Thanks

I’ve seen the shit smeared walls
of bathroom stalls
in public libraries,
and children, indifferent to scorn,
mindlessly clicking through porn
on public computer terminals.
I’ve seen unanswerable questions
scrawled in black graffiti
and menus offering both sushi and baked ziti,
and a dowdy female librarian
humping an exultant, acne-faced teen
behind what was supposed to be a one-way screen
when I went looking for reading suggestions.

But this is no ranting accusation–
I come in a state of adulation.
For I have read with care
the poems on the men’s room mirror and stall,
studied installations by the artists of anatomy
when in magic marker they’ve laid bare
the simplicity of it all,
have taken the political advice of a stranger
who wrote it out on a toilet seat,
have seen the ugliness of juvenility,
and listened, thrilled, to catch its heartbeat.

Saul Nadatas last blog post..In Baltimore

THE SAGA

It was a fair bugger of a day.
Shouldn’t have got out of bed.
He nearly didn’t fast.
“It doesn’t say so,” he said.
Lucky I checked the form myself.
He drank all the water but I still don’t know
if he finished it by the time he was supposed to.

We get to the lab for his ultrasound
and it’s all a mix-up. We front up at Kingscliff,
they don’t know a thing about it.
Turns out he’s booked himself in
to the place at Murwillumbah instead.
But Kingscliff sorts it out and fits him in.
While he’s there I go to the op shop
and find him some brand new socks for 50¢.

The apples I packed for his late breakfast –
well guess what, he’s left them home.
“I could go to the bakery,” he says.
“Would you like something?”
“Oh, an apple slice. Or whatever you think.”
He comes back to the car.
“I got you some carrot cake,
and I got me carrot cake and an apple slice.”
“WHAT?” I couldn’t believe it.
“I ask for apple slice, and you …”
Seems he didn’t hear me.
“Here,” he says, “You have mine.”
But I go and get an extra.
We eat our apple slices silently.
The cake I stash for later.

Then we head for Mur’bah anyway.
It’s the last day of his cardiac rehab thing.
We turn off at Condong and all of a sudden
there’s steam pouring out of the bonnet.
We pull off the road right there
on this bit of gravel, it all looks deserted.
We’ve got the hood up, everything’s hot,
the lid’s blown off the water tank,
but we can’t spot a leak – when a man
walks round the corner just like that.
He’s on his way to work
at the mill over the way.
Well he lends us his phone
and tells us where we are for the NRMA,
and then he goes. We settle in
for the long wait in the heat.
Thank God for that carrot cake
and our bottles of drinking water.

When the NRMA man arrives
he tells us there’s been an accident
just around the bend outside the Ampol.
He had to double back the other way.
Two cars. A head-on. We can already see
the traffic on the highway banking up.
Then the ambulance comes past
but the sirens aren’t screaming
and it’s not full pelt; that’s hopeful.

Meanwhile, us. Still no leak to be seen
but the reservoir’s bone dry.
He’ll get us a free tow. Another wait,
we reckon, with the accident and all.
But he’s there real quick, gets the car
up on the tray, looks down and says,
“Oh shit!” There’s a gathering puddle
on the ground underneath, and it’s not
from our little car, it belongs to him.

“Hydraulics,” he says. “I got your car up
but I’ll never get it down again
without that’s fixed.” But that’s OK,
by the time we make the garage
he’s figured it out. They raise the hoist,
get it level, and back the car straight off.
“Rather you than me,” I think while I watch.

(So, are you still with me?)
Things start looking up.
The garage lends us a car.
We’ve missed the exercise session
but we get to the hospital just in time
to have the lunch and the talk.
It’s stress relief, would you believe?
We even get a meditation.
Afterwards we stay back
while she checks his heart rate and that.
It’s good enough. Excellent really,
considering all the dramas.

He’s desperate for a haircut.
The salon squeezes him in.
I check the bank accounts. Oops!
Getting low, but I scrape up the cost.
On the way we bump into Colleen
and have a good catch up.
She’s just had a promotion,
leaves next week for Mooloolaba.
I jot down her latest email and MSN.

I go to grab something from Coles,
and there coming down the ramp is Sharon.
“I’d love to buy you guys a cup of coffee,”
she says when we stop hugging.
“Meet you in 20 minutes at Sugar Beet.”
A nice long conversation, and a date
to get out to her place for lunch
one day real soon. When Andrew and I
stroll back to the borrowed car,
we’re laughing, arm in arm.
“Hang on a minute,” he says,
“I’ll just duck into Bailey’s.”
He comes back $10 richer;
they’ve sold a copy of his book.

Starting home, I get a thought.
“How’s this car for petrol?”
Just as well I asked. It’s on empty.
“We’ve got no money,” he says.
“Yes we have,” I remind him.
“You just gave me ten bucks.”
We make it to the Ampol –
no sign left of the accident now –
and get ourselves home before dark.
All things told, it was
a most providential day!