The Book of Moon

by George Crowder

  “Sssshhh!” I said. Mom’s whispering had gotten louder and she was starting to gesture. Several people were looking at her instead of at the video.

  “Try it, just try it,” Mom taunted.

  “You’re being rude,” I said. She gave me a look, but she stopped talking.

  After the video, people gave testimonials of how Buddhism had helped them in their lives. Mom was really getting restless now. “This is so AA,” she said. “‘I’m Harriet, and I’m a Buddhist,’” she mimicked. “‘I’ve got six months of Buddhist sobriety.’”

  The people seemed nice to me, but I could see Mom’s point. Then a skinny Asian kid with baggy pants and a cocked baseball cap told his story.

  “Yo, I’m Kim. I only been down with this a few months, you know… Couple years ago my folks split up and I took it hard. Let school slide, smoked dope, dropped Ecstasy, shrooms, whatever. Then dropped out. Spent days crashed, listening to music, Xboxing… It wasn’t good. Then it got worse.

  “My dad sent me to this summer camp in the old country. Blue Dragon Camp. Supposed to turn pussies like me into men. Dress up like G.I. Seoul in fatigues, run up hills, eat kimchi, and shout a buncha stupid shit. ‘I will be strongest and coolest kid!’ That really worked on me, right?”

  Kim flexed his toothpick arm and the group cracked up. “Man, there was no way out of this bad trip. I tried. Me and a coupla other dudes went AWOL. We got to the highway and nobody’d stop for us. Dumb ass people saw our fatigues and musta thought we were North Korean spies. ‘Oh, Daddy, don’t pick up those guys! They will steal our bulgogi!’”

  Pause for more laughter. “So, y’know, Blue Dragon really changed my attitude. I got home and I was done with marijuana. I started doing heroin. Why fuck around, right? Well, one thing led to another… I got convicted of a felony, one of my friends OD’d… I’m going through this shit and I run into my old pal Liz, who I hadn’t seen since fifth grade. And she’s like, ‘Kim, I got the hook-up, and it’s nam-myo-ho-renge-kyo. Check it out, man.’

  “In a way, I can’t believe I did. But somehow she got me here. And the daimoku and the gongyo, they got me high. Endolphins, whatever, I started feeling better. I mean, shit got worse…”

  Several people laughed and nodded understandingly. “I’d made some bad causes. But I kept chanting, started making better causes. Man, facing gohonzon is some serious shit, ’cause it ain’t nothin’ but a mirror. Gohonzon introduced me to a sad and dangerous dude. No way around it, the scariest person in my life is me. The scariest person in my life is…me. Well…except for that old Marine asshole at Blue Dragon, who pepper sprayed us while we sang the South Korean national anthem. Can you imagine how long that took me? ‘Oh say can you—whoops, wrong fuckin’ country—Ack! Ack! Ack! Donghae mulgwa what the fuck!—Ack! Ack! Ack!’”

  More laughs. Even Mom was loving Kim’s story.

  “Man, he kept yelling at me, ‘Kim, your Korean is nooooo good!’ Like twenty guys are looking at each other, wondering who he’s screaming at, ’cause everyone is named Kim! ‘No, you, you scrawny Americanized turd. Your Korean is nooooo good!’ Well, no shit—I learned it off a menu!

  “Hey… it’s all good, right? You heard that one before? ‘It’s all good, man.’ Dude, that is the ultimate Buddhist saying.”

  Shouts of agreement. This laidback crowd was getting worked-up. Kim had them eating out of his hand.

  “It’s all good if you can turn the poison into medicine. That shit…is deep. Workin’ on it. Workin’ on it.”

  Kim sat down. While the group caught its breath, I looked at Mom for her reaction. She gave a decisive nod of certainty.

  “Timeshare,” she said.

  I stared at her.

  Chapter Seven

  A Small Box of Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo

  On the way home, Mom was more animated than she’d been in ages. She was pissed-off as usual, but at least she was talking to us.

  “Don’t be so naïve, Moon, it was a pitch. Like I used to do on the phone. ‘Hi, Moon, I tried to get ahold of you yesterday, must be your fishing day, huh? No? Maybe out taking your money to the bank? Listen, I’ll tell you why I’m calling. One of our major suppliers kinda dropped a bombshell, gave us thirty-five free trips to enlightenment.’”

  “They really bit on that enlightenment line?” asked Moss.

  “Honey, it’s an analogy. Really we were giving free vacations to Las Vegas.”

  “That sounds more appealing to middle America,” observed Moss.

  “They snapped it up. ‘Now, I don’t know what the connection is, Moon. Maybe we did some business in a past life, or we sent you one of our gohonzons, but my boss wanted me to give you a call on this. Have you ever had your worldly dreams fulfilled? Would you like to? Of course you would, who wouldn’t? Well, Moon, this enlightenment comes with a small box of our imprinted nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Moon, what have you got there, a one-chair beauty salon? Mom-and-pop grocer? Little upholstery store? Dry cleaner?’ Man, those were our bread and butter, we killed on those.”

  “How long did you have this job?” I asked.

  “Three days. Changed my life. The scales fell from my eyes and I saw clearly. It’s all sales.”

  “What’s all sales?” I asked.

  “Everything. Every darn thing you can think of is sales. Everyone’s selling, twenty-four seven.” She snapped back into the pitch, talking a mile a minute. “‘Probably your customers walk away with your nam-myoho-renge-kyo. You’d like them to know where they got it, wouldn’t you? Probably come back and give you some more business, right? Well, this is a real good nam-myoho-renge-kyo, the Graphomatic Three. It’s a retractable, refillable—ʼ”

  “Ballpoint pen!” I said.

  “‘—got a guaranteed three year shelf life, comes with five lines of your ad copy on the barrel, and the enlightenment package on top of the box. You’ve seen these mantras selling at retail for a dollar twenty-nine. We normally sell them for ninety-nine cents, but right now we’re blowing them out for just seventy-nine cents apiece!! Now, you know your business better than I do, what would be better for you, a box of five hundred or a box of three hundred?’”

  “Hang up, bro!” laughed Moss.

  “‘You do want that enlightenment, don’t you? Or at least the fulfillment of your worldly dreams? That’s the main thing, Moon. Those benefits all come with the nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Listen, I’m a businessman myself, and I understand the importance of keeping your inventory low. Lemme tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m going to take a box of five hundred, break it down to a box of three hundred and a box of two hundred, and put your name on the two hundred nam-myoho-renge-kyos. That’s going to come to—’”

  “One hundred fifty-eight dollars,” I snapped out.

  “‘—with five lines of ad copy and the enlightenment package on top of the box.’”

  “No!” yelled Moss.

  “‘Don’t you want to be enlightened, sir?’”

  “I’d rather go to Vegas.”

  “‘Well, sir, that is the opposite of enlightenment. Nevertheless, if you chant for a trip to Vegas with our nam-myoho-renge-kyos, not only will you go to Vegas, but when you get there, you’ll win! Doesn’t that sound great?!’”

  “Uh…yeah,” said Moss.

  “‘Of course it does,’” said Mom, coming out of character long enough to remark, “When you’re pitching, every question is phrased so the customer must answer in the affirmative, or is forced to make a choice. You never ask, ‘Do you want these shoes?’ You ask, ‘Would you prefer these shoes in black or in brown?’”

  “Fiendishly clever, Moms. Like, ‘Would you prefer to give me a Benjamin or a pair of U.S. Grants?’”

  “Vaguely,” said Mom. “Do you actually know anything about the presidents beyond their denominations?”

  “I know they named the country after Mr. Grant,” said Moss. Mom would’ve turned to see if he was serious if she hadn’t been driving.

  “What if you went through
all that and they still wouldn’t bite?” I asked.

  “That’s usually what happened, even though I knew the pitch cold and could counter every objection. But there’s an art to closing, and not everyone can do it. Our closer was a special guy who could make them say yes. Frank DeMotta. He was a dese, dem, and dose kinda guy. But he could sell anybody anything. So about now, I’d start waving for Frank to get over there and take it home.”

  Mom started gesturing so wildly the car began to swerve and the lady in the luxury car next to us looked over in shock.

  “Enough with the drama,” said Moss. “That hag in the Lexus ain’t Frank.”

  “What would Frank do?” I asked.

  “Magic,” said Mom. “It was like this.” She flipped her cell phone out and started talking into it. “‘Hey dere, Moon, you been talkin’ to my gal Janice, huh? She tell ya ʼbout the ʼlightenment and the ʼfillment of your worldly dreams? She did, huh? Dat sound awright?’” Mom extended the phone at arm’s length. “Frank never listened to a thing they said.”

  Mom brought the phone back in and started talking again. “‘So let’s getcha down for some of dose nam-myo-whatchamacallits. Let’s say a small box of five hundred to start ya off, see how it goes. You know, dis practice is based on evidence. It’s gotta work for ya, or we don’t stay in business.’” Mom held the phone out at arm’s length. “Yada yada yada. Moon, I guarantee if you go back, they’ll bring in a Frank DeMotta.”

  “Uh, Mom…” I said.

  Mom brought the phone in tight and went into her closer routine. “‘Whattsa matta, Moon, you got everything on dis deal but my shorts. You want I should throw dem in, too?’”

  “Mom,” I insisted.

  “‘Is dat a yes I hear?’”

  At that moment the cop behind us lit his lights and hit his siren.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” erupted Mom, coming out of character in a hurry.

  “I wouldn’t call that a yes,” I said.

  “I wasn’t even really talking on the cell phone,” whined Mom. “It was just a prop.”

  “Hopefully we’ll get a cop who’s a theater buff,” said Moss.

  “Yeah, Mom, ask him if he liked Cats,” I said.

  “Or A Chorus Line.”

  “Enough, boys! Start chanting now. Fast.”

  I thought Mom might be serious until I heard her snickering.

  Moss and I did some quick nam-myoho-renge-kyos as Mom pulled over, rolled down her window, and got out her license. The officer exited his patrol car and sidled over to us. He was on the portly side, with a vein-riddled nose balanced atop a cookie-duster moustache.

  “Evenin’, ma’m, gentlemen…” His Western drawl seemed out-of-place on a portion of Pico Boulevard best known for wall-to-wall synagogues.

  “Good evening, officer,” said Mom, her voice suddenly unctuous.

  “Wouldja mind showin’ me your license and registration?”

  “Certainly. I’ll just reach in the glove compartment…”

  “’Course you will.”

  Mom took her registration out of the glove compartment and handed it to the officer along with her license. We waited while he studied it carefully. He glanced up at Mom.

  “I was several years younger then,” she said coyly.

  “Weren’t we all? But you haven’t aged a day, ma’am.”

  “Oh dear, I’m afraid this is going to be a big ticket.”

  The officer chuckled and said, “You know why I stopped you?”

  “Because I was talking on the phone.”

  “Were ya?” The officer seemed genuinely surprised. “Nah, I know you were. That is why I stopped you.”

  “Officer, have you ever seen someone play air guitar?”

  “Uh…yeah. I got a couple moron friends who purty much live for Guitar Hero.”

  “Would you call them guitarists?”

  I looked at Moss, baffled at where Mom was going with this.

  “Not hardly. But, ma’am, this is about talkin’ on the phone, which I’m sure you know is illegal while you’re drivin’. I’m not gonna write you for air guitar.”

  “My point is, your friends may look like they’re playing guitar, but they aren’t. I looked like I was on the phone, but I wasn’t.”

  “Hmmm. You some kinda lawyer specializing in this here air guitar defense?”

  “No. I teach third grade.”

  “I loved third grade. Miss Lemon let me be ball monitor all year.” The officer put away his citation book. “So you weren’t on the phone?”

  “No, sir. You can check my call log.”

  “Then why were you talking on it and waving it around? I watched for half a block ’fore I lit you up.”

  “I was showing my sons how I used to sell ballpoint pens, key tags, and ice scrapers on the phone.”

  “You used to do phone sales?”

  “Um-hm.”

  “Y’all were a telemarketer?”

  “That’s right.”

  The officer whipped the citation book back out and flipped it open. “I hate telemarketers. Gettin’ so there’s no point in answerin’ the phone anymore.”

  “I only did it for three days!” Mom protested.

  The officer grinned. “I’m just funnin’ ya. I don’t answer the phone at all. Have a nice night.”

  “Officer, can I ask you a question?” I blurted.

  “Well, I reckon…”

  “Where are you from?”

  “The valley. Winnetka.”

  “Oh…I thought you were from somewhere else.”

  “Texas?”

  “Well, yeah…”

  The officer snorted appreciatively. “Taking an acting class and working on a character. So I hadja goin’, huh?”

  “Dude,” said Moss, “You were the full redneck.”

  “Well, all right, then,” grinned the officer. “Y’all drive safely.”

  Chapter Eight

  Closed

  “You want to what?!” You’d have thought I’d just told Mom I intended to join a voodoo cult that sacrificed barnyard animals.

  “Go to another meeting,” I repeated.

  “Why?! What could you possibly have liked about the first one?”

  “Uh…Gretchen?” suggested Moss. We were sharing a rare family dinner, and my stab at conversation was working perhaps better than I’d intended.

  “Steak okay?” asked Dad.

  “Perfect medium rare,” Moss replied quickly. “Don’t know how you do it, Dad. Lovely dinner, Mom. Could you pass the butter, please?”

  Mom extended the butter, but stuck to the point. “If it’s about the girls, I can understand.”

  “Great baked potato, honey,” offered Dad.

  “It’s a really amazing recipe, David. You set the oven at three-fifty. Put the potatoes in. An hour later, they’re baked. Imagine that.”

  “You make it sound easy…”

  “I like that they never talked about God,” I said, before Mom could snap Dad’s olive branch in two.

  “Yeah,” agreed Moss, “That was, y’know, refreshing.”

  “No heaven, no hell, no sin, no guilt trip,” I added, gathering steam.

  “What good is a religion that doesn’t make you feel bad about yourself?” demanded Mom.

  We all looked at her dubiously.

  Mom sighed with exasperation. “It’s a cult.”

  “A cult? Like Jim Jones? Do these Buddhists have mass suicides?” asked Dad.

  “Well, maybe not that,” Mom conceded. “But…all right, whatever.”

  Dad put down his fork. “I don’t get it. You’ve been dragging the boys to church for years. Now they actually want to go and you don’t like it.”

  “We had an arrangement, David,” Mom said. “It was your job to teach them different sports, and my job to expose them to different faiths.”

  Dad nodded thoughtfully. “To expose them…so they’d build up an immunity?”

  Moss and I looked at each other as if we’d just fo
und out Santa wasn’t real. “You gotta be kidding,” he said.

  “I never thought my children would fall for any of this hokum,” Mom sighed. “Did you ever notice the three-letter word hidden inside ‘believe’?”

  Moss, Dad, and I looked at each other, then I got it. “Lie?” I blurted. Mom threw up her hands, as if to say that I’d just made her point.

  “Why don’t we let them decide for themselves?” Dad suggested quietly.

  Mom acquiesced with a nod and a final sigh. Moss gave me a shrug of commiseration when Mom wasn’t looking, and the rest of the meal passed in silence.

  So Moss and I went back, sans Mom. Then I went back, sans Moss. He was more interested in skating lines than chanting them, but I think I heard him muttering some nam-myohos under his breath from time to time.

  I had mixed feelings, myself. On the one hand, I had Mom dying for me to throw in the towel and decide that the Nichiren Buddhists were a crock just like every other church we’d been to. That, of course, motivated me to prove her wrong and embrace the practice.

  On the other hand, the Buddhists were so eager to see me commit that it made me skittish. I hated to admit it, but my mother was right. They introduced me to one closer after another. The third meeting, Yumi, the Japanese woman who had taken an interest in Mom, decided to fold me under her wing. She spent quite a while pontificating, but her accent was so impenetrable I had no idea what she was saying. I found myself nodding blankly, captivated by her assault on the English language.

  These good people seemed just too interested in selling me their religion, and I decided this would be my last meeting. My conviction grew throughout the evening’s testimonial from Robin, which featured a descent into his colorful alcoholic past, the act of siring multiple autistic children who were subsequently removed from his care, and ultimately, his incarceration. It somehow concluded on a hopeful note when he found Buddhism in the county lockup and returned to a wife who had slept with all his friends.

  There was extended applause for Robin’s speech. This portion of a meeting resembled the one-upmanship of a poker game, with each speaker attempting to top the previous story of recovery—I will call your opiate addiction with my meth habit, and raise you a rear end collision that decapitated the other driver—until all bets were in. There was a protracted silence, and it looked like Robin might just take the pot.