The Jesus Man

by Christos Tsiolkas

  —Yes, he answered the man.

  —You can still pray here, mate. Laughing.

  Tommy disliked him, his normalcy. The cheap grey jumper struck him as an absurdity, ill befitting his role. He waved, limply, turned and walked away.

  Coincidence, a rationalist and a secularist would say, is the root of all superstition. A door locked is not at all improbable, let alone a miracle. But for Tommy, drunk, desiring to sedate all his hungers, it was a sign. God did not want him either. The thought was not brutal and Tommy was calm.

  Before making his way home, he chased the neon X and used his credit card to buy himself a video and two magazines. He circled the pornography in the shop, oblivious to the wary attendant, flicking through magazines, picking up and putting down video slicks. He knew exactly where to search. The shop was not familiar but he was accustomed to the layout. A young poofter, maybe just eighteen, was throwing him glances, his naked desperation repulsive, and Tommy refused to look at him. He searched through packets of magazines, Kink and Teenager his favourite. Tape bound the magazines so his decision was based on the front and back covers. He searched, could not decide. An older woman, smiling, come pouring down her cheek, a large cock resting on her face. A young girl, hair in plaits, two cocks in her mouth. The back cover. Cock in her arse. Cock in her enormous cunt, the pubes red and sparse. A woman pissing to the camera. An Asian girl, legs apart, laughing, her fingers playing with her clit. In the end he chose the cover with the come; the thick liquid enticing. And he chose the Asian girl.

  The video was harder to choose. He walked up and down, up and down the racks. Professional models from the United States. Amateur, badly lit shorts from Europe. He settled for Arse Bangers, a slick group of five men—one fat, one old and grey, one young and hung, one chubby and hairy, one a boy—over a large breasted brunette with enormous tits. On the back, three small screens. Cocks up her arse. And again, the come.

  —That’ll be seventy-five bucks, mate.

  Tommy handed over the card.

  —This is good. The young man looked at the video approvingly.

  Tommy said nothing, placed the package in his briefcase and left the store. Outside, a trio of schoolkids were smoking. One of the girls looked at him, bored, and turned away. He shook, looked at no-one, saw nothing, walked to the curb, looking for a taxi.

  No taxis. He felt for his wallet. He was sobering up. He felt for his wallet and scanned the buildings. A sad pub on a corner. He lunged towards it and ordered more drink until he was once more sated by the heat of the alcohol and the world had again become pleasurable. He wondered if he should take the train home, save the money, but realising the distance of the journey, knowing the train would be filling with workers rushing home from work, he decided against that humiliation. He finished his drink and went out to the street.

  Up in the sky he could see a crow flying. Speak to me, he wished. He would court madness for that experience. The crow dived, disappeared behind a Victorian facade. Tommy raised his hand and stopped a cab.

  He was anxious to be home, safe in his flat, playing the video, skimming the magazines. He was eager for dope, for more alcohol. He was eager to splash his semen across pages, across his belly, to disappear in the stench. The driver was a foreigner; soft music on the stereo.

  Handclapping.

  —Is that Laurie Anderson, mate?

  —Sorry? A heavy accent.

  —The music. The clapping, slow, beneath it a solid rhythm. It was familiar. The music you’re playing, is it Laurie Anderson?

  The driver shook his head.

  —Sorry. This from Pakistan. He turned and looked at Tommy. Me. I am from Pakistan.

  —It sounds like Laurie Anderson. Tommy strapped the seat belt across his middle. I used to be into Laurie Anderson, mate, all the time. I saw her in concert a few years ago. Tommy was smiling. I used to see a lot of bands, when I was younger. I used to know them all. He started humming. I like Laurie Anderson, she was weird, wasn’t she?

  The driver was simply pleased that this drunk had got into his cab. His only worry was that the man might not have the money to pay the long fare to Blackburn.

  —You got the money, mate? The last word, clipped. Tommy took out his wallet, opened it. Two fifties.

  The driver smiled.

  —You want me to play music loud?

  —Yeah, yeah, said Tommy, play Laurie Anderson. They passed under a bridge. A newspaper ad and the large head of Gary Ablett.

  —Who do you think will win the final?

  —Geelong.

  —Me too. Tommy closed his eyes, began to doze off.

  The driver turned up the volume, headed east. He hated football and he had never heard of Laurie Anderson. He did not like much western music, except for Michael Jackson.

  It was getting dark when they reached the suburbs. The houses zipped past, a collage of brick and green. They turned into Tommy’s street. He was still holding tight to his briefcase.

  —Twenty nine dollars, demanded the driver.

  Tommy paid.

  He rushed up the stairs, anticipating the freedom of his home. On the doorstep, huddled in her thick black coat, was Soo-Ling. Tommy stopped. The anticipation vanished. His body slouched. He could smell his filth.

  Soo-Ling jumped up.

  —Tommy, are you all right?

  He simply stared at her, aware of the damage in his briefcase, the need to keep her from it.

  Soo-Ling approached and touched his cheek. The touch, its tenderness, hurt. Tommy nestled his face into her hand; she stroked him, wanting to say simply, I love you, but fearing his distress. The future, which her whole life and experience had taught her to respect, was ignored by those words.

  —I should give you keys. His words were a penance, but she was not aware of this and was suddenly frightfully happy.

  —I love you.

  He rushed into her, his head on her chest, immersed in her softness and her hardness. The crying that began was shocking, he was howling. It was a relief so exquisite that he refused to stop, even as he knew, from her stiffening body, from her own tears, that he was frightening her. He spent himself.

  Inside the flat she made him coffee, prepared him food, asked no questions. He, drunk, went into his room and kicked the briefcase under the bed. He stood before the icon of the Virgin and Child and said sorry, softly. He promised tomorrow he would burn the contents of the case, burn the trunk. Tomorrow he would begin again.

  In the middle of drinking coffee, he suddenly sprang up, went scrounging in a box, seeking a cassette. Laurie Anderson. He pulled out a tape from its dusty cover and spent minutes in front of the stereo, rewinding, fast-forwarding, trying to find a song. Soo-Ling, worried about the mania of his search, watched silently. He found the song and sat back, relieved. He closed his eyes.

  She said.

  Soo-Ling wanted to take him, clean him, he smelt of exhaustion.

  She said it.

  Soo-Ling knelt by him, taking his hand. He clenched it hard.

  She said it to.

  Soo-Ling listened to the unfamiliar song, all electronics. She let go of his hand, she wanted to stop the music. It sang a past that did not belong to her.

  She said it to no-one.

  Tommy opened his eyes, saw her, shuddered, and closed them again.

  Isn’t it just like a woman?

  Underneath the song, infecting it, destroying it, he caught the whiff of his come, stale on his skin. He pushed Soo-Ling’s hand away and spoke one word.

  —Laika.

  —What Tommy, what, what’s that?

  He repeated the word.

  She did not know what he meant. He opened his eyes.

  She was sitting on the couch, not crying, not speaking, looking at him. He turned away; the tiny red light on the stereo. The song ended. He could hear the retreat of the needle from the vinyl, caught on tape.

  Tommy and Soo-Ling watched the Grand Final at Dominic and Eva’s house. Tommy was quiet and his
mother tried to talk to him but he brushed her concerns aside. I’m all right, Mum. Yeah, work’s fine. I can’t tell them, not yet, he said to Soo-Ling. And she, though she disliked this weakness, agreed to the deception.

  Hawthorn beat Geelong by six points, an exciting game, the result anyone’s up to the final siren. Tommy stayed close to the twenty-eight centimetres of the television frame, away from his family, away from Soo-Ling. There, close to the electric rays, there he felt safe.

  8

  What do you do?

  When we were children our mother taught us the Ancient Greek myths, told us about the twelve gods of Olympus. My favorite was Hephaestos. He, the child of Zeus and Hera, was the celestial artist. He created his father’s shield; his smith’s hands created thunder and light, the dawn and destruction. It is said that his mother threw him from heaven because he was born lame and Hera was mortified that she, the queen of the gods, could have given birth to such a monster. Hephaestos’s fall, his descent to earth, placed him at the bidding of both the mortals and the immortals. His blemishment, the club foot, meant he understood all too well, was compassionate to, human weakness. He was the only god who worked, who made things. That too made him human, like my father, like my mother.

  In my mother’s ancestral Anatolian village, in her own mother’s time, there too lived an Hephaestos. At first the arrival of the child was greeted with great joy by the exhausted mother and the proud father. He was the youngest of four children, the rest daughters, and the woman’s inability to bear a son had made her almost insensible with fear and shame. Her husband had become cold, brutal and disapproving. However, their happiness at the birth of the firstborn son was not to last. It soon became apparent that the child was an idiot. He was slow, unable to learn much speech. Terrorised by the humiliation—the village men mocked the father at the coffee shop; the women chuckled into their scarves at church—the father refused to have the idiot in the house and banished him to the dung and cold of the cellar. The child was not allowed to see the light of the world and soon believed there existed only night. His mother and his older sister would feed him, cloak him, but if they made one move that startled him or shocked him, he would run at them, howling, trying to bite them. His father would rush into the cellar, hurling abuse at his demon son, kicks and lashings of wood. The boy would run into the cloak of darkness whenever he heard the man approaching.

  Hephaestos died the day his younger brother was born.

  —How did he die? asked a curious young Dominic.

  Tommy, holding his breath, waited for the answer.

  —They say his father killed him.

  Maria crossed herself and was quiet. The children tugged at her clothes, wanting more. She snapped at them, pulling away. No matter how much she detested the harsh taste of exile, she was remembering the reasons she left Greece.

  Maria told her children that when she was a young girl and the war with the Germans raged around her, she was walking home from school down the twisted urban streets of Nea Smyrni.

  —You can’t understand, you little half and halves, you little Australezoi, what European streets are like. They are, and she put her palms close together, they are tiny, narrow, and at night, during the Occupation, we had no light.

  She was walking home from school, it was winter and already dark, and there appeared in front of her a divine vision of the Virgin. The apparition took her hand, and though frightened, the little girl placed her trust in the holy vision. The Virgin took her home the long way, through the desolate empty shells of buildings abandoned during the famine, and along the way Maria heard the quick studding of gun fire. She wanted to stop, turn back and look, but the Virgin gripped her hand tighter. When she arrived home her mother fell on her with screams and hugs. Resistance snipers on top of the hill had chosen that afternoon to retaliate against a convoy of Germans who were stationed at the bottom of Sygrou.

  Sygrou, explained Maria to her sons, is one of the main streets of Athens.

  The young girl, realising her fortunate escape, turned to thank the Virgin. But the Holy Mother had disappeared.

  —Bullshit, Dom always laughed when Maria told the story.

  Tommy, dubious, questioning, asked: Are you sure? You weren’t dreaming?

  Maria would shake her head, cross herself and promise her son it was all true.

  —What did she look like? Artie once asked.

  Maria pointed to a cheap Catholic print on the kitchen wall.

  —Like that. Long blonde beautiful hair. Shining blue eyes.

  Artie smiled and kissed his wife.

  —Bullshit. And he hugged her.

  I, the baby, heard the stories much later of course. Recently I asked my mother why she never spoke of the thirteenth god, Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstacy.

  —I never got taught about him. Are you sure he was one of the Greek gods?

  —Yeah, I’m reading about him now.

  —We had a skata education, Louie, much was censored. Maybe they thought Dionysus should be censored. Did you learn about him at school?

  No, I didn’t. Even in my time, even in my school, in another hemisphere, we only heard about the twelve Gods. Dionysus—wine, lust, celebration—he was excised.

  Maria rang Tommy at nine o’clock in the morning. He was up, making a coffee, reading the paper.

  —Anything in the newspaper? Any jobs?

  —No. Through clenched teeth. The conversation was short, his replies monosyllabic.

  —I’m looking, Mum.

  I know, son. Greek. It’s not your fault, there are no jobs. Maria began a harangue, of politicians, of economics. The Americans.

  —Please, Mama. I’ve got to go.

  He went through the employment section, marking in yellow highlighter every available position. He had initially concentrated only on jobs in print shops and to do with finished art and graphic design, but he quickly realised that the work was limited.

  —Finished artist? John had laughed at him. They don’t exist any more, Tommy, and if they do, they get paid shit. Get into computers.

  He began to hate that word.

  He marked five jobs. Four were sales positions. One was for a temporary clerk in a municipal office. Four positions supplied a phone number. One gave an address and asked for a resume.

  He rang.

  882 3456. Engaged.

  543 2323. Engaged.

  428 4076. Engaged.

  652 6765. A woman’s voice.

  —Laser Write. Can I help you?

  —I’m inquiring about the position advertised in today’s paper. The sales position. Can I have a job description?

  The woman took down his name and address and quickly put down the phone.

  428 4076. Engaged.

  882 3456. Engaged.

  543 2323. A woman’s voice.

  —Quickprint. Can I help you?

  —I’m inquiring about the position advertised in—

  The woman cut him off.

  —Sorry, sir, position filled.

  428 4076. Engaged.

  882 3456. A man’s voice.

  —Hello. Klein Group.

  —Hello, sir, I’m inquiring about the position advertised for a sales person.

  —Yeah. Okay. Hold a minute. I’ll grab a pen.

  Tommy waited, sipping the cooling coffee.

  —What’s your experience?

  Tommy told him.

  —Can you use Macintosh?

  —Yes. Tommy lied.

  —Quark?

  What the fuck was Quark?

  —Yes.

  The man hesitated.

  —What else?

  —Pagemaker. Tommy tried to think of some other program John had spoken of. Corel Draw.

  —That’s IBM.

  —Oh, sorry.

  The man gave Tommy an address. Send in a resume.

  Tommy went to the toilet and pissed. A tender relief. He looked at the pad. Two more numbers.

  428 4076. Engaged.

/>   Tommy put down the phone and picked up the newspaper. Another schoolgirl had gone missing; she had disappeared after school, walking home. The suburb of Bentleigh was being combed by police and investigating detectives. A massive doorknock was being undertaken and a large reward was posted for any information on the kidnapping. The girl’s distraught mother was crying on the front page. A small shot. The main picture, the top half of the tabloid page, was of a smiling freckled pigtailed young girl in blue and white checked school uniform.

  Tommy tickled at his arse, scratched, and his balls shook. He turned the page.

  Fourteen women shot at a Canadian University. Another thirteen wounded. A male student had taken a rifle to a seminar and proceeded to murder. Pictures of crying students. An editorial. Violence, against girls, against women. Stiffer penalties for sex offenders.

  Tommy shut the paper and turned on the television. Noni Hazlehurst on ‘Play School’. He thought of fucking her in the mouth. He twisted in anger, furious, as he came on his pyjamas, his eyes closed, Noni Hazlehurst replaced by the little schoolgirl.

  He tore off his pyjamas, stuffed them at the bottom of a basket, ignored the Virgin on the bedroom wall and turned on the taps to the shower. He scrubbed his thighs and stomach. He pulled back his foreskin and the fresh smegma had formed a milky foam. He scrubbed hard at that. A fleck of dry come, stuck on his cock head; that fleck could not be washed away.

  After the initial shock of being fired, Tommy had regained his composure. He told his family, he returned to work, and though conscious of the silences that began whenever he was near, he pretended relief at the opportunity for another future. Pathis he could not speak to, his hate was full of violence. He wanted to murder the man. His farewell—a round of drinks and chicken lunch at the pub—was not attended by Pathis or Somers. He did not want them there but he was stung by their absence.

  Even when he had finished work he continued the routine. He woke early, at seven-thirty, and walked to the shop for the morning paper. He would dress in neat clothes and visit the Commonwealth Employment Service; he would inquire for work. In the afternoons he was at the gym. Losing his fat, becoming trim, this became his obsession. Conscious of his lack of funds, he stopped going to the cinema, going out to dinners, and Soo-Ling, not wishing to embarrass him, also stopped going out. She too felt herself scrutinised by Tommy’s lack of work.