The Erection Injection

I’ve been on a few coach holidays and bumped into the Jed (Gerald) - an old man who wears a smart blazer and trousers through the daytime. I called him Smokey as he was the kind of man who got off the coach at every toilet stop with a cigarette and golden lighter poised. I’ve met him three time so far and whenever the coach stopped off somewhere nice for a couple of hours we’d stroll around together.

Oddly the nattily-dressed gent was from a rough part of Manchester. His wife of 40+ years had died and he said his “life was pretty much over” and he was just hanging around until his life folded. I liked him and over evening meals we got to know one another. Despite his wife being his life he said women were his weakness. Though he said he wouldn’t marry again there was another possible contender for his heart in later years. He socialised with a gang of likeable rogues but, away from them, he’d met a morally-upstanding posh lass of younger years. He said he’d only been to bed with his wife and was worried about bedroom acrobatics with someone else. From one of the rogues he acquired an illegal internet-sourced potion that might get his front tail wagging a bit. More out of curiosity than an impending date the posh lass he tested it, injecting half the potion and then settled down to watch some television. No effect except when he looked at his cream curtains they seemed slightly purple and when he went to fetch something out of the fridge that seemed purple. Later the basin and bath were purple - anything white was imbued with a light purple haze. Later in bed he said it seemed all the blood in his body swam tadpole-like toward an egg – but the egg was his Cumberland sausage and the next morning the thing hadn’t surrendered. The headache and slight grogginess made sure he didn’t use up the rest of the potion.

I liked Jed and wonder if he’s still alive. I can remember us sitting on a bench looking over the river at Stratford and him saying mournfully, “I can’t have long left can I? A man from my era who’s worked hard and smoked since I was 8 – I can’t have long to go can I?” Some old people seem weirdly well-adjusted to such things but he didn’t. The last time I rang his mobile phone number it was dead but I just hope he isn’t and that I’ll see that well-dressed gentleman again.

So here is an odd painting showing an injection being given. I hope I’ve got the nurses facial expression right. I was in hospital for a few days once and the man in the bed across the way had got drunk and climbed out of a bedroom window and fallen through a conservatory. You could tell the Indian doctor who came round each morning didn’t favour patients whose injuries were booze-related. He was a nuisance, saying the floors were dirty and beds hard. I can remember he called one of the nurses a “Toe-rag” and when she gave him an injection in his rump she rammed that needle in hard. He went “Yaaaarr!” I have tried to give the nurse in this painting a vengeful expression.

I took four goes to paint this face…

Looking for affirmations from Kylie (but I didn’t get it)…