The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Malachi the Queer

by Damian Jay Clay

  “Don’t panic you two. You better come with me.”

  He takes us into the common room, which is empty, and we sit down on the sofas.

  “Alim’s gone home,” he says.

  “Without saying goodbye?” I am shocked. “He wouldn’t do that!”

  Porter is casual but there’s something up. I know him well enough to know that. “His family came for him in the middle of the night. I wasn’t here but I’m sure he’d have wanted to say goodbye.”

  “But he wasn’t ready to go,” says Poppy. “Last time we spoke about it he told me you said he’d be here for two more months at least.”

  “His parents gathered up a petition with a huge number of signatures and claimed their son was being kept from them for reasons against their religion. Then when that fell on deaf ears they went to court."

  “So he’s not getting help?” I ask.

  “He’ll be getting out-patient treatment near his house, that’s all I know. Now come on get back to breakfast.”

  “Are you all bloody mental?” shouts Poppy, “They’re going to try and force him back to Iran again!”

  “What?” That’s the first time I’ve heard about any of this. “No bloody way.”

  “That’s why he jumped in front of the car,” says Poppy. “That’s what they were trying to make him do.”

  “There was more to it than that, Poppy, as well you know.” Porter tries to keep a calm voice but I’m not buying it. “We were told all this in a meeting. His family have agreed he won’t be leaving the country.”

  “I don’t know, Porter,” I say, “but I hope you’re right.”

  “So do I,” says Porter. He doesn’t look at all sure.

  I’m worried for the rest of the day and can’t concentrate on anything. Poppy is no better. We keep checking our mobiles to see if there’s any texts but they must have taken his phone away from him because there’s nothing and if I’m to take any comfort in how the staff are dealing with this then there’s no bloody hope at all. Porter looks depressed, Mary hardly says two words to me when she sees me to talk about my last family session. I see Emma crying – and I didn’t even once see her dealing with Alim.

  At two thirty in the morning my phone vibrates and there’s a call from an unknown number.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me.” I can tell it’s Alim, though all the tone has gone from his voice. He sounds defeated. “I have about a minute. Number thirty seven West Elm Street, Wembley. Did you get that?”

  “I got it.”

  “I’m in the box room at the left side of the front of the house. There’s something on the outside stopping me opening the window. You have to get me out tomorrow night because the day after they’re forcing me to go to live with my uncle in Iran and attend a religious school. You remember what they do to people like us in Iran?”

  “I don’t need reminding. I’ll be there. How are you?”

  “I got a beating from my dad. I think he broke one of my ribs. Get Poppy to help you if you can. Do not under any circumstances tell anyone there, not even Porter. There’s nothing they can do. I have to go.”

  “Alim – hold on – pain ends.”

  He hangs up.

  I can’t bear to think of him there, bruised and beaten and unaided. That night I get little sleep. I see Daniel in bed next to me and I think back to the camp and being left in the punishment shed.

  I want to phone Sam and tell him what’s happened. Maybe he’ll be able to do something. Then I think that if he couldn’t do anything, he’d at least stop me from trying to do something and there’s no way I can’t help Alim. He’s right, it’s just me and Poppy between him and a living hell that would be worse than the camp, because there would be no Jacob there to rescue him.

  The next morning I get up before breakfast and phone Poppy to tell her everything.

  “I don’t know how you’re going to get out of here but I’m going to give Porter the slip on our walk. If you can, meet me Sudbury Town station. I’ll wait for you there for as long as I can.”

  “I’ll try to get out.”

  “Don’t mention anything when you see me at breakfast.”

  We go to breakfast as normal and then after I have my walk with Porter. When we get to the shop I tell him I don’t want anything.

  “Will you be all right outside by yourself for a minute?”

  “If I’m not, I’ll come in for you.”

  As soon as he’s inside the shop, I run to the train station. I don’t have an Oyster card so I jump the ticket barrier and run to the platform which has a train approaching at that moment. I don’t even look to see which way it’s going.

  After one stop I see it’s headed the right way.

  On the train I start to feel a little panicky, even more so when new passengers get on. I do my deep breathing and I can keep it under control. I must look like a right weirdo to the other passengers but they don’t look at me directly.

  I change at King’s Cross to the Piccadilly Line and soon I’m going past South Kensington. I think about getting off and going to the museums and I feel free and happy. I could do that if I wanted to, if I didn’t have other business. Then I don’t feel so panicky any more and I’m even able to close my eyes.

  I get off at Sudbury Town where the barriers are open. Poppy is there waiting for me by the entrance.

  I hug her. “How did you get out?”

  “I ran out the fire escape after you left. I didn’t think I’d end up waiting for you. I must have got on the train ahead.”

  We head towards my house and the newsagents where Sam left the money for me. I ask Mr Khan for the thousand pounds and he doesn’t seem like he’s going to give it to me.

  “I’ll make you a deal. Give me seven hundred and two Oyster cards with ten pounds on each and I’ll tell Sam that you gave me the lot.”

  He thinks about this for a second, then goes through his door and comes back with the money. He also gives us the cards.

  We walk into Wembley high street and sit in a café for a few hours. Now I have time to relax and even with all the people I don’t feel close to an episode. Has the treatment worked or is it because I’m starting to feel frightened about what I have to do?

  We stay on the high street. I go to a shop to buy a torch and a pair of pliers, just in case, and then we move from café to restaurant to fast food place every few hours and end up in McDonalds for the last couple of hours it’s open.

  At about eleven we make our way to the residential area where Alim lives. Now I am starting to feel scared and exposed. Poppy takes hold of my hand without me asking and it becomes more bearable. Night time, I don’t like being out at night time and it's not something we've ever dealt with. I think I'm going to have to mention this to Porter when I see him next.

  I start to shake at every stranger I see on the streets, whether they’re coming our way or not. When they get close it’s all I can to not to fall to the floor and curl up into a ball in panic. In my mind I think of Alim and the videos of gay people being hanged and Poppy holds my hand and I’m able to carry on.

  We stop at a park that must be right near Alim’s house and we wait in the trees.

  At one in the morning we make the last leg of the journey. When we get to Alim’s road I see Porter’s green Zodiac parked about thirty yards away from where I estimate Alim’s house must be.

  We sneak up behind the car. I can see Porter inside but his head is tilted forward and I can hear him snoring.

  “Stay here,” I say, “I’m going to scout it out.”

  I run down the road till I find number thirty seven. I search for a small stone and throw it up at the box room window.

  Alim pulls back the curtain. Even in this poor light I can see he has a black eye. He points towards the alley which runs between his and his neighbours house. I go down there, as scared as I am, lighting my way with the torch. By the garage at the back of his house is a set of step ladders. I grab them and they’re heavier
than they look. They’re the wooden kind which extend, but I don’t need to extend them to reach the ledge outside Alim’s window. I climb up and look what’s holding it in place – a loose loop of metal held in-between padlock rings. I pull it out. Alim opens the window as I climb down.

  I get to the ground and that’s when the front door opens.

  The man who comes out is dressed in pyjamas and a robe, in his hands is a broom handle. “What are you doing? Running away?” It must be Alim’s dad.

  Alim is only just on the ladder. His dad pushes me out of the way, then forces the ladder over, sending Alim falling five feet to the floor with a hideous thump as he lands on the patio.

  I stand there in utter panic. I have no idea what to do. I try to push Alim’s dad back. He pushes me out of the way and begins beating Alim’s unconscious body with the stick.

  A woman comes out of the house crying and screaming, I assume it’s Alim’s mum. She grabs her husband. “No!” She tries to pull him away but only gets a hard slap which leaves her bent over clutching her face.

  He hits Alim again. “Jende, this is no son of mine. You gave me a kuni.”

  Now the lights are on all over the street and people are coming out of their houses to spectate from their patios.

  Polly and Porter arrive. Porter forces Alim’s dad back and away from Alim. He has him at the elbows and walks him back to the front door.

  His dad is crying and screaming waving the broom handle in Porter’s face. “Who are you, eh? Who are you to tell me what I can do with my son? He is not a man. He is a disgrace – a kuni.” He turns and walks back into the house and it’s all over.

  Porter pulls out his phone and calls the police and ambulance. I can already hear sirens coming this way, so somebody must have phoned it in. Porter turns and bends down over Alim to see how he is.

  I stand there, crying – useless.

  Alim’s dad returns and paces out of the house with a large kitchen knife in his right hand. He pushes Porter over and raises the knife above his head. “You will not bring dishonour to my family.”

  I don’t know what makes me do it – like so much else in my life it seems I’m out of control. I jump into him shoulder first but he catches sight of me and moves and I only glance him and smash my knee and elbow on the patio for a reward. I can hear the sirens getting closer, seconds away.

  Alim’s dad raises the knife again above his son's unconscious body.

  Now flat on my back I can do nothing to stop it. All I can do is scream and watch as right in front of me he brings the knife down as he falls to his knees.

  Porter throws himself over Alim. The knife goes right into Porter’s back as the police car arrives.

  I don’t know the rest of it. I can only look at Porter and the knife that remains stuck deep inside him. I crawl over to him and hold his hand.

  There is chaos and screaming all around me. Police shout and tell people to back away.

  Porter looks at me and smiles. “No regrets,” he whispers.

  Then he dies.

  Part Five – Ascension

  This is my playes last scene, here heavens appoint

  My pilgrimages last mile; and my race

  Idly, yet quickly runne, hath this last pace,

  My spans last inch, my minutes latest point,

  And gluttonous death, will instantly unjoynt

  My body, and soule, and I shall sleepe a space,

  But my'ever-waking part shall see that face,

  Whose feare already shakes my every joynt;

  Then, as my soule, to'heaven her first seate, takes flight,

  And earth-borne body, in the earth shall dwelll,

  So, fall my sinnes, that all may have their right,

  To where they're bred, and would presse me, to hell.

  Impute me righteous, thus purg'd of evill,

  For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devill.

  John Donne

  Chapter Twenty Five

  I sit at the back of the garden on the last row of chairs, right at the far side. This house we have come to is more like a mansion. It’s a sunny, October day, though everyone is wearing jackets. The garden is minimalistic and beautiful: individual trees grow in unhampered space, no symmetry or thought of planning in their position but each undeniably in the perfect place.

  I think it was meant to be a small gathering, no more than fifty chairs, but there are at least a hundred people standing. At the front of the gathering there has been placed a wooden dais and a huge photo of Porter that stands on an a-frame. There are staff here from the unit, Porter’s family and I assume some of the people he treated, Noah, Sam and Catherine are more here for me.

  I have Noah and Alim either side of me and Polly is sat on the other side of Alim. We all hold hands through the entire memorial.

  The papers said it was an honour killing gone wrong and to an extent, in terms of strict definitions, I think they were right but there was little planning in it and absolutely no honour. Primarily it was hate – a man’s hatred for his own son. A man, like my dad, who put his religion above everything. At A&E I realised that Alim’s dad was his version of my camp. I’d had a week of it – what torture had Alim gone through in the years he spent living with the man who tried to kill him? I haven’t asked him. That’s not our relationship. It’s a tacit covenant between Poppy, Alim and me that we don’t ask. We only listen when required and then we never say anything – we hug and get on with things.

  Poppy went crazy and at once got taken back to the unit in a police car. So for a while I was in A&E by myself.

  Sitting there in the waiting room, a journalist came in and asked me to give him my story. It was at that moment that Mary turned up, woken up in the middle of the night, cold and even more rosy cheeked than usual, blustering at the journalist to get away from me. He tried to catch my sight and my sympathy but I couldn’t look at him.

  “He’s dead. Porter’s dead.”

  She sat next to me and we hugged one another, both crying. How could it be true? How could such a great man be taken in such an awful, hateful way? It made no sense.

  Alim had to stay at the hospital for three days under observation. I went back right after I’d been looked at by the doctor.

  The next day, when I walked the halls of the unit, I thought I’d turn the corner to see Porter and my heart pounded for a second with the anticipation of it before I realised how stupid I was being. A policeman came in and took Poppy’s and my statements. He said we might have to testify in court but he though it unlikely that it would get that far.

  Doctor Black insisted we carry on with my morning walks. I didn’t want to go with anyone else, it felt wrong – that was me and Porter’s thing. For the first two days I was tailed by another nurse. After that Doctor Black said he trusted me go by myself. I did, and spent the time thinking, remembering and most often crying.

  This is not like a funeral at all. People get up at the front and speak, read poems, tell stories about Porter but I can’t take any of it in. A single thought burns in my head – I am responsible for all of this.

  When the memorial ends, food is brought out onto a long row of tables at the side of the chairs. There is meant to be a happy feeling to this event. On the announcement it said not to wear black.

  I can’t eat anything. I drink some orange juice out of a clear plastic beaker and I am done.

  Alim doesn’t leave my side. I don’t have to ask him what he thinks. I know he feels as guilty about all of this as I do. He loved Porter and owes him as much as I do. Now he’s gone and never coming back.

  A slight old woman that I think may be Porter’s mum, walks right up to us. She puts mine and Alim’s hands together, takes them both in hers and leads us into the house. We go through the back doors into an enormous lounge where one of the speakers, a bald man who must be in his late fifties, stands waiting for us.

  “This is Jonathan,” says the woman, “Porter’s husband.”

  She
lets go of our hands and leaves us there.

  I didn’t know that Porter was gay. Alim and I joked about it all the time but when Porter said he was married, I assumed it was to a woman. And now I’m here, at blame for his death, face to face with his partner. How would I feel if our roles were reversed and Noah had died? What would I like to say to the people he died protecting?

  I can’t look at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

  He lifts up my chin and I look into his eyes as tears run down my own. He is smiling, not crying. He places a hand on my head and pulls me in, then does the same for Alim, but Alim doesn’t look at him, just down at the floor.

  “Neither of you are to blame. We all must die at some time. Nobody knows how much time they will have. The important part is, at the end, we have no regrets.”

  I stare at him. “That’s what he said, before he died. I held his hand and he looked at me and said, no regrets.”

  Now tears do fall down Jonathan’s face. “Won’t you look at the three of us. Please, sit down and tell me your memories of him. I want to hear everything.”

  We spend the next hour talking about Porter. Jonathan tells us how they met, when Porter was sixteen and struggling with his identity – a whole different person.

  I tell him about Porter’s six slices of toast and MacDonald’s meal day and he laughs and I laugh and cry.

  “He told me all about the two of you every night he got home from work. Wouldn’t shut up about either of you. Please, both of you, take my number and call me when you get the chance.”

  Just as we head back to the group outside, Jonathan stops me. He goes to the bookcase by the wall and pulls out a small volume, Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Please, he’s says, ”take this. It was the first present I ever bought him. I know he’d want you to have it.“