I Am The Local Atheist (13 page)

“
Not all of them. And anyway, once you look past that, you see
that some of them actually are decent people.”

“
Even the dealers? Apparently they don’t care about other
people and kick them out of their homes.”

Lucas lit up a
cigarette. “I can’t speak for everyone.”

Christie
walked up to us. “I concur with Mr. Lucas-Anthony here – but not
with his smoking habit. I don’t condone the actions that put them
away in the first place, but I do condone giving them a second
chance, after all, isn’t that the Christian thing to do?”

I shrugged my
shoulders. “Guess so.”

Christie
continued on: “Well David, as an officer of The Salvation Army, I
believe that my actions have to be a reflection of those that would
be condoned by Jesus, so if Jesus has already shown me the example
of helping the poor and giving criminals a second chance, then that
is the example I will live by.” She turned to Lucas. “So if you
want someone to sit in the passenger seat while you load the van
up, then count me in. On one condition though: you have to put out
the cigarette.”

Lucas winked
at me, dropped the butt, stamped it out, spun around, and headed
for the driver’s seat.

Christie
leaned towards me. “Hey, in case I forget later on – Charge Up,
Friday night. See you there.” With that said she was in the
passenger seat of the van and the van was heading back down the
road towards the hostel.

I sat down on
a wooden seat amongst random bits of furniture and sighed.

Part VI

–
Charge Up
–

“
Oh no. Not these little blighters again.” Alice was halfway
through the front door with her head peering in at the kids running
around and throwing balls at each other over in the
hall.

Christie stood
inside the foyer with her arms folded but for one sarcastic finger
that was sticking out and waving at her. “Now, now Alice, they’re
not that bad. Just remember what you got taught in training
college.”

“
Gee, Christie, you might have to remind me. It was so long ago
I seem to have forgotten.”

Christie
smiled as she dropped her jaw. “You love it.”

Alice waved a finger back at her. “No,
you
love it. I’m just here to help
out.”

As the parents
dropped their kids off, Alice stood by the desk giving them each a
tag that had their name on it so the ones that weren’t regulars
would know who everyone was. Even the leaders had their own tag.
‘Wonder-girl Alice’ made up a makeshift one for me that said ‘King
David’.

“
Isn’t that a little sacrilegious” I asked?

“
No, of course not. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded of who
we are and where we come from. Sometimes certain situations seem to
lead me further back in The Bible and I ask myself ‘What would
David do?’”

Run for his life?
I could feel my
feet itching to move.

She attached
the tag to my shirt. “Even as a king, David was a pretty flawed man
and he suffered temptation, probably worse than any of us, but he
put his faith in God and God came through for him. I try to
remember that always, especially on those days when I really feel
like I’ve let Jesus down, sometimes in the worst possible ways.”
She frowned but tried to smile through it.

Shit, I felt a
lump in my throat rise, so I turned away taking a huge breath and
moved into the room where ‘Squeaky Clean Christie’ was trying to
herd the children into two lines so she could number them off.
‘Lucky Luke’ ended up yelling at them at the top of his voice “Get
in line – NOW!!!” Within seconds they were in two lines and
Christie was numbering their heads.

Lucas walked
over to me grinning madly. “I love this job!”

Christie had
split them all into two groups sending each to opposite ends of the
room. Alice helped set up a goal at one end using orange cones
while Christie did the goal at the other end. Two cardboard batons
were placed on the floor in the middle of the room with a plastic
ball in between them.

“
What’s happening?” I asked Lucas.

“
It’s a variation on indoor hockey. Well, basically the same
thing but only one member of each team has a go at a
time.”

“
Right.”

“
Wanna play?”

“
No.”

Christie
looked over at us. “David and Lucas, you go on this team as numbers
11 and 12. I’ll go on the other team as 12 and Alice will be the
referee.”

Lucas slapped
his hands together. “Sweet!”

I sighed, but
followed him to the other side of the room where our group of
children were practically climbing the walls just waiting to
start.

Alice backed
off to one side of the ‘playing field’ and yelled out “alright,
everyone ready? What number’s first?”

Screams from
all around were fired at her to call their number first, begging
and pleading from mouths that had no idea what asking nicely meant.
It was sheer chaos of noise.

She looked up
at the ceiling pretending to decide which number she should pick
first, using her fingers to count them off. This only caused more
yelling and pleading. Finally she yelled “the number to go first…
is…” (long pause while the children waited anxiously) “…7!”

One boy from
each team ran wildly to the centre, picked up a baton each and
began swinging madly at the ball barely missing each other in the
process. The ball flew into the air with the batons still swinging
at it causing it to fire off to the left. The two boys chased after
it, knocking it this way and that as they battled to get the ball
under control while the rest of their teams looked on in
excitement, cheering each team member on and trying to put the
other one off. The game took them all over the room, until finally
one of the kids got the better angle, took a lunging swing and
knocked the ball through the goal at our end. Cries of joy from his
team – cries of disappointment from ours. Nuts, absolutely
nuts.

The kids took
the ball back to the centre, placed their batons down each side and
moved back to their teams.

“
3!”

And the game
was on again with two other team members battling with the springy
ball and not paying much attention to what Alice had just said
about the off-limit area. This time the kid on my team got the
goal. Next up was number 12 which was Lucas and Christie. They
battled without much mercy, Christie giving Lucas a good push out
of the way which caused cries of illegal play from our team which
Alice pretended to consider while Lucas got her back by putting a
foot in with the batons, hooking it up over her head like a soccer
player and using the baton to push it the rest of the way through
the goal. She was left standing in the middle with her hands on her
hips, but gave him a good whack on the leg as he passed by on his
way back to our end.

“
Rather violent game don’t you reckon?”

Lucas laughed.
“It’s all in good fun. Kids love the competition.”

This point was
amply proven as each kid waved their batons at the ball, girls
constantly getting annoyed at the ball not going in the direction
they intended, boys not caring what direction the ball went in so
long as it went in a direction, and as hard and fast as possible.
Some near-misses included lights, microphone stands, the stereo
system, service plaques (“always seem to forget those are on the
wall” Alice said dryly later on), and in one case, not a miss at
all but a direct hit: the cross up on the wall. A kid hit the ball
so hard that it flew into the air, ricocheted off the cross and
bounced through our goal. A great cheer arose with Christie raising
her fists in the air and yelling at us “Jesus is on our side!”

Alice hung her
head.

Christie went
back to psyching her team up some more.

Lucas turned
around. “Alright, guys, we gotta get this next goal. No more
playing nice - do whatever it takes!”

But the next
number Alice called was 11. And I wasn’t prepared for how violent a
little six year old kid could be. He ran to the centre, I jogged;
we both got there at the same time. We picked up our batons and
after his first swing which connected with the ball, he just kept
swinging so the baton was batting my legs furiously. I managed to
escape suddenly, finding the ball lying to the side of us, so I
went after it as he chased behind attacking my legs. I got close to
the goal, but all of a sudden he dived between my legs, landed on
the ball laughing like a maniac and then started rolling the other
way with the ball clung tight to his stomach.

Damn it! Lucas
had said do anything. I ran up to our end, stood in front of the
goal with my arms hanging down waiting to scoop the kid up. His
laughing body rolled right into my arms and I lifted him up over my
shoulder and ran down to the other end, depositing his body down
between the goal.

My team
cheered loudly, his team booed wildly. Christie was laughing
uncontrollably.

I felt
exhausted.

But I was
smiling.

I was smiling
a lot.

I was smiling
so much that I gave Lucas and every kid in my team a high five. I
hadn’t smiled like this in ages. Well, at least since that time I
kicked Tinsdale’s ass in a championship race! This felt good though
– so good – even if I was too tired to jump all over the room,
unlike that night back at the flat during one of our console wars,
which culminated in my eventual defeat of Tinsdale – probably only
because he wasn’t really a hardcore gamer. But needless to say, I
took the win like a true champion!

Christie saw
me smiling and scrunched her nose up. Lucas patted me on the back.
“Great fun eh?”

I couldn’t
help laughing. “Yeah, yeah it is.” For once, actually, in a long
time, I felt less weight on my shoulders, like some of the
frustrations of the past had been drained away and a kind of
happiness was taking shape instead.

Alice gathered
everyone into a circle around her and placed her hands on her
knees. Several kids climbed all over Lucas and dragged him down to
a sitting position so they could listen to Alice while using him as
a pillow.

“
Okay guys, we’re going to move ourselves into the other room
so we can write our special prayer notes. Remember to think of
someone special in your life that you want to pass really, really,
really positive thoughts onto. They could be someone in your
family, someone you want to say ‘thank you’ to, or someone you know
is having a rough time and needs some positivity. Can someone give
me an example of what a really, really, positive thought could
be?”

One kid put up
their hand. “Being nice.”

“
Definitely!” Alice replied.

Another child
put up a hand. “Don’t swear.”

“
Not swearing is definitely a positive thing.”

All the other
kids caught on and started calling out:

“
Don’t hurt people.”

“
Don’t punch anyone.”

“
I hate it when people punch.”

“
I hate it when people say mean things

“
Don’t say mean things!”

“
My sister says mean things.”

“
My Mum says ‘Don’t sit in front of the computer for too
long’.”

I rolled my
eyes.

“
Don’t do drugs.”

“
Don’t steal.”

Alice nodded.
“Don’t steal – that is great. What happens if you steal?”

“
It means you go to prison.”

“
Yeah, that can definitely happen. But what if someone stole
something from you, like your favourite toy that you play with all
the time, and you could no longer play with ever again? Would you
be angry?”

“
Yes.”

“
I’d feel pretty hurt too. Does anyone here like feeling hurt,
like when someone is mean to you?”

“
No.”

“
So stealing isn’t very good then is it? Anyone want to go to
prison?”

“
Nooooo!!!”

Alice swept
her hands through the air. “That’s really great to hear. What your
prayer notes are going to be are positive thoughts, or just to wish
someone a happy day filled with lots of good things. Write whatever
ideas you have on the piece of paper that we’ve got out there for
you with crayons, felts or pens, and make it bright and colourful.
When you finish writing or colouring in, fold it up – no need to
show it to anyone – and take it home and say that prayer to God
before you go to bed. Seems like a pretty simple task, eh?”

“
Yes,” some kids said.

“
Well, get to it then and we’ll bring out the food after
everyone’s finished!”

They all
jumped up and ran out into the other room, except Lucas, who had to
rise laboriously with three kids still attached and stomp his way
into the hall where the paper and pens were.

Christie,
Alice and I followed behind and stood to one side as he helped them
get to work and listen to some of them tell him if the person they
had chosen was a good choice.

“
Sounds good to me” he would offer. “If I was in that
situation, I would certainly like some love in my life.”

Christie
looked over at him in awe. “Lucas does such great work for the
church, and it’s all voluntary. It’s so amazing.”

Alice saw the
way she was looking at him. “Try not too get too enamoured. I know
what you’re thinking, but first he has to be converted.”