Simple Simon

by William Poe

My Jesus was the one who had turned his back to the world.

  Randall and Mary were praying when I returned to the van. “We need to go,” I said, interrupting them. My tone made Randall think my parents were chasing after me. He revved the engine and tore out of the driveway.

  Whatever sign I had thought I needed would have to go undetected.

  My new brothers and sisters applauded when I came into the center.

  Stanley rushed to my side. “You did it,” he said. “I’m so proud of you.”

  Until then, the center had seemed inviting, the members’ faces innocent and loving. I expected to return to a sense of confirmation that I had given up Satan’s world for God’s family, yet the celebration made me feel like a conquest.

  I excused myself to the bathroom and splashed water on my face. Looking in the mirror, I consoled myself, “You’ll be okay, Simon. Satan is making you doubt, that’s all.” I rejoined the group and took a seat beside Stanley, happy to be with someone I’d known in my former life.

  When the celebration had ended, a tall man I’d never seen before came down the stairs. Stanley whispered in my ear, “That’s Norman Wilkes. He leads the One World Crusade. Norman has been with Father in New York.”

  Norman acknowledged me as the newest member of the family and extended a long arm to shake my hand. The group sat uncomfortably cross-legged, barely able to fit into the lecture room.

  A husband and wife in their thirties who had joined within the last month, Bob and Janine, described how they had sold their house and given all the money to the family. Their contribution made it possible to move from the small house where I had heard the first lecture, to this much larger house, which members referred to as the Little Rock center.

  “No sacrifice is too great,” Bob said. “Building the Kingdom of Heaven is all that matters. Janine and I, well, we know it means separating for a while, but we can think of nothing greater than one day having Father bless our marriage. That is worth any sacrifice.”

  Bob’s statement drove home the point that everyone in that room had made sacrifices. Mine was nothing special. If Lenny died, he would understand, once he arrived on the other side, that I was a true Powell, sacrificing so that many may benefit.

  When the last person had spoken, Norman announced that the One World Crusade was to leave for Mississippi the next morning. “I’m proud to announce that two of our new brothers—Stanley and Jim—are going to join us.”

  “You’re not finishing the semester?” I whispered to Stanley, reflecting the same concern Vivian had expressed toward me.

  Stanley didn’t respond.

  After the meeting, people rushed to prepare for the early morning departure. Stanley joined a team charged with cleaning the van.

  “I thought we’d finish the semester together,” I said, following him outside.

  “College was never my idea,” Stanley responded. “I was trying to satisfy my parents. They’ve been supporting me, and I haven’t liked that, either. Now that I’ve found something more important, school doesn’t matter.” Stanley paused. “Follow what Randall and Mary tell you to do, Simon. They’ll probably say you should finish the semester, if that’s what you want.” He smiled and took my hand. “Wherever we end up, you and I are brothers.”

  Jim showed up at the van with a burlap bag full of peanuts. Like Stanley, his hair was now trimmed short, and he wore clothes similar to everyone else’s. I helped Stanley load boxes of carnations into the van. When all the fundraising products were stored in the van, we went inside. Mary told Stanley to stay behind, and asked Jim to escort me upstairs.

  On the way, Jim took my hand. Though members were demonstrative during gatherings, I’d not seen them otherwise touching each other. Jim released his grip before opening the door to the brothers’ room. Sleeping bags, positioned side by side, covered the bare floor like a giant quilt.

  “Guess you don’t have anything to sleep on,” Jim said.

  “I didn’t think about how everyone fit into the bedrooms when I got my stuff from home. Everything happened so fast.”

  Jim pointed out his spot in the patchwork. “We can lay a blanket over my sleeping bag, I guess—if you don’t mind sharing.”

  “It’ll be a new experience, sleeping on the floor,” I said. It was obvious what a temptation laid in store. I thought about suggesting that I sleep in the lecture room, but how could I explain my reason?

  Jim took off his shirt and put it in a laundry hamper. I nearly broke into a sweat as he began to unfasten his trousers. How could I get out of this situation?

  I had planned to keep my clothes on, but then noticed that everyone else was in their underwear. If I acted strange, someone might suspect me of being a homosexual, and from what I had learned during the lectures, hardly anything could be worse. If man and woman reflected the image of God, then anything violating that relationship was evil by definition. I went ahead, stripped down to my Jockey shorts, and crawled under the blanket Jim had laid out, furtively watching to see if he kept his shorts on. He didn’t. He alone among all the brothers was naked. Under the covers, Jim turned to face me, staring until I had to acknowledge that I was wide-awake.

  Jim’s body heat radiated toward me. I couldn’t stop thinking about the times Ernie had slept over and we had faced each other like that. I tried to steady my breathing, fearing that Jim would detect my anxiety. Then his hand shot forward and touched my stomach. I didn’t push him away. Emboldened, Jim slipped off my underwear and moved closer, rubbing his leg against mine. He gently kissed my earlobe before moving down my body, expertly satisfying himself while keeping remarkably quiet. I was the one who almost called out when the moment arrived. Afterward, Jim fell into a peaceful sleep. I felt paralyzed, sure of God’s retribution for having violated the deepest implications of the teachings.

  Then I reconsidered. Yes, the lectures explained that sin had started with illicit sex between a man and woman—but nothing specifically excoriated sex between men. Damn this fellow sleeping so soundly next to me. He would leave in a few hours. I could forget about this having happened and focus on my spiritual life.

  Be patient, Simon. In time, God will cure your homosexuality.

  Before sunrise, I heard people stirring downstairs. I took a quick shower before any of the brothers were awake and went to the kitchen. Jim had not moved the entire night and, at that point, was snoring loudly, along with half the men in the room.

  “Is that coffee I smell?” I asked Klara as I entered the kitchen. She pointed toward a gurgling coffeemaker in the final stages of brewing and then checked the heat on a pot of grits.

  Mary stood at the counter making ham sandwiches, ten at a time, and stuffing them into baggies. “I can’t believe you’re the first one up!” she said. “You’ll find cups over there in the pantry.” She picked up a slice of bread that had fallen on the floor in her haste and, after tossing it in the garbage, resumed making sandwiches. “It’s really good to see you this morning,” she said.

  That Mary hadn’t noticed anything strange about me was a relief. I worried that a black cloud might be hovering around my head.

  Brothers and sisters soon began to amble down the stairs. Each poured a cup of coffee and queued at the stove for Gretchen to ladle out a ration of grits.

  Garrett, Norman’s second-in-command, the Scottish man who’d driven the van when I attended the first lecture, organized everyone for the departure. A green tarp covered the belongings piled on top of the van, adding several feet to its height and giving it the top-heavy appearance of a gypsy wagon. The team gathered for prayer in the front yard and then squeezed into the van. I caught Stanley’s attention long enough to suggest that I speak with his professors to see if they would give him a passing grade, even though he would miss finals.

  “Maybe for my parents’ sake,” Stanley agreed. “Thank you, Simon.”

  Brothers shoved Stanley deeper into the van, and I lost sight of him. Tall Norman got into the driver’s seat, with Ga
rrett riding shotgun. As the van turned the corner, I spotted Jim looking out one of the windows. I wondered what was going through his mind.

  The crusade team had been efficient in their preparations for departure, but they left behind a mess. Mary asked Bob and Janine to help clean up. I got ready for classes. No one said to do otherwise.

  First, though, Mary and Randall led everyone upstairs to the prayer room. We entered reverently. Votive candles, which I recognized from Stanley’s apartment, glowed from a table covered in white muslin. Baskets of fruit flanked a large photograph of Sun Myung Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han. Father wore a traditional Hanguk robe of white silk overlain with fine lace. Embroidered flowers, fashioned out of gold thread, adorned Mother’s robe.

  For the first time, it hit me. I was a disciple. These were the True Parents. I pledged never again to surrender when tempted by the flesh.

  I had only one class that day, world history. Now I understood what the professor failed to grasp, that God had worked to establish the circumstances for Christ’s return. History was the record of that effort. God led every culture to this moment, preparing them for Christ’s return. To emphasize the universal nature of His kingdom, the Third Adam emerged from Korea, a nation where Christianity was a minority religion. We were creating a new faith with traditions that spanned all cultures.

  When the class ended, I rushed back to the center. Within moments of my arrival, Mary announced that she wanted to cut my hair. My heart sank to my shoes. Long hair had differentiated me from Darsey Faber’s group and distanced me from Lenny. And yet, I had to admit that it also aligned me with Jake, Jewell, and Mojo. I loved my friends, but theirs was a false path.

  Mary sat me on a chair in the kitchen, draped a towel over my shoulders, and went to work with a pair of barber’s shears. The susurration of her cutting, and the falling strands of hair, made me cringe.

  “You’re a new man,” Mary proclaimed.

  Janine, who had watched the transformation, handed me a mirror. “You’ve turned into a Southern gentleman,” she said.

  Mary urged several brothers and sisters to give me their opinion. Most agreed that I looked five years younger.

  “That makes me thirteen,” I said with a nervous chuckle.

  The sister whose family had stormed out during my first lecture studied me for a moment, then said, “My goodness, you look like my younger brother.”

  “All you need now are some different clothes,” Mary said. She escorted me to a Kmart store near the university and purchased several pairs of black pants and a week’s worth of shirts.

  After returning to the center, Mary suggested I change into the new clothes and bring the old things downstairs. She took a paper sack and stuffed it with my jeans embroidered with flowers and butterflies, my Zig-Zag man work shirt, my T-shirt with a strawberry printed on front, and my vest with leather fringe that hung to my knees. We took the sack into the backyard. Mary placed the garments inside a barbecue grill that someone had made by slicing an oil drum lengthwise and fashioning hinges on one side. She soaked my clothes with lighter fluid and handed me a box of matches. The weirdly familiar scene reminded me of the time I had burned Mandy’s fox stole. Perhaps I had always understood how to invoke spiritual magic, another product of my unusual Powell heritage. Aunt Opal would be proud. I struck a match and nearly cried as the trappings of my old life went up in flames.

  Before the end of the semester, Randall decided I should take the next step in my spiritual life.

  “Each new member is expected to make a sacrifice,” Randall said. “God called Abraham to leave his homeland. But that wasn’t all. God also asked him to give up the one thing he loved the most.”

  I feared where Randall was heading with this. It seemed that, each day, my faith was to be newly tested.

  “Ask yourself, Simon, what have you placed above God?”

  The answer came quickly: “My paintings.”

  Your art is Isaac, a voice had once told me.

  Especially considering my transgression with Jim, I knew I had to make this sacrifice. Most of my paintings were at the mansion. A few were at Jake’s house. Dot with Dotted Eye hung in Dot’s library. Virginia’s mother owned Jane ala Nolde, and Virginia still possessed one of my drawings. Randall and Mary agreed that gifts to others were not mine to offer.

  I dreaded the trip to Jake’s house but went there first since it was the closest to the center.

  “Fuckin’ narcs!” Mojo screamed when I appeared at the door. He rushed to snatch up the drugs spread out on the coffee table.

  “Mojo,” I said, “it’s me, Simon.”

  Mojo pulled a shock of hair from his eyes. “Wow, man. What happened? Did you get drafted?”

  No sooner had his initial fear passed than he lost interest in my fate and went back to the Road Runner cartoon he’d been watching.

  “Take one, man,” Mojo offered, pulling a bag of Orange Sunshine from under a cushion. “Maybe your hair will grow back faster.”

  I hauled my canvases to the car. Mojo paid no attention. With Orange Sunshine surging through his brain, Mojo’s universe had become the antics of Wile E. Coyote igniting a stick of Acme dynamite in another failed attempt to annihilate his nemesis.

  Next, I set out for the mansion, choosing a time when I was sure no one would be around. I hadn’t directly spoken to Vivian or Lenny since I had walked out, though I had found out from his employer that Lenny had gone to work the next day.

  In my old room, I tore canvases from the stretcher bars so I could fit everything more easily into the car. Mind My Flower While I’m Away was particularly difficult to rip apart, but I did it.

  I took the artwork to the blue hole where I had played with Ernie, and where I had failed in my relationship with Virginia, and crafted a bier of dead tree limbs. First, I laid down my drawings as kindling. On top of that, I placed the stretcher bars and canvases. A single match ignited the blaze.

  No angel descended to stay my hand.

  The rapacious fire consumed the drawings and caused the pigments to sizzle. Smoke billowed high above the treetops. I used a stick to keep the flames alive. With my art a pile of ashes, I doused the embers with buckets of water from the quarry.

  Never had I felt so strange or so alone. I fought back doubts, condemning myself for having them. If Father truly was the Messiah, I told myself, somewhere in this vast quantum universe, those paintings still existed.

  CHAPTER 18

  Joshua, my compatriot at Riverdell Recovery Center, seemed to be making me a personal project. Every morning, after his shower, he would shake me back and forth and say, “Hey, dude, planning to sleep your life away?”

  “Leave me the fuck alone” was my usual response.

  Eventually, he realized that placing a mug of hot coffee under my nose was the best enticement. After that, fresh from the shower, he would invariably appear at my bedside with a towel wrapped around his waist, draped so low it threatened to fall to the floor. I wondered what the cook thought when he got my coffee, or if he dressed long enough for the trip to the kitchen, then donned the towel for my benefit. Whatever the story, it made waking up a lot more bearable. From the top bunk, I had a salacious view of Joshua’s muscular body and his silky blond hair.

  One morning, Joshua handed me the coffee mug and then went back to his bunk. His usual routine was to keep his back toward me as he dropped the towel and stepped into his shorts. This time, he whipped off the towel and stood sideways, raising his arms and arching backward in a luxurious stretch.

  Harris had warned me about giving in to sexual desire while going through recovery—better to focus on my psychological well-being. That was fine advice, but I felt powerless before Joshua’s sexiness. I wondered whether the guy understood what he was doing or if he was simply an oblivious, if lonely, straight boy. I’d been with plenty of hustlers in Hollywood who believed they were straight. Having sex for money wasn’t homosexuality in their minds, no matter how much they enjoyed it,
as long as emotions weren’t involved—or as Ernie had once put it when I suggested that we try kissing, “Let’s just get each other off.”

  I had to consider Thad. Under no circumstances was I willing to betray him. Thad was the one good thing that had emerged from my disastrous years in Hollywood.

  I’m only looking, I kept telling myself. Joshua pulled up his Jockey shorts in a way that emphasized his growing erection. Right…just looking. How quickly my body proved my mind a liar! I jumped from the bunk and dashed to the showers, holding the robe out in front to disguise my own excitement. I didn’t want one of the gay-bashers I had already encountered to start more trouble. Joshua followed, still in his underwear. He approached the long row of sinks, placed his shaving gear on the ledge, and lathered his face. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except, his smooth cheeks didn’t need a shave. I closed the mildewed shower curtain and turned on a blast of cold water.

  Throughout the morning, at breakfast and during group sessions, Joshua kept staring at me. Wherever I sat, he positioned himself directly opposite. I tried to avoid eye contact, but each time my gaze fell across his face, Joshua grinned.

  During the scheduled afternoon session with Harris, the dilemma with Joshua was foremost in my thoughts, but I didn’t bring it up. I let him guide the conversation after he read what I had written since our last meeting.

  “There’s a lot here,” Harris remarked. “Writing seems to be getting easier.”

  “The writing isn’t hard; it’s the remembering.”

  Harris flashed one of his knowing smiles. “You’ve avoided yourself for a long time.”

  “I avoided the world by joining up with Reverend Moon.”

  “The world?” Harris said, tilting his head in the prodding way he had perfected, wordlessly saying, Go on.

  “Okay. Myself, then. The church allowed me to run from being gay.”

  “What else?” Harris encouraged.

  “And Lenny.”

  “What did you want from Lenny?”