Straight Jacket - Adrian Deans

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was not their own.

      Sometimes I felt like Napoleon, surveying and ordering the battlefield of Gavin’s life from the plateau. And sometimes I felt like Louis Pasteur, observing the culture of his existence under the microscope. But mostly I felt like Rodin, taking his destiny in my hands and shaping it in ways that might both astound and instruct — to balance good luck with bad, fortune with misfortune, anticipation with disappointment. To create an experience that compelled philosophy as Gavin struggled desperately against the pavers I had laid over his life.

      But now he’d found a crack, and my intervention was necessary, once again, to head off these feelings of nostalgic sentiment which were plainly evident in Lucy’s latest letter — it was getting towards Christmas after all, and no one likes to be alone at that time. She was ready, it seemed, to forgive and forget his many transgressions (of which he was mostly innocent).

      ‘Has Gavin seen this?’ I asked.

      ‘Nope … I’m still holding the original.’

      ‘Okay … let him have it. We’ll let them have a couple of weeks to rediscover each other … but then the whole thing will go tragically astray on the night before Christmas.’

      Xeno shook his head and laughed. ‘Why are you being such a cunt to this bloke?’

      ‘I’m not going to explain it again.’

      ‘Oh, that’s right … your special sense of justice,’ he scoffed.

      ‘Morgen the superhero … the Black Prince wreaking vengeance for the little guy.’

      ‘I’m not the Black Prince, Xeno … I’m a friend of the Black Prince. And fuck the little guy if he’s a cicada murdering homophobe.’

      ‘Well, who’s the Black Prince?’

      ‘Never you mind. Anyway … don’t you want to get on with your gambling?’

      I handed him a few more fifties, and immediately the judgment faded from his face. He turned back to his poker machine.

      ‘Xeno.’

      ‘Yeah?’

      ‘I’ve got another job for you.’

      ‘Oh yeah?’

      I counted out another ten fifty dollar notes.

      ‘I need you to get me some heroin … and a couple of packets of Beljean coffee.’

       5 By the Pricking of My thumbs

       Instead of music, there is the sound of rushing water.

       The girl with the dirty claret hair is watching me. There can only be one reason for her interest.

       I leap from my chair, and I’m flying through a window — landing on the ground in a shower of shards, unharmed, and racing through familiar but unfamiliar streets, as though someone had torn to shreds the suburbs of my experience and reassembled the pieces at random. In my confusion, I run across a field, making for the back lane home. But instead of home, I see the old public toilet block at Kenley Park — an eerie sanctuary in the violet gloom before the street lights come on.

      Then I hear the baritone drone of motorbikes in the distance, and I know I have to get away, but there is only the toilet block in the light. All else is darkness and shadows.

       The motorbikes are getting louder, and as panic grips my heart and jaw, I lay my hand against the door. But as I do, I am aware that there is something on the other side … something I don’t want to know.

      •

      So, have you judged me already?

      You have yet few of the facts, but perhaps my manner is enough? I don’t expect people to like me, but I do expect them to be fair as they consider my tale — which includes many good deeds as I gather together those odd threads of destiny, ignored by God, and fashion my justice.

      After all, there are two types of people in this world: sculptors and clay. And when the clay loses shape it is the task of the sculptors to caress and cajole the mass back into a form pleasing to the just sensibilities of the highly evolved.

      As for myself, I discovered life sculpture early in my career. I was working for a firm called Hempel Grice where there was this arsehole of a senior associate who was quite expert at taking credit for the hard work and ingenuity of the poor sods under his authority, and well on the road to making partner. I didn’t have to work with him myself, but I was aware of the impact he’d had, not least on a girl (Tanya) in whom I’d been vaguely interested at the time.

      The Arsehole was a smoker and three or four times a day would disappear downstairs for a cigarette. One morning I happened to be walking through his department when all of his minions were involved in some cake-eating ritual, and I noted him heading for the lifts with his cigarettes and lighter.

      Without even thinking, I walked into his office and brought up his Inbox. Immediately, I recognised the name of a major client, pressed Reply and composed the following message:

       Dear X

       I have decided that the partners at Hempel Grice are too much my intellectual inferiors to suffer working for them any longer. I am determined therefore to establish my own firm and would like to know that I can count on your business. You will be paying substantially more than you are now but you will, of course, be getting the premium service that only my first class legal brain can provide.

      I pressed Send and left his office, having been in there less than thirty seconds.

      In fact, I never gave the incident a second thought until a couple of days later when Tanya told me the Arsehole had suddenly left the firm in mysterious and acrimonious circumstances. She seemed quite upset about it, but none of her colleagues did. They were rejoicing in the fact that they’d been unexpectedly reprieved from his regime of despotic mediocrity, and I realised that I had a gift — a type of power that can be used to achieve great and noble things.

      And of course, I comforted Tanya.

      For a while.

      •

      I woke feeling strangely unrested and decided to exercise my discretion not to attend the office. I’d only have to listen to more of Jock and his manifest-fucking-destiny, and I wasn’t prepared for him. It was Friday — perhaps I’d go in on the weekend and get a few things done.

      But that didn’t leave me any time for idling.

      After a fast and frugal breakfast, I took a travelling bag from under the bed in the spare room and jumped into my nondescript Mazda. From there I drove to Hornsby, against the peak hour traffic, parked in a little nook I know (not far from the station) and opened the travelling bag.

      Inside was a present from Xeno which had afforded me many hours of entertainment. Long grey trousers with a broad red stripe, dark grey jacket in military trim complete with epaulettes, peaked cap with red piping and the bold Red Shield of the Salvation Army blazoned on the brow. To this ensemble I added a red wig, a fake moustache and a pair of non-prescription spectacles. I dressed quickly, assumed an air of humble serenity, then left the car and headed for the station.

      Xeno had been very thorough. Not only had he obtained the uniform, just as importantly he had also acquired one of those special collection boxes the Salvos hold out with such tranquil piety, which I was attempting to emulate on that sunny Friday morning as I scanned the crowd for likely faces.

      With the exception of life sculpture, there’s nothing I enjoy more than posing as a Salvo. And, obviously, posing as a Salvo affords me many opportunities to engage in some low level sculpting. There were any number of godly types who’d want to engage me in conversation — which can be dangerous. I have only a lapsed Catholic’s smattering of bible-speak, so it’s too easy to offend the small-g-god-but-Large-C-Churchgoers who infest the North Shore.

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