The Gospel According to Larry

by Janet Tashjian

  I sat on the orange motel bedspread and turned on the TV. When I saw the crowds lined up for miles, I thought someone had just assassinated the Pope. To my horror, the crowd was assembled outside my mother’s cemetery. After several teachers and “friends” eulogized me, I was shocked to see Beth take the podium. She had seamlessly moved from Seattle to Providence to start her freshman year at Brown. I felt bad throwing this at her so soon after school started. But she spoke confidently into the microphone, her face filling the several jumbo monitors behind my empty coffin.

  “Josh Swensen became Larry for one reason—to contribute to the world. He believed we as humans were an endangered species, that the predators who would lead to our demise were ourselves. He had a laser-like mind that focused on one thing—looking inside instead of outside ourselves for answers. He was right about a lot of things. I wish he hadn’t been right about our insatiable hunger for the new and exciting. I wish he hadn’t been right about how far we’d go to keep ourselves entertained. He would have hated this circus today. He was a boy who swung on swings, who could do the Python’s Silly Walk routine verbatim, who wanted nothing less of himself than to change the world. We lost someone amazing today, but we’re all too amused by the spectacle to know it.”

  She left the stage and disappeared into the crowd.

  I paced around the room in a panic—Beth! So eloquent, so powerful! I wanted to race to the cemetery and jump on her like the old days. The only thing making this forced exile bearable at all was the thought of seeing her again in a few months. If I could hold it together until then, surely she’d be open to being friends again. At this point I would have settled for sitting on her front steps one more time watching the Petersons’ Christmas lights flicker on and off.

  But my elation at the idea of a renewed life with Beth quickly dissipated when I saw the JumboTron images of Peter. He pushed the grave diggers away and threw shovelful after shovelful of dirt himself. I burst into tears, deeply sorry for his pain and suffering. His movements reminded me of all the hours I’d spent digging my hole in the woods, and suddenly we didn’t seem like we were on opposite sides at all. Remorse filled the room like a musty bedspread.

  I wasn’t happy with the situation, but I couldn’t turn back now. The next day I would check out, head west for a while, and do what all pilgrims do.

  Wait for a sign.

  Most people don’t get the chance to visit their own grave site, so it seemed like a waste not to take advantage of these unusual events and grieve for myself at the cemetery. The dyed hair, hat, and glasses were a must since hundreds of people still milled around the gates and tombstone. When I finally had a chance to get close enough, the picture I’d had in my mind for months became a reality: JOSHUA SWENSEN 1983–2001. The letters and numbers were etched deep into the granite, matching my mom’s perfectly. All these people who had brought flowers and cards, who sat on the grass singing and praying, none of them knew my mother, none of them knew me. Didn’t they have people in their own lives to love? If Larry was here, he surely would have written a sermon about it.

  I wondered if Mom was watching; I listened for her energy but heard nothing. I sat against a large maple with several of its leaves already on the ground. One thing about pretending to die—you missed out on the whole life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing. The images floated by now—Mom pushing me on a swing at the old neighborhood playground, selling lemonade and fortune cookies in front of our house during the summer, Mom bringing Peter to my fencing lesson to meet me for the first time, Beth getting yelled at for passing me Mad magazine during Social Studies, Mom and Peter exchanging vows on the beach in Jamaica, Beth grabbing my hand during the rerelease of The Exorcist and not letting go till the parking lot, Mom not having the strength to open the car door after her chemo treatments. Images, memories, thoughts—they were the only real possessions any of us had anyway.

  The last thing I had to do before leaving town was risky, but inevitable. I walked for miles on back roads till I got to the street behind Beth’s. Under cover of twilight, I snuck into the Hamlins’ yard and hid behind their overgrown rhododendron and waited. After a few hours, Beth came out as she often did, to sit on her front steps. She wore shorts and her shirt from the hardware store with Beth embroidered on the left breast pocket.71 Did she miss me? Or had she banished me from her heart months ago? From the opposite side of the street, we watched the arc of the Petersons’ sprinkler in silence. Everything she’d been through showed on her face—she seemed more mature and determined. I loved her more than I ever had in my life.

  Eventually she went inside. I came out from my hiding place72 and headed back to the motel. Tomorrow I would buy a ticket to Santa Fe as Thomas Patton, yet another of Josh’s alter egos.

  Was it worth it? If I had Larry to do all over again, would I? These were questions I asked myself often and still wasn’t sure about the answers. But was the whole thing worth losing myself over, even temporarily? I think it was. I’d made mistakes, of course: caring more about my message than about the people in my life. Next time out I’d try to find a better balance.

  There were other lessons too; I just hadn’t learned them yet.

  I got some Chinese takeout and sat in the park down the street from the motel.

  Goodbye, Massachusetts.

  Tom is hitting the road.

  On my way out of town the next day, I stopped at a small Kinko’s on the outskirts of the city to check out the Internet.73

  It was a mistake.

  A GIANT mistake.

  I checked the Boston Globe Web site for any major news. The headline grabbed me by the shirt and threw me across the room.

  PATERNITY SUIT FILED AGAINST DEAD PHILOSOPHER.

  I clicked on the article; maybe they were talking about Kierkegaard.

  But sure enough, Josh Swensen, blah, blah, blah.

  Some girl from Idaho (where I’ve never been) …

  Claiming sex (WHICH I’VE NEVER HAD!) …

  In the back of a Toyota pickup (which I’ve never driven).

  Can you slander a dead man?

  Can you slander a man PRETENDING to be dead?

  Every fiber of my being hoped this was an isolated incident.

  It wasn’t.

  I slept in my hole in the woods most nights and ventured out to the newsstands in the early mornings.

  If I weren’t already dead, I’d want to be now, believe me.

  I thought it couldn’t get any worse.

  I was wrong.

  Sixteen different men came forward saying they were my real father. I read all their profiles with interest, but none of the statistics matched my poor old dead alcoholic dad.

  Then the conspiracy theories started coming out of the woodwork. Larry was one of the masterminds behind the 1995 Oklahoma bombing.74 Larry stalked child stars in Hollywood. I laughed—hysterically—at the first several theories, but soon the weight of the lies buried what was left of my spirit. I had started out writing sermons about the toxic effects of celebrity worship and accumulation; never in my wildest dreams could I have envisioned that my prophesies would be magnified a thousand times. I had tried to warn others; I should have warned myself.

  If I had been depressed before, I was in deep despair now. When I realized I could never go back, I wanted to really kill myself. Even if I were acquitted of every crime I was accused of, I’d still spend the rest of my life in court, or worse, in front of a TV camera. And to risk never having this glorious solitude again? Forget it.

  If I was being honest with myself—which I was trying to do more of lately—I knew deep down there had always been a possibility I’d never go back. Anyone who’d screwed up as badly as I had would jump at the chance to start over from scratch. I guess now the universe was setting it up so I could do just that.

  So I wandered from town to town, dying my hair from blond to red to black, changing glasses and hats every few days. This is your new life, I told myself in the Texaco mirror.


  Get used to it.

  I enunciated the word limbo again and again, lingering over the long vowel sound: L-I-M-B-O. The nebulous place between two worlds. My new home.

  Any options of returning to my “normal” life were now irrevocably gone. My whole amnesia story, Princeton, Peter’s face as I walked through the kitchen door—history. My new vocation was spiritual hobo, never stopping long enough to make a connection. I had gone from a geek to a god to Richard-freaking-Kimble. Who knew?

  Or did I have another choice?

  Hiding behind the false identity of Larry had gotten me into this mess; was hiding behind Gil and Tom the answer now? A voice inside me said no. As painful as it would be, maybe it was time to face the music. To tell my side of the story. I could set up another anonymous Web site, of course, but wasn’t that still begging the question? It was time to get back to basics; I bought an old manual typewriter and a ream of paper. No fancy graphics, simple, like a term paper—the thesis of my life. I worked on it for weeks, Larry’s story—no, my story—pouring onto the pages. I hoped I could find someone to help me publish it without dealing with the Larry brouhaha.

  I spent several days in the library researching local writers, disc jockeys, anyone who might listen to my version of these events. I made a list of people who were possibilities, then said a prayer someone would help me publish this thing. Not a prayer to Larry, just an old-fashioned is-anybody-out-there kind of prayer.

  There’s somebody out there, all right.

  It’s me.

  Today I rose early and hitched a ride down Route 2. I had just finished typing the manuscript and wanted to celebrate. I also realized I’d never been to Walden Pond. The late autumn weather meant only a few courageous souls would brave the icy water. I hung out away from the other Nature lovers and watched, eventually diving into the chilly water myself. Like my new life, it took some getting used to, but once accepted, made me feel refreshed and renewed.

  When the park closed, I made my way deeper into the woods.75 Because it was illegal—and I was legally deceased—getting caught was risky indeed. After dark I reached the site where Thoreau’s house had been. Several oaks and maples were thick with age; they would have been here when he wandered these woods too.

  Tomorrow I would approach a few writers and see if they’d help me tell my story. But for tonight, under the stars, I leaned against a pine tree and watched a great horned owl land above me. Its wingspan reached as wide as my arms; I gazed at it in wonder. And a feeling welled up inside me—you are free. And I realized, as crazy as the rest of the world seemed, I was.

  If I got my story published, I’d actually be outing myself. The fact that I had something in common with betagold made me smile. Maybe finding common ground with the people we disagreed with was the first step to a real revolution. With this story behind me, I could concentrate on what has always been most important to me—contributing. But I didn’t have to preach to a million people to move civilization forward; offering a hungry person a bowl of soup was contributing too. So was lending someone a pen, smiling at a frazzled waitress, letting the old man in front of me at the store take his time gathering his things.

  I remembered an article I’d read during my anthropology phase. It described a “primitive” tribe with no doctor or shaman. Whenever anyone in the village was sick, he or she stood in the middle of a circle surrounded by their community. The person was asked, “What has been left unsaid?” People sometimes sat for hours, days, however long it took for them to draw the courage to say whatever they had been holding back, which was, of course, what was making them sick. In a culture with no doctor, the cure rate was 98 percent. I thought about that story now as I watched the owl. I had “died” with no last words, words that maybe could have saved my life. If I had told Beth how I felt about her from the beginning instead of having Larry seduce her like some kind of cyber-Cyrano de Bergerac. If I had really tried to discuss my anticonsumer views with Peter. Even more to the point, if I had told him that never in fifty lifetimes could I feel for Katherine what I felt for my mom, that her petty interests made a mockery of all the things Mom had held important. If I had told people straight out—I like you, you’re fine, but COULD YOU PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE FOR A WHILE, instead of hiding behind a screen name. All Larry’s sermons came from his head. Maybe his heart—my heart—needed some airtime too.

  Thoreau’s spirit must have been protecting me, because I didn’t hear or see a ranger all night. Slowly—with the clarity only a spiritual hibernation can bring—I realized my predicament was actually a blessing.

  Life had given me another chance. This time around I could verbalize the unsaid things, cure myself before the villagers’ very eyes. I had been trying to fix the outside world without fixing the inside one first—a giant mistake. How did a math and logic freak like me miss that one?

  Through this cascade of thoughts, the owl remained above me. It sure wasn’t Bloomingdale’s, but I felt my mother’s presence more than I ever had before. The thought of Mom and Henry David on some funky astral plane, talking about applying moisturizer and chopping wood made me laugh out loud. My body relaxed for the first time in weeks, and I knew my life would go on.

  I could change the world.

  I’d just start with me this time.

  An easier or more difficult task?

  I watched the moon and pondered the question till I fell asleep under the stars.

  Epilogue

  “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter … .”

  REVELATION 1:19

  “You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men’s, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint ‘No Admittance’ on my gate.”

  Walden

  HENRY DAVID THOREAU

  My editor and I have our first disagreement about the book. She insists on publishing it under my name and listing it as fiction; I say it’s Josh’s story and should be packaged as nonfiction under his own name. Josh tells me to do whatever it takes to get the story out.

  I originally told him I’d help him get his manuscript published because I thought it was the right thing to do. But now that the book is ready to go to press, I find myself wishing I had helped him more. My maternal instincts emerge, and I wonder if he’s okay, if he has a place to stay and some food. I disapprove of Josh’s pseudocide, and as a parent I go back and forth about calling Peter Swensen to tell him Josh is still alive. Peter’s number sits on my desk, next to my John Lennon photo; in the end I decide it’s a violation of Josh’s privacy and don’t. But I find myself hoping Peter will spot The Gospel According to Larry at some bookstore and make the connection for himself. I read a notice in the Boston Globe that he and Katherine recently married; I hope they find happiness together.

  I did interview several people for this epilogue but decided not to include them. The person I really wanted to talk to was Beth, but she was organizing a rally for Third World workers’ rights and wouldn’t be back in the States until after the publication date. She has moved on from Larry, but not from their many causes.

  I stop by the makeup counter at Bloomingdale’s to see Marlene. “I miss my Joshie,” she says. “No one comes to talk anymore.” I buy a pale brown lipstick, sit on the padded stool, and wait. No one walking by says anything.

  One Saturday afternoon, a woman appears at my door and introduces herself as Tracy Hawthorne.

  I correct her. “Don’t you mean betagold?”

  She tells me she has a friend in the publishing industry who mentioned something about a new book coming out about Larry. I talk to her on the porch and don’t invite her in. I tell her the rumor might be true.

  “If he’s still alive, I want to know,” she says. “I deserve to know.”

  I want to tell her to get a life; instead I tell her I don’t know anything about Larry. “Yo
u’re asking the wrong person,” I say. “I write fiction.”

  She climbs back into the waiting cab and drives off. I never see her again.

  Larry’s work continues to influence my life in different ways. Over the course of several weeks I clean out my house from top to bottom, eventually filling twenty-three bags with things my husband, son, and I don’t need anymore. Although I hardly whittle our possessions down to seventy-five, I feel much lighter and less bogged down by junk. Whenever I go shopping—which is hardly ever—I ask myself if the item I am about to buy is worth adding to my life. Nine times out of ten it isn’t, and I put it back on the shelf with a smile.

  I also spend a little less time reading the tabloids at the check-out counters. I reexamine the reasons I’m a writer, begin an inner dialogue. Am I writing to express myself, to add ideas to the collective thought process? Or am I just out to sell books and get famous? I go back and forth, decide not to put my photo on the jacket of the book.

  One day I go so far as to ride a bike—I have to borrow one—to the Sagamore Bridge. As I ride across, I am petrified, can’t believe Josh even pretended to jump here. I think about the first time I met him, his quoting Thoreau while I unloaded groceries. I recall a line from Thoreau now: “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.” I realize I’ve gone as far with Larry as I can go. That it is now my turn to move on. I stand on the bridge with the wind behind me.