I Am The Local Atheist (7 page)

“
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.”