(DISCARDED DRAFT) DIARY OF A COFFIN DODGER CHAPTER C

Death Visitor

Adolf Menzel

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS PUBLIC DOMAIN

I had to change my seating position.

This move interrupted my thoughts about the perversion of Mary’s life story by the Jesus Crew.

I was content to leave the matter for the time being and move on to other considerations of male violence directed at women and girl. Reflect on the malicious ways by which men don’t aspire to be known but, oddly, reveal their true selves.

My father, the late Reverend Sadistic Bastard, displayed this malignancy in another arena where the blokes are revealed despite their masks. This arena, which I write and reflect on in this and subsequent chapters, is the violence men inflict on women and girls through duplicity and depravity.

I changed my seating position because I ran out of gas.

That praise-worthy supply of aromatic gas once residing within my guts needed replenishing.

I experimented and found that dark chocolate, baked beans, prunes, and cabbage were the best combination to invigorate that weapon.

However, in Maccas, I did not have access to those items.

With no flatulence, I could not keep the ego-burnishing waves of selfie-seeking smartphone influencer species from invading my space.

I retreated and now sit in the open outdoor dining area on the northern side of Maccas.

The sunlight streams into the southern outdoor area. To sit there, I would be warm. But it is swarming with attention-seeking genres

braying into phones with speakers set to maximum annoyance.

With no farts, I could not defend a space I felt comfortable sitting in.

The northern side, though cold, has fewer annoyances I have to deal with. Therefore, I don’t have to defend the space I need to make myself comfortable.

I scored another freebie from a coffee and cheeseburger deal. The woman behind the counter who took my order called me 'dear.’

She said she would bring the flat white in a ceramic cup and the burger to me on a tray to where I intended to sit in the Northern outdoor area. I, therefore, did not react to the insult.

Instead, I gave her a cheesy smile and said, 'That would be lovely,' as non-reaction worked to my advantage.

When she brought the burger, the coffee, and the tray out to me, I gave the woman a warm, sincerity-curdling ‘thank you’ as she placed the tray on the table.

It appeared she intended to insult me further by replying,

‘That’s all right, dearie.’

I had no farts left with which to drive her away.

I, therefore, ignored her by looking down at the tray and unwrapping the burger.

I did not see her as she buggered off, and it cheers my soul to hope she left in a huff.

As I sat outside I glared at the people inside enjoying the warmth of the dining area.

I sipped the coffee and wondered how many of the swarms of multi-gendered people of different ages flowing around that dining area were of the arm-waving, nonsense-babbling types. The types who crowd a marketing arena before congregating in an auditorium for a spiritual purging.

Marketing arenas within tall, industrial-type buildings,

AKA car park cathedrals that contribute little of architectural merit to the vastness of the car park which surrounds them in any one of several industrial parks scattered across the world.

A marketing arena in which Protestant Christian gewgaws such as posh-looking bibles with faux leather bindings;

booklets spruiking daily readings from the Bible; books containing the collected sermons of the preacher of the month; books of biblical insights written by well-fed, pale males chock-a-block with parodies of theological wisdom; videos of corny cornucopias of witnessing or personal testimony and multi-media collections of gospel songs are flogged off to those possessed by an overdose of cheery chumminess and wilful stupidity.

Marketing arenas that clutter the foyers of car park cathedrals, buildings which, in their joy-depleting architectural starkness, reflect the bareness of their commerce-focused spirituality.

However, where these cathedrals do shine is in their embodiment of the best of American marketing practices.

They exist to hawk the Jesus of the Christian’s God to people who are looking for an emotional high and are therefore wide open to be taken in by the duplicity of this peddling of deceit and lies.

A high that was more socially acceptable than a street-drug-induced euphoria. The thrilling adrenaline rush to be feasted on in these cathedrals by a super-charged Sunday or mid-week service.

If the numbers are there for a stirring ol’ fashion hellfire and brimstone shakedown, then the building will open, the lights will go on, the band will play some emotional, tear-jerking twaddle, and the preacher will close his eyes, raise his arm in front of the assembled multitude and croon,

‘Come to Jesus. Place your heavy burdens upon him. His shoulders are broad, and his care for you knows no bounds. Let him cure you of the ugliness of sin. Let the fire of his love for you inflame your soul, mind and heart. Come from your seats now. Come and be blessed by the laying of hands and the power of prayer. Open your heart to the blessedness of the Lord as he washes you in the blood of the Lamb and takes away all unrighteousness….’

My father, the late Reverend Sadistic Bastard, had a gift for spruiking this hogwash.

Several decades ago, he presided over a car park cathedral.

Until a decade or so into his preaching there, however, the church elders - a sordid assortment of accountants, businessmen, solicitors, property developers, and the PR men (AKA associate pastors) told the Reverend S.B. it was time he moved on.

Until then, the threats contained within a hellfire and brimstone shakedown

targeting the arm-waving, nonsense-babbling types crowding the performance space, the auditorium within the cathedral to American marketing supported the Reverend S.B. and his family in a very comfortable lifestyle.

This money the Reverend, the elders and the PR men conned out of the worshippers thronging into that

auditorium when the Reverend preached his hellfire or Jesus-focused marketing spiel not only meant that those guys and their families also led comfortable lifestyles, but the elders could buy a private jet.

The elders, the PR men, and the Reverend used this for their frequent visits to the USA to attend prayer breakfasts in many American cities.

Meetings with nefarious businessmen and politicians, gatherings soaked in the clichés of American Christianity, where pastors and preachers, imbued with American Christian values, would lead groups of those denizens of the moneyed world in prayer, using the formula the Reverend S.B. used.

'Jesus, we just thank you for bringing us together to seek your guidance with the great work you have called your disciples, gathered here, to undertake. We pray you will continue to bless and support them, lead them in ways that glorify your name, and be with them as they oppose the unrighteous and build a godly kingdom here on earth….'

These trips, though, were chiefly for prayer and praise sessions with the shadowy men who ran the business.

A business where the names of the various car park cathedrals were chosen to represent an American marketing image of a white, middle-class family with the fathers as the head and mothers fulfilling roles designed to crush their spirits and poison their sense of self-worth through unquestioning obedience to their husbands.

Over time, the sons of worshippers at the cathedrals would be moved into administrative, marketing or preaching roles within the business.

Preaching positions designed to white-ant people’s genuine spiritual journeys through the hyping up of the company’s policies and procedures as the way to live a life blessed and nourished by the Christian’s Christ.

The divinely inspired word of the Christian's God established these positions within the corporation.

A word that was translated into a way of life both for company employees and worshippers through the re-incarnation of the Jesus Christ, who was known by the women and men who broke bread with him in Palestine,

into a white American older-brother figure.

This re-birth embodied the male-centric values of the shadowy company executives and CEO,

a divinely elected vessel into which the Christian's God poured an endless source of wisdom, as shown by the CEO’s prayer-led insights into that God’s word as set out in the Bible.

The preachers would be given a designated sales area somewhere within the English-speaking world to build the church congregation they presided over into the performance-focused target of a megachurch.

Händler (Retailers) 

by 

Werner Berg

WikiArt Fair Use

Unless they also spoke Spanish, then South America was their oyster.

With few Spanish-speaking preachers in the company, a preacher with that God-ordained gift had a vast territory to harvest souls for Christ.

A territory without designated sales areas, so he did not have to contend with the non-compete clauses of the employment contract signed by non-Spanish speaking preachers.

Therefore, the opportunities for building a megachurch in Spanish-speaking South American areas, were virtually limitless.

By bringing that number of souls to Christ and swelling the company’s coffers enormously, the company would ensure the preacher got a slot on cable TV, local TV and radio stations and a personal private jet.

A mega-church increased the opportunities for franchise deals

with slot machine operators to sell soft drinks, chocolates, energy bars and other snacks from brightly painted machines in the foyer of the car park cathedral and along the corridors leading out from the entrance to the sound studios and bible study rooms set aside for teenagers for Christ.

The machines only dispensed cigarettes in countries where it was permissible..

I read about this fucked-up, conniving, duplicitous business wheeling and dealing in a blood-red, three-ring binder with the company logo on the front cover.

I discovered the folder inside a wooden, metal-roofed shed.

The shed was near the western boundary fence of the overgrown back paddock of the Reverend S.B.’s house.

The track that wound its way through the brambles and long grass to the shed stunk of piss.

About twelve years ago, I ferreted around the shed after law enforcement officers said the Reverend’s family could enter the house. Law enforcement’s focus was the phones and computers they took from the Reverend’s study.

The re-entry occurred two weeks after the Lord called the Reverend S.B. home.

Or that’s how the company’s PR hacks spoke of a servant of the Lord’s departure to join the Blessed hanging around the throne of God (the God of the Christians) as set out in many rodent-chewed glossy publicity pamphlets scattered around the shed.

That kind of fucking bullshit about Heaven and the throne of God does my head in.

If men go anywhere after they die, most go to an additional ring in Dante’s depiction of hell.

These men’s pathway through life is studded with the violence they have brought, with careless indifference, into the lives of girls and women.

Naked men in their millions stand on this ring in Dante’s hell.

A fish hook runs through each man’s flaccid penis.

A taunt line of piano wire is attached to this hook and stretches out the penis.

Acid, at a regulated rate, drips on each stretched-out piece of meat for all eternity.

Each man’s screaming pain mirrors the misery, suffering, and distress he has spewed into the lives of women and girls.

According to those glossy pamphlets I read in the garden shed, the Reverend was not designated as a candidate for one of the rings of Dante’s hell or fuel for the Christian mythology of Satan’s fires.

Instead, as a genuine God-bothering, morning and evening praying, Bible reading and reciting, Christian God-forgiven, penitent individual who had been washed in the blood of the Lamb and spun dry by the love of the Christian’s God, the Reverend was destined for a finer place.

The warmth that the Reverend would feel in that place would be the love of the risen Christian’s Jesus for the work the Reverend, as a good and faithful servant, had done for the God of that faith tradition. The God who sat on a golden throne surrounded by throngs of happy clappers and saints like the Reverend.

The Lord summoned the Reverend home, reportedly to the place referred to in the pamphlets during a heart attack.

According to the coroner’s report, the attack was so comprehensive that even if it had happened in a hospital’s ICU, there was no way the call could have been resisted.

According to that report, the attack occurred roughly between the time the Reverend had taken off his shoes and socks and removed his shirt and singlet and was taking down his strides and undies while standing beside a motel room bed as law enforcement officers hammered on the room door.

A young naked female, sitting on the edge of the bed, froze in fright as the door crashed open and law enforcement officers stormed in.

She sobbed as carers wrapped her in a blanket, enveloping her with concern and kindness as they ushered her out of the room.

Someone lobbed a globule of spit inside the room onto the Reverend’s saggy, liver-spotted chest as the Reverend lay face-up across a spew-coloured carpet with his trousers and jocks draped around his ankles.

The matter of the globule of spit, though mentioned in the coroner’s report, was not looked into.

According to the motel booking sheet, it was not the first time the Reverend had used that room.

A room where the Lord called the Reverend home.

A call that was so tenacious that the Reverend did not have time to tidy up his affairs before he departed to join the saints singing hallelujahs to the God of the Christians sitting on a throne made of a heap of metal so expensive that only a billionaire twice times over could afford to buy one.

My thoughts, however, several days before the funeral were not heavenly. They focused on the here and now as I pondered how to contribute personally to the Reverend’s funeral rights..

After chewing over the matter for a day or two, I saw a couple of ways of doing this.

The first would be to release a barrage of farts during the wake so that the gathering would be remembered for its foulness, just like the Reverend’s depraved life. Depravity he had inflicted on several young girls, besides the one rescued by law enforcement when they burst into the motel room.

Therefore, after the private viewing the family had requested and overnight before the funeral service, I consumed copious quantities of my award-winning combination of ingredients to ensure my guts were well supplied with gas.

The second would be to fuck up his corpse.

The private viewing the family had requested occurred in the evening before the funeral service, which was to be held at 10 am the next day.

The family’s private viewing and the service were held in the same nondescript mainstream Protestant church.

One of those places known for its pious platitudes, soothing sermons, and the comforting assertion that God (of the Christians) was in Heaven and all was right with the English world.

I joined other family members at the private viewing.

The open coffin stood on a couple of silver-painted trestles at the front of the church.

The trestles looked like a second-hand knock-off design of frames used for the lying in state of a member of the English Royal Family.

I snivelled as the other family members gathered around the coffin and moved my thoughts from reflections on the state of the trestles to matters pious.

To prevent throwing up, I fasted for several hours prior to the viewing..

I humbly and respectfully joined the snivelling other family members in reciting mantras, like ‘sweet loving father;’ ‘The Lord has taken one of the best;’ ‘such a dear man, he will be missed;’ ‘We were lucky to know him;’ ‘he has given us so much and yet expected so little from us;’ ‘a very humble man;’ a faithful servant of the Lord.’

At the conclusion of the viewing, I despondently followed the family to the church entrance, my head bowed in sorrow..

As the others stepped through the entrance, I looked back towards the coffin when I reached the open double doors.

I noticed the minister who would conduct the service step out of the shadowy places at the front of the church’s interior.

He confirmed my suspicions as I watched the ease with which he picked up the coffin lid standing upright against a front-row pew.

The lid was made of cheap plywood and covered with a layer of deep red paint to make the coffin look posh.

I watch him place the lid on the coffin.

I assumed he would not secure the lid, as the lid would need to be removed the following morning as the coffin would be open during the service..

I stepped out of the church, saying a doleful good night to departing family members.

I watched them walk away in the twilight and then chose a large gravestone, one of several scattered around the church grounds..

The one I selected was close to the church entrance.

The one behind which I had stashed, a few minutes before I joined the others at the viewing, an overnight bag.

I ducked behind the gravestone and watched the minister walk through the church entrance and slam the doors shut behind him.

I gave him a few minutes to bugger off before I stepped out from behind the gravestone carrying the bag and walked to the vestry entrance at the eastern side of the building.

I broke into the vestry using a credit card on the latch of the door’s Yale lock.

Years ago, when I worked in mental asylums in Sydney, Aussie nurses showed me that trick. We would break into the empty doctor's offices during night shifts to get uppers and downers from the medicine cabinets.

At the nondescript Protestant church, I walked through the vestry doorway carrying the bag, closed the door behind me, and strolled through to the coffin.

I placed the bag on the floor beside the trestles, put on gloves I took from the bag, and removed the coffin lid. I placed the lid alongside a front row pew.

I returned to the bag and opened it.

From within the bag, I carefully took out a small cardboard box lined with plastic and placed the box on the Reverend’s chest.

I prised open his jaws, opened the box, and took out a fat, brown turd.

I placed the turd lovingly inside the Reverend’s mouth and closed the box.

After I returned the box to the bag, I opened the Reverend’s trousers and noticed he was not wearing undies. How apt, I thought.

I guess the funeral directors did not want to waste the brand-new pair of jocks the family had supplied. The funeral directors probably had a side hustle with a charity shop.

With the Reverend’s trousers open, I reached into the bag and took out two jars.

I placed the jars on the Reverend’s tummy and opened them.

From one, I anointed the Reverend’s cock and balls with the mixture of honey and peanut butter I poured from the jar.

From the other, I poured cream cheese mixed with water across his upper torso after I had opened his shirt. (The singlet the family had provided was also missing).

The mixture cascaded across the Reverend’s saggy, liver-spotted chest and down the sides of his body.

After I had closed the jars and returned them to the bag, I picked up the coffin lid and stood it beside the coffin.

For my final act of blessing the dear, departed Reverend, I reached into the bag and took out a metal box.

I had not fed the white rats inside the box since I bought them from a pet shop a few days before the funeral.

I lifted the box and opened it beside the Reverend’s heavenly stilled cock.

The rats were eager to get out of the box.

They showed no inclination to leave the coffin as they went about their hungry feasting business as I returned the box to the bag.

I placed the lid back on the coffin, took off the gloves, put them inside the bag, closed the bag, and, taking the bag with me, left by the way I came.

At the service the next morning, the funeral directors announced a change to the planned order of service.

They said the family had re-considered having an open coffin service. Though remaining at the front of the church, the coffin would now be closed. Therefore, worshippers would not be required to walk past the casket for a final viewing.

I sat in the front row of the church and noticed that the coffin lid was now fixed in place with prominent silver-looking screws gleaming in the morning light.

I glanced along the front row and noticed people looking at the scuffling sounds inside the coffin.

However, their gaze turned to the printed order of service they held in their hand when the organist began playing.

Later, after the service and the consigning of the Reverend's corpse to earthly flames (I looked forward to scattering the Reverend's ashes at a wastewater treatment plant), I saw law enforcement officers walk into the large front room of my sister’s house, where the wake was held.

I watched the officers and the funeral directors earnestly chatting as I turned the wake into the stench of a badly managed landfill site.

I don’t know what the funeral directors and the law officers discussed.

Nor do I know whether law enforcement looked into the matter of the state of my beloved father’s corpse when the directors removed the coffin lid just before the service started.

Nor do I fucking care.

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