Dinner With Christians

Okay, a writer wouldn't be a writer with producing at least one religiously contentious piece... believe it or not something similar to this happened to me once... sigh.

 

 

     Alarm bells should have been ringing the moment Max clapped eyes on the Christian Fish logo on the rear windscreen of the beige Austin Allegro parked out front. In fact, the fact that they even owned a beige Austin Allegro, should have been warning enough. 

     "You'll love Tom and Helen, they are soooo much fun!" Felicity, his girlfriend of six weeks, said patting his arm condescendingly. He smiled calmly and cradled the slab of John Smiths; it was permissible to put up with her patronisations in lieu of the fact that she had a truly magnificent rack. World class in fact. 

     "Fun as in naked twister fun?"

     Felicity shot him one of her narrow-eyed, oh yoooou sort of looks and squeezed his arm. 

     "It's just that I went to a party once and it was full of forty-something swingers and-"

     "Oh you did not!" She admonished with a flap of her hand that signalled that she didnt believe him and that the subject was dead. "Besides," she added almost as an afterthought, "they're good Christian people they wouldn't be into any of that nonsense."

     "They're what?"

     "Fliiiick! Happy New Years!"

     "Toooom, Heleeeen, how aaaare you both, awww!" Felicity gushed, hugging her hosts and flashing air kisses that missed by miles. It was at that moment that the girl who was once Felicity Harbour changed irrevocably. The transformation was as devastating as it was dramatic and swift. In that moment, she had become the entity known as Flick. 

     Max stood in the doorway and juggled the beer, a resigned but somehow desperate expression on his face. What just happened? It was seven pm and he spared a thought for the lads in the Kings Arms.... drinking, celebrating, happy... single. Happy New Year. 

     From inside, the stomach-churning soprano of Walking in the Air began to filter through into the hallway and he knew that with dread certainty it wouldnt be long before Cliff made an appearance too.

     Tom and Helen were pretty much as expected as far as beige Allegro owners went. Helen was slightly overweight and dowdy with straight, mousy hair and shrouded in a shapeless floral dress that smacked so much of a second hand Laura Ashley from The Cats Protection League. Tom was the sort of guy you wanted to beat savagely - and feared that you would, were it not for your own keen sense of ethical behaviour. Sporting a pair of tortoise shell rimmed glasses and a drab loose knit sweater he also adopted a magnificent eye twitch that Max found compelling. Tom would probably use words like cathartic and holistic a lot and pronounce the word beautiful as buuudafull.

     C**t.

     "So Maximus nice to finally meet you, how aaaare you? We heard youve been mentally ill, is that right?"  Tom said. 

     Maximus? 

     Against his better judgement, he shifted the bitter into the crook of his arm and grasped Tom's limp hand, pumping it in greeting whilst brandishing a vaguely threatening fake smile.  "No, no it was a week off work for compassionate reasons, some work rela-"

     "Super! Can I introduce my wife Helen?" Tom cut in with a disarming smile and a sweep of his hand. 

     Oh right, okay, well f**k you very much for listening, you ignorant prick. 

     Helen approached him for a double air kiss and he was horrified to note a wispy, grey moustache lying in wait across her top lip. She smelled faintly of patchouli and that was no great surprise either. Helen also had this irritating habit of talking to you through either closed or wildly fluttering eyelids, it made him wonder whether half way through a conversation he could nip away and come back without being noticed.

     "Soooo gooooood to seeee yooooou," she whined. 

     Tom and Helen invited them into an untidy living room (thanks for making the effort) and introduced them to the others: Camilla , Jed and Hannah and Campbell and his friend Philip. 

     

     "Guys, this is Maximus, Flicks beau he's recently been mentally ill," Tom was saying, nodding sagely.  "Let's hope he finds tonight's diverse social integration cathartic."

     Max raised a hand in salute. "Well, I wasnt strictly ill, but hello."  Something told him that the five pints of John Smiths hed imbibed before meeting Flick wouldn't be enough. He then noticed Jed was wearing sandals with Argyll socks and briefly flirted with the idea of breaking a chair across his back. 

     Dinner was a bland vegetarian affair that Helen had managed to become tearful over when she discovered that she had burned the crust of the leak and leak pie. The potatoes were slightly underdone and the onion gravy watery beyond compare, although the Swede and carrot car-crash was passable. She seemed heartened by the fact that her eye-watering, sugar-free rhubarb and gooseberry compote was edible, or at least that was the suggestion that everyone had given her by doggedly finishing their bowls.  My God, Im going to s**t myself inside out after this, Max thought as Helen began to clear away the crockery. 

     "I think I've just developed a stomach ulcer," he whispered to Flick, who shushed him tetchily. 

     "Matchmakers and coffee everyone?" How sophisticated.

     "I'll stick with the beer, thanks."  It galled him that the group had barely managed to empty three bottles of wine over dinner, he cracked open another tin. Happy New Year.

     "So," Jed was saying, his legs crossed and his hands constructing a pyramid at his chest. "Hannah and I met Campbell whilst on sabbatical in Bratislava in 1992..."

     "Yes, did you know that Bratislava is the only capital city that borders two countries?"  Campbell interjected as if it was a point of any interest or significance.      "Really?"  Tom said, genuinely enthused.  "I didn't know that!  Our very own Stephen Fry!" 

     Dear God... 

     "Well, its funny," Campbell continued in his soft, whiney Scottish accent and patted his friend's arm, "because Philip and I met during his gap year in Burundi."

     How is that funny?

     "Yes I was working with Médecins Sans Frontières as a volunteer nurse," Philip added with a self-satisfied smile. 

     Volunteer ponce, Max simmered. 

     "Oh thats riiiight," Helen said. "I heard that you had done a lot of good work in the Third World."

     "I now do some volunteer work with special needs, but not as much as I'd like to," Philip continued. "In fact I'm a dedicated helper in the community for a great person called Ben Calloe."

     "Wonky Ben?"  Max said. 

     The front room fell silent. To look at their faces so aghast, one would have thought that he had just dropped his pants and shat on the coffee table. 

     "What? Wonky Ben, gammy leg, he comes in the Kings Arms."

     "He's got cerebral palsy Max," Philip said with the measured patience of somebody trying to break some really bad news. 

     "Yeah but you want to try and race the f****r, he's pretty quick after a few rum and cokes I can tell you."

     "You feed him alcohol?"  Campbell seemed genuinely horrified. 

     Max shrugged. "He's a bloke... not a hamster."  He was vaguely aware of Flick tugging urgently at his sleeve.  "What, you've never raced a drunken spaz?" 

     "We dont refer to them as... spastic... any more," Hannah said gently. 

     "Anyway," Tom intervened. "Campbell, you were saying about Burundi..."

     Max's eyes darted incredulously from speaker to speaker, what exasperated him more than the inane anecdotes of who met whom and during what Hutu uprising, was the fact that Camilla, who seemed to be attempting to break the world record for collecting facial moles, nodded in agreement to every statement and mmm-mmm'd her approval. This further cemented Max's theory that she had nothing to add to any conversation. Anywhere. Ever. 

     Max sighed and cracked open another tin. 

     "So Maximus, did your faith help you through your period of mental illness?" Tom said, some time later, turning his attention across the table. 

     "Mmm-mmm," Camilla nodded. 

     "Sorry, what?"

     "Your faith... was it a crutch?"  Helen asked.  "I found that my faith brought me through my darker moments when I was diagnosed with uterine polyps."

     "Mmm, yah, polyps," Camilla intoned seriously shooting Helen a tight-lipped look of unswerving support and female camaraderie. 

     "Er, no, I'm not a big church goer to be honest." He managed, somehow, to find the civility to reply without swearing or lobbing cutlery in anyone's direction.

     What the hell are uterine polyps?

     "Awww."  The group crooned in an 'oh you poor, silly, ignorant little man' fashion. 

     He noted that Flick looked suitably embarrassed and could not help but feel a little crow of jubilation inside him. 

     "You really should consider taking Christ into your life," Hannah said. 

     "Mmm-mmm, yah. Christ our Lord," Camilla spouted and actually held up a supplicate hand in some sort of 'hey Jesus, here I am', wave. Just in case.

     Max drew a patient breath and forced a smile, putting aside his glass, he felt it was safer for all that way. "No, but thanks all the same. I'm happy with my lot and it's not really for me, but cheers."

     "Don't worry, I'm sure you will regain your faith with Flick's help, she is such a strong woman," Helen sympathised. 

     What?

     "You will find that it was the glory of the Lord that drew you out of your mental illness."  Hannah offered. 

     "Oh, Im not so sure..." Max replied smoothly, prickling underneath. 

     They all looked at him in earnest.  "Yes Max it was."

     "No, it wasn't."

     They nodded as one; it was like something out of The Wicker Man.  "Oh yes, God loves you. He loves us all."  Hannah intoned. 

     "I assume this is a different God from the one who decided to play genetic marbles and f**k over Wonky Ben then," Max replied sourly. 

     "Ah, don't worry when Ben stumbles, God is there to steady him."

     "Oh that's all right then, I would just love to know where God is when Ben's seventy-three year old mum has to wipe his arse because he cant reach! And please spare me all that Footsteps in the Sand crap."

     Hannah smiled knowingly.  "The Lord has His own plan for our Ben."

     C+FS=FTV: {Camel} + {final straw} = fractured thoracic vertebrae. 

     "Right!"  Max slammed his hand down on the table causing everyone to jump and sending John Smiths tins scattering. Camilla stopped mmm-mmming all of a sudden too; she looked like she had just s**t herself, in fact. He stood up leaning heavily on the table and stared at them all. 

     "Firstly, he's not your Ben; don't condescend him because he's a got a gimpy leg, you should see him down a pint of snakebite and black in a oner. Are you lot out to get a monopoly on handicaps or something? There more you convert the easier it is to get into Heaven, is that it?"

     "We prefer the term handi-capable," Campbell said earnestly. 

    

     "And I prefer, how about a nice warm glass of shut the f**k up. Look, I'm not mentally ill. I never have been; I had a weeks leave of absence after some work related stresses and my mum dying. And before you say it, no, she's hasnt crossed over or become spirit or whatever it is you nut-jobs think and she's not in a better place- shes in a box, in the ground, in Highgate cemetery. Oh and in case you were wondering, I dont want to join your f*****g Christian polyp support group or whatever it is. I have been listening to your s**t for the past four b*****d hours and you have yet to say anything remotely constructive or interesting all night!"

     "Maximus, I really dont think this is-" Campbell began to speak, looking pale. 

     "It's Max, you irritating Scottish bender!"

     "Wha-what?"  Campbell and Philip both looked stunned, as if some great and unspoken secret had been splashed across the national news, the identity of the murderer in the Mousetrap or the validity of the Dead Sea Scrolls perhaps.

     "Oh come off it, people! If these two were any more mince they'd be a pie!"

     An awkward silence fell across the group, broken only by Philip, who began to weep quietly into his napkin. 

     Max launched into an unrepentant verbal tirade, stabbing fully-loaded fingers at the collected guests, only Flick was exempt, not that it would have mattered much on reflection. 

     Tom. "Irritating, four-eyed, twitching TWAT!" 

     Helen.  "Just because you bleach it, doesnt mean its not there; you have a moustache. You look like Tom Selleck for f***s sake!" 

     Hannah. "Religious zealot!"

     Jed. "Socks with sandals? Why are you even alive?" 

     Camilla. "Pointless, mole-collecting face-b***h!" 

     Philip. "Self-involved prick!" 

     And so it went on with him rounding on an ashen faced and quivering Campbell and ending his outburst with a back-bending, finger-pointing, resounding, COMPLETE POOF! 

     

     He glared at them for a few seconds longer before about turning and striding into the hallway. "Jesus Christ! No wonder why they threw you c***s to the lions!"

     The door slammed shut in his wake. "Actually there's no real evidence to say that Christian were ever thrown to the li-"  Tom murmured cheerlessly, smoothing his pullover.

     "Get fucked!"  Came the muffled reply from the street.

    

  ...4, 3, 2, 1 Happy New Year!

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Author's Note

As forementioned, this story although fictional, is based heavily upon something that happened to me a few years ago. I was harangued for a good few hours by a group of pushy Christians at a party who told me I was wrong for not wanting to go to church etc (I used to play football Sundays). I have to admit, I didn't flash up like Max above (I'm far too polite for that) but certainly those thoughts were going through my head. When I decided to leave, I thanked them for their mediocre meal and was told that I would 'burn come the day'... which was nice. I'm currently packing Factor 50 sunblock - you never know. Cheers!

Reviews

[{Angel Redd}[Formerly A..]

�Don�t worry; I�m sure you will regain your faith with Flick�s help, she is such a strong woman.� Helen sympathised.
�What?�
�You will find that it was the glory of the Lord that drew you out of your mental illness.� Hannah offered.
�Oh, I�m not so sure!� Max replied smoothly.
They all looked at him in earnest. �Yes Max� it was.�

I laughed through the whole thing, but from that point on, i laughed hardest. I'm so sorry this had to happen to you...we're not all pushy a******s, i promise you. :)

[Alex Lifeson]

This was an interesting story, just a few thoughts on it from an American point of view (if you don't mind). :)

"Max stood in the doorway and juggled the beer, a resigned but somehow desperate expression on my face."

As you state in the description, this was a situation that happened to you. You decided to put in 3rd person (Max), and kept tense perfect except here, where you mixed Max and 'my face' instead of 'his face'.

"It was seven pm and he spared a though for the lads in the King�s Arms, drinking, celebrating, happy, single. Happy New Year."

I'm figuring that being American I'm missing what this means, but there could be a typo also, I don't know what "spared a though" means.

"and shrouded in a shapeless floral dress that smacked so much of a second hand Laura Ashley from The Cat�s Protection League."

I'm taking it that my American culture puts me at a disadvantage as to what this even means. It could just be my sheltered life, too. ;)

"judgement" = judgment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patchouli

You used Patchouli here, saying she smelled of it and it was no surprise. I was left wondering why it was no surprise so i decided to look it up. Looking it up didn't help me define why you stated that.

�Oh come off it, people! If these two were any more mince they�d be a Chilli Con Carne.�

Another joke that I think may be culturally bound. Again, it could be me having a moment of density, but I just missed the meaning of 'mince' contextually in this sentence, so it took away from what would have been understanding the joke of the sentence.

Also I was left wondering why they needed their asses handed to them. What was the need to fly off the handle? You spent some time trying to get them to understand there was no mental illness only to assure them in the end there was. I could imagine the context of the conversation in that room after you left talked about the necessity for more treatment.