— Beirut’s not on the news, do you see that?
He had told the patient in the chair over there inside the useless room they all sat or became angry in. He had carried on a bit about Beirut and about all the lies that have been told and he was leading up to describing his own joy in Beirut, when that patient started screaming about the hoop, the hoop and that the woman was going to fall from it.
He moved back, put his arms up and said he didn’t contribute. I don’t contribute. I don’t contribute was what he said. He left the room with his hands up still, remembering that trouble always started when the television went on.
Rain will fall, he said, Rain will fall. Rain will fall when the television goes on.
Because she was a woman in that room there’s bound to be a problem. Whenever he is alone in a room with a woman a problem follows. He waits for the problem to come and follow him. He waits for the knock.
Perhaps they won’t come for him any more because they have sent Baldy Conscience to annihilate him slowly?
Ah they come for him now in the form of Baldy Conscience, or Barely Conscious as he’s begun referring to him. That hoor could be sleeping in his bed. Or smashing his videotapes or pissing in his coffee jar, while he’s stuck in this ward with a nearby woman angry about a hoop. That hoop woman is about to cause trouble, he can feel it.
Hoop woman told them he used a cushion to cover up what he was doing to himself with his right hand while she was sitting near him in the common room watching the news. He used a pillow, she said. He had his hand on his John Thomas. He was perving out. I could see it. Trapped! Martin John caught her. Was it a cushion or a pillow? At first it was a cushion, now it’s a pillow. She was confused. How can you trust a woman confused about a pillow or a cushion? They banned him from the common room. It was no loss, only a useless room in which they went to sit and be angry with each other.
Outside the ward he started slowly. He hoarded in. He stacked papers high. He closed all in and around himself. He lived on tins. Avoided the cooker and told himself Baldy Conscience was Barely Conscious up there and one day soon he’d die. Martin John would roll him out of the house in a wheelbarrow or a trolley borrowed from Tesco.
He imagined depositing his body in the street.
I’d leave it by the kerb.
Half-on/half-off.
I’d hope someone might run over his legs, sever the bottom half of his body. It would equal only half the trouble he has put me through.
The big struggle is time. Where is time and where was time and how has he lost it? Where did the time go in the places he does not remember being? Where was he at the times he cannot account for? What was he doing? Tell it to them slowly. Tell it to them precisely Martin John. Slow it right down or they’ll hop ahead of you. The circuits are the only activity that help him record time. Record it absolutely. Tell you absolutely where he was and what he has done. Now they forbid him or intrude on his circuits, he is having more and more trouble accounting for where he has been and what he has been doing.
With no day shift or night shift or circuits, time has become strange, neither protracted nor squat. Just strained. Strange. Estranged. Estuary ranged. There are days, inside in the room, that because the windows are blacked out, he can’t tell you if it is day or night. He can’t tell if it’s night or day? He can’t even tell you how he wants to make this statement.
All part of his plan you see. His plan to starve Baldy Conscience into remission. To see him disintegrate like a flea with no blood to feed upon. But as with all plans progress will be slow and tepid. A Baldy Conscience takes a lot of weathering. They don’t wilt easy. Will his inquiry take him to Euston? Oh yes it will. He will walk this inquiry around his favourite station. He will visit the flippy ticket window. He will walk and walk until the answer unto Baldy seeks him. Everything comes when he walks on it. When the circuits are intact. When the letters and the circuits add up to an equal.
We’ve to get you out, mam said.
It was surrender that sentence.
He was back there again.
Harm was done.
But he liked it.
It was hard to credit that harm could be done when you liked it.
It was hard credit why something you liked could be harmful. Harm was done.
He knows this.
I had it in my mind to do it and I did it.
He had a mind to do it and he did it.
That’s a fact.
He knows this because people in the psych ward group told him.
They told each other. Not just him. It was the code.
Did they agree it was the code?
He cannot remember if it was officially the code.
The same way they’d tell you it was Monday.
It is Monday.
Harm was done.
They had come for him after the incident outside the SuperValu shop, down the lane with the girl.
They had come for him with the one on the bus.
They had come for him that time with the girl who said he put his hand down the band of her skirt.
The other girl where he put his hand between her legs.
They had come for him.
They were her brothers. It was brothers who usually came. Well their fists mostly.
Inside (t)his London house, they couldn’t see him. They couldn’t come for him anymore. This is why he locked them out. But they’d sent Baldy Conscience in.
Which one has Baldy Conscience come for him over?
The Estonian? The Ukrainian? The Brazilian? Or the one on the Tube?
The one on the Tube sitting next to him right now.
I had it in my mind to do it and I did it, he told the British Transport Police as they carted him away. They were waiting for him at the top of the escalator. Four men. Four policemen. No women. They never sent women for him. He rode up the escalator and sailed into their arms. Except they were not waiting for him and had no idea what he was talking about. Until they did have an idea what he was talking about and chased him all around Euston Station. Technically, he said, I’ve already reported to you. I’ve done it twice today. It took two of you to come for me. Two of you ’til you heeded me. That’s a fact.
He had been arrested for sitting at the top of the escalator and refusing to shift until they removed him. The first few people had said excuse me, excuse me, stepped over and around him until they arrived with suitcases. These had to be lifted over his head.
Finally though it was a woman with a buggy who raised hell. Get out of my fucking way, she said. I mean it, get the fuck outta my way. He didn’t budge but the police arrived. His old nemesis the British Transport Police who took so long to arrive despite the “transport” in their name.
I had it in my mind to do it and I did it, spoken again as they dragged him away.
Martin John has refrains.
His fifth refrain.
It put me in the Chair.
This is his number five.
It can be a he, she or they situation. A situation did not put him in the Chair. A collection of situations did. A collection of situations caused by she’s and he’s and sometimes even them’s. That’s not true, mam put him in the Chair.
Things outside himself. He has no control. Mostly it was a she that put him in the Chair. She put me in the Chair, he would bleat to the doctors.