I Am The Local Atheist (32 page)

Tina was a
dark curly haired brunette, strong thighs and freckles across her
nose. As soon as she saw me she reached a hand out to greet me
without even the slightest pause to look me over or anything; just
a full blown acknowledgement and greeting. I didn’t expect to be
welcomed so casually. She introduced me to Schaeffer, Doug and her
partner Kora who was helping her in the kitchen. Doug sat alongside
Schaeffer picking at his fingernails and said hardly anything all
night.

A pregnant
girl sat resting on a couch, a smooth bulge protruding through her
light dress. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a hair-band making
her look about 17, but I found out later that she was actually 23.
She didn’t look particularly happy, perhaps anxious, or concerned.
I didn’t see a partner in sight. She looked at me and gave me a one
sided grin while her fingers grappled with each other.

“
Hi” I said.

She was the
only person that night who looked me up and down as if trying to
suss me out. “What’s y’ name?”

“
David.”

“
Julie.”

I sat down
beside her. The sleep in the car driving out here had done me good
and I was all perky and cheerful as I slapped my hands on my knees.
“What’s the prob?”

“
You got any dope?”

“
Shit, nah. I had a sesh before I got picked up, eh. Sorry.” I
was a little concerned that she was pregnant and still keen on
smoking weed. Fair enough that she wanted to cheer herself up if
the pregnancy was making her depressed but not fair on the baby who
had no option to say no, and who would be unfairly affected by
it.

I thought the
sleep had worn off the ‘best’ effects of dope, but I was
occasionally still lapsing into slow time and catching myself out
as I picked up on random conversations.

“
I really want to smoke some weed, eh.” It was Julie from
beside me speaking to Rachael.

“
Well, I know, but you are pregnant. Think about
that.”

“
Oh, I have.” But she looked so desperately caught between
responsibility and pure desire. “But it would be just one little
toke, y’ know? It’s been six months already.”

She looked
disappointed and looked around at everyone else. They looked back
with raised eyebrows, not really giving any definitive answers,
neither when she outright asked. “What do you guys reckon? I know
someone and he can get some to us real soon. He doesn’t live far
away from here. I just have to txt him and we’ll be away laughing.”
Big smile and hands waving in front of her like a clown.

I felt the
haze slip away out of reach and I was back to my usual state of
mind, albeit more relaxed and far less anxious about the crowd
surrounding me.

She looked at
Tina. “What do you reckon?”

Tina folded
her arms and smiled sympathetically. “I can’t make that decision
for you, Julie. It’s your kid.”

Julie turned
to Lucas. “What about you?”

He shrugged
his shoulders and said “Your decision, either way I don’t really
care.”

That bummed
her out, like she needed someone to supply her with a definitive
answer because her desire was too strong for her to say no to
herself.

“
What about you Schaeffer? Doug? Rachael?”

“
Its up to you, you’re the one carrying the baby.”

Doug shrugged
his shoulders.

“
I agree with Schaeffer.”

Then she
turned to me and said rather sarcastically “They’re not very
helpful are they?”

“
You’re asking a room full of Liberals what they think –
somehow I don’t think you’re gonna get the answer you’re looking
for, let alone any answer at all.”

Her shoulders
sank as she realised the weight of responsibility. Placing a hand
on her abdomen, she smiled wanly.

I smiled to
try to comfort her but as I turned away I noticed that Lucas was
looking at me with suspicion in his eyes. He casually walked over
to the window as a car drove up Tina’s driveway. I wondered what he
was thinking.

I heard the
car door open and close, footsteps moved up to the door,
Callasandra opening the door and walking into the living room.
“What the hell are you all looking so sad for?” She didn’t wait for
an answer. Turning and looking Tina directly in the eyes she said
“I need food”.

Tina pointed
to the kitchen. “It’s cooking.”

“
Great! Because I’m fuckin’ starvin’.” She sat down on a couch
and looked from person to person, finally landing on me. “I
remember you, I think.”

Shit.

“
You were sitting with Lucas at the Fraterniser that day I
walked past weren’t you?”

“
Yeah, that was me. We been doing some work together
recently.”

“
Lucas do work?” She arched her head back and
laughed.

I felt like
that comment should have been directed at me. If anything, all I
had seen Lucas do was work.

“
What kind of work?”

“
I’ve just finished working at Southland Pastries where he
works now, and am about to go back to my previous job shifting
laundry into trucks, but we first met doing volunteer work for The
Salvation Army.”

She rolled her
eyes and looked at Lucas who was sitting on the ledge of the window
that he had been looking out of. “Still on your good-will crusade,
eh?”

“
It’s not a crusade. I have no desire to kill anyone if they
don’t follow my example.”

She raised her
eyebrows. “I hardly think that every crusade is going to be about
killing.”

“
Well, if the past is anything to go by…”

Callasandra
laughed and rested her head against the back of the couch. She
closed her eyes and said in a mocking tone “here we go”.

“…
the Christian crusades were a direct example of Christianity
forcing the will of belief onto people and pretending that God’s
work was something that had to be done by humans. Not only that but
completely missing the point of Christianity itself.”

I spoke up.
“Christians weren’t the only killers in the world. Mussolini was an
atheist and he killed thousands, if not millions, of people because
of what he believed in.”

“
All over the world people kill because of what they believe
in; from the doctor who performs abortions because it’s his job and
he has no ethical qualms about the act, to the terrorist following
the word of
his
god. Christians are no different.”

Callasandra
looked sideways at him. “Let’s put the Christian political parties
aside for a moment, who obviously have egos just as big as
anybodies, and probably would take up a sword for what they
believed in, and take the example of the few who actually do live
out the example of Jesus, say The Salvation Army officers that you
have helped out, if they’re a good enough example.”

I looked up at
her. “I think they are.”

Her hands
turned upside down. “Well they aren’t exactly filled with their own
egos like Hitler or Mussolini, are they?”

Lucas strode backwards and forwards in front of the window.
“And yet it is still their own ego that determines everything that
they do. This is what none of you get. Christians
are
Egoists – they are
Egoists like the rest of us who first decide on what the self wants
the most and makes that the cause that they go after. If happiness
is my cause, then I would seek happiness, if to bend to God’s will
is my cause then I will give myself up to God. Christians have this
veneer of self-denial that pretends to shine a light on everything
other than themselves and claim that as their cause in the name of
God. But the principle of egoism is something they must accept.
What is true is that before you can be active in any cause you must
make it your own egoistic cause. In that sense, apart from any
material expectations, they are Christians in virtue of their
egoism, because of it, not in spite of it. It is because of their
ego that they make the decision to give themselves fully to God’s
will.”

Rachael said
“wow.”

Julie cried out like a Nazi sympathiser “
Der Einzige und sein Eigentum!!
”

Calassandra
laughed first, and then everyone else couldn’t help themselves. I
smiled to try to fit in.

Lucas blew
smoke at everyone. “Shut up you bunch of retards. It’s true.
Atheism won’t save the world, but then neither will
Christianity.”

Schaeffer got
the question in before I did, which I was very thankful for. My
chat with Alice had left me somewhat deflated, and I didn’t even
know where I stood on anything anymore.

“
Well, if atheism isn’t the answer then what is?”

“
I believe in agnosticism,” Lucas said.

“
That’s hardly a belief.”

“
I believe in the ability of agnosticism to be available for
all humans to use as a guidance system through their beliefs.
Regardless of whether a person believes or disbelieves in the
existence of a God or gods, it must be recognised that no one can
ever
know
of the
existence of gods. That’s what agnosticism makes available for
every single human regardless of what they believe.”

“
What about the testimony of Christians? I’ve heard many claim
that they have bore witness to Jesus’ spirit.”

I had never
been one of those lucky ones.

“
The assumption that what was seen was real, doesn’t account
for knowledge, only belief, and belief is not knowledge. They know
that they saw something, but how they interpret what they saw
hinges purely on what they believe.”

“
Yeah, but Christians so easily claim that they know from
experience. And since that experience can only be shared as
testimony, it is the testimony that must be taken on faith, but the
experience remains as living proof.” I was amazed at Schaeffer’s
general insight into faith. I had known few who could put an
opposing point across as well as that, least of all
myself.

I felt Julie’s
elbow nudge me gently. “He’s good our little Schaeffer, isn’t he?”
She was smiling at him. “He’ll always give Lucas a run for his
money.” She winked as the two of them looked at each other and
rolled their eyes in amusement.

I could feel
my stomach starting to growl and my focus shifted towards the
smells that were coming from the kitchen.

Callasandra
followed my gaze past her own chair towards the kitchen where Tina
was fumbling with pot lids and dropping forks on the floor. “What
you doing in there? You’re cooking dinner right? Not making
charcoal for the fire?”

Tina stuck her
head out the kitchen door, hands clasped inside cooking mittens.
“Suck on my big hairy ball sacks. I’ll charcoal ya’ face if you
don’t shut up.”

“
Charcoal some charcoal.”

“
Go to hell!” she said returning to the kitchen.

Tina leaned in
her chair and called after her, “can I take your awesome charcoal
with me?”

Julie put a
calming hand in the air. “Can we please have some decorum shown
tonight? If this is the way you losers are going to act around my
child, then you can forget any chance of visiting us.”

Callasandra said, “I for one demand visiting rights, after all
– I will be the official artist to the family.” She looked at Julie
sternly. “
Isn’t that
right
?”

Julie looked
frightened. “Do I have a choice?”

“
No, you don’t.”

Julie hung her
head low in mock abandonment. “Damn.”

Callasandra
was dressed in a tight black long-sleeved top that amplified the
curves of her breasts but failed to show much cleavage. Still, that
was better for me – less to get distracted by.

Despite this,
I still found it difficult to take my eyes off her no matter what
she was doing: carrying wood to the outside fire, helping Tina in
the kitchen, even flirting with some of the guys even though she
obviously didn’t mean anything by it. Her long black tousled hair
fell across her shoulders and wavered in wisps behind her that kept
her male friends looking somewhat forlorn when she left them.

I found that
Callasandra chatted with Lucas the least. Whenever they stood next
to each other, they seemed to have little to say, yet never seemed
uncomfortable about it. “You don’t seem to have much to say to each
other,” I pointed out, a little too obviously.

“
I lead an uninteresting life. And besides, I see her in town
enough to know when to give her some space.”

“
You two close?”

“
Interested?”

“
No, not really. At least, not like that. I mean I like her,
but I just found it interesting that she seemed to chat freely with
everyone else except you.”

“
We chat freely too, but I’ve kinda known her the longest, so
it’s just in times like these I let her catch up with the
others.”

“
Nice of you to do that for her.”

He raised his
eyebrows curiously.

“
Y’ know, to put your own ego aside like that.”

He shrugged
his shoulders. “Hey, like I said, we see each other enough that
there really isn’t much for us to talk about when everyone’s
together. I get more out of not talking to her in these moments
than trying to force a conversation that retreads old ground.
That’s me thinking about myself first, or at least thinking about
the relationship I have with another person that will benefit
myself. She’s never been someone I felt like I needed to ‘make
conversation’ with; it was always enough just to be around her
without it meaning anything.”