TRUTH IS LIKE BELIEF

I can only do one thing at a time. I think. I think and I think. I can only do what’s in my face. I am angry to be trapped within myself but I smile. I can see the humour and the irony in the simple tales of a simple man. She smiled as she walked past me. It was true for a second. I smiled through the agony so she couldn’t see the man inside. It is only true if you believe. I sit here and write what is so real to be absurd. Hard is not a word if you can’t spell. My memory’s no good so this may not be true. Truth is like belief

The sun was halfway through the sky as the doorbell rang. I went to the monitor and saw an old lady standing there. I didn’t recognise her. Her cleavage filled the monitor. I buzzed her into the building but didn’t go to my door. I’d started rolling a cigarette when I heard knocking. I was not wearing a shirt as I opened the door. She was standing there wearing a paisley flowered house-smock. She looked at my torso and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She had short hair but enormous boobs. They hung down to her waist. There were three cans of baked-beans nestled between them. Hi, she said I’m the German’s wife, did you know he died? Yes I know, I said, he tried to grab my balls before he passed. What, she asked? Well, I said, he might have been trying to grab my cock. I guess we’ll never know. He wouldn’t have tried to grab your penis, she said, he was probably just joking. I looked her in the eye as I told her that I’d never known any men who joke like that. I just came to see if you were okay, she said. I heard two cries for help. I heard one cry and then another ten seconds later. I know that you’re in a wheelchair and I thought it might have been you? That’s very kind, I said. Was it you, she asked? No, I said. Did you hear it, she asked? No, I said. I took out my hearing aid to show her before I told her I was deaf so it was kind of her to come and check. I’ll suck your cock for ten dollars, she said. No thanks, I said, I’m fine at the moment. She looked flustered before she turned around and walked away. I watched her enormous buttocks wobbling. I’d bet she hadn’t shaved her pussy in years. She turned around to look at me before she walked out the door. I sat and wondered if her coming was really sweet at all?

As I was about to wheel my chair over the ramp on to the balcony I heard a woman moan a woman’s moan. I stopped dead in my chair, a woman’s moan. I listened to hear more. Three seconds later she moaned again. Then she stopped. Silence. I knew then she wasn’t getting fucked. Something else was making her moan. I was just about to light my cigarette when I heard the phone ringing. I raced back to my bedroom to answer it. I picked up the receiver and heard nothing for three seconds. There was a click before I heard a woman’s thick Indian accent. Mr Bukanin, she asked? There is no Mr Bukanin here, I said, and could you please stop calling this number, I asked? I never buy what you’re trying to sell so just stop calling please. Why, she asked? Just stop calling this number, I said. But why, she asked? I thought about it before I hung up on her. I have tried being rude, I’ve tried being racist and I’ve tried being funny. Once I said, in my thickest Indian accent, dharling you didn’t bring the cardamom for the curry, how can I cook the curry without the cardamom? I rolled the r in cardamom. Carrrrrdamom. She hung up on me that time

Wheeling yourself ‘round (round) in a chair sucks. I was going into the kitchen for some water and had just about got there when the phone rang again. I thought it might have been Mum so I pushed back into my room for the phone. I answered, hello? There was a three second delay. But why, she said? I sighed and hung up again. I had to get ready to go to an appointment. I thought about the German as I got ready. I knew another one that was his friend. German number 2 came up to me one day wearing a pair of too-small neon-pink Speedo’s and told me that number 1 liked boys as well as girls. I know, I said, he gets excited when he sees me. I told him that he’d thrust his hand back and forth as if wanking and spit on the floor. Really, he asked. Yeah, I said, it was gross to see another man sexually excited. I saw the German the next day. He came charging up to me to tell me off. He told me that number 2 told him that I said he wanted to fuck me. I never said that, I told him, and fuck you. How dare you, coming up angry accusing me like that, I said. A reasonable person would ask me if I had said that? Well did you, he asked? No, I said, so fuck you twice. That was the last time I spoke with him before he died

I started the day by making a mistake. I’d arranged a cab to take me to the workshop and actually turned up there early. I was waiting in the front of his shop when I heard Sacred Trickster from the bag under my wheelchair. I pulled out my phone to be asked where I was as she was outside waiting for me. Outside where, I said? I’m outside your apartment, she said. I asked who she was and was told it was the new co-ordinator of the engineering department. I’d never met her before. She asked me if I’d forgotten our appointment today? I said, yes. I apologised and told her I was just down the road getting some medical grade shoes fitted. She asked where so I told her the address. She showed up at his shop. We talked easily. She was lovely and talked to me like a real person. She seemed genuinely interested in hearing my story. I asked her story, even though I’d forget, until silence took over

There was a mother and daughter waiting ahead of me. The mother started asking me questions so I answered her back. The mother would have been in her eighties and was glad to have someone to talk to. We talked as the man busied himself around us. I asked her if she had come far for this appointment? She told me she had been driven from Kenthurst. I asked her if she knew ** ******? My blood stopped pumping as she asked, ohhh, are you Andrew? I told her yes and watched as her penny dropped. ‘Oo, she said, haven’t you come far?’

Hearing something like that might make some people feel proud of how far they’ve come and what they’ve achieved but it just made me feel bad to hear it. It made me wonder as to what she’d said about me? She had probably told people that I was written off. They were told I had a brain injury too severe to recover from

The man making my shoes was a Survivor. He was a Jewish man who survived the nazis. It put things into perspective. It shrouded the things I’ve survived. He asked questions about my injury. I told him I fell at work on a building site. He asked if that made me a carpenter? I told him I was a bricklayer’s labourer. I told him all I remember. I told him I fell through a hole on my first day at a new job. He asked my level of injury. I told him I was T12 L1 and incomplete (incomplete means I didn’t completely sever the spinal cord, not that I’m incomplete as a person). I told him of my brain injury to excuse myself from any embarrassment. He was making big black boots with laces and holes on the shoe and brackets on the top. He gave me a pair from his shop to try on. He listened and dropped little pieces of knowledge as he measured me. Whoa, he said; you’re a big boy as he handed a boot to me. He asked me if I was able to put them on myself? I told him I could. I lifted my leg up and put it on my knee, reached down and started to untie the laces of the shoe I was wearing. I un-Velcro-d my orthotics and pushed it and the shoe off. I put the orthotic inside and started to put the boot on. As I started to lace the top brackets I laughed as thought of Arnold. I thought of the scene where the camera focuses on him lacing up his boots getting ready to go rescue Jenny. My chest bounced on my knees until he asked me what I was laughing at? I told him I was just laughing

He started talking. I started listening. He told us of the atrocities he had survived. I have not suffered like him. Nobody has. We each suffer our own pain. He and I could both still laugh and did. As I was leaving somebody waiting out front asked me what we were laughing about? I told them I couldn’t remember

He shook my hand as I left and gave me a signed copy of his book of poems and etchings from the holocaust. The poems were written in rhyming stanza with some assonance. There were also etchings of the things he’d survived. One page was an etching filled with swastikas. He knew hard times. He gave me the book because he knew that I knew hard times

I called the car service and a man came and picked me up. My back was sore from sitting in my wheelchair all day and I was desperate for a cigarette. He talked and talked and I was glad to listen. He arrived at my house, took my wheelchair out of his car and started putting the wheels back on. I wheeled the chair inside to the refrigerator to get a beer

The phone rang so I went to answer it. I picked it up and heard nothing for three seconds. But why, she asked? I hung up again. The doorbell rang. I went to the intercom and saw her. She was wearing a different colour smock. It was more open across the chest. More of her cleavage was showing. I buzzed her in and went to open the front door. She knocked before I got there. She looked flustered as she filled the doorjamb. She put her left hand on her enormous tit and said, I heard somebody shouting. I heard them shout three times. Was it you, I know you’re in a wheelchair? It wasn’t me, I said. Oh, she said, I know that you’re in a wheelchair and I thought you might have needed help. It wasn’t me; I said again, I just got back from the holocaust. Don’t say that, she said, I’m German. Ok, I said. How about I suck your cock now, she asked? I asked, did you know that you’ve got three cans of baked-beans between your tits? Yeah, she said, they’re for later. She asked me if I would take my shirt off. Later, I said, much much later.

The phone started ringing so I told her I’d have to get it. I slammed the door on her and wheeled in to the room to get the phone when it stopped. The American answering machine man had started to say, hello… when I picked it up. I said hello again. There was nobody there. Three seconds passed before I heard a chirp. It was the same Indian again. But why, she asked? You don’t get it do you, I asked her? I will never know why

Andrew Stuart Buchanan