Saved?

She'd hand me the pamphlet and I hadn't turned and walked away so I suppose that I was asking for it. She talked about God and I nodded forcing down my smile which I knew would turn into a giggle if I'd let myself relax into it. She was trying to save me and it felt nice... I've been so lost lately.


It didn't bother me that she looked psychotic staring with robot reptilian eyes lost religious reverie because she was telling me what I wanted to hear, she was saying that it was not my fault. "Let the Lord into your heart and you will be happy, the angels will fly down from the heavens to walk with you and keep the Devil at bay." She put her hand on my head and I wanted it there, she closed her eyes and I did the same. "Don't you want to be a good person? Don't you want to feel that you've made the right choices? All you have to do is acknowledge your sins; the sins you were born with and the ones you've collected along the way. You'll have to let it go, let it all go."


She was praying so that I may be saved, praying so that I may have the Lord reveal himself to me. Praying for my happiness, my safety and health. I didn't believe it for a second but I liked that feeling that someone was trying so hard. I could feel the people walking by so I shut my eyes tighter trying to retreat further into the warmth of her delusions.


She stopped talking and I opened my eyes. She was smiling. "I felt a power flow through us. Did you feel the energy?" I smiled but kept my mouth shut. "Of course you did, look at you, your overwhelmed."


We shook hands and I disappeared, retreating down the steps of a subterranian Korean Internet Cafe where all the seats hang off bolts in the ceiling like the love swings in the front yard of the idealised American family home. I listened to old punk rock albums on my discman, watched crazy game shows, drank overly sweet milk ice tea and felt calm. The Cramps were singing 'Fever' when I looked up to find a forty something bald man dressed as Michael Jackson grab his crotch; The Fall was playing as frenzied contestants fought for fish in a tank pulling them out with their mouths... (and Mark E. Smith sang) I think I am going bonkers in Phoenix.


Walking the city streets some time later on a sugar rush, alone but not lonely I watched the world walk by in the opposite direction. It was a big weekend in Melbourne town and down around the casino the race crowds were out in full force. Women in their best dresses with their faces painted on, wearing impossibly silly hats, carrying their heels in one hand and tiny designer handbags in the other. I was walked the hoochie momma gauntlet: a corridor in the casino shopping complex lined with display windows full of porn queen lingerie. The whole spectacle a clutter of shiny fabric and bright colours clinging to headless mannequin bodies in suggestive poses. There were men in wide lapelled pimp suits wearing fedora hats with basketball sneakers. An old man looked lost in a cheap sports coat two sizes too big hugging a Playstation. He and I were adrift in the crowd, the odd ones out and I still had my punk rock thundering in my ears. The Go-Betweens, X Ray Spex, Television... lost under a Marquee Moon. It'd been hours since I had left the house, the static in my head eased off, the sugar cutting through my lethargy.


Outside on the banks of the Yarra river I watch sea gulls attack abandoned paper plates for scraps of congealed Chinese food, smiling as I light another cigarette.