Carer Fiction

By Blake Ryder

(Smashwords Edition)

© 2011 Wider Screenings TM | Transgressor; Adelaide, SA. All Rights Reserved.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the publisher and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.



Contents

Introduction
Mama Luger & the Boy Cyclops
The Seeker of Imperfection
Mr. Bad Example

Introduction

Note: The first person “I” in this introduction is a construct: the stories in this e-book were written through a persona, a narrative voice created specifically for this e-book to embody the pathology of the carer as emerging archetype and unify the stories as the result of a singular mindset and the result of specific experiences. The introduction is a fictionalized framework to contextualize them with genuine lived experiences by carers consulted in the writing of this book: the “I” is an amalgam of lived experiences.

For ten years I was a dutiful husband, carer and good Christian. My wife at the time had a minor but life and mobility affecting case of cerebral palsy. Going into the relationship I was of the belief that with a true emotional connection and commitment, a developing love could “overcome” any problems posed by her disability. As self-conscious as I always was about entering into a long-term relationship with a disabled woman, I naively felt that it could be possible to make it work: that disability would not be a problem. Although I felt a stigma of shame surrounding my commitment, I pressed ahead.

My then wife could walk on crutches in her earlier years but by the time we began living together, she was a motor-wheelchair user. Eventually, although she had been once independent enough to live on her own with the assistance of personal care attendants, her day-to-day care became exclusively my responsibility. She was dependent on me. The strain of reconciling my role as husband in a sexless marriage with my duties as carer, however, were in the long run too much for me and the marriage eventually collapsed. By that point though, her dependence made it impossible for me to leave without abandoning her and that, as a moral Christian, I simply could not do.

Thus, for the last years of a loveless marriage, I dutifully attended to her day to day care; showering her, dressing her and cleaning her after her toileting. The reality of such care became a robotic chore which I dreaded. However, I was still effectively sacrificing my needs to ensure her a quality of life she otherwise would not have and at some level that made me feel good. The Christian appeal of such a self-sacrifice eventually also wore through and I descended into apostasy, the reality of her care deadening and obliterating my faith. I no longer felt good: I felt trapped. Self-sacrifice was an unbearable imposition upon my humanity and was physically and psychologically destroying me.

As my then-wife would have to get up at least once, often twice a night, for toilet purposes, I could not get a full night’s sleep during those years. She had said to get a protective sheet and let her simply have “accidents” at night, but I in all conscience felt bad about letting her sleep in urine and preferred to get up, despite the increasing toll on my health. Her physical needs meant that I was effectively on call to her 24 hours a day. As such, I did not have the opportunity to look for work and was reliant on the Centrelink Carer’s Payment. Effectively, my job became her care: after paying the bills, my “salary” for such amounted to a few token cents per hour: the rewards of Christian self-sacrifice.

In the last year of my marriage, after a seven year wait for public disabled-accessible housing, a suitable property came through and we moved in. Contacts with South Australian carer and disability organizations ensured now that at least some of her needs were not my sole undertaking. During my time off, the first I had in years since completion of my first book, I began again to write. This time, I decided to try fiction – short stories. Although my day to day reality had overwhelmed me to the point of desperation, I did not want to realistically write about it as it was simply too painful to re-address. Instead I wanted to use the myriad of emotional, psychological and sexual issues surround my care for a disabled wife to inform a series of baroquely narrative fantasies.

The first story that resulted from this was Mama Luger and the Boy Cyclops. For this story, I wanted one thing: to stand up against my reality as a carer, transform it into satire and laugh in the face of what had become my private abyss. The carer-caree dynamic I thus sought to transform into grotesque black comedy that in the end descended into pornographic obscenity – a bizarre, pathological sexual fantasy. Unrecognizable as a representation of my daily existence, except at psychological levels, the material emerged as a comedy of despair. As intrigued by the dynamics of this as I was, I felt that I should nonetheless examine my predicament in more realistic terms. The result of this was the second story, The Seeker of Imperfection.

For this second story I sought to condense the experience of a man attracted to a disabled woman, entering into a relationship with her and then confronted by the reality of caring for her: to confront the reality of attraction to the disabled, a subject not discussed in public. Written as a kind of one-night stand tale by an insecure man, the realistic connection disturbed me: once again, there was a sexual pathology there, although again it was that context that intrigued me: the attraction to difference to the point of seeking it out. After all, I was a man who once held my wife’s slightly deformed hand with affectionate tenderness and considered it beautiful in the eyes of God. I couldn’t help but feel a touch of shame at this, however, and the story is still one I find too difficult to re-read.

By the time of the third story, my then-wife and I had agreed that the marriage was over and that we would separate as soon as the opportunity presented itself. However, I still was her effective primary carer. A disabled-care organization which had been helping us told me that there were simply not enough funds to provide her with the care so that I could leave her knowing she was taken care of. Although we were ready to separate, her care demanded that I remain. However, there soon emerged one option. If I left my wife, literally abandoned her, then she would qualify for emergency care assistance and funding would be allocated to ensure her an independent life in my absence.

The proposition was a moral dilemma. Although she would be taken care of and able to live a full and independent life without me, which was what we both wanted by that point, I would effectively have to desert a disabled woman dependent on my care. If I turned my back on her and departed in a clean break, in the eyes of Centrelink, the disability authorities and anyone concerned with her now-emergency care, I would be a bad man, a miserable example of masculine responsibility. In the eyes of the Christian religion I had by now begun to actively denounce, I would be a damnable wretch. Debating Christian ethical responsibility versus the promise of a chance to be free and begin life again, I wrote a third story.

This third story addressed the psychology what I feared I would inevitably become if I left my marriage in such circumstances – a true bad man. Titled Mr. Bad Example (after the Warren Zevon song of the same name), the third story was a descent into the forbidden fantasy of freedom from all Christian moral constraint. Violent, pornographic and nihilistic it took the narrative realism of the preceding story and extended it into a realm of sheer moral ambiguity. During the cathartic writing of the story, I made up my mind to leave my wife, abandon her if that was what it took for her to be independent and for me to be free. Hang the consequences: I had to be free. The story became my fantasy of the absolute freedom to be a bad man, to be everything that I was not.

Shortly after the third story was completed, I “abandoned” my wife. Emergency care took over and paid physical care attendants subsequently took care of her daily living. In time, she developed an independent life again, and fell in love with a Christian man who also had CP. She never lost the sense of optimistic joy in life that had initially won me over to her. I left a former-carer, a devout apostate and writer of perverse sexual fantasy with nothing but my DVD collection, my books, my computer and my car, out of which I lived for some time before finding an affordable two bedroom apartment. After time to settle, during which I threw myself into writing, securing non-fiction contracts with publishers in Australia and the USA, I re-visited the initial carer stories for possible publication.

All that was needed to put them together was a title. During the sexless marriage I had pored over the exploits of some of history’s worst sex murderers and read about their sexual fantasies and morbid pathology. One such murderer wrote from his prison cell a book of short stories – pornographic, homicidal sex fantasies based on his real murders: he called it Killer Fiction. I reasoned that my stories, despite their basis in the carer/caree moral dynamic I was immersed in but was now free from, were in some respects also perverse fantasies. But they weren’t Killer Fiction, they were Carer Fiction. Their result on me as author - well, I permanently lost all Christian faith and surrendered to despair, finding in it a perversely nihilistic humour.

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Mama Luger and the Boy Cyclops

God Save the Queen.

Mama Luger weighed a ton.

Literally.

Obesity had rendered her a decidedly cumbersome figurehead of state theocracy and the constant civic duties and public appearances demanded of her unassailable Royalty thus presented something of a problem. As she would often refuse to move at all, and could only take a bare minimum of steps should she even try to budge, her upkeep began to drain more resources than allowable under any parliamentary budget. The dicey situation was eventually solved in a most bureaucratically efficient manner – the proud result of much planning by the united departments of health, transport and human rights.

After all, what better cause was there than the indulgence of the Queen?

Unable to care for herself on her own, Mama Luger was attended to by a permanent personal staff of reluctant midgets. Although they were the brunt of much civil service humour in the course of their operations, these untouchable dwarves effectively developed a working hierarchy. Each observed their own station and often held the others in either contempt or begrudging indifference. They knew where they stood in their servitude and were comfortable with the task; allowing for the odd strike threat to just, rattle the cage.

The “supporters” comprised three teams of three, who would rotate the responsibility for transporting their beloved Royal. The one with the strongest back was propped up under her belly and one each under her respective buttocks; ensuring that when Mama Luger moved her legs she could maintain the illusion of self-propulsion. As Mama Luger’s public appearances were confined mostly to elevated areas, the midgets were hidden from the public throng below. Even when on level ground, her overflowing bulk and rich silken robes often concealed the supporters from public view. Occasionally little pairs of feet would be seen shuffling under her bulk, but if ever caught in photographs, they were understandingly airbrushed away. This illusion of mobility was a blessing for the State. However, both the danger of suffocation and the muscular strain of this particular chore made shift work inevitable.

In addition were the “servers”, a team of three trained to operate the various hoists and lifters needed to get the Queen in and out of bed, in and out of the shower and on and off the toilet. They were called upon far less often than the supporters and correspondingly were somewhat resented within the midget cabinet as having the cushiest job. Indeed, during off times, the servers could often be found lingering around the Palace bar, ready to demonstrate their smug airs whenever the tired supporters would return from their back-breaking shift. Understandably, the supporters resented this minor provocation and so Palace protocol ensured that there was always a police officer stationed in the bar, to keep the midget classes in line.

Finally, there were the “carers”, a sole team of three whose duty it was to keep Mama Luger in as best a state of physical hygiene as her condition allowed: primarily, this meant cleaning her various orifices after their numerous discharges and washing her down as often as she desired. The supporters and the servers tended to be wary of the carers and would often step aside and hush whenever they passed them by. The carers had in turn developed a kind of quasi-mysticism about their duty, almost as if it were a religious calling. In official correspondence with the cabinet, they were thus referred to as a monastic order.

Despite the minor infighting between these classes and their various support staff now and then, this system somehow proved to be functional. That is: at least until Mama Luger started lusting. That was a predicament that every department would claim beyond its sphere of responsibility and hurriedly pass off onto another. In the interim, the situation was usually dealt with by simply leaving Mama Luger alone in bed, unable to even masturbate herself, until she had screamed her frustration away.

At one point a year or so ago, shortly after her coronation, there was established a fourth team of midgets, the “wankers”, whose job it was to manually service their Queen’s needs. However, the wankers soon went on strike, demanding hazard pay after one of them developed a strange rash along the length of his arm. The use of long gloves was suggested as a remedy but Mama Luger claimed it interfered with her natural sensitivity. The hazard pay situation was never resolved and the wankers were thus quietly disbanded pending a committee to determine an alternative plan. This committee in turn met once a week but had as yet arrived at no workable solution. There were, however, plenty of reliable meeting minutes entered into the record as proof that the matter was indeed an ongoing and important concern.

Meanwhile, Mama Luger’s bouts of sexual frustration increased in both intensity and frequency. It was during one such bout that a solution presented itself to a particularly enterprising and observant committee member, a tall, thin, gaunt, bespectacled man by the name of Bennie LaPooka. Though his tight eyes and a pencil thin moustache gave Bennie a rather Dali-esque appearance, he was amongst the most promising of members recruited straight out of University. Indeed, such a direct route into the Palace sphere made him also a resented figure amongst the more experienced committee members, who would thus vote down many of his proposals regardless of their virtue.

One day, whilst casually observing Mama Luger from a distance, Bennie noticed that she would inevitably brighten up and even make more of an obvious attempt to support her own weight whenever one of the janitorial staff was doing his rounds in her offices. This staff-member, a teenage boy named on his employment sheet as Xetra Dax, had only one eye, a large brown eye in the centre of his forehead. A bushy lone eyebrow hovered above it, and his eyelashes were long enough to tickle his cheeks whenever he blinked, which depending on the occasion was either profusely or not at all. He would also dribble uncontrollably when mumbling indecipherably and was thus assumed to be severely retarded.

He had been hired out of the controversial pity-bill that had so incensed so many of the nation’s top employers when it was introduced at the bequest of the Disability Movement some time ago. Although he was somehow trained to do minor janitorial tasks, it was clear to all concerned that the boy Cyclops was oblivious to anything and everyone around him. He was, however, unlike everyone else whose world he still moved through, always smiling.

Indeed, everyone seemed oblivious to this insignificant functionary; everyone that is, except Mama Luger. The more Bennie observed her reaction to Xetra’s presence, the more he noticed that Mama Luger could not keep her eyes off him, although she did her best to conceal her interests from the midgets and anyone else who happened to be in attendance at the time. Once, as the boy had glided past her, she subtly reached out ever so slightly so that he brushed her fingertips as he passed her. This seemed to make her close her eyes and shudder, an incident followed by a barely audible groan from one of the buttock supporters. Bennie concluded that it may be best for the sake of all concerned if Mama Luger could somehow be united with this apparently beloved boy.

With due altruism, Bennie LaPooka took it upon himself to see this done.

Bennie knew that the committee would never approve of such a liaison. Their Queen could never be acknowledged as anything ever resembling a common “slut”. Anyway, they never approved of anything. Yet, Bennie felt that if he could actually remedy the situation on his own, that would be evidence of just the kind of initiative that would finally gain him access to the inner levels of more parliamentary operations, an access essentially denied anyone remotely involved in the maintenance of the Royal facade.

Thus, one night, after everyone had gone to sleep, Bennie sneaked into the custodial dormitories at the rear ground floor of the Palace. Xetra had his own little room there as the custodial supervisor felt it best to keep him separated from the rest of the janitorial staff, apparently in case his idiocy proved noticeably contagious. Bennie found Xetra’s quarters easily enough, as there were nametags on every door. Of course, the room door wasn’t even locked: after all, idiots have nothing to fear.

Bennie entered the room and hastened to the bedside. He touched Xetra on the shoulder and the boy awoke. Bennie smiled at him. Xetra smiled back and went to rest his head on the pillow again. Confused at the boy’s indifference to being so awakened, Bennie patted his shoulder again. This time, Xetra looked at him, though still smiling and thankfully proving compliant, making no protest when Bennie asked him to get up and come with him.

As he got out of bed, Xetra only drooled a little. Bennie used his own sleeve to clean the boy’s mouth. After all, it had to be presentable for where it was going to go. Bennie decided not to wipe away the globules of sleep from the boy’s one eye.

The corridors were vacant at night. Although security rounds were supposedly a regular hourly occurrence, the security staff much preferred to sleep the time away and the knowing Bennie was thus able to time his foray effectively.

Bennie took Xetra in hand, leading him out of his sparse quarters and down the corridor, past the portraits of expired Monarchs and through to the elevator.

Xetra smiled as he looked at the numbers in lights: they were pretty.

Security on Mama Luger’s floor was just as competent, the rationale being that since they were that high up, who could ever get to them anyway. So; Bennie took Xetra by the hand and led the boy to his destiny.

Mama Luger’s bedroom door.

They could hear her snoring, a bellow of a slumber.

Bennie turned the door knob. Unlocked. Perfect. He knocked on the door. Gently though; a little too gently – the snoring continued unabated. He knocked with more force this time. The snoring stopped. A gasping replaced it, and then a horrible raspy voice.

“Who the bloody hell is it?”

“It’s committee member Bennie LaPooka Ma’am.”

“Pencil neck? What the fuck do you want?”

“It’s about a matter of some delicacy.”

“I’m in bed now; I don’t want to get up. Those bloody midgets piss me off always grumbling about something or another.”

“No problem Ma’am; if I may just enter.”

There was a slight pause as Mama Luger pondered the matter. As angry as she was, she was also awake, so what did it matter. After all, she knew what committee Bennie was on – maybe there would be some good news.

“All right. Make it quick though,” she said.