. Not you, of course, but me. You will be an eternal star. One that shines so bright that all the other stars seem dull...

I love YOU so much sweetheart, please return to me one day... I beg you!!!

Until we meet again, Sonny B. XxX

#85

2395-07-26T11:21:00.000+01:00

In 1965 Bob Dylan kicked his acoustic guitar into touch and went electric. In three days time John will do the same. I suppose I should be happy about about that, but I'm not. I kind of enjoyed pushing him around these weeks – it felt like love. I'm scared John's motorized chair will give him the independence he needs to ride away from me. I read on the internet that some battery packs can travel for 15 – 20 miles! With two of them John could go bunburying as far as Milton Keynes – I'd never get him back. I know that's selfish, but I can't help what I feel.

John was out waiting for Brian again this morning. Once more I never heard him slump out of bed, put his pants on and somehow heave himself up into his chair. I'm wondering how he manages to do that so quietly. I think tomorrow I may set the alarm on my watch early and find out. I don't want to say what I imagine... Jesus, that'd be even scarier than him going electric.