Simple Simon

by William Poe

  “I’m glad to hear from you,” David said, pausing to clear his throat.

  My heart ached to be in the room with him.

  “Someone named Nancy called. I told her you went out during the night to get a drink from the vending machine and that you never came back.”

  My chest felt tight and my breathing quickened.

  “I know what you did to yourself last night,” David continued, his voice full of compassion. “I’m sorry I didn’t follow you outside. I wasn’t sure what to do. People on the MFT make such a big deal out of sex. I enjoyed our night together.”

  “Where did you join the family?” I asked, but I was sure I knew the answer. “How long ago was it?”

  “San Francisco. It’s been almost two years. I was there for a few months before they sent me to New York for an MFT workshop. I thought the MFT would be an adventure. Kawasaki sent me to Kobayashi’s region. I made captain about a year ago.”

  “Did you get in trouble there?” I felt sick asking, but I needed to know.

  David fought back a playful laugh. “Am I in trouble now?”

  “No, David.” I couldn’t believe I was saying it. “Not if we keep it quiet. No one else needs to know.”

  “I was attracted to a couple of brothers in Kobayashi’s region, but nothing ever happened. Still, they knew my feelings. I told them.”

  “Didn’t they teach you at the MFT workshop that marriage reflects God’s nature, that God has male and female attributes?”

  “I’m not very good with that kind of stuff,” David said plaintively. “I listened to the lectures, but what I learned in San Francisco made more sense.”

  “And what did you learn in San Francisco?” I was beginning to feel angry.

  “Nothing complicated,” David said calmly and confidently. “Just that God is love and what matters is our passion toward God and each other. Heck, one of the fellows who taught lectures told me not long after I joined that members in Korea sometimes have sex as a form of spiritual healing. I sort of assumed that meant whatever kind of sex came naturally. No one in San Francisco is condemned for who they are.”

  Abbanim is truly an apostate!

  And yet a lot of San Francisco members, after being retrained, had proved to be solid members of the MFT. I felt torn between wishing that David spoke the truth and knowing that he didn’t. Passion for God was one thing, but strictures of doctrine must govern our passion for others. Our doctrine proscribed total celibacy until Father blessed us in marriage.

  “Why did you get sent to Texas?” I asked.

  “Kobayashi obsessed over sex; he railed against it every morning before teams went out for the day. The man terrified me. I probably made captain because I was so obedient. Just before I came here, Kobayashi beat up a brother on my team for talking back to him.”

  “He beat him up?”

  “I called Kawasaki about it. That’s why he moved me to your region. And then there you were in bed, all excited. Commander, I’m sorry. You’re in charge. I thought you wanted me, and I didn’t think I needed to resist. It gets confusing sometimes, knowing what we’re supposed to do in these situations.”

  “Outside of Father’s blessing, the Divine Principle doesn’t allow sex, straight or not,” I said flatly. “Last night was my fault.”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” David promised. “I would never do anything to hurt you. I felt close to you last night. That was lovemaking.”

  “When I get back, David, I’ll hold a special workshop for the region. We need to remind ourselves about the importance of remaining pure.”

  “When you get back? Where are you going?”

  “It’s an amazing turn of events. I called New York earlier. Father is holding a matching ceremony. In a couple of days, I’ll meet my future wife.”

  David gasped. “Don’t misunderstand me, but is that a good idea? I mean, last night was real. You can’t tell me it was just sex.”

  “I have to believe that God will make me whole when I meet my spouse. Father will know who to choose for me.”

  David remained silent.

  “We have to put last night behind us, okay?”

  “You are exactly the person I’ve hoped to meet,” David said. “And now I have to let you go?”

  If I didn’t get off the phone, my resolve was going to weaken.

  “Will you bring my things to the lobby?” I asked. “I’ll give you directions to Grapevine. Until I get back, please inventory the products stored in the warehouse. Is that all right?”

  “Sure, Commander. I’m happy to be in your region.” David’s voice broke with emotion.

  I leaned against the wall, fighting the urge to see him.

  David came from the elevator and handed over my bag without saying a word. He followed me to the van. I gave him the key. He got into the driver’s seat, rolled down the window, leaned out, and pulled me toward him. We kissed.

  David’s touch was so warm, so natural. And yet, I pulled away from his embrace.

  “How can this be wrong?” David asked.

  “It’s not for me to decide,” I said, taking his face in my hands one last time. “I’ve led a life of sacrifice in the church. I’ve kept my faith, waiting to meet God’s choice of a woman to be my wife. I can’t turn my back on that hope.”

  David started the van and threw it into drive. I could see tears streaming down his cheeks.

  I took a few steps forward and raised my hand to call him back, but the van turned a corner and disappeared.

  CHAPTER 30

  Whenever I drifted off during the flight to New York, I smelled the sexiness of David’s body, and when I dreamed, I sensed his lips pressing against mine. Every voice I heard sounded like David’s. Why were these sensations a source of comfort if lovemaking between men was such an evil thing?

  Was God telling me to pay attention to my honest feelings, or was it Satan’s embrace?

  In a few hours, Father would match me in a relationship that was to propel our souls into the Kingdom of Heaven. Would my attraction to David disappear through the miracle of the blessing?

  As I sat on the plane wondering about my fate, all I could imagine was that, absent another man’s love, I would always feel alone, and no matter how much I tried to spin it, I didn’t believe that a woman could ever fill that emptiness.

  The Divine Principle had no explanation for homosexuality, certainly not in the profound way it described the illicit attraction between unmarried men and women. Though I had once imagined the scenario, the church’s teachings never suggested that Adam had fallen in love with Lucifer. When I considered the tale, I couldn’t dismiss the possibility. Perhaps Reverend Moon had received a partial revelation due to his personal biases. There might have been more to the story.

  When asked directly, church lecturers dismissed homosexuality as an expression of self-centeredness. That never seemed an adequate explanation. I longed for companionship, a union, with a male partner. My emotions were homosexual.

  Hadn’t Martin’s death proven that homosexuality came from the heart, that being gay was at the core of a person’s being, and that it was dangerous to deny it?

  And yet, here I was, flying to New York to meet my bride as if I were just another straight guy.

  My hope pivoted on the single point of faith that Father would look into my heart and know whether I should be blessed in marriage.

  The line of members queuing up at the entrance to the New Yorker was so long that it took an hour to reach the front desk. The sister managing assignments checked a list and found that Mitsui had arranged a room for me near his suite.

  “There’s a note here that says you should go to Mitsui’s office as soon as you arrive,” the sister said, handing me a key—one of the new security measures recently put in place.

  I went directly to the thirty-second floor, where I found dozens of members gathered. Mitsui was challenging everyone about his or her readiness for the matching ceremony.

  “Are yo
u prepared to meet your spouse?” he asked a sister. Then he addressed me. “Powell-san. Is your heart pure?”

  “Yes, Taicho,” I proclaimed, perjuring myself.

  I squeezed into a small space between two brothers at the back of the room. Just then, someone touched my shoulder. I turned around to find Joseph, smiling hugely. He pointed across the room to another brother from the early days in Chicago. And there was Brenda, just arrived from New England. I had sent Brenda to lead a workshop in New York, and afterward, Kawasaki reassigned her so she could be closer to her aging mother. Brenda’s presence made me think of Stanley. It saddened me that Stanley and I would not share this next step on the cosmic journey.

  Mitsui finished his speech, and his interrogations, and dismissed the group, but told the commanders to remain behind. Brothers and sisters whom I had not seen in years greeted me on their way out. When asked about my bandaged hand, I repeated the radiator story. The tale always brought a chuckle from brothers who had been on my teams.

  Although I had heard that she’d arrived in the United States, I had not met Kawasaki’s wife. They had only seen each other a few times since Father blessed them. Mrs. Kawasaki was pregnant with their first child. When Kawasaki introduced me and I held out my hand, Mrs. Kawasaki giggled. Shaking hands still seemed like an odd custom. Instead, she bowed politely.

  “Husband mention many time,” Mrs. Kawasaki said hesitatingly, but with understandable English. “He say you good brother.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Kawasaki,” I replied.

  Kawasaki took my arm and studied the bandage. “You did not have to punish your left hand,” he said, at once jovial and concerned. “Did you boil it like a lobster?”

  I laughed nervously. Kawasaki was a keen observer, and I worried that he would detect my lie about the cause of the injury.

  “You look so serious,” Kawasaki said with a smile. “Take your van to a garage next time, okay?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “I’m certainly no mechanic.”

  By that time, everyone had left the room but the commanders.

  Keiko, the longtime MFT secretary, took a stack of forms from a desk drawer. “Here are questionnaires that each member filled out when they arrived,” she said.

  Mitsui quickly interjected. “Keep these confidential. You must never discuss them.”

  “I didn’t fill out anything,” I said. “Was I supposed to?”

  “The front desk should have given you a form,” Keiko said. “They didn’t?”

  “It was pretty crazy when I arrived. I was told to come here right away.”

  Keiko went to Mitsui’s desk and took out a blank questionnaire. As she handed it to me, she said, “Father will use this information to decide each member’s qualification.”

  “I suggested the questionnaire,” Mitsui interjected. “Father agreed it was a good idea.”

  My first thought was that Father should have been able to tell if a person was “qualified.” Didn’t he have God’s eyes to see into our hearts? That belief was key to my willingness to go forward.

  Most of the questions served to identify the member, inquiring about citizenship, place of birth, and so on. Then there was a section about the completion of our seven-day fast and under whose leadership we had performed the fast. Another section asked for a list of spiritual children. I was able to include Bruce, who had begun visiting the Little Rock center again.

  I had telephoned Bruce from Grapevine when Mary informed me that he’d shown up one evening at the center. Bruce explained that, during the years he had been out of touch, he always believed that Father was the Messiah, but had remained with his family’s religion because he didn’t want to break his mother’s heart. That sounded like the gentle person I had met in the parking lot that long-ago day when I was called to New York for the World Day Competition.

  “My mother’s heart was broken anyway,” Bruce told me. “One day, I brought my boyfriend home. It was time they understood about me.” Bruce’s voice cracked as he tried to explain. “Dad picked up the family Bible and held it over my head. He prayed to cast out Satan. When I told him I couldn’t change who I was, he cast me out. I am not to visit home until I recant. My boyfriend left me after seeing Dad’s reaction. I was alone, and prayed, and you came to my mind, calling me back to God. I read about the many persecutions suffered by Reverend Moon, and that helped me be sure that he is the Second Coming.”

  I said nothing about the conversation to Randall and Mary, but cautioned Bruce to remain celibate as a first step toward developing a deeper relationship with God. Bruce would have to find his own way of putting his desires in perspective. On that point, I could offer little advice.

  While I pondered the situation with Bruce, my eyes fell on the next question, the one that made the form confidential: Have you had sex since joining the family?

  I looked over my shoulder and saw Mitsui staring at me. I smiled nonchalantly and returned to the form. Without hesitation, I put an “X” in the No box, easily justifying my answer by considering that I had never had sexual contact with a woman.

  The next question, in a gray box, stopped me cold: Are you homosexual?

  What did Mitsui mean by are you? It depended on the meaning of are. If I were homosexual, I would have encouraged David to leave the family with me. But I didn’t. Therefore, I was not homosexual.

  Are you homosexual?

  No, Mitsui, I am simply a brother who struggles. I am here so Father can join me in holy marriage and enact a cure for my soul. My years of sacrifice have led to this moment. Your questions will not deny what faith provides. I trust in Father, not you.

  I checked the No box and handed Mitsui the form with a steady hand. He scanned the answers and then placed the piece of paper in his desk drawer. Afterward, he handed me a stack of forms with instructions to separate out members who had admitted to having sex or to being homosexual.

  My two piles ended up with a dozen members in the rejected list. It surprised me how many members had admitted to being homosexual but denied having sex. In fact, none of the members admitting to homosexuality also confessed to having sex. A few members had admitted to having sex, but hadn’t claimed not to be homosexual, so presumably, they had fallen with a woman but somehow managed to assuage their guilt and remain in the family.

  When we completed the task, Mitsui took the forms to Father, upstairs in the penthouse suite. Before leaving the office, Mitsui told us to get some sleep.

  “Return by four in the morning,” he instructed. “Keiko will give you a list of names. Post yourselves at the entrances to the ballroom. Before members go inside, you need to check that they are on the list. If they are not, they must report to my office.”

  For the remainder of the night, I sat by the open window in my tiny room. Could I assume the role of St. Peter at the gates of Heaven, charged with separating the sheep from the goats, when I was the goat with the largest horns?

  Don’t think about what you’re doing, Simon. Just let it happen.

  At the appointed hour, I received a list from Keiko and went downstairs. A brother directed me to the door where I was to stand sentinel. As members came forward, I checked off names and directed those not on the list to Mitsui’s office. Many of those I sent away had been members under my leadership. What had they been thinking by answering the damning questions in the affirmative and yet showing up, expecting Father to match them?

  When the queues dwindled to a small number of people, Kawasaki told the gatekeepers to join everyone else in the ballroom. The elegant crystal chandeliers made the room as bright as if lit by the sun, intensifying the heat already generated by the crush of bodies. The room felt deprived of oxygen.

  Sergeant Choi walked onto the stage and approached the microphone. He asked us to push closer together, saying, “Please create an aisle between the brothers and sisters so Father can walk among you.”

  Father appeared onstage wearing a camel-hair blazer, which he promptly removed in the h
eat and threw on the back of a chair. A pattern of multicolored polka dots brightened his polyester shirt. His slacks were eggshell white, creased ever so gently at the top of Italian-made shoes.

  We managed to corkscrew our bodies into something like a bow. Father’s face erupted in a riot of laugh lines as he motioned for us to resume our sitting position. Sergeant Choi’s dark suit provided a remarkable contrast to Father’s colorful attire.

  “He looks gloomy, doesn’t he?” Father asked, picking up the shoulder of Sergeant Choi’s coat.

  Sergeant Choi laughed as he translated. Father helped him out of his coat and then loosened his tie.

  “Now he looks more like a brother, don’t you think?” Father asked. “Less like an undertaker?”

  “Yes, Father,” we replied.

  Father’s joking put us at ease. Being in his presence, my doubts vanished. By whatever means I had arrived at this point, I knew it was God’s will.

  The matching proceeded in a straightforward manner. Father selected a brother from the crowd and had him stand next to him. Then Father paced in front of the sisters, peering at each one intently. Most sisters demurely averted their eyes, except when Father prepared to match a particularly handsome brother. Then nearly all the sisters made eye contact.

  More often than not, Father picked the sister who seemed the least interested. Upon finalizing a selection, Father motioned for the sister to come forward and stand next to the brother. The couple then went to a room set aside for discussion. Either party might reject the match without giving a reason, but it rarely happened. Father had an uncanny ability to pair the right individuals. The few who did reject the match rejoined the crowd. Those who accepted the match came into the ballroom and bowed. Then they went into a receiving room where a photographer took pictures and a secretary wrote down names and addresses.

  About two hours into the matching, my turn arrived. When Father pointed in my direction, I expected him to order me from the room. But Father smiled as I came forward. He began walking back and forth in front of the sisters looking for a match, seeming to take forever to arrive at a decision.