The Jesus Man

Laika was the first living creature in space. She was a dog. Her picture, wavering frames on a black and white television screen, had never been forgotten by Tommy. Her long thin face, and the pert ears. The accomplishments of humanity were listed in a monotonous tone by the scowling Mr Morris; the classroom replied by rote. Ancient Greece. The birth of Christ. The printing press. The discovery of the Americas. The Renaissance. The Indistrial Revolution. The World Wars. Man on the moon. Tommy mouthed the words but he couldn't forget the dog.
Starving to death in perpetual orbit. At home, his father drinking beer, his mother preparing dinner, Dominic reading Mad magazine in bed. Tommy started crying. Breathlessly, too fast, he told his story.
-Laika, Laika, they just left her. It's horrible, horrible.
He was screaming.
And Artie was laughing.
And his mother said, shaking her head, why are you worrying about a stupid dog?
And Dominic, who had got out of bed to find out what the tears were all about, joined his father in laughter.
-What do you care about some stupid mutt?
And Tommy called his brother a cunt, and shouted to Maria that she was a stupid wog, and before he could say anything to his father, the man delivered the thundering slap.
And then Tommy stopped crying and fell silent.

When Somers, coughing, not looking at him, told Tommy that he was to be retrenched, that the corporation was downsizing to reflect the realities of the current ecomonic situation, Tommy's first thought was of Laika, a fuzzy black and white image of a sad dog in space.

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Failure has a smell - of sweat, but not the euphoric stench of physical exertion. Nothing of the erotic. Failure smelt of decay, of stagnation. Tommy leaned into the mirror, staring hard at his face. He pulled back. The fleshy cheeks, the beginning spread of a double chin. He surveyed his body.
-You're ugly, he said to the mirror. He could smell the ugliness with the failure.
He packed his briefcase, put on his jacket, and left. Swift goodbyes. Outside, the traffic screaming, he paused for breath. He was fighting an urge to giggle, to laugh and to skip. Beyond the moment lay a vast uncertainty. But within that moment, he experienced a freedom. Tommy had been spared the longing for liberation. Freedom was terrifying, not exciting. This moment, however, was an exception. He suddenly wished for music.

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The pain, when it came, was all white light. From somewhere beyond the room there was a shuddering howling. He opened his eyes. The pain was gone and there were loops of fine veins falling across his thigh...Again, the Lord's name on his lips, he raised the sliver and sliced. A thick injection of blood slammed against the mirror, spraying the room. He crashed onto the coffee table and the contents tipped around him. He looked across to God. The Virgin was white, her eyes a gleaming pride. The child-man too was smiling. Then there was the pain, a cruel, annihilating pain. But there was the face of God, her smiling eyes, forgiving him, loving him. The pain drank from her light and he was swimming towards it. Her love and finally her respect vanquished all.
There was the fluttering of wings, the angry flight of the demon.
Then there was nil.

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The thesis is really about the media, how it works. I feel that I can put down ideas that are substantiated from my own experience. Tommy's murder/suicide, the cameras and the papers were on it. Great story. Tommy was:
Page 6 in The Age.
Page 3 in The Herald.
Page 7 in The Australian.
Three-page spread in Who Weekly.
Interview with the man who owned the house in which it happened. A Current Affair.
Interview with Mum on Channel Ten news. She regrets it all, they caught her, a camera in her face, asked the questions. She broke down, on camera. They played that again and again.
A photo of Tommy. We, the family, refused to give them anything. But someone contacted the last place he worked. They found a file of photos, from a Christmas bust-up party. Tommy, glass of beer raised, trying to hide his face from the lens, still smiling. This image was everywhere, blown up to half a page, full colour, in the Who Weekly spread.

I hate the media. They made their image my last memory of my brother.
I don't use them, I avoid them. I don't read the papers, I don't watch the news. The most astounding thing I discovered in those first few hallucinatory months is how the story being communicated in the news is so removed from your everyday experience. I don't think I thought at all about the guy who was murdered. Just once, really, seeing footage of his family at the funeral. He turned out to be an Aborigine. As much as I'd like it to be, that is no innocent fact.
The Age, Melbourne newspaper. Opinion piece about racist violence and anti-racist legislation laws.The journalist refers to recent race hate crimes, mentions the Tommy story.
The media created that story. That doesn't mean they might not have been right. But no one knows what happened in that house, on that night. Not the poilce, the investigating detectives, his family, Tommy's family. No one. That doesn't stop the media.
Was it a racist murder? I hate them, I hate them for leaving that question in my head.