One wet lunchtime
he was sitting on the guillotine
at the back of the art room
like a refugee on a private raft.
Told him to get off
he did so immediately
then to my surprise
stormed outside.
The resentment festered
like an open wound, or bone
to take home and gnaw at night
and be regurgitated the next day.
He became my nemesis
a sociopath
the product of an unstable home
with a potential criminal career.
To my dismay
the timetable decreed
we would clash
in my art class every week.
At times it got so bad
I would rant and rave
while he would look away
as if I wasn’t there.
Unprepossessing and weedy
resentful and alienated
with a mother who detested him
and a father missing at sea.
Never a truant
he had his own syllabus
an apprenticeship
in antisocial studies.
Although only a memory now
some residual guilt remains
because I couldn’t help
either him or myself.
Good friends Doll and Fred
from my drama group days
had moved
to sunny Queensland.
Invited to stay
I shared the long drive north
with a nurse
stopping at motels on the way.
My offer to take the wheel
was soon aborted
when the she discovered
I was on antidepressants.
I two finger typed
three copies
from a scribbled draft
with messy carbons and erasers.
After numerous rejection slips
Wide Open Swinger
won a prize
in the Victorian short story awards.
A satirical piece was accepted
by Manic magazine
published by Sweeney Reed
who became my agent.
Some others
were published
but most were atrocious
and impossible to place.
I painted water-colours
of bushland and the bay
but most were laboured
lacking charm and spontanaeity.
The Australian government
turned a blind eye
when Indonesian armed forces
invaded East Timor.
The murder at Balibo
of four Australian journalists
and one New Zealander
was expediently buried.
During twentyfive years
of occupation and genocide
successive Australian governments
pandered to the murderous regime.
My GP referred me
to a psychiatrist
who prescribed antidepressants
and a series of ECTs.
Sometime later
one gloomy autumn day
a taxi drove me to Khalin
a psychiatric clinic.
Inside the converted mansion
I dreaded the dawn
heralded by a flute playing
somewhere outside.
Cheerless breakfasts
were followed by group therapy
with exercises
we initiated then imitated.
A short morning stroll
for a block or two
before some mindless activity
with nothing else better to do.
Occasionally
I’d meet the chief psychiatrist
who scribbled and prescribing
from behind a large desk.
The amplified telephone
we were expected to answer
screamed maniacally
day and night.
There were dreary diversions
ten pin bowling and the movies
and booze-ups at the local pub
when I couldn’t get drunk.
My kind sister-in-law
arrived one day
with a birthday cake
just for me.
One week-end
determined never to return
I slightly slit
one of my wrists.
At Frankston Hospital
my wound was stitched
and I was discharged
the following day.
Pop suggested
I work at the nursery
then at the glasshouse
setting seed and potting.
My mother had a disability
affecting her balance
causing her to fall
and break some bones.
Admitted to a nursing home
in a ward for the demented
she began to lose her mind
and subsequently died.
Pop contracted Parkinson’s disease
and began to fade
collapsing often
when he lost his balance.
In and out of hospital
I visited him one final time
but he didn’t say a word
and soon after died.
Late at night
the side-effects
of the antidepressant
was affecting my coordination.
It came to a head
outside my bed one night
while struggling
to get back inside.
Somehow someone
appeared on my balcony
to say
an ambulance was on its way.
I was carted off again
to hospital for tests
and the miseries
of drug withdrawal.
Against psychiatric advice
I discharged myself
and left in pyjamas
by taxi one night.
At the mercy of cold turkey
I passed from despondency
to my personal pugatory
before I could begin to live again.
I sat miserably by a window
seeing nothing
from inside an endless tunnel
confined by the eternal present.
The new drug
failed after six wasted weeks
so I experienced cold turkey
all over again.
I watched TV
a soulless body sitting
seeing and hearing nothing
of the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
Finally
the right antidepressant
dispersed my misery
like a poisonous fog.
My sister-in-law
contracted Alzheimer’s Disease
and was cared for in a nursing home
until she passed away.
Our home
had been left to John
and sold
leaving only memories behind.
