Peter Carey - The Fat Man in History aka Exotic Pleasures

Even though it was early the Chance Centre was busy. The main concourse was crowded with people waiting for relatives, staring at the video display terminals for news of their friends’ emergence. The smell of trauma was in the air, reminiscent of stale orange peel and piss. Poor people in carpet slippers with their trousers too short sat hopefully in front of murals depicting Leonardo’s classic proportions. Fasta technicians in grubby white coats wheeled patients in and out of the concourse in a sequence as aimless and purposeless as the shuffling of a deck of cards. I could find Carla’s name on none of the terminals.

I waited the morning. Nothing happened. The cards were shuffled. The coffee machine broke down. In the afternoon I went out and bought a six-pack of beer and a bottle of Milocaine capsules.

In the dark, in the night, something woke me. My tongue furry, my eyes like gravel, my head still dulled from the dope and drink, half-conscious I half saw the woman sitting in the chair by the bed.

A fat woman, weeping.

I watched her like television. A blue glow from the neon lights in the street showed the coarse, folded surface of her face, her poor lank greying hair, deep creases in her arms and fingers like the folds in babies’ skin, and the great drapery of chin and neck was reminiscent of drought-resistant cattle from India.

It was not a fair time, not a fair test. I am better than that. It was the wrong time. Undrugged, ungrogged, I would have done better. It is unreasonable that such a test should come in such a way. But in the deep grey selfish folds of my mean little brain I decided that I had not woken up, that I would not wake up. I groaned, feigning sleep and turned over.

Carla stayed by my bed till morning, weeping softly while I lay with my eyes closed, sometimes sleeping, sometimes listening.

In the full light of morning she was gone and had, with bitter reproach, left behind merely one thing: a pair of her large grey knickers, wet with the juices of her unacceptable desire. I placed them in the rubbish bin and went out to buy some more beer.

I was sitting by the number five pier finishing off the last of the beer. I didn’t feel bad. I’d felt a damn sight worse. The sun was out and the light dancing on the water produced a light dizzy feeling in my beer-sodden head. Two bream lay in the bucket, enough for my dinner, and I was sitting there pondering the question of Carla’s flat: whether I should get out or whether I was meant to get out or whether I could afford to stay on. They were not difficult questions but I was managing to turn them into major events. Any moment I’d be off to snort a couple more caps of Milocaine and lie down in the sun.

I was not handling this well.

“Two fish, eh?”

I looked up. It was the fucking dwarf. There was nothing to say to him.

He sat down beside me, his grotesque little legs hanging over the side of the pier. His silence suggested a sympathy I did not wish to accept from him.

“What do you want, ugly?”

“It’s nice to hear that you’ve finally relaxed, mm? Good to see that you’re not pretending any more.” He smiled. He seemed not in the least malicious. “I have brought the gift.”

“A silly custom. I’m surprised you follow it.” It was customary for people who took the Chance to give their friends pieces of clothing from their old bodies, clothing that they expected wouldn’t fit the new. It had established itself as a pressure-cooked folk custom, like brides throwing corsages and children putting first teeth under their pillows.

The dwarf held out a small brown-paper parcel.

I unwrapped the parcel while he watched. It contained a pair of small white lady’s knickers. They felt as cold and vibrant as echoes across vast canyons: quavering questions, cries, and thin misunderstandings.

I shook the dwarf by his tiny hand.

The fish jumped forlornly in the bucket.

So long ago. So much past. Furies, rages, beer and sleeping pills. They say that the dwarf was horribly tortured during the revolution, that his hands were literally sawn from his arms by the Fastas. The hunchback lady now adorns the 50 IG postage stamps, in celebration of her now famous role at the crucial battle of Haytown.

And Carla, I don’t know. They say there was a fat lady who was one of the fiercest fighters, who attacked and killed without mercy, who slaughtered with rage that was exceptional even in such a bloody time.

But I, I’m a crazy old man, alone with his books and his beer and his dog. I have been a clerk and a pedlar and a seller of cars. I have been ignorant, and a scholar of note. Pock-marked and ugly I have wandered the streets and slept in the parks. I have been bankrupt and handsome and a splendid con-man. I have been a river of poisonous silver mercury, without form or substance, yet I carry with me this one pain, this one yearning, that I love you, my lady, with all my heart. And on evenings when the water is calm and the birds dive amongst the whitebait, my eyes swell with tears as I think of you sitting on a chair beside me, weeping in a darkened room.

Vincent is crying again. Bloody Vincent. Here I am, a woman of thirty-five, and I still can’t handle a fool like Vincent. He’s like a yellow dog, one of those curs who hangs around your back door for scraps and you feed him once, you show him a little affection, and he stays there. He’s yours. You’re his. Bloody Vincent, crying by the fire, and spilling his drink again.

It began as stupidly as you’d expect a thing like that to begin. There was no way in which it could have begun intelligently. Vincent put an ad in the Review: Home and companionship wanted for ex-drunken Irish poet shortly to be released from Long Bay. Apply V. Day Box 37320.

I did it. I answered it. And now Vincent is crying by the fire and spilling his drink and all I can say is, “Get the Wettex.”

He nods his head determinedly through his tears, struggles to get up, and falls over. He knocks his head on the table. I find it impossible to believe that he hasn’t choreographed the whole sequence but I’m the one who gets up and fetches the Wettex. I use it to wipe up the blood on his head. God save me.

Yesterday I kicked him out. So he began to tear down the brick wall he’d started to build for me. Then he gave up and started crying. The crying nauseated me. But I couldn’t kick him out. It was the fifth time I couldn’t kick him out.

I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not emotionally dependent on the drama he provides me. What other reason is there for keeping him here? Perhaps it’s as simple as pity. I know how bad he is. Anyone who knew him well wouldn’t let him in the door. I have fantasies about Vincent sleeping with the winos in the park. I refuse to have that on my head.

“How many people answered your ad?” I asked.

“Only you.”

Thus he makes even his successes sound pitiful.

Tonight I have made a resolution, to exploit Vincent to the same extent that he has exploited me. He has a story or two to tell. He is not a poet. He was never in Long Bay. But he has a story or two. One of those interests me. I intend to wring this story from Vincent as I wring this Wettex, marked with his poor weak blood, amongst the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.

Before I go any further though, in my own defence, I intend to make a list of Vincent’s crimes against me, for my revenge will not be inconsiderable and I have the resources to inflict serious injuries upon him.

Vincent’s first crime was to lie to me about having been in Long Bay, to ask for sympathy on false grounds, to say he was a poet when he wasn’t, to say he was a reformed alcoholic when he was a soak.