I Am The Local Atheist (28 page)

“
Not really. I’ll come with you.”

That wasn’t
the right answer. He was supposed to stay with them and txt me as
soon as he thought it might turn into a bad deal, like if they were
undercover cops or something, giving me the heads up and taking off
himself, but I hadn’t had time to consider the fact that Lucas had
probably never done a deal before. “Okay.” I paused, not knowing
what else to say. I turned back to the gentlemen. “You guys wanna
hang here until we get back?”

“
Yeah, that good. See you soon.”

“
Right.”

Lucas and I
drove back to my place. I went to the wooden pencil case beside my
bed, slid the lid open and took out the bag, sizing it up – quite
happy that there would still be a hefty quarter ounce or so left
after the operation – extracted just over a gram, put the rest of
the bag back in the pencil case, and began rolling a tinny in some
tinfoil I had lying around.

“
You look pretty skilled in the art of rolling.”

“
I’m not a seller – it’s not something that I … agree with,
particularly. But I’m too bored to question my own standards. I’ve
just seen it done a lot. And anyway, it’s not like rolling a fag –
I can’t do that for shit. Tried and failed.”

He waited
patiently, looking about my room. I was glad my bible was lying in
the bottom of my rubbish bin where I had dumped it with a mighty
heft after the youth group had been taken away from me. It was
hidden under a massively overflowing pile of scrunched up pieces of
paper.

“
You like that band?” He was looking up at the poster of
Ecclesiastic Seal.

“
No, not really.”

“
Oh.”

“
I knew someone once who liked them. They gave the poster to
me.”

“
And you stuck it up on the ceiling.”

“
They
stuck it up on the ceiling. I
just can’t be bothered taking it down.”

“
Right.”

“
I don’t mind listening to the music, just not a fan, that’s
all.”

He grunted.
“You like Christian music?”

He was
definitely prying. I looked over at the rubbish bin with its year’s
worth of overflowing balls of paper. “I like music. Some of it
verges on being Christian, some of it verges on not being
Christian, some of it is and some of it isn’t. You can’t tell me
that you don’t like all music that contains Christian themes or
lyrics.”

“
Sure I can. I have no interest in listening to Christian
music. It’s just the same shit over and over.”

“
You like Black Sabbath?”

“
Yeah, man, who doesn’t. But they ain’t a Christian
band.”

“
That they may not be, but read the lyrics to ‘After Forever’
and you’ll see that even they were willing to pursue Christian
themes in their music.” I looked at him with raised eyebrows as I
twisted the last end of the tinny. “There are other songs as well,
including the classic ‘War Pigs’. I mean, fuck, I’m not gonna stop
listening to Led Zeppelin because some of the songs they covered,
like ‘In My Time of Dying,’ contained Christian lyrics. I’m not
saying that it’s Christian music per se, I’m just saying that I
don’t care what kind of music it is – it could be openly devil
worshipping music – but if it’s catchy, I’m probably gonna listen
to it. I mean, I can’t stand Classical music, but if I hear
something by Beethoven that I like, then it’s not like I won’t
listen to it just because it falls under the umbrella of ‘Classical
music’.”

“
Guess not.”

“
Right then,” I said feeling pretty stoked with myself for
exposing such a weak one-sided point-of-view out of Lucas…
Him, not me, this time!
“Let’s go do some drug dealing!”

I pushed the
tinny into my wallet as we made our way back to the car.

We arrived at
the corner of the 2-4 with the men nowhere in site. I looked all
around us, over the road, even walking out onto the road a little
as dickheads drove past yelling drunken abuse. I looked up and down
the main street but couldn’t see a group of three men anywhere.
“Shit, where did they go?”

I went back to
where Lucas was standing and suggested we walk around the
block.

We walked down
the street past the picture theatre, turning left at the corner and
spotting, what looked to me like, a hot-dog vending van on the side
of the road with our three men standing in front of it conversing
with people inside who we couldn’t see. “Never seen that hot-dog
stand before.”

“
It’s not a hot-dog stand” Lucas said as we got closer. “It’s
The Salvation Army doing their Friday night rounds offering food to
the drunken and disorderly to try to sober them up and keep them
out of trouble.”

I stopped
immediately. “Are you serious?”

He halted as I
inched closer to some parked cars on the side of the road.

“
Yeah, man. They go out every Friday to try to prevent alcohol
abuse by offering free food to people who need to sober
up.”

“
Oh,” I said, a little concerned about what I had on me. I
reached an arm out to pull him back behind a parked car with me.
“This would look real bad if we were seen dealing drugs in front of
The Salvation Army.”

He looked at
me not really getting what I meant, then caught a whiff of it and
clicked. “Oh! Yeah, true.”

We positioned
ourselves behind the cars in a semi crouched manner. I kept a
vigilant eye behind me and over the road in case any cop cars
rolled by and spotted us looking highly suspicious.

“
Do you think there’s anyone in the van that you
know?”

“
Probably. I’ve kinda got to know a few more than just Alice
and Christie. It’s probably a good bet that Alice is in there
though.”

“
Hmmm, I wonder if we can get the guys’ attention without
anyone else noticing.”

“
Yeah that would be good. Want me to try waving my arms a bit,
just enough for them to see but not the people in the
van?”

“
Yeah, we could try that.”

He did,
looking pretty stupid, but it worked. They spotted us, yelled out
“Hey friends!” with Lucas drastically giving signals to ‘hush’ and
‘come over this way’ before they finally made some goodbye sounds
to whoever was in the van and headed toward us laughing.

“
Guys! How you do?”

“
Yeah sweet man, come around the corner with us.”

We led them
across the road and around the other side of a building where it
was dark and shady and not too obvious. I showed them the tinnies,
they showed me the money; the deal went down and everyone was
happy.

I declined to
join them in a puff, but I waited for them to exhale smoke into the
cold air above and agree that it was good shit before nodding to
Lucas as we parted ways with their happy smiling faces.

“
Y’ gotta hang about and show them good will, so they don’t
think you’re ripping them off.”

“
Were you ripping them off?”

“
Thirty dollars is pretty expensive for a tinny, especially for
pot of that quality. I tried to stick a bit more than a gram in,
though to make up for it.”

“
Right.”

I wasn’t sure
if Lucas was impressed or just highly interested in the whole
situation. He had seemed to keep an observer’s distance throughout.
Either way, I’d earned an extra thirty bucks – probably only an
extra five to compensate the twenty-five worth being taken from my
own stash, but that plus the several fives we hadn’t spent entering
shitty clubs, plus the money not spent on alcohol in those same
clubs, meant that all up I probably saved myself fifty odd
dollars.

…
minus the twenty-five spent at The Fraterniser at the start of
the night, meant that I probably only broke even by doing the
drug-deal. Damn it. That lowered my enthusiasm.

We were pretty
much heading back to the car without even thinking about it when
The Salvation Army’s food-van drove by with Christie hanging her
head out of the side panel waving her hands and crying out “Hey
friends!”

“
Probably Alice huh?”

“
Yeah.”

But Lucas
actually looked like he was about to break out into a smile. He was
already breaking out into a quick walk as the van pulled up ahead
of us.

The back door
of the van opened and two other officers piled out and set up a
water dispenser outside. Lucas introduced me to them but I forgot
their names almost straight away. Christie was perched behind the
open panel on the side of the van with a tray extended out in front
of that contained lots of buns and scones.

“
What are you boys doing out on a chilly night like
this?”

Lucas leaned
on the side of the van looking up at her. “Shouldn’t we be asking
you the same thing?”

“
Well,
I
have
a mission, to help those in need.”

“
When you could be at home sitting by a warm fire sipping tea
with your feet up?”

Christie
grinned. “Well, I’m sure that’s exactly what Alice is doing right
now. I know it’s certainly something similar to what I might be
doing if it wasn’t my turn on the van.”

“
And what would this something similar be then?”

“
Well, it would probably involve coffee instead of tea, and
probably lots of popcorn and girlie movies.”

A groan
sounded out from the men.

I looked about
us, but there didn’t seem to be all that many people in need. “Who
are these people in need?”

One of the men
turned to me and said “drunks!”

I raised my
eyebrows.

“
Bloody idiots who don’t know what’s good for them.”

“
Okay.”

He put his hands on his hips. “Y’ know? They could be at home
looking after themselves, or at least having just one or two drinks
and leave it at that and
still
have a good time. I just don’t get the attitude of
these people.”

Christie
looked at him with some sympathy. “Are you telling me that when you
were a young teenager that you didn’t go out on the town and get
blindly drunk thinking that it was all fun and games?”

He turned
away, shaking his head. “I paid the price Christie, I paid the
price. I just wish these kids… I just wish…” He looked about him as
the other man put a hand on his shoulder. “Shit, I’m sorry. I just
wish there was some other way to help.”

His friend said to him “We’re doing what we can. And
you
are
making a
difference. God has seen to that.”

“
It’s not enough.”

We were
standing near a nightclub. The two officers went over to talk to
the bouncers.

Lucas looked
up at Christie perched in behind the opening. “Is that why you do
it?”

“
Why?”

“
Because of drunks?”

Christie
shrugged her shoulders. “Sure.” But she didn’t sound very
convincing. “I do it because it helps. That’s pretty important to
me.”

There was a
commotion at the doors of the nightclub nearby. A group of three
girls came stumbling out into the arms of the officers as they
tried to direct them towards the van. Some swearing came from the
girl in front as she stumbled closer to us and I recognised her as
Claire; and then Wendy following behind trying to catch up; and
then Lisa smiling happily as the drunker two reached some steps at
the door of a shop near the van and sat down laughing.

The officers
rallied themselves by the water dispenser filling cups of water for
the girls as Lisa made her way over to me.

“
Hey David. How’s it going?”

“
Sweet as Lisa. Out on the town?”

“
Yeah, just hanging and having fun. What you guys up
to?”

There was a
splash and Claire’s voice cried out “I don’t need water you
faggot!” Wendy was on her side laughing as the officers tried to
encourage her to have a drink.

I looked at
Lisa. “Been drinking?”

“
Just a little” she said with a big smile.

“
Feel good?”

“
Yeah man!”

Christie
offered Lisa some food to pass to her friends but Claire wasn’t
having any of it. “Fuck off trying to sober me!” She screamed at
the top of her voice. “Arghhhh! I love being drunk! Fuck you
all!”

Lucas took the
outstretched buns from Lisa’s helpless hands, said “thanks – I’ll
take those,” and started nibbling on one himself. “My name’s Lucas,
by the way.”

“
Lisa.”

“
Oh,” he said, nodding and chewing at the same time.

Wendy looked
like she was half way between laughing and vomiting.

Lisa turned to
me and said “Hey, can I talk to you for a moment?”

“
Sure.” Though I didn’t want her to – it was embarrassing
enough being seen there with her friends.

We moved a few
steps away from the others as Lucas nibbled and chatted with
Christie, who seemed generally more interested in him than the two
people the officers were trying to help.

“
I got some more information” Lisa said.

“
Okay.”

“
But it’s not much.”

“
It’s something.”

“
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Every bit counts
eh?”