by Alvin Orloff
“Oh, thanks.” I let Bob use the toilet then scampered into the shower. On coming out I picked a towel, but it smelled mildewy. I tried another, then another, then another, but they all smelled gross. Steeling myself, I chose one at random, hoping it was Rick’s, and dabbed at my body. I felt ashamed of my yearning for the fresh, fluffy, and smelling-of-Tide towels my mom always provided. If I was going to become a spiritual person and renounce personal possessions, there were a lot of bourgeois hang-ups I’d need to overcome. Once dressed, I went into the kitchen and found Beth and Susan quietly setting the table with bowls, milk, and cereal. I said good morning and received a judgmental glare from Beth. Susan turned to me with a serious look and whispered, “We don’t speak till noon.” I sat down and kept my mouth shut.
Everyone else filed in shortly thereafter, smiling and bowing in a manner that struck me as vaguely Japanese. Following Rick’s lead, we all held hands around the table and lowered our heads in silent prayer for what seemed like forever. Then we ate. I’d expected the lack of conversation to be unnerving, but actually it was a blessing. Usually when dining with strangers I found myself bedeviled by the need to manufacture polite conversation. Instead, I was left alone with my thoughts, all of which consisted of some variant on the theme of, This feels so weird!
After breakfast, the women began to clean up and I followed the menfolk out back where an unkempt yard full of rickety lawn chairs bordered a huge garden. Bob found a bag of mulch in a small wooden shed affixed to the side of the house and began spreading it among the zucchinis, tomatoes, and peas. I imitated Rick and Jonas as they wandered among the plants pulling up little sprouty weeds and hurling the occasional snail out of the garden. Several yards into the vegetables, I wasn’t too surprised to discover a rather large section devoted to marijuana plants. I’d never seen one before in person, but recognized the skinny, serrated leaves from countless posters and tee-shirts. There was no way we could be seen from the neighbors’ houses, but I still felt a sharp twinge of fear. The last thing I wanted was for us to get busted by mean, squinty-eyed, small town cops with pot-sniffing Doberman Pinschers.
Before long, the women came out to help. There wasn’t that much to do, but we all worked at a slow, meditative pace. The day had started out warm, but quickly grew scorching hot. I tried crouching behind plants to avoid the strong sun, fearing my milky complexion would lobsterize. When noon arrived, everyone began singing a quiet, plaintive hymn (something, something, on to Calvary). Nobody in the Forever Family had an especially beautiful voice, but their palpable sincerity sent shivers up my spine. Anyone – even my smirking, skeptical parents – on hearing them would have to be impressed by their harmony and spiritual devotion. This was the mystical communion I’d come so far to find. Beautiful!
A few songs later, Rick announced we were done for the day and everyone followed him inside and began fixing sandwiches. I was surprised (and disappointed) that my new comrades ate bologna and white bread, food that struck me as being spiritually bankrupt. Conversation was restricted to “pass the—” and I was starting to feel completely disconnected. It was the exact opposite of high school where everyone jabbered and got into your business incessantly. I was mightily relieved when Rick finally asked me, “So, how do you like our set-up here?”
I stammered, wanting to sound intelligent and enthusiastic. “It’s extremely…” I searched for the right word, “spiritual in its simplicity.”
Rick fixed me with a hypnotic gaze, “I’d like to give you a present.”
My mind whirled with inexpressible possibilities. “Thanks. What?”
“It’s something we offer all our guests. A baptism.”
“Ah… What is that exactly?”
“A purification by water, a cleansing of sin, and a rebirth into the community of Christians,” explained Susan, as if reciting from a book.
My scalp tingled and my throat constricted with nervousness. “I guess that would be… good.”
Beth looked at Rick in disbelief. “We’re going to baptize someone who’s not even sure about Jesus?”
“Aw, lay off,” moaned Jonas, more tired than exasperated.
Rick stood, his face beaming. “Let’s do it then.” He tromped out to the yard and everyone followed. I went out last, arriving just in time to see Susan retrieve a children’s plastic inflatable wading pool from the side of the house. Rick took a hose and began filling it as everyone milled around. When it was full, they all turned to me.
“Welcome!” said Marjorie in a solemn tone.
“Welcome,” said Jonas.
“Welcome,” said Bob.
Susan and Beth said in unison, “Welcome.”
I smiled politely, then had to look down to keep from seeing the unnervingly pious and intense looks everyone was shooting my way. These people were really into this.
“OK, Little Lenny,” urged Rick. “Get in.”
“The pool?” This struck me as bizarre.
“You’ve got to be immersed,” explained Beth.
The pool was only a foot and a half high. “It’s sort of small for that,” I observed.
Jonas explained, “We’re just gonna sprinkle you. It’s symbolic.”
“No, it’s not,” stated Susan. “It’s every bit as miraculous as transubstantiation. This is an actual miracle we’re about to perform. Leonard will literally have his sins washed away. If he were to die right after he got out of the pool, he’d go straight to Heaven without having to be reincarnated.”
“Just don’t start.” Jonas rolled his eyes. “Reincarnation is such bullshit.”
“Children, peace!” Rick commanded.
I leaned over and stuck a finger into the pool. “It’s cold.”
“We could do it with just hands,” suggested Bob.
“That wouldn’t even count,” sighed Susan. “You need the water. In fact, it might even have to be Holy water. We should check.”
“I’m a Perfecti,” said Beth. “If the water needs to be Holy, I can bless it.”
Rick’s voice exuded authority. “You don’t need a separate ritual to bless the water.” He looked at me. “OK, take your clothes off and get in.”
Had anyone else in the universe asked me to bare myself in public, I’d have refused. My pale, chubby body was a deep source of shame and revulsion. Saying no to Rick, though, was inconceivable. I quickly kicked off my sneakers and pulled off my socks. I had more misgivings about removing my shirt to reveal my disgustingly flabby physique, but nobody here seemed likely (as they were at school) to laugh at me or give me a poke and call me Pillsbury Dough Boy. I took it off.
“We do baptisms just the way the Cathars did nearly a thousand years ago,” announced Beth proudly.
I undid my belt and shimmied out of my pants so that I stood before the assembled multitude in only my Fruit of the Looms.
“Don’t be shy,” urged Susan.
I turned to Rick. “You mean, I have to get all the way nude?”
“You should be as you came into the world,” he said serenely. “As God made you.”
With more trepidation than I’d felt in a long while, perhaps ever, I peeled off my underwear. My hands instinctively flew in front of my genitals where I clasped them in a way that protected my modesty but also, I thought, looked prayerful. I lifted my eyes from the ground to sneak a few glances at my new friends. They all wore the pious yet friendly looks they had before when I was still clothed. They weren’t smirking or hostile.
“Into the pool,” ordered Rick, still beaming.
I stepped into the pool and the Forever Family formed a circle around me holding hands, Rick in front of me, Susan and Bob to my left, Beth and Jonas to my right, Marjory in back. It freaked me out that everyone was so close I could have reached out and touched anyone of them with my hands.
“Should I close my eyes?”
“If you want,” said Rick. I shut my eyes, which helped with the embarrassment. “Leonard,” intoned Rick in a deep, holy tone, “when
you are before the Church of God you are before the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. For Christ said, ‘Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my name there I am.’ Be it understood that your presentation made before the sons…”
“And daughters,” interjected Susan.
“And daughters,” added Rick, “of Jesus Christ confirms the faith and teaching of the Church of God as the Holy Scriptures tell us. If you would receive this Holy Prayer you must repent your sins and forgive all men. For if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive your trespasses. Hence it is meet and right that you be resolved in your heart to keep this Holy Prayer all your life, in purity and truth and… and.”
“Steadfastness,” supplied Beth.
“Steadfastness. Brother Leonard, do you desire to give yourself to our faith?”
The theatrical aspect of this initiation ritual struck me as suspect (shouldn’t sincere religiosity be simple and unaffected?), but pulling out at the last moment would be humiliating. “I do.”
“Bow three times,” instructed Rick. “And after each bow, take a step towards me.”
I opened my eyes and did as Rick asked, taking tiny steps that sloshed the shallow waters of the pool. When I stood directly before him, mere inches away, Rick unclasped Beth and Susan’s hands so he could rest them lightly on my head. I felt, as I had every time he touched me, a wave of energy, as real as the static electricity I sometimes encountered when taking clothes out of the dryer and even more mysterious. Beth and Susan held hands behind Rick to re-close the circle around the two of us.
“Now, Leonard, repeat these words: ‘Lord, pray to God for me, a miserable sinner, that He will lead me to a good end…’ “
“Lord, pray to God for me, a miserable sinner, that He will lead me to a good end.”
“You’ve got to mean it,” Beth intoned. “You are a miserable sinner and you need God’s help. Badly!”
I didn’t feel like a miserable sinner. What had I done that was so terrible? Then it came to me. I’d lied to my parents, snuck into a movie theater, and hated the kids who bullied me in school. I’d even done a little coveting. I was actually quite sinner-y. The words came out more forcefully this time. “Lord, lead me, a miserable sinner, to a good end.” Beth and the others nodded their approval.
‘Do you give yourself to God and the Gospel?” asked Rick.
I wanted to say yes, but the God part of religion still freaked me out. “I give myself to Love,” I said, trying to imbue the words with confidence.
“Say it right,” said Beth, sounding annoyed. “No ad-libbing.”
“Let him alone,” Jonas shot back.
“Shut up and act holy, or this baptism isn’t going to count,” Susan said fiercely.
“It’s cool,” pronounced Rick. “Do you promise to henceforth neither lie, nor swear, nor kill, nor abandon your body to any form of luxury, and never renounce your faith for fear of water, fire, or any other manner of death?”
“I do.”
“Where’s the part about all the stuff he shouldn’t be eating?” asked Beth.
“We agreed we’re not doing the eating thing,” Bob relied sharply.
“You agreed,” Susan interjected. “You agreed with yourself.”
“Peace!” admonished Rick, his eyes flashing. He raised his hands off my head ceremoniously, bent over to dip them in the water, then stood erect again. “Verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. And one mightier than I cometh, whose sandals I am not worthy to loosen, who shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire. He shall heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, and cast out devils. And he that believeth in Him shall also do these things. Leonard, accept you the commandment to do these good works?”
I hesitated, not really sure I was up to raising the dead or casting out devils. What was I getting into? I stared into the faces surrounding me. The Forever Family, despite their tendency to bicker (well, they were a family), appeared reasonably cool and happy. Rick, though, was positively radiant. He couldn’t have looked any more transcendentally awesome with a halo. I croaked out, “I do.”
Rick shook his wet fingers on me. Tiny droplets of cool splattered my chest and shoulders and neck. “Behold, I give unto you the power to tread on serpents and scorpions! And if you would receive this power you must keep all the commandments of Christ and hate The World and all that is in it, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. For The World and its lusts passeth away, while whosoever does the will of God abideth forever. Hate ye the solid garment of flesh with all its vanities and vexations of spirit. Leonard, do you renounce The World?”
I looked into Rick’s eyes, bottomless wells of compassion and wisdom, conduits to the spiritual plane. Why did my Love for him vex my spirit so? “I’ll try.”
Jonas agreed, “That’s all anyone can do, man.”
Rick’s voice grew joyous and triumphant. “Leonard, before these witnesses you have repented your sins, forgiven your enemies, and renounced The World. You are born anew!” He flung a bit more water on me. Then everyone stepped forward, put their hands on my head, and chanted in unison. “Adoremus, Patrem, et Filium et Spiritum Sanctam. Adoremus, Patrem, et Filium et Spiritum Sanctam. Adoremus, Patrem, et Filium et Spiritum Sanctam.”
Over the next few days I discovered that, much to my amazement, the Forever Family somehow managed to survive without television, board games, or pets to occupy their days. They devoted the bulk of their waking hours to what Jonas called “Holy Loafing.” This involved long aimless walks, reading the Bible, staring at vegetation, praying silently, chatting about nothing, and taking huge bong hits after which they lolled around with the self-satisfied indolence of cats. Instead of trotting along like it was supposed to, time at Pleroma just sort of oozed forward aimlessly, like a garden slug. I couldn’t get the hang of doing nothing and quickly found myself painfully bored. I missed my dog Frodo, Danny’s library, my parents’ conversation, and (far more than I cared to admit) the televised hilarity of Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Burnett.
Aside from the morning gardening, the only burst of activity came in the late afternoon when Rick closed the living room curtains, signaling to the town that Pleroma was open for business. Almost immediately, bleary-eyed high school stoners began turning up on the doorstep in search of narcotic bliss. Great care was made to dress up these transactions as social calls. Chips and dip appeared on the table, Pink Floyd or Fleetwood Mac went on the hi-fi, and Cokes or beers were doled out, one per customer. The vibe was Mellow Party, except that the conversation never really flowed. The kids just whined about school or offered up vacuous gossip about their peers, to which the Forever Family responded with semi-surreptitious Christian wisdom. When wordage ground to a complete halt (which it did often), Rick would organize a round of bibliomancy, just as he had with me, oh so long ago. The stoners submitted to all the proselytizing with embarrassed smiles and noncommittal head nodding. “Yeah, Jesus is pretty far out, for sure.” Clearly they just wanted to get their drugs and split.
Once, a scruffy boy with stringy hair posed a question that had occurred to me on numerous occasions: “Isn’t smoking grass, like, some kind of sin or some shit like that?”
Rick smiled beatifically and waxed Biblical, “Unto the pure, all things are pure.”
After a sufficient length of awkward conversation, the stoners would very casually inquire about the possibility of purchasing weed. Sometimes the sale was transacted in the living room, but occasionally Rick and the party in question would discreetly disappear into his bedroom to conduct their illicit business. This usually took a very long time. Far longer than I could ever imagine that it should.
After the pot sales, the Forever Family would eat dinner, then it was bedtime. I was always on the couch, and Rick was alone in his room, but for everyone else, the sleeping arrangements changed nightly. I gathered, from overheari
ng the occasional squeal and moan, that chastity was not among the cherished virtues at Pleroma. Though I tried to banish all thoughts of lovemaking from my mind, I invariably had to relieve my tension (as I thought of it) in the bathroom once or twice nightly in order to sleep. Usually this was done without thought, but sometimes the image of a Rick-like Christ bathed in silvery white light and dressed only in a loincloth would flash in my mind at the culminating moment.
Thanks to the abnormal penchant for togetherness of Pleroma’s denizens, it was several days before I was able to corner Rick alone. He was in the back, gazing up at the pine trees surrounding the yard with a look of wonderment. “Rick, I… I have something I need to talk to you about. I did something bad.”
“Trees…” began Rick, in the slow cadence he used when sermonizing, “are like advertisements. Advertisements for God.”
“There was this kid at school who was always picking on me. He squashed my lunch and threw my books in the trash and was always punching me in the arm till I was black and blue. And one day this kid flicked my nose with his fingers and I just sort of snapped and smooshed my cupcake in his face and knocked him over and it was like I wasn’t even me, I was this animal, this Hate Machine…”
“They’re not just ads, they’re miracles. More beautiful than anything produced by the hand of man…”
I grew annoyed. Was he even listening? “So I was a Hate Machine and I wanted to kill him! I slapped his face?
Rick reluctantly turned his attention from the miraculous trees to me. “Hate is not The Answer Leonard.”
“Yeah, I know!”
“Jesus said, ‘Pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.’”
“What I’m saying is that I flipped. I lost it. This kid had been pounding on me for years. Humiliating me. I tried to Love him, and sometimes I did, but he tripped me and spat on me and called me a fag and ripped up my homework….” I felt tears well up in my eyes. “I wanted to be his friend…” I’d never known this before, but on saying it, I knew it was true. “I did Love Douglas. And when he, you know, made fun of me and had his friends hold me down so he could punch me for no reason and…” I dissolved into sobs.