I didn’t hear the sirens, I didn’t hear voices screaming at me to stop; nothing really. But I did feel two pairs of arms grab me without reservation and pull me away while I was still trying to kick the fucker in the face – I didn’t care about the law, I didn’t care about what was right or wrong, I didn’t care about what anyone thought, I just wanted vengeance plain and simple. But they pinned me down hard against the rain-soaked ground and I realised that there wasn’t any point in struggling anymore – I had been in this position once before and struggling hadn’t done me any good then. So I relaxed, letting my body calm down and ignore the hands forcefully positioning me. One of the cops left me to check the damage I had done to Rucker. I don’t remember what the cops had said to each other, but I do remember spatterings of rain howling through the trees and landing on my face; I remember seeing the cop help Rucker to his feet by pulling at his hair, saying something to him that Rucker nodded in agreement to and then sending him on his way, as though they were now in charge of the situation and would take care of things from here on in. I didn’t care. Even as they lifted me from the ground and shoved me towards the cop car, one of them opening the back door as the other pushed my head down hard and rammed me into the back seat – I didn’t care. I had done what I wanted to do. I lay there waiting as they entered the front seats, started the car up and began driving.
I took a glance out the window: we weren’t heading towards the cop-shop.
Chronicles:
Satan has laid a hand upon my shoulder
The devil came for me today; had me in a noose, tied and bound.
The devil sensed my burrowing sorrow, caught the whiff of vain pity and moved swiftly to take my soul into the darkest depths as though I would gladly sanction a pact to save myself from further shame. I slept, I dreamed; I chased images of myself through nighted streets lit by the glow of arcade booths shining their pixel warriors and soldiers and racing cars at me as I ran to find the right way home. But I was always looking behind me, but there was never anything there. How could I sense something that wasn’t really there, and what was it I was chasing that always eluded me?
Chronicle 1
Even before the massive bills came, even before I lost any sense of privacy, even before the public embarrassment of getting a erection from the vibration, I had noticed that evil was getting its way when I paid Lucas a visit one wintery chill-bitten night.
I left the house while Tinsdale and his mates were exploring their developing need to drink themselves into an obituary, thus rescuing myself from the clutches of their insanity.
The night annoyed me. It was so cold that many felt compelled to box themselves into a room and forget the outside through the brain-washing sponge of alcohol. I walk instead.
And as I walked I knew that the dreary fog that hung so chill in the air was endurable. It was not something that I had to hide from or be afraid of; it was one aspect of the natural world that I could be a unified part in. Tree branches arched their way up to the street light beaming shadows down from on top. There a man-made object has its place - is mine to be just a simple act of viewing and appreciating? Endurance may surely be the test.
But endurance was quickly wearing thin and the cold air surrounding me seemed to be getting thicker and thicker. As much as I wanted to prove the worth of my own endurance to myself, I decided to call into Lucas’ place instead so I txted him asking if he was available for visitors. His reply confirmed the positive and I arrived in time for the fire that he was stoking to dry the snivel on the tip of my nose. He welcomed me with a nod as we stood together in front of the contained fireplace alongside the fence. There were some other guys hanging around but not saying much. One of them handed me a beer, which I took reluctantly but appreciatively so that he wasn’t offended.
“Lucy has some friends around. They’re about to watch the rugby match on tonight in the lounge.”
That explained the beer.
“The rest of them are up in the loft if you wanna go up and meet them.”
I didn’t, but it seemed like Lucas was vaguely keen to mingle and the men down here weren’t supplying him with anything to talk about so I followed him up the staircase. The loft was quite a large room with a bed in the far corner and a kitchen sink and bench closest to the top of the staircase. A man and woman stood at the bench drinking some wine and chatting. They gave Lucas a smile and a nod, and a quick “hi” to me as we walked past and sat on a couple of empty seats next to a bookcase. Two guys sat on the bed talking and a woman was on a seat next to them.
“Nice room” I said to Lucas.
“Yeah, the owner of the house charges $170 a week for it.”
“Shit, really?”
“Yeah, but that’s apparently cheap compared to what you would pay for a place like this in somewhere like Auckland.”
I had no doubt about it, but I was still used to only paying seventy dollars a week for a place with two other people in it.
We sat for a while listening to other people’s conversations but it was mostly just talk about their work place and how much money they could be making if they worked somewhere else. No one seemed happy about their own jobs.
The subject of visualising positivity in the workplace and in everyday life suddenly sprang into existence with most of the guys saying that it was bullshit and the girls defending it on the basis of it having a positive impact on your outlook which affects everything you do.
Lucas mentioned that he was hoping that his positive visualisations of ‘receiving’ a million dollars were going to bleed into some aspect of one of his jobs.
I laughed but he seemed deadly serious.
I mentioned to Lucas that despite the terrible interview that I had been through (or even the ‘universe’ picking up my negative vibes), I got the four-hour-a-day job unloading laundry from a truck. He was a little surprised by this, because on last speaking to him, the weekend after the interview, he had pointed out that perhaps I hadn’t wanted the job so had subconsciously worked to destroy my chances of getting it, or something like that. I’m not entirely sure what my reply was, but I did mention that I wanted more money so that may have overridden the imperative to not work.
We continued to chat, mostly about these positive visualisations and whether they work or whether they are just manifestations of coincidence which we lock into and attribute feelings of successful thinking towards, and I started to notice that I had been txting Lisa at the same time about the DVDs she and Wendy had got out and whether or not I wanted to go over and watch Clueless with them (I didn’t). Lucas began talking to me about the party his friend Tina was planning a few weeks down the track and that she had said that it was fine if I came along. I quite specifically remember Lucas talking to me about it, and I with my cellphone in my left hand, txting messages to Lisa trying desperately to listen to Lucas at the same time. I had an inkling of an idea that this is where evil got its way in the subtlest manner.
Lucas probably never even thought twice about it. This sort of behaviour had become second-hand to him now and he had begun txting Tina to tell her that I was coming while relaying me any further messages that Tina had to tell us about.
“You want a bed or couch to sleep on?”
I sent Lisa a message about not wanting to watch chic-flicks unless they were thrillers or involved nudity. “I don’t mind. I can sleep on the floor if there’s not enough room.”
“Tina doesn’t really like people sleeping on the floor unless there’s a mattress. I think some of the other guys will probably take the spare mattresses and the couches.”
“I’ll take a bed then.”
Lisa replied with [ tpcal ] Somehow I doubted that she was going tell her new Christian friend Wendy what I had said. A second message came through: [ male nudity? ]
“Tina says you don’t need to bring anything unless you want your own drinks to drink but she has heaps of beer and some wine.”
“I’ll bring some chips.”
“Tina’s not a stoner either, so either take your own weed or have a sesh before hand. Cool?”
“Sweet.”
[ u’d be srprsd wat Wendys up 4! ]
Jesus fuck!
I suddenly realised, from viewing the whole thing through my peripheral vision, that here existed a scene that I had witnessed before as an outsider – watching other people as they carried out conversations while txting with heads hung low as though the chatter of voices surrounding them wasn’t enough to stave off the boredom of verbal communication – and despising what I saw. Yet now, here I was as an insider taking part – the only exception being that no one was there as an outsider to despise it except my own disconnected consciousness.
I could see Satan’s hand gently massaging my left shoulder, and there I was thinking how wonderful it felt to be such a connected part of the world around me.
The 2nd Chronicle
On the ninth day of February, with overachieving southerlies putting nails in the coffin of summer, I began txting a message while driving.
It could be argued that this is the ultimate betrayal of one’s own virtues towards a product that modern society has willed the dependency on of which is similar to that of a narcotic. Sure, the taste is sweet, like wine, and the spitting out is a necessity in order to savour the taste, but to swallow and let the product creep into your bloodstream like a vine twisting around a trellis is no better than injecting heroin directly into a vein.
I was on my way downtown in the hope of finding the new RPG for PC ‘Retaliation Street’, from the store ‘Game Me’ on the corner of Esk and Dee where Martin used to hang low key and earn some mon-ee …and when your album sales weren’t doing too good, who’s the Doctor they told you to go and see?
The game was being released simultaneously over the net and in stores, but I wanted it straight away and not have to wait an entire week for the game. As I was backing the car down the drive Martin sent me a txt asking me to grab an auxillary RCA plug.
[ sure ]
[ pay y back whn y rtrn ]
[ sweet ] I sent another message: [ gettn food on way ]
[ ask at counter whn wrld rifle chmp comes in. Is it same date 4 thm as on net ]
He wasn’t a big eater while playing games.
I pulled out of the drive and got to the supermarket in less than a minute managing to burn a bit of tread around a couple of the corners on my way. While I was standing at the checkout counter watching the completely bored checkout girl scan my terminal supplies (microwave pizza, chips and L&P), I received another message from Martin: [ shop closes at 2 tday. If y gonna b late I cn ring some1 else ]
I didn’t bother saying thank you to the checkout girl as she handed me my bag of food – she probably wouldn’t have cared anyway – and before I got a chance to reply to Martin’s txt I bumped into Peter I-have-no-idea-what-his-last-name-is-but-he’s-the-father-of-a-kid-that-attended-youth-camp-once and he began asking me how things were going and if I was still dealing with troubled kids through the church.
“Ummm, no. I don’t really have much to do with the church anymore. Kinda, wanted to try some other things, y’know…” I had forgotten to wear my cap and couldn’t hang my head low enough to hide my eyes. I didn’t want to stand around with all these people about.
“Y’ got anything on at the moment?”
“Ummm, nah, just some volunteer work.”
“Earning any money from that?”
“Nup.”
“Y’ wanna earn some money?”
I stood up straight. “What doing?”
“Working in my liquor store.”
I paused, for a second, but the money bells kept ringing in my head. “Sure.”
Peter was keen to point out that all I had to do was stand at the counter most of the time and serve customers while occasionally restocking the shelves, and with having contemplated temporary work at the meat-works just for the sake of earning a big wad of money in a short amount of time, I was very keen to hear him out – I had never liked the thought of my fingers in two pieces separated by a cleaver. So before parting company, we exchanged numbers – yes, cellphone numbers: they have a good use, I have never denied that, but so do drugs; it is the inherent evil that is hidden by a veil of goodly usefulness, flavour and appeal that brings upon the denial of their ability to subjugate the individual to their every whim; to suddenly ignore the demand for more expenses to be paid in order to alleviate the need and desire of a momentary high.
Upon entering my car I remembered that I hadn’t replied to Martin yet. I decided to txt him saying that I was on my way now, so that he wouldn’t need to ring anyone else. But of course, by the time this entire thought process had played itself out, I was already buckled in and on my way to the shop. So I resolved to txt him while driving, thus completely making a shambles of all I had thought and propounded as all the evils of the cellphone. There I was, in my car, right hand on the steering wheel, eyes on the road, left hand clasping the phone of death and moral decay – the fact that I hadn’t been caught for speeding, driving on the wrong side of the road, running red lights, driving the wrong way down one-way streets and just plain disregard for the rode code in general, doesn’t say much for my ability to carry the same moral principles over to other areas of my life! But still, I went forth with every intention of ignoring what I had once believed and began the process of taking glances at the phone to make sure I was keying in the right letters while keeping, what were getting progressively shorter and shorter, glances on where I was driving.
Okay, it’s fair to say that I got the whole thing done without killing myself. But the fact that I never thought about that, or even the slight chance of being involved, if not the cause of, a horrendous crash which could potentially (if Satan was lucky enough) destroy my computer game-playing days forever, just shows how much the phone had entwined itself around my life already and created a false sense of security that was nothing more than just a façade that allowed me to ignore all the dangers that were inherent in possessing such an object.
Just like Mum and alcohol: cellphones and cars do not go together at all!
A chronicle (marked as the 3rd)
[#]: [ Hi it emma what u up 2 ]
Me: [ playn new puta game. What u up to? Haha… ]
Emma: [ You will have to teach me smtm im havin lunch ]
Me: [ Sure ]
Emma: [ Ok sweet ]
Me: [ Who are you ]
Emma: [ Sum1 you know ]
Me: [ Who? ]
Emma: [ Emma ]
Me: [ I dont knw anyone called emma ]
Emma: [ k ]
Me: [ How’d you get my number? ]
Emma: [ Friends who know ppl who know ppl. ]
Emma: [ Heard you bit of rebel. ]
Me: [ No different than anyone else ]
Emma: [ You want to fuk ]
Me: [ U know who ur talking too? ]
Emma: [ Yup I sure do. U burn crosses cos u a rebel ]
Me: [ Nah. Just passionate bout what I believe in ]
Emma: [ U passionate bout sex? ]
Me: [ This getting weird ]
Emma: [ You like it weird? We can do all sorts of kinky stuff u want ]
Me: [ What? ]
Emma: [ Got friend who want 2 check out ur big balls haha. Takes balls 2 pick on sum1 who cant defend themself ]
Me: [ What are you talkin bout? ]
Emma: [ My friend wants to come ober an check out ur big balls ]
Me: [ What? ]
Emma: [ She turned on by you being rebel. Me too! 3 of us could fuk. Be real cool. Keen? ]
Me: [ What? ]
Emma: [ See you soon ]
But she didn’t turn up until later the next day. And when she did turn up I was seriously frightened. I wondered why she wouldn’t just come to the door and wondered if the reason she was staying in her car was because she had some Christian friend
s in the car who were going to jump me and beat the crap out of me as some kind of retribution for what I had done to the church. I know that some churches were aligned with each other, but I never thought it might extend to defending each other’s ‘honour’.
I sent a txt: [ I’m inside ]
Emma: [ I know ]
Me: [ Coming in? ]
Emma: [ Come out ]
Me: [ Why? ]
Emma: [ just come out ]
When I didn’t come out she started yelling abuse at the top of her voice with what must have been her friend joining in.
“Come out you cunt! What are you – a fuckin’ faggot?”
“Fuckin’ loser!”
“You fuckin’ wanker! Suck your own cock you fuckin’ shit hole!”
Emma: [ I’m outside fuk u ]
Me: [ Yeah that’s true ]
Emma: [ Don’t like having t wait 4 guys ]
Me: [ Don’t like th way u screaming shit at me. Y don’t u just come t door like normal person? ]
Emma: [ Coz im not nrml ]
[new #]: [ Y da fuk u nt cum ot an c my m8 r u gay? ]
Me: [ Just dont like being yelled at. ]
[new #]: [ u nt wanna fuk my frnd? ]
Me: [ nah. Kinda seems bit psycho. Not my type ]
At that point the voices began yelling again: “You fuckin’ asshole! You da psycho you faggot!”
“We’ll teach you to pick on Jesus!”
A male voice screamed “I’ll stab you ya’ fuckin’ cunt! Come out!”
I ran to the front door in a mad rush to lock it, but Tinsdale appeared in the hallway.
“Who the fuck is that psychotic bitch outside?”
“I don’t know.”
The screams were verging on hysterical. “You fuckin’ wanker! God is sending you to hell you prrrrrrrick!”
I Am The Local Atheist Page 26