If it looks like an intervention, smells like an intervention and sounds like an intervention, then guess what? They were all there – Fred, Jude, Penny, Red Shirts – seated in a circle in the main hall, AA style.
Fred throat-cleared as he rose to greet him, usual smile as broad and clean as his guile. “Well, as your first week is nearly up, we thought it’d be a good time to assess where we are, catch up on a few points.”
He knew it was coming. “Sure.” He nodded in sheepish acceptance. “Look, I’ve had a think about what Jude said about Bob and, y’know, I have taken it on board.” He wanted to belong, even if he didn’t.
Fred smile-shrugged. “Oh, it’s not about that. We know you’re not as Christian as we are, we like you’re willing to learn.”
“I’m not…”
“It’s about the money. While some of us long-termers make monthly donations, as per the conditions of your trial contract we feel weekly payments should be made on time. And that time is now. While it’s great you bought the ingredients for your food, it’s still not the same as proper dues.”
“Especially without meat.” A red-shirt piped in, he wasn’t sure which, but it raised a chuckle around the room loud enough to bring his blush.
This wasn’t an intervention, it was an audit. Nausea rose, stomach bubbled, eyes drifted. How could he have been so stupid? He really hadn’t read the ad properly, even when he went back he still skipped through the details. He’d misinterpreted his donation as salary.
“What did you say?” Fred was staring at him, with the quizzical amusement of a child holding a magnifying glass over a spider. He really had to stop thinking out loud. It made him look as dumb as he was.
“Wait,” said Jude. “Did you think you were being paid? For making soup?” Laughter rippled. Enough.
He was already down for what he’d spent and he owed them even more. We believe what we want to believe, see what we want to see, edit facts to suit our narrative. Yearning for work and easy money had caused him to brainwash himself into a job that wasn’t a job.
A dormant boiling returned after a week of simmering. He saw them clearly – hypocritical parasites, disguising ego-boost as charity. “Circle of love my fuck, goddamn shit of hate.”
“What?”
This time he didn’t care, his thoughts were real. He looked up and at each of them in turn. They could take his freedom, he’d been willing to sell that along with pride, soul and mind, but they wouldn’t take his money, as no William Wallace said.
IF YOU DON’T ACTUALLY BELIEVE IN HELPING OTHERS, ALL OTHERS, THEN YOU’RE AS CHRISTIAN AS KOOL-AID
“Jesus fucking Christ! You’ve got to be kidding?”
If he’d stopped there, it could have been excused, the holiest are allowed a slip. But he didn’t want to stop, the words were a release, cleansing freedom from righteous indignation, an epiphany not from a higher power, but deep within.
“Are you out of your minge-cunt-fuck-mind?” He held up his hand, as master taught. “Wait, don’t answer that, it’s a goddamn rhetorical question dipshit.” He was clearing his chest so his lungs could smoke again.
“You’re charging me to work for you? How many times you want me to pay my fucking dues? Til my bumhole’s red?” He pointed a finger heavenwards. “You can quote scriptures til the cows get rapey all you like, but if you don’t actually believe in helping others, all others, then you’re as Christian as Kool-Aid. Who the living shit do you think you are? You don’t get to pick and choose who gets your charity.”
“Actually,” said Jude. “We do.”
“Well, whoopee-fuck-a-dabba-doo for you. Aren’t you the onward soldier? You’d be wearing the same cunt-fuck smile ticking the Jews into the showers one by one, you smug twat. Hey, they’re going to Hell anyway, so you’re doing them a favour, right? Know why you need money so bad, why your membership is shrinking?” He paused, ostensibly to read the room, but red mist fogged his eyes and he just kept going as a rapey bull with AIDS. “Because no-one wants to be like you. Because you can pretend to be better, holier-than-arse-vow, but you’re even more petty, small-minded and blinkered than the wankers on the side. You’re about as decent as Bob’s dirty cock.”
As his tirade ran on, Penny’s features crossed from sympathy, through shock, sorrow, irritation, to a mask of deepest wrath.
HE REALLY SHOULDN’T HAVE CALLED THEM ALL A BUNCH OF C****
To remember dreams the advised method is to encapsulate the final image as a sentence. Writing it down encourages recall, allowing further scenes and moments to coalesce around those words. But it wasn’t a dream that filled his thoughts when he woke in hospital – it was a memory.
Infants school playing field on a balmy summer afternoon, industrial strength mower going up and down in front of the kids as they played. He was the first to run in front of the blades before the shocked driver; it was just a dare, it got a laugh, everyone liked a laugh. Then the other kids began to copy him.
He stood in the corridor outside the headmistress’ office and heard every word they said. He was Satan, he was evil, he was encouraging his peers to suicide; who knew what would have happened if the teacher hadn’t stopped them in time? He wanted to burst in and scream his defence – it was just a joke, he didn’t mean any harm, it wasn’t his fault they followed him, he didn’t encourage them, it was only meant to be funny …
Were they right? Was he rotten? Was a demonic impulse the root of his indolent rebellion? Wasn’t life a series of decisions or mistakes that balanced black and white into a muted shade of grey?
He looked across the hospital room at the blue bag bundling his clothes on a chair; once white, his rags were soaked in blood, now dried into a brown crust. It had been surprisingly easy for him to transform sugar-glazed nano-niceys into a violent mob.
He remembered throwing his arms out as the kicks and punches rained down with justified zeal, a forlorn plea his crucified pose would slow the beating – it only heightened the righteousness of their fury. He really shouldn’t have called them all a bunch of cunts.
WHEN YOU END UP IN HERE, EVERYONE THE SAME
“The sleeper awakes.” The nurse walked in with forthright hail as he pulled his dirty jeans up. He attempted a smile, but pain stung his features into a grimace and sigh. He didn’t need a mirror to know how he looked, he could feel the bruises rise purple in his face.
“You white boys really aren’t the best advert for God when you try to rap.” He’d been muttering in his sleep, streams of half-baked Bible quotes transformed into delirious incantation.
“Guess we turn to God in pain.” His face ached sharp, but he still tried to smile; there was something about the dark-skinned nurse, a radiance of honest warmth and strength, that made him want to please her. He guessed a Leo. “I’m not really religious,” he said. “I’m not sure what I am.”
“Don’t sweat it honey,” she said. “We believe what we need to get through the day.”
“I suppose you get a lot of church in here?” He buttoned his once-white, now diarrhea shirt over newly tanned tee.
“We get a lot of everyone. All shapes and colours, when you end up in here, everyone the same. Everyone scared, no-one wants to suffer alone – you need God as a pal to hold your hand? Let Him grip tight as you like.”
“Do you believe?”
“Me?” She laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle that revealed white gap teeth. “I believe in jokes, gin and cigarettes, my love. Gets me through the day and if there’s Heaven or Hell, I’ll be okay. I hear they have ’em upstairs and down.”
With that, the white-smocked lioness turned and padded off down the corridor, mane high, cheer in her wake; it was all he could do to follow her.
Hove Press 