I Am The Local Atheist

by Warwick Stubbs

  “David!”

  At least I had tried. At least.

  “What the hell are you doing?” One of the workers had grabbed my arm and pulled me back from the table. The machines had all been stopped and the other workers were all staring at me with wide eyes. My heart was pounding inside my chest.

  I suddenly looked at the demolished block of cookie dough in front of me. Instead of evenly sliced slabs, I had turned it into a victim of a brutal knife attack.

  They told me to go back to the mixing bowls: “We can’t afford to have you picking on innocent bakery products like that.”

  But as it turned out, trying to keep my mind on the acidity levels and the temperature that the sauces were getting mixed at, completely slipped me by as I stared down into the frothing white sauce imagining his hands and arms reaching up for help and begging me to save him, but all I could do was look the other way as he was slowly pushed and dunked by the giant metal beaters until his last spluttering gasps blended with the sauce and his hands fell limp and disappeared.

  “Jesus Fucking Christ! What the fuck is going on here?”

  I turned to see my supervisor staring at the temperature gauge shaking his head, taking his white cap off, slamming it to the ground and yelling “Fuck!” for good measure it seemed.

  He looked at me with glaring eyes. “Have you even been watching what you’re supposed to be doing?”

  Of course I hadn’t been watching what I was supposed to be doing. I kept going through moments of focussing on the job at hand and then reverting back to entertaining myself with new and improved ways of disposing of despicable members of our society. “Why, what’s happened?”

  “Damnit. You fucked up the temperature. It’s gone too hot and the sauce won’t sit properly anymore. Fuck it we’re going to have to throw it all out and start again.”

  “Can’t we salvage any of it?”

  “No we can’t salvage any of it! It’s a fuckin’ sauce. It gets mixed. Round and round.” He stirred his finger in circles. “One part’s fucked, it’s all fucked. Or couldn’t you tell that?” He picked up his cap from the ground. “It’s as much of a lost cause as Jim is. Fuckin’ useless piece of drug riddled rubbish.”

  Part VII

  – On a plate –

  The morning had brought a hot spell with a cool breeze blowing in from the west but over the last couple of hours torrential rain had poured down without even slight consideration for those who had dared to leave the house with just shorts on. I took the occasional glance at Lucas’ exposed knees noticing the goose bumps beginning to rise over his skin.

  My beer was sitting in front of me. I wish I had ordered a hot cup of coffee to help warm my hands, instead of this cold glass that I swear was turning my fingertips blue. “Weather has turned to custard hasn’t it?”

  Lucas pondered the rain hitting the streets, pelting down on every car that drove past, smashing the tin roofs over the road and shaking the windows that framed inconsolable faces. “Y’ know, it would really make my day if the weather actually did turn to custard. Great downpours of custard all over Invercargill; the poor opening their mouths and praising the Lord for his generosity, lips overflowing with this great gift from above, throats choking and cutting off circulation of air through the windpipes; and all of a sudden people bemoaning the greediness of those who died rather than asking why God didn’t just bring it to the people on a plate right in front of them with a spoon handy. No, it’s always the people’s fault as to how they misuse God’s gifts isn’t it? Never a case of God fucking up the way he brings his gifts.”

  I had never heard Lucas specifically call faults on God before. Usually his rhetoric was aimed at religious practice, which I could choose to agree or disagree with, but never had I openly heard him blasphemy God Himself as though God was to blame for everything.

  I might have been offended by it if I had actually cared that God might have been paying attention. Or, hell, if God was actually there to pay attention. But I didn’t want to give in to petty name calling, or dissolving the remark into an attack based on prejudices; I knew better than this.

  I spoke slowly letting each word come out even and void of any specific criticism. “Somehow I doubt that if such a scenario were to be visited upon us that people themselves would be stupid enough to put their lives at risk just for the sake of free food.”

  “People all over the world put their lives at risk for free food. Didn’t we put ourselves at risk for free food? You think a man who is so poor that he can’t even afford a single loaf of bread is going to think twice about opening his gullet to the heavens? You’d think that if God actually existed then he would do something about the plight of the poor, wouldn’t you?”

  In all my time as a Christian, Alice and Christie were, probably, the few people who I had seen really care about what they believed in, really care in a way that showed their belief.

  Atheists like Lucas only confirmed what I had always believed: that their arrogance towards Christians was fuelled mostly by ignorance. It’s not that some of their attacks weren’t just, but the fact that few ever made any attempt to understand the Word of God in context to how us humans live our lives. It was so easy to level an attack on God as though the way that God had created the world was the fault in itself. Our destiny was to make the world right by the gifts that we were given, and to help those in need when the world as created by Mankind had lost its way. I had always believed that it was God’s will that led us to greater and better lives and that it was only our humanity that struggled with God’s creation. As an atheist, Lucas could only see things in terms of what other people said about God, or the way that other people described God, but to truly know God is to experience something beyond description.

  Fuck.

  All of a sudden I wondered if that was where I had gone wrong, where I had become one of the people that I had once despised. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere.”

  “Hey don’t forget – Tina’s party this weekend.”

  “Sure. You’ll pick me up?”

  “Yeah man.”

  I drank the last of my beer, said “see ya later” and headed for Tay Street.

  I walked into the Sallies as Sylvia came up to me – not unlike all those weeks ago when I had first entered the building. “I was wondering if I could talk to Alice?”

  “Yes, that should be fine. I’ll just go and see if she’s available. If you’d just like to take a seat down here.”

  I sat as she walked off. I could here the mumbling of a conversation from behind the door that Sylvia had stopped at and raised her knuckles to knock on. The old woman was hesitant. It sounded somewhat tense, though not without some humour. Almost like one person was making a joke of everything serious that the other person was saying.

  “Oh, come on Christie, stop being so uptight about it. He just likes having you on, that’s all.”

  “Ahh, but it’s so annoying. He always steps on every point that I have and never lets me have the last word.”

  “It just sounds to me like you both need to sort out your feelings towards each other.”

  “What feelings? What are you talking about?”

  “What do you mean what am I talking about? You’ve both made it pretty clear that you have a thing for each other.”

  “A thing? Is that what you old people call it? I can tell you now that I most certainly do not have a ‘thing’ for him.”

  “That’s certainly not how it sounded at Charge Up, or how it looks going for walks in the park with him…”

  “I do not like him Alice! At least not anymore.”

  Alice started laughing. “Oh come on!”

  “In fact…”

  “What Christie?”

  There was a pause. Later on when I remembered this, I always imagined that behind the door Christie was screwing up her face and fists in a desperate attempt to not say what she knew she shouldn’t. But she said it.
>
  “I hate him so much!”

  Alice’s hand slapped hard on the desk-top; she was deadly serious now. “Christie! I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “He just frustrates me so much! I can’t stand it.”

  “Christie, I need you to calm down and think about the feelings that God has put into your heart. If you look closer…”

  “Oh shut up! What would you know?”

  Christie stormed out of Alice’s office almost knocking Sylvia over and completely oblivious to me sitting on the chair in the foyer. I heard a door slam down the hallway as Sylvia peeked around the corner of the office door. Alice walked out and stood in the foyer trying to figure out which room Christie had barricaded herself in. She turned sideways to look at me. “I’m pretty sure it isn’t hate that she’s feeling.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  She came and sat down next to me. “I think she’ll be alright. I wasn’t particularly happy about her denying her feelings the way that she was doing – it’s certainly not something that I would expect from a mature officer of The Salvation Army.”

  “Perhaps she thought there was a real chance for her and Lucas before she found out that he was an atheist.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if she still does and secretly harbours a desire to convert him. You never know, they could make it work. I’ve known lots of people with differing beliefs who made relationships work, but The Salvation Army is a big commitment, and he would definitely need to be on board with that commitment.”

  I remembered Christie saying that she had come all the way down from Tauranga. “I thought Christie would have been better off staying in home town and connecting with one of the youth groups there. Help make them stronger.”

  “Tauranga already has a strong Youth Group set up. Christie was doing a business degree and the decision was made for her to come down here and run the Family Store. I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to hand over Charge Up to her as well.” She smiled. “She probably won’t be here forever either, because that’s a job that she can let go of if she finds a new calling. But you never know.”

  I smiled a fake smile.

  “It’s not perfect David, but we pray for everyone that they find fulfilment in their duties and contribute in whatever way they can to the salvation of the world.”

  “I don’t know. Mum always said that families were families because everyone stuck together.”

  “And sticking together helps you grow stronger?”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Someone had once said to me that the reason my family was ‘falling apart’ was because Mum hadn’t moved from her previous church to the one Dad was at and subsequently had me grow up in. In some ways, I had to wonder if Rickerton had purposefully directed me towards the youth group as a way of keeping me within ‘his’ walls so I wasn’t ever tempted to stray over to Mum’s church.

  Alice put a hand to her chin and sat in contemplation for a moment. “The Salvation Army motto is ‘Making a difference together’. We are a family David, and we do care for all of God’s children – in and out of the church. That is why we welcome anyone through our doors. Please, feel free to invite your Mum along any time. She sounds like someone I would love to meet.”

  I shifted in my chair. Sylvia had turned away and walked into the kitchen.

  Hearing Sylvia doing the dishes suddenly caught Alice’s attention. “Oh sorry David, was there something specific you wanted to talk to me about?”

  I leaned forward as though I was about to make a confession. “How much do you know about me?”

  “Only as much as you care to tell me.”

  “But what if I said that I had done something, quite some time ago and it was something that hurt a lot of people.”

  “Did you apologise for it?”

  “No. I was asked to apologise but didn’t.”

  “Well, that’s something between you and them then. I can’t really advise you on that.”

  “Do you want to know what I did?”

  “I want you to know that I do care about what you did David, but it’s not my business to be concerned about what you did, and certainly not to judge you on it, but to provide you with the tools to ask for forgiveness from the only one that counts – God.”

  “I’ve kept away from the people I’ve hurt for over a year now.”

  Alice leaned on her chair and placed a hand on her knee. “A day will come when you feel right about apologising, and when that day comes it will relieve whatever tensions are felt here on earth – or it may not – but at least you made that effort to say sorry and whether they accept that or not is no longer your concern. But we’re here to help you ask for forgiveness from God, and when you accept that forgiveness then you will no longer have to carry this burden of shame.”

  I hung my head.

  “And it is a burden of shame, David. But it’s not yours to carry.”

  I lifted my head and she smiled sympathetically.

  “Lets face it David, people have done a lot worse than what you did…”

  I was stunned.

  “…but when they ask forgiveness from the Lord, and aren’t faking it, but mean every word of it, then it will show in how they live out the rest of their lives, and then they will receive the Lord’s love with every blessing.”

  Part VIII

  – Tina’s party –

  I was packing a pipe when Tinsdale informed me that he and his friends would be having another night in on the piss. I could’ve stayed but I had never liked or trusted many of his friends, and was kinda glad that I’d be spending some time away from the flat. Martin had packed his computer up earlier and taken off to a friend’s house where they would be spending the entire weekend playing Call of Duty online. I wished I had asked if I could join him – I had felt some anxiety about Tina’s party knowing that I’d have to converse with a group of people and was looking for a way out, but in the end, each option involved spending time with other people, or just being stuck in the house with Tinsdale and his alcohol guzzling friends. I didn’t want that last option, so with Martin already gone and Tinsdale returning to the kitchen with his shit music blasting from the stereo, I lit up and took a big long suck.

  And lay there with strange music from the other room vibrating through my body as the anxiety slowly flittered away like butterflies out of the corner of my mind…

  Staring at the ceiling…

  Smiling…

  Happy…

  Curious…

  Vibrating…

  Hyperzoidal…

  Numbalicious…

  Lucas arrived at about two o’clock to pick me up. He walked into my room while I was still staring at the ceiling. Fuck knows how long I’d been doing that for. Guess I was trying to staunch it out, see who was going to give up their secrets first – me or the ceiling. I was pretty sure I was going to beat the ceiling into submission this time, just like I did with the prison. It was inevitable really. I had everything going for me, knew all of the ceiling’s moves, knew its contours; my experience points were at that advanced stage of levelling up where…

  A hand slapped against my thigh. “Yo!”

  I sat up and stared at Lucas.

  “You got your stuff ready?”

  “Yeah bro.” I pointed to my bag.

  He picked it up. “Come on, lets go then.”

  Lucas seemed like he was in a hurry. Maybe he just didn’t like being around people when they were stoned. Fair enough.

  I walked through the living room where Tinsdale was with a couple of his mates already making a dent in a 24 pack.

  I nodded.

  They all showed me their middle finger.

  I giggled.

  As I walked out to the car, some more of Tinsdale’s mates walked up the drive. One of them peered through the windows as Lucas shoved my bag in the back seat and held the door open for me.

  “Got a problem Rucker?”

  His shifty eyes darted backwards a
nd forwards, finally acknowledging us with a flick of the eyebrows. “Nah bro. All good.”

  He bounced up the stairs and went inside as I stood there watching his back move into the house; my nerves stood on end but I was still too numb to release any kind of pent up frustrations on him. And anyway, I knew Tinsdale was in there and he would not stand for any kind of shit like that going down. If I managed to get one limp stoner swing connecting with Rucker’s face, would that be enough? Or would I just be laughed out of the flat?

  I rubbed at my eyes trying to wake up but Lucas encouraged me into the back seat with a slap on the shoulder. “Come on.”

  A girl with red hair sat in the driver’s seat. She turned around and said “hello”.

  “Hi.”

  Lucas sat in the front passenger’s seat turning slightly and saying “this is Rachael.”

  “Just call me Rach if you want.”

  “Sure. Okay.” I turned to Lucas. “You know Rucker?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, most people do. He’s been here before, but I kinda go into hiding whenever Tinsdale has friends around.”

  “Don’t blame ya.” Lucas looked at Rachael. “You can start the car now.”

  “Alright, alright. I’m getting there” she said as she turned the key and got us rolling onto the street.

  I felt really tired and had completely forgotten what we were talking about. I was sure that it must have been something important – perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps I was just imagining the shifty eyes that were staring at me in my mind. In any case, I really wanted to sleep so took a fifteen minute nap as Rachael drove us out to Winton.

  Tina was a dark curly haired brunette, strong thighs and freckles across her nose. As soon as she saw me she reached a hand out to greet me without even the slightest pause to look me over or anything; just a full blown acknowledgement and greeting. I didn’t expect to be welcomed so casually. She introduced me to Schaeffer, Doug and her partner Kora who was helping her in the kitchen. Doug sat alongside Schaeffer picking at his fingernails and said hardly anything all night.