Vocation
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” Jeremy’s voice had been so weak when he finally blurted out the words that if anyone else had heard him say them they would have thought he was about to exhale his last breath.
“How long since your last confession?” the priest, who had ignored his apparent suffering, replied with the usual question.
“Two days, Father.”
Father Connor sighed. He shook his head ever so slightly to prevent the boy from the other side of the screen to even notice. Clearly concerned about the boy, the priest waited patiently in his seat for the young man to clear his mind as much as he needed. It had only been a year since Jeremy had stepped carefully inside the church and it had been father Connor who had immediately sensed this would be one soul who would benefit from his wisdom and expertise.
If anything, Father Connor was glad the Lord had put Jeremy in his path. The boy had been clearly confused and in crisis and had been brave enough to ask for help. It showed great potential that Jeremy had listened to everything the priest had to say on that first day and a lot of bravery that he had decided that coming back time and time again was helping resolve his issues at home.
“How are you, Jeremy?” he asked him finally in a more familiar tone. He had, after all, known him for almost a year.
“Not so good, Father,” the boy was quick to say. He lowered his brown eyes and tried to hide them with his hair with apparent shame. The tears were not rolling down his cheeks yet, but they would easily appear if he wasn’t careful with the way he worded his next sentence.
“We last spoke a few days ago and we had a good talk,” two days ago, to be precise, “what is it that’s troubling you today, my son?”
This time, Jeremy’s voice was strong and loud enough not to be misunderstood. “I have lied to you, Father,” Jeremy confessed.
“Lied?” Father Connor was caught unprepared, “I’m not sure I understand.”
The priest heard Jeremy’s hesitation by his breathing. “I’m afraid I have been lying to you all this time, Father. From the very beginning; from the first day we met,” Jeremy continued to explain, “I have lied since that day you saw me sitting on that bench after you had finished mass. You remember that day, don’t you Father?” The priest nodded, not sure if Jeremy was looking through the net, “I sure I remember it, Father. That day we met was the day I met God. I mean, really met him. You showed God to me and it has meant everything to me..”
Father Connor understood his words, yet none of them told him where the lie lied. “I remember, Jeremy. I remember the day I first approached you. I am glad the Lord lives within you now. You know He forgives everything. You know this, don’t you?”
The boy chuckled. Sure, he knew, but that was beside the point. “I told you I was a Catholic, remember?” he prompted, his eyes still hidden under his long hair. “I’m sure you know I was lying then, but you never questioned me. Did you, father? Did you know?” The priest had no time to answer, “Not that it matters.”
“Well, I noticed that you never took communion. But I always tell myself that we must not judge what we don’t know or understand.”
“My family doesn’t believe in God, Father. They-they despise Him.”
It had been hard for him to utter the words. For a moment, Father Connor thought Jeremy had flinched as if some thing would come out of the heavens to slay him. He was afraid.
“It doesn’t matter if they believe in God or not, Jeremy,” said the priest in his most comforting voice. “They are not you, always remember that. Everyone makes up their own mind about who or what they will believe in. Your family can’t control your feelings, your thoughts or your beliefs. They can question them, of course, but they can’t control them.”
“I have questioned myself. I have looked around trying to find the truth.”
“I can tell you have. If you hadn’t, you would not have come here in the first place,” the priest explained, “I know it is difficult to go against the beliefs of your family, Jeremy.”
The boy nodded, holding back tears. “Out of everything that I’ve seen, I think you are the one that makes more sense to me. This religion. Your religion.”
“Catholicism?” asked Father Connor, to be sure.
“You are the one who has made me feel more in my place, Father. I believe that if your religion turned you into the person you are today, then I want it to be my religion, as well.”
“Whatever brings peace to your heart, son,” said the priest.
There was a brief pause and, when Jeremy spoke next, he said, “I want to be a part of your church.”
“This church, like most, is open to everyo-“
“No,” interrupted the boy, “I want to be more than that. I want to be a priest.”
Will Solomon carried his backpack on one shoulder because he knew that made him look cool. His short black hair stood up in a series of spikes on his head, his blue eyes behind a pair of black shades and his hands tucked in his worn leather jacket’s pockets.
The bell had rung a few minutes earlier and Will walked casually, with rhythm, to the familiar tree where he met Jeremy each afternoon to start their walk home. Will was Jeremy’s best friend. It was as if the boys had known each other since before they were born. They weren’t related, but might as well be. Their families had known each other for generations, and that made them almost brothers. That would have worked great for both of them, except Will and Jeremy were radically different.
That had not been true in the beginning. When they were kids they had a lot in common. They cared about cars and trains and dinosaurs. Insignificant things were cool and important things were a joke. They had used words like boogers, farts, and poop. Those had been the good times; times before Will became a ladies’ man and Jeremy… well, Jeremy became an old man.
They were both seniors in High School now. Soon, the time would come to choose a college, to take important tests and to decide what they were going to do with their lives. What wouldn’t Will give to have Jeremy follow in his footsteps? Unfortunately, his friend had changed so much he could hardly have a sane conversation with him.
“You goin’ back there, man?” Will asked avoiding looking him in the face. “That place is not good for you, Jeremy. Really, man, not cool.” Will had had several heated discussions with Jeremy about church, so much that they had both ran out of things to say. Will had insisted it was time for Jeremy to have a girlfriend, go to a few concerts, perhaps try a few drugs – at least smoking – but Jeremy didn’t seem to budge. He was set in his idea of having a religion.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Will muttered. “Nothing good ever comes out of this conversation, does it?”
“Don’t be such a baby, man,” Will moved to shove him out of the sidewalk, “That place ain’t good for you. I mean it. You think you’re going to be fine, but you’re not! Trust me, Jeremy, ok?”
“Last I checked it was a free country,” Jeremy added, “You’ve no idea what I’m going through. The things I’ve seen, things I’ve learned. This is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”
“Felt?” snorted Will as he suppressed a loud laugh, “What the hell did you go and do, man?”
“Nothing,” said Jeremy, “you wouldn’t understand.”
“Sure I would,” Will said, “There are few who understand more than I do when it comes to you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Will.”
Will laughed. He shook his head, laughing for about half the block before saying, “I think your mom or your old man needs to have a talk with you soon. Aren’t you going to be eighteen in a month?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Jeremy demanded, “What talk? I’m not the one sleeping with every girl on the
school who will let me?”
“Ooooh,” mocked Will, “That hurt. It’s not my problem you are not embracing your, uhm,…”
Seeing that his friend didn’t finish his sentence, Jeremy prompted, “Embracing what?”
“Nothing.” Will quickened his pace. Soon, he was out of reach and far away. The conversation had ended.
Jeremy forgot about home. Instead, he went back to the church. There, he prayed like he had thought himself to pray. He took out his rosary and started reciting the words.
He was in the middle of praying when he felt a figure sitting beside him. Carefully, he opened his eyes and was relieved to see Father Connor sitting next to him.
“Hello, father.”
“Everything all right with you today, Jeremy?”
Jeremy began to nod, “Yes, father. I just needed to pray, that’s all. It makes me feel better. Takes my mind off things I don’t need right now.”
“Like what?”
“It’s nothing.”
He sensed the priest knew he didn’t want to talk about it and he was right. Dropping the subject, Father Connor began once more, this time with a different question. “Are you baptized, Jeremy?”
It was obvious he wasn’t. “No.”
“Perhaps that is our first step in helping you to become a priest.”
Jeremy had never thought about any of that before. “Baptism.” He said the word out loud; it was nice to hear it. “I suppose your right. The first sacrament.” Then, he asked, “What do I need to do to be baptized?”
“Nothing but a couple of forms. And a ritual.”
“Ritual?” Jeremy was not only intrigued, he was also nervous. “Wait, you mean… in front of people?”
The priest didn’t mean to chuckle at his suggestion, “Ordinarily yes, but not necessarily. What you do need is a Godfather.”
“Godfather?”
“Yes.”
“Like the movie?”
Once more, the priest found his words amusing, “No, Jeremy. Like a person who is there to support you.”
“Like you?”
“Usually a member of your family. Or a close friend of your family. Since you are being baptized as an adult, it could be a friend. You have a best friend, I hope.”
Jeremy didn’t want to answer that question. “And that’s all I need?”
“Yes. We would go to my office and all we have to do is get your head wet; and a blessing, of course. Then you’d have received the sacrament.”
It sounded so easy. He wondered if Will would be willing to do that for him.
“I’ll have to think about that. The Godfather,” Jeremy reflected.
“No rush,” the priest said, “Whenever you’re ready just come see me. You know where to find me.”
“Thank you, father.”
Placing a hand on his shoulder, the priest smiled fondly, “I will let you continue your prayer.”
Jeremy nodded, watched the priest leave and stared at the rosary intently until the sun went down.
Just as custom mandated, Jeremy waited faithfully for his friend to reach their meeting point after school. His mind filled with possibility now that there seemed to be a clear path to get what he thought he wanted: to be baptized; to start his road to salvation in a world that seemed to be damned for all eternity. Now all he needed was a godfather, and as he spotted Will walking towards him, he knew what he had to do.
“Yo, man!” greeted Will as they both started walking in the direction of their neighborhood. “What up?”
For a moment, Jeremy had thought it would be easy to just go ahead and say it. To ask his best friend to take a leap of faith and help him achieve his goal. For a moment, the words formed in his head as he readied himself to ask the most important question he had ever asked of Will. But a “nothing,” came out at last.
“Surely not nothing,” Will chuckled. “Man, I tell ya, there’s something off with you. Something not right.”
After a moment of hesitation, Jeremy agreed, “What if that’s true? What if there’s something… unusual I would like to ask of you?”
“Ask? What the hell, man? You changing gears on me or something?”
Jeremy blushed. He couldn’t be quicker in denying what his friend suggested. “No, man. That’s not it at all.”
Will answered with laughter, “Well, good, Jer, because then I would really be worried.”
With a nervous chuckle, Jeremy decided he couldn’t delay the inevitable. He knew what he wanted. He knew he wanted Will to be there for him. They may not see eye to eye in a lot of things lately, but he was still the one person he trusted the most. Will knew him better than anyone. He had been there for him every day after school since he could remember while their parents slept waiting to wake up for the night shift. He had been there for him when his father had announced he had taken a job out of state and wouldn’t be a part of his life anymore. He had been there for him every step of the way and he hoped he was still there now that he sought redemption in the Catholic church. Perhaps his friend had not yet abandoned him.
“I want to ask you something.”
Will nodded, amazingly interested, “Right. A question.”
“It’s important.”
They both stopped, looked at each other, one waiting, the other hesitating. “Just spill it, man. What’s up?”
“I want to be baptized and I want you to be my Godfather.”
There were many ways to interpret Will’s silence as he heard the request. Time stopped for both of them and everything around them seemed to disappear.
Although Jeremy knew the question had been a bizarre one, there was nothing that could have prepared him for what came next.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Will said as he started walking again. “You can’t be baptized.”
What? Jeremy quickly caught up with him. “Sure I can, and I will. If you don’t want to be a part of it, Will, then fuck you, but I am doing it.”
“Fuck me. Fuck me?” chuckled Will again. “You’ve no idea what you’re saying, Jeremy. You can’t be baptized. It’s not that you shouldn’t, it’s that you can’t. You physically can’t.”
“Sure I can, and after that, I will continue with the sacraments until I achieve priesthood.”
Will was already shaking his head, “You crazy, man, aren’t you listening? You can’t do that.”
“Stop saying that, everybody can do it. All you have to do is-“
Will stopped again, quite abruptly, stopping Jeremy with him. “Now, you listen to me, Jeremy. You are my friend, you understand? And I will not lose you to stupidity.”
“Lose me?”
“Yeah,” Will looked dead serious, “You and I, we’re one of a kind in this town. You don’t know it yet because your mom won’t say anything, but I know. I know what we are.”
What we are? Where had that come from? What were they? Two of a kind? What in the world was Will trying to pull now? To what means was he going to resort in order to stop his friend from becoming religious.
“What in the world are you even talking about, Will?” exhaled Jeremy. “What are we supposed to be, uh? What?”
“Your folks should have told you eons ago.” Will continued, “I’m going to tell you now only because I care about you, man. All right? All you have to do is believe me and then stop your stupid nonsense about being baptized. You understand?”
“I don’t. No. I don’t understand.”
Will took Jeremy’s shoulders with both arms as he got ready to lay this important information on him. “Listen, man, I’m telling you, the reason you can’t be baptized is because you’re a vampire. You were born on. Your parents are vampires. You’re a vampire.”
Jeremy heard the words, but could not understand them. Maybe it was some sort of joke. Although Will stood there looking at him like he had just revealed a horrible yet real truth.
“Are you out of your fucking mind!?” was all Jeremy could think of saying. “I can’t even begin to imagine why yo
u would say a stupid thing like that.”
“It’s not stupid,” said Will awkwardly. “It’s the truth.”
As he began to shake his head, Jeremy quickened his pace in his attempt to get away from his lying friend. “Goodbye, Will.”
Will didn’t attempt to catch up with him. Instead, he yelled from behind. “Don’t believe me? Ask your mother!”
Like he had done since he could remember, Jeremy took out his house key to enter a seemingly abandoned one story house. The house would show signs of life only when he arrived or when his mother woke up, which wasn’t until it was dark.
Dark.
That didn’t really mean anything, a lot of people had night shifts and only worked at night. Not everybody was fortunate enough to have gone to college and have a comfortable nine to five desk job. His mom was clearly not one of those people.
When he was younger and before his dad had moved out of town, his dad had also had a night time job. That’s where his parents had met – or at least that’s what the story told. Only coincidence, right? Again, it couldn’t possibly mean anything.
Besides, he had seen his parents during the light of day, right? Mmh, or maybe not. He surely must have. Or perhaps Will was just messing with his head and he was now seeing things that weren’t there. That had never been there.
The house was old and small. The two bedrooms belonged to his mother and him. The living room took all the space, so the kitchen counter served as a dining table. Jeremy had never had a lot, but he had never felt he was missing anything important; besides a belief in God, of course.
What he owned or didn’t own didn’t really matter. What really mattered was the truth – because being a vampire couldn’t possibly be true. For example, wouldn’t he have fangs, crave blood or burn during the day if he were a vampire? He found it hard to believe he could be a terrifying creature of literature without his notice.
In all honesty, he could not figure out why he was even considering the possibility in the first place.
Ask your mom! Will had yelled. Easier said than done. His mother had a strict rule about letting her rest during the day because she worked all night and yet… he couldn’t stop looking at her closed door. Was it locked? Did she lock it to make sure he wouldn’t disturb her sleep? What would happen if he went inside? Maybe he should knock. Or maybe…
Vocation Page 1