One Or More Gods, Or Fewer

Published in issue 9 of 'the delinquent'

The application form on the website would only have four questions. The First two questions would get the practical stuff out the way like full name and email address. It had turned to afternoon in James’s flat and we sat around trying to figure out the last two questions. It was all an excuse, really. James and I wanted to meet girls, and Michelle wanted to get drunk. We needed a sharp name for our society. We thought nobody would join up otherwise.

The three of us said to each other that we wanted to meet new and interesting people and share ideas and not talk about the football or the gossip or the Playstation. We sat and discussed it and got drunk and then argued about it. Then we decided that the football and the gossip and the trivia could never be avoided, but we wanted to recruit people who knew this also. The sun was going down on the street outside the windows. Michelle had brought a bottle of whiskey and we passed it around.

‘Right, so,’ James said with the notepad, ’the categories are going to scroll down in alphabetical order, Atheist, Agnostic, Buddhist, Christian. . .’

‘Wait, hold on a minute,’ Michelle said, bringing the bottle down from her lips, ’why are we bothering to list all of those when the whole point of joining up is that you don’t believe in God?’

‘Because. . .’ James said,’ because the club is called “one or more gods or fewer”, Michelle. We might get some people who are religious.’

‘Then just have an option saying “Religious”, then.’

‘I think bringing religion into it at all is asking for trouble,’ I said.

The film Pulp Fiction was playing on James’ television screen with the volume turned down low. I was slouched into the sofa, feeling heavy from the drinking and watched John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson walk around in black suits and say things to each other that I couldn’t hear.

‘But that’s the name,’ James said, ‘the name has the words “gods” in it.’

‘But the point of the name is that it doesn’t matter if you are religious or not,’ said Michelle, ‘it’s explaining who the club is for by listing the beliefs of the members. We don’t want to marginalize who people might be into a less popular religion. If we just put “religious” then they can hang out in the same category as the mainstream guys.’

James threw the notepad down of the coffee table in front of the television and pinched the part of his noise between his eyes and then rubbed his forehead. ‘Fuck it, I don’t know,’ he said.

‘Technically,’ I said, still looking at the television, ‘saying that the title of the group sums up the beliefs of its members is currently bullshit. I’m a second generation agnostic, recently reformed atheist. James here is a first generation Atheist, right James? And you Michelle, well if you’re planning to go round telling people you’re a roman Catholic after what we all heard happened at Ben’s party last week then somebody’s club membership might have to come under review.’

‘Har har, very funny,’ Michelle said, ‘just because you get dragged to church with your parents once a week when you’re younger doesn’t mean you’re a believer in the real world.’

‘Michelle,’ James said,’ you said you went to church a couple of weeks ago.

‘That was my nephew’s baptism. I had to go, didn’t I?’ she said.

‘Anyway, as I was saying,’ I said, ‘as the club currently only contains non believers, the name is incorrect anyway.’

I straightened up in the armchair and leaned over to where Michelle sat and took the bottle of whiskey and took a sip. It tasted sweet and stinging. The neck of the bottle was warm and tacky from the whiskey and Michelle’s saliva. I thought about that. I looked at the television again where Samuel L Jackson was pointing a gun at some men sitting around in a flat.

‘Oh this is the bit where he reads out the bible passage then shoots the guy sitting down,’ I said.

‘Maybe we should change the name of the group then,’ said Michelle.

‘It doesn’t have to make sense,’ James said, ‘it can be ironic.’

I took another sip from the bottle. ‘You know, Samuel L Jackson tells Vince later on in this that he only says all that bible passage stuff to freak people out before he kills them.’

‘Who’s Vince?’ James said.

‘John Travolta.’

‘Ah.’

‘But in the last scene in the cafe, he starts going on about how he can see the sense in it afterwards, after reciting it to his victims for years,’ I said. ‘Maybe that’ll happen to us.’

‘A man doesn’t choose the life. The life chooses the man,’ Michelle said. She said it while making some mystical looking gestures in front of her face.

‘That’s very profound of you to say, Michelle,’ I said, ‘I’m almost impressed. You should write that down to use on our society members. Maybe it could go in the newsletter.’

‘Shoot that bottle over here,’ James said to me.

I screwed the lid back onto the neck of the bottle and threw it underarm in an arch towards James. It was a bad throw. The bottle spun slowly towards the television and James had to almost jump out of his seat to catch it, but it landed roughly in his palm and he put it on the table. ‘Shit,’ I said.

‘So what we’re saying is,’ Michelle said, ‘we keep the wanky name to attract the right types of people, then the name will be correct once they all join up.’

‘That’s it,’ James said.

‘A team of happy rats in the same basket,’ I said.

‘Not talking about television,’ James said.

‘Not talking about video games,’ I said.

‘Or Films,’ James said.

‘Or the weather,’ Michelle said.

‘Or who’s fucked who,’ James said.

‘Or celebrities,’ I said.

‘Just stuff which means stuff,’ James said.

‘Hey, you going to drink that whiskey or you going to just sit there with it until it makes you look more grown up?’ Michelle said to James.

‘Ah yeah,’ James said. He opened the bottle and took a drink. His face grimaced and he handed the bottle back to Michelle.

They both leaned back and we sat there watching the film. The sun was disappearing outside and nobody spoke or turned on the lights. It got darker and soon the room flickered in echos of the scenes of the television. We passed the bottle around in silence. After a while Michelle got up from her seat and went out into the bathroom. We sat and listened to her puking into the toilet, the sound of the toilet flushing. After a while she came back and collapsed into her seat.

John Travolta was walking around a house on the television now.

‘You know,’ Michelle said, holding her arm out to me for the bottle and what was still left in it, ‘Uma Thurman mentions Vince as being an Elvis man in the next scene. That’s because there are deleted parts from this scene in the house where she asks him if he’s a Beatles man or an Elvis man. He says he isn’t sure, then she says that even if you think both are great, you can’t like them both the same. It isn’t possible to like Elvis or the Beatles the same, no matter what happens. Ever.’

I handed Michelle the bottle. ‘I was about to say, they aren’t comparable.’

‘Yeah,’ they both said.