The Jesus Man

  Tommy began attending the Baptist church because he badly wanted to fuck Helen Thompson. Nights were furious thrashings, a silent, self-conscious masturbation interrupted by sleep or the sudden intrusion of a human sound.

  Helen. He did not know what fucking was but he knew he wanted to fuck Helen. This was the sound, always there in his head, always. Fuck Helen. Fuck her. Fuck her. The thought of cunt obsessed him, its complete unfamiliarity. He didn’t even know what cunt looked like, not really. He once spied his mother undressing. He was held by the beauty of this foreign body. Breasts and hips, a glimpse of the snatch. He turned, ashamed of himself for looking, and that was when the repulsion came. For it was his mother. And the repulsion was not for her body but for himself.

  Tommy fell in love with Helen Thompson.

  She was attentive to him, thrilled at bringing a convert to the church. But he stuck out, was visibly a stranger. They were all fair and pale, these churchgoers. The women, unlike his mother, wore the most insipid of fashions. No bright colours and no black, nothing tight fitting. The men wore shirt and tie, and they too appeared unattractive. Not that some women there were not pretty, not that some men were not handsome. But they did everything to diminish any spark. Only the ministers, when they got fired up, were impressive. They spoke tough and looked strong.

  Helen was upset when they went to Sally Manton’s party and he got drunk, shitfaced on cheap wine. He put his arm around her and tried to kiss her. She pushed him off.

  Pull me then, he thought.

  But he said nothing and stopped going to church. There was nothing there, the only thing the sermon. He couldn’t believe without the evidence of God’s face: the statues and the icons, the angels in the architecture.

  But he did not stop believing in God. This faith had its basis in one feeling, a sensation he carried with him all of his life: that he was always watched. Even though he would have preferred not to believe, to be atheist, he experienced God through this fear. It might just as well be the Devil. It did not matter to Tommy whether this presence was good or evil. It being unknown was what terrified him.

  Tommy was watching ‘Twin Peaks’, Tommy was watching Oprah Winfrey and Sally Jesse Raphael. Tommy was watching the World Cup Soccer beamed in from Italy. Tommy was watching television.

  It had been two months since he’d paid his rent and an eviction notice had been sent. He threw it on the laminex bench; it fell among a scattering of paper and bills. He promptly forgot it.

  He had split up with Soo-Ling on the phone.

  She spat out her contempt. You could have told me face to face.

  He could make no reply to that.

  She cursed him. To hell and beyond.

  He did not leave the house and was nursed by the confessions from the television. American confessions. Fast confessions that could wrap themselves easily around the commercial breaks. From eleven o’clock till two o’clock he heard of rape and murder, adultery and thievery, of betrayal and falsehood. Dull-eyed adolescents told him that they had sex with their priests, their teachers, their fathers, their mothers. Best friends destroyed best friends. Children were bashed and left in strange cities by parents who no longer wished for responsibility. The world was crumbling, he heard it every day, and he rejoiced in the end. He no longer felt separated from anyone.

  A man can spend much time masturbating. It is a pleasure readily accessible and requiring little effort. Tommy recognised that he was spiralling out of control, that a big bang was approaching. He was running out of money and he had no will to work. The rent was long overdue and there were bills for gas and electricity, for phone and insurance. He had made one decision. He wasn’t going to take out insurance on the contents of the flat again.

  And he spent a lot of time wanking. Watching television.

  The man who was a mirror had frightened him. He compared his own body to the apparition’s. His own fat body, his weak ugly body.

  Tommy was also spending a lot of time dwelling on the past, on everything he could remember of youth. And he was shocked at how little made sense, or rather, that he had so little memory of time. Everything was all jumbled up and he had no idea how life had happened.

  His thinking was made easier by the Serapax. Tommy had three doctors whom he rotated, ensuring a constant supply. One, however, had grumbled while filling out the last prescription.

  —If you want another script after this one, I’m going to recommend you see a psychologist.

  Tommy nearly laughed in his face. Will a shrink give me a fucking job, cunt, will a shrink pay my rent?

  Instead, he said nothing, took the script and told himself to find a fourth doctor.

  And everywhere there was the crow. They had started descending, he had not noticed them before, in the bushy yard of number 127 across the street. They sat on thick elm branches and watched him. He looked out from his bedroom window into their eyes. Their ugly black eyes, their rings of white.

  Failing. Had he always been a failure, he wondered. He didn’t even want to think of that.

  And he wondered why he had decided to pursue graphics at tech. He thought of his first fuck, with the prostitute, and he sometimes thought of how he missed Soo-Ling. He thought of finding a job and he thought of killing himself. He thought of his first friend at school, the quiet Glenn Anderson. He thought of childhood, he thought of adulthood. He thought himself unlucky and he thought himself a fool. He couldn’t stop thinking. That’s where the Serapax helped. It didn’t stop him thinking, it just made him incapable of remembering. The pills cancelled everything out. Just one thought at a time.

  Tommy was watching television.

  There were pleasures, that must be said. He found that he enjoyed not washing regularly. He used to wash every day, a shower in the morning. Now it all depended on his mood. He sometimes sniffed at himself, particularly after a wank, and was disgusted at the sweat. He’d wash then. There were days when he just walked around the suburbs, five dollars budgeted for the day, and he’d sink two drinks around lunchtime at the Blackburn Pub. With the pills, that made him high. Sometimes he was so delighted by not having to deal with the confines of office life that he thought himself lucky, blessed. He enjoyed waking up at whatever time he needed to, enjoyed zonking out to the television. He enjoyed his rediscovery of music. He played tapes from 1982, the Go Betweens and David Bowie. This was not a life without moments of joy.

  But he also knew he was spiralling and he knew he was incapable of decisions, let alone action. So he had started praying again, for he needed a miracle. He had not seen his parents for weeks, not contacted them, not answered the phone. It rang still, and he let it die to silence. Though Maria came in and out of his thoughts, his father was hardly a presence. Artie was a shadow in his life. Kind, considerate, not brutal. But there seemed nothing there in the past that spoke of a connection. Arthur Stefano was a man of action. And Tommy was inert, possibly had always been inert. Tommy knew his mother’s favourite colour was red, that her favourite movie was Letter from an Unknown Woman, that she was a socialist and that the food she adored most was a fig fresh off the tree. Of his father he knew nothing. Artie Stefano was a man who worked.

  Tommy was watching television. He no longer moved far from the perimeters of his flat. The bedroom, the kitchen, the lounge room. He was safe inside, wasn’t safe in the streets. He refused to go outside in the morning or the early evening, when people were going to or returning from offices, from factories, from warehouses. He had no uniform. Even the short walk to the milk bar, to buy the milk, to buy the bread and chocolate, even that short work required effort and interaction with strangers. He was anxious, barely moved his lips. He was happiest alone. He neither watched the news nor read the papers. He was aware—how could he not be for there were regular bites interrupting his favourite programs—that something menacing was happening in the Middle East. The American President—what was his name?—was gunning for war. There was an Arab, real wog looking guy, who had invaded
another Arab country. He knew this. Kuwait and Iraq, but he was a little confused as to which was the aggressor. He switched channels with the remote control. He was bored of the world.

  He was not paying his bills, he was facing eviction and he was hoping for a miracle. Till then he was content to watch television and to wank. He was disgusted at himself but his only joy was in the restful calm of his inertia.

  Once, every fortnight, he took his dole form into the office.

  It had been a harsh winter with much rain, and the Tuesday morning brought the first taste of summer. He awoke with a strong sun’s light on his face. He jumped out of bed and pulled a blue shirt and Mickey Mouse boxer shorts over his naked body. He did not wash, he ran the toothbrush five strokes along his teeth. He turned on the television and made a coffee.

  He watched ‘Play School’. He enjoyed the show, the remarkable consistency it had to his childhood memories. ‘Play School’ and ‘Sesame Street’, they were familiar and loving. He watched till the end and when it finished he placed a video in the player. The machine coughed and a woman being fucked was on the screen. He rewound, watched the mechanics of sex backwards, and stopped at the moment he liked best. The rest of the video now bored him. An image, the woman’s face caked in come. He was not even erect, but he came. He switched off the video. On the television an Aboriginal man was discussing the early resistance to white settlement. Wiping his semen off with an old T-shirt, he felt a repugnance. He threw the T-shirt into a corner of the bedroom.

  Dole day. He filled out the form. Name. No, he had not changed his address, no he was not enrolled in study. Yes, he was looking for work. He opened the Yellow Pages and searched. Medline Graphics, Moorabbin. Bluestone, Fitzroy. No, he had no dependants. No, he had received no monies over the last fortnight. He signed and dated. He was aware that he was liable for prosecution if any of the above information was false.

  He folded the paper, stuck it in his shirt pocket, put his track pants on, his runners. He had four dollars in coins. He placed those in his pants’ pocket. He switched off the television and walked into Box Hill.

  The line was long. The Punk Princess and the slags with kids were sitting on the orange plastic seats, talking, out of it. He waited behind a big man who was shuffling impatiently, new to this. He waited, nodded to the man at the counter and handed in the form.

  The walk had been pleasant, the enjoyable rush of sun on his skin. But he was sweating by the time he arrived at the dole office. He walked into the toilets and brushed his lips with water. He was hungry but refused to eat outside of home. Too expensive. Instead he walked into the cool auditorium of the mall. He went in and out of shops, looking at merchandise. It was eleven o’clock and the stores were full of women. Women with prams, women with shopping bags. He walked through, his head buzzing. He had learnt to control his hunger, rarely eating now, but he was still ashamed of the flesh on his body. He was still pinching at his flab, wishing it to disappear. He refused his hunger and walked out of the mall into the sunshine. He stopped and watched a young kid busking with a saxophone. He closed his eyes and felt the sunshine. This was a certain happiness.

  —When all is darkness, when everyone else has disappeared, Jesus will still be there.

  He opened his eyes. Outside the barber shop a man was proclaiming God. He was handing out small leaflets to whoever would take them. Most people were shunning him, but he persisted, talking God and flashing paper. Tommy thought, Jesus freak. But the man was familiar. He walked over.

  The man was enormous, all soft weight. He was wearing, even in the heat, an ill fitting suit, a white shirt. His brow was wet, his black hair flat and damp across his scalp. His fingers were fat bulbs. He turned and Tommy and the fat man looked at each other. They blushed at the same time.

  The fat man turned quickly away and his voice rose in pitch. Jesus will save you as long as you open your heart to him.

  Tommy walked over, enjoying the cruelty, stood beside the fat man.

  —Can I have one of those?

  The man stopped talking. Slowly he handed Tommy a leaflet. An image of the Cross, a prayer, the promise of heaven. Tommy glanced at it then pocketed it.

  —Do I know you?

  He wanted to be mean to this man, to express his disgust at this man. This obscenity.

  —I don’t think so.

  —Yeah, I know you from somewhere.

  The man hung his head, his body slumped. And in that moment Tommy felt a pain at his own ruthlessness.

  —Sorry, mate, I was thinking of someone else. Tommy began to walk away.

  —Wait. The fat man followed him. He extended his hand. They shook.

  —Neil.

  He smelt of sweat but something else besides, something bitter. Tommy sniffed. Neil continued to speak.

  —You have seen me before. They were walking towards the porn shop, further down the square. Tommy could see the bright red X across the road. They stopped on the corner and Neil pointed.

  —You have seen me there.

  Tommy felt an acute shame.

  —You visit there regularly, don’t you?

  Tommy shook his head.

  —That was put there by the Devil, to tempt us. He tempts me, tempts me all the time. Then Neil laughed, a loud and long laugh, and his body shook. But I’ve been saved and Jesus forgives me. Have you been saved?

  Tommy shook his head again.

  —Would you like to be saved?

  —No, it’s all right.

  —Would you like a drink?

  The two men stared at each other. It had been a long time since Tommy had been in the company of another person, so long he could barely remember being social. He hesitated.

  —I’ll shout you, urged Neil.

  Tommy thought of the four dollars in his pocket.

  —Okay.

  They took the bus along Whitehorse Road and got off outside the Blackburn Pub. All through the journey Tommy was aware of Neil’s bulk, the looks he received from the strangers on the bus. Did he hear a small child say, Look at those two fat guys? He turned around. The child was silent, next to its mother, drawing circles in the window dust.

  They got drunk, very drunk, and Neil did not stop talking of his love for God. God was everywhere for Neil, in the beer and in the bar, in the silences between them. Can’t you feel him, Tom, can’t you feel him? Tommy was only aware of the sweet numbness of the alcohol.

  —You’re a Papist, Tom, you know that? Neil was not looking at him, looking morosely into his beer. Orthodox, Catholic, it’s all the same. You don’t worship God but men, those fucking arsehole priests. That is not God, Tom. You hear me?

  Tommy nodded, drank more beer.

  They ended up at Neil’s house. It was a tiny place but with a large front yard overrun with weeds and naked rosebushes. Inside, the smell was of decay. Scattered clothes everywhere, soiled dishes on the sink. The toilet, when Tommy went in for a piss, had a black ring around the enamel basin. It stunk of shit and urine.

  Neil had plonked a cask of red wine on the table. He grimaced as Tommy entered the room.

  —Sorry, mate. This is all I have.

  The television was on. Scenes from America, the President standing strong against the Arab foe. Neil was excited by the images and the rhetoric, ignoring Tommy, focusing on the small screen. Tommy glanced around the room. Nil, nothing on the white walls.

  —There will be war, Tom, you know it? War, but not just a war, The War. This is the Apocalypse, Tom. Understand? It’s all in the Bible.

  The man was excited, his eyes glistening. Tommy stared back at the screen. Pictures of aeroplanes, bombers. Neil was almost chuckling in delight. And Tommy realised that for Neil the Apocalypse was a wish, a desire. He was suddenly aware that he too wanted this cataclysmic shower, he too wanted a deluge. Both men were laughing.

  The sound of a key in the door. A youth entered the room and Tommy recognised the charcoal grey pants of high school. He was no more than sixteen, dark and thin. He
hardly glanced at the two men around the television.

  —Darren, this is Tommy.

  The boy looked up, looked down.

  —Anything to eat? His voice was shy, surprisingly feminine.

  —Toast.

  Darren groaned. He made his way to the back of the house.

  —My brother. Neil’s eyes were still on the screen.

  The boy came back out, changed into jeans and a red sweatshirt.

  —I’m going out.

  —Where?

  —Out.

  —Coming home tonight?

  —Maybe.

  —You’ve got school tomorrow.

  The two brothers looked at each other.

  —I know, conceded Darren.

  —They’ll kick you out if you wag too much.

  —Give a fuck.

  Neil sprung up. The boy jumped back, frightened.

  —I want you back here tonight.

  Silence.

  —Hear me?

  The boy nodded.

  As the youth left, Tommy heard the muttered, Fuck you.

  They continued drinking, watching television. Late in the evening Neil ordered pizzas, and Tommy, watching the big man eat, found it impossible to put any of the food in his own mouth. Neil grabbed at the pieces, munched on them quickly, pieces of vegetable and meat and grease lined his chin. The food fell and stained his shirt. Tommy looked away. He clenched his stomach, feeling the fat, feeling the excess. He could not look at the other man.

  They finished the cask and Neil descended into a maudlin monologue about God and about his own weakness and failures. He was not even talking to Tommy, he was talking to the air. He was praying.