ABOUT WILLIAM

William’s mind tried to outrace his heart. The clock was ticking too slowly and the dog next-door moving too loudly. William thought it was the dog, but he wasn’t sure. Maybe it wasn’t the dog. Maybe he should check.

William checked.

It was the dog.

It was always the dog. William was sick of anxiety attacks. He was sick of pills. He grabbed the pills from his top drawer. He emptied the bottle into the neighbour’s yard. William hopped back into bed. Outside he could hear the dog munching on the pills. At least he thought it was the dog.

But maybe it wasn’t the dog. Maybe he should check…

William tried harder to get to sleep. Unfortunately for him the clock still ticked by too loudly and the dog still moved too slowly, and William was cold. He hopped out of bed and switched on his radiant heater, standing with one leg either side like you’re apparently not supposed to do. William got warmer and sipped on water.

The water was old and William stared into it, looking for some sign of contamination.

After some time, William’s bare skin brushed up against the hot metal on the heater. William screamed and pulled away, knocking over the heater. He clutched his injured leg hysterically.

When he calmed down William took a peak. Festy-pus oozed out from the burn-mark. Maggots crawled in and out of the wound. William screamed again and curled up crying on the floor.

William’s mother came running in. When William calmed down he showed her the wound and the pus and the blood. William’s mother placed her cold hands on the pink skin where he had brushed the heater. There was no pus, there were no maggots. She checked outside. It was the dog. William’s mother turned off the heater and moved it away from the smouldering carpet. She sat with her thirty-three year old son and cried too.

She couldn’t save her son, just as he would probably not be able to save her.

Mary had to dodge the cow crap when baby Jesus was born. “Not enough room in the inn…” they all told her. So the Son of God spent his first night squealing from a trough. It wasn’t a very regal beginning for someone who would later be called the king of the Jews, but there was just no room in the inn. At least not enough room for a pregnant young girl about to give birth to a bastard child, even if that child was the messiah

Two thousand years later Williams’ life started in a similar way. Not the same, just similar. There was plenty of room in the maternity-ward for those with private-healthcare but Williams’s mother definitely wasn’t one of those. There were no animals in the public restroom that night, and no one visited with gifts (not even a card from Nan). A drug-addict stuck his head into the cubicle to see what the noise was about but ran away when William’s mother asked for help. The infant William and the infant Christ were both born out of wedlock in a room that stank like faeces, but that’s about where the similarities ended.

Not that it stopped William’s mother from making comparisons or from having outrageous aspirations for her son. Hopes and dreams that she would constantly remind William about. “It’s not how you start but how you finish,” she’d say “Jesus Christ started out in a cow-shed.”

As he grew William began to hate that Jesus guy.

At thirteen William perplexed his Sunday school teachers when he asked “If God is so good then why did he let my dad die?” William’s mother never took him back to church after that and no one asked why. They talked and had ideas, but no one asked. Some figured that William’s question had caused Williams mother to do some doubting of her own, or that she was embarrassed when reminded that she was the only single mother attending mass. The truth as to why William’s mother turned in her rosary beads was more practical than that though: she knew William would not be able to handle finding out the truth about his biological father.

And so it was that William never had to hear about that Christ fellow again. At least not for a few weeks, after which time Williams’s mother began the comparisons again. They were a good few weeks though.

The bar was full but William was empty. He peered through the noxious fumes of cigarette smoke at the clock. It was about seven o’clock and the normal crowds were beginning to wander in. William was just leaving. He hated a full bar and he hated the crowds. Besides, William had been sitting in the bar for five hours. William knew his mother would have knocked off work by now and would be wondering where he was.

William was bothered. You see William’s mother asked too many questions… too many probing questions about William.

William was bothered…surprisingly not by his mother or by the questions, but by the 'about William' factor. This was a factor he couldn’t escape for it was a factor he was born with and reminded about every day.

William’s mother had cut back the Christ-comparisons recently. No matter how deluded you are, it’s pretty hard to compare your thirty-three year old son with the saviour of the world when he can’t even hold a job. This bothered William too… not the job thing or the thirty-three year old thing but the change in his mother. William began to wish for more comparisons with Christ because he had developed hopes that, like Christ, he would die at thirty-three.

William was nearly thirty-four and still very much alive… or at the least very much still breathing.

Perhaps this was William’s first miracle, to still be breathing at thirty-three. When you are the only child of a devout but unmarried catholic who has, since your birth, constantly compared you to Christ you don’t want to be still breathing, you want to be dead. However, alive by default is still alive and by living out his days in such a non-deliberate way William had performed the miracle of not having done himself in yet.

This was Williams only miracle to date. Unless of course you count the time that he convinced young Irene McLaren to show him her underpants. William counted it as a miracle. It didn’t matter that they were both thirteen years old at the time or that afterwards William ran away, underpants are underpants and William hadn’t been that close to a girl since.

William smiled as he remembered this miracle, probably the greatest achievement of his pathetic life. Given his lack of abilities with the ladies, William considered Irene even speaking to him another miracle. William thought that three miracles was a pretty good effort, and that maybe he was more like Jesus Christ than he gave himself credit for. He polished of the rest of his beer and left the bar.

As he made his way home William decided that his being alive was not only a miracle but a mistake. Walking home that day, he figured out a way to put the mistake right.

William sat near the old games machines. The café owners had long switched them off, but William appreciated the nostalgia and a familiar something.

To the passer-by William seemed consumed with and trapped in the early nineties (ten years later revelling in what most considered a nice experience and an even nicer distant memory). However William actually preferred to linger in the late eighties and to William, who was around for both, there was a big difference. Vanilla Ice was blaring in his iPod but the ‘about William’ factor was blaring louder.

It wasn’t really his iPod; it belonged to a girl at the library. She had left it there and William grabbed it before the librarian saw it. He hoped to run into the girl one day and return it, but thought that she wouldn’t mind him borrowing it in the mean time. It wasn’t really an iPod either; it was one of those cheap replicas that people buy on eBay. Still, William figured it was the closest he would get to the real thing and thought wearing it in the café would make him look cool.

William didn’t look cool. Two young children were trying to get the games machine to work. William guessed that they were probably somewhere between eight to fifteen years old. These days it’s hard to pick someone’s age, thought William, everyone is trying to look older. William wanted to look younger. He figured the fake iPod helped, but the two young children weren’t fooled.

“Excuse me …” one of the children asked hesitantly, “are you a retard?”
“What?” William asked amazed at the child’s brash openness.
“Take your friggin’ ear-phones out you big, fat thirty-three year old turd!”
William took his ear-phones out and stood up ready to clobber the kid.
“What did you say?”
“I’m sorry sir; I just asked you whether you know how to get the machine working…”
Remembering the maggots William knew that sometimes his mind played tricks. He realized that the kid was sincere and William showed him that the cord wasn’t plugged in. Then he showed the children how to get free games out of the machine, a talent he had learned when he was still trying to look older.

Upon imparting his wisdom to them, William hung out with the kids for a while, talking about whatever came to mind- comics, girls, sport. William didn’t know a lot about girls or sport, but that didn’t matter because neither did the kids. It was nice to have someone to talk to besides his mother. Normal people didn’t usually talk to William.

Just as William was beginning to loosen up and be himself, a voice came from the café door.
“Marcus and Steven, it’s time to go. Stop annoying that strange man…”
The kids ran out the door without even finishing the game leaving William friendless again. The words of the children’s mother echoed in his mind. Strange man…? Was that really how normal people saw him?

It was moments like this that William longed for his mother to say something, to compare him to Christ, or Buddha, or Tom Cruise. He wanted her to tell him that he wasn’t strange, and that when you looked at the lives of successful people they were all called strange once.

William expected that his 34th birthday would only lower the expectations and hopes of his mother. He had hoped that there were miracles still to come though. He didn’t want the word ‘strange’ to apply to him.

William knew it did.

He decided to go home quickly and to take his own life.

William got home, opened the front-door and waited. Normally his mother would be cooking food, or waiting at the table for William, or both. Normally she bombarded him with probing questions about his day and comparisons with Jesus Christ. Today was different… the television was blaring and there was no food cooking.

William’s mother lay still on the floor.

She had fallen and had knocked the heater down with her. It was Williams turn to save the smouldering carpet. He picked up the heater, and then checked his mother’s pulse.

He checked again.

Then William lay down next to her for a while.

Waking up in the little hospital room William was relieved to hear that his mother had had a heart attack. He’d thought she was dead when he walked in on her the night before. William had actually thought that his mother may have killed herself. She wasn’t dead though and the heart attack was from natural causes. She was alive… or at least, still breathing.

William was glad his mother was still breathing, and that she would be home soon but he wanted to make her life better. He knew how he should do it too. William kissed his mother, and headed home.

William searched through his bedroom, tidying it up so that when he was gone his mother would not have to clean the room. That’s what he told himself but he was really motivated by guilt. In his room William gathered up every piece of incriminating or embarrassing evidence into a garbage bag. There was pornography, credit card statements, and even a homemade bong from high-school. William was glad nobody would find these things when he was dead, especially his mother.

William emptied his near full sack of sin into the neighbours wheelie bin. Not the neighbour with the dog though, the neighbour with the wheelie bin. Evidently the neighbour with the dog was on holiday after their pet dog overdosed on bipolar pills. William wished he’d thought of doing that.

When everything was disposed of and the house was tidy, William grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer. He decided not to write a suicide note.

William thought back on his life, on his conquests, strife’s and on bipolar. He remembered game machines, comparisons with Christ and underpants. He remembered he was strange and he remembered the ‘about William factor’. He held his wrist out in front of him and stared at his veins.

William remembered his mother. He remembered lying on the carpet, he remembered being afraid and being held, and he remembered that she loved him.

It’s a hard thing to think of loved ones when the moment calls for selfishness. However, as the only child of a devout but unmarried catholic who had since his conception always been there for him it was especially difficult in that moment.

Williams’s heart outraced his mind. He pressed the knife harder as the clocked ticked by faster and louder.

William threw down his knife.

This was his biggest miracle: his first unselfish thought.

William realised his mother was more precious to him than he was, than the “about William” factor was. William went back to the hospital. There was someone there who he needed to see, and who needed him.

For love to reach such a strange man in such a dark place, William knew there were miracles involved, and that there would need to be many more miracles to come.