The Jesus Man

by Christos Tsiolkas

  Outside, the talk was of politics. Maria berating the collapse of the socialist government in Greece. For her, Papandreou was a hero. The recent coalition formed between the communists and the conservatives made her furious.

  —Traitors.

  —Why do you care, Mama, what’s it to you? The Greeks are fucked, always have been, you say that yourself.

  Maria turned swiftly to Dominic.

  —I’m still Greek.

  —Well, we’re not.

  Tommy wanted to take back the words as soon as his mother turned her eyes on him. They were fire.

  —You’re nothing, right. Nothing! The last word Greek.

  —Okay, okay, we’re nothing.

  Maria stared hard at her middle son; she was waiting. Tommy was silent.

  You!

  She was disgusted. And turned away from him.

  Soo-Ling had been quiet throughout, angry for Tommy. She waved to him and pointed across the garden.

  —Look, Tom, there’s a crow.

  Everyone followed her finger.

  Dominic laughed.

  —She’s looking at you, Tommy Boy.

  —Bullshit!

  Soo-Ling was at a loss to understand the hilarity her innocent observation had caused.

  Eva leant close to her and whispered.

  —It’s a family lunacy.

  Maria was laughing hardest.

  In the car Soo-Ling fiddled with the radio.

  —Is this Triple R?

  Tommy nodded. He was driving at eighty, he wanted to floor it. He was stung. By his father’s casual dismissal. Three years at a fucking college. Just three lousy years of study and his father and his brother were not going to let him forget it. Jealous pricks. Dumb as fucking dogshit, that’s what they were.

  —I like Lou. I like him a lot.

  —He’s all right.

  He’s fucking spoilt. Because he’s the baby.

  At the lights, waiting for the green, Tommy turned to Soo-Ling.

  —You want to stay the night?

  She nodded.

  He had cleaned the flat, washed the dishes, wiped down the small kitchen table. He had stuffed his dirty clothes into a plastic bag, kicked it under the bed. His pornography was in the trunk, under an old blanket, under sheets and linen.

  Tommy walked into the house and turned the television on. Soo-Ling went to the toilet. The room was bare. Toothbrushes, soap, deodorant and shaving kit, that was all. The room was cold.

  The television was on. She glanced at it, a documentary, some animal in Africa.

  —What are you watching?

  —I’m waiting for ‘Sixty Minutes’.

  Soo-Ling made herself a tea, sat next to her lover, and they watched the television. An ad break.

  —Lou said that you were into music, when you were younger.

  —Still am. His eyes on the screen, Tommy waved to his CDs. Two long racks next to the stereo.

  —You don’t play them much. Do you still have your records?

  Tommy turned to Soo-Ling. Why, he wondered, is this happening? This past does not include you.

  —No. I don’t have my records any more.

  Tommy sat back, drank some beer, put his arm around Soo-Ling. This was her comfort, this was where her love began. The solid weight of his arm around her.

  On the television a journalist was interviewing the protesting Chinese students. She watched, listened and did not understand anything. China, its size, its history, overwhelmed her. Soo-Ling did not deliberately eschew politics but she did not believe in the possibility of her own engagement. China was too big, she had been raised in this simple but important awareness. The individual was at a loss to assist in anything. She voted, but on a whim.

  —What you reckon? Tommy pointed to the screen. Maybe they’ll change things.

  The China bogey. Everyone had the China bogey.

  Tommy relaxed into the couch, tightened the squeeze. Soo-Ling’s disinterest in politics delighted him.

  —Don’t you care, his mother would sometimes scream at him. Look, look. Look what’s happening!

  No, I don’t care. Just leave me alone.

  Ad break.

  Tommy wanted food. His stomach was still large from the lunch. But he craved sensation. His flab was constrained by the tightness of the belt. He punched his stomach softly.

  —You all right? Soo-Ling nestled into him.

  —You hungry?

  —No, she smiled, I ate so much today.

  You fucking bitch. Tommy withdrew his arm, went into the kitchen. He munched a biscuit, poured a Coke.

  A woman gang raped in Central Park. Six teenage black youths bashed her, raped her, tore her apart. Left her barely breathing. Tommy stood in the doorway, watching the report. Better they had finished the job.

  —This is terrible. Soo-Ling was crying for the woman.

  —I can see how it happened.

  —What do you mean?

  —She was an idiot. Jogging in fucking Central Park at night. A bloody white woman. What did she expect?

  Not that.

  —So women are to blame for getting raped, eh? Soo-Ling had crossed her arms, petulant.

  You look so pretty. Tommy smiled. Niggers on juice, he was thinking, that’s all I meant. Pissed-off kids, didn’t she know how angry kids could get?

  —Suzie, I’m tired. This isn’t worth an argument. He sat down next to her, grabbed the remote and changed the channel. Comedy. American. He turned to her.

  —It’s all fucked, you know that.

  —I don’t. You don’t want to argue about anything.

  Soo-Ling left the room, went to the toilet, brushed her hair, wondered what she would wear for work tomorrow. Did not return until the next ad break.

  Selling insurance.

  —How is work, Tommy?

  Tommy crashed, Tommy closed his eyes. Tommy was close to screaming.

  —It’s fine.

  Soo-Ling did not believe him.

  They watched the movie, mostly in silence, she lay against him. They smoked a joint. He went to the convenience store, chips and chocolate. Soo-Ling fell asleep before the movie ended.

  She wandered groggy to bed, slipped into the man’s sheets, smelt Tommy everywhere, in the wrinkles of the folds. He undressed in the light, she was naked. He lay next to her and hugged her, she shivered, she clutched him, spreading him across her body, needing his warmth. She touched his chest, her finger played with the curls. He kissed her.

  Nearly every time sex began, Tommy was conscious of his weight. He sucked in his stomach. His cock was thick, pressing into Soo-Ling’s thigh. He looked at her, kissed her face, her eyes. He gently pushed apart her legs and entered her.

  Soo-Ling twitched, arched her back, took him in. She kissed his mouth and closed her eyes.

  Tommy was fucking her slowly, looking at her, smelling her.

  Soo-Ling was dreaming the three brothers. The tender Lou, the brawn of Dominic. She shut them out.

  Tommy was dreaming six black giant cocks raping a white cunt. He slammed into his lover, pushing far inside her.

  Soo-Ling tried to move to his rhythm, he was speeding to climax.

  Tommy came in a shout, screamed in her ear. Nigger cock coming on bleeding whitey’s face. He came, shuddered, and detested his dreaming.

  Soo-Ling breathed slowly as he lay on top of her. She rubbed her hands across his back, the hair that coated his hips, she rubbed his fat, enjoyed the solidity. His cock was still erect inside her. She moved and he winced. Tommy pulled out.

  —I got to go to the toilet.

  Quickly she thrashed inside her cunt, speeding to orgasm. The icon was staring down at her. A sound. Tommy was at the door.

  He switched on the light. His penis, softening, but still thick from the fucking.

  —Don’t stop, he asked.

  She closed her eyes and relented to her hand, she sniffed the pungency of her own sweat.

  —Open your legs, wide.


  She kept her eyes shut, moved to his voice.

  He had come close, his finger, wet, stroked her, rubbed the boundaries of her cunt, went inside her.

  —Harder, she whispered.

  —Your cunt, he whispered above her, two, then three fingers, your cunt is so beautiful.

  And it was, he was inside her and all the room was the smell of her.

  She came, she saw diamonds, his eyes were huge. He was smiling. He moved next to her, held her. She closed her eyes. A black flash, as a flying bird.

  —So you fear crows, Tom?

  He held her close. He did not answer.

  They fell asleep.

  At seven o’clock the alarm was the radio. On the news a man with a gruff voice announced the news of the day. The young girl, the eleven year old, the girl gone missing. Her body was found, raped and slaughtered.

  Soo-Ling put on her lipstick, sipped her coffee. Tommy shaved, ate the remainder of last night’s chocolate. Taking the train into the city, Soo-Ling pointed out the suburbs in which she would like to live. Surrey Hills, Camberwell, Hawthorn.

  Tommy looked out the window; at the passing roofs, the swimming pools, the neat gardens.

  We can’t fucking afford them.

  4

  Chocolate City

  After his first visit to a whore Tommy was convinced that the encounter had soiled him forever. He tasted syphilis on her mouth, licked gonorrhoea off her skin. Her cunt was venereal. Tommy washed and washed when he got home, washed the whore off his skin. He scrubbed and washed, to get rid of the sickness.

  Tommy had adored the whore, her size, her age, her beauty. She must have been in her mid-forties, weighed about seventy-five kilos, and her face was a crazy jigsaw maze of lines and wrinkles. But pale, a face painted white. Tommy had closed his eyes and dived into her, the ferocious splendour of her breasts, an unquenchable thirst for her cunt. Seventeen and still a virgin, though he had managed to force two hand-jobs from a disapproving girlfriend, it had been Dominic who had shouted him the extravagance of a prostitute. Drunk on a bottle of bourbon and the thick oily smoke of hashish, Tommy was initiated into the pleasures of women. He came thrusting above the whore, his elbow hard on the back of her head, pinning her down on the massage table, fucking her from behind and inserting two of his fingers far up her arse. When he first stripped, unzipped, as she took out the flaccid cock, and asked, Have you washed? he had a moment of panic, a fear of his inadequacy. But she breathed on his cock and he scrambled across her body, snatching flesh. He had dreamt her, called out to her, had been waiting, an excruciating waiting, for years. For this fat old slut’s breath. On his cock. When he exploded inside her, Tommy opened his eyes and looked down at the weary blubbery shoulders of the woman. He shuddered, his desire had evaporated to loathing, and he quickly lifted his trousers. Embarrassed, he left the room, rushing, gathering shirt and socks, and stumbled into the foyer of the brothel where his brother and two mates were waiting and laughing, laughing and waiting for the boy.

  That was 1979 and a prostitute cost fifty dollars. He had quickly forgotten her face, the contours of her skin. He could not recall her at all. What he did remember was the smell. Her perfume, her cunt, and that the massage table smelt of disinfectant. And her voice, he could still remember her voice. Soft, not the harshness he had expected. A little girl’s breathy glee, but the hard consonants of a difficult life.

  Tommy was preparing the artwork for printing, the mail room was nearly empty and that same voice was now on the radio. The newsreader’s well-enunciated expression lacked the whore’s vigour, but the accent was familiar.

  They’d found the girl’s body in a stretch of bush in Pakenham. The body was poorly concealed under scattered branches and torn shrubs. Her face had appeared on newsprint, on television screens, had made the glossy pages of the magazines. Eleven, dark, pretty; and her distraught weeping parents. The mother, Filipino and extravagant, had broken into howls, a reminder of wolves, when she had been interviewed on ‘A Current Affair’.

  —My daughter, please. Please God, bring my daughter back safe.

  The father, stoic, the ruddy coarse skin of the Irishman, had wept quietly, holding tight to his wife.

  She had been missing for four months; her tortures were referred to obliquely and therefore seemed even more tantalising. Was her corpse sodomised? The torture is unimaginable, thought Tommy. His eyes were moist, her suffering was tragic. But it was also perverse. His eyes were moist, he was conscious of his cock.

  The story ended. Christopher Skase to buy United Artists. Oliver North on trial. Eleven million gallons of oil in Prince William Sound, somewhere off the Alaskan coast. Football and the prediction of rain, rain throughout the weekend. It’s six o’clock and seventeen degrees in the city. A truck has overturned on the South Eastern Freeway near the Toorak Road exit and cars are advised to avoid Punt Road.

  A commercial for a tyre specialist, a commercial for Pepsi, a station promo. A blistering thrash of guitar, a burst of heavily bassed rap, then a cut. Proudly announcing, No weird new sounds, no rap, no heavy rock, just Golden Oldies. 3TT FM. And into the first song. ‘When You See A Chance’, Steve Winwood. Tommy lay down his scalpel, looked at the clock. 6.05.

  That fucking prick, he’s doing it to spite me.

  Pathis was in his office, clear behind the glass, working on his computer. His tie was still tight around his shirt collar. Tommy had loosened his own once the rest of the shop had begun to leave. It was Friday night and he wanted to head off, to make work disappear. But he also wanted to be the last to leave, to leave after Pathis. But the wog wasn’t moving.

  Tommy was working on a brochure for the electronics unit, a sale on stereo equipment. The brochure was cheap, black and white, to be printed on a lazy cream paper stock. The task was finished and Tommy was not in the mood for starting new work. He rolled the artwork, placed it in a plastic envelope and walked towards the offices.

  Pathis did not look up at the knock.

  —Come in.

  Tommy handed him the envelope.

  —The job’s finished.

  Pathis nodded. Thanks. His eyes on the computer.

  —See you.

  Pathis farewelled him in Greek. Gia sou. Tommy grimaced, he hated that.

  He made no answer.

  The daylight had begun its surrender to night. In the park, secretaries and clerks were scrambling towards the station. The wind was slight but it brought drizzle and chill. Tommy stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his bomber jacket. The rough cotton lining tickled his fingers. At the entrance to Flagstaff Station the kiosk that sold papers and magazines was shutting up. Three posters. The dead girl’s pretty face. The oil on the icy waters. The tall lean body of a footballer. Her face, she was grinning, in her school uniform, a self-conscious joy for the camera. Sexually assualted and murdered. Tommy spat on the ground, stepped onto the escalator and descended into the bowels of the station.

  When they find him, he thought to himself, hanging his bag over his shoulder, I hope they crucify the arsehole, I hope they make him suffer. I hope he pays.

  Tommy would have him fucked, arse, mouth and cock, with a broken bottle. An eye for an eye.

  The carriage was not full. Tommy avoided the drunk youth up the back and plonked himself down next to a couple, Indian, the man with his arm around the woman’s shoulder. Across the aisle a drunk old man with a red and veined nose, dribbling. A man in blue overalls stood in the doorway, a large bushy blond moustache, a tattoo of a snake creeping up his exposed right arm. Tommy glanced behind him. The drunk youths, making noise, he avoided their eyes. A beautiful woman. Dark. Thick red lipstick. He turned back around. The Indian couple. She too was sweet.

  At Richmond the door opened and a woman fell into the carriage. Windcheater and faded blue jeans. She was not young, she was not old. Drugs had lacerated her face. She was shrivelled and ugly. Thin. She staggered through the carriage. The train started to move and she fell onto Tommy. Sorry
, love. Her breath stunk, cheap nasty wine. He assisted her to her feet and she sat hard next to the old drunk man, who groaned, shifted his weight and rested his head on the window.

  —What are you looking at?

  The Indian woman had been staring. She bowed her head, embarrassed, and indicated she was sorry. The woman in the windcheater wouldn’t leave it alone.

  —What the fuck were you looking at?

  Around the carriage heads turned. The Indian woman ignored her.

  —Well? An insistent highly unpleasant noise. A cheap Australian accent.

  —Fucking niggers.

  The carriage went quiet. The Indian man’s face hardened. And on the Indian woman’s face there was an acceleration of contempt. They both said nothing.

  —Fucking niggers, I can’t stand them.

  Around the carriage there were faint murmurs of dissent. Tommy kept praying, Shut up you stupid cunt, just shut up.

  But she wouldn’t shut up. She began a slow drugged rave, a mixture of fantasy and bile. Fucking niggers, this place is full of them now, fucking niggers and slopes. Anyone want sex with me? she screamed out. The old man opened his eyes, took a look, shook his head and went back to sleep.

  —Who’d want to fuck you? yelled one of the boys from the back and his mates started to laugh and jeer.

  —Fuck you, scum, she screamed back. There was laughter in her cruel stark voice.

  She’s young, thought Tommy. He was praying, Shut it, shut up. He could not look at the couple in front of him, and instead he looked out into the night, the suburbs whizzing past.

  She would not shut up.

  —You black bastards stink.

  Inside Tommy exploded. He heard his mother. All Australian girls are sluts, dirty, stupid sluts. He wanted to take her, grab her hair, smash her fucking face against the glass, again and again, bleeding, shards of glass in her mouth. Hurt her, bruise her, bash her. He wanted her dead.

  —Fucking too many slopes.

  He wanted her dead.

  —It’s all niggers and wogs and slopes these days.

  She deserves to die. He looked up, the Indian man was staring straight ahead, beyond him, beyond the train, beyond the world. The Indian man looked at him. Tommy smiled.