I Am The Local Atheist (18 page)

Lucas patted
me gently on the shoulder. “It’s okay” he whispered in my ear. “I
feel your pain.”

The man with
the dreads propped a foot up on one of the trolleys. “Yo Phil. I’ll
finish this last trolley if y’ want. I’m just gonna hang around and
have a ciggy. Sweet as? I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

“
No probs.”

The man with
the dreads lit up a cigarette while the other overalled man left
the scene.

I waited for
Lucas to move first and then followed him out from behind the
barrels as he walked briskly towards the dumpster, cigarette in
hand.

“
Jim!”

The man looked
up at him. “Yo. What strange creatures present themselves from the
shadows of night?”

“
What the fuck are you talking about?”

He turned to
me, eyelids half closed. “Hey bro, what’s hapnin’?”

Lucas grabbed
one of his shoulders, getting his attention. “Got the
overalls?”

“
Nah bro.” He waved his arms randomly in the air. “They’re over
there.”

“
Where?”

“
You know bro.”

Lucas thought
for a moment. “Are you high?”

“
What!?” His face screwed up. “Dude, do you know what it’s like
being high in this place?”

“
No I don’t.”

I looked
around at the building imagining what it must have been like with
all those shiny lights and high ceilings…

“
Man, it takes like forever to do anything. Shit, I made that
mistake once when me mate baked some muffins before I went to work,
and they kicked in when I was here, and man I swear I worked for
twice as long at everything I did! Urghh shit. It
sucks.”

“
So you don’t have the overalls?”

“
Nah, mate they still where they usually are. You want me to
get them?”

Lucas took a
deep breath. “No, Jim. It’s fine. You just keep an eye out and let
us know if anyone is about to come out of the main factory.”

“
Yeah, cheers bro, I can do that.”

“
Sweet.”

“
Grab some chocolate while you’re over there bro. It’s
nice.”

I followed
Lucas as he turned towards the factory entrance and began his brisk
walk again, flicking his cigarette off to his left. I followed the
glow of ash as it sailed through the air and landed somewhere near
where we had previously been kneeling around the oil-stained
barrels.

Lucas turned
back to me. “Smoke-free area.”

“
Ummmm…”

He took a
quick glance back at Jim before we walked inside and turned left.
“Fuck, if that guy ain’t an advertisement for why not to do drugs,
then I don’t know what is.”

Or at least
the aerosol can!

The blue
overalls hung over some opened lockers. There were cute little
white covers for your shoes if you wanted but I opted for the big
black gumboots instead. We trotted back out to the dumpster where
Jim was sitting on an upside down plastic rubbish bin. I looked
over towards the barrels where we had been kneeling, looking for a
flame, or a spark; any sign that I should run for cover before the
barrels exploded and ended this mission prematurely, but there was
nothing, just the darkness that had hid us so well.

I turned back
to see Jim holding a finished roll of toilet paper stuffed with
tissue at his mouth while the free hand brought up a can and
started spraying into the open end of the roll. Jim took huge
breaths, dragging the fumes into his lungs. I guessed that the
tissue was to stop the liquid spray from going into the mouth, but
still allow the fumes to pass through the roll and into the mouth
where they were inhaled down into the lungs.

Lucas slapped
on his thin rubber gloves. “Thanks for watching out for us.”

Jim lifted his
head slightly, eyes half closed. “Yeah, nah, it all good mate.
Coast is clear.”

He went back
to spraying and taking huge breaths through the roll.

“
Dude,” I said. “What is that?”

“
It’s cleaning agent. Industrial strength. Man, way better than
the standard fly-spray bro – that shit’s for juniors.”

I wanted to
help him, I wanted to stop him, but I didn’t know how. I started to
say “Jim, you don’t need to do this…” but Lucas cut in.

“
Don’t worry about him David. Let’s just get these jam tarts
and croissants in our bags.”

“
I can’t not worry about him, though.”

“
He’s fucked David. There’s nothing you can do.

But he could
be helped if someone cared enough. I thought I did – or at least I
thought I had. “Jim…”

Lucas grabbed
my arm and moved me away. “You can’t help him. Just forget about
him, okay. Guys like that are fucked and aren’t worth wasting your
time on.”

Emptiness
dissolved what I had been feeling inside.

“
Bring the bag closer.”

I turned away
and held my bag open for Lucas as he climbed into the dumpster and
began loading wrapped up jam tarts into my bag. I didn’t like the
fact that they had been in the dumpster but I had to admit the
tarts were still wrapped up and completely clean.

I turned my
head to look at Jim. He was staring into nowhere space. Sadly, I
knew all to well what that was like. I just found it astounding
that he had opted for such a brain destroying chemical high.

I heard the
sound of food hitting the concrete ground.

“
For fucks sake David!”

The bag had
moved out of place, and food had fallen right past the bag and
landed on the ground.

“
Keep the bag still and in the same place. Got it?”

“
Sweet as” I said a little bit scared. I had never heard Lucas
get that angry before.

Jim spoke up.
“Yo, I think someone’s coming.”

A door slammed
in the shed.

Lucas grabbed
the bag, jumped out of the dumpster, ran for the barrels and dived
in behind where we had first hid ourselves, sparks flaring up
followed by the sound of his hands patting desperately against his
legs.

“
Shit, shit, shit,” I heard him mumble.

His quick
reactions took me by surprise. I began to follow but my foot
slipped on a piece of pastry that had fallen to the ground causing
me to slide backwards and hit the dumpster. Just as the sound of my
head hitting the metal thudded into the night, a man walked out
from inside the storage area and saw me lying on the ground. I had
no idea of what I should do – he looked like one of the posted
guards we were trying to eliminate, yet here I was void of any
weapons, and sprawled on the ground like a retard ready for him to
come up and put a bullet in me. I panicked. My weapons had been
detained in the previous mission, my fighting skills weren’t at an
advanced enough level to deal with this situation, and my health
was dropping considerably from the knock on my head. I didn’t know
what to do, so I did what I always do when faced with these
situations: I moved my right hand from the mouse to the F7 button
where I could reload this entire mission from the start…

Oh Shit
! I looked at the concrete
beneath my hands – real concrete! Not a pixelated image. I
scrambled to get to my feet clutching at the very real pain in my
head. There was no time to run. The man was beside me and staring
into my eyes with an angry expression on his face.

“
What the fuck are you doing out here?”

“
Ummm, ahhh…”

“
Yo.” It was Jim. “He helping me to empty some rubbish. Got a
bit tired so I sat down.” One of his hands was behind his
back.

The man looked
at him. “Ya fuckin’ lazy cunt Jim. Hurry up and get back to work.”
He turned to me, angrier and far more expressive. “I’ve never seen
your flat-face before. You new?”

“
Yeah,” I said.

“
Well, don’t listen to anything this dumb motherfucker here has
to say alright? He doesn’t know shit.”

“
Sure.”

“
As soon as you’re done here get back inside to where you’re
supposed to be. I’m fuckin’ sick of dealing with you lazy shits on
my shift.” He turned and walked away, shaking his head. “Fuckin’
part-timers.”

I looked down
at Jim and said “thanks”.

He rocked a
bit and nodded, staring into the distance.

Lucas peeked
his head up over the barrels. “Coast clear?”

“
Yeah.”

He raised himself up holding the bag in the air and pointing
to it. “
Alright
!”
he said with a big smile on his face. “We done did ourselves a
sweet as theft!”

Part IV

–
Debrief
–

Lisa:
[ had lunch? ]

Me:
[ no ]

Lisa:
[ wanna grab sub? ]

I wasn’t
particularly hungry. I still had a tray’s worth of croissants and
jam tarts to try to finish and Tinsdale and Martin weren’t that
keen to help out after I told them where I got them from. The ‘how
I got them’ impressed Tinsdale to no end – he was almost patting me
on the back for being such a sneaky bastard; but the ‘where I got
them from’ made them both turn their heads away, even after I
explained that they had still been wrapped up when we fished them
out of the rubbish bin. “I’m highly disappointed Martin. You of all
people, a struggling student with a low income, turning down free
food.”

I saw indecision on his face, a moment of panic in his eyes
–
what should I do? Eat or not
eat?

“
Oh, come on! This shit here is fresher than anything you could
buy at the supermarket. These jam tarts have come straight from the
cream-squirter’s hands!”

This only made
the two of them crack up with laughter. “Yeah, what other cream
were they squirting?”

“
Is it that same ‘special’ cream that other fast-food places
use?”

“
Because that always
comes
straight from the cream-squirter’s
hand!”

They both
returned their attention to the TV. My attention went back to what
I had to try to get through on my own.

unless
…

[ jam tart?
]

[ what? ]

[ I hav fresh
tarts an croissants if u want sum ]

[ nah, keen on
da sub ]

Damn.

Lisa shone like gold. I thought it might just have been the
sun reflecting off the rain soaked pavements as she walked across
the square, but when she stood before me, I couldn’t help thinking
about how I had once held her in my own arms; I couldn’t help
thinking about everything that I had done for her since we first
met. Today saw a smile on her face like the smiles I had started
seeing after Jesus had entered her life and filled her with a love
that was unconquerable. It was the kind of smile that had put aside
all the problems of the past and was ready to take on life with new
enthusiasm. I had seen similar smiles in others, they too had found
the love that they had been searching so long for. Now I wasn’t so
sure that
that
love was all that unconquerable. It was failing me, or I was
failing it; either way, I was feeling like the proverbial atheist
on the fast track to hell.

“
Hey. What’s up?”

“
Not much.”

I had needed
to get out of the flat anyway. “Where’re your friends today?”

“
Oh, they’re just hangin’ out at home. I kinda wanted to do
some stuff by myself.”

“
Right.”
And you couldn’t eat lunch by
yourself?

We walked into
Subway and ordered our meals, sitting down in the corner at Lisa’s
suggestion.

I began
chomping away on my food, though Lisa was a little bit more
reserved.

“
So, what have you been up to?” she asked.

“
Not much. Just doing some work here and there.”

“
Cool.”

I didn’t think
it was cool. It fuckin’ sucked. “What about you?”

“
Yeah, I haven’t been doing much either. Just looking into some
things.”

I didn’t want
to know what she had been looking into.

“
How’s y’ mum?”

I didn’t want
to answer this question. Not honestly anyway. “She’s okay.”

“
Do you still talk to each other?”

“
Of course.” I must have looked annoyed because she went back
to eating her sub as though it was a welcome distraction. I started
picking out the olives that I had made a mistake of ordering. They
had a tangy flavour that stuck on my tongue and ruined anything
else that was put in my mouth. I wish I had remembered not to order
them but Lisa had stood beside me making me nervous and all of a
sudden I wasn’t thinking about what I wanted to eat, but what we
were going to talk about after we sat down. Right now I didn’t like
where it was heading.

She watched as
I scuttled the olive slices to one side of the wrapper before
taking in a sudden breath and saying “I don’t really talk to my dad
anymore.”

“
Congratulations” I said without any enthusiasm. “I haven’t
spoken to or even heard from my dad since they kicked me out of
church.”

“
They didn’t kick you out of church David.”

“
They did everything but. I felt like I had no choice left but
to leave. They couldn’t tolerate me the way I was.”