The Story Of Carpentry Part 2

I am the creation of an extraordinary series of inter-generational co-incidences. My personality has been the series of a lot of events, some kind, some cruel, some moving, some scarring, some joyous, some bewildering. My sense of humour is affected and created by the theft of a series of jokes from UK comedy shows no Australian has ever seen. I read a series of books that explain extraordinary co-incidences to me or seem to tell me to fix my outlook on life in a particular way to get what I want. I could fill a whole room with these books. No one has ever fully explained to me in simple English that they share the sheer joy of wondering all the co-incidences that made...you. Without some1ne thousands of years ago making goo-goo eyes at someone across an Irish swamp while washing their clothes or trying to steal a potato just to get through the day I wouldn't be here. I find the series of events that brought me to this point of my life so mind altering it keeps me awake some nights trying to remember them.

I don't need drugs, a brief moment of reflection on time and space will generally do it for me.

So, with such a respect for life, you may ask yourself why some of this precious short time on earth that will 1ne day be replaced by infinite peace in the cold embrace of the grave or, should you be other minded, eternal life with all your childhood dogs, is taken up with fixing the lock on a door at work. Of course minutiae won't form the basis of that amusing anecdote the priest or celebrant gets to recall on your funeral day, but a million frustrations may drive you closer to that point. Light is fading outside as I stand watching a bug eyed man in blue overalls trying to twist and contort an immovable lock into a shape that will allow us all to go home. He looks like either the inept chubby gangster who gets shot first in a crime movie or a weightlifter who's about to drop the bar onto his foot. His overalls don't quite fit him, and his hair is receding and retreating from his forehead 1ne curl at a time. He certainly loves locks. He sighs and deeply examines every inch of his work, in super slow motion. I'm bored. I don't share his passion for locks. He's already snapped at the new girl at work, he said something like "Didn't I tell you not to snap the lock back!" - she's new, she shrugs. Maybe he told me. He huffs back to the lock, in a blur of bad skin and little chubby fingers. He's lost the tip of his index finger. I try not to stare, since to ask would be to make polite conversation. The last thing I want to do is delay the crucial work being done on the lock. The really funny thing is when you live at home alone there's really no impetus to get home quickly, but it always feels like there is. The chubby locksmith asks me if I remembered not to slap the lock back. I shrug as well. He sighs from the deepest point of his overalls in disappointment and turns away from me as so many imparters of seemingly obvious wisdom have done over the generations to impudent fools such as myself. There's no point in any further bonding. He works for the rest of the time with us in complete silence. He must feel like Jesus, but with less miracle performing ability, unless the miracle you seek involves you getting home at a reasonable hour...

I've had to fix this lock because the same cabal of people, the same descent of complaints that saw me fix the air conditioner; they made me get this lock fixed. The air conditioner the other day was too warm, instead of too cold. I locked myself away in an office for a while just to listen to some Charlotte Gainsbourg to get away for a while. They still found me. My ironic girlfriend took her jacket off and worked for ages in a short singlet. I don't know if this was a come on - maybe it was. Maybe it was just warm. I can create a linear pattern to how the lock broke - someone twisted it and it didn't work. So some1ne told me and I rang a number that diverted briefly to India, saw me sit on a stool and listen to a series of frustratingly banal muzakical tunes until I was connected back to the country I live in and after the exchange of facts I had booked a man to come and fix the lock and lo and behold here he was. It's pretty easy to draw a flow chart that explains the process of lock being broken to lock being fixed. Any kind of emotive feeling within me I shy away from - ironic girlfriend? Don't mention it. Focus on the lock. Much easier to deal with. The light outside has completely faded by now. A bully is throwing shadow punches at a much smaller kid in the laneway across the road. The only sound is a staticky hiss coming from our increasingly dangerous and violently trembling radio. It makes all songs sound like they've been coming out of an East German cartoon from the 60tys - clanging, clanking, hissing and ultimately sounding nothing like they are meant to. How did I get here, I wonder, as I turn off the Paper clip on Microsoft Word and begin to type. Only 3hree sounds are heard in this quiet office with 2wo Males in it - industry from the worker, hissing from the radio, and me touch typing into an out of date copy of Microsoft Word while time ebbs slowly away from me...but not slowly enough...

I saw my netball playing girlfriend from many years ago outside a lift in 1ne of Hobart’s finest shopping centres the other day. I was my usual indifferent walking through life, and I didn't hear her say my name. I think I was thinking about sandwiches - how rude to interrupt. She has kids now. I don't remember that happening specifically. It just happened. She smiled broadly and hugged me after saying my name for the first time in many years without a swear word prefix. I didn't have much to say - it's lucky that I didn't tut when she accidentally ran her pram over my foot. I think it was accidentally, it might have been for all those times I played ATARI in her attic instead of talking to her about feelings. She disappeared into a crowd of milkshake buyers with her kids pulling at the hem of jeans, making a vague promise to talk on Facebook. We'll never talk on Facebook. She looks old and wise while I'm wearing some sort of retro soccer top paying tribute to the Bravo Juice company as a sponsor. We parted making the kind of awkward stilted small talk couples make on a first date. We went on a date 1nce where she wasn't happy with me for trying too hard. I was bewildered as to why effort was a bad thing. She never had an answer for me. She later looks impossibly miserable as her kid’s career into the shins of the local bookstore matron. The local bookstore matron is large enough that if she stood in the classical wide stance she would block out the autobiography section in an eclipse of nylon stocking. No 1ne would be able to ever get to the hilarious recollections of Ken Sutcliffe if she did so. The kids probably think it's a challenge to career into her legs and live to tell the tale. My old girlfriend looks at me as I walk past later sipping a milkshake. She looks a tiny bit regretful, or just hotted up and frustrated trying to control her rowdy infants. It was inter-generational co-incidences and a mutual love of Beth Orton that brought us together and now here we stood entirely different people with entirely different lives, perhaps with a chance of re-connecting as civilized adults. The moment is brief, and passes quickly. I see an opening in a lift and take it, she has to restrain her rowdier child from throwing Ken Sutcliffe’s memoir into another kids head, and we part without a farewell glance. Maybe I'll send her a message on Facebook after all...if I remember her surname...

The locksmith man leaves. He doesn't say he's left. I only know he's left because there's a stack of forms on a desk that no 1ne will ever read. There's scrawled psychopathic handwriting all over the forms, so maybe that's where he gives us his dire lock based warnings. He just leaves the forms to sign and disappears, leaving behind his silver wrench in a fit of forgetfulness. It hopefully isn't some Cinderellaesque sign that he's my true love. The workman’s code - leave behind a work item for the 1ne you love. Maybe it was for the new girl. She has a stalker who smells musky and wears a baseball cap to the side and Metallica T-shirt ensemble in a signifier that his youth is over but by god he'll go down kicking and screaming. She left a while ago. She's suspiciously happy all the time the new girl in the manner of some1ne who goes home and cries and then steels themselves to a big effort the next day. Her kid ran into my legs and said sorry Uncle Miles the other day. I said that was OK. It took a lot of restraint, since I hate kids, especially out of control running ones aimed at my shins. I click off my work place Instant Messenger - it deletes an entire day of whinging conversation from all and sundry. I turn out the lights with a deft flick of my wrist, and step outside into the night air. For a horrible moment I think the lock is about to devour my key like a hurt man devours the microphone when he sings sad songs at karaoke - but it clicks shut, and in a short walk I'll be in my car, driving through the dark part assorted equally bored car imprisoned strangers, until finally my driveway comes into view, and time comes to relax, far from locks, ironic girlfriends, and any stressful messages flashing on the screen...

Linear, so clear and linear how I got home. So easy to describe. Everything else, of course, I'm just not verbose enough to sum up easily...