The Atheist
By: Michael Salkind
Tags: Mental Health, Sexual Assault, Atheists, Mother Issues

I don’t believe in god. So when Jesus started caretaking me, I didn’t know what to think.

I’m in the institution again. I’ve had some problems, in my life, not always in touch with what other folks think. People stay stuff matters; it doesn’t. People say calm down, be civil. Sometimes I hate myself and sometimes I hate others. I’ve never tried to kill anyone, but I can sometimes understand why others disagree with that claim.

The institution has caretakers. Those are the people who work there. Most are men, but not all of them. I remember Jeanine, a young woman, pretty but for the scars on her face. Nice hair. Some people said she was born that way — not the hair, but the scars. some say she had a terrible husband. I’ve never had a husband. When I asked Jeanine about the scars, she said she had no scars, and she left me to finish the puzzle myself. She’s gone now, I don’t know where.

My mother was married, she said, and she told me there is God, and she sent me to Sunday school and we went to church.

I remember the first night I was inside my mother, and the alcohol made me feel so good. I remember the feelings that would flow, over the years, through the cord: the alcohol would relax me, the nicotine would make me feel like I could be anyone, and the roller coaster of the pills and coke left me breathless, in a good way. Later, the cord would try to end me. I don’t remember meeting my father, and I don’t think my mother was married. Sometimes, after a long day, my mother would slip and say, “Oh, my daughter, I wonder who your father was?” Or, “I wonder what happened to your father?” But in the morning, it was just, “he was called away.” Sometimes she would say that I never had a father, that I was from immaculate conception. She joked that it didn’t just mean cuddling on clean sheets.

If there had been a him, maybe he would have taken care of me, and been there when I came into this world choking on my life-giving cord, my oxygen gone before I had a chance to see what it was like to breath. Do I remember being born, a white room, doctors and nurses screaming and yelling at each other, no one knowing what to do? I was released from the umbilical anaconda’s grip, and fell to the floor, trying to pull oxygen in and push carbon dioxide out, but not quite getting a grip on how to do it. Plastic tubes were pushed into my mouth, and later I was locked in a glass box, on display for a long time. Right?

Yes, I remember being in my mother’s body; I don’t know how I got there. Just, there I was, no sperm, no egg, no zygote. No penis. I remember the rest, a long rest, until the painful birth. Things in my life are less clear since then. I remember god school, like history class, but it was more like stories to me. The stories had people doing all the same bad stuff I had come to expect from everyone. Church was people with uncomfortable clothing and there was a strange, dull ceremony, incantations, terrible songs; I waited for the Jesus meal at the end, because then I wouldn’t have to sit still and be quiet.

The communion was entertaining, a reward for sitting still so long. The priest would put a wafer in my mouth, and I would take a sip of Jesus juice, and I would try not to laugh. Sometimes I couldn’t help myself, and I would chuckle and spit out some of the juice, and the priest, with his giant ears and blood furrows, would stare with fury.

My mother left, and I didn’t see the priest again. Was my mother “called away?” She never told me. I didn’t go back to school. I stayed in large bedrooms with other kids, and they said it was just like a family, but we weren’t allowed to leave, so I guess it was. We ate together, fought each other, and cuddled a lot. I kind of liked when the boys cuddled, but they did it rough. The girls were gentle.

When I left the group homes, because they said I was old enough to take care of myself, I found comfort in the booze and drugs that I remembered from inside my mother. Before I was born was the best year of my life, and I kept trying to feel that way again. I met people, and stayed with some, and cuddled, sometimes violently, with those who would make me. And then I would move on. Sometimes I would sleep on benches, in doorways, motel rooms, with or without people.

And then all the people would show themselves, their ears getting larger, so I had to be silent. They could not know what I was hearing in my head. And the blood would run down their faces, from their eyes, and I could not look at them without feeling terror. When the blood stopped, there remained furrows, like lava flows. You could always tell who had the bloody eyes even if they weren’t bleeding at the time. They do not want you to look at their furrows.

And sometimes I look at them as they are and then things go white and I don’t always remember what happens, but I hear the rushing wind in my ears and I am slammed forward, as if I am propelled twice as fast as the earth, and then I see jail bars, and big-eared judges, and the institution.

The caretakers and the other pajama people here all have those ears and eyes. But not Jesus. He’s beautiful and he does not listen to my thoughts and does not want to kill me. With his olive-skin, dark, deep eyes, his hand-assembled sandals, the black hippie hair and beard and brows, the toga. Like everyone says Jesus looks like, but more Mexican. Other than Jesus, I don’t know why they let any men work in the Women’s Ward.

And he feeds me and he asks me to partake of his body and his blood, and it’s a pretty good meal. I asked Beth what she thought of Jesus, and she pretended to not know what I was talking about, “you mean Carlos? He’s just like all the other screws.” Beth thinks she is in a movie. Maybe she is. Maybe Jesus likes me better, and he gives the other girls regular food. Annette would talk about her father all the time. I told her once that when I asked Jesus about my father, he told me “your father is my father.” Annette looked at me like I was crazy or something.

When I go into the white places, like the time I found the paper clip and began to rip my wrists, I wake up tied to my bed. But Jesus brings me my meal, and feeds it to me, gently dabbing my chin and mouth as I drink the juice. I ask him if he can make wine, and he winks at me with his dark, comforting eyes. “It’s against the rules.” he says.

As my wrists healed, he took the bandages off and licked the scabbed spots, and my arms began to look less like scars and more like age wrinkles, happily staring up at me. My wounds were gone, these wrinkles would tell me.

After days, I smell bad, and Jesus washes me. As he cleans my feet, I feel the oxygen in my body as nice as when I was in my mother, even without the booze. And then he goes, and caretakes others and sometimes I see him mopping the floor, and people call him Carlos, and I think maybe he’s just our secret.

I don’t think I’ve ever loved someone before. But I love Jesus, the way he gently comes and goes, and the loving way he looks and listens. The other caretakers are mean, scary, rough. Jesus never makes me cuddle. I don’t like it when they make me cuddle.

The caretakers started to hurt me that night, a lot of them, on me, around me, hurting me more and more, their bloody eyes burning me and their horrible hands inside me, tearing me apart, cuddling but so much worse. The light was blocked by their bodies and limbs and huge ears, and I screamed and ached, and then the oxygen slowed down and I could not breath, and I was back hanging from that table, the umbilical cord choking me, and this time I did not see white, but black.

And then Jesus was reaching his hand toward mine, and lifting me toward him. And I think I can go with him, and I think I do. And then I do.