The Gospel According to Larry

by Janet Tashjian

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  A Note to the Reader

  PART ONE

  PART TWO

  PART THREE

  PART FOUR

  PART FIVE

  PART SIX

  Epilogue

  Notes

  Copyright Page

  For Josh …

  (and Larry)

  wherever you are

  The Gospel According to Larry—

  in my own words

  by

  Josh Swensen

  PART ONE

  “This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.”

  St. John 21:24

  A Note to the Reader

  While I was waiting in line at the local grocery store, a young man approached me and asked me for the time. I told him ten past four—I remember it distinctly—and continued emptying my carriage onto the conveyor belt. He hovered around the store’s exit and approached me again as I left. He held a copy of my first novel, Tru Confessions.

  “Aren’t you a writer?”

  I told him I was.

  “I’ve got a great story for you,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah?” I pushed the shopping cart toward my car. “You know who the best person to tell your story is?”

  He shook his head.

  “You.”

  He smiled, then offered me a bundle of typed pages held together with twine. It looked like a thesis but smelled like the bottom of the earth. I didn’t take it.

  “There are lots of great publishing houses out there. I’d start in New York. You can always go the agent route too.” I finished loading the groceries into my car, then gave him my best nice-to-meet-you smile.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “I’m not even supposed to be here.”

  I closed the trunk and looked at him. Blond hair—half grown out into its natural brown—serious eyes, slight build, peaceful smile. Seventeen, eighteen years old. He looked vaguely familiar.

  “This has to get published.” He pressed the papers into my hand. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  He stood on one leg, the other one bent and tucked against it. It was a yoga position my son and I practiced all the time. “Tree pose?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I’m trying to stay balanced.”

  “Aren’t we all.”

  He seemed completely unself-conscious. “I just came back from Walden Pond. You ever been there?”

  “Many times.”

  He pulled the paperback Walden from his back pocket and started to read. “‘To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.’” He looked at me, eyes shining. “Isn’t that the best?”

  What do you say to a kid standing on one leg while quoting Thoreau? I told him I’d read his manuscript.

  “I set it up like a term paper,” he said. “Typed it on an old manual typewriter in the woods. Then I pulled stuff from the Web, added some biblical quotes …” He smiled. “It’ll all make sense. You’ll see.”

  He placed his foot firmly on the ground. “If you decide not to help me, I’ll understand.”

  I asked how I should contact him.

  “That’s impossible,” he said. “I’ll contact you.”

  On the drive home, I skimmed through the pages on my lap. I sat in my driveway and continued to read, unfazed by the gallon of ice cream melting in my trunk.

  I thought he looked familiar. I raced back to the grocery store to find him, but he had already gone.

  By the time he called the next day, I had read his entire manuscript.

  “Well?” he asked. (His anticipation reminded me so much of my own, waiting to get my first novel published.)

  I told him I had another project I was working on but thought his version of the story was important and needed to be told. I asked my editor, Christy, if she’d be interested in publishing the manuscript. After reading it, she was.

  Josh also gave me a disk with photos he’d taken; we placed them throughout the book. The epilogue was my idea, to add another perspective.

  Working on the book, I sometimes found Josh’s story inspirational; other times it seemed eerie and devoid of meaning. In my research, I found some people who said Josh suffered from bipolar disorder or ADHD; one teacher even said he thought Josh had an acute “messiah complex.” All I know is, the young man I met several times over the course of a month seemed perfectly normal. But don’t go by me—I sit in a room and make up stories all day.

  When my editor mailed me the galleys a few months ago, I talked to Josh for the last time. “You realize if we publish this, people will know you’re still alive,” I said. “The whole mess might start up again.”

  His voice sounded calm and rational. “It’s really important for me to be honest right now,” he said. “I just want to write about the truth.”

  I tried to reach him later to give him some copies of the book, but he’d disappeared.

  Again.

  This is his story.

  “I haven’t enjoyed a rant this much since Thoreau,”1 Beth said. “We need people stirring up the way we think about things.”

  My best friend, Beth, was trying to talk me into forming a Larry study group with her. His Web site—www.thegospelaccordingtolarry.com—received hundreds of hits a day, mostly from teens and college students. No one knew Larry’s identity, and that conjecture alone was the source of several companion Web sites. Many kids at school were fans, but Beth was rabid.

  “Josh, I know neither one of us has ever joined a club in our life,” she said. “But that’s precisely why we should.”

  I tried to listen to the details of her story, I really did, but there is something about Beth’s mouth that gets in the way of paying attention to its contents.2 She often wore a certain brown lipstick and outlined the edges of her lips with this pencil she carried in her bag. Every time she talked, it was like this pale chocolate snowcone staring up at me, waiting to be eaten. I’ve been in love with her since sixth grade, but she didn’t have a clue.

  “I’ll help you with the club,” I said. “But just so the two of us can bag all the meetings and laugh at the other people who show up.”

  She wasn’t amused. “This isn’t a joke. Someone is finally talking about the things I’ve been saying all along, and I think it’s important to help spread the word. Are you in or are you out?”

  “Of course I’m in. I can’t let you do this on your own. Next thing I know you’ll be running for prom queen or something.”

  She punched me in the arm, her usual form of affection. “Hey, why don’t you help me at the store this afternoon? We’re having a run on shovels.”

  Beth’s father’s hardware store had been our work/tree house/summer camp since grammar school. Sorting the nuts and bolts, counting the different lightbulbs, shoveling the woodchips into wheelbarrows had never seemed like a job to either of us. The small store prided itself on carrying everything a homeowner could need, but for a loner like me it was a nonthreatening way to be a part of the community without too much social pressure. I told Beth I’d meet her there at four.

  For a brief moment I pretended we were a couple, not snowbound outside Boston, but romping through the Caribbean surf—tan and in love. My fantasy shattered, however, when she waved goodbye and headed across the cafeteria to Todd Terrific—a new jock she was obsessed with. Can someone please explain to me how this preoccupation with dopey athletes happens even to headstrong young women who work in hardware stores and score 1350s on their SATs? B
eth, what are you doing to me? Life was cruel and unfair—what did this Larry guy have to say about that?

  The rest of school went by like the movie Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray wakes up and every day is the same, down to the last boring details. Even when something new did happen—fire drill, substitute teacher—it was still just a giant yawn in the storyline. To keep myself amused during study hall, I invented a new alphabet based on the sense of smell.3

  At home that night, I booted up my laptop and logged on. I checked my e-mail, then the small portfolio of stocks my mother left me when she died. I made one last online stop: to Larry. I wondered if Beth was doing the same thing at the same time—an unrequited cyberdate.

  The Larry logo filled the screen—a peace sign with a dove, a floppy disk, a planet, and a plug inside each of its four sections. I scrolled down through several photographs to comments people had written that day: puljohn posted a new link to Adbusters. Toejam ranted about Larry’s last sermon, calling it brilliantly flawed. I was in the middle of reading his argument when Peter knocked quickly, then stuck his head in my room.

  “Want some leftover pizza?”

  My stepfather was the ultimate businessman; even in his terrycloth robe and slippers with the squashed heels, he could command his advertising consulting firm from the brink of failure to unbridled success. He had the whole sales thing down—the firm handshake, the warm smile, the good listening. It was the real Peter, not put on, like lots of other guys at his company.

  He looked over my shoulder and checked out the screen.

  “I’ve heard about this Larry,” he said. “Some guy bashing our culture online. Anonymous coward.”

  “Some people think it’s one of the big televangelists trying to reach the teen market. Or maybe it’s a bored housewife in the suburbs looking for something to do.”

  Peter shook his head. “Probably some hacker trying to make a name for himself.”

  “I’ll add that to the list of hypotheses,” I said.

  “You do that.” He handed me a slice of pizza on a paper towel. “Dinner at Katherine’s tomorrow. That okay with you?”

  “Sure. Great.” Katherine was my stepfather’s girlfriend who had been putting on the full-court press to be the next Mrs. Swensen. I didn’t have the nerve to tell Peter I found her as interesting as a bag of rice.

  Peter closed the door and headed downstairs to his office. I browsed the Larry archives, then printed out the latest sermon to prepare for Beth tomorrow.

  SERMON #93

  Slip on your Gap jeans, your Nike T-shirt, your Reeboks—or maybe even your Cons if you think that makes you cool and ironic in a Kurt Cobain kind of way. Grab your Adidas backpack, ride to school on your Razor, drink your Poland Spring, eat your PowerBar, write a paper on your iMac, slip on your Ralph Lauren windbreaker. Buy the latest CD from Tower, check the caller ID to see who’s on the phone, eat your Doritos, drink your Coke. Stare at the TV till you’re stupefied.

  Is there any time of the day when we’re not being used and abused by the advertising companies? Can we have an inch of free space, do you mind? Some ambitious kids rent their head space—the outside, not the inside (although the inside space is certainly emptier)—to local companies by shaving ads into their hair for all their friends to see. It’s just a matter of time before corporations figure out a way to sell you stuff while you’re sleeping. Maybe some kind of vitamin that releases visual and sonic enzymes that run like a ticker tape through your dreams—ALL THE LATEST RELEASES NOW AT BLOCKBUSTER … CHEESIER NACHOS AT CHILI’S … BY THE WAY, YOU’RE SNORING … .

  Am I the only one who sees the irony of sitting in lit class reading 1984, having a discussion of Big Brother watching out for us like it’s some time way in the future? Some science fiction nightmare that’s never really going to happen? Hel-lo? Our lives couldn’t be more dictated by the corporations if they gave our schools A/V equipment in exchange for making us watch commercials in class.

  Oh yeah, they do that already.

  Never mind.

  Good thing Peter hadn’t hung around for that one. By two A.M., I had fourteen pages of notes for the new Larry club.4 When I added up all the things I’d done for Beth over the years, I figured it was more effort than they put into developing the last space shuttle.

  And completely and totally worth it.

  Joining anything was not my usual thing—by a long shot. It’s like that show Survivor. I read in the paper that 50 million people watched it last night—talk about a reason not to watch something. I don’t know about you, but if 50 million people are doing something, I want to be doing something else—big time.

  My stepfather’s girlfriend calls me quirky, but most of the kids in my school would probably just call me weird. I’m used to it, though; it’s always been that way. I mean, when you’re sitting in third grade wearing a paper pyramid on your head to see if the rays of energy will help you concentrate, you’re getting some kids looking at you like you’re cuckoo. The good news was—I never cared. Never came home crying, never worried, “Oh, gosh, what will the other kids think?” Just plain old oblivious. There’s something to be said about ignorance being bliss.5

  When my mother was still alive, she used to threaten the principal for more services—extra tutors, more challenging work. “He’s seven years old with an eighth-grade math level. You’re wasting his time making him add two plus two!” she’d yell. “I’ll homeschool him, I swear!”

  Yeah, Mom. Sure. Maybe after a handful of Prozac and a lobotomy. God rest her soul, she was a tireless advocate for me, but she could sit still about as much as I could. I can picture her homeschooling me now, the two of us spelling vocabulary words as we rolled down the hill behind the cemetery. She was a character—loud voice, loud music, loud clothes. So much fun. Until the ovarian cancer—much less fun after that.

  For most of my life with her, the stimulation level was high, and that’s always been a turn-on for me. I didn’t crawl or walk; one day I just got up and ran. My very first word—yelled, not spoken from my carseat as we cruised down the highway—was FASTER! And once I got hold of numbers, forget about it. There’s a home video of me, probably about two years old, sitting on one of those jumpy seats in the kitchen. I’m in front of the refrigerator with colored magnetic numbers doing equations.6 My mother’s talking to one of her girlfriends while she’s taping me, saying, “When most babies want formula, they’re not talking about math.”

  But it wasn’t just numbers; it was learning in general that excited me. I’d go through phases where I devoured any information about the Civil War, Tibetan Buddhism, alpine mountaineering, and planting a perennial garden.7 The usual kid activities like baseball and soccer didn’t interest me. I remember having huge fights with my mother while she held open the screen door and forced me to play outside with the neighborhood kids. “If you don’t go out and play with Karl and Bryan right now, there’ll be no science homework after dinner!”

  “Don’t even think about taking my biology away!”

  “Josh, get out there and get some fresh air, or so help me God, I’m bringing those math books back to the library!”

  She’d boot me out the door kicking and screaming. As the years went by, I still preferred to work on my laptop in my hammock swing than to be at the high school Super Bowl.

  Beth used to call me “The Wizard,” like I was some overgrown Harry Potter. She thought I just twirled around, wasting time, visiting various dictionary sites to look up words like napiform (it means turnip-shaped, but you know that).

  “You are NOT the average seventeen-year-old,” she told me once. “But then again, you weren’t the average fifteen- or twelve-year-old either.”

  I had to agree with her there.

  It’s very simple, really. I’ve only wanted one thing my whole life—to contribute, to help make the world a better place. It sounds amazingly corny, but pushing civilization forward has always been my highest priority. Not with more technology, not with more
money, but with more ideas, more meaning. When we studied Darwin last year, his ideas burned off the page. All of us, evolving, moving forward, consciously or not. It’s probably what was in the back of my mind when I moved those plastic numbers across the refrigerator; it’s what’s on my mind as I type this now.

  If Larry was a way to delve into life’s deeper meaning, then count me in.

  Beth made a list of all the kids in our homeroom and who they had been in a past life. We passed the list back and forth filling in the blanks—Jack Furtado, Victorian cellist; Laura Newman, Russian cosmonaut—until the bell rang.

  Out in the hall, my enthusiasm pinned Beth to her locker. “You’re right! Everything Larry wrote about on his Web site had something to do with my life.”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” She couldn’t have been happier.

  “When I thought about what a consumer glutton my stepfather’s girlfriend was, Larry wrote about shopaholics. When I missed my mother, he talked about attachment. It was uncanny!” I didn’t want to lay it on too thick.

  Beth’s lips shone like a hot mocha coffee. “He puts into words exactly what we’re thinking.” She corrected herself immediately. “He or she.”

  “But what’s with the photos?” I asked. “Are we supposed to guess Larry’s identity?”

  “Larry has less than eighty possessions. He posts them on his Web site, a few at a time, daring people to guess who he is. Right now, everyone’s clueless. I mean, what can you tell from a pen and a hairbrush?”

  “Maybe you’ll be lucky and the next clue will be his—”

  “Or her—”

  “License.”

  Beth smiled. “I’m sure Larry’s saving that one for last.”

  I asked her if she wanted to come over later and talk about my ideas for the club.

  She frowned. “I can’t. I have to study for that calculus test.”

  Beth was a lot of things—gorgeous, smart, determined. She also was a terrible liar. I stared her down.