SLEEPING butterflies perched on dancing frangipani leaves in the moonlight are a bizarre sight on my way to begin my altar server job. Last night’s storm has left bougainvillea petals lying black on silvered pavers as I silently pass the darkened presbytery where Father Rey must still be asleep. The usual glimmer of a candle is absent from his upstairs window.
Sunrise will soon streak through the towering buildings of Manila, and early weekday mass goers will start to fill the pews. It is my role to prepare for the mass. I hurry to the sacristy door. It’s unlocked. I’m sure Father Rey closed everything last night. The thought that we’ve been broken into and I may have to confront an intruder during my first day on the job makes me nervous.
I scan the whole place as I light a candle. The dusty smell of statues behind vessels and drawers of vestments in this half-storage, half-sacristy room suffocates me. A male voice moaning from the pews behind the concrete walls is enough to send shivers up my spine; the sound reverberates in the acoustic space of this nineteenth-century church.
Should I run to get Father Rey’s help? Holding the thick white candle, I walk towards the pews. I remember reading Macbeth in our English class—the day King Duncan is murdered, a series of unusual premonitions come true: horses eat each other, birds go berserk and the earth shakes. Then there’s father’s old Caparas comics collection with stories of trapped souls in churches, hassling the living, asking for prayers so they can go to heaven.
In front of the statue of San Lorenzo Ruiz, a skinny teenager in white jeans and a black body-fit t-shirt kneels, gripping his bleeding wrist. A small knife glints beside him. Diyos ko! This is like typhoon Haiyan looms upon us once more. I’m torn between running to the presbytery to tell Father Rey, and offering help. I look around for assistance, but the teenager’s twisting body captivates me.
“Bloody hell! Anyari? Are you okay, man?”
His tired eyes lock on mine. His slashed left wrist, dripping blood, slowly reaches for me.
I step away, scared by the crimson fluid. “Did you cut yourself? What the hell happened?”
“I-I want to die.” His face contorts. His voice cracks. “Stab me! I hate my life.”
“No! I’ll get someone to help you.”
“Don’t bother.” He reaches for the knife. “If you won’t do it, I’ll stab myself.”
I kick the knife away from him. “I’ll get the priest!”
“Don’t.”
I place the candle next to him, run from the church, and knock on the presbytery door. There is no answer. The image of the writhing teenager at the church is enough to push me to twist the knob of the thirty-five-year-old Cebuano priest’s door. The framed photo of his younger, half-naked, buffed body hangs just below the crucifix on his wall. His absence adds to my heart drum that could be heard from Samar to Leyte. Where is he?
There’s no time to wait. I rush back to the church to check on the teenager. His chest heaves next to his bent neck. I’ll call the ambulance! Oh my God, why haven’t I thought of this earlier? I hurry to the phone in the sacristy.
Shiny red fingers lock on my wrist as I start to dial. I almost fall. The fleshy smell reminds me of the pig’s blood mother mixes with vinegar when she cooks Dinuguan. “Why not? An ambulance can help you.”
He drops to the floor like a flimsy cloth doll. There’s blood everywhere, on his white jeans and blue Converse shoes. “You don’t understand. I want to die, please!” Fresh globules ooze from his cut.
“Why?” I want to run away, but I can’t seem to leave him.
He sighs.
“Tell me.”
“I have HIV. I just found out through a mobile testing station at The O Bar.”
“The AIDS disease?”
“Yes. I ran out as soon as they told me I was positive.”
“How did you come into contact with it?”
“I don’t know.”
I keep silent.
“Maybe from the guy I was with a few months ago. We didn’t use protection.”
The guilt on his face puts a ton on my shoulder.
“I’ll die soon. I might as well die now.”
Horror engulfs me like I’ve just swallowed crushed red chilli. I recall from our science class that if I have an open wound, and fresh infected blood enters my body, I could get AIDS too. I step back and stare at the crimson fluid he has smeared on my wrist, glad I don’t see a cut for the virus to enter.
“You have AIDS?”
“I have HIV. Two different things.”
He clambers upright, smearing more blood on the canvas-like wall, which now looks like a giant face crying red tears. He staggers to the door.
“Wait. Let me bandage you.”
“No.” He walks to the foot of the frangipani and sits like a gnome waiting to be noticed among the flowers. White petals fall on him, one resting gently on his shoulder.
“What happened?” Father Rey thunders, appearing from nowhere.
“He’s wounded, Father,” I blurt. “He needs help.”
“How? Are you okay, son?”
With no thought of confidentiality, I rattle out what I have discovered in the last six minutes. Father Rey hugs the teenager, places his hands under the boy’s neck and knee, and carries him like a baby to the presbytery. “Father,” I mumble, wanting to pluck the priest away from the live virus.
“Prepare the church for mass. I’ll be with you, soon,” he says without looking back.
I’m amazed at my familiarity with the preparations, considering I was only trained the other day. The candles in the altar are lit. Hosts, wine and water are supplied. The pall, purificator, corporal, chalice and the ciborium are brought out to the altar server’s table. I cover the bloody pew where I’d found the boy with a rug. I’ll clean it later. Right now I can’t help but check what’s happening in the presbytery. I am desperate to find out what Father Rey has done with the boy. Almost on tippy-toe, I walk through the open presbytery door and into the kitchen.
“Stop it!” Father Rey’s voice booms. “Stop hurting yourself.”
I step closer. The teenager holds a chef’s knife to his own stomach. Father Rey quickly grips the boy’s wrist, swivels it upwards like an arm of a doll. The teenager grimaces. The knife falls from his fingers; it’s sharp pointy end sticks up into the wooden floor.
“Listen to me!” Father Rey roars. “If you knew my story, you would definitely stop doing this to yourself.”
“I want to die!” he wails.
“Don’t be silly. It’s not the end of the world. You can get help. Look at me, I survived for many years and am still healthy. The treatment are so good these days. You can practically live a normal life. Being positive is not a life sentence.”
I feel dizzy with shock and step back behind the pantry door on shaking legs. I bite my lip as I wait for more revelations. What follows is an outpouring of sobs from the young man and calm, pacifying words from my boss. Busy footsteps thud throughout the lounge-room and stairs. I can only suspect that a bandage is now being applied to the boy’s wound.
Father Rey ducks his head out of the presbytery door and yells my name, “Sebastian, are we ready?” and repeats it after not hearing a response from me.
My cowering and eavesdropping has come to an end and I scuttle out of the kitchen door and appear busy with some errand, walking back to the church. “Yes, Father.”
“I’ll be there in a sec,” he says as he closes the door.
The mass starts in the casual way of Father Rey, as if nothing has interrupted the order of the day. As I serve at the altar, my mind wonders how our parish priest got the virus. Is he gay? Wait a minute – he doesn’t need to be one to be living with HIV. Suddenly my mouth tastes a little salty. What a mystery. Could be bigger than the Rosary or the Holy Trinity.
The liturgy seems to take no time at all today, like little bubbles that evaporate from the priest’s mumbles as his eyes remained fixed on the Roman Missal. I lock the door after the last mass-goer steps out the church. On the bulletin board at the entrance, I look closely for the first time at the poster of Diocesan priests, including Father Rey, doing spirituality work among people with HIV. Could he have contracted the virus through work?
As I leave the church, butterflies flutter away from the frangipani tree and sunrise sheds light to every dark corner of the church. It is a new day, and my work has begun.