The Jesus Man

  —Pray with me, Tom.

  Tommy sat still.

  —Pray with me. Neil had stood up and was walking down the small hall, he opened a door.

  —Come, he ordered.

  Standing up, Tommy realised how drunk he was. He followed the other man into the room. It was not very large, more a storeroom than a bedroom; a single mattress covered by a dirty sheet lay on the floor. There was nothing on the walls except for a small framed picture of Christ. Neil knelt before the picture. He indicated for Tommy to kneel with him.

  Christ, his wrists and ankles tied up, his body scarred. An angel and a cherub contemplating him. The picture was dark except for the soft colours that illuminated the Saviour’s body. Tommy hung his head and listened to the man’s monotonous prayer. He noticed stains running down the wall, underneath the picture. Stains like the trails of slugs.

  The room smelt. Of man.

  Forgive me Jesus sweet Jesus forgive me for my weakness. Forgive me Lord for my drinking and my dirty thoughts. Forgive my friend here for his being led astray by the Devil. Lord show yourself to him. Save him Lord. He is a good man.

  There was a groan. Tommy opened his eyes. Neil had slashed at his arm, a slight wound but it was bleeding. He did it one more time. The blood was falling in large drops on the floor. Tommy struggled for the knife.

  —What the fuck are you doing?

  But Neil’s face was ablaze with a light and a happiness. He was joy.

  —Jesus loves you, he whispered to Tommy, and he stood up. You can sleep here tonight. He walked out of the room, his arm red, the blood still falling on the floor.

  There was also a trunk in the room, half covered by a blanket. Tommy lay on the mattress and closed his eyes. He instinctively reached for his cock to begin a quick wank, but he knew that the tortured Christ was above him. He drew his hand away and turned on his side, away from the Saviour’s gaze. He was immediately asleep.

  He awoke with shit in his mouth, his head throbbing, his throat sore. He rolled off the mattress. There was a tightness that hurt in his bladder. He walked out of the room.

  It was all confusion in the darkness, and the unfamiliarity of the stranger’s house stopped him. He could hear a tap dripping and he made his way towards the sound. From one of the rooms there was a light and Tommy, aware of the late hour, stepped quietly down the hall. He glanced into the lit room, the door half open, and he stopped still. A low wattage of light. Neil was kneeling, his back to Tommy, folds and folds of fat, a wide expanse of arse, a shocking white in the soft umber cavern of the room. Tommy walked towards the light. Darren, naked as well, was standing above his brother, his dark brown skin glistening. A prayer, spoken, chanted, sung. The youth’s eyes were closed but he stood there, bored, no expression; below him the filthy white body was quivering. Tommy walked into the room. Darren, startled, opened his eyes—terror—jumped back. His cock, erect, a thin trace of spittle shone in the light. The prayer stopped.

  He heard his father’s voice, a scream: You animal, you don’t do that to your brother, you don’t do that to anyone!

  The sound that came from Tommy’s throat was animal. He rushed into the room, grabbed the man’s shoulders and threw him away from the boy. Neil lay on the floor, his body shuddering; a smile, an illumination on his face. There was a whisper, Do it. Do it. Do it.

  Tommy looked on the misshapen body, white paste. And he kicked, and he kicked again. His fury was savage. He smashed his foot hard onto the man’s face. And he kicked again. The sound was a crack. A shot of blood jumped in the air. The blood was seeping down the face, covering the cheeks, the eyes, pouring from the broken nose. Tommy raised his fist and the youth jumped on him, took his arm. Sound came back.

  —Stop it, stop it! the boy was screaming. Tommy’s fury evaporated. Everything was still. The boy had gone to his brother, cradling him. Neil’s body was all scars and lines, a tattoo of wounds. Tommy stepped back.

  Darren raised a weary face.

  —Go. Said softly.

  On the floor Neil, bloodied, hands clasped, was praying, was smiling in an ecstatic bliss.

  Tommy turned, left the room. He put on his socks, his shoes. About to walk out, he turned around and looked at the picture on the wall. Automatically he crossed himself. He almost ran out of the door, into the night air.

  Disorientated, frightened, he wandered the unfamiliar streets until he hit the coned lights of Canterbury Road. Cars, even at this early hour, were zooming past. The night was chilly and he was shaking. His head was hurting from the alcoholic poison. He passed an all-night store and fingered the change in his pocket. The four dollars were still there. He bought a sausage roll and a can of Coke and gulped them down. Outside in the night again he was aware that he was being watched, a thousand eyes were on him. The night sky was a blanket of crows.

  He walked to the station and sat in the small cavern of the shelter. A woman in blue uniform was shivering, waiting for the first train. She refused to look at him. He, in turn, hardly registered her presence. He wanted to extinguish the brothers, the crow, the sickness inside him. He wanted to escape the dark. There was only one place he could think to go.

  He hesitated in front of the house. There was a light. He knocked on the door and Soo-Ling answered. She saw him and instinctively reached for him. He tied himself in the embrace. He was unaware that he was heaving.

  She was shocked by his smell. She remembered the stink of his sweat, had missed it, but tonight she also smelt the acrid alcohol. She dragged him into the house and into the bedroom. He fell on top of her and she allowed him to cry. His eyes were red, his skin pale. She was horrified at his thinness, his once solid body was now weak and limp. The flesh had gone from his face. He felt wrong in her arms.

  He was trying to kiss her. She resisted and then happily devoured his mouth. He pulled her dressing gown off her shoulders and began a soft biting at her breasts. His hands were everywhere, his fingers in her cunt, on her thighs, pushing hard into her bowels. She tried to pull away.

  —No.

  —Please. His cock was free of his zip, it was rubbing against her leg.

  —No.

  —Please. He was on top of her, pushing into her. She closed her eyes. He was fucking her furiously, and though she could not feel the pleasure, she wrapped herself tight in the strangeness of his new body. She was providing warmth and he shook her with the force of his thrusts. When he shuddered, when he screamed his orgasm, she too was wet with tears.

  They sat apart. He could not look at her. Nothing had disappeared. The crows were still outside the door, his head was full of what he had seen, the obscene man slobbering over the child. The bloody face. He had hoped for an escape and he had only brought the ugliness to Soo-Ling. He got up and she reached for him. He pushed her hand away.

  —Stay. I won’t go to work.

  Her pleading shamed him. He pulled up his zip and walked out.

  —Stay, she screamed. He shut the door and walked outside to greet the darkness.

  He reached home, exhausted, craving sleep. He put on the orange tubes of the heater and turned on the television. The rays of light soothed him. He walked into the bedroom and opened the trunk. He searched, blindly. He pulled out the icon and prepared to pray. Then he noticed that the Virgin’s face had gone black. She was burnt. He brought the icon out in the light, delirious from the terror, but her eyes were still not visible. The baby Jesus looked on him with adult sadness. He threw the icon across the room, then scampered after it, pleaded with it to change, pleaded to see the light of Her grace once more. It remained black. He took it, placed it back in the trunk and went to the television. He wrapped himself in front of the flickering images, his face criss-crossed by blue light. He closed his eyes and prayed. He was not praying for sleep. He was saying to God that even if eternity was the Devil, then he wished for it. He closed his eyes and prayed for death.

  Tommy was watching television.

  11

  Radiation

/>   Maria knocked hard on the door. Silence greeted her. She knocked harder, bashing at the cheap wood. Artie steadied her hand.

  —Enough, Maria.

  She was crying now. She called through the door.

  —Tom, Tommy, speak to us.

  The silence again.

  —He’s not here, Maria.

  She would not move.

  —Tommy, she called, I’m calling the police.

  —It’s all right, Maria, he’s all right. He spoke to Dominic the other week. He’s all right.

  Then where the fuck is he? Her Greek was a scream.

  —He’ll call when he’s ready.

  She banged on the door one more time. From down the corridor an old woman poked out her head then quickly shut her door again.

  Artie led the crying Maria down the stairs and to the car. He glanced back at the block of flats. From his son’s window he saw a curtain rise and fall.

  Tommy had lain huddled in the middle of the floor, his head in his hands, listening to his mother’s pleas. When he heard his parents begin to walk away he had crawled to the couch, lifted the curtain and blinds, watched the figures descend the stairs.

  The telephone was off. Unpaid bill. He had begun to pay the electricity in instalments, terrified of a world without light, without television. He had begun sleeping in front of the screen now, unable to deal with the wide expanse of the bedroom, all that space. He allowed the TV to play all hours, fell asleep to the shuddering light.

  The mirror taunted him. Even though he was hardly eating, even though he had lost the taste for food, he was angry at his body’s refusal to change. The white pale flesh of his thighs, the large stretch of his belly. One night he took a knife and traced a path across his stomach. He would cut here and there, he would cut away at the flab. Then his legs, carve his calves and thighs, the round paste of his arms. He threw the knife in the sink.

  He still watched his pornography but he had placed the blackened icon on top of the television, so every time he masturbated to the revolting images on the screen, he was watched by the Madonna and the Child. The porn had ceased to be even a sexual pleasure, instead it was now simply a need, as reflexive as breathing. He hated it, hated it. Hated the models who paraded their bodies on the screen. But he could not resist it. Every morning, every afternoon, every night, he drained himself, tugging away at his flaccid cock. Bile, everything was bile.

  And he was hunting for Neil. He walked the mall of Box Hill, the car parks and shopping strips of Blackburn and Nunawading. He scouted Shoppingtown, walking aimlessly through stores, looking for the demon. But Neil eluded him.

  He called Dominic, aware that his exile from family would not be tolerated for much longer. He got Eva.

  —Jesus, Tommy. Where the fuck have you been? Are you all right?

  —I’m fine, he answered.

  —Jesus, Tommy. Eva went silent. Come around, now. We’ll come and get you.

  —No. He almost shouted. He lowered his voice. I just need to be alone for a while, understand?

  —We’re family, Tommy.

  I know.

  —Is Dom there?

  —Yes, he wants to speak to you. She hesitated. We love you, Tommy.

  Her words were devastating.

  Dominic came to the phone. His voice was harsh.

  —Where the fuck have you been?

  —Here.

  —You know Mum’s worried sick about you.

  Tommy wanted to smash the phone booth, wanted to kick and kick.

  —I’m sorry, Dom. It’s been a hard time.

  —Are you working?

  He was stunned by the question. He hadn’t thought of work for months.

  —Yes, he lied.

  —Where?

  —In the city.

  —Doing what?

  Fucking children, you cunt.

  —What I was doing before.

  At the same moment both brothers realised that every conversation between them, throughout their lives, every conversation had revealed nothing. Dominic waited for an apology. There was only silence.

  —Go and see Mum and Dad.

  —I will but not yet. I’ve got some thinking to do.

  —About what?

  —Jesus, Dom, give me a break.

  —You don’t deserve a break, you useless piece of shit.

  Tommy hung up. The relief was immediate, an intensity, and he was laughing as he left the phone booth. His duty done, his brother cleaved from his life, he walked confidently, happily home.

  Tommy was talking to the television. The Americans kept coming in, discussing sex and love, marriage and failure, deviance and truth. Daughters were raped and sons were bashed, women slept with their fathers and fathers slept with their sons. Tales punctured by commercials and flashes from the Persian Gulf.

  War. Tommy so desperately wanted war.

  He was made sick by the force of his need to communicate with the figures on the television. Watching a woman berate her daughter, live in front of a studio audience, the daughter sullen and overweight, watching the mother yell at the daughter for her laziness, her refusal to respect her parents, Tommy wanted to reach inside the television and place his hands around the older woman’s throat, to destroy her. Destroy her. He was talking back to the television.

  He wanted to kill them all, every last one of them, every person on the planet.

  He was seeking Neil. Neil had become his twin, his real brother, more concrete, much closer than either Lou or Dominic. A vacillation between love and hate. He fantasised, and this was arousal, that he would find the man again and that he would kill him, slash at his meat, tear him apart, finish him, destroy the ugliness. And he fantasised that he would meet the man, fall on him, be immersed in his weight and solidity, that he would kiss him. Pray together. Two women were sixty-nining on the screen, tongues around clits, finger fucking. He came, moaned, shook his head violently, stopped the flow of images. The screen returned to daytime television. He looked up at the black face of the Madonna. He swiftly turned around.

  There was no-one there, but he was sure that someone was watching him. God or the Devil or the Crow. It did not matter. He wasn’t alone; even his home had become polluted, unsafe. He never ventured into the bedroom any more, he was even frightened by the confined space of the toilet. When he shat, he shat with the door open, the television loud. Close to sound. When he pissed, he pissed in the kitchen sink, watching the television. He couldn’t shower, he couldn’t close the door to whatever was watching him.

  And he prayed and he prayed.

  He found Neil again. He was walking the streets, window living. A group of schoolkids were smoking by a bus shelter. One of the boys was smoking alone. He looked up as Tommy passed. The boy, Darren.

  The boy did not recognise him. Tommy walked past then stopped, waited for the bus. The orange vehicle came and Tommy boarded with the schoolkids. They were loud. The boys were teasing the girls, the girls were giggling. Darren sat next to a tall youth, dirt blond hair, a white school shirt open to the navel. A hairless pale chest. Tommy sat two seats back. The tall youth called down the bus.

  —Kirrie, when’s the party?

  —Who says you’re invited? mocked a young girl.

  —I reckon I am.

  —Saturday, ain’t that right? called a dark short youth.

  The girl turned in her seat, faced the boys at the back of the bus.

  —Pirizzi, you’re not coming.

  —Take that, you wog, called out the tall youth.

  —Fuck you!

  The bus driver yelled sharply, No fucking swearing. Everyone laughed. Darren called out, the trace of child, high, still in his voice.

  —Sorry, cunt!

  More laughter. The tall youth punched the boy’s shoulder affectionately.

  —Shut up, you Abo cunt.

  Darren giggled.

  Of course, the dark skin; the boy’s features were not white. But Neil, Neil’s pale coarse skin, he was all white
? Neil was the ugliest white man Tommy had ever seen.

  The bus stopped and Darren grabbed his school bag from the floor, lifted himself over the seat and rushed to the back door. Tommy rose and followed him.

  He walked behind the boy. When Darren reached his house—Tommy recognised the feral lawn—the boy turned around and faced him.

  —What do you want?

  —Is Neil home?

  The youth walked up to Tommy, quizzed his face. Then he smiled.

  —Oh, you’re the guy from the other week.

  There was definitely the feminine in the boy. Neil must have done that to him. The girl in the boy’s smile. He invited Tommy in.

  The house was empty, warm, it stunk of tobacco. There was mould in the cups on the coffee table. Darren went into a room and Tommy sat on the couch. The youth emerged, changed, in an Adidas top and black shorts, a bong in his hands. He sat beside Tommy.

  —Want a cone?

  Tommy nodded slowly.

  The boy took an envelope from his pocket, began a mix. The first rush of smoke was elation. Tommy lay back on the couch.

  —Neil’s probably at church. The boy smirked and drew his knees to his chest. You a Jesus freak?

  Tommy shook his head.

  —Me neither. The boy packed another bong. He handed it to Tommy. The man inhaled, the water bubbled. Darren placed a hand on Tommy’s knee. Tommy slammed it away.

  —Okay, okay. The boy straightened his body and rose. He was hurt. Tommy couldn’t look at him. It felt good to hurt him, very good. He wanted to continue.

  —Neil will be back. You want to stay?

  Tommy nodded.

  Darren hesitated, and then spoke rapidly.

  —Neil, he don’t have many friends. No-one. Church people but they never visit. You’re the first visitor for a long time. He likes you. Darren bit his lower lip and a smile played around his mouth, almost a cruelty: he thinks he can save you, you don’t have to tell anyone. He’s just lonely. Then the smile disappeared, and his voice was earnest, pleading. What you saw the other night, he’s lonely. He’s really lonely. It doesn’t hurt me, it isn’t sex, it doesn’t happen often. Understand? He’s my brother, he looks after me, he loves me.