The Button: Part 3 – Introducing John
He saved a sodding life. On his way home from the station, he pecked at a small bag of chips, extra salt, hold the vinegar.
Now time for our favourite. We’re rooting for him.
John Draper’s life followed a delightful logic. A simplicity even binary would envy. He had grown up intoxicated by the smell of engine oil, the clunk of a thousand bits of metal stirring into life, and the hum of the garage itself. It was magic, it was a thunder, it was a symphony that exulted him to his very core. At the dinner table, in between mouthfuls of lumpy mash, he’d daydream of cars. He would make it his life’s work. Route one: as the crow-flies-living. If he could, he’d still be going to sleep in the bed his dad had whittled for him, toes bent back against the wood as he outgrew his childhood. That splendid Cortina mark three. He’d talk of banger racing weekends, his face lighting up, hands miming the gearstick in one of his dad’s many motors. The second he finished school he took an apprenticeship, which led to a part-time job at a local garage soon after. He never looked back.
Expecting the dark secret now?
The twist, the gut punch, to explain why he kidnaps Isabella. Maybe he was an immortal demon preying on young, supple women, perhaps he had countless buried under his patio. Every night he sprouted wings, grew fangs and flew high, seeking alabaster necks of virginal teens. No. His life continued unencumbered, free of constipation and doubt. He met Janet when he was twenty-five at the Bowes Lyon youth centre in 1988; a band called The Meteors had headlined a most pleasant evening. The following year they married. Then came Jake and Annie. Same job, same love for cars and his family ever since. His one vice, his most selfish urge, is going down his local, The Poachers, on Saturday afternoons for a few pints and a catch-up with his mates.
He’d get a little sad from time to time. Who doesn’t? But his view on that was simple. ‘I’ll get a good night’s sleep, and everything will be alright in the morning.’
John Draper was a man you could set your watch to. Dependable, loyal and as spit and sawdust as they came. Hell, you could take the watch off, set it down on the pavement—John would find a way to get it back to you and offer to have a link or two removed from the strap, so it could never fall off again.
Don’t take our word for it, either. Google him. Go on. We’ll wait. No, sorry, come back. Here.
John Draper – Good Samaritan – Stevenage Man talks young person down from bridge
He saved a sodding life. On his way home from the station, he pecked at a small bag of chips, extra salt, hold the vinegar. The wind snatched a crisp packet past his face and his gaze followed it to a lone figure on a footbridge ahead of him. A kid who couldn’t have been more than fifteen, Jake’s age, and at first John was worried the lad might simply be blown away. He looked as if he weighed about four stone wet through. The severity then dawned on John. The boy wasn’t there by mistake, he slowly hoisted himself over the railings, peering down at the busy dual carriageway below. The roar of traffic rose to meet him as wisps of steam escaped John’s cooling chips. He had to act, his heart hammered not from fear but from a desire to help.
‘I just asked if he was okay. If he wasn’t, that he could talk to me.’ The article stated.
The kid had told him to leave him alone, that no one could help him.
‘I didn’t want to pretend I could ever assume what he was going through.’
What did John do? How did he get fifteen-year-old Kevin to reconsider?
‘I offered him a chip.’
Enough said. Hero.
It was Friday night when Isabella first pushed the button in Dean’s garage. The day we were born. Born was wrong. Separated. Forced to exist on our own. Orphaned. We hope you can understand our resentment now. She didn’t care about the button’s consequences. She didn’t stop to think for a second about the collateral. She was only interested in her vanity. She would have argued sanity. Fuck her humanity. Pushing that button was tantamount to genocide. What we were was gone. What we became was created.
Before, we weren’t sentient, not in the way we were afterwards. Everything we thought was as part of Isabella. Then she evicted us, kicked us out of our home and erected an iron curtain. We drifted through and then above, the grey streets of Stevenage. There was no wind. No atmosphere. Only crushing sadness. Life was there, but it sat stuck behind a mirror, or a window. We could see but never touch. For a while, we accepted our fate. We would splutter into the ether and fade. But we didn’t. We persisted.
She had been right to ask Dean, as it turned out.
‘Where does all the stuff go?’ Her squeaky, high voice, the one she changed in the presence of men, it rang in our head. Did you know she did that? We did.
We were shunted somewhere else. Through Isabella, we perceived the world like a grand banquet. It wasn’t always our favourite meal, but it was complete. Coherent. That Friday, we spent hours swirling in the void. It was as if the constituent parts had been rendered down, ground into a mush they feed babies.
We had given up control. Until we found John, that is.
On Saturday he got up early, around seven thirty. For the past few weeks he had been doing ParkRun down at Fairlands Valley Lake with Jake. A five-kilometre run from a standing start had almost cracked his knees in two. The sting in his lungs, the metallic taste of his saliva and his top smelling of damp dog, he could do without, but he enjoyed it. To him, they were badges of honour. Like a slow chili-heat: addictive, uncomfortable, but a satisfying sensation all the same.
Besides, it was nice to spend time with Jake, even if only for the first twenty seconds of the run, such was the melange of shoulders as they passed the first bollard. ParkRun started at nine and John liked to ease into the morning: munch a banana, slurp a cup of tea and lunge into a stretch or two. Jake could roll out of bed at 8.30 and bounce round the lake like roadrunner, no problem.
John was alone with the quiet chatter of Saturday morning television when we said hello. He weighed up how suitable a source of glucose the last custard cream in the packet would be and felt peculiar. It was like his stomach had collapsed in on itself, folded open and snapped back in one motion. An accordion like spring of the gut. He didn’t need the biscuit, no. His hand moved to cover his stomach, he let out a sigh and clasped his other palm tight. But it happened again, this time with a thought. A very clear sentence that started as a sticky itch in the back of his mind.
You’ll have a heart attack if you try and beat your time today and if you don’t try to beat your time, why even bother.
His ear burned and he felt a pressure below his waist. He looked down, observing his aching paunch which was obstructed by the waistband of his running shorts. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead, he felt more congregating on his bald head, he was damp in his chair. He grasped for his cup of tea but spilt a little, dribbling it down his sports top. The stain was immediate and stark against the pearl white cotton, impossible to ignore.
Fat, useless cunt.
The words pulled his face into a grimace and every time the television cut to black he could see a look of disgust staring back at him. He turned it off with a porky press of the standby button and was left alone with fat, old man John.
He didn’t feel himself.
But we needed somewhere to go. It was John or it was nowhere. He was the only candidate who was cavernous. The emptiness in his head created a suck, a pulling motion that drew us to him. His mind was the only place open for business. Everyone else, we could see the mush, the grime buried in the reaches of people’s brains. We weren’t compatible. John was clean and ready. John could house us all, and we were so many.
John just needed time to acclimate to us. We were really trying to help him. Keep him safe. Our first collaboration, oh we were so glad, came when he decided to wake his son, tell Jake that he didn’t much fancy the ParkRun this morning and what about a bacon sandwich instead. Being fifteen and an enjoyer of sleep, Jake didn’t mind at all.
Janet found it strange, but not worryingly so, that John stayed on the sofa in front of the television all morning. Jake was a little irked that the promised bacon sandwich came with the small print that he would, of course, have to make it himself. Annie, his daughter, was the only one that broached it directly.
‘Are you okay, Dad?’
‘Yep.’ John’s answer hissed out like steam.
She raised an eyebrow, kissed his forehead, shrugged, and got on with her day.
John’s only regular calendar appointment was later that afternoon. A pint or two with his mates as Soccer Saturday carried on the very bizarre tradition of men watching men watching men play football. That would be around three o’clock and by one thirty, John hadn’t moved, managed a shower, or changed his clothes.
Janet took it to mean that he was taking it easy and saddled on up next to him for a chat.
‘Been thinking about these jabs a little more, and yeah, I think I want to start them.’
John loved Janet. Worshipped the ground she walked on. In his eyes she was perfection and unlike some men his age, he had no difficulty showing how much he fancied her, if you catch our drift. But Janet suffered from self-esteem issues. Perceived or not. Real or imagined. Being a mum brought on ‘mumsiness’, a sense that she should feel different, look different, be different. It invited self-criticism, a constant nudge to measure herself against some invisible standard, even if nothing about her had changed.
She took the last custard cream from the packet. John had wanted it, how dare she. He shook his head slightly. Janet hesitated a moment as she chewed.
‘I’ve spoken to Flora at work, she gets it a bit cheaper than I would, but it’s still only £150 a month. What do you think?’
They had spoken about this before. Their relationship was one of easy communication. So, as Janet sat there on a sleepy Saturday afternoon next to her best friend, her lover, her husband and soulmate, John’s answer caught her so off guard that she spluttered mushy biscuit crumbs onto the carpet.
‘I don’t think we can afford that. You’d have to be on it for ever, and you’d just be sad when you piled the weight back on if you ever stopped.’
‘But—’ She didn’t even manage the next word. John cut her off, stood up and announced they’d talk about it later, that he needed to get ready for the pub.
In truth, he didn’t understand what was happening to him.
His answer had scared him, to the point of running away. He just wanted to hide in the toilet and regroup. The warm water of the shower would give him breathing room, time to think. By the time he made it to the pub, John was certain he was coming down with something. A dodgy meal earlier in the week, perhaps, a funky egg sandwich from Tesco on lunch break. He’d get himself down the doctors on Monday, they’d check him out and he’d be right as rain. One pint, a small chat with the guys, and then an early night. There was a little shop next door. He’d pick up some flowers for Janet too. He had overreacted. He didn’t mean what he had said.
That resolve, that positive mental attitude, lasted all of five minutes. His usual beer was off, so he had to settle for one with a definite metallic twang. He got it changed, but it was still bad, he let it go flat, the bubbles slowing as he slumped into the booth. Gary droned on about his divorce and all John could think of was ‘Well you shouldn’t have been having it away with her mate then, should you?’ Gary got what he deserved. Then the television lost signal. The static was an irritating volume, coalescing with the clammy humidity of the pub. It fucking stank in here and the beer was shit. Someone offered him a game of pool. He shook his head. Darts? He got up and left without so much as a word.
The WhatsApp group checked in on him. He muted it. They called Janet. That enraged him. He said he was just feeling under the weather and to tell them he’d see them next week. He came home without the flowers.
John was in full panic and decided to take the drawbridge to his life up. He went to bed that night miserable, glum and alone, even though his wife lay next to him. The space between them was a chasm. Sunday wasn’t much better, there were pockets of clarity, moments of serenity, but it felt like an eternal tug of war, the other side chalking their hands, redoubling their efforts, refusing to relent.
He clung to the hope of a doctor’s appointment on Monday. Of course, this being Britain, that was unlikely. The scant few same-day slots were snaffled the second the clock ticked over to eight. His voice pitched up, the anger bubbled in his throat, caught and hitched when the lady on the phone told him she could only fit him in late Tuesday at a special after-hours clinic. As if she were doing him the favour. The cheek of it. It meant he had to endure a day of work with his head in a vice and a stomach that threatened to sink him.
He failed a car that could have passed its MOT. He had spent most of the morning hunched, shoulders high and neck stiff, so when an exhaust like a potato gun on steroids fired a few hundred meters away, John’s irritation snapped. He made a point of checking the boy racer’s car himself, deftly collecting his paperwork and ushering the driver into the waiting room like a VIP. A smile that never quite met his eyes clung to his face. ‘Sure mate, be done in a bit.’
It wasn’t the first noisy exhaust and John had passed plenty. He wasn’t there to judge how people spent their money, and as a proud lover of cars, while a modded-out exhaust wasn’t his cup of tea, he could respect it. But he had made up his mind. This car was failing, long before the guy in baggy jeans who stank of weed got out.
‘I said it failed.’
‘What crawled into your arsehole and died, mate?’
‘You can bring it back when it’s fixed. That will be £54.85. Have a nice day, pal.’
He saw the boy’s middle finger as he raced out of the car park. John’s smile was forced; he couldn’t even enjoy his petty revenge.
That evening he continued to keep himself isolated. He didn’t think what he had was contagious, he more didn’t want any opportunity to chew out his beloved wife, or his kids who didn’t know what he was going through. He couldn’t even explain it, the closest he could get was that he had taken two steps back from active participation in everyday life.
Janet tried, again, furtively, to bring it up as they got ready for bed that night.
‘I don’t know.’ John said. ‘Everything just feels like a lot right now.’
‘The doctor will help, tomorrow, he’ll help.’
The doctor prescribed anti-depressants.
John had sat for no more than thirty seconds before the ageing GP closed his eyes, nodded his head and simply said the name of the drug. Sertraline. John was so on edge by that point, he did a double take, whipped his head around the poxy little room. A hideous yellow light buzzed, and he could taste sterility on his tongue. His heart thumped in his chest with anger. Should he leave? But then the doctor stifled a yawn and continued.
‘A low dose, barely anything. Twenty milligrams a day. Come back in a month.’
Barely anything.
John made to get up. The doctor held a finger up to stop him.
‘Mr Draper, you may feel worse before you feel better.’
John rocked back into the chair and waited for the Doctor to explain.
‘It can precipitate very low, very dark, even suicidal thoughts.’
‘Right. Brilliant.’
‘More common is fatigue, weight gain and low sex drive, loss of libido.’
‘And what are the benefits?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘This feeling. These thoughts. They go away in a week. A month?’
‘I don’t know. Everyone’s different.’
And yet John would continue to feel the same.
His weight went up. The scales laughed at him. He slept facing away from Janet, afraid she might reach out, afraid she might want him. The doctor was right. He felt numb.
A week went by and it was a week where he sank deeper into a cycle of negative thought. He made excuses not to eat with the family, excuses to leave work early, excuses that felt thin even as he said them and yet he kept going. He walked aimlessly around town in wind, rain and weak sunshine. Cars passed and he did not look up to clock the make or model. That part of him had gone quiet. The bed would be too small now, the Cortina mark three was an average car.
He could not reconcile the man in his head with who he used to be. He thought of the footbridge and finally understood what Kevin had said.
That no one could help him.
Now, at this point, you would be justified in blaming this on us. But you do not have the full picture. That is our fault, yes. We admit that. But we were trying to help John. If the medicine your soothsayers hand out like sweets makes you feel worse before you feel better, how was what we were doing any different.
This was Isabella’s fault.
And John would soon realise that. Once he did, that would be the real medicine.
PART FOUR in two weeks ‘The Meet Cute’
Demons! Look what they've done.