Simple Simon

by William Poe

  Stanley spun around. “Simon? My God!” He was rattled, but quickly regained his composure. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m waiting for Kawasaki to arrive,” I lied. “Then out of the blue, I saw you walking down the concourse.”

  Stanley glanced around to see if I was alone.

  “Why don’t we have a cup of coffee and talk?” I said. “What on earth happened? I’ve been worried sick about you.”

  One of the men accompanying Stanley moved between us. “Are you one of them Moon-eyes?” he asked. “I’m Stanley’s pastor here in Dallas, and this is our youth minister.” He pointed toward his compatriot, who sneered at me. The two men looked like gangsters, not ministers of any sort.

  “It’s okay,” Stanley told the men. “This is a friend I knew in college.”

  They didn’t seem convinced.

  “Can you gentlemen give us a few minutes?” I asked politely.

  Stanley took the men aside. The one identified as the youth minister walked toward baggage claim; the self-identified pastor browsed magazines at a newsstand.

  Stanley placed a hand on my shoulder. “Simon, don’t do something like this again.”

  “God led me here, Stanley, just as he led us both to Father.”

  “You aren’t guided by God,” Stanley said, taking his hand from my shoulder. “Reverend Moon is the anti-Christ.”

  “How can you say that, Stanley? What happened to you?”

  “Jesus came into my heart. My parents were right all along. I allowed false doctrines to lead me astray.”

  “Stanley, buddy, the Divine Principle isn’t against Jesus. Father is here to complete his mission. You know that.”

  Stanley smiled at me the way a religious person does when pitying the nonbeliever. “I resisted for years,” he said. “But finally, I heard the voice. Jesus is calling you, too, Simon. He wants you to come home.”

  Stanley spoke with the same sincerity in his eyes as when he’d said, You are home, Simon, after I started hearing lectures. But that was a different time, and I was not the same person.

  “Something drove you to this,” I challenged.

  Stanley took several deep breaths. “This might help you understand. Two months ago, a sister on one of the West Texas teams wanted to leave the family. I led the team for a while, hoping to find a way to persuade her to stay. One morning, I dropped her off in the town of Monahans. When I came back that evening, I didn’t find her at the place we had arranged. Instead, I found a note saying that she’d checked into a motel. I went there and found her in the room, crying. Before I knew what was happening, we made love.”

  So that was it. Stanley had fallen.

  “Father can restore you, Stanley. Repent and ask forgiveness.”

  An impenetrable expression masked whatever Stanley actually felt about what I’d said. “All that business about Adam and Eve and Lucifer…It’s nonsense, Simon. It’s not in the Bible.”

  “Divine Principle provides a deeper understanding of the Bible. You know that.” I hoped Stanley would remember how fully he’d once accepted the teachings.

  Stanley’s expression said it all. He hadn’t left because of theological doubt, despite what he was saying.

  “You told Mitsui, didn’t you?”

  It would be just like Mitsui to tell Stanley “good riddance” if he had admitted to having had sex. Mitsui was far more likely to pass judgment than encourage repentance.

  “Mitsui told me that he should have known better than to make me a commander. He said he couldn’t trust American members.” Stanley set his jaw to hold back a surge of emotions.

  He had soured on the family because of Mitsui.

  “Don’t blame Father because of Mitsui’s arrogance,” I said. “Father loves you, Stanley. It’s easy to be a Christian. Satan doesn’t fear them any longer; he rewards them so they won’t recognize the Second Coming. Father is the one who threatens Satan’s kingdom.”

  Stanley’s eyes flashed with anger. “Moon put Mitsui in charge of the entire MFT. What does that tell you about whether God or Satan is behind him?”

  “We cannot know the workings of God,” I said, desperately looking for a way to overcome Stanley’s resistance. “Perhaps God is working through Mitsui to teach us humility.”

  Stanley looked away for a moment, and when our eyes met again, I detected a faint smile on his face. “You’ll always be dear to me,” he said. “In college, you saw my loneliness and persisted and became my friend. God loves you for being that way. Jesus will find you. I know he will.”

  “I wish you had spoken to Kawasaki instead of Mitsui,” I said. “He wouldn’t have rejected you. Come back to the family, Stanley. It’s where you belong.”

  Stanley took a few steps back and folded his arms against his chest. “I know you mean well, Simon, but you need to go.”

  I wasn’t ready to concede defeat. “Think back on the amazing experiences we shared, Stanley. God lead us both to the family.”

  “Drugs made it easier to accept apostasy, Simon. The best thing I can say about the Unification Church is that it helped us get sober.”

  If only Mitsui hadn’t pushed him away.

  “No one should use religion to control another person’s life,” Stanley rushed to add, ignoring the irony that he didn’t feel free to speak now that one of his traveling companions had approached us.

  “Is everything all right?” the man asked.

  “My friend and I got carried away reminiscing,” Stanley replied.

  A woman appeared alongside the youth minister, returning from baggage claim. She kissed Stanley on the cheek.

  “This is my wife, Simon.”

  I recognized the woman from a workshop I had led in New York. She must be the sister Stanley had met at the motel in Monahans. At first, she didn’t recognize me, but then a dark cloud came over her face. Stanley put a reassuring arm around her waist.

  “Simon was my best friend,” I heard Stanley whisper as they walked away.

  Returning to Grapevine, the sense of loss overcame me. I still considered Stanley a friend.

  My brief training in anthropology surfaced for a moment to remind me that, whatever we are as humans, evolution programmed into our social brains. High-minded ideals might give rise to complex beliefs, but nothing can change our basic nature—we go where we find the greatest acceptance and love.

  Dorrit heard me come in the front door and hobbled from the prayer room. Her legs were stiff from kneeling for so long. I helped her to the sofa and told her everything that had happened.

  “Those men you describe sound like the same people who came with my parents to see me in the hospital after the accident. Do you think that’s possible?”

  “I suppose, but how can Stanley bring himself to associate with people like that?”

  “He wouldn’t lead them here, would he?” Dorrit’s frail body sank deep into the cushions.

  “I’m going to call Kawasaki,” I said, avoiding her question for the moment. “He’ll want to get with Mitsui and report this to Father.”

  Fear stricken, Dorrit hobbled to the front window and stared out from behind the curtains.

  On the phone, Kawasaki never acknowledged that Stanley had called Mitsui to confess what he had done—but he had to have known.

  “Every time there’s trouble, you come through with a miracle,” Kawasaki told me. The statement seemed intended to flatter me personally rather than to confirm that God had worked through me.

  “I’m afraid those men who were with Stanley might come after Dorrit,” I said.

  “If they do, they will watch the house from someplace nearby.”

  “There’s an abandoned house next door,” I said, glancing out the window to look for signs of activity.

  “Deprogrammers are dangerous,” Kawasaki cautioned. “Get a gun if you do not have one.”

  The suggestion startled me at first, but as I considered what was at stake, it began to sound like a good idea.

>   “We have to protect the members,” Kawasaki continued. “Last week, a deprogrammer forced his way into the New Yorker. He had a gun. No one was hurt, but from now on, the guards will be ready.”

  I needed no more convincing.

  When the teams returned to the center late that evening, I recognized some of the members from those I’d led over the years. I welcomed the captains—Nancy O’Flannery and Philip Smith—neither of whom I had met before. When everyone had gathered in the front room, I told them about the encounter at the airport, explaining what had happened with Stanley and the sister, and that they were now married. The members deserved to know the truth.

  “It must have been terrible for Stanley,” I said, “transgressing like he did and then facing you each day, trying to represent Father.”

  I spoke from experience, but on that point, I was not forthcoming.

  “We must look into our hearts and forgive Stanley.” Then, speaking about myself as much as Stanley, I added, “Never allow another person’s sin to diminish your own faith.”

  My honesty—as far as it went—allowed a bond to form between the members and me. I spent much of the night listening to brothers and sisters confess their struggles.

  The next day, I went to the Gibson’s Discount Center in Grapevine and purchased a rifle. I didn’t mention it to anyone, not even to Dorrit. Owning a firearm had a strange effect—enhancing an already justified sense of paranoia. When driving down the highway, I kept a closer eye on the rearview mirror, thinking that every car that stayed behind me too long was a deprogrammer. Many days, I stood at the front window and surveyed the dirt road on the other side of the highway. Every car that slowed in front of the center raised suspicions, even though I knew that most of them were simply preparing for the sharp turn down the road.

  Dorrit began to worry about me. “You should lead Philip’s team,” she suggested. “He’s a young captain and would benefit from your experience.”

  I said I would, soon, but that afternoon, I kept my vigil, walking the perimeter of the yard and sometimes venturing into the fields behind the center. When dusk fell, I settled into a lawn chair where I had a good view of the road. We had not gotten the septic tank serviced, but the fragrant aromas of mesquite and pine overcame the odor.

  Just as I began to doze, a faint glimmer of light from a window of the abandoned house caught my attention. I had myself convinced that fugitive light from a passing car had reflected on a glass fragment, until the directed beam of a flashlight confirmed my worst fears. Stealthily, I made my way to the back door of the center.

  “Somebody’s in the house next door,” I whispered to Dorrit.

  She immediately put down her sewing and grasped the crutches. “I’m calling the police,” she said, reaching for the wall phone.

  The kitchen window provided a direct view of the farmhouse. A dim light shot around the interior walls. The muted glow indicated a flashlight shielded by someone’s hand.

  The police dispatcher tried to convince Dorrit that the trespassers were probably kids up to no good. Nonetheless, he promised to send a patrol car, saying that a few old houses in the area had been set on fire recently and they wanted to apprehend the culprits.

  Ten minutes later, a car turned off the highway, cut off its headlights, and crept slowly toward the old house. Dorrit and I switched off the lights in the center and opened the window in my room to better observe the scene. We could hear the crunching of gravel as the police car rolled up the drive. When it reached the sagging porch, a side-mounted searchlight flooded the house, seeming to light it from within.

  “This is the police,” said an officer, speaking through a megaphone. “Come out slowly. You’re on private property.”

  Two men came out with their hands in the air. One used his shoulder to push aside the front door, which fell from its single hinge. As I had suspected, they were the men from the airport. The policemen treated them in an unsettlingly casual manner during their interrogation. One of the deprogrammers gestured toward the center as he spoke. The other took a document from his wallet and held it up. The men shook hands with the policemen and then got into a black van parked on the far side of the house. They drove over the yard to get around the police car and sped away once they reached the highway.

  I couldn’t believe the policemen had let the men get away, and swallowed hard to contain my anger as they entered our driveway. The policeman who had looked over the deprogrammer’s document came toward me, his heavy boots digging into the sand as he walked.

  “Them men yonder had a court paper,” the patrolman said, motioning toward the abandoned house. “They said it was for somebody who lives over here. But that don’t give them no permission to trespass. I told ’em that.”

  “I appreciate your coming so quickly,” I said, patronizing the man.

  “Well, like I say, I can keep ’em off that property. Don’t know about that paper they wagged at me. Ain’t seen the likes of it before.” The officer spit a wad of tobacco onto the grass. “Now, ya’ll ’er them Moonies livin’ here, ain’t ya?”

  “The Unification Church. Yes, sir. We’re a religious group.”

  “They’s been a lot a’people askin’ ’bout ya’ll at the Grapevine station. What’s this about?”

  I considered what to say as the policeman glared at Dorrit and then locked eyes with me. I decided to spell it out for him.

  “That document was probably a conservatorship. A judge signs an order that allows someone to have legal rights over another person. It’s usually so the family can make decisions when someone is in a coma, or for a parent in a nursing home. Some judges think we must be crazy to believe as we do, and say we should be committed to a mental institution. Now, Officer, you’d have to think every religion is crazy to go along with that.”

  “Well, I do wonder about them Catholics and Presbyterians.”

  I chuckled uncomfortably.

  “I’m a Baptist myself,” the officer confessed.

  “If a judge signed a paper, would you allow someone to take your child away because you are a Baptist?”

  The officer glanced toward the patrol car to see if the other policeman was listening, but the man was busy writing on a tablet. “I can tell you this,” the officer said. “The person they’re lookin’ for’s got a funny name, like Dort or something. I thought it might be short for Dorothy.”

  I thanked the officer. He got into the patrol car, and the two policemen drove away.

  Dorrit had been listening intently. “I can’t believe Stanley told them I was here,” she said. “I’ve never felt so betrayed.” Dorrit limped toward the house, rejecting my attempt to help her walk.

  “They are not kidnapping you,” I promised.

  Once inside, Dorrit maneuvered herself onto the couch.

  “When Nancy and Philip return tonight, I’m getting you away from here. Those men will be desperate to snatch you now that we’re on to them.”

  “Over my dead body!” Dorrit said defiantly as she went to the kitchen and scanned the fields behind the house. Meanwhile, I kept vigil at the front window.

  An hour later, the same black van passed in front of the house, first from one direction and then the other. Eventually, with the headlights turned off, it backed into the dirt road across the highway, detectable only by the amber glow of brake lights hitting the mesquite trees.

  When Nancy’s team arrived home a little after midnight, followed closely by Philip’s, the van was still there. I didn’t want to alert the deprogrammers, so I instructed everyone to go about their usual routines.

  After counting the money and locking it away, we turned off the lights as if we were going to bed. Nancy, Philip, and I watched the road from behind the curtains at the front window.

  “I can’t believe those people!” Philip said.

  “It’s like a spider in its web,” Nancy added with a shudder.

  “Spiders from hell,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’m getting Dorrit to the airpor
t one way or another.”

  The three of us gathered in the hallway to plan our next actions. Nancy suggested that the brothers and sisters could form a human shield to prevent the van from getting to the road while Dorrit and I drove away. I feared the deprogrammers would plow right through them. Philip suggested we carry Dorrit through the fields to Grapevine and then get a taxi to the airport. I felt the risk of tripping on one the many gopher holes was too great, and we dared not use a flashlight.

  In the end, I devised a plan but kept it to myself.

  “When I give the word,” I told a brother on Nancy’s team, “put Dorrit’s things, including the crutches, in the back of the station wagon. Use the rear door. It doesn’t turn on the inside light.” Then I spoke to Philip and Nancy. “The two of you help Dorrit into the passenger seat and proceed to start the car. We’ll have to work quickly; the deprogrammers will see that we’re up to something at that point. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “What are you going to do?” Dorrit asked. “Outrun them?”

  “Something like that. You’re going to have to trust me.”

  The brother put Dorrit’s belongings in the car as I had instructed.

  “Okay, let’s go.” I signaled to Nancy and Philip.

  They bridged their arms, lifted Dorrit, and dashed toward the station wagon.

  I ran to my room, grabbed the rifle, and rushed out the front door. I jumped into the driver’s seat and floored the accelerator. The members gathered in the yard.

  “Wahoo!” I yelled out the window.

  “What are you doing?” Dorrit screamed.

  Without turning on the headlights, I sped across the highway and slid to a halt within a few feet of the deprogrammers’ van. I turned on the headlights and switched the beams on high, then leaped from the car and cocked the rifle. I pointed the gun at the men, aiming at one and then the other, as if deciding which one to shoot first.

  “Leave us alone, you devils!” I screamed. “Go back to the hell you came from!” Adrenaline surged as I raised the gun barrel and fired a shot into the air. The men fell over each other climbing the seats into the back of the van.