A Couple of Human Beans

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“I don’t feel old, even now, and not even ill, apart from the cruel pain. I was somebody once, a radio announcer, you know, back in the fifties, before TV. I rode an elephant along George Street. I liked to make people laugh and smile. Once I sat up a pole for 5 days during capping week. Another time students kidnapped me. They stuck me in stocks in the Octagon. People paid five shillings to throw water balloons at me, for charity. I was a big celebrity, judging baby shows and beauty contests, opening shops. Then, one day, it was a Tuesday, the station manager’s wife developed “feelings” for me, and, well, you know how it goes. Anyway, that was the end of my famous career. After that it was downhill all the way.

It’s nice here in the country. Lots of space, and views, and the lovely aroma of cow poos. Not that I get outside much these days. Spend my time looking up at the ceiling, all mottled and dirty-looking with cracks and funny shapes - there’s one like a clown’s face. Reminds me about a man I knew on the West Coast. When everybody else was lowering ceilings to save heating costs, he decided to raise his floor.

You’re from the Hospice, you say? A Community Care Coordinator? I see, Rural Outreach. Awfully good of you to travel all this way to sit with me. I don’t know who I’d be talking to otherwise.

You know, you have a lovely face, so full of feeling.

I had a wife once. Some sons, too, but, nuh. One of them wanted to visit me yesterday but I wasn’t having that. He didn’t want me to be part of his life so why should I let him be part of my death? There are some grandkids. I’m not sure how many.

Have they told you how long I’ve got? No?

Of course, my wife left me. I drank a bit after that. Quite a bit. Tried rehab once. Met a chap there who’d learnt Russian so that he could read War and Peace in the original, only to discover he liked it better in English. Fair enough. I met him a few years later under the Waitaki Bridge, where a few of us fellas used to sleep. He was a lovely man. Had his own business card.

You’re a nice girl. So kind.

And you listen to me with your ears and with your eyes, not with your mouth.

Such big blue eyes. But so tired looking, so sad.

I tried to kill myself a few times. Just as well I didn’t succeed. Otherwise you’d be here talking to yourself and that’d be pretty silly. Sorry, I’m blathering a bit.

I don’t mind if you want to cry. No need to hold it in for my sake.

A dog collar with a bald head and a face like a smacked bum came to visit the other day. He wanted to know if I had anything to get off my chest, any regrets. And I told him life’s a bit like a patchwork quilt. You might not like all the patches, but they’ve all gotta be there, you can’t wish them away, or you’re left with holes.

‘They’re all part of the great tapestry of life,’ I said.

In the end I told him to piss off. I don’t think he knew anything about life. I might’ve stuffed up a few things, but I’ve lived, I’ve cried, and I’ve laughed. And I regret nothing. I am me. I’ve always been me, just an ornery human bean, soon to be a has-been human bean.

Look at me, dear. You’re crying. That’s lovely. You’re human, too, just like me.

Everything comes to an end….except sausages, which come to two ends.

Oh, you do have a lovely laugh!

I’m so glad you came to see me.”

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