Free I Am The Local Atheist by Warwick Stubbs

and she wouldn’t speak to me. Completely deserted
me, like I hadn’t even existed. Now after more than a year she
seems to finally be back talking to me. But I’m not sure why. Add
to that the fact that she now has new friends who she seems to
appreciate even more than me, and I can’t help but feel suspicious
about why she’s befriending me again.”
    “ Sounds terrible.”
    “ Thanks. Your sympathy doesn’t help.”
    He laughed.
“Sounds like there’s heaps of sexual tension. Just have sex with
someone else and imagine it’s her underneath you.”
    I rolled my
eyes.
    A young woman
with dark tousled hair pulled up outside on a bike, chained it to a
pole, walked past the window, looked in, pulled a finger and poked
her tongue out at Lucas. He waved a hand towards her, smiling and
winking at the same time. “What about her?”
    I knew who she
was though. It was the girl who had had the exhibition that Lisa
had invited me too. I could still vividly remember her shoulders
shaking before I turned away and walked as fast as I could towards
the door.
    “ I think I know who she is.”
    Lucas looked
at me. “You do? She’s a friend of mine. Callasandra. You wanna meet
her?”
    “ No.”
    “ I’ll call out and stop her…”
    “ No! Forget it.” I didn’t want to be put in that position of
having to explain to her that I had seen her nearly burst into
tears. And that I ran away.
    “ Okay. Well, maybe some other time then.”
    “ Sure. Whatever.”
    “ How do you know Callasandra?”
    Damn. I hadn’t
wanted him to ask that question. “I saw her exhibition.”
    “ You were there? I missed it. Heard about it though. Bit of a
stinker what happened eh?”
    “ Yeah.”
    “ Fuckin’ Christians. I hate how they go ape at even just a
little criticism, y’ know? I mean, fuck, Callasandra didn’t deserve
to be treated like that.”
    “ So how come you spend so much time with The Salvation Army if
you hate Christians so much?”
    “ I’m not saying they’re without their faults, but I mean for
people who are supposed to be living by the example of Jesus, they
are the only ones who even come close.”
    Everybody does what they can. I had
always focussed on the youth group because I had felt like that was
my calling and that was what God had been asking me to do. I didn’t
need to be out helping the poor, healing the sick; God had
something else for me to do. And I had done it to the best of my
abilities.
    I couldn’t
deny though, that he had some cause to be antagonistic. Rickerton
was the least ‘Jesus-worthy’ of any Christians I had known in the
church and he was the man at the top, the one that, if anything,
was supposed to be setting an example. Yet all he ever did was
either sit in his office surfing the net or drive around in his big
blue hybrid car showing it off to Invercargill as though he was the
only person in town who could afford such a luxury.
    “ I don’t hate Christians anyway. I just hate the religion. Y’
know? I mean Christie, and even Alice, are cool people, but if they
ever started preaching to me, I’m fuckin’ out of there!”
    “ Do they know you’re not a Christian?”
    “ Don’t think so. Don’t exactly make it obvious eh? I just like
to fit in where I can, not make too much trouble. I’d rather get
along with people than constantly feel like I was in the wrong, or
was being judged because I was somehow different. They don’t ask, I
don’t tell. If it gets left at that then everyone’s
happy.”
    Lucas started
puffing on his cigarette with greater enthusiasm. “But fuck
Christie is a hot chick. I mean, she’s not like cover-girl material
or anything, but there’s definitely something about her that really
turns me on.”
    “ It’s the smile” I said.
    “ Yeah, I guess so. I’d like to put my smile all over
her!”
    “ Is she married?”
    “ Nup. Still a pure-born virgin.”
    “ We assume.”
    “ Ha. Yeah.”
    But that was probably it. The amount of times I