The Atua Man

by John Stephenson

  “Where’s your husband?”

  “Get out!”

  She tried to push him out the door, but Tony wouldn’t budge. “It’s urgent,” he told her.

  “Are you serious? Who on earth gave you a key to our flat?”

  Again, Tony tried to get past her, but she blocked his way.

  “Standard security precautions. We have keys to every room in the compound.”

  “You will leave this instant!”

  “He better be at the board meeting and I expect him to be on time. We all want to know where he’s been.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You tell me, Mrs. St. John.”

  Thirteen-year-old Alex walked in from his bedroom. He had just awakened and was still in his boxers and T-shirt.

  “Good morning, Alex. Your father still sleeping?” Tony’s voice masked his anger.

  Alex looked puzzled. “I guess.”

  Tony turned to Lillian; “Melanie arrived last night. You know how hard it is to get her to leave Kauai.”

  That remark annoyed Lillian. Though she and Melanie had become close over the years, there were still rumors about Melanie and Jason and their South Seas voyage that Lillian didn’t like. For Tony to make a remark like that was insulting.

  Tony ruffled Alex’s hair and walked out. Lillian slammed the door after him and leaned against it.

  “Why are you so mad, Mom?”

  “Mr. Bass just totally overstepped his bounds.”

  Tony Bass opened the door to the ministry’s boardroom a few minutes before nine o’clock and found Dorothy Delaney already there making corrections to the minutes from their last meeting and writing notes on the day’s agenda. She was a generation older than the rest of the board and her white hair was tied in a bun that bounced when she wrote.

  Sensing Tony’s anger, she snapped her portfolio shut. “Good morning, Tony. Are you okay?”

  “No.”

  “Tony, you mustn’t let ego rob you of your peace.” She closed her eyes to take a moment of silence. “Meditate with me.”

  “Don’t preach to me, Dorothy, I’m not in the mood.”

  Dorothy took a deep breath and went back to her notes.

  Dorothy recognized Jason St. John—J.J. to his close friends—as an illumined soul the first time she met him when he was fifteen. She had been a student of the noted twentieth century mystic, Dr. Solomon Green, and was editing one of Dr. Green’s books when Jason had accompanied his mother to a party for Dr. Green that Dorothy had organized. What Dorothy saw was a young man radiating Spirit.

  Prior to his passing twenty years before, Dr. Green had opened the way for the critical examination of the relationship between body, mind and spirit. In his heyday, he had invited scientists and theologians to redefine the nature of life. He took the esoteric from the custody of religion and put it into the general discussion about the nature of life and the universe. He envisioned a real-world mysticism that would lift people out of their limited concepts of life into the freedom of spiritual understanding. Now, Dorothy edited all of Jason’s work, and knew from experience how great his gift was, and how uncaring and selfish the world could be.

  Dorothy continued to meditate while Tony sat at the head of the conference table and admired his cufflinks. The chill in the room was broken when Barbara Buchanan rushed in at precisely nine o’clock. She checked her watch, took her seat at the large polished table, and said, “Where is everybody?”

  Without waiting for a response, she dropped her bag on the floor, took off her jacket, and examined it.

  “Darn! They ripped my coat. And I lost my wallet! I’ve got to stop all my cards.” She looked at Tony and Dorothy and picked up on the tension in the room. “How long are we going to wait?”

  Barbara was the Ministry’s Vice-President of Operations and Media Outreach. Seven years ago she had been a well-known fundraiser for a private foundation supporting educational opportunities for poor children of color. She had survived an abusive husband, had raised two kids in the roughest part of Oakland, California, and had managed to earn a master’s degree at Cal Berkley. She had first encountered Jason when he spoke to a group of young people suffering terminal illnesses at an Attitudinal Healing center in Tiburon, California. She left with a feeling of overwhelming love. Barbara hadn’t told anybody at that time about her breast cancer. Indeed, the renown that her work had brought her made her uncertain as to how she should inform her colleagues of her condition, and often she had wondered whether or not they even needed to know.

  Barbara had gone to Jason’s talk in the hopes of obtaining guidance for her next step in dealing with her illness. She had received different opinions for treatment, but none gave her more than six months to live. After being in the presence of Jason, her doctors found no cancer at all. She credited the healing to Jason and within six months was working for him.

  “What’s happening outside?” she asked.

  “I’ll let you know when everyone gets here.” Tony leaned back in his large leather chair and studied the hammered beam ceiling. The boardroom was a copy of the Great Hall at Hampton Court Palace. A carved stone fireplace dominated one wall and two Flemish tapestries of biblical scenes hung between paneled bookcases on another. This décor too, was Tony’s idea. He needed to set the proper tone for the importance of the St. John Ministry.

  Gary walked in closing a conversation on one mobile phone and then another.

  Tony stood. “Did you find him?”

  Gary shook his head no.

  Following on Gary’s heels was Melanie Graff, all six feet of her, perfectly coiffed and looking anxious. “What’s going on out there? Even the Pope doesn’t draw a crowd like this. People kept asking me if it’s true. What are they talking about?”

  Melanie was one of the original trustees and in the early days managed the money. Her history with Jason went back to his life-changing voyage to the South Pacific. She had been on that voyage but never talked about it. The newer board members knew little about her except that she was athletic and tan, and that she flew in from the island of Kauai every quarter for the board meetings. “Where is J.J.?”

  Tony ignored the question and began the meeting. “Please disregard the agenda in your portfolio. We will dispense with committee reports and begin with new business. I don’t know if you heard the news this morning, but it seems Mr. St. John appeared in a hospital ward last night around three a.m. and healed four little girls.”

  Tony loosened his tie and undid the top button of his immaculate white shirt, a gesture of stress in the usually cool and dapper CEO. He couldn’t hide his anxiety, which was caused as much by the sick girl’s claim that she had seen Jason at the hospital as it was by Theodore Spencer’s grabbing hold of the story.

  “How wonderful,” Dorothy said.

  “It’s not the healing that’s the problem. Our security shows that he didn’t leave the compound last night. And according to all the cameras at the hospital, Jason never entered the children’s ward. None of the nurses on the floor saw anyone enter or leave.” Tony looked at Gary for confirmation.

  “As far as we can tell, he has not left his apartment since yesterday afternoon when he went for a stroll in the garden.” Gary spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully and giving the impression that English was not his mother tongue even though it was.

  Gary was one of Jason’s more miraculous cures. Within hours of the Humvee explosion in Iraq that had made him a hero for having pulled his crew to safety, he had suffered a seizure and was flown back to the states with traumatic brain injury. He couldn’t speak. He had lost his motor skills and had resented his caregivers. He would rather have died than be dependent on others for the simple necessities of life.

  His wife wouldn’t leave his side and had found Jason’s book, The Undiscovered Land, at the Walter Reed Army Hospital. Not long after reading it she took Gary to a St. John Healing Rally at the Verizon Center in D.C. The atmosphere of stillness in that s
tadium was so powerful that she felt the vise of physical limitations leave her husband. Soon thereafter Gary’s speech and motor skills came back, and he was released from the hospital.

  “Jason St. John hasn’t left the compound since yesterday, yet he appeared at Marsdan and was seen by four witnesses who claimed that he healed them?” Tony informed his board.

  “Actually, only one girl saw him.” Gary consulted his notes. “But they all seemed to be healed.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Barbara interrupted.

  “What don’t you believe?” Melanie said.

  “Nobody can just up and disappear. We all had to seek out Jason and be in his presence for a healing. People have to come to his rallies…”

  “That’s such a materialistic perspective, Barbara,” Dorothy said.

  “I’m sorry Dorothy, but I’m a realist.” Turning to Tony, Barbara continued, “Why are we accepting that this actually happened without any investigation?”

  “Because thousands of people out there believe it happened,” Tony told her. “And because it’s at the top of the news cycle. People believe what they are told by reporters like Theodore Spencer.”

  “Come on, Tony, this is post-Christian London,” Melanie said. “People don’t care.”

  “Then why are there thousands of people outside our ministry wanting answers?”

  “Why not just tell them what happened?” Dorothy asked. “Because we don’t fucking know what happened.” Tony was embarrassed. He hated losing his cool. He continued more calmly; “Because Jason is doing something that will destroy us.”

  “How do you figure?” Melanie asked almost hostilely.

  “Reputation is everything in this kind of work,” Tony informed her rather condescendingly. “The St. John reputation is untarnished, up until now. Mr. St. John has been open to the public and the scientific community, and they have recognized the fact that people have been healed. Jason has never claimed it was because he was someone special, or that he had some kind of supernatural power. And, by the way, where is he? He knows there is a board meeting this morning.”

  “You’re not reading this very well, Tony.” Dorothy stood and looked at her colleagues. “Jason is who he is. This is not about reputation, or how people perceive us. That’s your fear, Tony. You can’t stand in the way of Jason pushing the boundaries of perceived reality.”

  “I have… we have a fiduciary duty to protect this ministry,” Tony said. “We can’t let him destroy the gift he’s given the world by performing some kind of magic trick.”

  “You think he’s doing magic?” Melanie asked. She knew more about Jason than any of these people, except for perhaps Dorothy, and didn’t like where Tony was taking the meeting.

  “I don’t care what you call it, but appearing out of thin air, in a hospital, and having four little girls cured of cancer who walk out full of energy, stretches the limits of credibility. If we aren’t credible, we are nothing,” Tony declared.

  “How does pushing the bounds of physical limitation deny Jason’s work?” Dorothy leaned on the table and glared at Tony. “Isn’t omnipresence a core principle? Didn’t Dr. Green say that there are those who can step out of the mortal concept of body at will?”

  “Omnipresence is a transcendent principle, not a physical fact,” Tony stated.

  “Not for a master,” Dorothy replied.

  Tony paused, seeming desperate, waiting for support from the other board members. He wasn’t getting it.

  “What are you afraid of, Tony?” Melanie asked, shifting the focus. “Losing your job?”

  “Don’t insult me, Melanie. I’m doing this to protect this ministry; to protect Jason.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “All it would take to destroy us would be a little negative press,” Tony responded. “Reporters will make snide remarks, and comedians will tell jokes about Jason, and soon his detractors will dismiss us… Jason as another quack in a long history of snake oil salesmen. We can’t let that happen.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Dorothy demanded. “Comparing Jason to a snake oil salesman is disgusting. Jason follows a long tradition of revealing the truth. Enlightened people all over the world have seen the links between Jason and Dr. Green and Shankara. We are here because we all love The Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East…”

  “I don’t know where Mr. St. John is,” Tony interrupted her, “and it has me worried. That’s why we have to stop this nonsense right now.”

  “How do you plan to do that? Lock him up in the basement?” Melanie and Tony locked eyes.

  “Jason is stretching his wings, Tony,” Dorothy said, breaking the tension. She started to walk around the table like a schoolteacher in a classroom. “It’s been done in the East for centuries, but it’s also part of our tradition. The Roman Church has many saints who have defied physical laws…”

  “Is this relevant, Dorothy?” Barbara interrupted.

  Dorothy stopped opposite Barbara and raised her hand like a traffic cop. “This is an interesting story and something you should all hear.”

  Lots of eye-rolling went on around the table. Dorothy ignored it.

  “It took place during World War II. A Japanese fighter attacked an American bomber preparing to land on a small Pacific island, and one airman made it out of the bomber before it exploded. He tried to open his parachute and the ripcord broke. He was plunging to his death when a grey-haired man with a long beard appeared next to him—falling just like the airman. Before they hit the ground, the saint grabbed hold of the flyer and guided him to the ground. He landed without breaking a bone. Nobody could believe it, but he was alive, and the rest of his crew died when the plane crashed. When he went home on leave, he saw a picture of the man who saved his life. It was Padre Pio. His mother had prayed to him to watch over her son.”

  “If he were doing remote healing, like Dorothy’s suggesting,” Melanie piped in, “he’d still be in his apartment and that would have only been his image that the girls saw. But if he appeared in some supernatural way at the hospital,” looking at Tony, “well, that’s a different story.”

  “Why would that be a problem?” Dorothy asked. “Isn’t it our goal in this study to realize that we are not localized or confined? Didn’t Jesus appear to the apostles after the Crucifixion?”

  “It is a problem if he can just appear like some alien,” Tony insisted. “I went up to his apartment and Lillian wouldn’t let me in. And she seemed strange to me. People are afraid of aliens, and Far Eastern masters, or any other title you want to put on him. We cannot allow this to happen, Dorothy. We’ll lose our audience.”

  Lillian still leaned against the front door of the apartment as if she were waiting for Tony’s scent to vanish before doing anything else.

  “Where is Dad?” Alex was almost as tall as his mom with long hair and the same green eyes as his father. Lillian gave her son a good-morning kiss and tousled his hair, which he hated.

  “What do you want for breakfast?” Lillian took his hand and pulled him toward the kitchen / family room. Alex pulled away and ran ahead, sat at the counter. He took out his Game Boy and started playing.

  The family room was Lillian’s space. The furniture was soft and overstuffed. Meals were served on the large country table, which was also used for Alex’s art projects. The adjoining kitchen was state-of-the-art with a professional range and copper cookware hanging over a granite-topped island. Lillian grabbed a French porcelain mixing bowl from the cupboard and took a dozen eggs from the fridge.

  “How about scrambled eggs?”

  “I thought you were giving me a choice?”

  “Not this morning. And don’t take an attitude with me.”

  “What’s going on around here?”

  Tony had upset Lillian more than she was willing to let on, especially to Alex. She had never liked their living arrangements, which had been set up by the board, and still got aggravated with Jason for letting the organization control their
lives to the extent that it did. Everything the board did, so they said, was for Jason’s protection. Lillian had preferred to live in the country, but the board had insisted on the city. Lillian had thought the organization would be completely separate from their personal lives, but the board argued that was impossible. Jason was the ministry, they’d say, and without him in the midst of dayto-day operations they would not have the spark to keep the organization spiritually centered.

  Now she worried that the board, Tony specifically, wanted to intrude even more into their personal lives.

  Lillian broke eggs into the bowl. “Grab a frying pan for me, will you?”

  Alex reached for a pan on the rack above him. “Why was Uncle Tony so angry?”

  “I don’t know. I thought your dad would be out here when I got up. He wasn’t in bed. Go see if he’s in his office.”

  Lillian took the pan from her son and put it on the stove. “What were you playing?”

  “Tony Hawk. Underground.”

  Alex noticed a half a dozen eggs in the bowl, and his mother was ready to crack another. “Hey, I’m not that hungry.”

  Lillian put the egg back, poured some milk into the bowl, and started beating the mixture with a wire whisk. “I thought I asked you to see if your father was in his office?”

  Alex got up and ran to the other side of the apartment. Lillian switched on the small television on the counter while vigorously beating the eggs when a news commentator came on-screen speculating about Jason’s alleged appearance at the hospital the previous evening. She switched to another channel and saw another version of the same report.

  “Oh my god,” Lillian put her hand to her mouth as Irma, the housekeeper, entered the kitchen carrying two armloads of groceries.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said.

  Lillian quickly turned off the TV. Irma squeezed by, out of breath and out of shape.

  “Sorry for being so late. I thought I’d be back before you folks got up. It’s a zoo outside.”

  Irma put her packages down and took the bowl from Lillian. “I’ll take over.”

  She shooed Lillian from the narrow space between the island and the cooktop and dropped a cube of butter into the skillet. She gave the eggs a few more beats before pouring them into the pan. She whistled tunelessly.