I Am The Local Atheist (33 page)

“
Right” I said. Lisa used to be that person to me. Now she was
the exact opposite. I wondered why I couldn’t just walk away and
accept that things had changed irrevocably. Was I really doing
myself any good by letting her back into my life and stirring up
the past the way that she was?

“…
they won’t even let me do any more hangings in the gallery.
”

We were
sitting around the fire outside, flames flickering and dancing
through the blackness as sparks cracked and pounced on unsuspecting
victims. Plates of gnawed bones and left over salads lay at our
feet, no one in a hurry to do any cleaning up. Just happy to sit
there and wait for the ashes to leave behind what had burned so
bright. Once.

“
Wow. They actually said that to you?” Schaeffer lit up another
cigarette. If chain-smoking ever found a spokesperson, he would be
candidate no. 1. He mumbled something about “quitting this habit
for good” while taking a long drag and then blowing the smoke
directly above him. I thought about suggesting he try a stronger
brand.

“
They never
said
it. But they tell me now that their calendar for bookings is
completely full for the rest of the year… there’s only three other
full-time painters in this flippin’ town. Even with out-of-town
artist exhibitions, and what ever other shitty stuff they plan on
hanging, there would still be more than ample time for them to make
available to me.”

With that last
statement her breasts rose and fell in one giant breath. Her lack
of cleavage was doing nothing to keep my mind focussed. Unless it
was focussed on her lack of cleavage, that is.

“
You would not believe how fuckin’ pumped the curator was after
the exhibition, trying to tell me that I had instigated a whole new
episode in their history in the same way Stravinsky did for music
when
The Rite of Spring
was premiered and caused a riot. Sounded great. I
wanted to believe something – anything that would stop the tears
streaming down my fuckin’ cheeks! And I did believe it. I had to.
Thinking about the curator shaking my hand and congratulating me on
such a huge success with such a joyous smile on his face actually
helped me to wake up the next day and laugh. Laugh!” Callasandra’s
face was anything but smiles. “That is until the damn polytech
found out about how bad it went. And then all hell broke loose, and
the gallery was no longer singing my praises let me tell you that!
No, it’s all ‘
we’ll get back to you
Cal
’, and ‘
we’ll
be in contact soon
’. It wasn’t until my
tutor came back to me and told me about how management were
shitting their pants about getting a lawsuit from the church, and
that the church wanted her fired for allowing the exhibition, that
things became a bit clearer to me.”

Lucas leaned
back in his chair. “It seems like a double standard to me. You ask
for art, you get art, and art is an expression.”

“
Of course it is Lucas,” Callasandra happily agreed. “But this
is the only gallery in town and they are scared shitless of losing
their investors. You know? I mean if the polytech suffers, then the
gallery suffers. Which I think is bullshit. But hey, they’re a
business. What the fuck do you expect!”

I thought of
something to say. “Did you apologise to them?”

She looked at
me without a change in her expression – eyebrows low, lips parted.
“What for?”

I stumbled.
“Ummm… well, it just seems that perhaps they think you did them
wrong.”

I didn’t think
her eyebrows could go any lower, but they did, so I quickly tacked
on “I’m not saying that you did do them wrong, I’m just saying that
that’s perhaps how they feel…”

Her look
changed to surprise.

“…
that’s all” I said.

“
Well, I’m sorry that I spoke my mind! I’m sorry that I painted
pictures about how I feel! I’m sorry that my pictures offend! I’m
sorry that I caught a bus and travelled all the way from Suck-land
to Inver-shit-ville just so that I could have a town hate me for my
honesty! I mean, fuck, I might as well have stayed in Auckland and
remained a complete unknown.”

“
Any publicity is good publicity” I heard Tina interject
softly.

She ignored
it. “Wouldn’t you rather be respected for your honesty than your
ability to hide everything that you feel?”

Yes
.

Her rant had
sent her onto the edge of her seat with a hand half way in the air
pointing at me. I got the feeling that she was directing her words
at me, at my past, at everything that I had done… but I just
couldn’t be sure. And ultimately, I was just too scared to say
anything. Because the truth was that I actually did want to hide
everything that I felt. I didn’t want people to know, because then
it would always be an issue, something to discuss when all I wanted
was to forget that it ever happened.

She sat back
in her seat and looked around for support. No one looked
particularly ready to put themselves out there with her.

Rachael asked
“Why’d you take a bus?”

“
What?” Callasandra’s voice was getting more annoyed by the
moment.

“
Why’d you catch a bus from Auckland to Invercargill? Wouldn’t
it have been cheaper to fly?”

Tina’s partner
agreed with her. “Yeah, it would have been at least a hundred bucks
cheaper plus an entire day less travel time.”

“
I don’t know. Why the fuck are you cunts antagonising
me?”

No one said
anything.

Callasandra
shrugged and stared into the firelight. “I just wanted to see the
country side, see if there was somewhere along the way that I
wanted to stop at before coming here.”

Julie patted
her abdomen. “I can think of a dozen places better than here south
of Auckland.”

“
Oh for fuck’s sake! Why does anyone come here? I don’t know.
It was just something I did. I had to get out of Auckland and
catching the bus just seemed like the right thing to do, okay?” She
sat back in her chair. “Fuckin’ Invercargill.” Grabbing another
cigarette and lighting it she launched into another tirade. “Do you
know that almost a year ago I heard of a guy who was all but kicked
out of his church. Y’ know why? Because he burnt a cross in front
of his congregation.”

A lump formed
in my throat, but she wasn’t looking at me anymore. Her eyes just
seemed to pass right through me without any acknowledgement of who
I was, like I had failed her questions.

“
Do any of you know about this?” She looked around.

Lucas lifted
his head. “You did mention it to – ”

“
You don’t count Lucas. We’ve already talked about it. Well,
anyone else?”

Everyone just
shrugged their shoulders and mumbled that they hadn’t heard
anything. I couldn’t even move my lips to mumble.

“
No, of course you hadn’t, because it barely even made the
papers. Man they tried to sweep that one under the carpet real
quickly! A little wee column that filled up space was all it got,
and then never even heard of again. No wonder no one knows about
it.”

There was a
general look from everybody that seemed confused about where she
was going with this, but Tina piped up with “yeah, but burning
crosses isn’t new to churches. Quite a few do it just to…”

“
Yeah, but it wasn’t just any old cross. This guy had burnt a
cross with Jesus on it! Jesus spread eagled in his crucifixion
going up in flames! Why? Fuck knows! But I’d sure like to find
out!”

There was
silence but for the crackling of the wood in the fire. No one had
anything to say.

Callasandra seemed somewhat dumbfounded that no one had been
able to keep up with where she was going with this. “My
point
, is that where is
his story? And who’s trying to keep him silent? Does he have more
to say that should be heard or is this town only keen on covering
up what they can’t deal with?”

A few mumbles
drifted about, but I got the general impression that no one really
cared.

“
Well, I for one feel like I’ve been shat on. That’s
all!”

She sat back
in the chair and crossed her arms, glaring into the fire.

Tina shuffled
a bit in her chair and said “Yeah, well. That’s what Christian
conservatism brings to the world I guess. An unappreciative view of
free art, of people being able to speak their minds against an
establishment.”

The talk
rambled a bit about how fundamentalism infiltrated even the
non-religious sect of society. Lucas didn’t have much to add which
I found surprising for someone who was so opinionated. He just sat
beside me quietly chewing at a finger nail every now and then.
Callasandra meanwhile didn’t even bother adding to the dying
conversation. Perhaps she had felt like she had said enough. Either
way she just sat there clasping her bottle of vodka and lime and
looked into the fire, or occasionally slouching in her chair and
looking up at the stars.

I thought I
would be spared having to talk to her for the rest of the night,
since she had practically destroyed my suggestion of apologising…
but there was one problem that soon came to light when everyone had
picked their couch or mattress to sleep on and Tina’s refusal to
let anybody sleep directly on the floor meant that there was one
bed left and two people to share it.

Callasandra looked at me with a little disgust. “Shit, I have
to sleep with the apologist. At least I know that you’ll be
apologising if you step out of line.
Right
?”

“
You’ve already scared me enough that I can barely talk to
you!”

“
Good then. I made the right impression.”

She walked
into the bedroom and didn’t exactly hesitate when it came to taking
her clothes off. She left her knickers and an undershirt on and
then jumped straight into bed. “Hurry up and turn off the light so
that I can get this night over with already.”

I took my
jeans off, leaving my boxer shorts on. The duvet looked real heavy
and I didn’t want to boil up under the sheets so I decided to go to
bed without a t-shirt on. I turned the light off and got in beside
her, but it was a full King-size bed so there ended up being lots
of room between us. She had her back to me and her knees bent
slightly. I lay on my back and put a hand behind my head. She was
still breathing heavily and didn’t sound like she was going to
sleep any time soon.

I couldn’t help but think about what she had said about her
art exhibition. How the gallery had practically shunned her and
done what they could to not have her showing any more art there. I
remember quite vividly being told to make a direct apology to
everyone at the next service, but refusing to because I believed,
at least
then
,
that I had done nothing wrong.

“
I was there you know.”

Her voice was
muffled by the duvet but I heard it quite clearly. “Is that
right?”

“
Yeah. An old friend had invited me. Wanted to catch up.
Pretend it was like old times when we used to visit exhibitions
together.” I remembered how I felt as Lisa had returned to her new
friends, and I had walked up to the paintings on my own. “It was
really interesting. I saw the paintings, and half expected them to
transport me away, like some great monoli – ”

“
Paintings hang on the wall. You look at them, that’s all they
do.”

“
But still. There’s always a sense of wanting to feel something
different when looking at a painting, not just the fact that this
artist is such a great painter, but also to invoke something out of
the ordinary. That’s what I want to see.”

She removed
the duvet so it wasn’t covering her mouth. “Did you? …see something
out of the ordinary?”

The truth was
that no, I hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary, in fact I had
been transported back in time, back to somewhere I hadn’t wanted to
be.

She took my
silence as an affirmation of the negative and mumbled “thought
so”.

She moved
herself around a bit trying to kick more of the duvet over her.
There was more than enough to cover us both so I let her take as
much as she wanted. When she became silent again she asked “how
long were you there? …at the art gallery?”

“
Long enough.”

“
Did it please you to see someone being ripped apart like
that?”

“
No. I couldn’t stay. Not to watch that… It reminded me too
much… of…” I trailed off with “well, I guess you know” thinking it
was low enough not to hear, but she turned her head
upwards.

“
Know what?”

I let out a
deep sigh. “You wanted to know what that guy’s story was.”

“
That church guy?”

“
Yeah.”

“
I already know. He burnt a cross. I asked around, got some
answers, it all seemed pretty clear. I assume he was speaking his
mind.”

“
He was.”

“
Do you know him?”

“
It was me.”

She didn’t
move for a full ten seconds. I heard meowing outside. Possibly Tina
had forgotten to let her cat back in. Hard to say for sure.

“
You!?”

“
Yeah.”

“
The apologist? Did you apologise?”

“
No I didn’t.”

“
Good on you, I wouldn’t have either.”