Simple Simon

by William Poe

  “Of course I don’t mind,” I said.

  Sandra was like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis as she pulled open the bamboo screen that served as a door to our tiny bathroom. The office worker in sensible clothes was now a sexpot in a slinky black dress that dipped so low in the back it revealed as much ass as it did cleavage.

  “If I were a straight man,” I said, wetting a finger and running it down her spine, “I’d be all over you.”

  Sandra wiggled when I touched the dimples on her lower back, wheeling around to kiss me before I had a chance to resist.

  “I’m glad Mr. Jealous is asleep,” I said, motioning toward Lyle, facedown on the couch. “He gets mad these days if I so much as look at someone.”

  “He’s afraid of losing you,” Sandra said knowingly.

  The apartment had a single wicker chair. Sandra put a towel over the seat to keep the roughness from snagging her dress as she sat down. After applying makeup while looking in her compact mirror, she took a baggie of cocaine from her purse. All of a sudden, she said, “Pew-ee, Simon, who died in here?”

  I nodded toward Lyle’s feet, which had been hidden until he pulled the blanket over his head. “I can’t smell anything with these coked-up sinuses. But I’m sure that’s what it is.”

  “Let’s go outside,” Sandra suggested, already walking toward the door.

  I pulled a pair of tattered jeans over my gym shorts and followed her. We stood just outside the door.

  “What’s so important that Maury wants me to call?” I asked. “He hasn’t tried to reach me in weeks.”

  “People in New York are asking him questions about you.”

  “Who? Mitsui? He’s got to be wondering what I’m up to.”

  Sandra put her hand over my mouth. “Not so loud, darling. We don’t want to call attention to your apartment.” She nodded toward a neighbor’s door. “Someone looks out those curtains every time I make a delivery.”

  “Cokeheads,” I said. “Everyone who lives here seems to be a paranoid druggie.”

  “A little paranoia goes a long way,” Sandra pointed out.

  I could see a tiny fleck of white residue on Sandra’s nose, which explained why she was worried about people hearing us when she hadn’t been bothered on other visits. Sandra only occasionally used cocaine, but after a long day, getting ready to head out to the clubs, I guess she needed a lift.

  “Let’s get away from these windows,” Sandra said.

  We strolled toward a children’s park next to the apartments. On the way, Sandra fidgeted with her dress to make it hang evenly. There wasn’t much material to work with. I stopped her for a moment to straighten the shoulders.

  “You look divine, Sandra. Are you seeing someone special tonight?”

  “Rick’s taking me to dinner at Gladstones in Malibu.”

  Rick was one of her gold-encrusted boyfriends from Dan Tana’s.

  A soft breeze caused the park’s merry-go-round to turn slowly on its axis. Sandra took off her high heels and left them in the grass before tiptoeing through the sand around its base.

  “I suppose my dress will be all right,” she said, fitting herself between two metal posts. I pushed us around a couple of times. Sandra held her legs outstretched. She laughed as we came to a stop. “Oh, that’s nice. But my hair must be a mess.”

  “You look better than a million bucks.”

  “Thank you, darling. You know where flattery will get you.”

  “Anywhere I haven’t been before?” I still had not learned the truth about what happened that first night at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

  Sandra smiled like the Cheshire cat, unwilling to relinquish her secrets.

  After a few moments, enjoying the increasingly brisk wind, I asked, “So, do you know who in New York is asking about me?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sandra admitted. “Maury has been talking to some of the lawyers who worked on the Moon case. Seems they need expertise about setting up nonprofit organizations, something about a new church corporation.”

  “Really?”

  Sandra seemed reluctant to continue, but I insisted. Finally, she said, “Maury’s helping them sort out ways to get church money into commercial businesses.”

  “A lot of members are going to start their families soon,” I said. “I imagine they want to provide them a means of support when they settle down.”

  “Are you aware of the organizational changes going on?”

  “I don’t know anything, Sandra. It’s been months since I talked to anyone in the church.”

  Sandra gathered her thoughts. “After the wedding that you were in, what I hear is that Reverend Moon wanted to change things. He was going to put Kawasaki in charge of the MFT, but the church president, Willard Bozeman, said that the MFT should become part of the American Church.”

  “Bozeman’s been after the MFT for years,” I said. “He wants to control church revenues.”

  “From what Maury says, Reverend Moon wanted to make other changes, but some of the leaders refused to obey, particularly the guy in San Francisco.”

  “You mean Abbanim?”

  “Yeah, that’s the name I heard.”

  “He started a separate organization, something called the ‘United Community.’ Evidently, he got pissed off when Reverend Moon set up Sergeant Choi to be his surrogate. Guess the fellow thought it should have been him. And from what I understand, Bozeman and Abbanim are at odds. Bozeman will get the MFT and be in charge of the national businesses, but Abbanim will be a separate church altogether. Anyway, if I picked up the conversations right, I think that’s what’s going on.”

  I could barely imagine the behind-the-scenes intrigue that must have transpired since Father and Mitsui had lost the appeal.

  “Are you all right?” Sandra asked, tenderly brushing a strand of hair from my eyes.

  “It’s just that life has become surreal.” I nearly broke out in laughter at the absurdity of it all. “I may have lost my own ideals, but I didn’t think the church would end up in such a dark place. Not sure why I care, exactly.”

  “If you want, I’ll tell Maury I couldn’t reach you.”

  I took a deep breath. “Is that all you know? Sergeant Choi always seemed like a decent fellow, and Kawasaki deserved a promotion. What is Mitsui’s status at this point? He will go to jail for longer than Reverend Moon, I suppose.”

  “Mitsui’s in some kind of trouble with the church leadership,” Sandra explained. “Maury said something about Korean elders—a Dr. Lee asked that Mitsui be stripped of his authority, even before he goes to jail. But I didn’t pay all that much attention.”

  “You know that Mitsui almost crippled me during a ritual that Dr. Lee was supposed to perform.”

  “Crippled you? Honey, you’re talking crazy.”

  “No, I mean it. Before the wedding, there were rituals. In one of them, the Korean elders spanked the sin out us—that’s the easiest way I can explain it. Mitsui interjected and hit me so hard that it knocked me unconscious.”

  “That church is even nuttier than I thought.”

  “You’ve no idea.”

  “So are you going to make it official?” Sandra asked. “I mean, do you really plan to leave the church? What about Masako?”

  “If I were a straight man, life would be so much simpler.”

  “Maury told me about your conversation in the Bahamas.”

  “Yeah, Maury thinks I should just go through with married life and get what I really want on the side.”

  “Well, dear, I have reason to believe you could manage, if you did want to go through with it.”

  “No! Don’t tell me!”

  “Mum’s the word,” Sandra said, pressing her lips together.

  “The thing is, Sandra, I know how to maneuver within the church organization that has existed, and I’m sure I could find my place in the new order of things. Members would see the Simon who once had faith. I would be an asset to any of the church leaders who wanted to includ
e me in their organization. No one needs to know that I don’t really believe.”

  Sandra gave me a serious look. “Do you know the story of Don Juan?”

  “I know Mozart’s version of it.”

  “Then you know that nothing good comes from trying to fool people about what you believe.”

  “The demons are a little late if they want to drag me to Hell,” I said.

  “Maybe drug dealing isn’t what you expected,” Sandra said, “but it’s a living.”

  My jaw dropped.

  “Everyone comes to Los Angeles with dreams,” Sandra offered. “But dreams don’t last. You have to deal with the facts.”

  “Sandra, love, who would have thought you were such a philosopher?”

  “I had my own dreams,” Sandra confessed. “When I came out here with Maury’s office, I thought it would give me a chance to attend USC and study filmmaking. Then I got pregnant.”

  I was shocked. “Was it this guy Rick’s?”

  Sandra nodded. “I never told him. There were complications with the pregnancy, and I had to get a hysterectomy. Now my life revolves around Dan Tana’s. But that’s okay. Every night, I have fun.”

  “Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be going?”

  “You’re right. After all this gloomy talk, I need a drink.”

  “A drink or a man?”

  Sandra tossed her hair back. “They’re both refreshments,” she said listlessly. But I detected sadness in her reply.

  I helped Sandra across the sand and braced her as she put on her shoes. We strolled, arm in arm, to her car.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Sandra said as she unlocked the door, “Norman Wilkes was in the office and asked about you on his way out.”

  “That’s a blast from the past. What was Norman doing at Maury’s office? I didn’t realize that Maury even knew him.”

  “Something about merging the Los Angeles church with the new San Francisco group and something about fundraising members. I’m not sure.”

  Had everyone in the church gone nuts?

  “Anyway,” Sandra continued, “there was the cutest guy with Norman. David something. He said he knew you in Texas.”

  “David Jetter?” Saying his name, I flashed on that fantastic, and troubling, night in Dallas and the chilling letter that Bruce had written when he landed on David’s team. “Any idea why David was there?”

  “Talk to Scott,” Sandra advised. “He’s worked with Norman on the corporate papers for the merger. And Scott’s been in meetings with Maury. People from the church have been in and out for weeks. Scott said he was going home after work.”

  “I’ll go by this evening.”

  “Ever since I mentioned the name David, you’ve looked like you might faint. Was there something between you two?”

  “Yeah, there was. We had sex when I was the commander in Texas.”

  “And all this time I thought it was Scott and me who corrupted you.” Sandra laughed. “Who knew you were already such a sinner!”

  “You and Scott made it okay,” I smiled. “You are the first people to accept everything about me. I love you guys.”

  “Hmmm, I think I like the sound of that.” Sandra took my hand. “Simon, don’t be mad at what I’m going to say, but give some thought to what you really want. Maybe you could have a life with Masako, inside the church or not.”

  “Et tu, Sandra?”

  “You’re not mad at me, are you? I understand where Maury was coming from with his advice in the Bahamas.”

  “Well, I should be mad. But the truth is, I don’t know what I want at this point.”

  Sandra looked at me soulfully. “Lyle might not be the love of your life, but let him down gently. He’s a good kid at heart.”

  I patted her on the butt and shooed her into the car. “The night is too young for all these heavy thoughts. You’re keeping Rick waiting.”

  Sandra folded her lithe body into the seat and fired up the engine. Before driving away, she said, “I just want you to be happy, dearest.”

  “Go have fun.”

  “Join us later if you want. Rick and I are going to Dan Tana’s after dinner. We’ll be there until they close.”

  With that, Sandra drove away. I watched the car pull onto Wilshire Boulevard and disappear into traffic. From the parking lot, I spotted Wayne knocking on the door of the little bungalow. He waved when he saw me approaching.

  Sandra had struck me with a one-two punch by mentioning Norman and David.

  Other than the brief affair with Tony and my troubling early years with Ernie, I had never had a relationship. The one night with David hardly counted, and yet, emotions had been deeply engaged when David and I made love.

  Lyle and I depended on each other to get through the day. That was the extent of it. I couldn’t define my feelings for him as love.

  It seemed as though Reverend Moon’s god was as mischievous as the Zeus of ancient Greece. I had prayed for a miracle, and the answer was Masako, someone I could love, but for whom I had no erotic feelings. Perhaps I could have been loyal to a god who blessed me with David.

  The only thing I knew for certain was that I had needs, and they were deeper than what the Unification Church had to offer.

  I thought of the nursery rhyme: Simple Simon met a pieman…

  Reverend Moon was a charlatan who sold nice ideas to the vulnerable, then kept them roped into his movement through psychological manipulation: guilt, fear, and the vague hope of reward in a life after death—all sugarcoated with the emotional elixir of group euphoria and the release of massive shots of dopamine into the brain through prayer and meditation. What chance did reason have against psychological forces such as that?

  As far as I knew, Norman had continued to accept homosexual members whom Mitsui wanted to excommunicate. At least Norman had given Mitsui the option of sending people to Los Angeles instead of the esteemed Dr. Goren, who had brought Martin to such despair. Had David confessed to being gay? My mind whirled with speculations.

  With Lyle asleep, I headed off to see Scott. First, though, I needed to find out something. I stopped by the Spotlight Lounge.

  “Twiggy,” I said, approaching my favorite bartender, “you all take credit cards, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, honey buns, ‘we all’ take credit cards. God, you are so Southern. And I’ll tell you a secret, baby cakes, I’d let you drawl all over me with that sweet tongue of yours.”

  “Maybe, if you do me a favor,” I said, trying to imagine how many hours it would take to cover Twiggy’s reams of flesh. He had to weigh over three hundred pounds.

  “Lamb chops, I’ll do you any way you want.” With that, Twiggy placed his hands behind his head and thrust his massive hips forward.

  “Run this card and see if it’s canceled. I don’t want to put it in a teller machine and have it captured. Try charging a round for the bar.”

  “That’s easy enough, lover.” Twiggy did a quick scan of the patrons. He knew what everyone drank and calculated the cost in his head. He took the Diners Club card to a device near the cash register and typed in a code, along with the amount. After a long wait, he picked up the phone and spoke to someone.

  “They told me to destroy it,” he said. “The card’s been canceled.”

  “Thanks, Twig. I figured something like that.”

  “Do I at least get a kiss?”

  I stepped onto the brass railing that ran along the base of the bar and met Twiggy’s lips.

  “No tongue,” I yelped, pulling away.

  Twiggy giggled. “Sorry about the card, love.”

  “Kind of expected it,” I said.

  I had plenty of money put away from the drug dealing. And this didn’t necessarily mean my undoing. The trial and appeal were over. Mitsui or Kawasaki might have been trying to reach me to let me know about the card’s cancellation. I could only guess at what they thought about my long absence and lack of reporting. But then, they had much to consider other than me.

 
Twiggy glanced around the room. “Slim pickin’s in here tonight, as far as I can reckon.”

  “Enough of the Southern-speak,” I said. “Yanks from Michigan can’t quite pull it off, Twig.”

  Twiggy turned away dramatically, lifting his chin in a harrumph, but he flashed a smile before pouring a customer’s Jack and Seven.

  I stayed for a few drinks, following through with the round I had promised to buy everyone. After settling the tab, I started the drive up the winding streets to Scott’s house. At the steepest turn, the car jerked to one side, car alarms went off, and dogs started barking. Electrical wires crossing the road above me twanged as they whipped the air. I managed to pull to the curb as bricks from a slender chimney crashed onto a driveway. The night air grew thick with dust.

  It was my first earthquake. For all the shaking, damage seemed to be minimal along the stretch of road where I had pulled over. Only the one chimney had fallen.

  By the time I reached Scott’s house, neighbors were outside looking around. One man burst into tears when he saw that a dead eucalyptus limb had fallen onto his Porsche.

  Scott’s roommate was at the front of the house, examining the roof with a flashlight. The split-level structure, built on a steep hillside, had gotten a good shake, but there was no appreciable damage.

  “You feel that?” the roommate asked, blinding me with the flashlight.

  “Yeah, I nearly wrecked my car.”

  “The news said it was a five-point-two. Man, that’s a good-size quake.”

  I let myself in through the open front door. Scott came from his bedroom on the lower level. A slatternly blond guy shadowed him up the stairs.

  Just then, an aftershock rattled the neighborhood.

  “I can’t stand this,” I said, scurrying back to the yard.

  Scott, in nothing but his boxers, followed me outside. The blond remained inside with a bedspread draped over his shoulders, toga style.

  “Damn, Scott. That was terrifying.”

  “Aw, s’nothing,” Scott said. “I’ve felt worse quakes.”

  “People once believed they were judgment from God,” I said.

  “You’ve been around Reverend Moon too long. I never realized what a crazy guy he was until I read all those speeches. A person would have to be brainwashed to accept his nonsense.”