Inside INRI
Short Story
Tilly waited until after the clatter of Robbo jumping onto his skateboard had faded away to say into the warm, Surry Hills air, “I dunno about you two, but there’s something deadset wrong with that bloke.”
I glanced at the Pig, who nodded once, sharply, before finishing off his beer. Already he was positioning himself on the sidelines for the inevitable debate to come. A boozy chat on the thin porch off our terrace sharehouse; passersby and ailing succulents the audience, the red and yellow bins the podiums. A light, for when it got dark, was positioned above, but I don’t think it worked.
The Pig tossed his bottle in the yellow bin with a clatter and embarked inside for another.
“Thanks Pig, I’ll take one too!” I called out to him, dropping my own in the bin. An insular man, all weedy and moustachey, with a love for large, good-quality, plain-coloured T-shirts. I still don’t quite know how he ended up with the nickname of ‘Pig’ but Tilly thinks it had something to do with a piglet in his childhood. Since young-adulthood, of course, now just ‘Pig.’
Tilly was deep in thought, sitting on the sunken couch we’d managed to cram into the space. I was balanced on the railing, but after a few more tins I’d also be squeezed in with the two of them. I’m no risk taker. Falling and cracking my head is not in my life plan.
A law student and casual paralegal, Tilly was a probably going to be a very good lawyer, but she was definitely a bad poker player, solely dues to the tics she had when concentrating. It was all to do with the order in which she fiddled with her piercings. Initial brainstorming with the nose ring (flicked up and down), to a rotating motion through the hole when reassessing the case under different or additional variables. Then, playing with her tongue piercing: the argument formulation stage. Mock debate with imagined opponents was the eyebrow stud, fiddling with the left index finger. Getting distracted by other thoughts — tongue and nose piercing combo. Back on topic was an eyebrow strafe with right index finger. Satisfaction with preparation and awaiting the destruction of her opponents was the languid touching of her lip piercing.
Upon the Pig’s return with our beers, he saw Tilly with her left index finger on her eyebrow stud. He knew she wouldn’t be ready for another couple of minutes, so we shot the shit with the brews he’d managed to get cheap off a mate who did some casual bar work. This gave rise to the interesting discussion of how there didn’t seem to be too many bar and bottle shop establishments anymore, and whether this was the sole reason for rampant societal degradation. Regardless, it was a sobering realisation that a growing population was faced with less bar and bottle shop combinations than ever before.
Tilly got up and returned with her glass of rosé filled to the brim, and the Pig sat back on the couch, sucking from the brewer’s brown-glass teet.
“So, whaddaya reckon?” asked Tilly.
“Yep, deadset off,” I said.
“Agreed,” said Pig.
Tilly looked disappointed with how quickly we’d agreed with her.
“I mean, he says four-fifths of bugger-all,” she said.
“Which, if my maths is correct, is fuck all,” said Pig.
“Nothing to write home about, anyway,” I said.
“I still don’t know whether or not he has a job,” Tilly continued. She was like a self-driving car now — the sole debater.
“Yeah, dunno,” I said.
“Yeah, nah,” reasoned the Pig.
“And there’s that…thing!” she said indignantly, twisting to point through the window at the forearm-long porcelain sculpture of Jesus, King of the Jews, nailed to the cross, sitting on the mantelpiece above our defunct fireplace.
“Fair dinkum reminds me of my gran’s place,” said the Pig.
“We might have the same gran,” I said.
Tilly pursed her lips and took a large sip of her $5 bin. I knew she was positively ropeable about the short-circuited debate, and the lost chance to show off her skills.
“Maybe he’s like a very Christian dude who doesn’t like to talk about the fact he has a tonne of cash stashed somewhere,” said the Pig.
“Could be,” I said with eyebrows raised. Tilly shrugged.
Robbo had been moved in now for a little more than a month, filling the hole left by our previous roommate, Freya. Freya had jumped ship to the ‘greener’ pastures of Bondi; as a German import, we imagined it must be some strange European desire to eventually make it to the famous beach. We’d all tried to tell her the truth — it was too small, too crowded, too expensive and any of the beautiful beaches north or south of Sydney were ten times more beautiful. We even mentioned the close proximity of the sewerage outflow, but she feigned not understanding English then and we gave up. She took off and after a couple of weeks, Robbo was in.
He’d seemed fine at the interview — not outwardly a psycho or a man not agreeable to cleanliness, so we pulled the trigger on him, expecting him to open up in time. Broad-shouldered, with a long neck and small head, he clung to proportion with the thick mess of black hair on his head. He adored black skinny jeans and his skateboard, seemed to only own old button-up shirts (to the Pig’s dismay), and was so far a pretty ideal housemate.
Once again we’d asked him if he wanted to hang out with us tonight with some beers, but he’d shaken his head and flown off once again on his skateboard.
And his Jesus of Nazareth porcelain figure had remained, crucified in our living room.
Tilly tiptoed through the tulips with her next piece.
“Not that I’m against having it, but it’s sort of the wrong vibe for the house. Wouldn’t it be better in his room, where it can’t be…you know…damaged?” she said. I almost laughed. Tilly was a great mate and a very accepting person, but Christian iconography very quickly made her the wrong side of tolerant. An atheist, bisexual Greens voter who wasn’t on good terms with her conservative family was, unsurprisingly, not the biggest fan of the largest religion in the world.
We moved inside to confront the figure. The crucified Jesus gazed painfully back at us.
“Good on him, you know?” said the Pig. “Dying for our sins and all that.”
“Barbaric,” said Tilly.
Whatever it was, there was something He wasn’t telling us. Tilly approached the porcelain figure, while the Pig and I kept a wary eye on the window in case Robbo came storming home — Jesus having undoubtedly told him that he was on the verge of being fondled by a non-believer.
Tilly wrapped her hands around the statue and plucked it off the mantelpiece. She carried it over to the coffee table, and we all sat down on the other sunken couch we possessed.
As she lay it down, Jesus’ neck and the wooden beam behind it trembled ever so slightly. It was hollow. Tilly reached out and gently decapitated Jesus.
We all leaned forward. Inside INRI there were hundreds of small bags of white powder. Charlie. Columbian snow. Peruvian marching powder. Within Jesus was a fortune of cocaine.
“Fuck me,” I said.
“Christ on a bike,” said Tilly.
“Well Tills,” said the Pig, after taking another enthusiastic swig of beer. “At least we know what Robbo does for work now.”
