On the way home, Joe tried to ignore the sight of a street sweeping machine, pushing mounds of aborted babies into the gutter. It was difficult, but he managed it. Harder was when the man opposite him liquefied and splashed his shoes, leaving only a damp suit and a gold filling. Joe doggedly read his newspaper even as a shark swam around Martin Place near the bus stop and scooped pigeons out of the air with its gaping jaws. His mind was focused on only one thing. Harry was having sex with his wife right now. If he could catch them in the act then perhaps everything he had thought up to this point was true. They both denied the affair so vehemently and told him that it was simply the delusions of his infected mind, but that didn't mean it wasn't true. What perfect cover for them both to carry on with reckless abandon, and then to simply blame it all on delusion. Eventually the bus pulled up at his stop, and Joe put down his newspaper and stepped out onto the street. His house was only a short walk away, and he moved quickly. He stopped short when he came across a black Mazda with the personalised numberplate "FACHEAD". It was Harry's car. Joe put his face up to the window and shielded his eyes from the sun with his hands. There wasn't much to see, just a file on the front passenger seat and what looked like an open condom wrapper on the floor. Joe looked around the street to make sure he was alone and then picked up a small rock and put a hole in the window. No alarm sounded and nobody emerged from their house, so he reached inside and took out the folder. He flipped it open and saw that most of it was nothing more than a lesson plan for the following day. Nothing too exciting at all, until right towards the end when a few loose pages slipped out, none of which had been held in place by the small metal bull clip. Joe picked them up off the ground and threw the rest of the folder back inside the car. They were legal documents of some sort although they appeared to be photocopies. Joe could tell this because the stamp across them that said "Do Not Copy" had not copied particularly well. He laughed when he read the first one. It was the initial complaint that Gabriel had made to Paul Torres. He skimmed through it. There was nothing particularly new. Words stuck out such as "unprofessional" and "unproductive" as well as "unctuous" and for some reason "undeniable", "unacceptable", "undulating" and, for some reason, "unicorn". Joe threw the paper back into the car on top of the folder. It was difficult to read anything these days, with his focus so prone to wandering off into the infinite. The next page was from the two girls, and one of them had idiotically signed with a smiley face inside the letter e. It was more about how he was "so totally rude" and "like, he's just lost it or something". It occurred to Joe that if he had perhaps been a better teacher then the two girls may have been able to form coherent sentences, but it was a long shot in any case. Somebody walked past at that moment, a young man, perhaps even a teenager, wearing a black hoody and smoking a cigarette. He almost stopped when he saw Joe standing next to a broken window with a pile of documents in his hand, but Joe growled slightly and let out a little yap like an angry dog. The teenager threw his cigarette to the ground and stomped it out, moving away without saying a single word. The next page was from the bland boys, who had also decided to write their complaint as a pair. It was filled with words like "possibly" and "slightly" and terms like "perhaps it would be better" and "difficult time dealing with". It was the most tentative and innocuous complaint letter ever written, and it was clearly only done after Gabriel had coerced them into it. Neither one had the initiative or the inclination to rock the boat, but with the boat already ready to capsize, Gabriel must have only had to give them a small amount of encouragement to push it right over. That page missed the window and fluttered down onto the ground and Joe was holding in his hand the final page. He had assumed that it would be the same paper that Paul had shown him, indicating his termination of employment, but it wasn't. It was another complaint. The bottom was signed 'Harry Tudor'. He felt the wind knocked out of him and as he began to read and it only got worse. It was diplomatic, there was no doubt about that, but it also said in no uncertain terms that as the Faculty Head of European Literature, it was Harry's opinion that Joe be suspended immediately from duty. The worst part of the whole paper was the date. It was two weeks old. Two weeks before his actual termination, Harry had been pushing for it. To his credit he had been suggesting full pension benefits, but it was still a betrayal. He flipped over the page and, inevitably, there was a message scrawled across the back of the paper in thick black ink.
IF YOU LOSE YOUR HEAD WHEN ALL AROUND ARE KEEPING THEIRS THEN YOU'LL LIE IN BED NO MORE
It wasn't really plausible to think that Harry had written all those messages, but the thought did flash through Joe's mind briefly. He threw the note to the ground, just as somebody was finally emerging from their house. It was an old man, and he was still wearing slippers and a dressing gown despite it being late in the afternoon. He stood on the front step, with one hand on the door, ready to go back inside quickly, or at least as quickly as an artificial hip and severe gout would allow him to.
'I've called the police,' he said shakily, his voice little more than a breath.
'Good, you should probably call an ambulance too, I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to react,' Joe said, as he walked the three doors up the road towards his house. On the way up the front path he kicked over a garden gnome, neatly decapitating it and snapping off its fishing pole.
It had seemed like a fairly good idea at the time, but once Joe was actually halfway up the drainpipe, the idea was losing its appeal. He'd crept around to the back of the house, hoping to make his way in through the bedroom window without leaving either of them any time to make excuses, or the bed for that matter. The bedroom window was open but there was no noise that he could hear coming from within. Joe struggled up to the top and placed his hand on the gutter, wincing at the noise it made and sweating profusely. His arms strained as he hauled himself up onto the small awning of roof tiles that led across to the window, and as he grasped at one, it slipped and fell to the concrete below, smashing into multiple pieces like a mirror. Now there was a sound from the bedroom, a kind of gasp and a brief thump as if something had fallen to the floor. Joe hauled himself to his feet and stumbled across the roof to the window, sticking his head in like a curious Labrador. Mary was in bed, the covers pulled up over her naked torso, with the television remote in her hand. The television had only just come on, and it appeared to be a special about cheating spouses caught on tape. Mary looked flustered and surprised, because she was.
'Joe!' she exclaimed. 'I wasn't expecting you home so early.'
'I'll bet you fucking weren't!' replied Joe, easing himself in through the window and landing heavily on the carpeted floor of the bedroom.
'What are you doing climbing in the window?'
Joe paused, placing his hand on the sill and trying to catch his breath. He raised a finger to indicate that she should wait a moment, which she dutifully did.
'A more pertinent question is what are you doing in bed naked in the afternoon?' he said once his heartbeat had slowed sufficiently.
Mary glanced around the room nervously and then attempted to shrug nonchalantly. The gesture was so exaggerated in its purposeful lack of exaggeration that it looked ridiculous.
'I've been depressed, Joe. Sometimes I can't even be bothered getting up.'
'I know the feeling. I'll just hang my coat and maybe I'll join you.'
He took off his coat and walked over to the cupboard, ignoring Mary's yelp of protest as he did so. Opening the door he saw the thing he most wanted to and most dreaded seeing. Harry Tudor was completely naked, and from the looks of it he'd only had a few seconds to find a hiding place because he still had a fairly impressive erection.
'Hi, Harry,' Joe said, hanging his coat on his friend's member, which was rapidly becoming flaccid, before closing the door again.
Mary's face had become white, and she'd sat up in bed. She couldn't stop staring at the cupboard door, even as she spoke.
'I'm so sorry, Joe. I know this must come as something of a shock...'
>
'Actually, this is the least surprising thing that's happened to me in quite some time.'
The door fell open, and Harry emerged, holding Joe's coat across his waist to hide his shame. He looked absolutely defeated.
'So, how long?' Joe said to Mary.
Mary paused, mulling over the question despite its very specific nature.
'What do you want me to say?'
'Well I'm not asking for his measurements, Mary! How long as this been going on?'
There was another pause, and then Mary's eyes glassed over and she began to cry.
'Joe it's been so hard recently, that...'
'How long?'
Mary was too distraught to answer, and she placed her hand over her mouth to stop whatever words were screaming at the gates, from escaping. Many seconds passed before she spoke.
'Three years.'
'So when you say it's been hard recently you're talking more in a geological sense then? Three years!?!' Joe exclaimed-question-marked-exclaimed.
Then something curious happened. He hadn't expected it, and he couldn't explain it, but Joe laughed out loud. At first it was just a slight chuckle, but then it came faster and harder, and suddenly he could not stop himself. He was laughing almost hysterically, but there was no humour to it at all. It was the laugh of a man who has just seen his expensive sports car crushed through a series of highly improbably but undeniably comical coincidences. However Harry and Mary had expected him to react, this was not it. They both stared at him, waiting for him to stop and sharing scared looks over his head when he didn't. Finally he stood up, wiping his eyes and walked from the room, clapping Harry across the shoulder so hard that he flinched.
'Three years,' he repeated, chuckling, and made his way downstairs.
By the time the adulterous duo had managed to get themselves clothed and emotionally stable enough to come downstairs after him, Joe had already made three cups of coffee. He was sitting at the table, sipping thoughtfully on his and staring at the basket of pinecones in the centre of the table. Mary entered first, her face wet from where she had splashed water on it.
'You know, I never told you this before, but I hate these pinecones. I think they're tacky and they look like they belong in some kind of home furnishings catalogue. You know the ones; filled with the kind of things that people buy when they don't know what else to do with their time or money. The kind of things that if you actually put them in your house you may as well just get "emotionally unfulfilled" tattooed on your forehead. Although now, come to think of it, that makes sense...'
'Joe. You don't understand. Please let me try and explain.'
Joe sipped his coffee and shook his head congenially.
'No wait, please let me try and explain. Let's see how well I do. When we first got married, you admired me for my stability, combined with a slight dreamer quality. You knew that I could provide for you but at the same time I could surprise you occasionally. As the years progressed things only got better, but then, when we discovered that we could never have children, everything changed. Even after supposedly recovering from that particular shock it became clear that things had been as good as they were ever likely to get and anything left between us could only be a decline. From that point on, the things I used to do which you once found endearing, became annoying. The things that provided you with the stability you married me for became boring, and my own stagnation removed the dreamer quality entirely from my personality. We stopped having regular sex, which had, previous to that been more of a habit or a chore than anything else anyway. Being a woman, with a woman’s desires, you could not be satisfied with this situation, and so turned to someone who reminded you of me as I once was. Harry, having a similar but better job with more responsibility whilst still retaining a certain schoolboy charm, became that someone. He was the simplest, because he was closest at hand, as it's difficult for a middle-aged married woman to get out and meet eligible men. This was combined with the fact that Harry is a bachelor and so the guilt would only come from betraying me and you would not be troubled by betraying Harry’s spouse also. You were never too bothered by Harry's girlfriends before that because you knew that there was nothing much to it and he would always come back to you. You didn't feel the need to have him all to yourself because you felt that would be hypocritical whilst you were still married to me. Then, when I went, what I’m sure you would colourfully describe as, "stark raving bonkers", you two found comfort in each other’s arms more than ever. You needed someone to help you cope with dealing with me, and Harry was the obvious choice. The bond became very close indeed and you fell in love, rather than just having a mutually comforting physical relationship. It became something deeper. So despite the fact that this started long before my illness, I have nobody to blame but myself for being so distant with you for all these years. You always felt like I blamed you for not being able to get pregnant, and if I had just been a bit more understanding about what you were going through then this never would have happened. Do I understand? Is my comprehension of the situation satisfactory or is there something you would like to add?'
Mary had not tried to interrupt him and had even sat down during the speech. She looked at the coffee Joe had made for her and took a sip.
'No,' she said quietly. 'That pretty much covers everything.'
Harry was still standing in the doorway, scared to fully commit to entering the room, but when Joe noticed him there he gestured for him to come and sit down. Harry looked to Mary for confirmation, and she nodded. Even when he did enter, he came in very tentatively with his hands raised slightly in front of him to show that he wasn't a threat, or possibly to protect himself from physical attack. He even sat down on the edge of his seat in a way that Hollywood blockbusters so rarely make people do, despite their promises. Joe gestured to the steaming mug on the table in front of him.
'Have some coffee.'
Harry looked at the mug warily.
'Don't worry. I haven't poisoned your coffee. You're as bad as Gavrilo.'
'Who's Gavrilo?' Harry managed to say, taking a sip.
Joe shrugged.
'He's a career criminal. Assassinations and beatings. Hired muscle really.'
Joe noticed the look they gave each other, but he also noted that neither one of them questioned the comment any further. It appeared that he really was in the driver's seat.
'So why did you do it, Harry? I know why Mary did it, but why you?'
Harry gaped like a fish, and Joe had the desperate urge to stick him in a bucket of water or at the very least, gut and scale him with a fillet knife. He eventually lowered his head and stared at the table.
'I just... I don't know. I guess I wanted what you had. Something real. I got so sick of just having empty sex with this constant stream of younger women that I had nothing in common with.'
'Yes, that must have been hell for you. My sympathies.'
Harry looked up sadly.
'I'm sorry. I used to come around just to see Mary sometimes if you were working late. Nothing happened at first. Sex wasn't the motive for me coming round, it really wasn't, but I should have known that my baser instincts would take over. I never meant for it to go so far.'
Joe nodded wisely, like a serene Buddha, and finished off his coffee with a satisfied gulp.
'So is that why you bought me this watch? Some kind of guilt gift?' he said, shaking his wrist to illustrate the point.
'No. I bought that as a present. I never meant for any of this, Joe.'
'Maybe so. I'll tell you what I think, though. The only outdated instinctive behaviour amongst humans that’s more destructive than sex is war. In the long run, they both bring about nothing but suffering and a mess that needs to be cleaned up. But at least when a war finishes the entire world has changed. When sex is finished, the only thing that’s changed are the bed sheets. But you didn't just declare sex on my wife, Harry, you also declared war on me. You changed my sheets and my world.'
Joe waited to see w
hat kind of reaction his comment would have but it was not exactly as he had hoped. Joe reviewed what he had said in his mind and had to admit that the meaning had somehow been lost in the journey between his brain and his mouth. Their bemusement was heaping up against him now in huge drifts and he struggled to shovel it out of the way.
'Harry, you recommended to Chancellor Torres that I be fired. That is an act of betrayal far greater than this.'
Mary looked stung for a second, and then lashed out and slapped Joe across the face. It connected with a solid thwack, as if there was a sound engineer hiding nearby.
'How can you say that? And what did you do, Harry?' she said, suddenly realising that now she was angry with both men.
'It was for your own good. I was trying to save your pension. Paul had come to me several times telling me that if I couldn't keep you in line he would fire you. I thought that adding my own concerns to the complaints might allow you to leave gracefully.'
'You could have stood up for me,'
'I couldn't!' protested Harry. 'I could not save your job. There was nothing I could do. You were and are incapable of teaching any more. Nothing I said would change that. I came to you repeatedly suggesting you take a leave of absence and you refused. I told you that very day, the morning of that class where you got fired. I was trying to help you, and you refused to let me. I wanted what was best for you, but you wouldn't let me.'
Joe sat back in his chair, regarding Harry coolly. Mary seemed mollified by the answer and was looking at Joe expectantly.
'Well, that may well be true and it sounds quite reasonable, so thank you for that. But you still slept with my wife!'
'I thought that wasn't much of a betrayal,' Mary said sulkily.
Joe suddenly realised that although just moments before he had been in what he liked to term the driver's seat, he had somehow put himself back on the defensive. There were very few people in the world who could take a situation like walking in on an adulterous spouse and somehow still end up being the one in trouble.
'You weren't trying to help me, anyway. Nobody is selfless. Nobody does anything for anybody else.'
'That's not true, Joe.'
'Yes it is. Everyone is base in nature, and if some of them manage to pull themselves out of the shit and act respectably it's only because they want to feel selfless. That desire is selfish in itself. If it didn't feel so damn good to think of yourself as being selfless then nobody would do it!'
They gave each other the "what the hell" look again, so Joe decided to let it slide. If he could lose his head whilst all around were keeping theirs...
'Then I'll lie in bed no more. I made my bed, it lies in me...' he whispered, ignoring the fact that the "what the hell" look had intensified by a factor of three.
'The search for truth makes lies of us all. Let dead men lie where dead men fall. Try and remember his childhood? How can he? Joe Finch does not exist.'
'Joe? Are you feeling okay? You're starting to scare me,' Mary said, trotting out the same phrase she had used so often in recent times.
As her hand touched his own he realised that he was shaking wildly. He tried to keep his hand from moving but it refused to obey. Before he allowed himself to slip out of the moment, Joe struggled to his feet.
'Joe? Where are you going? We need to talk about this.'
Joe shook his head and waved his hand over them in a perverted sort of blessing.
'You're both forgiven. Harry, I need to borrow your car.'
Harry shook his head.
'I don't think that's a good idea, Joe. You're not looking very well. Perhaps we should take you to the hospital again.'
'I'm never feeling well. I can't last more than an hour or so without the world slipping away. It happens every time.'
Joe reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the bottle of pills that Pontius had given him.
'You should take one, Joe. They were working,' Mary said, but Joe threw the pills at the kitchen bench where the lid came off and scattered the floor with a delicate layer of placebos.
'What about localised radiation treatments? They might do the trick as well!' Joe said, still fumbling for something in his pocket as he stuck his head in the open door of the microwave.
It refused to turn on with the door open, a ridiculous safety feature that was all too typical of the nanny state in Australia, so Joe gave up. He finally managed to get a cigarette out of his pocket and put it in his mouth and lit it. Mary still managed to be surprised at this, in spite of everything else.
'You smoke?'
'Sure. Not so many people do these days. We're a dying breed. Emphysema mainly, but frankly I'm not too worried about it.'
He exhaled deeply and felt the world coming back. Acobapoc cigarettes; they worked a thousand times better than any of Pontius' pills or Armaita's psychobabble. Perhaps because they bought him one step closer to death. Joe took another long drag and then noticed that Mary and Harry had both stood up. Harry had his arm across Mary's shoulder in an infuriatingly intimate way as they both edged towards him cautiously. There was at that moment a fortuitous knock on the front door which made everybody turn and look at it. There was another brief knock and Joe finally went to the door and opened it. Standing there were two men in black trousers and white shirts, wearing name badges. One said 'Elder Schofield' and the other said 'Elder Poe'. They were both rather clean cut looking men of no more than twenty five, with crew cuts and blond hair and square jaws. Joe looked at them expectantly.
'Hello, sir. We're from the Church of Latter Day Saints and I was wondering if you'd like to let Jesus into your home.'
Joe glanced back at Harry and Mary, who were now subconsciously touching fingertips for comfort. He felt his calm starting to crack.
'Now's not a very good time. But fuck it, I'll go have a beer with him. Where is he, waiting in the car?'
Joe made to leave the house, placing an arm around each of the Mormon's shoulders.
'Joe, I don't think you should be going anywhere right now...' Harry said, but as soon as his hand connected with Joe's shoulder something snapped.
A switch went off in Joe's brain with that tactile contact. Before that, Harry had just been a part of a picture. A horrible melodrama that was playing out in front of him, but with the touch of his hand on Joe's shoulder, suddenly he was more than that. The hand that rested on Joe's shoulder was the same hand that had caressed his wife. It was the same hand that had held her cheek as he kissed her and it was the same hand that had shaken his politely almost every week when he arrived for dinner for the last three years. It was too much, and Joe pushed him aside and stormed into the kitchen. He tore open the top drawer and pulled out a large, wooden-handled kitchen knife. He spun around, brandishing it with a white-knuckled fist. Mary screamed and the two Mormons shuffled backwards.
'You two stay right where you are,' he hissed, and they paused awkwardly against the door frame.
'Joe, put the knife down, you don't know what you're doing.'
'True enough,' Joe said and lunged towards Harry, who placed himself in front of Mary for protection.
'Don't hurt me!' he screamed and Joe paused, looking at his friend cowering in front of his terrified wife and the knife in his hand.
Then, he felt ashamed for the terror he was putting them through. But he didn't really give a shit about the Mormons. Only God can do that.
'Well I have to hurt someone!' he screamed and looked around the room wildly, before spying his own hand as if it was exactly what he'd been looking for.
What better way to punish himself for all the evil he had done in his life? As Lucy had said, it looked like a stigmata, so perhaps that's exactly what it was.
'You're Jehovah's Witnesses, right?' he said to the two men cowering in the doorway.
Elder Schofield was white with fear, although his cheeks were flushed and sweaty.
'Yes, sir,' he managed to stutter with a trembling lower lip.
'Good. Then witness this.'
Joe took the knife and plunged it into and through the skin, feeling it skitter off bone as it passed by. A trail of blood instantly hit the linoleum of the floor and a sharp pain went surging up his arm and hit his heart, before exploding out to the rest of his body with intense white heat.
'Jesus Christ!' he screamed in agony, but if Jesus was waiting in the car he certainly wasn't coming to help.
The two Mormons took this as their cue to leave and both ran from the house, leaving a scattering of "Watchtower" magazines in their wake. The flyscreen was left swinging, and the wind outside banged it against the outer wall of the house. Mary had stopped screaming and passed out, and Harry was supporting her but staring at Joe in horror. Joe looked at the knife in his hand, hissing and swearing as if the short staccato sounds were dispersing the pain that consumed him.
'You have to leave it in,' suggested Harry, but Joe was long beyond the realm of helpful hints and suggestions, and he reached down and grasped the handle, wrenching it free.
'Oh my God!' he screamed again as the bleeding intensified from the now open wound that smiled at him with its fleshy lips.
Harry looked as white as a sheet, and he allowed Mary to drop to the floor gently, completely comatose.
'Will you look at all that blood?' Joe said, feeling the colour draining from his cheeks as it flowed onto the floor.
Joe finally found the presence of mind to grab a tea-towel from the little wooden hook beneath the duck in the raincoat and he wrapped it around his hand, tightening the knot with his teeth. Harry was still looking on, but the only movement he made was a slight trembling.
'You know, Harry, I think this vindicates me. Everybody said I was crazy, but here you are having an affair with my wife.'
Harry pointed at the bloodied floor with his trembling hand, his eyes never leaving Joe's.
'You just stabbed yourself in the hand, Joe. You are crazy. You need help.'
Joe looked at his wound again. The pain had subsided curiously quickly, although he could still feel it. He found that it hurt more when he looked about it, and that when he was concentrating on Harry he could almost forget it was there. This sensation went against his entire knowledge of knife wounds which, granted, was relatively meagre. What it did was vindicate his idea that reality only existed if he focused on it. The same force that sent people blurry at the edges and flying off into the cosmos of perception was allowing his pain to trail away around him, like the rings of a planet, too far away to affect him. He decided not to tell Harry this, because it seemed a fairly complicated concept that he would have trouble grasping. Besides which, there was the sound of a police siren in the distance.
'I guess I'm going for a walk,' Joe said, and before Harry could stop him he was halfway down the lawn, just passing the fallen garden gnome, with the door slamming shut behind him.
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The Lunatic Messiah Page 18