..... FIGHTING.
Stanislaus was hungry - very hungry but it was a state that he desired because he found that it sharpened his mind and gave fuel to the vitriol he constantly felt. By not eating or, by vomiting up what he had just eaten he was able to spin out the hunger for as long as possible or until he had to eat to sustain himself. He preferred the not eating option though because bending over to vomit was difficult for him as he wore callipers on his legs as a long-term result of several bouts of polio in his youth.
That's life he wryly thought or, at least, that's my life.
*****************
Stanislaus had been brought up as a catholic having been educated by nuns, christian brothers and priests and had willingly embraced their teachings supported by the writings in the catechism and the bible. This learning had been a comfort to him and had provided emotional support when he needed it most in his formative years. He felt that it hadn't let him down even if it hadn't exactly given him the opportunity to advance in his desired career. Stanislaus wanted to be a priest you see but, at college he hadn't made the top class, the 'P' class where the elite were and where future priests were developed. He had always been in the 'G' and the 'P2' classes who were destined to be accountants, schoolteachers or rugby players. Stanislaus wasn't clever and never did well at geography, french, bookkeeping and mathematics and, with the callipers on his legs never made any of the rugby, cricket or athletic teams. Stanislaus was in limbo.
Stanislaus was also gay. He had never had sex, not at school or in his working life as a taxi controller in a major city taxi company. He knew that he was gay though as he had been caught masturbating to an image of Jesus when he was a teenager.
The experience had been traumatic and had a direct link to his bulimic and anorexic tendencies.
He found that his communications took on a bitter edge and, as mentioned, this was sharpened by the hunger pangs.
Stanislaus lived his life as a devout catholic and attended mass every Sunday at his local church. He also took part in the extra devotional activities at advent, lent, Easter, Christmas and others. He prided himself of being a good catholic and although he abandoned the idea of becoming a priest he embraced his role as a congregation member whole-heartedly.
That was until one of his sporting heroes denounced him. Stanislaus felt betrayed. Israel Folau, a high earning and high performing rugby player made an attack on 'sinners' and said that they would all go to hell.
He said that hell awaited homosexuals. Stanislaus was devastated. He had respected Folau. He had tried to live his life according to his own catholic teachings. He wasn't a drunk, an adulterer, a liar, a fornicator, a thief, an atheist or an idolator but, in his heart he knew that he was a homosexual.
What to do?
*********************
Stanislaus was at a crossroads. He was very comfortable in his current position. Well, 'comfortable' may not be the right word for someone with callipers on his legs, who deliberately (his bulimia and anorexia weren't medically ordained) under-ate and who experimented in mortification of the flesh but he was at a stage of his life that he had wanted to be. Israel Folau had upset that. He had upset that badly. Stanislaus was forced into making a change.
He started one evening after work, and after consuming a couple of his extra-strength home brew beers ("I am not a drunk" he said to himself) by getting out his Patrician school year books. These had photographs of all of the classes, staff and successful sports teams and academic accomplishments of each year. Stanislaus had five of them from 1966 through to 1970. He looked through them. He only featured in three of the class photographs and in these he was in the second to back row, partially hidden by the boys in front because he was on a lean each time. He didn't feature in any of the sport's team photographs or the academic achievement ones. He wasn't listed in the athletic or swimming results and in two of the five annuals his name was spelled wrong in the school roll at the back. Institutional racism? No, since the compiler was always Father Wierzbicki who everyone called 'weird biscuit'. This was just the way it was for him. "That's my life".
Stanislaus, after looking up his own profile, flicked through the annuals to view other students. He concentrated on the 'P' classes naturally as it was there that he aspired to be and drifted back to the 'G' and 'P2' classes, lingering over some of the students he liked, hated or who sent, even now, a tingling sensation to his nether regions. His interest pricked he took note of a few names and checked out Google listings for them. Inevitably he was directed to Facebook and LinkedIn, two websites he hated and usually refused to access but sucking it up and persevering he was able to uncover at least a little bit of his target peoples' history. He got a frisson of pleasure by discovering that: a couple of the most likely candidates for priesthood had married early and now had several children including the one obviously conceived out of wedlock; another candidate for priesthood had become a priest, had 'operated' in the community and now it seems had been retired to a retreat house for some reason; two of the most promising commercial students had been prosecuted for fraud; one guy in the 'G' classes went to prison for a knife attack at a party in Hataitai; one 'P2' student had attained a psychology degree and went on to run his own business having decided that the public are too crazy to be bothered dealing with; and, most of the others had become schoolteachers.
This interested Stanislaus and, in a small way at this time, began to change his outlook on things.
"Have I made the right choices"? he said to himself, unfortunately out loud because it woke his mother who he lived with, in her house in Newtown and who had been quietly slumbering in front of the television.
"Things have to change" he said again to himself, this time in his head.
- TO BE CONTINUED-
