Friday, May 06, 2011

15) Into the Snake-pit.






These stories, that have been available on Blogspot for 10 years for free, will now only be available on Amazon at the address above. They are contained in “Vagabon Freak”, the 1st volume of a trilogy titled “The 7 Lives of the Punk Poofy Cats”. I have been the archetypal starving artist in his garret, painting, drawing and writing, writing, writing as if I were some waif crying out in the wilderness. Now I need you, dear reader, to hear my cries and go to Amazon and buy a copy of my book and keep me alive. There you will find my complete tale, from beginning to end, in one place, for you to hold in your hot little hands. When you read it straight through, I assure you, it will blow your mind.

Below are introductory paragraphs and some pictures that I still retain to illustrate this story, hopefully to give you a come-on to get my book. Thanks for giving me a go, TZ.

Sample:
The taxi drove through the suburb of Heidelberg on its way to the citadel of “psycho-dehumanism” and, from his window, Arthur contemplated the open fields dotted with billabongs and gum trees that had yet to be encroached upon by the city sprawl. He knew a famous school of painters had lived, loved and worked there in the 1940s and he wistfully compared their quixotic existence to his own that had no hope of romance or artistic glory.
Too soon the taxi zoomed through the daunting gates of Mort Park Mental Hospital and he caught his first glimpse of the Victorian Gothic stronghold last seen in his innocent childhood. He couldn’t help but shudder; the buildings exuded a deranged, evil atmosphere reminiscent of castles in vampire movies.
Arthur moved post-haste into the creaky nursing-quarters, a derelict block of cubicles down the back of the lunatic asylum that easily could have harbored the Amityville Horror. Most of the nursing staff had been there for fifty years and had mulched down to garbage in their stodgy rooms, like “Swamp Things”. They peeked through the crack of their doors every time he came home, watching for any misdemeanor, creeping him out from day one. For six weeks he had to attend a nursing school where he imbibed the basics of anatomy, physiology, psychology and basic nursing techniques, most of which involved keeping an objective distance from his patients while categorizing their lunacy, and then he was thrown into the deep end.
To test his mettle, the eighteen year old student nurse was placed in the chronic schizophrenic ward, locked into the day-room with seventy deranged, berserker men and told to swim for it. Surrounded by deviants, suicides, self-mutilators and murderous psychopaths, he forgot his fear as there was too much going on and, because of all the city’s night-haunts he’d already survived, he was in his element. He was just coming out of his Mod phase, still with long hair and fancy clothes, thus suspect in the staff’s institutionalized eyes.
He was full of ideals like nurturing and brightening dull lives, activating them back into the wonders of a caring society. He preferred to talk with the madmen in their recreation rooms rather than be pseudo-psychoanalyzed by the reactionary male-nurses within the sanctuary of their glass surveillance box and, as the months dragged by, their enmity increased. This was not just the omnipresent “Social Club for Normals” of the outside world from which he was eternally excluded, it was the ultimate site of human validation, sane versus freak; if they judged you defect in the Psyche Ward, you were doomed.

(If your curiosity is piqued please go to the WEB address above and buy the book to read further.)




Mort Park Mental Hospital.