I Am The Local Atheist (27 page)

“
No I guess not.” She thought for a moment. “So it
was
drug
related?”

I shrugged my
shoulders. “Sure, why not? Just like every other suicide in the
world. Blame it on the drugs, it’s always the drug’s fault. Look,
it happened after I had been kicked out of the church. There isn’t
really anything else I can tell you. Why do you even care?”

“
I don’t know.”

I knew she
knew though, if not consciously, then at least subconsciously –
people don’t persistently ask questions because they ‘don’t
know’.

After a pause
to look out the window and perhaps to contemplate her answer, she
asked, “Don’t you think it sucks that there isn’t any better
answer? Rather than just what the papers had to say?”

“
Sure, but sometimes you just have to accept these things and
let them be.” I wasn’t going to bother giving her the ol’ ‘it was
her time and she’s in God’s hands now’ shit – not after having got
that sort of talk for so long through my own life. And especially
with the case of a suicide – God wants the person so he drives them
to suicide? No, it was never ‘time’ for a suicide, but the act does
leave the soul in the hands of the almighty regardless. And
besides, the fact that Lisa hadn’t just left this subject to lie
meant there was something deep inside of her that really needed to
know the unanswered questions. But I had no idea of what that was.
Lisa had survived her ordeal, had walked that close to the edge and
made it back; it didn’t make sense that she wouldn’t understand why
another person had stepped over the edge if she had been there
herself.

I shrugged my
shoulders. “Well, I feel like you’re wasting your time asking me
questions. After what happened with me at church, and everyone had
finally shown me just where they stood, I turned my back and tried
to forget everything that had ever happened.”

She looked at
me with some sense of regret in her eyes. Perhaps it was just pity,
but I think there was a mutual feeling of letting the conversation
end there. And besides, I was getting a serious bout of the
munchies, so I told her that I was going to go and grab something
to eat.

“
Yeah, that’s cool David. I’m so glad you decided to come
anyway. I’ve kinda been here for a while, going through the old
newspapers, but there was so little said in the papers about it. So
weird.”

“
No one likes a depressing story,” I said without much
sympathy.

She grumbled
annoyance but I don’t think she was serious about it.

I wanted out.
I needed food and fresh air, and being in a building wasn’t doing
any good for my comedown. “I’m gonna take off now. We should catch
up again sometime.”

She smiled.
“Yeah definitely.”

I stood up
giving a curt smile and then left. As I cruised down the escalator
I couldn’t help looking through the huge windows, seeing her still
seated in the same place, leaning her head against the back of the
chair, reaching a hand up and rubbing her eyes. The floor passed
over her as tall green pot-plants came into my field of vision. I
felt as though that whole conversation had been a comedown all on
its own. I knew what I’d be doing when I got back to the flat.

Part IV

–
Indifference
–

Tonight at
work I robotasised myself.

I had to – the
job was so dull that I could do nothing but turn my mind into a
working machine that turned the cogs and levers of my body for me.
Later I became a transfer station. There I was required to transfer
boxes of frozen food product from a conveyor to stacked piles
inside a steel container.

I didn’t care
much for what the ‘frozen product’ was. I could have assumed it was
bakery, but there was other stuff happening at the plant, like
sauces and spreads, so for all I knew, these boxes could have
actually contained packets of cocaine getting ready to be
transferred around New Zealand; could have even been boxes of
illegal horse meat; hell, it could have been boxes of body parts –
my co-worker did look pretty suspicious in that respect. His shifty
eyes, his brow almost sweating under the pressure of being found
out…

The boxes were
carried along a small conveyor belt from the freezers and then down
a roller belt into my arms and with a simple swing of the body the
box was in its place down on the floor or on top of other boxes
that had already covered the floor of the steel container. This
became less simple as the pile got higher and my arms had to work
harder to push the momentum of the boxes up rather than straight
across or down. A few boxes were missed and fell onto the floor
before I could grab them, but I didn’t really care.

I had stopped
caring a long time ago. It was too late to pretend that a simple
job like this was going to make any difference, that plonking a
leaflet in front of Mum was going to make any difference. I didn’t
even care that I was working for minimum wage – it wasn’t like the
job demanded anything more from me. Each new job became nothing
more than a simple experience, something to give my physical body
something to do, something to help me forget my past and forget
what I had once been, to even forget what I had become. None of it
mattered anymore; not my life, not this job, not the city and least
of all a world that couldn’t solve its own problems. I was just one
person who had little to offer any of it. I couldn’t even pretend
that I could make a difference.

For so many
years I had paraded an air of caring and sharing all the while
preaching concern about the unfortunate, the suffering, and that it
will end when every single one of us makes the effort to change the
world for the better. But who was listening? And who cared? I can
honestly say that I had once cared, but I had once also had a forum
and an audience to help me care through. Now I just had boxes of
frozen food, body parts and cocaine rolling down the line and
swinging off the ends of my arms into big steel containers to be
shipped to another country where Capitalism makes greed a virtue
for the poor to envy.

That’s all
I
had. Work and a wage.

A minimum
wage.

I thought
about the fourteen dollars every hour I was earning while standing
around waiting for the co-worker on the other end of the line to
load the conveyor belt with more boxes; I thought about those slave
labourers in some far away country working for five cents an hour,
stitching up the shoes that I wore to work this morning. Did I
care?

I couldn’t have cared less! Not my problem. Their fault for
getting such a shitty low paying job. Fuck, I had it sweet! I stood
around for about half an hour waiting to be told to do something,
waiting for other workers to get their shit into gear, waiting for
supervisors to figure out the instructions that had come down to
them from management – I earned myself seven dollars in that half
hour. I wouldn’t have traded that for a five cent job
ever
– would
you?

* * *

I got moved
around a lot, which helped relieve some of the boredom, but most of
the jobs just didn’t have anything going for them so most of the
time I was working while checking around corners to see if I could
spot Lucas. We hardly saw each other which kinda bummed me out,
because everyone else I talked to didn’t have anything interesting
to say at all. I’d tell them what I used to do before this and
they’d smile and say “oh, that’s nice” or “good on ya” and smile
generously before turning back to reading their newspaper as if
they actually regretted asking me in the first place. I came to
despise talking to people, so I started shrugging dismissively
whenever I was asked something.

Word got
around the factory that I didn’t want to be spoken to so the only
people who spoke to me were the ones that had to teach me a new
job. And Lucas, but I saw so little of him that it didn’t really
matter.

All I wanted
to do was bend and twist the fat blunt-like rolls of pastry into
crab-like claws as fast as I could; cut the thick trail of cookie
dough into fat slabs or pack the slabs into boxes – whichever job
they gave me; mix and cook the sauces in large bowls that required
two people each to attend to; take left over trash to the dumpster
that I had once stolen from; and take a break in my car while
listening to ‘Harvester of Sorrow’ and letting myself fall asleep
for much longer than the allocated time I had been given.

I had to admit
that I hated this job the most and had finally got to the point
where I wanted out. I wanted out of it all.

Pure black
looking clear

My work is
done soon here.

Part V

–
One Friday night
–

“
I need a break.”

Lucas raised
his eyebrows. “Half an hour smoko-break not enough for you?”

I smiled. “I
need to do something that isn’t work-related. Just cruise the
streets or something. Shit, maybe even get drunk.”

He looked astounded. “Really?” But it was all mockery. “I
never thought I’d hear
you
David say ‘I need to get drunk’. Stoned – yes;
drunk – not so much.”

“
Well, y’ know, as much as I hate what alcohol does to people,
sometimes it’s nice to have a couple of cold ones.”

He looked out
the window. “Yeah, nothing like a cold one on a cold Wintry day!
Tina’s having that party soonish and that’s out Winton way, if
you’re still keen.”

“
The one you told me about after I got the job at the Laundry
Rentals?”

“
Yeah that’s the one. Her partner’s got some time off from work
and is keen to pitch in with the food and stuff.”

“
Yeah, sounds cool.” I remember we had talked about it a little
while back after Tinsdale had invited his mates over one night and
I decided to visit Lucas on a whim. “But I guess I need something a
little sooner, just to break from the monotony of the work at this
place.”

“
Yeah, true. It’s pretty boring, but money is money. I think
once I save a little I’ll quit, coz there’s only so much a person
can take of this kind of work.”

“
So you wanna do a night out on the town?”

“
Sure man, I could do with a break myself I guess.”

“
Cool. We should meet up at the Frat maybe.”

“
Cool. Meet you there at 8ish?”

“
Yeah, sure.”

The
Fraterniser supplied us with drinks. Some pretty expensive drinks.
And neither of us got close to being drunk, but both our wallets
had still managed to suffer damage from the prices.

At that point,
we were still too sober to make any suggestive eye contact with any
of the females in the room, so we decided to walk the streets
instead. This became a pretty depressing case of ‘why did we bother
to go out in the first place’ after seeing bars half-empty and the
occasional night-club blasting out techno beats in an attempt to
sound busy and exciting, but not even the bouncers on the doors
could convince us that this was the actual case – their bored looks
confirmed our diverging trajectories. Neither of us could honestly
say that we were willing to spend an extra five bucks to get on a
dance floor where pink and yellow lights circled the area as two
females dressed in skimpy dresses danced to the sound of high
pitched break beats while their potential one night stands goggled
them with far drunker but more confident and alluring eyes. Man I
hated the night life. I’d stare at the vomit stains on the
footpath, wrappers in the gutter, beer bottles casually snuck
behind doors or just smashed against walls and almost ache to be
back in my room staring at the screen of my computer involving
myself in a far more challenging pursuit. I had wanted a break from
work, but this wasn’t it.

No money, no
beer, no drunk, no fun, no girls.

11:45 p.m.

Bored in
Invercargill.

Hanging around
the front of a 24/7 watching people get drunker, more abusive and
staggering from one pub to another.

“
Hey – Yous smoke?”

Lucas flicked
out a cigarette for the man who had separated from his two friends
by the crossing to come over and talk to us. He laughed as Lucas
pushed the box towards him. “Na, na – You know where to get happy
time?”

What the fuck?
I looked at the guy a
little confused. “I’m not into pills, sorry.”

“
Na, na – smoke? Eh?” He leaned over my shoulder. “I’s smell
it. It good, no?” He stepped back nodding and winking. The two
other men were now standing by him smiling some very cheesy
smiles.

I turned my
head and lifted the shoulder of my shirt up to smell it. Shit, it
actually smelt like pot. This guy had Class-C sniffer dog senses!
“Umm, yeah, I could probably get you some if you want.”

“
Weez like that much.”

“
Okay.” Suddenly my night out on the town didn’t seem so
boring. “Look, I’ll tell you what. I have to go and get it first
okay?”

“
Yeah man.”

“
But it’s going to cost you thirty dollars for a
tinny.”

“
Sure dude. It good?”

“
It’s the best.” That was highly debatable, but if there was
one thing I had learnt from Tinsdale, it was that y’ gotta sell
yourself as the best anyway otherwise the deal might not go
through. “Alright,” I said turning to Lucas. “Do you wanna hang
with these guys?”