WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER (The Mother Teresa House Diaries)

I went up to the roof to dry the rubber bed sheets we had just washed. Another volunteer helped me carry them up. He was a huge six foot nine man from Canada, whose arms and shoulders were covered with tattoos of various scenes from the book of revelations. Lots of angels fighting multi-headed dragons flying out of flames and stuff. It was some heavy shit to be wearing on your arms, but it was offset by a tattoo on his calf muscle of a childish scribbled stick figure wearing a green sweater with a flower on it drawn by his three yr old daughter.
‘Hi, my biblical name is Xavier.’ He said, as we hung the rubber sheets to dry. He pronounced ‘Xavier’ as ‘Ex-Zavier’.
‘Hi, I’m Dick.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘An ancient Amazonian plant spirit told me I was too selfish and that I needed to help others.’
‘Cool.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘Oh I was told directly by God that I needed to come here do his work.’
I noted that God seemed to like delegating a lot of his minor jobs — probably the ones he couldn’t be assed doing — to other people, but I didn’t share this insight with Xavier, because my crazy bells were ringing loudly and incessantly. But then again, my motivations were just as insane as his, so who was I too judge? 
‘Oh man… I need to find a human right’s commission today. Do you know where I can find one here in Kolkata?’ Xavier continued.
‘No idea. Why do you need a human right’s commission?’
‘Oh you know, I’m going to sue Pearl Jam.’ 
‘You’re going to sue Pearl Jam?’
‘Yeah.’ 
‘Why do you want to sue Pearl Jam?’
‘Well, I took a stand for world peace and now they are trying to fucking destroy my life man.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, I sat down and listened to their last album man and uh every song they wrote is like trying to bring me down. There’s only so much a man can take before he’s gotta take a stand.’
There was a pause .
‘Have you actually ever met them?’ I asked eventually.
‘Oh no… Hopefully we can work this all out soon. It’s a real pity cause I was hoping to sing for them one day… But who knows? Maybe me and Eddie can sort this whole thing out.’
‘Eddie Vedder?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Right. Well I hope you sort out your differences with him.’
‘I hope so too man. It’s a damn shame this had to happen, I’m telling you. We could of made some great music together.’
We continued to hang the sheets in silence for a while as I briefly entertained the notion that perhaps what he was telling me was true. It would be one hell of a concept album for a major band to make, an album where each song was written specifically to psychologically destroy a man they had never met before. I wanted to go find the album and listen to it, but was afraid that perhaps all the songs would turn out to be about me, not him.
‘Say where are you from?’ Xavier asked me.
‘I was born in Australia but my family is from the East Himalayas. How about you?’
‘This small town in Canada, near Victoria. It’s just a small town man. Heaps of fucken rednecks and weirdos.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘Yeah I hate the place. Everyone so separated from God there. Especially this one guy who lives there. He’s a complete asshole. Him and his Dad abducted me one night and took me to their basement and raped me.’ He said somewhat offhandedly.
‘What?’
‘I know right?’
‘Why did they do that?’
‘I don’t know. I guess they were possessed by Satan or something.’
‘How long are you going to be working here for?’
‘I don’t know, at least six months, maybe the rest of my life. Depends on what God tells me to do next.’
‘Fantastic.’