by Mat Capper
I wasn’t going to write anything this time, but I couldn’t help it, Exterminating Angel is just too good not to be a part of it.
It’s 2am.
(Jesus, why is it always 2am in these things; am I turning into Damon Runyon or something?)
I feel like I’m drowning in ice cold water. I’ve started smoking again, only maybe two or three a night and always American smokes, Marlboro or Lucky Strike. I’ve always preferred the taste of American smokes for some reason, something about the flavour. Sometimes I smoke American Spirit, a natural tobacco without chemicals and apparently made by red Indians, or do I just like to think it is? I always use Liquorice papers, just like the beautiful Johnny Depp, he’ll never die of lung cancer and he’s a true American sweetheart; him and, of course, Marilyn Monroe; a lady I was obsessed with from the age of seven.
I love smoking, always have, or is it just the idea of smoking? Do I become Bogart or James Dean?
Sometimes I don’t smoke for years, sometimes I smoke everyday. I don’t tend to tell anyone though; I wouldn’t like to be known as a smoker, I’m too intelligent and fit for that, I could fight a bear for fuck’s sake. It wouldn’t do for people to see me inhaling smoke and I can’t stand being in company when I smoke. It’s my little secret; my kids could never know, I’d be too ashamed of my own stupidity.
I’ve been smoking two or three a day for the last three weeks; the same period I haven’t slept properly for. Not more than an hour or two and awake with hideous anxiety and burning pains in my legs. I tend to try a few different beds to try and settle, then go outside with the dog; occasionally we both piss in the garden together; it’s actually quite liberating. Then I’ll have some juice, maybe pick up a book or write some mumblings and then watch some news on the television; which strangely is full of pictures of dying animals covered in oil. I wonder why the powers that be aren’t made up to be drowning in the stuff given they are prepared to murder 1.3 million civilians to get hold of it. If only a few hundred beavers had died in Iraq then maybe some of those people could have been saved. And why is it that the news is happy to show the sad sight of dying wildlife but not the brutal death of innocent Iraqis? Not that I really want to see either.
I digress.
The reason for all this?
Mrs Mumbling has been in hospital for exactly the last three weeks. She has a neurological disease called Generalised Dystonia which stops her moving at any time and sends her into chronic spasm. She’s had a procedure called ‘deep brain stimulation’, where they basically run a current through her brain to keep her moving. She has been relatively good on it for a few years.
Not so at the moment.
Three weeks ago she stopped working; no movement, nothing. Just muscles twisting and screams of pain. Morphine and sedatives followed and all I could do was offer the flimsy reed of support; sure, the morphine and sedatives helped me through it although I can’t stand the taste of oral morphine.
I’d like to be able to take a nice glass of red wine to ease the anxiety or just a vodka or two, but the problem I have when I drink I literally don’t know where I’ll end up. Like the recently deceased Dennis Hopper I have woken up in forests before with absolutely no recollection of how I got there. One time I got woken up by a farmer in Jersey; I’d buried myself into the ground (perhaps to keep warm) and was wearing a sack used to package soil. The funny thing is I wasn’t in Jersey the night before; the last memory I have is eating some Chinese food in Liverpool’s China town.
I never met Mr Hopper. But I believe some of the people on these pages knew him fairly well. I’d like to think he was somewhere in between his characters Clifford Worely and the journalist in Apocalypse Now.
Drink isn’t an option and tablets do me no good. So I’m left wondering the house in the small hours wondering what to do next or ironing school uniforms.
Maybe this is incredibly selfish attitude given it’s not me in hospital; maybe all my thoughts should be with Mrs Mumbling, or maybe this is all just natural. What is natural anyway? Not pain, I don’t like pain.
The last few days she has improved a little with physiotherapy and rest. She has taken her first few steps again and may soon be re-joining me in the home, albeit on sticks or wheels. Maybe then I’ll sleep, content in the knowledge it’s not just me trying to function with two little children, a dog who likes to pick up a shoe every time he sees me and a cat so old I often prod him to see whether he has passed on.
I don’t know if I could cope with what Mrs Mumbling copes with, or whether I’d find it easier with all the choices taken away. All I do know is that I wish things could be easier for her and that our children never have to suffer, but then life is suffering, isn’t it? We need the bad to appreciate the good and all that. We shall see.
I’m off to let the dog out and check the cat is still alive and then do one of my favourite things; kiss the kids while they sleep, full of peace and dreaming the dreams of angels.
Goodnight.
Just to report–dog fine, cat alive and children beautiful. And the Lucky Strike I had was absolutely disgusting, gets me every time. I fucking hate the taste and it’s a disgusting habit.