“He makes us slaves because he has a higher purpose, a higher purpose that will serve us all as we serve him. Some people used to believe in the idea of slavedom, the concept of being a servant to God as though domination over your will was an acceptable way for God to love you. But is it? Wouldn’t you expect love to come from a friend? Someone who accepts you and showers you with love every day, every minute, every second, every micro second so you are never confused by fear and mislead into the arms of Satan. Humans used to be slaves, but slaves are ruled by fear and bondage; Jesus came to us with love to free us, so we could finally realise God through our individuality – not through fear, and certainly not bondage…”
I felt somewhat confused. I had never considered myself to be a slave the way that some people I had met had. I had always felt like a recipient of God’s love, and a willing servant to his will – but never a slave. Now I didn’t know what I felt anymore. It certainly wasn’t love. The confusion was amplified by the fact that Lisa had come back into my life, a person who I had helped and supported, but had turned her back on me just like everyone else had a year and a half ago.
I rested my head in my hands giving it a good shake as I stood up with the intention of going back to work but the break had sapped me of all my enthusiasm and I stood there like a zombie, my eyes drooping into unconsciousness.
“Getting in an early mid-afternoon nap, David?” Christie appeared with a young man at her side.
I shook my head feeling groggy. “Yeah sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She turned to the person beside her. “This is Lucas-Anthony. He’s one of our casual volunteers who helps out every now and then.”
I reached out my hand and we shook, eyeing each other up.
“Just call me Lucas if you want.”
“Thanks” I said letting go of his hand.
Christie continued on. “Lucas-Anthony will be coming and going over the next few days helping to put some appliances and furnishings into the other rooms. He said that he’s quite happy to help out if you need a hand with anything.”
“Just yell out anytime I’m around.”
I smiled. “Sure.”
Christie asked “How’s it all going anyway?”
“Alright. I’m just not used to the fuckin’ work. Done fuck-all exercise for more than a year now.”
She looked like she was chewing her tongue.
Lucas-Anthony was holding in a laugh.
I must have looked confused.
Christie smiled very generously. “Don’t worry about it David, people use foul language around me all the time.” She screwed her nose up like a mouse and tipped her head to the side. “I’m kinda used to it now.”
Oh shit! I just hadn’t thought about it. Fuck, I mean a whole year around stuff-all people, not conversing with anyone except my flatmates – a gamer and a dealer; a Work & Income employee and occasionally my mother, had left me completely forgetful about other people’s sensibilities.
“Shit, I’m so sorry Christie.”
The two of them laughed as I stood there feeling stupid.
“Don’t worry David, I don’t really care.” She gave me that mischievous smile that made me just want to have sex with her. “Maybe if you’re around some of the older ladies, just try to hold back your language – just a wee bit.” She winked.
I could’ve dropped to the bare concrete floor right then and there and told her to do with me whatever she wanted, but I stood paralysed as she turned and walked away.
Once she was out of sight, Lucas-Anthony patted me on the shoulder and said “yeah, me too!”
Just as he started walking away he turned back and said, “Oh, and seriously – just call me ‘Lucas’.” He walked into one of the other rooms and made some clanking noises. I turned back to the work that still needed to be done before the day ended but I had lost momentum, all my desire to do any work. Where was the motivation? It had gone to sleep and forgotten to wake up again.
I could only hope that tomorrow I would feel better.
I didn’t feel any better. In fact, it could be argued that I felt worse. I had woken up regretting the decision to look for work as I dragged my lead-weighted body out of bed, poured coffee down my throat, showered like showering didn’t even matter, dressed in random clothing that I had picked up off the floor, and eventually made my way to The Salvation Army for another round of sweating as I traversed the steps, taking boxes of files and clothing from the truck I had transported them in up to the alcove that had been built like it was the bosses room so he can look down on the factory floor as his minions claw their way through their lives working for a mere five cents an hour while he slices a neat percentage off the top for his own tidy keepings. The fact that I was working for nothing made me feel like one of those factory workers, like I was doing all this work for a measly minimum wage that could barely keep me alive. Damn it. I wanted money.
“Do you ever feel like volunteer work is pointless?” I asked Lucas as I sat against the wall of the shed for smoko. The sun was doing a rare appearance, but with little of the warmth it was so well known for in other parts of the country.
Lucas had been driving around town, picking up second-hand appliances and dropping them off. He came and sat down beside me figuring that driving was just as hard work as carrying boxes, “especially when you have insane drivers causing so much stress on the roads these days – that I need a break from.”
He pondered the question for a moment taking out a cigarette from the packet on the ground beside him. “Well, y’ know I do more than just shift boxes eh?” He elbowed me.
“Like what?”
“Well, for example, at the moment I’m picking up the appliances and other assorted things that are going to be used in the offices. I’m also available if they ever need a hand for random things like, say a sausage sizzle – guaranteed free food, mate!”
I laughed. “My flatmate Martin’s a student – he’d love that.”
Lucas grinned. “You’d be surprised how many students actually do turn up! Sometimes they host book sales, so I come in and help sort all the books out – gotta pay for the books if I want those, but still cheap as.” He lit the cigarette and took a long suck holding it in. “And shit like that.” The smoke blew out, deflating his chest and dispersing it all around me.
I waved the smoke away from my face. “Yeah, but what do you do it for? I mean, you’re not getting paid for it. What’s the point?”
“It looks good on my work CV.”
“Really?”
“Oh shit yeah. Employers love to see that you’re willing to do something for free, that you’re not in it just for the money. But I mean seriously, who isn’t in it for the money? I wouldn’t be doing this shit if I didn’t think it wasn’t going to benefit me somewhere along the line – and believe me, it does! I’ve been employed over other people because of the volunteer work I do here.”
“So at the end of the day you do it for the money, because you know that’s it’s gonna increase your chances of paid employment.”
“At the end of the day David, I do it for myself. There’s no guarantee that paid employment will come my way, but there’s no point in waiting around not doing anything if I can increase the likelihood of it coming. I don’t particularly enjoy working, but if I have to work to stay alive and earn income, then I do the work for the benefit of myself, not for anyone else. I’m employed by other people to do the jobs that they need done, but I work for myself.”
Okay. I’d never heard anyone say that before. I had always heard people complaining about the job that they do, and wondered why they stayed in it if they hated it so much. I didn’t hate this job, but I did resent the fact that I wasn’t getting paid for it. I appreciated the exercise, but that didn’t seem like a good enough excuse anymore.
I picked at the concrete beneath me.
“If you don’t like your job David, then quit it.”
“But I can’t afford to
.”
“Then it is your choice to be a slave to a job that you don’t like. Ask all the poor people on the street…”
I looked around wondering where these poor people were that he was talking about.
“…you don’t see them complaining about the shitty jobs that they’re stuck in.”
“No, but they are begging for money.” I could only assume that we were talking figuratively.
“But that’s a choice that they have made over being stuck in a shitty job that they don’t like. Any one of them could get a job just like the rest of us, but most of them would rather beg and live on the good-will of others. But that good-will is bullshit, because any one of them has the ability to make a living for themselves here in this place that we call New Zealand. That’s why I don’t give money to the poor. Fuck them!” He inhaled deeply on his cigarette. “And fuck the buskers too!”
If anything, I would have expected him to be more sympathetic to buskers simply because music was a ‘get-nowhere’ industry with few actual financial gains.
“They can piss off back to their bedrooms and take their shitty songs with them. I don’t want to be bombarded with that shit when I’m walking down the street minding my own business. It’s hard enough to have to deal with preachers spouting their opinionated beliefs every fuckin’ Sunday down at the Square.”
“I can honestly say that that kind of preaching has always turned me away.”
“Preaching is just a form of mind control as far as I’m concerned.”
“I’m no preacher, so I wouldn’t know.”
“Right.” He seemed mildly surprised by this comment. “Well, I’d only listen to it to see how much better their circular arguments had got.”
I’d heard that attack on Christianity once before. It’s difficult to convince anybody of the truth when they aren’t willing to look beyond what only mere words can convey. That was one of the reasons why I never bothered pretending to be a theologian – I was no poet, no scribe, and I certainly couldn’t convince people with a hole-proof argument. But then, no atheist had been able to supply me with hole-proof arguments why God couldn’t exist either, so I had eventually stopped caring about the arguments and just got on with living the life that God had given me to live.
Except that now I was stuck in a job that I didn’t really want to be doing and stuck in a life that I didn’t really want to be living.
Was this the life that God had planned for me? Was this the life I was supposed to be living? Youth Group was the only material thing on Earth that I had invested so much of my time into, but it had been taken away from me and had left me with a struggle that I had ultimately lost.
I wanted to believe that this was God’s choice for me, that this is what God had planned for me all along, but I couldn’t rid myself of the feeling that what I had suffered through was too much for even God to wish on one person. It was like Satan had got to me first, had beaten God to the punch, only to be followed through by a kick in the teeth with Jesus standing idly by whistling his song of forgiveness. Thanks.
Thanks for helping out! Thanks for caring!
I struggled to get back to work with the same attitude that I had started with. Lucas had returned to his errands, Christie was nowhere in sight, and the boxes I was lifting no longer contained any worthwhile goal, just a means for sweating fat off my body, which I had never cared about before, but all of a sudden I was now using it as a good excuse to keep me working. The sweat made my arms itchy and going up the steps trying to ignore the itching while carefully placing each foot in front of me seemed pointless.
Sure would be good to get paid for it.
I placed the box down in the alcove room, rubbed my arms and started my descent back down the stairs, skipping two at a time.
Don’t be so selfish – have faith in God. It may seem like a simple job that anyone can do, but even The Salvation Army needs these jobs to be done. So long as you’re doing it for them, you’re also doing it for God.
I hit the bottom step and bounced onto the concrete floor.
Fuck God.
I took a break as sweat streamed off my eyebrows. I was panting quite heavily. The thought of doing it for God had pissed me off and I started working again a lot harder in an attempt at doing it solely for myself. Fuck God, and fuck everything that He’s done to me! I do this work for myself!
I began striding up the stairs with my feet banging heavily on each step, arms and hands gripping as many boxes that my back could stand; striding back out of the room and down the stairs three steps at a time; running to the car and starting the process all over again. Sweat bubbled out of the pores of my skin, water-logged my eyebrows until the sponge of hair couldn’t hold anymore and dripped wasted salt onto the concrete floor. I loved the way that this seemingly useless act of transferring boxes from one place to another was helping me to lose weight and feel better about myself. It was all about me, I decided. It was all about me. And God.
I threw a box of containers down on the ground with as much force as possible, letting out a loud “Fuck you!” that bounced around the shed walls. I heard cracking inside the box as it smashed against the concrete floor but I didn’t care. I kicked it just to get my point across.
I raised my hands to my face, covering my eyes and wiping sweat from my brow. Sunshine was streaming in through the doors. I walked out of the shed and stood in the sunlight for a while. A part of me expected an apology to God to suddenly come forth but there was nothing. I really wasn’t sorry anymore. What could an apology to God do anyway? Change the way I feel? What would it matter if the apology didn’t mean anything, if the apology was fake? It would be a lie, and that would be an even bigger insult.
I walked back to the car and turned the radio on but as soon as I heard some shitty pop-punk song, I tuned it to a heavy metal station where they were playing nothing but brutal underground hardcore. It felt good. Something relaxed in me as I heard those pounding rhythms thrashing out second-rate riffs with some occasional singing after first blasting the ears with deep-throated cookie-monster vocals. My mind tranced out as I sat in the car and just stared at the wall on the opposite side of the room. It seemed so far away, intangible.
Part II
– Fraternising –
While visiting on Sunday, Mum had passed Lisa’s cellphone number on to me, which I had tentatively taken, but not without some consideration of throwing it in a bin as I walked back to the flat though. I sent Lisa a txt saying ‘hi’ and explained that I had finally given in to the lure of cellphones a few months ago. She seemed to think that was funny, but I made no effort to reply back and hadn’t heard from her since. Several days later while still working for The Salvation Army, I received a txt asking if I wanted to hang out with her, Claire and Wendy on the weekend. I said ‘sure’ not really sure why, because it was bound to continue getting even more uncomfortable around her. But the hard fact of the matter was that I wanted her friendship back, I wanted what we once had – that understanding of two people that transcends past mistakes without it being anything more than just a friendship. But I really didn’t know if that was possible anymore, I didn’t even know why she had even bothered getting in touch with me again. I could’ve assumed that she had wanted the same thing but she had new friends, she didn’t need me anymore. She seemed so happy without me. Nothing made sense.
Lucas had been moving a bunch of file boxes that I hadn’t got around to doing, and had seemed pretty casual about the whole thing.
Christie came through the shed doors as I was putting my cellphone away.
“How’s it going, David?”
“Good thanks.”
“That’s awesome. Unfortunately, at least for us – probably not so much for you because you’re probably sick of all the carrying that you’ve had to do – we’ve run out of work for you. Lucas-Anthony…”
“LUCAS!!” yelled a voice from the other room.
“…is shifting the last lot of files that needed
to be moved from the old storage office – to make way for yours truly – and after that we’re kinda all done.”
“That’s cool as. I actually appreciated being able to do some physical exercise after having sat on my ass for most of the year.”
“Well, we’re glad to have been a help. But, hey, that’s what we’re here for. If you ever need anything don’t be afraid to come in and say hi. Okay?”
“Sounds great.” I smiled.
Christie turned towards the room that Lucas was walking out of. “How you doing?”
“Hot thanks.” He straightened up putting his hands in his pockets.
“Have you been keeping the boxes in order of how they were originally stacked back in the room?”
“Well,” he said rocking on his heels. “Let me just say that how I took them out of your room is absolutely relative to how I put them in the truck and subsequently, how I restacked them in this room.”
“Relative?”
“Absolutely.”
She wasn’t looking at him with much enthusiasm. “That doesn’t really answer my question Mr. Lucas-Anthony.”
“No,” he said sprightly. “I wasn’t really expecting it to.” He slapped his hands together and smiled. “What’s next on your list of jobs for me to do?”
I couldn’t help but smile. I liked his avoidance of responsibility.
Christie rolled her eyes hopelessly and walked out after reminding me to drop the keys in at the reception when I left.
Lucas walked over to me. “Hey, you wanna get together later on and grab a couple of drinks?”
“Can we make it Friday? I’m still pretty buggered from these last two days – my body’s so not used to this kind of work.”
“Yeah, good as. I’ll txt ya’ to let you know where.”
“Cheers.”
We agreed on lunch at the Fraterniser downtown – a bar/café with deeply stained wood panelled walls and rough tables that gave it a semi-rustic vibe, almost an Irish tavern if it wasn’t for the mini chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling and the café vibe squeezed into a far corner with sofas and settees stolen straight out of the seventies.
I Am The Local Atheist Page 5