Getting the lights on

March 2023

There was this old guy today, he called me to put a light up. When I walked into the house, I got a bad smell, it smelt of faeces. But not a normal smell, it smelt like when people are really ill. The smell wasn’t strong - but it was just there in the air like a miasma I passed through upon entering. When I walked into the living room, he’d already took the old light down, the live wires were hanging out of the ceiling all dangerously, and he was looking up at them all sheepishly and crestfallen.

All over the living room were medical things, latex gloves, dressings, bandages etc, stuff that home nurses use. I got the impression he’d gone to do the light himself but then couldn’t and stopped, and he felt a bit embarrassed. I looked at the light he’d bought, it was very complex, loads of diamantes to hang off it. No wonder he’d lost his nerve!

He kept asking me “Is it ok, will you still do it, I know it’s hard?” I said yes, but asked if we could set it up on the kitchen table. There were bags and bags of the fucking dangly things to deal with. He’d also started to open them and had mixed them all up and broke some. Well, you can moan or get on with it so…

I started to lay them all out carefully on the table in order of size and sat down. We talked about pubs, he loved pubs. He’d stopped drinking now but he still loved pubs. He said he was the best door-hanger in Liverpool, being an old, retired joiner. He talked about the pub with the longest bar in Liverpool and how it was filled with pints on his wedding day.

It transpired that his wife was really ill upstairs, she was dying. “She’s maybe not got long” he whispered with a little nod to upstairs. They’d been married for fifty-seven years, had four kids who were all in their fifties now. He’d been stressing over the light, it had become a big thing, a distraction maybe from the other big thing of his wife dying. Life’s like that, sometimes we just sit in the dark thinking too much, waiting for the lights to come on, and for someone to help us. 

Bit by bit, I started putting this light together, he kept asking “are you sure you can do it son?”. I’d smile and say “Ye, we can do this mate, it’ll just take a little while”. Then he’d say “I’m just worried about your time” and I’d tell him it was ok, and that I had time. Then I’d ask him questions about his life and he’d just go on about the past. I could see this light was bigger than the light, it was one thing, one thing that could go right in his day, in a day where he didn’t know what else might happen.

Sometimes small things are emotionally massive, sometimes we just need that one fucking win on a shit day, don’t we? When I got the light up, I got him to go get me some window cleaner and some kitchen towel, and I wiped it all down so it was shiny. He was buzzing. He gave me an energy drink and a fiver tip. I said I’d spend the fiver in my favourite pub for him and he looked happy for me, he had a lovely goofy smile, he was very child-like in his smiling. He asked me if I’d always been patient, I said no. Then he said “Did you used to be a mad bastard?” and I laughed and said yes. He said he could tell that, but he reckoned that I’m better the way I am now. I think he’s right.

I hope he’s alright.