Kiyoko's Visit

August 1980
Athens, Ohio

I laid low for the next week, trying to avoid Phil and Desiree and the others as much as possible. Phil didn’t seem to have any more work for me to do, or he just didn’t want to have any give and take with me. In any event, I gave up any hope of him paying me, even though he had said he would. I guess he felt he didn’t owe me anything after I blew up the engine on his little truck.

I focused instead on other people around town, including Mark and Maria. But it was becoming more and more obvious to me that none of these relationships were likely to blossom into spiritual children. They had no interest in God or spirit world or the Bible. Maria’s passion was her sculpture, and Mark had his girlfriend and his music.

On the last day of my fast, Kiyoko arrived for a short visit. She had sent a postcard earlier in the week saying she was traveling by bus to check up on all of us pioneers, starting with Carl, then Nina, then Carol, and looping back around toward me before heading back to Louisville. She saw all of them yesterday and spent the night with Carol in the boarding house where she was staying. Now she was here to see me.

I explained to her everything that had happened to me, about the night in the storm, the terrible detour to Chauncey with Betty Lou, how Mooney the looney freaked out when I got to the conclusion and threw a 20-dollar bill at me and ran away. How I was goofing around with some Christian witnessers but it got out of hand and before I knew it I had been given this incredible living arrangement without them knowing who I was, only now I was agonizing how to deal with it because I knew the moment I told them my relationship with them would be over.

The worst part, I told her, was I had come to believe these were the people I came to Athens to witness to. They had all the necessary understanding about the Bible, plus they were aware these were the Last Days and they were open to the Holy Spirit. But I hated deceiving them. I wanted it to be all out in the open.

I thought Kiyoko would scold me, but she didn’t. On the contrary, as she looked around my tiny house, she seemed very impressed. She didn’t even say anything about my beard.

“Of course, you must tell them sooner or later,” she said.

“Yes, I know. I want to very badly. But now I don’t know how.”

“You have a dilemma. What does your heart tell you?”

“Not to say anything yet. Give them a chance to know me first before I tell them about Father. I keep thinking if I were a missionary in a communist country, I’d have to be very circumspect or risk expulsion or arrest or even execution. I realize this is not the same thing, and maybe I’m rationalizing, but every time I make up my mind to come clean with them, something inside tells me not yet.”

“Then I can only tell you to keep praying and listen to your heart,” Kiyoko said. “And I will pray for you to. But don’t worry too much. You’ve done fine so far just by trusting your feelings, so I’m sure you’ll do the right thing.”

Kiyoko and I were sitting in the tiny living room when I saw Phil come down his back steps and toward my house with fast, deliberate strides. He blew in through the front door without knocking, which I guess was his right since it was his house, but I thought it was rude all the same.

He glared at us, me in a chair and Kiyoko on the sofa. “What’s going on here?” he bellowed.

“Phil, this is my friend, Kiyoko Bowman. She came from Indianapolis to see me.”

Phil didn’t move. He was upset about something. Then I realized he had seen this Oriental woman enter a short time ago and thought she was prostitute. He came barging in expecting to find us fucking. But Kiyoko was unfazed.

“I was just leaving,” she said sweetly, standing up. “I’m sorry if paying a visit to my old friend upset you. I won’t stay.”

Her manner disarmed Phil and he returned to his house in a huff. Kiyoko and I left a few minutes later, eager to get away from Phil. We walked around campus for a while, and I showed her a few of the sights I had discovered. She snapped a picture of me standing in front of the Class Gate.

We walked along the bike path and I pointed out the abandoned building by the river where I survived the storm. By the time her bus left, Kiyoko’s compassion and caring had removed an enormous weight off my shoulders.

I left the bus station and ran smack into Mooney sitting on a bench. I didn’t think it would be possible, but he looked worse than before. A short stubble of hair had grown where his head had been shaved, which somehow made him seem even more ghastly. He was blasted out of his mind, probably on alcohol and God only knows what. He was holding his head and absorbed in fathomless self-hate. I asked him what was wrong.

For a long time he didn’t say anything, but then he told me that last night he had allowed himself to get picked up by a homosexual because he wanted the drugs, and today he was filled with deep remorse. Apparently even Mooney had his limits of depravity.

I couldn’t imagine that this was the first time Mooney had allowed himself to be hustled in exchange for drugs and a bed, but this must have been an especially bad experience. He was consumed with guilt, dying from shame, which was an amazing thing to see in a man so thoroughly beaten down already. He started sobbing about the awful, unspeakable things he was subjected to.

If anybody needed Jesus, it was Mooney. But I couldn’t bring myself to say it because in my heart I didn’t believe that Mooney could be saved. Jesus might give Mooney some temporary relief from his torment, but in a few days or weeks he’d be right back here again. His spirit was much too weak. He had almost no will power. He was, as I said before, the walking dead. A zombie.

I went home and took a nap. I needed to get up at midnight to break my week-long fast, and I just didn’t have the energy to do anything else. I wasn’t worried about Phil coming to look for me. He hated me, but he let me stay at Pete’s insistence. So we had an uneasy truce. He left me alone, and I stayed out of his way. I’d be gone at the end of the month anyway.

Just before midnight I was awakened by a loud boom. It wasn’t an explosion. It came from the ground. I could feel a shock wave move through the house. It was an earthquake. Just that one, quick seismic adjustment, and that was it.

It was time to get up anyway. Once again, after looking forward to this moment for days, I suddenly had no desire to eat. I knelt in the tiny bedroom I had designated as my prayer room.

As soon as I started to pray, a strange force suddenly rushed into me, catching me completely off guard. It seemed to come up through the floor, up my back and all the way to the top of my head. I felt a powerful electrical current surging through me. I thought it would stop after a second, but it didn’t. Instead it grew stronger and stronger. I was convulsing violently, almost yanked to my feet. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t pleasant either. I wanted it to stop, but the current just kept pulsing with greater intensity until I thought I’d pass out. Perhaps it only lasted a few seconds, or perhaps it lasted for hours. I had no way of telling. I was in a completely different dimension…

I was in the center of a circle of people, arms lifted up, palms out, speaking in tongues... 

Pete

August 1980
Athens, Ohio

“Heard you had a problem with that old truck of Phil’s.”

Pete appeared at my open kitchen window. I was making a manna cake to break my fast. Somehow I never got around to it last night. When I woke up this morning I was still on the prayer room floor. Something really strange happened in there last night. I didn’t really know what to think about it, so I was trying not to think about it at all. I just wanted to get on with whatever I needed to do in Athens. I had done my best to atone for busting the truck, and now I needed to move forward.

A small pile of sliced tomatoes, peppers and squash lay on a cutting board by the kitchen sink. Blue flames were trained on a small skillet on the stove, a large pat of margarine was just beginning to sizzle.

“Hey, come on in.”

Pete sat down at the tiny dinette by the front window. Seeing him made me feel normal. He was a regular guy. No pretensions or airs. He wasn’t trying to impress me with his knowledge of scripture or grill me about the finer points of my salvation. He just wanted to be friends, and right now that was the best possible thing that could happen to me. I was glad to have him there.

I had some hot water in a small pan and poured him a cup of instant coffee.

“Don’t you worry about the truck. Ain’t your fault,” he said. “That was my doin’, plain and simple. Me and ol’ Phil will work something out. Don’t you fret none about it.”

“I can’t help but feel partially responsible,” I said.

“It weren’t your fault. Phil knows that.”

Pete’s mind was sharp and accurate, marred only by a lack of effective schooling in the hollers of Kentucky. His heart was more pure than most, and though he was humble and self-effacing, there was something stubbornly independent about him. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would jump on a bandwagon just because everyone else did. He also looked like the kind of guy who would do whatever he thought was right, even if nobody else did.

The morning was warm and clear. It was the perfect beginning to a new day.

“It’s not just the truck,” I said. “The truck can be fixed, and if I had the means, I’d gladly pay for it. But even if I could, it wouldn’t repair the damage to my friendship with Phil, or the potential for friendship. Whether it was my fault or not, that opportunity is gone and probably won’t be patched up in the little time that remains. He’ll be going on vacation soon, and I’ll be gone when he comes back. I hate leaving on such a sour note.”

“I see what you mean,” Pete said. “I’m sorry to see it end that way, too. But you’re a good man, and Phil knows that, even if he’s a little sore right now. He’ll get over it. You can write him a letter and leave it for him for when he gets back.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said, flipping my manna cake in the frying pan.

“What are you making there?” Pete asked.

“I call it a manna cake, like what God gave the Israelites in the desert. It’s what I’ve been living on since I’ve been here.” I didn’t mention I had been fasting for the last seven days and this was my first meal. “You want one? They’re good.”

“I had breakfast, but you go ahead. And I’m not telling you how to conduct your affairs, but I think you need to expand your diet a bit. That little pancake ain’t gonna get you too far.”

“Far enough,” I said. “Plus, it’s all I have. Phil never paid me, which I guess is only fair on account of the truck, but I have no money to buy groceries. I got the vegetables for free from some guy’s garden, so my food options are severely limited.”

“We’ll see about that.”

I sat down across from Pete to break my fast.

“I know you’re bothered about the truck, but it’s over and done,” Pete said. “Phil will get over it. He always does. He can afford to buy a whole fleet of trucks if he wants. He’s just particular, you know. He hates to see things get mistreated or thrown away if they still have some use. I’ve known him a long time. He’s done lots worse to other people when he was young, and don’t think he don’t remember. And there’s plenty of folks around here to remind him if he does.”

“You reckon that’s why he let me stay?”

“Could be. He tries to do the right thing. Turn the other cheek and all, even if it don’t come natural.”

“But what about the truck?”

“Believe me, this is a lot more his problem than yours. You just happen’d get caught in the middle. Sometimes he gets more attached to physical things and ignores the people around him. Every once in a while the lord sends him a little reminder about what’s really important in this world.”

Pete eyed me polishing off the rest of my breakfast.

“As I recall, the Israelites complained about the manna,” he said.

“Sure, who wouldn’t?” I said. “Everyone gets tired of eating the same thing all the time. It is a fact that we derive a huge amount of pleasure by the diversity of foods we put in our mouths. I, however, am not foolish enough to complain, even if this is the only thing I have to eat. I have fasted enough to know better.”

“Well, you don’t need to eat it all the time,” Pete said. “You come over to our house tonight for dinner.”

“That would be great.”

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about, and you haven’t been around much this past week.”

“I was kind of laying low because of the truck,” I said.

“Well, I’ll leave you to do whatever you gotta do. Come over for dinner tonight. You know where we live?”

“No.”

Pete gave me directions and then got up. “See you tonight.”

I made my rounds of Athens, just to see if there was anything new or unusual I should investigate. But everything was just the same. I didn’t meet anyone new to witness to. So I went out to White’s Mill and sat for a long time on the big boulder where I’d had the dream of the red moth. Truthfully, I half expected to find it. Even these many days later, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had really seen it. It was the damnedest thing.

I watched the water rushing by for a long time, and it sort of carried away my thoughts. I recalled everything that had happened to me so far, and it surprised me how much I had already been through in three weeks. I was at the halfway point of the 40-day condition, and it looked like I had finally found where I belonged.

But it bothered me I couldn’t tell them who I was. I felt like I was tricking them, and I hated that feeling. I wanted them to just listen to me, to hear me out, and then they could decide whether to reject me or not. But if I told them first, they wouldn’t hear me out. It was a catch-22 and it was driving me nuts.

I started thinking about going home to Indianapolis, and the thought made me depressed. I didn’t want to leave Athens. I wanted to stay here. I wanted to stay with Desiree. I liked Pete and wanted to remain and be his friend. I started thinking that maybe we could work together, become partners in a home-repair business or something like that. The more I thought about it, the more excited I got about making Athens my home. Nobody could force me to go back to Indianapolis if I didn’t want to go.

And that’s how a plan started to take shape in my head, there on the banks of the Hocking River. I was going to stay. Of course, I’d have to tell them who I was, but by then they would have gotten to know me and they would understand why I didn’t -- couldn’t -- be open with them from the beginning. They would see I was a valuable member of their community. I would join their church. After all, I really didn’t have a problem with their beliefs; they simply didn’t understand mine. I felt certain over the next few weeks I could begin to change their minds, at least enough so they would let me stay.

It was as though all my goals and thoughts and plans went into the fast-moving current and were being carried all the way around the town, preparing the spirit world for the next phase. I quit thinking about this as a 40-day condition and started thinking of it instead as the start of my new life. I was ready to leave the Unification Church and start over with new people in a new place where I could finally be really happy.

The whole thing just captivated my imagination. I suddenly felt liberated. Already I could feel the mental bonds starting to loosen.

Hours had passed and it was getting late. I nearly ran the whole way across town to Pete’s house. When I showed up on his doorstep I was sweating and out of breath.

“Wasn’t sure you were coming. I sort of got the feeling you might not. You been running?”

“Sorry I’m late. I took a long walk along the river. I had some stuff to figure out.”

“Well, you’re here now. We’re just fixin’ to eat.”

He brought me into the kitchen. “You remember my wife, Katie. And Boo. Boo stays with us.”

I had not seen either woman since the potluck dinner, and even then our conversation was limited to a few pleasantries, except for Boo, who had wanted to know if I had been baptized.

Pete and Katie met at church and got married about three years ago. They confided that their difference in age -- he’s 33, she’s 24 -- caused a bit of a stir when they first started dating. But the sniping soon died out. Now everyone wanted to know when they were going to have a baby.

“All I can tell them is soon,” Katie said with a laugh. “But they’re never satisfied. You’d think it was my duty in this world to present them with a child as soon as possible.”

“And then you know what?” Pete said. “They’d start in about having another. And another.”

Unlike many Christians, Pete and Katie and Boo didn’t put on airs. There was hardly any religious talk as we ate. They were just down to earth people, satisfied to be in the here and now and not too concerned about the hereafter. I enjoyed their company immensely, and the possibility that this fellowship would continue past August made me very happy. I wanted to blurt out my grand plan, but I knew it wasn’t time.

After dinner, Boo and Katie put the leftovers away while Pete and I cleaned the dishes, him washing and me drying.

“You said something that night at the potluck dinner that got me thinking,” Pete said. “You said you’re not worried about the rapture or the tribulation, but what comes after. You remember saying that?”

“I think what I probably said was something about the kingdom of heaven on earth.”

“Yeah, that was it,” said Katie.

“I don’t want to offend anyone.”

“Why would we be offended?” asked Boo.

“Well, lots of folks -- Christians -- might not appreciate it.”

Pete pulled the last dish from the soapy water, rinsed it and handed to me. “Try us.”

“Well, everyone speaks about the Last Days as though it’s the end of the world, and I don’t think that’s what it means. I think it simply means the end of the fallen, evil world. So the way I see it, the Last Days are really just the first days of the kingdom of heaven on earth. I prefer to look at it as a time of hope and restoration, rather than a time of horror and retribution.”

“But the Bible tells us it will be that way,” Boo said.

“The Bible says many, many things that can be understood in many different ways. For example, you all agree that two-thousand years ago the Jews were expecting the messiah.”

“Yes,” they said in unison.

“But when Jesus appeared on the scene, the vast majority of people did not recognize him as the messiah. Only a handful of people actually believed he was the one. And in the end, even they, his disciples, had serious doubts and great difficulty keeping their faith. Even Peter denied Jesus. The point is that what people expect, even if it’s everyone expecting the same thing, isn’t what usually happens.”

“But the Bible says those who are watchful and pray will recognize Him,” Katie said.

“Hopefully that’s true,” I said. “But let’s say Christ returned tomorrow morning, just for the sake of argument. Anyone expecting to witness dramatic and cataclysmic events on that day will likely be disappointed. Chances are it will be a day pretty much like any other, and the dawn will arrive on the following day as though nothing much had happened. Devout Christians the world over are eagerly awaiting the Second Coming, just as the Jews were awaiting the First Coming two-thousand years ago, and now just as then, it’s probably not going to happen the way everyone thinks and therefore they could be looking right at Him and not know it.”

“How do you know this?” asked Katie.

“God gave us eyes and ears and brains to figure these things out for ourselves. It’s not mysterious. God isn’t trying to keep everybody in the dark. He really wants us to be ready because the time of the Second Coming is now and He doesn’t want us to miss it. All we need to do is look at what happened two-thousand years ago to see it would be easy to repeat the same mistakes.”

“The Bible says he’ll come on the clouds,” said Pete. “I don’t think that has happened. And when it does, everyone will be able to see it. Even non-believers.”

“Well, think about it for a second,” I said. “When those words were written, suppose the author was trying to describe something that did not yet exist and for which there were no words to describe it, but for us it would be totally familiar and mundane.”

“Like what?”

“The Bible might have been describing the messiah arriving in first class on a jumbo jet for all any of us know. The only rational way to describe it back then, though, would be language similar to coming on the clouds. The Second Coming could be a very mundane, ordinary event to our way of thinking, but we’ve been conditioned to believe it will be something fantastic and supernatural. Except we do not live in a fantasy, supernatural world. We live in the real world governed by verifiable laws of nature, like gravity and the speed of light. I believe the Second Coming, when it happens, will seem like an ordinary, everyday event that could be easily overlooked by people watching the sky for some supernatural event. They’ll see an airplane and think, ‘That can’t be it. That’s too ordinary.’ I say, ‘Why not?’ He’s still literally coming on the clouds, right?”

I didn’t expect to win them over with my puny little arguments. People always believe what they choose to believe, no matter how ridiculous or illogical it seems to others. All I had hoped to accomplish was to stir them up a bit, make them wonder about other possibilities.

We talked into the evening, the three of them staunchly defending the status quo, but nonetheless intrigued by my unorthodox perspective. My feet barely touched the ground on the way home. For the first time since arriving in Athens, not counting my practice session with Mooney, I had found people who were interested in what I had to say. Of course, since they were Christians, I didn’t want to sound threatening or judgmental. It required delicate handling, but if I could get them to see their own beliefs from a more down-to-earth perspective, maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t reject me. I didn’t expect any converts to the Divine Principle. I just didn’t want them to turn me away. I wanted to stay here with them.

Pete asked me to come back in the morning. He was anxious to convert his attic into a new bedroom and bath, and my arrival presented an excellent opportunity to get much of the basic work done. So I arrived early the next morning and he took me to the third floor, which was bare and sweltering despite the early hour.

“I’m going to put a couple dormers in, one here, one over there. But first I need to put in the floor. I’m gonna get the siding off an abandoned house outside of town that belongs to a guy I’ve done some work for. It’s genuine tongue-and-groove board. And after that we can put up the insulation. I can do all the plumbing and wiring later.”

“Tongue and what?”

“Tongue and groove,” he repeated. “That’s boards that got a bead on one edge and a groove on the other, so they lock together. The tricky part is gonna be taking ’em off the house without damaging the beads.”

“How long you reckon this will take?”

“I figure we can get the siding on Monday, ‘cuz today I got another job. Then two days to put down the floor, and two days to hang the insulation. So about a week.”

The prospect of working in this wooden oven was not attractive, but I agreed.

“What’s the other job you have today?”

“You ever hang a door?”

“Nope. I blew a hole in one with a shotgun once, but never tried to hang one.”

Pete chuckled at my little joke. “Well, you can come with me and learn how.”

I’d been close to a lot of women in my life, but there were very few men that I would consider close friends. There was only one other man in the world I have ever developed an instant and deep rapport with, and that was Strawberry. Back when I was 18 and hitchhiking by myself across the upper U.S., I caught I ride with a guy named Randy McCormick from New Jersey. He was driving his mom’s 1966 Barracuda. He picked me up somewhere west of Chicago and took me clear to Missoula, Montana, where he was returning to school.

The year before he had a roommate name Strawberry, who was no longer a student but was back in Missoula after spending some time backpacking through Mexico. Strawberry came over to Randy’s apartment and he and I were kindred spirits. We stayed up most of the night, smoking pot, discussing the mysteries of life. He looked like Robert Redford and lived like Carlos Castaneda. We only met that one time, but we clicked on a higher plane.

I had that feeling now with Pete. We had an instant fraternal bond.

Breakfast was under way when we came back downstairs. Boo and Katie had made up a batch of pancakes and a bowl of scrambled eggs, and a plate piled high with crisp bacon. It was a gorgeous summer day and the back door was open to allow in the morning breeze.

“Boo got some raw milk from Mrs. Guthrie this morning,” Katie said, pointing to a large pitcher of milk on the table. “You can taste the butter.”

After breakfast, we sat around the table savoring the moment. I was overwhelmed by the immense pleasure of this simple tableau. I wanted to capture it forever -- the warm sun through lace curtains, the smell of cut grass on the breeze, the cicadas singing in the trees, the rich flavor of fresh-brewed coffee, the satisfaction of a simple but delicious meal.

“You can make butter from raw milk,” Pete said off-handedly.

“How?” Boo asked.

“You just shake it up, and all the butterfat clumps together,” he said. “Of course it takes a while, and it doesn’t look like the stuff you buy in the store.”

“Let’s try it,” said Katie.

Pete grabbed a large Mason jar off the counter and filled it about three-quarters full with milk from the pitcher. “This will work,” he said, screwing the lid down tightly. “Now all we have to do is shake it.”

Instantly, the milk foamed up inside the jar as Pete gave it a vigorous workout. After a few minutes he passed it to Katie, who eventually passed it to me and I to Boo and so on, around and around the table.

“I remember my great-grandmother using a butter urn,” said Pete. “The paddles would collect the butterfat, and then she’d scrape it off into cheesecloth to squeeze the water out of it, then scrape it into butter molds and set them down in the spring house to chill.”

“No wonder nobody wants to bother with it today,” Katie said. “This is a lot of work!”

We kept at it for about 30 minutes, but nothing much seemed to have changed in the jar. Just the same white foam. I was beginning to lose faith in our little experiment. Even Pete’s face seemed to be losing confidence.

“My arms are getting tired,” said Boo. “I don’t think it’s going to work.”

“Be patient,” said Pete. “Once or twice more around the table should do it.”

Katie passed the jar to me. I was skeptical, but kept shaking. And just like that, in the blink of an eye, there it was. A large glob of slippery whitish yellow stuff congealed amid a watery liquid. I continued shaking it as hard as I could until my arms were aching, then I set the jar triumphantly on the table.

“Finally!” said Pete. “Now we can go hang some doors.”

Pete went upstairs to get his wallet and keys.

When Pete was out of earshot, Katie leaned across the table and whispered. “I’m glad you’re here, Glenn,” said Katie. “Pete really appreciates your help on the attic.”

“He really enjoys your company,” Boo added. “We all do.” 

Change of Plans

August 1980
Athens, Ohio

Phil gave me one last job before he went on vacation. The drywall that Pete had put up in the rental house needed to be sanded and painted. It was a tough job, being in a steep stairwell to the second floor, so getting up to the very top was tricky. I used a long-handled sander to reach all the way up there. It made my arms ache and my neck hurt, and all that fine white dust fell directly into my face. It got into my eyes and ears and nose and mouth, but I wouldn’t quit. I was determined to do a first-class job for Phil, to prove to him I was reliable and trustworthy and conscientious. I kept at it until it was all done. Then I came back the next day and painted the whole thing. It was perfect.

I fully expected Phil to pay me -- he seemed to have forgotten all about the truck -- but then he suddenly left on vacation and said he wouldn’t be back until September. I was so bummed out. I really needed the money, and when he stiffed me I grew resentful toward him.

I tried to tell myself that it was fair, because Phil had given me a place to live rent free, and that was no small thing. I would have been fine with that if that had been our arrangement. But Phil didn’t say I could stay there in exchange for doing some work for him. He had clearly promised to pay me.

My opinion of him dropped considerably after he split. I began to think that maybe Phil wasn’t so honest. Maybe he got his money from cheating people in the commodities market. I didn't know how the market worked so that someone could do that, but Phil certainly understood how it worked. The thought popped into my head that maybe he used his knowledge to take advantage of other investors who weren’t as savvy as him. The notion settled into a tiny crevice of my brain like a dandelion seed and refused to go away.

After I finished the rental house, I began hanging out with Pete more and more. Almost every day I went with him on different jobs. We got along well and he taught me a lot of things. I was a quick study and he was grateful for an extra pair of hands. He didn’t have any money to pay me, but I took my meals at his house most days and that was really all I needed.

Besides being of actual assistance to him, Pete made a point of noting that I didn’t drink or do drugs. Pete said it was one the hardest things about finding good help anymore. There were lots of skilled and semi-skilled laborers around, but it was extremely difficult to find someone who didn’t have a problem with the bottle, who wouldn’t disappear after one or two days, who hadn’t totaled his car, or who hadn’t lost his driver’s license from too many DUIs. And they were all destitute. They all needed to be paid in advance, or they always had some hard-luck story that ended with a request for cash. Pete said until I came along he preferred to work alone.

For Pete, I was sort of a tiny little miracle who could swing a hammer and who could make a precision cut and who didn’t cuss and who showed up every day and who never complained no matter how long or difficult or frustrating the job became.

I also became a regular at all the church activities. There was Sunday service, of course, and then potluck dinner at Kevin’s on Wednesdays and prayer circle on Friday nights at the church. This was the thing I looked forward to the most. There really wasn’t any structure. Anyone could share whatever they wanted -- read a Bible passage or tell an inspiring story or ask for help with financial or health problems.

I always went to the church functions with Desiree. I spent almost all of my spare time with her. We were becoming a couple, which worried me a little bit because of the strong emotional attachment, but I was very careful to keep our relationship strictly platonic. I was reluctant to even hold her hand, unless we were in the prayer circle. Then it was okay. I knew the day would come soon when everything about our relationship would be scrutinized and questioned, and I wanted to be certain no one could accuse me of trying to seduce her or behaving inappropriately. She might accuse me of anything -- I couldn’t stop her from doing that -- but I would know, and she would know, the truth. If all went well, and I was beginning to believe it would, we’d never have to cross that bridge.

Desiree lived in a basement apartment in a little white house at an intersection just a few blocks over from Mill Street. Sometimes I helped her make dinner at her place. Other times we’d go have dinner with some friends of hers. I was getting around, meeting a lot of new people because of Desiree. No one grilled me too much. I gave the same answers I always had given, and it was getting to be repetitive.

Mostly what everyone wanted to hear about was my first couple nights in Athens. The storm. The detour into Chauncey with Betty Lou. My bizarre friendship with Mooney. Some folks said they knew of the people I was talking about and would sit slack-jawed as they listened. I told them about my dreams and all the unusual things that had happened to me in my life to bring me to Athens.

At every opportunity, I emphasized that I wanted to stay, that I might not return to Indianapolis after all. And everyone would always add their encouragement. After a while, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that I would stay in Athens after August.

The hours alone with Desiree in her cool basement apartment were as delicious as forbidden fruit. We would lie next to each other on the floor, listening to her Christian rock albums, talking about life and love and dreams. One night after supper I was washing up the dishes and she came up behind me and slipped her arms around me and pressed her cheek into my back.

“I told my mother about you.”

“Oh my,” I said, feigning alarm. “What did you say?”

“I told her you were a beautiful man who loved Jesus and were very spiritual and you had been many interesting places and had many adventures.”

“What did she say? Run away, quick?”

“She wants to meet you.”

“That can be arranged.”

“When?”

“After August. Let’s just see how it goes. Something important is coming up and I need to see how it turns out.”

“You’re so mysterious.”

Tonight was Friday night prayer circle, and we needed to get going.

“I don’t feel like going,” she said. “Let’s stay here.” There was a dangerous hint in her voice. Desiree might be a good Christian girl, but her body language told me she was thinking about bending the rules. Not going all the way, of course, but definitely more than what we had been doing so far, which was nothing. She took my hand and put it on her hip, and pulled herself closer to me. Our lips were dangerously close to touching.

“You know, I’m having a hard time here,” I said. “As much as I would love to, I can’t do this with you right now.”

“Shhh,” she said, and leaned in for a kiss.

Make no mistake, denial is a powerful aphrodisiac. The more I held back, the more aggressive and insistent she became. I should have been terrified, but I wasn’t.

I put both hands on her hips. I could feel a sensuous heat pulsing gently through my palms. She was ovulating. I was certain of it. I gently but firmly pushed her back just far enough so she wouldn’t feel my erection. If she pressed herself against me, I might not be able to prevent a catastrophe. There was a lot more at stake than our momentary, impulsive carnal desire.

“I hope you can appreciate how much I want to do this,” I said softly, “but I promised myself I wouldn’t. Not yet.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t want anyone to ever be able to say I tried to take advantage of you.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that.” The spell was broken and she came back to the present. “We should get going.”

On the walk over to the church, I tried to act natural, nonchalant, but the brush with sex back in Desiree’s apartment had me rattled and distracted.

“You’re not like other guys,” she said, squeezing my arm.

I’d heard this so many times in my life that I had developed a standard reply: “I’m not like anyone you’ve ever met before. And you’ll never meet anyone like me again.”

“You sure are mysterious,” she said again, pecking me lightly on the cheek.

There was a lot more leeway about sex in her world than in mine. To her, kissing and petting -- maybe even oral sex -- were permissible. As long as it didn’t actually involve intercourse, there was little if any harm.

For me, on the other hand, there was no middle ground. It was all or nothing. Even the slightest sensual behavior, sooner or later, would lead to falling. Chastity must be guarded jealously. If I fell now, there would be no getting up, and I wasn’t quite ready to do that yet. The path I had been on for the past five years had been difficult and painful and enormously frustrating, and if I stayed in Athens, as was my intention, then I would be leaving that behind.

But I wasn’t ready to make that choice yet. I still had a couple weeks to decide which way I’d turn.

“I want you to understand that this is a huge deal for me,” I said. “Being with you have been the happiest moments of my life. I think about you all day, every day, and can’t wait to see you. But I have a code of conduct I must honor right now. I can’t deviate from that. It’s vitally important to me. Pretty soon I’ll be able to explain it more clearly to you, but for now you’ve got to trust me and help me be strong. I need you to do this for me.”

“You have my word,” she said. She put her arms around my waist and pulled me tight as we walked along, her head bouncing lightly on my shoulder. The quiet bliss of the moment ended much too quickly as we arrived at the church. No one said anything -- yet -- but this was the second week in a row we’d come to prayer circle together. I caught a snippet of a whisper: “... he the one?”

In the social hall, folding chairs had been arranged in a circle. Martin and Kevin accompanied on guitars while the rest of us sang to get the spirit moving. We all held hands and as the atmosphere ripened, a strange sensation came over me. It was like the jolt of electricity I felt the night I prayed at the end of my fast. It wasn’t as uncontrolled as that night, but it was still raw and powerful. I sensed a bright light building in the center of the circle, and a current of pure energy spinning around the circle. I think everyone else experienced it too. Within seconds it exploded into pandemonium.

Katie began speaking in tongues, palms thrust upward, body quaking, sweaty gibberish dribbling from her lips. Others follow suit, and soon the entire circle was entranced in an opium-like delirium. It was exactly the same thing I had experienced at Boonville. Not the speaking in tongues part, but the religious ecstasy.

I was happy for them, but I did not envy them. They had only crested the first hill of a very tall mountain, thinking they had reached the top. In truth, the pinnacle lay far, far ahead along an extremely grueling and rugged path that led down as much as up. I scanned the faces of the circle. Many could make it if they wanted to, but few if any would deliberately choose such a difficult way if they knew what trials were ahead.

Desiree’s movements and gestures seemed more by rote than inspiration, which I found troubling. And I was still bothered by her behavior earlier at her apartment, wondering how this relationship would ultimately play out.

At the end of the service, while everyone was socializing and winding down, Desiree was eager to leave. Some of the group were planning to go out and grab a bite, but Desiree begged off, saying she was tired and had a PT session at eight o’clock.

“Let’s take a walk,” she said.

“I thought you were tired.”

“I’m tired of being around them,” she says, nodding toward the others. “They’re so, so...”

“What?”

“Boring.”

“They seem all right to me.”

“They are. I just want a change of scenery.”

We stepped out into the clear summer night, crisscrossing the darkened side streets of Athens. I asked her about Kevin.

“He watches you quite a bit.”

“He’s got a crush on me,” she said with annoyance. “He’s been trying to get me to go out for a long time.”

“Seems like you two would be a handsome couple, as they say.”

“Yeah, everybody says so.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s not that. We did go out once, but...”

“What?”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

So I told her about some of the cities I’d lived in -- Denver, New Orleans, Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Houston, Dallas -- and the hundreds of smaller places I’d passed through. “Athens is a great little town,” I said. “I could easily live here the rest of my life and have no desire to go anywhere else.”

“But at least you’ve had the chance to see other places. You have a frame of reference,” she said. “I’m jealous.”

I was anxious to get our relationship back on a more spiritual plane, if possible, and away from the sexual tension of her apartment. We stopped downtown by the campus bookstore to admire a famous poster by Maxfield Parrish, the one with a beautiful young girl facing a glorious sun and a breeze so balmy you could smell it. “That could be Eve in the Garden of Eden,” I said.

I explained how Parrish would begin with a board painted the brightest white possible. Then gradually he would add thin washes of colors, one at a time, exactly the way the printers would do when they mass-produced the posters using four-color separation. Because of the thin, translucent washes, the white background still shone through, seeming to light the picture from within. “His style is often criticized as cheesy and commercial,” I said, “but I like it. I feel good when I look at his pictures.”

Unexpectedly, she put her arms around my waist and hugged me. I ran my hands through her hair and down to the seductive dip in the small of her back, stopping short of her round buttocks.

We walked back to her apartment. She invited me in, and it tore me up inside, but I said no. Desiree asked me if I would like to come to her physical therapy session in the morning. I didn’t have any plans.

“You can meet Isaiah,” she said. “He’s really a great kid. You’ll love him.”

“You come get me,” I said. “I’ll be ready.” I strolled off into the evening air, the scent of mowed grass and incessant chirping of crickets like a thick fog.

Isaiah was, in fact, a great kid. He was about eight or nine, severely handicapped by both mental retardation and spina bifida. His face lit up at the sight of Desiree. He loved the attention she gave him, throughout the many exercise routines to keep his muscles flexible, and the quiet nurturing that followed.

I never thought I’d envy a handicapped child, especially one as extreme as Isaiah. But seeing him cradled in her lap, head lolling heavily against her breast, eyes gazing with loving adoration at her beautiful smiling face -- I would trade places with him in a heartbeat. 

The Upper Room

Athens, Ohio
August 1980

My initial and well-founded caution in associating with this loose band of charismatic Christians had evaporated. They still didn’t know everything about me, but I felt absolutely confident that when I did tell them, they would understand. I didn’t expect them to do handstands or anything, but I had been so thoroughly embraced by them that I no longer feared they would turn against me.

Pete and I had been working in his attic. It was unbearably hot. But he’d been especially open and receptive, asking a lot of thoughtful questions, enjoying the intellectual stimulation. The more I explained, the more he wanted to know. The discussion helped take our minds off the suffocating heat.

It would have been desirable to put up the insulation first, of course, but without a floor to stand on, it wasn't practical. So with the old siding salvaged from an abandoned house out near Chauncey, the two of us were trying mightily to nail down some of the crookedest boards I’d ever seen. Even though we waited until nightfall to tackle this project, there was no ventilation in the attic and the air was hot and still as an oven. Sweat poured off of us, soaking instantly into the dry, warped boards. Getting the edges to butt together before we could nail them down was a real chore.

It was not until we put up the insulation a couple nights later that it began to cool down noticeably. Each roll of insulation we stapled between the rafters brought down the temperature two degrees. By the time we were halfway done, it was almost comfortable.

“Let me ask you something Pete,” I ventured. “What do you see as Jesus’ purpose for coming to earth?”

“To save us from our sins. And teach us about the Holy Spirit.”

“Do you think he would have been any more or less effective in that mission if he had actually lived long enough to get married and raise a family, even if it was necessary for him to die on a cross in the end?”

“I never thought about it. What’s your point, exactly?”

“The point is you have something Jesus never had, a wife. And one day you’ll probably have something he also never had, namely a child.”

“Well, Jesus sacrificed those things so that we might enjoy them, as part of his grace. Besides, he had plenty of time to marry. It was customary for people to marry young back then.”

“Maybe he just put it off because he had a more urgent task at hand, like preaching the Gospel. I mean, he was still a young man. Plenty of time later for a wife and family. And even if a family wasn’t in the cards for him, the crucifixion prevented him from living a full and complete life.”

“Like I said, that’s his grace to us. But even if he had lived longer, the end result would have been the same. He still would have brought salvation to those who believed.”

“Would you agree that the people who had Jesus crucified, Pontius Pilate and Herod, were evil men?”

“Yes, of course.”

“That alone should tell us the crucifixion was an act of evil.”

“An evil act overcome three days later by his glorious Resurrection.”

“And the promise that he would return.”

“To call up the faithful.”

“For that to happen, was it necessary for Jesus to die on the cross?”

“Absolutely.”

“He couldn’t have simply died of old age, for example?”

“It was prophesied he would be crucified, so it was all part of God’s plan.”

“But if it was God’s will for Jesus to die like that, why was everyone so miserable afterward? You’d think they’d be dancing in the streets for having been faithful participants in God’s grand drama. Besides, Jesus didn’t preach that he should be crucified. He tried very hard to get the Jewish people to accept him. If they had accepted him, they would have had no desire to kill him, even if it were God’s will. I mean, what’s the point of preparing an entire nation to receive the messiah, just so it can kill him? It doesn’t make any sense. The only entity that wanted Jesus dead was Satan, and Satan tried to kill him from the moment he was born.”

“But it was prophesied he’d be rejected and crucified.”

“It was also prophesied he’d be a glorious king.”

“And so he is, in heaven.”

“Maybe they were dual prophecies. One foretelling the possibility of rejection, the other of acceptance.”

“I don’t think so. One foretells of the crucifixion, the other of the resurrection.”

“Except that all of Jesus’ actions showed a strong desire for acceptance, to avoid an untimely death. Otherwise he would have gladly gone to the cross or endured any other painful humiliation, if he knew that would bring salvation to the world. But in the Garden of Gethsemane he was obviously in great anguish.”

“He felt the fear of death, just as any mortal man would.”

“Countless men have gladly marched into certain death for far lesser causes. He wasn’t afraid to die. His anguish was that the crucifixion was not God’s will.”

“How do you figure?”

“By what happened immediately afterward, for one thing. The sky turned dark and terrible, and all his followers were horrified. No one rejoiced except the evil people. It was a tragedy, plain and simple. It should not have happened, and the world has been suffering that debacle ever since. The centuries following the crucifixion and resurrection were not the dawning of a new and glorious time. They’re known as the Dark Ages, exactly what you’d expect when evil triumphs over good. The only silver lining, the only thing that sustained faithful people through all those hopeless years was the promise of the Second Coming, which I might add, was never mentioned until it became clear the Jewish people were not going to accept him.”

Pete let this sink in for a few minutes. “You have a curious way of looking at things.”

“Yes I do. That why I came to Athens, hoping to find someone to tell these things to.”

“But I don’t see what difference it makes, if he died sooner or later. The end result would have been the same.”

“On the contrary, if he’d lived long enough to have a family, it would have changed everything.”

“How so?”

“God did not prepare the entire nation of Israel so that Jesus could preach for a mere three years and then be murdered. God intended for those people to listen to him and to follow him, and he wanted Jesus to live a long and fruitful life. There was far more at stake than Christians today realize. Those people had the chance to follow the messiah while he was alive and they blew it. By the time they realized it, it was too late.”

The last of the insulation was now hung, and both of us were exhausted. It was well after midnight. Pete was thinking hard about what I had been saying, and I sensed this may be my best chance to drive home my point.

“I don’t necessarily expect you to believe me, and we can debate scripture until dawn, but what I am about to tell you is the gospel truth,” I said. “Jesus did not come to die.”

“You’re forgetting the resurrection.”

“No, I’m not. But that could have happened right away too. Herod finds the infant Jesus, has him killed, and three days later is the Resurrection. Same thing.”

Pete was not convinced.

“Look at it this way. During his life, whenever people asked him what they should be doing to do God’s will, he never answered that they should nail him to a cross until he dies a slow and agonizing death so that he can take away all their sins. He took away their sins left and right before that. He didn’t need to die for that. In fact, you can search the Old Testament, but there’s no mention of a Second Coming. That only came much later, when Jesus realized that the whole thing was going to end badly. Suddenly there was a need for Christ to return which wasn’t there before. If Jesus had been permitted to live his life to its natural end, there never would have arose this talk of his imminent return.”

“But aren’t we saved by believing Jesus died for our sins?”

“That depends on whether you go out and keeping sinning afterward, especially things you know are wrong, like fornication or stealing. If you stop doing those things that are harmful to your spirit, I guess you can say you’re saved. But most Christians don’t stop sinning, they just insist they’ve been forgiven for everything, past, present and future. But even if you personally are saved, you are unable to pass that grace onto your children. They will be born with the stain of original sin and be tempted and seduced and betrayed and victimized by the same old crap. Jesus didn’t just come to forgive us for all of our sins, he came to wipe out the source of sin once and for all.”

“And he did at Calvary.”

“He only got partial victory. He made it possible for us to be saved spiritually on an individual level.”

“So there you have it. Personal salvation.”

“Okay. I admit that sounds pretty attractive. Almost perfect even. But what I want to know is if Adam and Eve had not fallen, had they not disobeyed God and gotten kicked out of the Garden, had they never committed the Original Sin, would they have needed personal salvation?”

Pete thought about it a while. “No, I don’t reckon they would.”

“I don’t think so either. And none of their descendants would have needed it and no one alive today would have needed it because there would be no sin we had to be saved from, you follow me?”

He nodded.

“So let’s just say an eternal Garden of Eden was God’s original plan. That doesn’t seem too far-fetched, does it?”

“No.”

“Do you think God has given up on that plan?”

“No. But our reward is not on this earth.”

“Apparently not, looking at the dismal state of the world. I wholeheartedly concur our reward is not here. But if it was God’s intention for Adam and Eve to live in paradise here on earth, then I can’t help but think that’s what He really wants for us, too. I mean, if God intended all along that we should be sinful and live in a cesspool, just so we could appreciate being saved someday, he could have simply made us that way. Why put Adam and Eve through the charade of tempting them with the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil just so they could screw up and He’d have a reason to condemn them to hell, so the rest of us can someday make a personal choice about whether or not we want to be saved? Does that strike you as rational?”

“Not the way you describe it. But all we have is God’s Word, and that tells us we can only be saved through the Lord.”

“I’m not disputing that. The point I’m trying to make is maybe that’s the best we can hope for right now, but the Second Coming will bring a kind of total salvation Adam and Eve could have only dreamed about after the fall.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I’m saying I don’t think God has given up at all on restoring this world back to His original ideal, that’s all, which is clearly something we don’t have today, even though Jesus brought us personal salvation. I don’t think individual redemption is the ultimate goal. I don’t think God will rest until the entire world is restored, just like it was in the Garden of Eden before the fall.”

Pete didn’t say anything for a while. It was extremely hot, and we both needed to get to bed.

“Man, you talk some wild shit.” 

Sex Ruins Everything

August 1980
Athens, Ohio

Desiree had lots of records and she was eager to play them for me. We laid on the floor and I read the album jackets. They were Christian soft rock, and some of the music was really good. I started to think this kind of music could bridge the gap between the kind of cornball music that was permissible in the Unification Church and the hard rock that I really liked. I could get into this.

“Are you really going to stay here in Athens after August?” She was laying on her back on the floor, staring at the ceiling. I was laying next to her -- careful not to get too close -- also looking at the ceiling. The music on her little stereo phonograph perfectly matched the wholesome, platonic happiness I wanted to have with Desiree. At least for now. Maybe later, after August, we could move things along, but for now I had to keep everything with her on the up-and-up.

“It is my intention to stay, yes. I want to stay with you.”

She rolled over on her side, propping her cheek in her delicate hand. “Why haven’t you tried to kiss me? Do you not want to kiss me?”

I sat up. I could feel my cheeks get hot. She was so beautiful, as pure and innocent as Eve before the fall. And nearly as naked. She was showing more skin than clothes, and removing the rest, if I wished, would be merely a formality. But I was resolute. This was the kind of moment that she would look back on and remember, and if I did not conduct myself with absolute God-centered purpose, she would accuse me later of trying to seduce her or take advantage of her. Never mind that she was trying to seduce me. She didn’t know spiritual law. She wasn’t responsible for her actions. I was.

“There are many things we need to talk about first,” I said finally.

“Okay.”

“Let me see if I can explain. Would you agree that Adam and Eve, assuming there were a first man and first women, disobeyed God and that’s why they were expelled from Eden?”

“Yes. That’s what the Bible says.”

“Right, well it says a serpent tempted Eve with the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and then she tempted Adam. Now, just on a common sense level, if you had a child you loved more than anything else in the world, would you place something poisonous or deadly within that child’s grasp, tell the child not to touch it, and then threaten the child with death if they disobeyed?”

“No, of course not.”

“In fact, you’d probably remove the temptation, especially if it was something harmful or dangerous, right? That’s just common sense.”

Desiree nodded.

“I don’t think God would treat Adam and Eve any differently than any loving parent would treat their child. I don’t think the Bible was talking about a literal fruit like a poisonous apple. The forbidden fruit must have been something that couldn’t be removed from the Garden, so to protect Adam and Eve, God warned them with a commandment.”

“Okay.”

“Then the Bible says that the serpent told Eve it was really okay to eat the fruit, that it would open her eyes and she would be like God. So she did, and then she gave it to Adam. But immediately afterward, even before God confronted them, they did something very peculiar, which was to cover their lower parts. It’s human nature to hide the things we are ashamed of, and the fact they covered their genitals is a pretty strong indication of what they had just done.”

Desiree had sat upright and was staring at me intently. “Go on.”

“None of this probably would have happened except there was a third person is the Garden, which the Bible calls a serpent. That person was the archangel Lucifer. Adam and Eve were not yet fully mature adults. They were more like teenagers. They had grown up in the Garden from infancy, and like all small children, they needed a caretaker, a nanny, a full-time babysitter. That was Lucifer’s job. To take care of Adam and Eve and help them grow up. Eventually Adam and Eve, when they matured, would become husband and wife, and because they perfectly reflected God’s masculine and feminine natures, God would dwell in them. God would literally walk the earth. And he would continue to walk the earth in every other person who lived after that, because everyone would perfectly reflect God’s nature. It would be the kingdom of heaven on earth.”

I studied Desiree’s face. She showed no sign of being bored or disinterested.

“Should I continue?”

Desiree nodded.

“Lucifer knew God’s plan for Adam and Eve, and throughout most of their young lives he was completely on board with it. No problem. Raise Adam and Eve to perfection, then let them start a family. Okay. But something strange began to happen with Lucifer as Adam and Eve reached puberty and began to develop sexually. Lucifer became jealous of Adam.

“You see, Lucifer was much older and wiser. He was like the cool professor that a young coed might develop a crush on.”

Desiree smiled with recognition. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“Lucifer loved the attention he got from Eve. Plus she was growing more and more beautiful by the day. Whereas Adam was like some goofy kid who was clueless about girls, like the stupid jocks you see around campus who act all idiotic when they’re drunk with their buddies, but they have never been in a relationship with a girl and wouldn’t have any idea what to do if they did.”

“I’ve known a few of those, that’s for sure.”

“Lucifer knew that Adam and Eve were meant to be together, but Lucifer started thinking he wanted Eve for himself, or at least to have her first, before Adam. After all, he and Eve had a long and deep relationship. They were very close and loved each other very much.”

“That sounds a little kinky.”

“Not at all. Remember that TV show ‘Family Affair’?”

“Of course.”

“That was like the perfect metaphor. Brian Keith was like God, the benevolent but distant dad would couldn’t be around all the time. Then you had Buffy as Eve and Jody as Adam and Mr. French, the butler, as Lucifer. You see what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“So many years pass and now Buffy and Jody are almost grown up. Now maybe they’re college age, and Brian Keith is off on one of his trips, and Mr. French starts to have lustful feelings for Buffy now that she’s a young woman. It’s wrong, he knows that, but he can’t help it because she is so beautiful, plus she’s very sweet and loving to him because she’s so innocent and pure. Does that make sense?”

“Sure, I guess so.”

“Lucifer began to tell Eve things, sexual things, that he should not have told her. He knew that saying these things would eventually arouse her and she would want to experience them. Lucifer deliberately charmed her and seduced her until she begged him to show her. And when he did, when they had sexual intercourse, Eve understood immediately what she had done. For the first time, she understood good and evil. That’s what the commandment meant: Do not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, because when you do you will die. It was a warning not to have sexual relations until God gave them permission. When they were fully mature adults, both emotionally and physically, sex would be fine and good, just like it is among many married couples today. But at this point they were still premature, like teenagers. Almost there, but not quite.”

Desiree was quiet. It seemed she was understanding.

“Eve, now knowing the truth of what she did, and fully understanding that Adam was supposed to be her sexual partner, now went to him. Her motivation was to undo what she had done with Lucifer, because she knew that was wrong. She thought having sex with Adam would make everything right. So she got Adam aroused and showed him what to do and then they fell. Immediately they both felt naked and ashamed and covered themselves. When God saw them, he was angry because he knew what they had done. He had no choice but to throw them out of the Garden, and Lucifer became Satan.”

“That’s an interesting theory.”

“It’s not a theory. It’s what really happened. The fall in the Bible is told with strange imagery that makes it easy to miss the real story. The real story of original sin was the misuse of love, or turning something beautiful like sex into a selfish, dirty thing.”

“Hmm. I don’t know. The way you describe it sounds reasonable, but I've never heard anyone compare original sin to sex.”

“I think the evidence is all around us. Nothing is more confounding to the human spirit than sex. Just look at all the personal problems people have that are rooted in sex. Just look at all the good friendships that are ruined by sex. Suddenly, one person withdraws, or both do, and instead of feelings of love and intimacy, sex stirs up deep feelings of guilt and remorse that no one can fathom. It’s my contention that those feelings are the residue of the fall, which have been passed down from generation to generation.

“How many girls do you know have been pressured to have sex, only to be betrayed after they give in? Sex may seem natural, and it was intended to be, but usually it doesn’t make you feel good when it's casual between two people who don't really care for each other. Just the opposite. Sex can make people feel depressed, even suicidal. The only way to overcome these bad feelings is by first making a lifelong commitment to another person, and even that might not do it. It is far more profound than anyone dares imagine.

“Whether or not you believe me, of one thing I’m certain: If you and I were to make love it would destroy our friendship. You’d hate me and I would resent you, and we’d both blame each other. You and I would understand as clearly as Eve and Adam that we had committed a tragic and irreversible mistake.”

“I believe you,” she said.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. For now, at least, I felt I’d put a damper on the sexual tension between us. I knew it would return, but at least I had a foundation to work with. 

My Secret Dies

August 1980
Athens, Ohio

“What did you mean -- exactly -- when you said the lord told you to come to Athens?” Pete asked.

Pete and I had been prying aged boards of siding from an abandoned house on a country lane. The air was hot and muggy, the sky was overcast. Rain was imminent. We were both sweating profusely, and the truck that Pete had borrowed was already sagging beneath the weight. We had only a small section left on one side of the house to pry off. This wood -- vintage tongue-and-groove boards -- had already become the flooring in Pete’s new attic bedroom. We had come back to salvage the rest so Pete could use it on other jobs.

“I meant exactly that,” I said. “The lord told me to come here.” I liked Pete a lot. He was more than a friend. He was like an older brother. I could tell him anything. Almost anything. But now he was zeroing in on the hard questions that I was extremely hesitant to answer.

“You mean like ‘told’ you like I’m talking to you now?”

“No. It was through another person. He conveyed the message through another person.”

“Who?”

“A friend of mine.”

Pete was clearly not satisfied with my evasive answers, even though I answered him truthfully. He knew I was hiding something. But since we both were right and he was the inquisitor, the burden was on him to flush me out.

“If this other person, your friend, wasn’t around, could the lord have told you this in person?”

“Yes.”

“You mean you can see the lord?”

“Sure. I’ve seen him many times.”

“Where?”

“In New York, mostly. Once I saw him in Dallas.”

Pete had quit working, quit banging on boards with a hammer, and was perched on one of the bare floor joists, one of the few remnants of what once had been a home with a family and a history and a thousand stories. At the present, Pete was interested in only one story about this remote place -- the one unfolding right now.

“I think you’re in some weird religious group and afraid to tell us,” he said finally. “I’ve seen about ’em on TV.”

Now it was my turn to quit working. If Pete had asked that as a question instead of stating it as a fact, I would have had no choice but to answer. But he didn’t. It hung in the warm air like the sticky humidity, and every bit as uncomfortable.

I had dreaded this moment ever since I had come to Athens, especially after meeting this group of charismatic Christians I was now a part of. I knew I had to tell them everything, but I knew the outcome would be bad -- unless they had a chance to know me first. But since Pete with his hammer had nailed me, fair and square, I figured it was time to ’fess up. If anyone was going to guess my identity, I’d prefer it were Pete.

“If I told you everything, in plain English, black and white, would you be happy?” I asked.

“It’s not a question of my happiness,” he said. “Everyone wants to know who you are. You’re too good to be real. You’re like Jesus performing miracles or something. You waltz into our lives and everything is hunky-dory. It’s weird. Nobody is like that. There’s got to be something more here that we don’t know about. Who are you?”

I prayed harder at that moment than any other time in my life, begging God to provide me with the right words to a question I did not want to answer.

“You’re right,” I said after a long silence. I set down my hammer and positioned myself on the joist across from him. “You’re my best friend here, Pete, and I would do anything for you. I don’t want to keep anything from you. But it’s more complicated than that. I wish it wasn’t, but it is.” I paused a moment and let the words form in my mind.

“When I first met you folks, I knew exactly who you were and what you were about. I saw some people on the green witnessing, and I purposely put myself in their path because I knew the game. I did not intend to deceive anyone. I was simply having a little fun, because I know how to say all the right things. To me it’s not dishonest because I believe those things too, but my understanding of what those things mean is much different. And that’s what I came to Athens to talk about. I wanted to explain some things that I think the right people would find very interesting.”

Pete just listened.

“Things got out of control, and that was my fault. I ended up over at the dinner and I thought that would be the end of it. And the next thing I knew Phil was offering me a place to stay. This for me was terrible. I didn’t want to hide who I am. But there was a problem. The more I got to know you folks, the more I began to feel that you were the people I had come to Athens to meet. And if I told you who I was, you wouldn’t listen to me and I would have failed before I could even get started.

“You don’t need to believe me, but I want you to know this has been agony for me. And if anyone had ever asked me directly, as you have done just now, then I would have had no choice but to tell the truth because I won’t lie. But you are correct, I wasn’t telling all of the truth either, and that has been my great sorrow. I knew as soon as I did, our relationship would end, and I didn’t want that.

“It wasn’t the house to live in or the meals, although those things were very important to me. But I could have stayed any number of places. I would have survived. I stayed because I wanted to be part of your community.

“The thing is, I’ve changed my mind about going back to Indianapolis. I don’t want to be part of that any more. I want to stay here in Athens. Being here has been some of the happiest I’ve ever been, perhaps in my entire life, and the reason is you. You’ve made me feel loved and wanted and appreciated. I don’t want to leave.

“But I know I can’t stay here like this. You deserve to know who I am. And my hope, my prayer, is that you’ll forgive me for not being totally truthful and allow me to stay and be part of your community. I believe everything you do. Even if that doesn’t seem possible, it is the God’s honest truth.

“I would like a chance to put all my cards on the table and then you guys can decide whether I stay or go. If you send me away, I wouldn’t blame you. You have every right. But, Pete, I’m asking you, man to man, friend to friend, to listen to me. You’ve come to know me better than anyone. You know what kind of person I am. You know I am a decent, moral, hard-working person who would not intentionally hurt anyone. So something must have made me certain of how I would be received if I were totally honest. It wasn’t what I wanted to do. It’s what I had to do to even get here to have this conversation with you. Otherwise we’d have never met. I value your friendship and I would have counted it a tragic loss in my life had we not met.”

I tried to read Pete’s face for some reaction, but he was revealing nothing.

“Next Friday is the end of my forty days in Athens,” I said. “After that I go home. If you arrange to have a farewell dinner for me Friday night, I will explain to everyone who I am and why I’m here. After I reveal everything, if you want me to stay I will stay. And if you want me to go I will go. I don’t really have anything else to add.”

Pete sensed my vulnerability. He knew he had found the mark. And after a long period of utter quiet between us, with nothing to listen to but the drizzling rain failing gently on the woods around us, he said the most Christian thing he could have said: “It doesn’t matter to me what group you belong to. I already know you’re a good person.”

We both sat there for a minute, listening to the rain. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “People are funny and it doesn’t take much for good people to find fault in each other. There’s too many things that divide us. If you felt you couldn’t be truthful with us, perhaps that’s as much our fault as yours. Maybe we need to be a little more open and tolerant of folks who happen to think slightly different. Ain’t no sin to have a contrary opinion, especially when it comes to religion. God knows there’s plenty of wars been fought over that.”

It was starting to rain a little harder. My heart was sinking through the open joists and into the damp ground. My secret was being buried in this place. Whether there would be a resurrection for me would become clear enough on Friday.

“I know you’re with the Unification Church,” Pete said. “I know you think Rev. Moon is the second coming. I’ve known it for some time. I don’t agree with you, but I admit some of the things you said during our little discussions have caused me to think hard on these things, and I agree some of what you said makes sense. You have a rare logic and I find it stimulating. So maybe you do know what you’re talking about. I don’t know.

“I will keep your secret and I will let you break the news yourself in your own fashion. I will ask Katie and Boo to prepare you a farewell meal -- a Last Supper, I guess -- and then you can see if it made any difference whether you told us in the beginning or in the end.”

Pete seemed sad. I think he was hoping his suspicions would have turned out not to be true, and now that he did know, he was disappointed.

“I hope it goes well for you,” he said as we got back in the truck. “I’d like you to stay too. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up.” 

Desiree, My Desire

August 1980
Athens, Ohio

Word spread quickly about the farewell dinner. Everyone told me how much they’d miss me, and couldn’t I please stay? I told them maybe. We’d see what happens. I made it clear that it was their choice. Everyone was so bewildered. What could I possibly say that could make them not want me to stay? They acted as though it was a foregone conclusion that I would stay, and their enthusiasm fooled me into thinking it was going to go okay. But that feeling ebbed and flowed each day. One minute I would feel certain everything would work out, and the next I’d be depressed because I knew it wouldn’t. I just wanted to get it over with. The suspense was killing me.

The night before the dinner, I had a terrible feeling. And it didn’t go away. I worried most about Desiree. I needed to try to prepare her somehow.

The hour was late when I arrived at Desiree’s. She was ecstatic to see me. I tried to be cheerful, but she could see I was deeply troubled.

“What’s wrong?”

“We need to talk.”

We sat in her tiny living room, she across from me in an old overstuffed chair. Her face was that of a young woman who had found her true love. Her adoration was painful. The thought of breaking her heart was unbearable.

“As you know, Pete and Katie are having a farewell dinner for me tomorrow night -- ”

“Yes...”

“ -- and I’ve specifically requested that everyone who I’ve become friends with be there, especially you.”

She continued staring at me, wondering where this was going. “And as you know, I’ve promised to explain everything about myself. I know people have questions about who I am and why I am here, so I am going to put my cards all out on the table. But here’s the thing. When I do, things are going to change dramatically. There’s is a very good chance no one will want me around anymore and they’ll insist I leave.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Desiree said. “What could you possibly say to make everyone mad at you? I’m expecting you to stay, just like you said you would.” For the first time, she pondered the possibility that by Saturday I might be gone. She leaned forward. “You will stay, won’t you?”

“That depends entirely on you, as I’ve said. I don’t want to leave. I want to stay. I want to stay here with you.” This made her smile. She sat back in the chair and relaxed a bit. If the decision were truly hers to make, then I would be staying. It was that simple to her.

I looked hard into her face, more serious at this moment than any time she’d ever seen me, and I had been pretty serious around her most of time. “You think you know how you will feel and act, but you don’t,” I said. “By tomorrow night, and in the days that follow, people -- including yourself perhaps -- will believe I’m the devil.”

“I don’t believe it,” she laughed. “That’s impossible.”

“I’m afraid you’ll find out yourself soon enough. But what I want to tell you right now is this: No matter what anyone says about me, I did not come here to harm you or anyone else. I genuinely care about you as God’s daughter. That is my only concern. I want you to try to remember the things we talked about. I want you to remember the good times we had together. And I want you to remember I never tried to mislead you or take advantage of you or treat you in any way except with the utmost respect for you as a human being.”

“You’ve been a perfect gentleman.”

“Desiree, they’re going to accuse me of trying to seduce you.”

“How could they? You won’t even hold my hand. And we’ve never even kissed.”

“I know, and that’s the reason. Believe me, I wanted to do those things. I am extremely attracted to you. But I knew the moment would come when those seemingly innocent gestures would come to have much greater significance, so I had to make sure we never had any kind of physical relationship. When they say I tried to seduce you, you will know that I did not. It doesn’t matter to me what they say. They may tell many lies. What matters is that you know the truth about what happened between us. Even in this place where we are all alone and no one can see us, you know I have never touched you.”

“It is true. You have never touched me that way.”

Desiree looked at me, still smiling. But something had come over her. Some strange thought had suddenly entered her head. Her stare grew vacant, as though she were somewhere else. She no longer cared to hear my silly notion that someone would suddenly accuse me of trying to seduce her.

“No one’s going to say anything bad about you,” she said. “You’re one of us. We all want you to stay.”

“I wish it were that simple.”

“What’s the matter? Are you married? Is that it?”

“No, no. Nothing like that.”

"Gay?”

“Heavens no.”

“An escaped convict?”

“No.” That one made me chuckle.

“What then?”

She’s motioned for me to come sit with her in that big comfortable old chair, to unburden my soul, to pour my secret into her trusting blue eyes. And for three-tenths of a second I contemplated doing just that. To confess my transgression and throw myself at her mercy. The words were starting to form in my throat. More than anything else in this life, I wanted to go over to her and bury my head in her lap and pour out my heart and tell her how much I loved her.

Here’s the picture: Only one small table light was turned on, creating an amber cocoon around her. She was sunk down into this fat chair, cherry-lemon hair splayed across the headrest, her held tilted ever so gently to the side. Her face -- her gorgeous sweet face -- was enshrouded in the dream state of utter, complete, total contentment. She was wearing a short skirt, and every male hormone is my body was kicking into high gear at the sight of her smooth, well-defined legs as they curled under her. I wanted to crawl across the carpet, kiss her knees and keep going all the way to the promised land. I wanted to inhale her intoxicating scent. And above all, I knew it’s what she wanted me to do. It was that close.

Desiree kept teasing me with her legs, trying to lure me closer. She couldn’t decide if I was a fool or a saint.

Just a few nights ago we were holding hands, walking silently along a dark deserted street, enjoying the fragrant balmy evening and each other’s company. She had rested her cheek against my shoulder and made my heart pound. It had killed me to do it, but in as nonchalant a manner as I could muster, I disengaged our entwined fingers. I hadn’t been this close to a girlfriend-type situation in five years, and as I neared the end of my 40-day condition, I felt Satan tempting me mightily. I was on the edge -- the very fucking precipice -- of screwing up royally.

And now, her legs were gently spreading and closing almost imperceptibly like flower petals, taunting me to give in. It would be so simple. If I touched Desiree, we both would die.

It was excruciating to watch her. She seemed to slowly writhe and contort herself as if we were actually doing it. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she groaned. I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I love you more than you’ll ever know.” I walked out while I still could. 

The End

August 1980
Athens, Ohio

All day I was on edge. On one hand I couldn’t wait for this charade to be over. On the other hand, I dreaded the outcome. I kept telling myself that this wouldn’t be like the vicious and instant rejection I had always experienced from Christians. These people knew me. We had become friends. We liked each other, and I had made clear I wanted to stay with them.

At Pete’s house everyone was festive and upbeat. They were eager to hear my story, and then we’d get on with the celebration. Outwardly I smiled and chatted amiably, but there was a crushing heaviness in my heart that only became more unbearable with each passing minute. The unfailing good cheer around me made me cling to a tiny shred of hope that the evening would turn out all right. All my instincts said otherwise.

The reason was obvious: I had deceived them. That was all that mattered. That was the headline. No need to read any further. They would not care or be able to relate to my reasons for wishing to keep my identity hidden up until now. That was beside the point. I had not told them the whole truth, I had withheld vital information about myself, and that fact trumped and negated everything else. And they were absolutely right. My fate was sealed.

For the past 24 hours I had been reflecting heavily on Jesus. Not to be melodramatic, but there were a lot of parallels, I felt, between his situation and mine. On some simplistic level, I believed I had experienced some of the same things he did. It went without saying that it was probably going to have the same ending. Symbolically, of course.

I kept coming back to two fundamental issues: the Unification Church and the Divine Principle. In my mind these were two distinct and separate things. To everyone else they were one in the same. I kept thinking: What if I had never heard of or met or joined the Unification Church, that I never had any association with it or with Reverend Moon, knew absolutely nothing about them? And what if I knew Divine Principle? I saw no contradiction in those two suppositions. I could have this knowledge in my head and not be part of any organization. If the organization was keeping people from hearing the truth, why not remove the organization from the equation and let the truth be judged on its own merits, rather than guilt by association. To me this made eminent sense. I had come to Athens to teach Divine Principle, not to try to sell anyone on the Unification Church.

So even though my mission was about to go down in flames, I took some solace in the fact that over the past several weeks I had indeed been able to teach some of these folks a great deal of the Divine Principle, at least many of the most important, fundamental points. And I took further solace in the fact that the things I had said -- had taught them -- were not rejected as blasphemy or heresy. They had listened to parts of the Divine Principle and been able to consider it by itself, without being hung up about what it was called or who was behind it. It was the free exchange of ideas on a purely intellectual level without bias or negative emotions getting in the way.

Perhaps I was rationalizing my behavior. But the simple fact was it could not have happened any other way. Not with this particular group of people.

Despite the good-natured fuss over me, I ate my dinner in relative silence, and afterward borrowed Boo’s 12-string Ovation to play a couple songs. One I wrote during my stay in Athens. The other I learned from them, called “Prepared Ye the Way.” Not only was it a fitting sentiment to my sojourn here, but it was a beautiful melody as well and I had practiced it many times and could sing it very well. It was probably the most visible and respectful way I could show them I had joined them, if they would have me. Looks of approval came from around the room. Finally I put down the guitar. All eyes were on me.

“I’m a member of the Unification Church, a follower of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.”

I didn’t get much further than that. It was over.

Desiree was the first to fly out of the room, a blurry, teary streak. Kevin was right behind her to provide the much-needed shoulder to cry on. I supposed he owed me some thanks, though I doubted I’d ever get it.

Everyone else was stunned. In just 15 words, I had lost them completely. I spoke for a few minutes, thanked them for everything, apologized for the deception, tried to explain how there really hadn’t been any other way for them to get to know me or vice versa, and repeated my heartfelt desire to remain part of their community, if they still wanted me now that they knew everything.

You’d have thought I had taken a shit and was eating it. The revulsion was instantaneous and absolute.

I was sort of hoping for an answer immediately, one way or the other, but I guess that wasn’t realistic. They needed some time to discuss it. Martin was the first and only one to speak. He said he would try to convene an emergency meeting of the congregation the next day at the church, and they would decide then whether they would still accept me or not. I wasn’t hopeful. I asked if I could be there, to make my case in person. He said no.

I glanced at Pete, but he just shrugged. It was like he was saying, “Sorry, buddy. It’s out of my hands.”

Of all the people there, only Boo came up to me afterward. She hugged me and thanked me. She asked me if she could walk with me. I said sure. We walked back to my little house, which was mine for one more day. Thank God Phil was gone or I’d be heading back to Indianapolis tonight.

I told Boo I felt very embarrassed about how it had turned out. I felt like a bad and terrible person for not telling the truth, even though I knew the truth would end my relationship with them. I was very depressed. I told her how much I loved it here with them, that I wanted to live in Athens and start my life over, that I didn’t want to go back to the Unification Church in Indianapolis. But I also knew things few other people knew, and I couldn’t erase that from my head just to make everyone happy. If they accepted me, it would have to be me for who I was, not who they wished me to be. Boo was so sweet to me. She was the only one who didn’t judge me. She alone accepted me for who I was.

The next day I walked out to Strouds Run. This was the park with the lake I had been dropped off at on my first day in Athens, the place where I started walking into town and found 54 cents along the way. It seemed like a lifetime ago. I didn’t look for any loose change this time, even though my eyes barely looked up from the ground. My mind was somewhere else. It was in the church. I knew they were deciding my fate, but already I knew what the outcome would be. This would be my last full day in Athens.

I had been out here a couple times in recent weeks with Desiree and her friends, hiking the trails and having picnics, playing softball, throwing Frisbees. It was the carefree and happy life I was about to leave behind. I guess I wanted to say goodbye.

I sat on the dam and watched the water. I tried to clear my mind, but something strange was happening. All the bad and awful things I had feared they would say about me were being said. I could feel it. It felt like big fat nails being driven into my flesh. It hurt so bad and there was nothing I could do. I just sat there and cried and asked God to forgive me for fucking it up so badly. I never meant for this to happen. I loved them. I truly, truly did. I tried to show them every way I could at every opportunity. But it wasn’t enough. My deceit had spoiled everything and they would never forgive me for it.

I stayed out there all day, and when the sun started to go down, I walked back into town. I had already mailed my books back to Indianapolis. I had washed all the clothes I had worn and folded them and put them back exactly where they had been. I cleaned the work boots I had worn and placed them by the bed where I had found them. I swept and cleaned the whole house and put everything back the way it had been the day I arrived. I removed all the uneaten food from the fridge and threw it away and took out the trash. Even the box of Bisquick was empty. I packed my little book bag with my harps and few articles of clothing. When I left in the morning, there would be no sign I had been here.

I did not expect any good news, so I saw no reason to stick around the next morning. I was just about to leave when Desiree and Kevin came to the front door. Seeing her face broke my heart. I had hurt her so badly. It was obvious she had been crying all night. Her eyes were puffy, and she had scrubbed her face to try to get the last bit of me out of her pores. For the first time since I had known her, she was wearing makeup to cover up the pain.

I invited them in and we sat in the living room. She was wearing a forced, exaggerated smile. Clearly she wanted me to know that Jesus was the love of her life and had comforted her through the night. I didn’t buy it for a second, but I was not about to hurt her further by denying her this one little shred of salvation. So I told her I was glad.

I also told her I was sorry. I said I knew this would happen and I had tried to prepare her the other night. She brushed it aside. All was well. She had Jesus.

I wanted to kill myself. I just couldn’t believe how a platonic relationship like ours, so brief and nonphysical, could tear her up so badly. I would have done anything at that moment to take it all away. But I knew what had caused it. It was the forbidden fruit. The more I had pushed her away, the more she had wanted me. That formed a powerful bond that caused excruciating pain when broken. The knowledge of it just tortured me.

I recalled all the mornings she had left notes in my mailbox with the little hearts and sweet words. She had invested so much in our relationship. As much as I had tried to protect her from this moment, she had taken it harder than even I had imagined. She’d never know how much I loved her.

Kevin, however, was eager to reveal himself as the dickhead I always suspected he was. He was thrilled by this sudden turn of events. For him it was the best possible outcome. He couldn’t wait to tell me the bad news.

“We have decided that you may stay in Athens.”

“But…” I said. I knew Kevin was an asshole attached to a “but.”

“But you have to wear a sign around your neck identifying yourself as a Moonie.” He grinned from ear to ear. He was so happy. This was absolutely the fairest resolution, as far as he was concerned. I could stay, but in a way that ensured no one else would ever be deceived by me.

“You know,” I said, “in Nazi Germany the Jews were required to wear the Star of David so that everyone would know who they were. You don’t see a parallel in what you’re proposing?”

“Of course not. Totally different.”

“I see. Then you’ll wear signs too when you go witnessing around campus, identifying yourselves as charismatic renewal, is that correct?”

“No, we don’t need to. We don’t deceive anyone.”

“Sure you do. You don’t tell people everything. You wait for the right moment. Same as me.”

“That’s different.”

“No it’s not. Listen, Kevin. When I'm gone, I want you to meditate on what I'm about to tell you. I didn’t have to say anything about who I was. I could have crept away silently and nobody would have been any the wiser. But I didn’t want to. I’m proud of who I am. I want everybody to know who they’re dealing with. I am not afraid. And I owed it to you and to everyone else before I left. I came clean as I had wanted to do from the very beginning, and if I hadn’t been certain of how that news would be received, I would have done it immediately. I will accept the consequences of my actions. God knows what was in my heart every single moment of every single day I was here in Athens. I did what I felt was right and I did it as God guided me. You have no idea what this was like for me. It was sheer agony. But now it’s over and my conscience is clear. I’m sorry it didn’t work out. I truly, deeply loved you all.”

I turned to Desiree. “And you most of all.”

Kevin hadn’t heard a word I said. He just stood up. “I guess we won’t being seeing you again.”

He and Desiree left. I waited until they were out of sight. I pulled the door closed and dropped the key in the mailbox. I slung my bag over my shoulder and began walking toward the highway.