The Fifty-Eighth Night

 

Nick ended up staying at my place until this past Sunday.

On Friday afternoon, he came with me to the hospital for a dermatology appointment. The test came back negative, and we celebrated with generous bowls of ice cream and prayers.

On Saturday, while I was making dinner, he finished packing his bags. Then he came back into the kitchen and sat down at the table.

"You know what I've been thinking about?" he asked.

"How good it'll be to finally get home?" I replied.

He smiled and shook his head. "No. I've been thinking about death. About your death."

I turned back to the pots on the stove and stood there in solemn silence.

Nick had fallen silent too, and after a moment I ventured to speak.

"When I was a kid, they taught me in school to live every day as if it were my last. I've been doing that my whole life. One day, I'll get it right."

He let out a quiet, incredulous laugh.

"Who teaches something that awful to a kid?"

"My wise Seventh-day Adventist teachers. When I told my mother about that lesson, she agreed with them. There are countless blessings in living with your eyes fixed on death. One of them is knowing that nothing here lasts forever, and that what truly matters is what we'll lay before God when we cross death's threshold."

I gave him a moment to absorb my words—and his own feelings.

"You've given my life direction," he said softly. "You know that? You've become the best thing in my life."

I wasn't ready for those words.

I left the stove and sat down beside him.

"I know it's childish for me to think like this..." Nick said.

After a while, he went on.

"I wish I were grown-up enough to be rational about it—to look at things objectively. But I'm not. I spent my whole youth looking for light in hell, and now that I've finally found the real thing... even that light flickers, like it could go out." He paused. "You get what I mean? I'm not talking about you having cancer. I'm talking about knowing that... well..." His voice faltered. "I don't want to be left in the dark again."

I pulled my chair closer and wrapped my arms around him.

"You know, Nick, I could die tonight..."

He started to interrupt me, but I gently pressed a finger to his lips and continued.

"If tomorrow morning I wake up dead, I want to leave you with this now: devote yourself to living each day as though it were your last. And if it is your last, what will you have to lay at God's feet?"

I smiled at him.

"Do you think you can do that?"

"Live to please God?"

"Yes. He's the only One who endures forever, and He loves you with a love beyond anything I'm capable of. For a while, we'll walk beside each other on our journey toward Him. And when our paths part, He'll still be with us—until we meet again in eternity."

Nick smiled faintly.

"That's a pretty bold plan."

"And what man doesn't love a challenge?"

I took his hands in mine.

"So... how do you feel?"

"Challenged," he said. "But better than I did before."

"That's my boy! Now I will need five minutes to finish dinner. Be prepared!”

 

 

An Afternoon with Nick

 

I know—it’s been many days since I last wrote about my evenings with Nick. But there are good reasons for that, as you’ll soon see.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Nick spent a few weeks in America. There, after a chance encounter with someone from his old days living on the streets, he found himself facing what seemed like a fierce temptation to return to addiction.

Determined to remain sober and committed to the promise he had made me, he left California and headed for the East Coast. Afterward, he returned to visit his family and finally came back last Wednesday.

In the meantime, a doctor found signs of a potentially unwelcome illness on my back, prompted by a strange discoloration on the skin. So far, I have undergone only one examination and am still waiting for the results. For now, it remains only a suspicion.

Life is always a box of surprises, isn’t it?

I went to pick Nick up at the airport. He looked exhausted—the very portrait of fatigue—but it was a portrait that greeted me with a broad, lingering smile.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he said. “You should be making pottery. I’ve got two more commissions lined up for you.”

“You’re going to kill me one of these days,” I replied as I relieved him of the heavier bags.

We stopped at a café while waiting for the ferry home.

Between bites of toast and sips of coffee, I told him how concerned I had been about what had happened in California. He then recounted the whole story in detail.

How that accidental meeting with a former companion from his years in prostitution had shaken him to the core. How the man had become a ragged wreck in his sixties, still enslaved by drugs. How Nick, burdened by shame and guilt, had suddenly longed for the sensation of those drugs again, despite having been clean for so many years. How his determination to stay sober had driven him to leave California altogether and spend time in cities where he had no past to haunt him.

In the end, another source of tension had come from his family. His gay nephew, upon learning that Nick had begun flirting with Catholicism, had reacted with disbelief and anger.

“He just couldn’t get his head around it,” Nick said. “A gay guy wanting to wade into the swamp of Catholicism. According to him, the Catholic Church lives to oppress people and fight against free expression. Catholics are always starting wars, they're racists, and God knows what else. I listened to him, and I kept thinking about you. My friend doesn’t fit any of that stuff. You were the one piece of evidence I had that Catholics weren’t the monsters my nephew was describing. But man, it drove me crazy not having any arguments to push back with.”

I smiled faintly and asked him a question.

“Would you like to stay at my place for a few days?”

“Why?”

“This wasn’t an easy trip for you, was it? Not from any angle. I was thinking that spending a couple of days at my place might give you some time to process all of it.”

He chuckled.

“You know I’m not some damsel in distress, right? I’m okay. Really. The turbulence is over. Now, it’s true that I want to study this catechism thing a little more and get a better handle on it. I need to find out whether my nephew is right—which, honestly, I doubt. But if he’s wrong, how do I answer him?”

He paused, then looked at me.

“You really want to be my white knight?”

“I always have been, fair maiden.”

“Pervert,” he muttered under his breath, his voice thick with mock indignation.

We both laughed.

But I said nothing about the threat of the possible malignancy.

 

 

More Nights Without Nick.

Today is Tuesday. On Friday, Nick returns to the island. I’m very happy about that.

Not a single day passed without me calling him — even while he was with his family.

This last stay in America doesn’t seem to have done him any good. I could hear the unease in his voice.

I’ve been seriously wondering whether it might be better for him to simply stay here with me from now on.

The risk of him falling back into drug addiction appears to have been real, and there are other things he didn’t want to talk about. We’ll have plenty to discuss in the coming days.

I didn’t ask about his progress with the catechism I gave him before he left, nor did I press him with any questions. I let him share whatever he wanted, in his own time.

Nick is a strong man. He has learned more from his pain and past failures than I have from my own. And yet, he also has a childish side. Behind the strong exterior, there’s a boy who needs to be held, praised, and reassured. Most of the time he keeps that need under control, but whatever happened during this last trip — I still only have the broad outline — seems to have touched him deeply. It reawakened something that had been lying dormant.

I’ll call it “rekindling his addiction,” for lack of a better expression. He didn’t go into details. I’m not completely in the dark, but the light is dim enough that I have to trust my instincts more than what I can clearly see.

I feel some regret for having asked him to go to America on my behalf.

Still, all I can do now is wait and pray for him.

Meanwhile, life on the island remains as calm as the sea over the coral reefs — an eternal summer.

My art pieces are selling slowly but steadily, which I’m grateful for. I have no desire to become a machine churning out clay sculptures or paintings. Having time to build things properly is my real secret. Besides, my life has other important dimensions beyond being an artist, and those also need time and care.

And here lies the heart of it all: it was Nick who first set this whole journey in motion when he went to America that very first time.

For Disney, everything began with a mouse. For me, everything began with a Nicholas.

 

More Nights Without Nick

 

After our last meeting, Nick left for America on Monday. He wants to try presenting my work to the less… conservative parts of the country and return to those galleries he had already contacted before.

I write these lines from the veranda of my house, beneath the warm shade of the afternoon.

Nick continues in his process of religious awakening and carries many questions and much confusion in his little head. Before he left, on Saturday, I gave him Pope Pius X’s catechism.

Speaking of Popes, a gallery in Rome contacted me, interested in some pieces I had announced on my website.

This contact greatly excited my friend, who expressed a desire to venture into Europe to promote my work. Making him my agent truly was a wise decision. The enthusiasm he pours into everything he does is a great light in the world.

He enchants me because I lack that quality myself. My nature leads me to expect failure more than success; thus I enjoy and appreciate things, but I do not experience enthusiasm. Nick completes me.

On Tuesday morning, Nick arrived in California, and on Wednesday night he contacted me through a video call.

He wanted to appear normal, but it was clear to me that he was distressed, and the call was meant to tell me that he was very sorry, but he would leave California the next day. San Francisco, according to him, reeked of drugs, and he felt an overwhelming urge to fall back into addiction, even after so many years away from it.

I suggested that he forget the trips and return to the island, but Nick said no — that he could control himself, though he would instead head toward the places he had visited before.

Addiction truly is terrible. Even today I am tempted to yield to mine as well, even after many years spent fleeing from it. One remains “clean,” but every day is a struggle, a war.

These are the marks, the dreadful scars it leaves upon the soul.

I am Nick’s brother in his struggle against addiction, and I believe that, in this respect, we support one another. We both recognize that if a fall is not inevitable, it is always possible, and so we keep watch over each other to prevent it from happening.

Truly, whoever finds a friend finds a treasure.

The clear waters of the calm sea gleam beneath the sunlight, and beneath them, I know well, life and the struggle for survival unfold, without anything calm or lyrical about them.

As it is there, so it is here, upon terra firma.

 

The Fifty-Seventh Night – and a Sunday

Last Saturday, during our weekly meeting, Nick was more like his usual self.

Still, I could notice in tiny details that his mind was not entirely at ease.

Our conversations on previous Saturdays had brought to his awareness so many sad and ugly things from his past! That desperate race for love (or what he thought was love).

From childhood through his youth, all in one single rush, had only dragged him into a terrible swamp that had nearly killed him by a hair’s breadth.

(And me, the great fool, thinking I had problems with love!)

Be that as it may, the evening went well. Light, calm conversation.

His struggle with God seemed either resolved or forgotten.

On Sunday morning, as always, I took my bicycle and headed to church, about a mile from home.

I was praying, waiting for the Mass to begin, when someone sat down next to me. Very close. So close that I turned and saw Nick staring straight ahead at the altar.

Before I could say anything, he whispered:

— Hey, not a word! I’m not even here!

I could barely hold back a laugh, but I restrained myself and we did not speak during Mass.

Afterwards, we went to have lunch at a small restaurant owned by the mother of a former hotel colleague of ours.

— I think I’m tired of fighting, he told me. My therapist doesn’t quite know what to make of this “spiritual crisis” of mine. I think I’ve wandered into an area that’s not really hers.

— Probably. After all, she came from a university in Paris, poor thing… and what would they have taught her there about God? Ah, French rationalism! — I said with a smile. — I fear today’s universities only teach slogans.

— Just slogans?

— Not only that. They also teach techniques and ideologies. Truth and Knowledge, poor things, are left begging for attention outside.

— Okay, but I don’t want to talk about that.

— And what do you want to talk about?

— About that sit-down-stand-up thing and the back-and-forth chant of someone speaking and us responding that we just did. What’s the point of that?

I laughed at my friend’s confusion and answered:

— You know very well that going to church and doing the sit-down-stand-up and responding to the chant can just be a formality. A person can, for any reason, do all that every Sunday, every day even, and still be a complete scoundrel.

— I know.

— Being Catholic isn’t about coming to Mass, you know?

I took a breath and continued, choosing my words:

— It’s about meeting a man called Ieshuá ben Iosip, whom we call Jesus. We know Him through what His disciples told us: that this man is also God, the same God who created you, who died for you, so you could be freed from the slavery Satan imposed on you when you were born.

— But where did that slavery come from?

I held back my impulse to answer immediately and, touching his hand, I said:

— One thing at a time, Nick.

I took a bite of the delicious fish that had been served to us and went on:

— It’s this relationship between you and this God-Man that gives meaning to everything. It’s the difference between being in the middle of a desert with a compass, or without one.

Nick ate in silence, eyes down.

— Who knows, I continued, maybe you’re more Catholic—and more of a saint—than I am?

He lifted his eyes and broke his silence:

— That line kinda contradicts everything you just said, Nick replied. I don’t even know or love this Jesus.

— You know something about Him, yes. And besides, knowing and loving is a two-way road: you have to know and be known; you have to love and be loved back. From your side, it’s very little—maybe nothing—but God already knew you and loved you before you were even born.

I paused, looked at him as he looked at me, and smiled.

I squeezed his left hand resting on the table and said:

— But now enough of this. Let’s focus on the food… and on this turquoise sea around us.

White seagulls were flewing above us.