Now that's what I call love -part 1

At the age of fifteen, Corey took some acid and decided to save the world so he joined an evangelical franchise called Yo Bro! and became an advocate for world peace from their base at Mitcham Young Boys Football Club, where various members of the community met to be brainwashed.

For a couple of years, Corey thrived. The franchisee for Yo Bro! took an immediate shine to his unusual brand of congregational messaging and he once appeared on Yo Bro! TV, extolling the virtues of Jesuit and Rosicrucian henchmen and pillagers. There was a promise of a pilot program to film his sermon but it was shelved when Corey was found masturbating behind a pew. He dreamt of saving up to see the American revolution but he was awful with money and preferred to spend his allowance on the fruit machines at the Ye Olde Tired Arms in Sutton.

Corey found daily solace preaching the word of God outside Lidl. People came from miles to listen to his ramblings, mostly for a laugh and to download his Haguesque muttering onto Facebook and other excellent social networks.

One day, similar to any other, a seventeen-year-old Corey saw what he believed to be the reincarnation of Lucifer in a huge old lady dressed in a pink trench coat called Beryl. Once he was sure it was her, he sauntered into Lidl and grabbed a kitchen knife to kill her with, only when he was about to lunge for her and stab her, he failed to release the security tag from the knife and was found on top of a traumatized Beryl, screaming ‘out with ye, devil woman of Lucifer, out with ye’ while trying to bite the tag off the knife’s superb packaging.

As the scene was caught on camera, Corey was admitted to a high security mental institution where he stayed for two years, mostly preaching Yo Bro! to his colleagues and care staff, who were less than impressed.

Now, aged fifty-five and relatively stable on a mind-boggling assortment of psychoactive drugs, Corey is indeed having his first major schizophrenic episode in almost ten years.

While the finely tuned cocktail of medication has done a fabulous job in suppressing his thoughts of inalienable divinity, Corey made a conscious decision not to take his meds two weeks ago in the belief that now, more than ever, he was ready to be accepted by the world as the true personification of Christ.

When he woke up on the morning of June 21^st (summer solstice), his first thought was that he could rise from bed without getting up, but when that didn’t happen he got up anyway and made his customary cup of sugary tea.

‘Today is surely the day, dear lord,’ he told the bathroom mirror. ‘Yes, today is the day that you will tell the people of the love that rests in their hearts.’

Corey practiced saying ‘the love’ in his inimitable style, emphasizing the word, ‘love’, in the style of Monique from Storage Hunters, for when she found something nice hidden amongst the trash in her acquired storage bin, her excitement was palpable. At least to Corey it was.

As he placed toothpaste on his toothbrush, the unquenchable desire to speak came upon him once more.

‘Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about! That’s love, Shaun! That there is money!’ he cried out. Usually, he would pipe down, instantly aware that someone must have heard him, but today, without his medication (which he decided was an evil inflicted upon him by lesser souls in the mental health industry who couldn’t accept him as the Messiah) he was ready for battle.

‘That there is love, Shaun!’ he cried out again, kissing the mirror with white paste that seemed to make a halo around his head if he just ducked down an inch or two.

Striding out of the bathroom, he put his eggs on and smacked down the toaster.

‘I’m telling you, that’s love, right there! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!’ he screamed in Monique’s dulcet tones, rubbing his hands in the style of the illustrious dreadlocked bin-buyer.

Toad, a nice old hippy neighbour with a history of mild but manageable psychosis, walked past Corey’s window to take a bin bag to the dumpster.

‘You sound just like that wacko on Storage Hunters,’ he said, but Corey wasn’t interested.

‘I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ he replied, crouched on the kitchen floor.

Once he’d eaten his breakfast, he got out of his dressing gown and chose a suitable clothing arrangement with which to present himself in the best light as saviour to the people on this monumental day. After much deliberation, he finally went with his Rage Against The Machine t-shirt and scruffy old Naf Naf surf-shorts. Together with his faithful baseball cap inscribed with the words, ‘Pussy, Ganga, Action!’ he felt perfectly in tune with his creator and strode out onto the path of forgiven, for they knew not what they did, and he would forgive them.

First, he drove his faithful Maestro to see his carpenter friend, Nicholas, at his workshop on Upper Richmond Road.

Nicholas was a fine old boy who wished the best in all ways for Corey. Many years ago, they struck up a bargain that he would make a statue of Jesus Christ from the matchsticks that Corey brought to him every Wednesday. The statue stood in a corner of Nicholas’ workshop and was all but finished but for the eyes.

‘Hey, Corey, good to see you,’ said Nicholas.

Corey sighed before saying, ‘the day has come, Nicholas. The day is finally upon us’.

Nicholas sensed something was the matter but remained upbeat. ‘You brought the final pieces of the jigsaw? There he is,’ he said, holding his hand out towards the corner of the workshop where Jesus stood to attention. ‘Just the eyes and he’s all yours.’

But again, Corey’s reaction miffed Nicholas. ‘There’s no need for his eyes,’ he said dreamily. ‘I am his eyes.’

Nicholas clicked. ‘Corey, have you stopped taking your meds?’

There passed a brief silence, after which Corey spoke. ‘I’m free, if that’s what you mean. Yes, I’m free, Nicholas. Finally I’m free to speak to the world of the love in my heart. I just came to give you a massive bear hug before I go out to do the lord’s bidding. Please, come to me, so I can give you a bear hug.’

Nicholas winced, raising his eyebrows and pursing his lips helplessly. Resigned to do the right thing, he moved forward to approach Corey trying to dull the trepidation running through his veins, shitting himself that he’d pull out a knife and stab him to death.

Corey smiled the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen and said, as quietly as a mouse, ‘now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. That’s love,’ as they embraced.

After a few seconds, Corey recoiled, unable to dwell with the thoughts that he must now kill Nicholas. ‘I must go now,’ he said. ‘When we next meet, it will be at my home, St Paul’s Cathedral, and you will be my most eminent servant. Goodbye, Nicholas.’

Nicholas watched as Corey skipped down the alley that led to the main road.

As he approached his car around the corner on Estelle Avenue, he noticed a huge woman who appeared to be writing a ticket at the loading bay where he’d parked.

‘Fabulous,’ Corey said to himself, ‘my first convert.’

Creeping up behind her unnoticed, Corey greeted her. ‘Good morning, large lady.’

The woman yelped, and jumped as far as she could from the ground, which amounted to about three millimeters.

This being her first day after a year’s training to become a police community officer/ ticket warden, Mary tried to compose herself but an insatiable sense of angry misgiving was too much for her to beat away.

‘Stand back, please, sir,’ she squawked, red faced and fuming.

Corey remained where he was, undeterred.  ‘I was merely making my supreme presence felt by announcing good day to you. What is not to love, large lady?’

Mary huffed through flared nostrils. Placing her ticket reader onto its perch at her heaving breast, she put a distance between herself and Corey and then used her walkie-talkie to make contact with her team.

‘Back-up needed immediately,’ she said.

Corey took a few steps towards her and held his arms out to give her a bear hug so that she could feel the power of his spirit, but Mary was having none of it. ‘Stand where you are, please, sir.’

‘What’s the trouble, Mary?’ came a voice from her walkie-talkie.

‘I need immediate back-up,’ she replied, clearly out of breath. ‘There’s a man here trying to assault me. I repeat, back-up required!’

The voice came back to her. ‘I can see you from here. What’s the problem?’

‘I was issuing a ticket when a man approached me from behind and tried to assault me.’

Corey’s arms held out for a bear hug as Mary put yet more distance between them. Wobbling to the other side of the car, she pointed up to the CCTV camera aloft a sturdy post that gave onto Upper Richmond Road.

‘See that?’ she squeaked. ‘You’re being watched right now so don’t try anything funny.’

Corey turned and smiled the most beautiful smile at the camera before making his way over to where she was standing in Frankenstein fashion with his arms out wide to receive her, but she was quick to respond, wrestling her enormous frame to make haste in retreat.

With the stalemate of Corey at the bonnet of the car and Mary watching his every move at the boot, breathing deeply to stem the panic attack she felt coming, she made sharp, intermittent requests for back-up, like, ‘he’s trying to attack me’, ‘he won’t stop trying to hug me’, ‘he’s got his arms out’, finally screaming into her walkie-talkie, ‘get the fuck out here, you cunts’ to which Corey cringed in disappointment.

A voice came over the walkie-talkie, telling her to ‘man up and report back to the station immediately, you fat twat’.

Again, Corey’s face crumpled in dismay for the awful behaviour of the authorities. Somehow, he must save Mary from losing her job, so he lunged towards her and ripped the walkie-talkie from her lapel.

‘Back-up, you must come to help this large lady immediately. Can you not see,’ he said, turning to face the camera aloft the sturdy post, ‘that she is indeed in dire straits?’

Mary was in a heap at his feet by the rear kerbside wheel of the Maestro. A massive fan of wildlife programs, she imagined herself as a felled rhinoceros awaiting a bullet to the head from a deranged outback ranger.

Standing over her, Corey spoke the words of Monique from Storage Hunters into the walkie-talkie, repeating with energetic vim and a renewed sense of purpose, ‘Now that’s what I call love, Shaun! That’s money right there! That’s what I’m talking about!’

Imminently, a squad of crack emergency officers piled out of an unmarked van blearing their little piggy war cry.

‘Stand still! Don’t move!’ they trumpeted, alighting the rear of the van, one armed with a taser-gun, the others flicking out their truncheons to full length.

Corey was nonplussed by their awful entrance and held his arms out to them as they surrounded him.

One officer wearing a very trendy moustache and chin hair combo squeaked a command for Corey to stay exactly where he was, otherwise he would fire.

The moment Corey took his first step towards the officer (to place his hands upon him in an act of friendship and love and to bestow the power of Jesus Christ within his heart), the facially fashionable officer tasered him and Corey dropped to the ground, banging his head on the tarmac noisily.