Free I Am The Local Atheist by Warwick Stubbs Page A

had been
attracted to girls at church purely because of the knowledge that
they were virgins! I had been able to weasel my way out of any
suspicious criticisms purely because there hadn’t been anyone else
that had been as successful with the youth as I had, and most of
the time, I was able to claim that the girls were just flirting and
didn’t mean anything anyway (backed up by the fact that I certainly had no
dishonourable intentions! A wry smirk on Rickerton’s face usually
suggested that he knew exactly what that claim meant, as though he too had made
it once before in his life. That was probably the only time that
there was any sense of understanding between the two of
us).
    But it was so hard to look away from a pretty teenager knowing
that I had the power to change the status of their purity. So many
times I had looked into their blinking eyelashes, glanced over
their low cut tops with a shiny cross flashing just above their
cleavage and thought, ‘ yip, they’ll fuck
me! ’ And half of them at my church probably
would have too! The sixteen year olds there were nothing but
trouble – troubled teenagers that I was supposed to be looking out
for and bringing into their lives the love for Jesus. I was
partially successful at least most of the time.
    Lisa, on the
other hand, was older and more mature, experienced in the darkness
but failing to find love in her own soul; a troubled teenager at
the time who was growing into a woman quicker than her friends were
getting convictions. Had I not met her and taken her away from
that, she probably would have ended up behind bars herself.
    The
conversation about Christie had briefly taken my thoughts away from
Lisa, but now she was back in my mind even more than before: the
awkwardness at the gallery, her strange behaviour at church making
it so obvious that her new friends were the best friends she had
ever had. The displays of affection were like a slap in the face,
like a way of making it clear that she had something that I didn’t,
and that pissed me off. And it wasn’t just that I had tried to have
sex with her, either, because most of the guys I knew at the time
had been hitting on her as well, but I just happened to take it
that extra step further; it was the shear fact that despite all of
that, I had still managed to win her friendship by giving her a
life that she had never experienced before, a life that brought her
happiness and spiritual growth. And because of that, I couldn’t
help wondering where my spiritual growth had disappeared to. Why
was I not as happy as she was? Why didn’t I have friends that
hugged and kissed me? Why had I lost my way when she got to
continue being the same self-centred bitch she had always been?
    Fuck !
    I hated the
fact that she had come back into my life.
    I hated how
she had stirred my balance of stillness and go-nowhere
attitude.
    I hated her
friends for loving her the way that I wasn’t allowed to.
     
     

Part III
    – New friends –
     
     
    I had to
admit, her new friends were actually pretty cool. Claire sat in the
driver’s seat with an army cap propped neatly over her long brown
hair, busting out random sayings without any clear direction – “and
that my dear friend is why you shouldn’t ever count your chickens
before they hatch. Believe me, because I’ve had chickens, and I’ve
had eggs, and I like eggs, especially on toast with lots of sauce,
and maybe even a sprinkling of salt and pepper, or just pepper, but
that kind of depends on who’s sprinkling and how much they sprinkle
because too much would just ruin it, which just goes to show that
too many cooks spoil the broth, but that’s not the point. The point
is that I know. I know!” Wendy dressed casually like Lisa but with
brighter and no doubt, higher priced clothes, taking notes from the
passenger seat on who was bonking whose sister, who was cheating on
whose brother and what church leaders were doing the dirty with
whose wives. The main street had