Idolism

by Marcus Herzig

  “I don’t know,” Julian lied.

  The Gospel According to Tummy – 5

  We were sitting in social sciences class and discussing natural disasters and God’s role in it. Mrs Woollcott had shown us an interview with an earthquake survivor who had been pulled out of the rubble by rescuers after seven days. The survivor said that he had been praying to God to be rescued, and then he was rescued, and he said that God must exist because He had answered his prayers. Aaqib, one of our classmates, agreed that this was plausible evidence for the existence of God, and that’s when all hell broke loose.

  Some people ridiculed Aaqib, who was a Muslim, for acknowledging the Christian god, because that earthquake survivor was a Christian and therefore it must have been the Christian god who had saved him. Aaqib and the other Muslims in our class replied that the Jewish god Yahweh, the Christian god God and the Muslim god Allah were actually the same person only with different names. Somebody asked Ali if he truly believed that a Christian praying to the Christian god and having his prayer answered was evidence for the existence of Allah, and Ali said yes. That didn’t go down well with the Christians in our class and they asked, “Where was Allah for the thousands of others who were also under the rubble praying to be saved but didn’t get saved?” That prompted all sorts of funny answers from “Maybe they didn’t pray hard enough,” to “Maybe they were sinners, and God / Allah / Yahweh made the earthquake to punish them and he only saved those who hadn’t sinned.”

  Then somebody asked, “Where was God in Auschwitz? Surely people were praying in Auschwitz, so why didn’t God save any of them?” That question outraged the Jews in our class, both of them, and the whole discussion ended in a free-for-all during which some people kept acknowledging the supposed evidence for God’s existence while others took both man-made and God-made disasters as evidence for the non-existence of God, and some claimed that God was as real as he was mean and sadistic. And in the middle of all that Mrs Woollcott suddenly got mad at one student for biting his fingernails and spitting the clippings on the floor.

  “It distracts me if people are sitting here doing their fingernails when they should be paying attention,” Mrs Woollcott said.

  “But that’s just you,” Julian replied, “and at least you’re getting paid for it. Now you’ve distracted everyone in this classroom just because of somebody’s fingernails. I think you did that on purpose. I think you were looking for a reason to end the discussion about God because it was getting out of hand, and you didn’t know how to deal with it.”

  “How dare you!” Mrs Woollcott shouted at Julian. “Who do you think you are?”

  I had been sitting through all this for minutes with me hands in me pockets trying to suppress the urge to pee. On any other day I would have just raised me hand at a strategically favourable moment and asked if I was allowed to go to the toilet. But there weren’t any strategically favourable moments that day. It had been a heated discussion, and I was afraid that if I raised me hand, people would think I had something interesting to contribute and they would get mad at me if I said I needed to go pee. So I decided to just get up and leave. Nobody would notice.

  Except Mrs Woollcott of course.

  “Where on earth do you think you’re going?” she snapped at me.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “I need to go to the loo.”

  “And since when can anybody just get up and walk out of here without even having the decency to ask?”

  At which point Julian said, “You’re doing it again! Every time a discussion becomes uncomfortable you just change the topic! What is wrong with you?!”

  Needless to say that this rubbed Mrs Woollcott completely the wrong way, and while she started to throw a major hissy fit at Julian, I took the opportunity and slipped out of the door quietly and unnoticed.

  I walked down the school corridor on me way to the boys’ room, me hands still in me pockets holding on to my dick. I was afraid I might not make it to the loo before I wet meself, so I hurried. And that’s when I saw her.

  She came walking down the corridor towards me, long, black hair, brown eyes, 22 years old, and less tall but even more beautiful than on TV. Momoko Suzuki, the most famous, most popular presenter and entertainment reporter of T-Vox. Walking down the corridor. Of me school. Towards me. Smiling.

  It was surreal, and I wondered if holding your pee in for too long could induce hallucinations. I stopped and I stared at her as she came walking towards me. I was sure she’d ignore me and walk right past me. Nobody ever takes notice of the dorky fat kid. Nobody famous and beautiful anyway. Why would Momoko Suzuki stop and take notice of a pimply, greasy-haired, overweight 17-year-old kid in a Marks & Spencer’s school uniform?

  She stopped right in front of me, opened her lips to a perfect smile and said: “Herro.”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. All I could do was stand there with me mouth wide open, probably drooling, and keeping me hands in me pockets holding onto me dick, squeezing it to avoid premature ejaculation.

  “Excuse me,” she said with the most adorable Japanese accent. “I am look for school office?”

  Somehow I finally managed to say something, but I’m afraid it wasn’t the most intelligent thing I’ve ever said.

  “What?”

  “School office?”

  I loved how she pronounced the word school. Skooru. I loved how she pronounced everything. I loved her.

  “Oh, the school office! Right. Down the corridor, staircase on the right. It’s on the third floor.”

  I nodded me head into the direction of the staircase. From the look on her face I could tell that she thought it was weird that I would use me chin to point to the stairs and not me hands. But there was no way I could have taken me hands out of my pockets now. They were busy trying to keep things under control.

  Momoko smiled again and said, “Sankyuu,” and I assumed it must have been thank you in Japanese. She continued walking down the corridor.

  “You’re welcome!” I called after her, and she turned her head around as she kept walking to give me another one of her beautiful smiles. I thought maybe if I said something more to her, she’d turn around and smile at me again. So I said, “It has a sign on the door that says School Office!”

  Sure enough, she turned her head again and smiled, and then she raised her hand and waved at me. It wasn’t the type of wave the Queen does when the drives around in a carriage, or the way somebody waves as their ship embarks on a cruise around the world. Her hand didn’t move at all when she waved at me, only her fingers did. It was a shy, cute, sexy wave, and before I even knew it, I took me right hand out of me pocket and finger-waved back at her as she turned around the corner and walked up the stairs. And that’s when me dick reminded me why I was in the corridor in the first place. I put me hand back into me pocket and ran for the boys room where I took a quick pee and then gave myself the bloody best wank ever.

  TMI?

  The Gospel According to Ginger – 4

  Sometimes I really hate Tummy. Wait, did I say sometimes? Let me start over.

  I really hate Tummy. Mostly because he’s such a boy. I hate boys. No wait, that makes me sound like a lesbian.

  I don’t hate boys. I love boys, but let’s be fair, they can be bloody annoying. Boys sweat, belch, and fart in public, they’re loud and dirty, and their mouths reek of kebab. Boys laugh all the time, especially when there’s really nothing to laugh about. But they never cry, because they don’t take life seriously. All they ever want to do is play. Boys are every shop assistant’s worst nightmare, because they always want to try out everything without ever making their bloody mind up. Boys never take anything seriously, and they don’t even want you to understand them. Boys are immature by default. At the age of ten they should really be locked away, or sent to a remote island in the South Pacific, and not be readmitted to human civilization until they’ve grown a beard. A real beard; one that scratches, not one that merely tickles. Then again, I’ve read
Lord of the Flies, so perhaps that remote island isn’t such a good idea after all.

  Sometimes it’s really embarrassing to see what boys will do to impress a girl. It’s embarrassing me. It’s almost insulting, and it makes me wonder how much—or rather how little—they must think of girls if they make such fools of themselves in front of us.

  Julie was an extraordinary boy, in the truest sense of the word extraordinary. He was something special, a very rare specimen. He didn’t like it when I called him Julie. He thought it sounded girly, and like all boys he didn’t like it when somebody questioned his manliness, even if it was just meant to be a cute nickname for a cute boy. Yes, I thought Julian was very cute. And he wasn’t like any of the other boys, although I bet he wished he was.

  Julian didn’t talk a lot. Ever since I first met him, I never thought he didn’t speak because he didn’t have anything to say. I rather thought he didn’t have the time to speak because he was always being busy thinking. Julian liked thinking. I think it was his favourite pastime. I’m sure that if you had asked Julian what his favourite body part was, he’d have said it was his brain. Most boys would probably say it’s their penis. Then again, most of them seem to think with their penis so maybe that’s not even so different.

  One of the things Julian loved to think about the most was who we as human beings were and how we got here. If that hadn’t been the case, then maybe this whole story never would have happened. Julian was in love with the theory of evolution. However, another one of Julian’s peculiarities was that if he loved someone or something, he didn’t necessarily spoil them and defend them against all and everything. Oh no, if Julian loved you, he would constantly challenge you to see if you were really worth it, if you really were what you seemed to be. And if you were not, then at least he didn’t waste any energy telling you that he loved you.

  So yeah, Julian’s favourite pastime was thinking, and the only reason he accepted me as a friend was because I gave him food for thought. I think he liked that. I also think Julian was happy when somebody acknowledged and respected his intelligence. Except he’d never have said so to your face, which made him a real boy. Boys would rather share their biggest secrets with the whole world than with a close friend. Julian expressed himself through the things he wrote. He didn’t say things directly to you, but months later you’d suddenly find an allusion to something you have said in one of his song lyrics. I sometimes wondered if this was just a test because he wanted to find out how intelligent I was and whether or not I was smart enough to see through his metaphors. If I didn’t say anything, he might have thought I wasn’t smart enough to understand somebody like him. But if I did say something, I might have suddenly found myself discussing a topic I didn’t even want to discuss. And because Julian knew this, the real test was to see if I did one thing or the other. Julian could make people come to a decision. Often he didn’t even have any influence on the decision itself, only on the fact that a decision was made. Julian was a great catalyst.

  As I said, Julian loved the theory of evolution, and he thought religion was a great way to challenge it. Julian may have been great at making people come to a decision, but he himself dreaded making up his mind. He just wanted to keep all his options for as long as possible. Most people probably thought Julian was just procrastinating, but to Julian it seemed the right thing to do. It gave him more time to think. The reason why there were so many people who didn’t use their brain properly and so few people like Julian, and I’m speaking from an evolutionary perspective here, is that we were a very young species, and for most of our existence thinking wasn’t really all that helpful for our survival at all. If you were walking across the savannah and you were attacked by a lion and you started thinking about all your options or even tried to talk things out with the lion, chances were that your genes wouldn’t make it to the next generation. If you didn’t think and just ran, however, your chances of survival were so much better. That’s natural selection for you right there. Evolution got us pretty far, but it probably made us lose our most intelligent peers along the way, which is why today most people think of someone like Julian as a freak. But he wasn’t a freak. He was just very special.

  Michael was special too. He was one of the few people that deserved to be called a friend. But that wouldn’t have been the case if it hadn’t been for Julian. Julian’s friendship with Michael was what made Michael so special. It was a great gift that Julian could instruct and inspire people. Julian was the electricity to Michael’s light bulb. He had the power to make others shine. Without Julian, Michael probably would have been just another kid at school for me, and perhaps I never even would have let him get close to me. Without Julian, Michael would have found another best friend, one with whom he would have spent his days shouting at football matches and playing PlayStation. When I looked at Julian and Michael, I sometimes thought the only thing boys ever took seriously was friendship; friendship with people like themselves.

  I hate boys. Boys are so selfish.

  The boy I used to hate the most was Tummy. He was a real boy if there ever was one. Julian and Michael were real boys too, but at least they were special. Tummy was just ordinary. He was obnoxious, rude and loud, he never stopped eating, and he thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world to turn around and fart in your direction. I had no idea what it was that made Julian and Michael accept Tummy as their friend. Maybe it was just loyalty because they’d known him since nursery school, and because one day they needed someone who could play the bass. Or maybe it was just pity because Tummy was a damn poor bastard. His family was very catholic. He had once been an altar boy at the local church. Not because he wanted to but because he had to be. He had an incredibly ditzy older sister, an alcoholic mother, and a dad who was a conservative politician. Nothing big, he was just some sort of secretary at our constituency, but it happened to be the constituency of the Education Secretary, and the mere fact that he had access to the government was enough for him to pretend that he was a part of it. As a politician, Tummy’s dad talked a lot of crap, a character trait he had bequeathed on his son who usually talked nothing but crap. A neutral and more benevolent observer might say that Tummy exaggerated, that he embellished the truth. I was neither benevolent nor neutral. To me Tummy just talked a lot of crap. I’m not calling him a liar or anything. You have to know that you’re lying in order to be called a liar. The sad thing about Tummy was that he actually believed all the nonsense he said. So when he told us that he had met Momoko Suzuki, the famous and beautiful Momoko Suzuki, in the school corridor, and that she had asked him about the way to the school office, I had no doubt that he thought he had talked to the real Momoko. However, I was pretty damn sure that he had actually just met some Vietnamese cleaning lady looking for a job.

  Well, what can I say? I was wrong.

  The Gospel According to Tummy – 6

  Okay, so me dad was a conservative politician. I’m not proud of it, okay? He was in charge of the constituency office of the Secretary of State for Education of our great country. He wanted to be in charge of the Secretary’s office in Whitehall and he was doing quite a bit of boot licking to achieve that. Me guess was that what he really wanted was a job that would keep him away from me mum as much as possible, and to be perfectly honest, I couldn’t blame him. Me parents were fighting most of the time, and it wasn’t a pretty sight, because me mum usually got very drunk and very loud. Then she would start to rant, and you began to wonder why she got married and had kids in the first place. Me mum was the kind of person who wouldn’t hesitate a second to identify horrible disasters like hurricanes or earthquakes as acts of God, as punishment for people’s sins. But whenever something bad happened to her, she always blamed other people, never God. Most of the time she blamed me dad because he was a politician and should have been able to make the world the way he wanted it, or rather, the way she wanted it. And he was trying. He’d been trying very hard for years, but no matter what he did, it was never good eno
ugh for me mum. Nothing anyone did was ever good enough for me mum. But me dad kept trying. He’d have done anything for me mum. Not to make her happy, but to make her stop bickering.

  Do you know whose idea it was for the Education Secretary to come back to his old school and give a speech at the school anniversary? It wasn’t the idea of the school or of the Secretary. It was me mum’s idea. She talked me dad into it, and then me dad talked the Secretary into it. The Secretary didn’t want to do it at first, because he was being very busy campaigning for the upcoming election. But me dad convinced him that it would be a great opportunity to reach out to the young people in his constituency. Then somehow the Secretary found out that Peter Tholen, the music producer, would be there as well, and that this would attract some media attention because Tholen usually didn’t do public appearances, so the Secretary finally agreed. Me dad was really excited about this. He had worked so hard for this and he said that if it went well, he might have a good chance to be appointed the Secretary’s personal assistant at his office in Whitehall. And it meant that one day he might take over the Secretary’s seat in parliament. So yeah, me dad was really looking forward to that school anniversary event and hoping that after all those years of hard work it would his career a big boost.

  And then Julian came along and destroyed it all.

  The Gospel According to Ginger – 5

  All right, so Tummy had been right about Momoko. He had indeed met her in the school corridor that day. When he first told us about it, it didn’t make any sense, but now it did. What we didn’t know at the time was that two very famous alumni of our school were invited and scheduled to appear at our anniversary gala event. One of them was Timothy Gardener, the Education Secretary. The other was Peter Tholen, the music producer. They both graduated in the same year, back in 1978 or whenever it was, and now they were invited back to their former school to impress us students with what great people this school had produced in the past. The guys and I actually knew about Gardener being invited, because we had found a couple of emails going back and forth between him and our head teacher Mr Richardson when Michael hacked into Mr Lewis’s computer. However, we didn’t know about Tholen’s appearance until two days before the actual event when Mr Richardson told us during morning assembly. He also told us that Momoko Suzuki would be there with a camera team, because she was doing a piece on Tholen for her TV programme Inside Momoko. It was rather exciting news, and I do mean exciting. I mean, we were a young band and suddenly we got a gig in front of the most powerful music producer in the world. No pressure there. Despite our lack of ambition to become professional musicians, Tummy, Michael, and I were totally freaking out and shitting our pants. Julian was the only one who couldn’t understand the whole excitement because, believe it or not, he had no idea who Peter Tholen was. Ignorance is bliss, I guess. But to be fair, even if Julian had known who Tholen was, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference to him. Live performances freaked him out no matter who was watching, and the only reason why he could sing to a live crowd was because the stage lights usually blinded him so much that he couldn’t see the audience. Julian was very torn when it came to live performances. He was like a drug addict. He loved the adrenaline, but he hated the things he had to do to get high. But like a hooker on crack he did them anyway because he needed to get high. And on our school anniversary, it seems, he wanted to get higher than ever before.