Hello,
I hope you are enjoying the story so far. Part 3 is below. You will need to have read Part 1 and Part 2 to follow the story. Click on their links here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.
Enjoy Part 3.
Four or so hours earlier…….
Choice. Decisions. The stuff of life. Without them we would not possess happiness, sadness, regret or relief. And without these we would not experience life.
Everyday we exercise free will to determine the shape, pattern and direction of our days. Perhaps these events are of the nondescript kind, such as buying a Tuna and Sweetcorn sandwich at Taunton station. He used to buy her Tuna and Sweetcorn sandwiches.
But being free to choose when for so long his actions have been scrutinised, monitored, prescribed, reviewed, sanctioned and judged, is a small step to the symmetrical world of decision and sanity.
Along with the sandwich, he had bought a packet of ready salted crisps for the long journey to Durham. Six hours give or take.
He returned to Father Stephen who was checking the departure board. He hummed the now familiar tune of “Welcome Home” The Peters and Lee classic.
“Good choice. That should keep you going until you reach Durham. Got your ticket?”
“Yes.” He patted the breast pocket of his overcoat.
The train arrived.
“Got your ticket?”
“Yes,”
Father Stephen shook his hand vigorously.
“Well, good luck David. It’s been a pleasure to work with you. You have my number in case you need to talk but I will see you in two weeks in any case. I won’t wave you off. I haven’t bought a ticket for the car park. Father Sidney will meet you at Durham. Give him this letter. It contains the terms of your rehabilitation up there. Safe journey.”
“Thank you. For everything.” Both men flushed. David placed the letter in his jacket.
He boarded the train and found his seat. A table seat. Good. A woman and a young boy sat opposite. David and the woman smiled the cautious pre-emptive smile of strangers thrown together. The child was engrossed in colouring in a picture. Clowns by the look of them. White faces and red noses. As a child, the Priest had always been afraid of the menace that lurked behind that make up.
After a short struggle, he managed to stow his case in the overhead shelf and settled in his seat, catching her eye again. Once more they smiled weakly at each other. The train pulled away. There was no sign of Father Stephen. He really was eager to avoid a fine.
David unwrapped his sandwich.
He thought of first time he had met Stephen as he bustled into David’s room/cell clutching a lever arch file. He paid scant attention for the first twenty minutes or so. This was unsettling.
His angular, busy face scanned the file notes, humming “Welcome Home” as he did so. Occasionally an eyebrow would arch at a particular detail in the file, or he would take a deepish breath after reading another snippet. Finally he spoke in a broad Mancunian accent.
“Father Patterson, I am Father Stephen Joseph, the Society’s chief counsellor. You can call me Father Stephen, Father Joseph or anything you like really as long as it does not contain profanity.”
He was not thinking that. He was only thinking when he would be given his Methadone.
Stephen continued, “Heroin addiction is very rare. Thankfully. Alcoholics, Manic Depressives and Pederasts I see plenty of, but Class A drug addicts? I believe you’re the first one I’ve dealt with.”
Where was his methadone?
“I must understand your own belief systems and those factors that underpin your faith. That is all. No more and no less. If and when I can address what committed you to a life of Christ and all that goes with that then I can, in all likelihood, find the key to rebuilding your spirituality, seek an explanation for your addiction and what led you down this path and the trouble with this…….Girl, Susan.” He studied her photo. His eyebrow arched once more.
David blanched at these words. He did not understand. Why should he? All he wanted was Methadone.
Father Stephen scribbled furiously into his notepad as he spoke. He tore the page out of the book, held it aloft and muttered, “Good legs, poor tail, that one’s not so bad.” He passed the drawing to him. It could have been one of several animals, but it was mammalian.
“Yes it is a mammal. That is a good start. Reptiles are a no-no for me I must say and as for amphibians? Don’t get me started.”
Thus the pattern was set. At the end of each of their sessions, David was handed a badly drawn animal to consider. They became a daily treat, blistering the routine of therapy and forced contemplation.
“Just think about this for tomorrow, tell me about this tomorrow,” and each morning at the start of their session they would spend five minutes discussing experiences of and feelings towards the animal so laughingly depicted.
He admired this abstract method of communication. Clearly, Stephen was not as intelligent as he, not many in the Society are, but his love of anecdotes, similes and metaphors made their sessions entertaining and at the very least an amiable distraction from the rote of addiction recovery and its physical manifestations or tortured abstraction.
“Is it a Gorilla?”
“No, it is a Goat. It’s not that bad is it?”
He wondered when his methadone would be sanctioned.
The train pulled into Temple Meads Station. The kerfuffle of humanity boarding and leaving the train took him by surprise. So much nervous energy expended on such mundane tasks. Life in all its glorious pointlessness. He had missed this.
Susan. He would love to see her again, but the gagging clause in her contract with the Diocese made that impossible. What she thought of him now he could not begin to imagine. That was the worst part not being able to apologise. And to let her apologise to him.
In the six months he had known her, he had turned his back on his Vocation to instead live a life based upon the impossible pursuit of intellectual ecstasy via opiates. All to satisfy her.
He opened the slim volume of The Collected Essays of St Thomas Aquinas. As always the book fell open at the same spot, “In such reading I find devotion, whence I readily ascend to contemplation”.
Thick bloated raindrops began to fall against the carriage window. It would be good to feel the rain on his face. The rhythm of the train moving over the tracks instilled a sense of calm in him.
Nine months cooped up in a room containing a bed, dressing table, chair, armchair and wardrobe. No mirrors, not even a carpet and a large black crucifix hanging over the bed. The only utensils allowed in the room were the small plastic beakers. Room searches on a weekly basis.
Part Monastery. Part Prison.
It felt inspired to be amongst people once more, revelling in the anonymity and freedom from inquisition. And carpet underfoot.
His mouth felt dry. He searched for a packet of mints in his jacket. As his hand searched he felt another container in the pocket. Small, made of leather with a button fastening. His rosary beads.
He opened the case. The beads nestled comfortably. He wondered. There it was. Wedged in the bottom of the case. Enough for one smoke, in an emergency. They must have missed it.
But was this a final test from Father Stephen? His possessions had been thoroughly searched. Two wraps had been removed from the lining of his jacket. Perhaps this one had slipped through. Perhaps, it is a sign. Designed to test his faith, his resolve to keep off smack for good.
Stephen had provided him with the platform to refute her doltish advances in the future. His mental strength was such that the addiction could be controlled via a combination of intellect, strength of will and methadone.
But.
Nobody would know.
He knew he could give up any time he wished. He had proved that in the clinic. He had stopped smoking to. He popped the case button shut and returned it his pocket.
One more time?
Maybe.
Why not? I love it.
Don’t. Think of the struggle you have been through.
But the struggle shows that I can overcome it. Use it to my advantage. To reach God in that uncluttered manner.
Besides I love it.
“In such reading I find devotion, whence I readily ascend to contemplation”.
There it was again. The symmetry between free will and choice. Only this was a choice for good. For the benefit of his spiritual self. His devotion.
Fuck it.
He stood up and made his way to the toilet. The child scribbled with a toddler’s delicacy of touch and his mother, who was reading a magazine, gently stroked the boy’s back.
He glimpsed at the clowns. He and the mother smiled once more.
He recalled watching clowns on a Saturday Night Variety programme with his parents as a child. They had scared him. But he never expressed this fear. It had been a silent upbringing in so many ways.
The sign on the toilet door indicated it was occupied. But then it opened. An old man stepped out, clattering the toilet door with a walking stick as he left. They smiled as they passed each other.
A number of sodden hand towels littered the floor. He closed and locked the door, flipped the toilet seat down and sat. The frailties returned. The guilt returned. Why was he so fragile? Weak? He needed to distance himself from these feelings. He double checked that the door was locked.
He loves it.
He retrieved the case, removed the beads and held the wrap of heroin. The train rattled over a set of points.
Fuck it.
The heated tinfoil reduced the brown powder to an oily residue. He watched the transformation from powder to oil and thought of extreme unction. He placed the Biro casing in his mouth and drew in the fumes.
There was little reaction for a few seconds. Then the HIT.
He floated into an ether of peacefulness and stillness, sat back and let this balm cleanse. Even the train’s dullard voice failed to disturb him. It added to the intensity of the experience. After months of enforced abstinence, the deep rich insights into the world of ecstasy and spiritual certainty returned. His convictions were reconstituted into a set of sharp, focused reasoning’s that had eluded for so long. Tranquil subsidence and contentment seeped into him. He began his ascent, like a glider released and tossed upon the thermals of his imagination. He was one with his soul again.
He Loves it.
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