by Tara Tingle
I finished clearing the room just before four in the afternoon. I didn't have to look at Xavier to know that he was still down for the count. The crash phase of meth usage lasts for eight to ten hours, and it seemed like he was only at the early stage when I saw him earlier.
I pulled up a chair and positioned it right in front of the bed. I sat there and observed him as he slept.
He was a peaceful sleeper, it seemed. He didn't twitch. He didn't snore. He didn't make any unusual sounds. I eventually ended up watching him for a couple of hours and the only movement that he made was when he turned to his side and rolled his body into a fetal position.
I spent those hours smiling.
The circumstances of our initial meeting – face to face, that is, and one-sided as it may be – was quite unnatural and far from ideal. But here we were. I could finally see him, and soon enough, he'd get to see me as well. No old, wooden screen separated us. No unspoken concord of ascendancy and stature divided us. Here, I wasn't a priest and he wasn't a member of my flock. Here, I wasn't a confessor and he wasn't a sinner who sought forgiveness. Here, we were just two people, bound by a connection I could not explain, summoned by a precedence that required my aid, and kept by my concern over his wellbeing.
Xavier had features that made him look younger than his age. I'd even say that his face could be mistaken for that of an adolescent lad. His boyish charm was actually consistent with his voice and the way he spoke – soft, a little high-pitched, tentative, and often lacking the conviction expected from an adult of his years.
I continued to observe him as I wondered how he was like, usually – assuming, of course that his usual self involved him being away from the influence of drugs. Was he jolly? Introspective? Lively? Silent? Moody? Impulsive? Meticulous? Was he as benevolent and as understanding as I have inferred from his stories? Or was there a side of him that he didn't reveal in all of his confessions?
Like his addiction to meth.
And that thought reminded me how much he has disappointed me.
Xavier woke up at half past seven in the evening. He was still groggy. He was blinking frantically, a sign that his vision was blurry. Even with his impaired sight, he looked around like he was trying to determine where he was. When he was sure that he was in his own bedroom, he turned his gaze on me.
“Yes, I'm here,” I informed him, knowing that he may have forgotten about my presence. “Father Joe. From the parish.”
“Oh...” he mumbled. “So... I wasn't dreaming?”
“No,” I confirmed with a stern tone. “You weren't dreaming. You were high.”
“I... I guess I was,” he admitted rather shamefully as he bowed his head, hoping to hide himself from the guilt.
“How long have you been addicted to meth?” I didn't waste any time to ask.
“Addicted?” he repeated the word I used, seemingly shocked. “No, Father... today was... was my first time...”
I didn't know if he was lying or if he was telling the truth.
“I am not here to judge you, Xavier-” I replied before he cut me off.
“Please, Father, call me Xavi,” he requested. “No one calls me Xavier since... since my parents died.”
Died?
But his father was alive just a few days ago.
I set aside that matter to proceed with the subject that I wanted to discuss.
“Okay, Xavi,” I restarted my spiel. “As I was saying, I'm not here to judge you. There's no point in lying. You can tell me the truth.”
“About my... my drug usage?” he wondered. “But I am, Father. This morning was actually my first time. Honest!”
“I saw the meth pills on the floor,” I stated. “I counted them. Eighteen in total. That's quite a lot for someone who claims that he hasn't been taking them before.”
“Yeah. They are, huh?” he agreed. “I bought them online, in the Dark Web. Someone's selling them at a discount if I'd buy at least two dozens.”
“So there were twenty-four pills, originally?” I was still hesitant to believe him.
“Yes, Father.”
“You're telling me that you took six pills? Just this morning?” That was a lot. The pills were of significant size. By my estimation, each contained 5 mg of methamphetamine. Six pills would total 30 mg. The maximum dosage that the human body can take per day was only 20 mg. If Xavier was telling the truth, then he's lucky he didn't suffer an overdose.
“Is that bad, Father?” he asked with an innocent and remorseful tone.
Somehow, I was moved by that. I found it ambrosial and amusing.
But now wasn't the time to entertain such thoughts!
“Taking meth is bad per se,” I declared with all seriousness. I felt like I was delivering a sermon during mass. “Taking six of them... in one sitting, I presume... that's not only bad, Xavi. That's suicidal.”
He looked away, turning his head towards the empty wall. “That's what I was aiming for,” he spoke with deliberate softness as if he was hesitant about making me hear what he said.
“You tried to kill yourself?” I was forced to ask, dropping the firm demeanor I was putting up as I began to worry once again. “Why?”
He didn't answer.
Not immediately, at least.
He was silent for a few seconds before his eyes began to swell. A tear dribbled down his cheek as his lips curled into a contorted line.
“My daddy... he... he left me,” he eventually said, his voice trembling and weak.
“I see,” was all I could respond with. Then, I remembered what he shared earlier - that his parents have passed away. “This daddy of yours, is he your biological father?”
“Oh, no... no, he's not,” he was quick to deny.
That would explain the inconsistency.
“Your stepfather then?”
“Eh? No he's not,” he refuted once more.
“Your adoptive father?”
He shook his head as he looked at me with bewilderment.
“I... I'm sorry, Xavi. You have me confused.”
“I have you confused?” he repeated my words before scrunching his face, showing the expression of a man who's ruing the consequences of his false assumptions. “Oh shit... I'm so sorry, Father. All this time, I thought that you understood what was happening...”
“All I know is that... was that...” I corrected myself, “you were having a wonderful relationship with this father you've always been talking about. Until he struck you, that is.”
He flashed an unsettled smile as if I made him remember a joyful memory that was now rendered tortuous. “Yes... it was wonderful,” he muttered. “But... things change. People change. Or maybe... he was like that all along and I was blinded by my need for his presence... my need for his care...”
“Xavi, you're being cryptic,” I pointed out.
“I'm sorry father,” he said as he lifted his head to face me. “My daddy... he's not the usual kind of daddy. He's like ... uhm... someone who takes care of me.”
“Someone who takes care of you? A caregiver?” I asked.
“Errr... more like a... nanny,” he rectified, flustered by what he shared.
“Uhm... you're right, Xavi. I don't understand,” I conceded.
“He provides for my needs,” he explained. “He cooks for me. He washes and irons my clothes. He watches over me whenever I'm sick.” Up until that point, he was enumerating everything that this daddy of his does for him with quite animatedly. Then, his tone suddenly changed. It was as if he was embarrassed to continue. “He... errr... he bathes me. He changes my clothes. He reads me stories before going to bed. He plays with me. He... uhm... he... he... he changes my... my.... my diapers.”
I didn't know what to say.
I didn't know how to react.
I folded my hands over my nose, trying to process what I just heard. But the more I thought about them, the more they didn't make sense.
All the while, I was under the impression that the baby stuff I've seen in
this room were for an infant I wasn't aware of. Never did I think that they were actually for Xavier. How could I? Such was an absurd idea.
I was too overwhelmed by all the questions that formed in my head that I wasn't able to ask any.
Hence, the next few minutes were devoured by a kind of silence that was worse than awkward... a quietness that gnawed at my soul and turned the world that I've come to know on its head... a stillness that made me doubt everything that I knew was true.
But doubt...
Doubt is the enemy of faith.
For many nights in the past five months, I've come to know Xavier as a gentle soul, a laudable young man who always exhibited the best of intentions. He showed his innocence in so many ways, but he was, by no means, naive. He possessed a kind of guilelessness that was easy to perceive as a glaring weakness... but more than anything else, it signified that his heart was just in the right place.
And it was this innocence that made him difficult to dismiss...
Difficult to forget...
Difficult not to be attracted to.
For many nights, I've thought about him. I've thought about him more than I thought about my duties as a man of God.
I wouldn't say that he's the sole reason why I've started to question my calling. Truth is, I've been having apprehensions about my vocation long before he even stepped inside that confession box. But his arrival was the proverbial straw that might've broken the camel's back.
For many nights, I've thought about him and why he was making me feel the way I felt.
With all the strength and the courage that I could muster, I tried to deny any and all possible reasons.
I always failed.
Deep in my heart, I knew why.
Deep in my heart, I knew that to discover the truth, I had to allow myself to believe in who I truly was...
And I had to believe in who I thought he was.
And now I was here, and he was right in front of me, disclosing matters that I may not, in my wildest imagination, have expected... but matters which comprised the person behind the lattice at the confessional who I've come to care for beyond mere fondness and wonder.
If I was to believe in myself, if I was to believe in him, if I was to believe that we share something that was very precious and special, I had to set aside all doubts...
Then and only then would I see who he really was...
Then and only then would I see what we really have.
“Are you telling me that you have the needs of a child?” I asked with all earnestness.
“Yes, Father,” he replied, quite abashed. “More like... the needs of a baby.”
“Is this some kind of malady? An illness? A mental problem?”
“I... I don't think so,” he answered. “This... predilection... it's quite unusual, Father. But it's not abnormal. Quite a number of people share this... condition.”
“The condition of acting like a baby?” I had to question.
“The condition of being a baby,” he said. “An adult baby.”
“So... which is the noun and which is the adjective in that term?” I sought some clarification.
“Both,” was his simple response.
“You're an adult and you're a baby?”
“Yes, Father.”
“An adult with the needs of a baby, or a baby who is, by force of expectations, compelled to be an adult?”
Xavier smiled. “You have a better grasp at this than I do, father,” he seemingly jested, but it didn't really sound like a joke. “I'd like think that I'm an adult who never really outgrew the years I’ve spent as a baby. By force of expectations, as you've perfectly described, and in conformance with societal norms, I know that I have to act like an adult. But in doing so, the side of me which remains a baby is repressed, and as is with everything in life, repression only magnifies the needs which beg to be satisfied.”
Strange as it may have been, things were beginning to make sense. But I still had more questions.
“So... be that as it may,” I proceeded, “with you being an... adult baby, as you call it... is it something you can control at least? Something that you can slip in and out of at will?”
“Oh yes, Father,” he admitted. “I do know when I'm being a baby. I do know how I am whenever I'm a baby. I'm aware of everything that I do and everything that happens around me even when I'm in that state. However...” he became somewhat distraught that he found it hard to continue.
“However?” I egged him to finish his explanation.
“However... when I'm in extreme physical or mental anguish, I do regress to my baby self even if it's against my better judgment... and I find it extremely difficult to return to being an adult.”
“Extreme physical and mental anguish?” I repeated what he said as I tried to correlate it with what might've transpired the past week. “Like what you experienced since we last talked?” I asked. “Something about your daddy leaving you?”
“Yes,” he confirmed sullenly.
“He just left you, without any proper goodbyes?”
“None whatsoever. Remember that fight we had about money? When he struck me because I couldn't give him any?”
I nodded. I remembered it all too well, though struck wasn't really the appropriate word to use. That man assaulted him, tried to kill him, even.
“We never talked again after that,” Xavier added. “He was still here when I got home from confession, but he was gone the next morning. All of his stuff were gone, too. He had no intentions of coming back.” Xavier began to break into tears once again.
“That was very heartbreaking for you,” I voiced my sympathy. “I understand what you're going through.”
“Do you, Father?” he questioned with a hint of resentment. “Do you really understand? Have you ever... needed... someone so much that you have given him everything you have and more so that he’d stay, only for him to leave you because of some stupid reason like money?”
“No,” I told him. “But I do know that such is not the reason why you're feeling miserable, Xavi.”
“W-What do you mean?”
“You're feeling sad and helpless and hopeless not because the man you we were with left you... but because he turned out to be a completely different person from the man you thought you knew.”
“I... I...” Xavi wanted to argue that point, but he was rendered speechless because the truth of my words reverberated in his being, and they may have been too painful to bear.
“You're feeling sad and helpless and hopeless not because of a relationship that abruptly ended,” I went on to say, “but because you're afraid... afraid that you'll never find someone who will understand who you really are, someone who will accept what you really are, someone who will be able to fulfill your needs as a grown-up child. Have you noticed that you never mentioned anything about loving this man who you call daddy?”
“I haven’t?” he was surprised to know.
“Not even once,” I informed him. “All you kept saying was that you needed him. And now he’s gone, and that makes you feel vulnerable.”
“I... I guess you're right, Father,” he conceded as he hid his face behind the palms of his hands.
“And this fear,” I pointed out, “it rendered you so destitute and forlorn that you just gave up. You just gave up on yourself... on life... on everything. You decided to end it all.”
“Fortunately... or unfortunately... you got here before I succeeded,” he replied with a forced laugh. “I mean... how did you even know who I was? Where I lived?”
“I'm a priest,” I said. “I have many means. As luck would put it, I'm also a former police lieutenant's son.”
“God works in mysterious ways, huh?” he quipped, chuckling as he continued to sob.
“Not so mysterious, I pray, that you'd lose sight of what really matters.”
“Which is?”
“That loss and pain and suffering are parts of life. They are inevitable. But so is joy and beauty and lov
e. I can mention so many cliches to support this fact. When God closes a door, He opens a window. It doesn't matter how many times we fall down, what matters is how many times we get back up. Que sera sera. Life goes on. And so many more. Cliches, all of them. Hackneyed. Contrite. Overused. But they're cliches for a reason. They're cliches because they're true.”
“Mass isn't until Sunday,” he retorted with a smile. His tears were quickly subsiding and his face was beginning to light up.
“Heh,” I scoffed. “That reminds me... I should work on my sermon. It takes me a couple of days to write and memorize my monologue. So... come on, Xavi. Life is beautiful. Life is good. You feel bad right now, but things will be better. Pick yourself up. You can do it.” I stood up from my chair and invited him to do the same.
“You mean... stand up? Like you, Father?” he asked, bewildered.
“Yes. Standing on your feet may seem quite metaphorical, but it will do the trick. You'll see. So, come on, Xavi. Get up. The world's waiting for you.”
He flashed a charming grin and did what I told him to do. He removed the blanket that was covering him, revealing the diaper that he was still wearing, and began to get out of bed.
But before he could do so, he collapsed on the floor.
I rushed towards him and caught his head before it crashed on the ground.
“I... I can't,” he muttered. “My legs... they're too weak.”
I held his arm and assisted him until he sat on the edge of the bunker. “I see. Your head's clear of the meth but your body hasn't recovered yet.”
“Y-Yeah. How long do you think will I be like this, Father?”
“A couple more hours, I believe.”
“I can live with that,” he replied with much optimism. “I guess I'm really lucky that those pills didn't...” he stopped as he gave his midsection an alarming look. “Oh shit...” he mumbled.
“Why? What's wrong?”
“I... uhm... my... errr... my diaper...”
“Your diaper?”
“Yes. It's... uhm... it's full.”