Simple Simon

by William Poe

  “You made a base for satanic invasion,” Mitsui accused, more interested in my sin than Gloria’s suffering.

  A tirade in Japanese followed as he spoke to Kawasaki. The tone was clear. Kawasaki was trying to defend me.

  Mitsui resumed, in English. “Something in your heart caused this,” he said. “What happens on a team reflects the inner life of its leader.”

  The truth of Mitsui’s words was clear. I lusted after men. I longed to be an artist. I had become an unworthy servant of God.

  “Pay indemnity,” Mitsui said. “Pray every morning for one hour.”

  “I haven’t done my seven-day fast,” I said.

  “Then start now,” Mitsui instructed.”

  “What about Gloria?”

  “Send her to New York. Kawasaki will pick her up at the airport. She will attend a workshop.”

  “Okay, Taicho,” I said, using the Japanese military term he had asked us to use.

  Mitsui issued a grunt of general displeasure and hung up the phone.

  Four days into my fast, the team averaged three hundred dollars, becoming the first team in the nation to reach the goal. Kawasaki called to tell me that Father was happy and that he had praised my team’s accomplishment during a meeting of church leaders. I credited the members, who believed their own sins had made the base for satanic attack against Gloria. Thus, they redoubled their efforts and succeeded in our quest, if only for a day.

  By the fifth day of my fast, I was too weak to stand on my own, and my eyes became unusually sensitive to light. On the last day, I stayed in a motel room and rested. My second-in-command, Joseph Hale, a brother in his late twenties who had been in the church for five years when I met him, brought me egg drop soup and fried rice from a Chinese take-out restaurant to break my fast. It was the best food I had ever tasted.

  Members often described experiencing a new beginning after completing their seven-day fast. The end of mine brought a significant change of circumstances. Father decided to establish MFT centers around the country. For all intents, it would be a shadow church, parallel to the witnessing centers. Chicago would be the first established, with Kawasaki as the regional leader—the commander. I had grown to appreciate Kawasaki’s friendship and looked forward to working with him. The long period of isolation and loneliness was about to end, and perhaps I would see my old friend Stanley!

  In Hattiesburg, when I had first learned about the evils of left-handedness from Klara, Kawasaki examined my arm and said, “Not so much evil here. We’ll do an exorcism.” With that, he thumped my elbow.

  The tingling in my funny bone made me wince. When he did it again, I started to laugh and said, “I’m free!”

  Kawasaki replied, “Good. So don’t forget, it’s just a hand.” He was like that, always trying to make our lives a little bit better through humor and camaraderie.

  The day Kawasaki was to arrive in Chicago, I dropped off the team and went to Midland Airport to greet him. The cut-rate airlines that flew into Midland catered to a class of passengers who dressed more casually than the executive types who passed through O’Hare. Even so, Kawasaki stood out as he strolled down the concourse wearing Bermuda shorts and a sweatshirt with checkerboard tennis shoes and a floppy sailor’s hat.

  “Good to see you,” he said, removing a pair of over-sized sunglasses and extending his hand.

  “Did you leave New York dressed like that?” I asked.

  Kawasaki winked mischievously. “I changed clothes after Mitsui dropped me off at the airport. You smiled when you saw me. That is what I hoped to see.”

  “You are one unique brother,” I said.

  If I could, I would have given Kawasaki-san a hug, but Japanese members rarely displayed open affection, especially in public.

  “Should I perform an exorcism on those?” I asked, pointing at the checkerboard tennis shoes.

  Kawasaki gripped my arm and poked my funny bone. “Let’s work on you first.”

  I jerked my arm away with a laugh. “You’ll be happy to know I’m now right-handed.” I held up my arm, but kept my elbow guarded.

  Kawasaki took a pen from his shirt pocket and handed me his ticket folder. “Very good,” he said, admiring my careful lettering. “You’ve been practicing.”

  “Every night,” I said.

  We got his suitcases from baggage claim and loaded them into the van. Kawasaki grimaced at a particularly large dent in the fender. I didn’t mention that I had fallen asleep at the wheel and scraped a divider wall on the freeway.

  “Everyone will get new vans soon,” Kawasaki said. “Mitsui purchased a fleet from a dealership in New Jersey.”

  “None too soon,” I said. “You’ll hear the engine rattling.” I had gone from someone who organized flower arrangements at parties with Darsey Faber to a man who knew a carburetor from an alternator.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “First, a hotel,” Kawasaki said, yawning. “I need to clean up and rest. Take me to a nice place.”

  As we drove, I asked about Stanley; I had expected him to be at the airport as well.

  “He has not called New York in a while, so I was unable to give him the flight information,” Kawasaki said.

  I wondered how long “in a while” had been.

  The highest-quality lodging I had experienced since leaving Arkansas was a Motel 6. We were in a cosmic war, and every dollar mattered. I might have transgressed and indulged my love of art by sneaking off to a museum—but to check into a nice place? I reminded myself that one of the worst sins was to doubt an older brother or sister; to do so was tantamount to reviving Cain’s conflict with Abel.

  Moving up a list of hotels in order of ascending luxury, Kawasaki smiled when I suggested the Hyatt Regency near O’Hare Airport. After we had checked in (Kawasaki using a church credit card), he asked me to come to his room, which was the size of a small apartment, with a sitting area and separate bedroom.

  Kawasaki approved of the amenities. “It has a sauna,” he discovered, “just like hotels in Japan.”

  A sauna! While members are out slaving for God! I kept the criticism to myself.

  Kawasaki placed his personal effects in the dresser, hung his clothes in the closet, and put a few items in a bag for the hotel’s dry cleaning service. He was brushing his teeth when I turned on the television to get a weather report. My back was to the bathroom. Reflected on the screen, I saw Kawasaki standing naked in the doorway.

  “Come and join me,” he said. “You need to relax.”

  I felt a punch to the stomach. In recent years, I had kept as pure as I could by sleeping in the van during the summer. In winter, I made sure I was the last to roll out my sleeping bag so I could find an isolated spot on the floor. Most days, I was the first to shower and dress so I could be outside when the brothers got up. Sitting naked in a sauna, next to a brother, was something I preferred to avoid. However, to refuse might raise questions that I didn’t want to acknowledge, much less answer. I undressed as nonchalantly as I could, all the while thinking about a picture I’d seen that morning on the cover of a Hustler magazine in the corner store where I bought my coffee. Nothing worked better to extinguish erotic thoughts than images of women’s bare breasts!

  As steam rose from the vents, Kawasaki threw a towel over his shoulders and spread his legs wide for comfort, providing me a direct view of his nakedness. In desperation, I claimed I was having an asthma attack and rushed from the sauna.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  There were days at Riverdell Recovery Center when I needed a break from writing. It seemed that the more I remembered, the less I understood. Who had I been? Who was I now? Who would I become?

  Harris had imposed a tall order on me, to delve into my life. He trusted that I would find myself—I wasn’t so sure, or if I succeeded, whether I would like what I had discovered.

  Before Kawasaki arrived in Chicago, my faith had wavered between a belief that the Divine Principle was God’s answer to the problems of humankind a
nd a sense that I was conducting immersive field research and, one day, would compose the anthropological treatise that my professor had suggested I might eventually want to write. My guiding principle was surety that the die had been cast. Whatever the outcome, I needed to stay the course.

  That rattletrap of a van became a rolling monk’s cell where God and Satan vied for dominance over my immortal soul, one side gaining ground, only to admit defeat by the other.

  Harris insisted that writing about my life would bring gestalt—a full understanding. I didn’t see it. None of the answers for why I had joined the Unification Church felt complete.

  Had it been because of the LSD hallucinations? But hadn’t adolescent fears about life guided those experiences? Hadn’t my visions been an effort to come to terms with ideas planted deep in childhood? There was, after all, a sixties zeitgeist that had made it acceptable to seek alternative lifestyles. I had not been alone in dropping out of society.

  Had my rejection by Tony and violation by Darsey been the real catalysts? Had my life with Vivian and Lenny been so inadequate, my relationship with my sister so troublesome, that the prospect of having brothers and sisters in a world family proved irresistible?

  Or was the Divine Principle true and it had been almighty God who led me to the beliefs? During my first three years in the church, that was exactly how I would have answered. God knew where I was in this vast universe and had personally guided me to become a disciple—me, the kid from Sibley.

  Reason could feel pitifully inadequate when absorbed by a sense that the universe had a personal connection to your life. That sense of purpose engendered itself even when a small number of like-minded believers joined as a unit. I often considered the analogy of iron filings in the presence of a magnetic field aligning to the network of electromagnetic forces. In some way, minds thinking in unison acted like that.

  Stanley had been on a path to find mystical understanding long before I met him. He was happy to share his discovery when he believed he had found the Messiah. Perhaps that—my admiration for Stanley—was what had propelled me the last mile. Then the lectures gave me hope that God would make me like other people—straight instead of queer.

  I was unsure how to live just being me.

  Finishing the narrative about Kawasaki’s arrival in Chicago, I went to my afternoon counseling session. That particular day, I was so horny for cocaine that my entire body ached. I wanted to say, To hell with recovery, and go to the housing projects, where I was sure to score.

  Harris listened patiently as I tried to express my thoughts. “At least when I considered that God and Satan were battling over my soul, life seemed to have meaning. What does it matter if I stay off drugs? What difference does it make?”

  “So, if there is no God and no Satan, why bother living?”

  “Exactly!”

  Harris smiled a knowing smile. “First you gave yourself to a powerful set of ideas, and then you surrendered your mind to an all-consuming drug.”

  I had to admit he was on to something. As a youth, I had so wanted to feel special, to be chosen for something important. With the impetus from Aunt Opal’s crumbling books, I read voraciously as a teenager, looking for truth, always with an eye toward finding a Christianity that satisfied me. In some manner, I wanted to belong to the culture into which I had been born. Albert Schweitzer presented Jesus as a very human first-century apocalyptic. Continued reading led me to the third-century theologian Origen, who attracted me by suggesting that evil would vanish, allowing the possibility that even Satan might regain his position as the Angel of Light. The Divine Principle echoed a similar idea, stating that God wanted to restore all creation to the original ideal. Christian orthodoxy—rejecting Origen and other theologians who had drawn upon Greek philosophy—supported texts chosen as canon because they supported Christianity as the religion of empire, enforcing the authority of certain viewpoints over reasoned discourse. The Christianity I’d inherited left me cold.

  Then I heard the Divine Principle and met Father. His teachings felt solid, tied to a tangible way of life, simultaneously individualized and communal. A growing awareness that Reverend Moon, though sincere, was monumentally self-deluded caused me to feel as though life had lost all meaning. Admitting to existence as mere Homo sapiens, genetically predisposed toward homosexuality, felt woefully lacking, but I knew that was the case. Any meaning that existed, we defined for ourselves.

  “Perhaps you substituted drug addiction for religion,” Harris suggested. “Both allowed you to hide from yourself.”

  “I’ve never been so confused,” I confessed.

  “That’s an important admission.” Harris smiled. “The cosmic disciple has become just another guy in rehab. Give yourself a break, Simon. Let yourself be human.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Kawasaki suggested that we have a meal in the hotel’s restaurant. Randall and Mary never took the Arkansas family to a restaurant, nor had Norman ever done such a thing in Mississippi. Following that tradition, I never treated my fundraising team to anything better than White Castle hamburgers or Kentucky Fried Chicken. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten at anyplace fancier than the student union during my college days.

  Vexed with doubts, I followed Kawasaki to the restaurant and took a seat. The opulence of the bone china and the sparkle of the silverware mocked my brothers and sisters who were out bearing insults and hardships to earn God’s money.

  Kawasaki studied the menu intently, finally deciding on lamb chops in mint chutney served with steamed vegetables. I asked the waiter for a garden salad and a glass of water.

  “Treat yourself to a meal,” Kawasaki insisted. “God understands the sacrifices you have made.”

  I asked for the filet mignon, detecting no worries on Kawasaki’s brow that I had chosen the most expensive item on the menu. As my own furies attacked, I swiped them away with the ideology that Cain must submit to Abel and the corollary that indemnity was more profound when rebellion was truly justified—and yet, one obeyed regardless.

  After the meal, which, despite my theological justification, guilt had managed to sour, we ordered gourmet coffee. Kawasaki went to a rack near the cash register and picked up a real estate magazine.

  “We need a large house for our headquarters,” he said, placing the magazine on the table. “Your team and Stanley’s team will have a place to call a center.” Kawasaki thumbed through pictures of houses, then asked, “How long has it been since you spoke to Stanley?”

  “Well over a year. How is Stanley? Mitsui told me that most of his original members were no longer on his team.”

  Kawasaki’s face saddened. “Stanley blames himself.”

  “That’s easy to understand,” I said. “I blame myself for the members who left, and especially for what happened to Gloria. I failed as a leader.”

  “Blame is no good,” Kawasaki said. “Pay indemnity and move on. We cannot know why things happen. Gloria is okay now. She is still in New York. After attending a workshop, Mitsui paid for her to see a psychologist.”

  “I’m glad she got help,” I said, wondering if Kawasaki had arranged for the therapy that “Mitsui paid for.”

  For a long time, I had set aside my worst doubts. But sitting there with Kawasaki, they began to resurface, especially my questions about the attitude of the state leaders. How could we be a religion for the Last Days, considering the internecine quarrels? We had the living Messiah to guide us on a path to build a physical kingdom on earth. The Unification Church should have been an example of harmonious communion, not a reflection of human animosities.

  “Why is Willard Bozeman so negative about Father’s MFT?” I finally asked. “We were unwelcome when my team visited his center. And when we see the Chicago members out fundraising, they act as though we don’t belong to the same family.”

  Kawasaki became uncharacteristically solemn. “The American Church is a problem for Father.”

  “What do you mean, Kawasaki-san?�
�� It was odd hearing the term American Church.

  “The American Church was set up a long time ago as a corporation, and the Americans do not always recognize Father’s leadership. Some center directors say they follow the Divine Principle, but not Father personally.”

  This was absolute apostasy! The Divine Principle guided us—but True Parents were the embodiment of God on earth.

  Kawasaki closely studied my reaction before continuing. “Recently,” he said, “the leaders of the church corporation elected Willard Bozeman as the new president.”

  “But wasn’t that up to Father?”

  “It should have been,” Kawasaki confirmed.

  There must have been more to the story, but I had heard enough. The actions of the American leadership must have been the reason why Mitsui had chosen this moment to set up a fundraising center in Chicago. He wanted to establish his own church organization, probably with Father’s direct support.

  “It’s hard to imagine Willard Bozeman leading the entire organization,” I said. “He seemed like such a…Well, I shouldn’t say.”

  “Asshole?” Kawasaki confirmed with a smile.

  “Well, yeah,” I replied, somewhat taken aback. I had never heard a church leader use that word.

  “At least Father can keep his eye on Bozeman if he is in New York.”

  Kawasaki had a difficult time with Bozeman’s first name, pronouncing it something like Weiryard. We agreed to refer to the new church president simply as Bozeman, which was easier for him to say.

  “Bozeman and his personal family lived in Chicago for a long time,” I said. “Moving to New York will be a big change.” Bozeman and his British wife were among the few western members who had participated in the first blessing that included international couples.

  “Older members still need challenges,” Kawasaki said.

  Kawasaki studied my expression and then grinned so broadly that his eyes squeezed shut. “You take life so seriously, Simon-san. That brings you good fortune. Good ancestors stand behind you.”