The Jesus freaks amassed outside the dilapidated church. A tiny, weather-worn, 70's Methodist monstrosity, the giant windows filthy with airborne miasma, the untended grass patch surrounding it littered with discarded lager cans, hypodermics and the remnants of red-top tabloids.
These people had no thirst for God, just a thirst, a need, a desire to smell each other's acrid stench, to wail and wave at those less fortunate than themselves, a spiral of self affirmation that winds and coils until the last man, that stewed dreg of stagnant flesh and organs, that lowly, hunched, putrid, brainless nightmare who squawks and wobbles underneath the folding table littered with the crumbs of hastily devoured snack treats.
His eyes squeezed shut, the yellow-black beard swarming his chin, oily and irridescent, his brown hands clutching at his ragged and ruined suit trousers, so mired in filth some argued they possessed their own consciousness. His vest shirt so close to clean, a thrifty five-finger bargain from the garden of an unsuspecting human, yet the once pristine garment has since been drizzled in multi-coloured oral effluvium, dribbling from ulcerated gums.
Topeka Sanskrit (for this was the name Helen chose as her child was removed by the council and her husband laid his last fist upon her cheek) was ahead of the crowd. She shone, as much as filth can sparkle, her eyes as young and beautiful as the day she first smiled, yet her skin, broken, cracked, spotted and worn, betrayed her path since her matrimony to the father of her only child. The partly-toothless, gaping mouth utters words of faint encouragement to a shaven headed man, snarling with aggravation as a young, tracksuit clad boy threatens the withdrawal of a knife from his pocket.
'Go on, kick the cunt's 'ead in,' screams the dilapidated beauty.
'You fucking go now, or I'll get the lads and we'll chew your fucking throat out,' screams the bald man.
'Come on then ya fat cunt,' retorts the youth. 'You fucking try it I'll shank ya blud.'
'I'll fucking cut your throat,' bellows the overly-excited Topeka.
The ruckus begins and the bald man seizes the youth's attacking hand, snapping it back and holding it tight as the youth drops to the ground, momentarily whimpering before a second wind of bravery summons up more bile.
'You fucking... fuck you... you fucking with the wrong man... my old man's a kickboxer... he's gona break your fucking legs,' offers the helpless youth.
A crowd has formed, but no one intervenes. This is too good, their own kind, eliminating each other, a battle, a duel, as real as the pain in their stomachs and hearts. They jeer and goad and throw objects with the intention of maiming the participants, yet the majority miss, as they have drowned their fine motor skills in a sea of white cider.
'Let me 'ave a go,' asks Topeka.
The bald man picks the injured boy (for he was merely fifteen) up by his arm and thrusts him towards the expectant Topeka. She withdraws a scalpel and gouges away at his eyes and cheeks with the ferocity of a trapped leopard until his face is a mess of tendons and gore.
She drops the boy and trembles with fear. She knows she has stolen his soul, robbed him of his most prominent feature. She knows he will live, as the crowd has abated and settled in revelry, and the bald man, the original aggressor, eyes her with trepidation, unsure whether to hold her tight or flee in terror. Ensconced in the momentum of violence, she became feral, animalistic. Not evil, for evil is conscious, but uncontainable, remorseless, irrational.
She lets the scalpel fall from her hand and falls to her knees. The bald man laughs and encourages the crowd to continue their festivities. He drags the boy by his shoulders into the back of the church and drops an orange cross onto his lap.
The gnarled old man underneath the table watches, one eye open, as this whole awful situation unfolds. He is repulsed, he has seen evil in the flesh, watched acts of inexplicable horror perpetrated in the name of bloodlust, but he sees her eyes, her soft innocent eyes, and tears form in his. This girl, this awful, tortured mess of flash and gore rendered mute by her own primitive instincts.
He weeps, for the only time he can recall. He sobs into his greased hand, his ears filled with the hollering excitement of the younger, cleaner, healthier congregation.
'Your perfect eyes,
set upon milk white pillows,
draped with auburn, glistening hair,
atop the nose,
above the mouth,
the red, billowing lips,
and the Goddess body,
encasing the heart I need.
Let me kiss your skin,
and the transferring heat shall be the sorrows, the pain, the hurt in your soul.'
- for Helen,
Love
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