I Am The Local Atheist (39 page)

And I would
hardly consider what I did a ‘mistake’ – I meant it to its fullest
extent. Despite my consideration of late as to whether my intention
was in the right place. Perhaps it had been, dunno. All I know is
that the outcome had left me alone – far more than I had ever
thought possible.

“
Why am I not going to the station?”

The other cop
who wasn’t driving did the talking. “We know who the guy was you
were beating up. A little surprised that you managed to take him
on, actually.”

“
He’s a weasel. He doesn’t care about other people and what
happens to them. Only cares about what he can get for
himself.”

“
He’s also a thief and a minor dealer, and he’s on his way to
being a professional criminal. It’s not hard to guess that he must
have stolen something from you.” He looked around at me as if
expecting me to tell him what. “…something pretty
important.”

His eyes were
looking at me as if I was going to make a confession right then and
there.

“
He stole unrecoverable goods.”

“
What kind of unrecoverable goods?”

“
The sort that can’t be recovered.”

“
Food?”

The driver
looked at me through the rear-view mirror, which concerned me a
little. “Pot?”

Shouldn’t he be keeping his eyes on the road?
“You can label it whatever you want. All I know is
that he took something from me that meant a lot, that wasn’t his
and that I had no way of recovering once it was gone, and I wanted
him to pay for that.” I looked out the window as a row of trees
passed by. I remember her saying once that one of her favourite
things was being in a car and watching trees fly past.

“
These kind of issues need to be reported to the police, not
left to vigilante justice, alright?”

“
Ok. Well, let me ask you this. How do you guys usually go
about dealing with a person who has stolen half a pizza from
someone’s fridge?”

“
There are standard procedures put in place for these kinds of
issues.”

“
Do you interrogate them?”

“
Did you have pizza stolen from your fridge?”

“
Why am I not being taken to the cop-shop?”

“
We can take you there if you want and charge you with injuring
with intent to injure.”

I was silent.
I didn’t want to go to the cop-shop.

“
Look, the more you tell us, the more we can work to putting
Rucker where he belongs. If he stole some illegal substances from
you then just tell us – I mean, we can’t charge you with
possession, can we? There’s no evidence…”

Except the
words coming out of my mouth.

“…
But at least we will then have an indisputable lead on Rucker
that will also help us take down the people he’s connected with.
And that will be final justice for everyone, won’t it?”

Except me and
my empty pencil case.

The driver
pulled up alongside the deserted skate bowl that no one uses
anymore and clearly out of sight from the public. He switched off
the radio receivers and some other electronic devices on the
dashboard. Both cops turned off their walkie-talkies.

The passenger
looked at the driver. “What are we gonna do?”

The driver
tapped the staring wheel. “Fuck. The cells are full at the
moment.”

“
He’ll be released without even getting that far anyway. At
least it’ll be recorded.”

“
Shit, it’s just more paperwork. Rucker’s already got a file
and the last thing he needs is a sympathy angle because someone
else finally gave back what he’s always deserved anyway. Do we
really need to give this guy a file?”

“
He has done us a favour I guess.”

“
If it deters Rucker, then if anything, it’s a favour to the
taxpayer.”

The driver put
his head in his hand and the passenger looked out the window
shaking his head and saying “fuck” several times.

“
There was a lot of harm done today.” The driver took his hand
away from his head and looked at me through the rear-view mirror.
“Do you understand that?”

I looked
straight back at him. “I call it justice.”

“
That’s not how a Judge would see it, and I think you
understand this, very clearly. So I want you to ask yourself: Is
what I did today something I am going to let affect the rest of my
life, or is it something I am going to leave behind me right here
and now? Because that’s something we have to ask ourselves as law
enforcement officers – about you.”

I looked out
the window. I had never felt so angry at anyone before, even Ed who
had treated me with gross disrespect. And I could never imagine
being so angry at anyone ever again.

“
Listen kid…” it was the driver talking. “We’re gonna let you
out here. That guy had what was coming to him and hopefully he’ll
start thinking twice about his career as a thief. Just remember
that we know who you are and what you’ve done, and despite the fact
that that kid deserved what he got, you still need to leave this
kind of shit to the law, alright?”

“
Sweet as mate.” I got out and closed the door gently but with
intent.

The driver
leaned out his window as he backed out. “Take it easy.”

Leave it to
the law! Who the fuck were they kidding? When there’s no evidence
pointing towards the culprit, the victim is screwed.

I walked all
the way back to the gardens to pick up my car and received a txt
from Lisa half way there asking what I was up to and whether she
could come over. I replied that I was out but would be back soonish
and decided to stop at McDonalds for something to eat on my way
back.

When Lisa
realised that I wasn’t going to tell her anything about what had
happened, she stopped smiling and went back to explaining what she
had found out.

“
I went and talked to Andrew Brasch who works with drug addicts
and has had a lot of experience counselling those who are
dependent.”

This was bound
to be interesting.

“
He said that he had spoken to a lot of people over the years
about why they had intended to commit suicide, and it rarely had
anything to do with the drugs that they were using. He said that
you make the decision before you start drinking. And then you drink
to numb the sensors so that in the final moment you can’t chicken
out. ‘Alcohol is never the cause of suicide,’ he said, ‘it’s simply
the mode of transport that gets you there without turning back.’ So
I went out on a limb, thinking of you as I asked this: ‘Could
smoking weed have helped her?’”

I raised my
eyebrows.

Lisa looked at
me to explain herself. “Y’ know, like calmed her down and
stuff.”

I rested my
head on my hand as she carried on.

“
He said that it was hard to say but highly unlikely, and that
it might have helped for a while, but there would have been a point
where she simply made the decision while she was straight, because
being high completely nullifies all your senses so that you are in
this happy – or paranoid, he said – state of catatonia, but either
way you just don’t have the senses available to make
any
ground-breaking
decisions.”

She put her
notes down and looked at me with big wide eyes and tight lips, as
though this had been the most important information she had
discovered yet.

I looked back
as though she wasn’t telling me anything new and said, “The biggest
decision anyone could ever make while being stoned is to get
something to eat.” Boy did I know that from experience! I had this
amazing bong hit once that whited out my vision completely and I
stood in one spot for ages – I have no idea how long – until the
world came back to me two colours at a time: first in pink and
purple for the sky and earth (don’t ask me why the sky was pink –
my brain must have really been confused!), and then other colours
came through as the world slowly returned to its original state. At
that point all I dared do was take a few steps forward and hope
like hell that no one was watching me inch my way across the park.
Eventually I sat down around some trees and watched clouds
transform themselves into all these amazing shapes across the sky
(yes it had returned to its standard blue colour). There was really
nothing else to do, nothing else worth thinking about; just the
pure joy of not doing anything but accepting what my vision brought
to me. I loved it.

“
Well yeah,” Lisa continued on. “That’s kinda what he said. But
there was this really interesting thing he also said. ‘That girl
was not driven to suicide by drugs, not if alcohol and cannabis
were the only substances found in her body. Something else must
have done it. Something that tore her so far from
Jesus.”

“
Who is this person?”

“
As I said, Andrew Brasch.”

“
Never heard of him.”

“
He’s a friend of Anna MacPherson’s who was Serene’s Elder at
church.”

And then it
all became clear and I knew exactly where Lisa was heading with
this topic.

“
I asked Mr. Brasch what it could have been. He didn’t want to
divulge details because it was a private matter that Anna
Macpherson had shared with him, but there was one thing he did tell
me. He looked me in the eye and said, ‘Serene was in Youth Group –
who do you know who was in Youth Group as well? Better yet, who do
you know who was running Youth Group while she was in it?’ And then
he said to me to go home and think that over but it was all very
obvious to me who he was talking about.”

She didn’t
look at me, but I could see her eyes wandering over her bits of
paper, not really reading, just waiting for something to happen,
for me to say something.

“
Why do you care so much Lisa? Why are you making such a big
deal about this? So she was one of the girls in my youth group. She
died after I had left – three and a half months after I had
left.”

She looked up
at me, a frown creasing her forehead. “Why do you not care? You
used to care so much. It seemed so important to you that the youth
you helped would make the right decisions. It’s like you’ve been
completely swamped by your own problems. What happened to you?
Where’s the guy who I used to know? Who used to want to understand
everything from their perspective, who seemed to be the only one in
the church who actually stood in the shoes of the kids so he knew
what it was like for them and could help them based on that rather
than the church’s own outdated ideas? Where’s that person?”

“
Well, where’s the person I used to know? Who wasn’t afraid to
talk to me like a normal human being?”

“
I’m here David. Right now.”

“
Well can’t we just leave this issue to rest, just for a moment
so we can talk about other things?”

“
What, so one more suicide goes ignored and no one knows
anything better, or how to prevent it in the future?”

“
I just don’t get why you’re making such a big deal about this
one case?”

“
Because the papers didn’t tell the full story – my little bit
of reporting has already proven that!”

“
Look, you haven’t found out any more than what they already
stated – that she was on drugs and that she had stopped attending
church. What else is there to find out?”

She stood up,
angered at my response. “You took drugs, you stopped attending
church, but you didn’t kill yourself.”

Don’t think I
didn’t want to though.

I had to
correct her on a point that the papers had got wrong, that everyone
in the congregation had casually ignored; that few were willing to
accept the fact of. “She didn’t stop attending church.”

“
You just said she did!”

“
No. I said that that’s what the papers had
reported.”

“
Then that makes even less sense.”

“
Suicides never make sense, Lisa.”

“
That’s not true! I know why I got that close to the edge, I
know the exact reasons – and they make perfect sense to me, but I
was saved, David. Jesus came to me – he was there for me and helped
me out of it! And I wasn’t even a Christian then, but he came to me
nevertheless. Serene was still going to church and was still a
Christian. I wanna know why Jesus was there for me, but he wasn’t
there for her. Why David? Why!? Explain that to me!”

She was
furious and I was helpless to escape the reality of the situation.
I couldn’t walk away, I couldn’t just pretend that the truth wasn’t
waiting to be told. “Because it has nothing to do with Jesus!”

“
Oh! So it’s all the drugs fault then? That’s rich coming from
you, the one who defends the joint down to its last
toke.”

I stood up.
“Fuck you!”

Her hand
sprung out and slapped me across the cheek. She took a step back,
with both hands clasping at her own cheeks – in fear or shame I
couldn’t really tell: the impact had sent my gaze in another
direction.

“
Oh god I’m so sorry.”

I lowered my
head expecting the impulse to clench my fists to take over, but it
didn’t. I felt anger, but it wasn’t because she had reacted out of
an emotional outburst; I was angry at her for constantly thanking
Jesus, like he had come to her all by himself. I took a deep breath
and looked her straight in the eyes.