The Gospel According to Larry

by Janet Tashjian

  “Okay, I promised I’d help my father with inventory.”

  I kept staring.

  “Damn it, Josh. I told Todd I’d help him clean his basement tonight. Okay?”

  “Could you please explain how someone as committed to personal growth as you are can vacuum the basement of the class cretin just because she thinks she’s in love with him?”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Beth barked back. “There’s no one more inconsistent than you. You’re a computer geek who hikes in the woods for days. You hate to buy things, yet you always go to Bloomingdale’s!”

  “That’s different. But forget it, you made your point.”

  She was just gearing up. “Look, you’re my best friend. We’ve been bailing each other out since grade school. But not everyone wants to go through life being a hermit living in the world of ideas.” She made quotation marks with her fingers when she said the word ideas. It was one of the only things Beth did that drove me out of my mind.

  She finally got around to sputtering out the truth about Todd. “He’s the only cool guy who’s ever liked me. I know he can act like a jerk, but do you mind if I let his popularity rub off on me for a while?”

  For some reason the bare-bones honesty of her plea only fueled my growing sense of annoyance. “I’m out of here.” I made those fake quotation marks around the word out, then walked toward lit class. I could feel her behind me even before she spun me around to face her.

  “I hate fighting with you,” she said. “Hate it, hate it, hate it.”

  We stood silently for a few minutes.

  “It’s just that Todd has to have the basement cleaned by the weekend or he can’t play. I’m trying to have some school spirit for once. Plus, he knows I’m really good at organizing things … .”

  I wanted to tell her those skills might be put to better use than placing football and basketball trophies in chronological order, but I held my tongue. Instead I told her I had lots to do, tons to do, was way too busy to deal with this paltry exchange. I shuffled away as nonchalantly as someone in deep despair could shuffle. My anxiety around Beth could be traced to one thing—I was never included in the endlessly rotating list of guys she had crushes on. Sam, Daniel, Andy, Speedy McDermott, Jack, now Todd. But never, ever me. If the choice were a two-week exciting vacation in Europe with me or helping Todd clean his basement, I knew, sadly, what Beth’s choice would be.

  Next stop in my fun-filled day: guidance with Ms. Phillips. I tried to rally myself for the occasion by doing some standing push-ups against my locker.

  I hadn’t even sat down when Ms. Phillips got to the point. “Have you thought about your major, Josh?”

  Ms. Phillips had the terrible habit of pushing her glasses up her nose with her middle finger. She did it so often, everyone in school called her Flip-Off Phillips.

  I played with the zipper of my bookbag, then realized I was not giving her my full attention—Larry’s Sermon #22. I looked her in the eyes. “I was thinking about philosophy. You know, the meaning of life—that sort of thing.”

  “From the point of view of someone who likes to read, likes to think, like you do, it’s a good choice,” she said. “But you realize the job prospects are pretty slim.”

  “I’m thinking after the Depression, after the Apocalypse, there’ll be lots of positions for people with depth and vision.”

  She crinkled up her nose, her glasses fell, and she flipped me the bird again. “Josh, I’m not sure it makes sense to plan a career based on an apocalypse. What if there isn’t one?”

  “Then I guess I’m screwed.” I flashed her a big smile so she couldn’t yell at me for the language.

  “I suppose I’m being too materialistic,” she said. “Studying philosophy at Princeton is a fine and worthy choice.”

  I wasn’t sure Ms. Phillips’s revelation came less from my sales pitch than it did from the fact that it was ten to eleven and she was dying for a cigarette before her next appointment. I decided to let her off the nicotine hook; I gathered up my things and headed for the door.

  I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for Ms. Phillips since last year, when I spotted her e-mail address in her office and started up a chatty Internet conversation with her as a forty-year-old bachelor from Portland.8 After months of quiet online flirtation, I invited her to meet me at the Borders coffee shop, only to watch her from the cookbook section. She waited more than two hours and three cappuccinos before she went home. (That I felt bad about. Ms. Phillips was usually tough as nails; I never thought she’d fall that hard.)

  I decided to skip the rest of the day; the recurring vision of Beth dressed up like Snow White singing as she swept Todd Terrific’s basement was more than I could endure. I grabbed my camera from my locker and opted to check in with my mother instead.

  When my stepfather visited Mom, he headed for the cemetery. I—who knew her much better than he did—headed for somewhere that captured her spirit more than a pasture full of granite headstones.

  The makeup counter at Bloomingdale’s.

  I slogged through the slush, then grabbed the bus to Chestnut Hill. Ever since we lived in the Boston area, my mother had dragged me here once a month.

  The waft of perfumes hit me like a surge of memories. I plopped down in the tall seat at the Chanel counter. I think it’s safe to say I was the only person in that department sitting in the lotus position.

  “Hello, Joshie. How’s it going?” Marlene the Beauty Doctor has been working here for more than twenty years. With her shiny helmet of dyed black hair and dark eyebrows penciled in for the ones she lost years ago, she was Mom’s favorite salesperson.

  “It’s slow, so you can sit. If I get a client, you know the drill.”

  I saluted, then leaned back to hang with Mom. My mother bailed on her wealthy parents’ expectations as soon as she hit college. Instead of following in their Wall Street footsteps, she hitchhiked cross-country, worked tirelessly for civil rights, and made some bad choices in men. One thing from her Grosse Pointe background she couldn’t walk away from, however, was her fondness for upscale moisturizers and creams. She used to spend hours trying to look like she wore no makeup at all. She experimented with pencils and powders like a mad scientist but always looked the same to me. I can remember perching on this stool as a preschooler watching Marlene hand Mom tube after tube of lipstick. Mom would ask me which color I preferred, consider my answer, then buy whichever one she wanted anyway.

  I waited till Marlene rang someone up at the other end of the counter before I started talking.

  “Okay, Mom, in a nutshell—Beth is cleaning Todd’s basement, Peter is dragging me to another lasagna dinner at Katherine’s, and I’m nowhere closer to changing the world.”

  A woman with a leopard-print hat eyed me as she walked by.

  “I just feel like I’m waiting for my life to begin, that I’ve wasted seventeen years. Then what? Four years at Princeton? How does that help move civilization forward?”

  “You want to see our deep-pore cleaning mask?” Marlene inquired.

  I nodded. Whenever Marlene’s boss circled by, I pretended I was a paying customer.

  “You ask me, you make it too hard on yourself. Stop worrying about civilization. Worry about staying out of trouble, making nice friends,” Marlene said.

  She rubbed the mask onto my face in small circles.

  “I have nice friends,” I answered. “Well, one nice friend.”

  “One nice friend is all you need.” Marlene watched her boss get on the escalator, then wiped off my mask with a tissue.

  “Here.” She gathered up tiny bottles of free samples, put them in a small bag with handles, and gave it to me. “You come back anytime.”

  I could see Marlene eyeing a potential customer hovering over the nail polish. I saluted again and left.

  In the shoe department, I tried on four pairs of sneakers, three pairs of loafers, and five pairs of boots before the salesperson deserted me. I circled by the makeup counter
on my way out.

  “Mom?” I asked.

  A fiftyish woman in fishnets turned around, then went back to what she was doing.

  “Mom, you’ll help me, right? With the whole change-the-world thing?”

  Then I did what I always did when I needed an answer from my mother. I listened for the very next word someone said. A businessman talking on his cell phone provided her response.

  “Yes!” he said into the phone. “Of course I will.”

  My grin spread ear to ear.

  When I said, “Thanks, Mom,” the woman in fishnets turned around again. I tipped my woolen hat her way and headed out of the store.

  Peter’s girlfriend Katherine had a Humpty Dumpty fetish. She collected anything poor Mr. Dumpty had affixed himself to—salt and pepper shakers, cookie jars, puzzles, mailboxes, light switches, vases, bookends—you get the idea. Last Christmas, she gave Peter a Humpty Dumpty tie with clumsy Humpty tumbling down the front of it.9

  Katherine was forty pounds overweight, always smiling like the poster woman for Fat, Dumb, and Happy jeans.10 She laughed nervously after everything we said and was putting in so much effort to being liked that once in a while I actually found myself rooting for her.

  “Ah, lasagna. My favorite.” Peter dug into the casserole dish like it was the first meal he’d had in months.11

  “Very nice,” I said. I’d told her fifty times I don’t eat meat, but somehow that never seemed important enough to register on her radar screen. I filled my plate with lots of garlic bread and tomato sauce.

  I’m not sure if Peter was really interested in the zany anecdote Katherine filled our airspace with—something about mixed-up files at work and her crazy boss—or if he just pretended she was a client. I don’t know how she did it, but the conversation ended up where it always did—at eBay, and all the wonderful Humpty bargains Katherine was bidding on. I excused myself as soon as possible, saying I had lots of homework to do.

  As I walked into the cold night air, I banged my hand against the side of my head to empty out the cascade of Katherine’s gibberish. By Porter Street, I could almost hear my own thoughts again.

  It’s not like I was trying to walk by Beth’s; my feet somehow ended up there. Just in time to catch her running up her driveway.

  “I thought you were dusting Todd’s collection of medals tonight.”

  “Give it a rest, Josh.”

  I decided to lay off the topic until she felt like talking. We sat on her front steps and watched the flickering Christmas lights the Petersons should have taken down months ago.

  “I hate to admit you may be right,” she began. “Todd definitely doesn’t appreciate me.”

  “That’s a giant duh.”

  She shivered. “I’ll die if I end up being one of those women on talk shows complaining about their lives.”

  “I’ll start a fight from the audience so the ratings will be high,” I added.

  “I could never have a normal conversation like this with Todd,” she said. “I don’t know why.”

  Let’s see … because he’s a moron, because he thinks memorizing football plays is more important to the planet than physics or kindness? I kept my mouth shut and stared straight ahead at the Petersons’ lights.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” I opened my pack and took out the gift bag from Bloomingdale’s.

  “You visited your mom today? I wondered where you were fifth period.”

  Her long fingers removed the items from the tissue paper. “Ooh, I like this.” She rubbed some moisturizer on her hand.

  A war erupted inside me—please try on the lipstick, don’t try on the lipstick—on the one hand, I wanted any excuse to stare at those lips of hers; on the other, I needed to sleep tonight.

  She wanted to torture me, of course. On went the lipstick.

  “Is it too dark?” she asked.

  I could feel her breath as well as see it. Her lips looked like ripe juicy plums hanging on a tree. I shrugged and told her it looked okay.

  “I’m not sure about this,” she said. “Larry’s latest sermon really got to me—about wasting money on stuff we don’t need.”

  “Well, it was free, if that makes you feel any better.”

  “As a matter of fact, it does,” she said. “Want to go log on?”

  I followed her down to the basement, which was strewn with clothes and CDs.

  “Why don’t you see if Todd will reciprocate? His basement couldn’t have been any worse than this.”

  “Yeah, right. He’s on his way over now.”

  Luckily there was no chance in hell of Todd actually doing anything resembling manual labor, so I had Beth to myself for a few hours.

  She clicked on her Favorite Places and pulled up Larry’s sermon. While she read the latest installment, I picked up her Magic 8 Ball and asked a question—Would Beth like Larry’s new sermon? Would it resonate with her? I shook the ball, then turned it over. “My Sources Say No.” I may not have magic powers, but I bet you’re wrong this time, Mr. 8 Ball.

  “Josh, you’ve got to see this.”

  I put down the not-so-magic Magic 8 Ball and joined her at the desk.

  “Didn’t I tell you? It’s like he writes things just for you, no matter what you’re thinking. Look.”

  I dragged over a chair and read the latest from Larry.

  SERMON #97

  I’ve written a lot about the crap we fill our lives with—possessions that tie us down, that only distract us from who we are trying to become. But what about the people we surround ourselves with? Are they people who ignite our passions, who spur us to greater self-mastery? Are your relationships full of meaning, or are you just going through the motions? Don’t you want to dig a little deeper, reach another level? Or are we all just looking for the easy, the convenient? The people we choose to spend our lives with are the people who share our journey—are you surrounded by crewmates or pirates who hijack your time?

  “It’s spooky,” she said. “So me and Todd.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure Larry was thinking of you two when he wrote it,” I answered.

  “I’m serious. There’s no ‘there’ there. It’s over.”

  I shrugged in agreement, but my brain bounced between anticipation and fantasy.

  “Besides, he eats meat! I can smell it on his breath. It’s disgusting.” She jumped up and put her hands on her hips, determined. “Back to more important things. Let’s get going on the Larry club.”

  “Hey, I wasn’t the one ironing letterman jackets all night.” I took out the folder of notes I had made the night before.

  We worked until her father nicely asked me to leave.12

  She gave me her usual you’re-my-best-friend-so-it’s-so-harmless-to-be-close-to-you hug. I just hugged her back in that I’m-perfectly-content-to-only-be-friends way and headed home.

  As I walked down Kimball Street, I thought of all the things I forgot to tell Beth tonight. About the links we could set up from Larry’s home page. About how spring was only a few weeks away. About my conversation with Flip-Off Phillips that morning.

  And oh yeah, Beth, one more thing.

  Did I forget to mention I was Larry?

  (I’m not much of a detail person.)13

  PART TWO

  “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”

  St. Matthew 10:39

  The Web site started out as most of my projects do—as a way not to be bored, a way to create something interesting out of nothing. Also, it was that holiday juggernaut that starts with Halloween, gains steam over Thanksgiving, and comes to a roaring crescendo with Christmas and New Year. The commercialism had reached an all-time high last year, and I felt a desperate need to rebel. Especially with Mom not here, creating the site was a way to distract myself during that torturous and overwhelming time.14

  I designed the graphics, set up the Web site using my cell phone as the modem so the line couldn’t be traced.15 I could have done the
whole webcam hey-look-at-me thing, but even online my privacy was crucial.

  This all came at a time when I was designing a series of biblical action figures—for no other reason than my own entertainment, of course.16 So I called the site The Gospel According to Larry—Larry being the most unbiblical name I could think of.

  At first it was funny—just two or three hits a day—lonely Internet nomads with nothing better to do than read the rantings of another spiritual pilgrim. The comments were mostly positive, and some of the arguments were stimulating, so I began to stay up later and later to put more time into my sermons. Someone even posted an article from a local newspaper about the site. Reading that was a hundred times more gratifying than my early acceptance letter to Princeton, believe me.

  People started e-mailing Larry, asking who he or she was. One day I had the idea of photographing my possessions,17 scanning them, and posting them to the Web site. Would it be possible to track down an anonymous person ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD by the things he or she owned? The question intrigued me. I made a bet with myself that I could photograph each item in such a way that no one could track me down.

  It was a Catch-22. I was happy that what I did was interesting to others, but because Larry’s identity was unknown, I couldn’t take any credit for the phenomenon, couldn’t use it on my resume, or more importantly, brag about it to someone like Beth. I could, I suppose, but there’s something pretty slimy about a philosopher seeking attention for personal gain.18

  So I found myself in the awkward position of starting my own fan club. It was a routine almost worthy of the Python troupe, or maybe just the Three Stooges. The irony and just plain weirdness of it invigorated me, and I spent the next hour sorting through the photographs of my possessions, deciding which one to post the next day.

  LARRY ITEM #11

  I learned many things living with an advertising executive for five years: One of them was that for a company to succeed it needed a marketing niche. It wasn’t enough to start up a Web site. I needed a message, a product, something.