Karma is a Sneaky Bitch

June 1980
Indianapolis

Yesterday was fantastic if you like joyful experiences. But if you like being angry and tired and frustrated, you would have absolutely loved today.

We have a new IW. Her name is Kiyoko Bowman and she arrived the day before yesterday. Although she's Japanese, her husband is American and she's been in the U.S. a long time. She doesn't speak or act like a lot of Japanese members. She seems more American than Japanese. I took an instant liking to her. Carl, I think, did not. He's been acting strange ever since she arrived, going out of his way with the phony adulation. That's always a sure sign something is wrong. But I haven't a clue why she upsets him so much.

What I do know is that her arrival seems to have precipitated an awful lot of negative events in rapid succession. Maybe they had been building up for a while and it took her arrival to cause them to manifest.

First of all, Gail announced at breakfast she was leaving the church. I wasn’t there because I was at the Red Cross, but when I came home I found everyone sitting around the dining room table on the second floor like they were at a wake. I joked: “Who died?”

They told me Gail was leaving, and I made them repeat it two or three times because I didn’t think I had heard them right. When it finally sank in, I sat down and joined them. I was stunned. Gail was one of our best members and our best fundraiser. Her leaving was a real blow. Carl looked like he was taking it the worst, but all of us were shocked and sad. It really was like a sudden death in the family. Even Kiyoko, who hardly knew us, was very distressed by the sudden turn of events. It was bad enough we were losing a member, but losing a solid, longtime member like Gail was terrible, and Kiyoko knew that as well as we did.

Gail was still in the sisters' bedroom getting her things, and when she was packed she came into the dining room and addressed all of us. We had been her only family for a long time, and now she was walking out. She took a deep breath and said in a voice that was both shaky and resolute: “I’ve accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior and I pray you do too before it’s too late. Reverend Moon is a false prophet and will lead you to hell. Goodbye. Please don’t try to contact me.” She turned and went downstairs to start a new life.

Usually you can spot struggling members a mile away. They’re always unhappy and complaining. It’s a chronic disease. Sometimes their attitude improves momentarily for a day or two, but it never gets better. When they finally do quit, even after ten years of constant complaining, it’s no great surprise. You sort of expect it. But there was nothing like that with Gail. She was always cheerful and strong and supportive. Something obviously had changed.

Then I remembered the matching was coming up, and it suddenly dawned on me that that had to be it. The idea of Father picking out a mate for her was something she couldn’t accept. And then I recalled something she had confided to me many months earlier, in strictest confidence, and which I had promptly forgotten: She was in love with Terry, her MFT captain. I didn’t think much about it at the time. We all had crushes at one time or another on somebody of the opposite sex, though nobody would ever admit it. It was normal. I'd felt that way toward at least a dozen sisters. But it did explain why Gail worked so hard to bring such high results when she was on Terry’s team. It was the only way she could make him love her, even if that love was purely platonic.

Now the possibility of Father choosing someone other than Terry to be her husband, probably a stranger she had never met, was the lever that forced her out of the church. At least that's the way it seemed to me.

Outside a car honked. I looked down to the parking lot. There was a beat up Pontiac with a large black woman behind the wheel. A younger black woman was in the back seat. Fundamentalist Christians, probably pentecostal. There was a large black Bible on the dash and a crucifix hanging from the mirror. I watched as Gail rushed over to the car carrying a big suitcase and an even bigger smile. A young black man in a suit got out of the back seat on the other side, helped Gail into the car and put her suitcase in the trunk. They all were dressed like they were going to church, even though it was Saturday.

I also realized something I had not thought about for a long time: Gail was black. She was the only black sister in the center and one of relatively few black members in the entire Unification Church. It occurred to me that maybe Gail missed being around black people. That thought had never crossed my mind until now.

The Pontiac backed up, turned around, and then pulled out onto 38th Street, scraping the muffler as the woman gunned the engine out of the parking lot. The car swayed close to the ground, rumbling loudly down the street and trailing a thin white cloud of burning oil. It turned left at the light and disappeared toward downtown. Gail was gone.

We all sat around the dining room table for a while and talked about what had just happened. Suzy, as usual, was full of harsh judgment, saying Gail had made some bad condition or other. Suzy, as usual, didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about. I think my theory was better, but I kept it to myself for the simple reason that every single sister sitting at the table probably felt exactly the same as Gail: They were scared shitless about the matching too, terrified they were going to be stuck with some homely dork they would regret marrying for the rest of their lives. There was no point in me saying anything that might possibly validate their worst fears.

I busied myself the rest of the morning changing the locks on the doors to the center, which I was planning to do anyway and had nothing to do with Gail’s sudden departure. Then I turned my attention to the headlights on the van as there were no low beams. First I would have them and then I would lose them, back and forth, and just when I discovered the root of the problem -- ZAP! -- the whole works short-circuited.

I tried replacing the voltage regulator and the ballast and the starter relay and even the solenoid. Miraculously the van started only to die again and refuse to restart. So I conceded defeat and had it towed to Palmer Dodge. After I signed the repair authorization at the dealership, I grabbed a box of candy out of the van so I could fundraise on my way home and defray the cost of the repairs.

There was a working-class neighborhood behind the dealership that I had never been in before, so I decided to give it a try. It was pretty poor, which normally was a good sign for fundraising. But right away I sensed a bad vibe. Folks were mean and nobody would give. The spirit of the place was very low. I was about to give up and try somewhere else. I had one more house on the cul de sac to try and then I’d leave.

The guy came to the door but he was an angry, humorless bastard. I should have turned around right then, but my habit was to push a little before giving up. The next thing I knew was a sharp pain like a hundred bee stings in the back of my thigh. I turned to see a medium-sized mixed-breed dog scampering off the stoop.

I couldn’t believe it. The guy didn’t even say a word. He just stared at me like it served me right for knocking on his door. What a fuckin’ asshole. That bitch hurt like hell. My pants were torn and blood was coming through. I abandoned the fundraising project to walk home and get cleaned up.

I was so angry. In all my years of fundraising, in all my confrontations with bad dogs, I had never been bit. Somehow I had always subjugated them, forced them to back down. Or maybe I was just damn lucky. It took a sneaky little bitch to nail me. God damn that hurt!

There was no doubt in my mind why this happened: me spying on Nina in the shower. I did something that was obviously wrong, I refused to repent for it, so I had to pay. It also explained why everyone in the neighborhood was so mean. If I had been in the proper place spiritually, it wouldn't have been that way. I would have made money. Even the van wouldn't have developed an electrical problem. Once again, I got a painful reminder of how spiritual conditions directly affect the physical world. I had grown careless living in the center.

The wound wasn't so bad after all, though the skin was punctured in a couple places. I thought about rabies, but I knew instinctively it wasn't a concern. This was purely a spiritual thing. The bite was indemnity for what I had done. The punishment fit the crime, and rabies would have been overkill. So I simply washed the wound really well, dabbed it with alcohol, and put a big bandage on it. If it got infected, I'd go to the doctor. But I didn't expect that to happen.

Carl wanted me to take Carol, Louise and Theresa out blitzing. He and Suzy were going to stay home and talk with Kiyoko, try to figure out why Gail had left and what sort of spiritual conditions we needed to make to fix the situation. Me taking the sisters out fundraising was part of that spiritual foundation he felt we needed, and I agreed with his assessment. I didn't tell him why I thought I had gotten bit by a dog. Carl had enough problems to deal with.

We had another vehicle at the center, a small Toyota Corolla wagon, so after dinner we used it to blitz the bars. Carol and Theresa were solid fundraisers, but Louise was not. She was very shy and always had a hard time talking to people. She rarely made much money, so we often left her behind at the center to cook or answer the phone or do the books whenever we went fundraising. So it was unusual to have Louise along to blitz bars, but I couldn't anticipate how badly it would go.

I took the three of them down to Southeastern Avenue, which had a lot of blue-collar bars that were usually productive, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. I dropped Louise off at a biker bar I had been in many times before. I told her I would wait outside in the parking lot. I thought Louise's shyness would actually be an asset in that type of place. They might see how timid she was and take pity on her.

I was wrong. Something happened that I can only guess about. I think, but I'm not 100 percent sure, that somebody in the bar groped her. I mean under-the-skirt, inside-the-panties groped her. Whatever happened, she came flying out of the bar, got in the car, locked the door, and refused to say a word. I'd never seen her so distraught. I was very concerned and tried to get her to tell me what had happened. She would only stare straight ahead and not say anything.

Carol and Theresa were doing well, so we decided we’d stay out all night as an indemnity condition for Gail. But now I was more worried about Louise. I didn't try to make her fundraise again. She stayed in the car for the rest of the night and eventually fell asleep in the back seat. When we finally got home it was nearly 4 o’clock in the morning. We had made nearly $300, so it was definitely worth the trip, but Louise's bad experience ruined any sense of accomplishment I might have otherwise felt. Carl, Suzy and Kiyoko were asleep when we got home, so whatever happened to Louise would have to wait until morning.

I was dead tired. I think I was asleep before I hit my sleeping bag. And then it seemed only an instant later Carl woke me up for 5 a.m. pledge service. I jumped up, but I wasn't really awake. Through force of habit I put on my slacks and grabbed my tie, which by sheer repetition I could tie blindfolded. I went into the prayer room, knelt on the carpet, put my forehead on the floor to pray, and promptly fell asleep with my ass sticking up in the air while I waited for everyone else.

I felt a light tap on my shoulder. It was Kiyoko. All the sisters had come in and were kneeling on their side of the room. Kiyoko had a funny grin on her face. She leaned over to me and and whispered, “You’re not wearing a shirt.” 

Me and Carol Sleep Together

July 1980
Athens, Ohio

I’ve been in Athens for five days. It’s not going well. I was almost struck by lightning. I barely escaped being raped by a sex-crazed older woman and then being shot to death by a mean-assed redneck. And my best friend in town is an extremely disturbed refugee from The Ridges, the mental hospital across the river.

Right now it’s early evening and I’m in the Baker Center at Ohio University in a small lounge watching “The Great Santini” on TV with a handful of students. I don’t like this movie. I don’t know why. It pisses me off. I wish I were somewhere else, but I don’t know where, so I stay.

Truth is I don’t know where to go or what to do. I’ve been all over town and can’t seem to find where I belong. So I’m sitting here watching the great Duvall and feeling very lonely and depressed and very, very hungry. I need to meet someone I can talk to on a deep level. I’m losing energy from not having any meaningful give-and-take with anyone. I know this. Being quiet will be my doom. But all my conversations so far have been so superficial. Nobody wants to hear what I have to say. I scan the room for someone I can talk to, but everyone is fixated on the movie, schoolwork or someone else. I don’t belong here.

This is not at all how I imagined my 40-day pioneering condition would begin. One week ago, when we all gathered in Louisville, I was rarin’ to go. Now I feel increasingly pessimistic, and I have more than a month left.

I should back up a bit. The Indianapolis center is down to just four of us. Louise was an emotional wreck after her disastrous blitzing experience in the biker bar. I ended up taking her to the bus station a couple days later. She went home to stay with her parents for a while in Pennsylvania. Then Suzy and Theresa were called to New York to work at headquarters. And of course Gail left our Korean messiah cult to join the black Jesus cult. So in a very short period of time the population of our tiny center was cut in half. Now it’s just me, Carl, Carol and Nina.

We got our individual pioneering assignments a little over a week ago: Nina to Lancaster, Carl to Chillicothe, Carol to Marietta and me to Athens. Our collective plan was pretty straightforward. Everyone would take $20 to buy some cheap fundraising product once they got to their town, sell that to make enough to buy some more product, sell that until they had enough to rent a cheap room, and then stand out on a street corner each day for 40 days and witness and give lectures, and then fundraise as needed for food and rent.

The only problem with the plan, as I saw it, was that it was the same unimaginative and unproductive approach we’d been using for years with absolutely zero results to show for it. Street preaching is the pits for getting people to join. It’s just very rare for anyone to join that way. What really works is one-on-one contact with good, prepared people. That’s what they do in Oakland, where I joined.

So privately I decided I was not going to follow the agreed-to plan. I had other reasons too. First of all, I knew fundraising would be the surest, quickest way to sabotage the whole mission. Everybody in town would know I’m a Moonie, which to most people is worse than a leper, and that would be the end of it. I might as well go home. I had five years of solid experience in this regard to base my decision on.

On MFT it wouldn’t matter because I’d be gone in a few hours. Take the money and run. This time though, I wouldn’t be leaving. I’d be there for six weeks. So fundraising just seemed to me like an incredibly stupid plan, like throwing rocks at a hornet nest. All it would do is stir up a lot of negativity. Carl, Carol and Nina could do what they wanted in their towns, but I was going to try something else. I wasn’t sure what, but something.

The only thing I had been able to formulate with any clarity in my mind was that these 40 days were going to be an act of absolute faith for me. I was going to rely solely on God to guide me and provide for me. To make sure I didn’t chicken out, I resolved to take no money. The rest I would figure out when I got to Athens.

The day before the condition started we drove from Indianapolis down to the Louisville center, because all those folks were going out pioneering too. Kiyoko was staying with them now and wanted to make all of us a big meal to kick off the 40 days. It was very exciting and festive and everyone talked with great optimism.

That night while we were sleeping one of the Louisville brothers, a fantastic musician named Francis Buckingham, woke up screaming. Not some wimpy scream after which you then fall back asleep. This was a full-blown, chased-by-zombies, dismembered-alive, brain-melting, eyeball-hemorrhaging night terror.

The weird thing was something had woken me up just moments before. I was lying there feeling vaguely uneasy and suddenly Francis sat straight up and let out a hysterical shriek to kill the living and wake the dead. It startled me so bad I nearly peed my sleeping bag. It took a long time for me to finally fall back asleep. That was some strange shit to start a 40-day condition.

It was real funny, but only in the funny-the-next-morning kind of funny. In the safe light of day, which was beautiful and sunny and lovely, Francis’ freaky nocturnal outburst gave us all a good chuckle as we sat around the banquet table that Kiyoko had prepared. She brought out bowls of miso soup with seaweed and tofu, followed by plates of sashimi and hand-rolled sushi, primed with soy sauce and sparked by tiny mounds of green wasabi. Then she brought us bowls of hot steaming rice with a single raw egg cooking in each one, and all kinds of Japanese delicacies I had never tried before. It was as fine a last meal as I could want before launching this adventure, and I ate as much as I could. No telling when I’d eat again.

I’ve often noted that a big meal plays tricks on the mind about fasting, and right at this moment my mind was being tricked into thinking I could go without eating for the entire 40 days. Skipping meals never seems difficult when the belly is full. Logically I knew the fullness would only last a few hours at most, but somehow I didn’t believe it. Taking no money with me and having no prospects of acquiring food after this morning seemed insignificant.

After breakfast we all said goodbye and the Louisville members went off to their assigned towns and we went off to ours. An MFT van dropped the four of us off at the interstate because we had decided to hitchhike to Ohio instead of take the bus. We were traveling light, me probably lightest of all. I had only a small nylon book bag with a small towel, a change of underwear, a T-shirt, a pair of socks, a toothbrush, and several small blues harps. I had sent ahead a small box of my books to general delivery at the post office in Athens that I’d pick up once I got there. Everything else I was wearing, which wasn’t a lot because it was so hot. Already it was over 100, and it wasn’t even 10 o’clock.

We paired up for hitchhiking, me with Carol and Carl with Nina. The pairing was purely practical: Our respective towns were closer to each other, so it made sense to travel together. But I was secretly happy to be with Carol. She was probably my best friend in the center and I always felt comfortable around her. We had a good rapport. Plus she was very tough, a strong sister. I liked that. It felt more like equals.

I would have been happy to travel with Nina too, but it would have been different, and not necessarily in a good way. I still found her very attractive and that was a distraction I didn’t need. It was better for me that she and Carl went off together.

Carl and Nina went first and they caught a ride going east almost immediately. That encouraged Carol and me, plus we were feeling good after such a delicious and filling breakfast. So when we didn’t get a ride after an hour, it was a little bit discouraging. The sun and heat can beat you up in a hurry out there on the side of the highway.

Eventually we did catch a ride in the back of a pickup truck with some metal-heads who were playing Judas Priest at full volume. We may have been sitting in the bed of the truck, but we had no trouble hearing the subtle nuances of each skull-crushing power chord threatening to blow out the back window. For the next hour, in addition to the oppressive heat and glaring sun, which I already mentioned, we had the hot wind beating the tar out of us with Satan’s favorite house band providing the soundtrack of our demise.

It took a few more rides to reach Cincinnati, and by then I was whipped and ready to concede defeat. And I might have if Carol hadn’t been there. She could see how low I was getting. She smiled sweetly and hugged me and somehow give me some of her energy to keep me going. I mean, good God, we were barely into Ohio and I was ready to pack it in.

We went into a small truck stop to cool off and regroup. Breakfast was a distant memory and I was famished. Carol was too, but we agreed she shouldn’t spend any of her “seed” money, and I, of course, had refused to bring any money, which right now seemed terribly shortsighted. We got some ice water and sat in a booth. As far as I knew, this was dinner.

“I’ll be right back,” Carol said. She went over to the grill cook and flashed her best fundraising smile. I could see from the cook’s body language exactly what was happening. A few minutes later she came back to our booth with a couple cheeseburgers. It looked like manna from heaven.

We prayed -- really quick -- and I took a bite. “How’d you do that?”

Carol giggled. It made her feel good to come through in a pinch. “I just told him the truth, that we were missionaries on our way to a special assignment and we had no money and we hadn’t eaten all day. I also told him you were sick. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. I do feel like crap.”

After eating and cooling off and getting some water in us we both felt a lot better. The sun was lower in the sky, and though it was still very hot, it wasn’t as hot as before. It would be evening in a few hours, and we still had a long way to go.

We spent another hour trying to catch a ride out in front of the truck stop. It was starting to look like we were going to be spending the night sitting in our booth after all.

“I think we should pray,” Carol said. I agreed. We held hands and bowed our heads standing next to the guardrail. Every time a car or truck whizzed past it blasted us with hot dusty air. We were about one-quarter of the way to amen when a big rig pulled over and tapped the air horn.

We raced over and scrambled up into the cab. The only place for Carol was in the sleeper berth, which is exactly where she went and what she did. The trucker was a godsend. He was heading clear across Ohio to West Virginia and would be going right by both Athens and Marietta.

He was a young guy, Middle Eastern I think, judging by his appearance and accent. He loved being a trucker in America. We chatted mile after mile through the growing darkness while Carol napped. I didn’t tell him I used to drive 18-wheelers. It seemed so long ago. That was somebody else, not me. I pretended I knew nothing about it as he described the complexities of maneuvering through a 15-speed split-shifter. He was highballing over the rolling Ohio hills, and on the downhill sides he easily hit 80 miles an hour.

“I’ll bet you didn’t think a big truck like this could go so fast,” he said on one of the downhills.

I bet I did, but I kept it to myself. “Wow. You sure are a good truck driver.”

He just grinned with pride and kept on going.

We passed Athens sometime around midnight but my plan was to stick with Carol all the way to Marietta and then double back in the morning. No way I was going to leave her alone with the trucker. I knew she could take care of herself just fine and she would get to Marietta without any problem because God would protect her. But if anything did happen to her I would never forgive myself. I couldn’t take that chance.

An hour or so later he dropped us off on the outskirts of Marietta, just shy of West Virginia. There were no streetlights where we were and no homes or buildings. It was very dark and very hot. We started walking toward the lights of town.

We hadn’t gone far when we came to a baseball field. It was called Pioneer Park. Carol and I both looked at each other and laughed. It seemed like a good sign. We decided to spend the night there in one of the dugouts. We stretched out on the bench, her lying in one direction and me lying the other, our feet almost touching. Carol dropped off to sleep almost immediately.

If I had to guess I would say it was in the high 80s with 90 percent humidity, maybe because we were close to the Ohio River, or maybe because it was July, or maybe both. The air was so warm and heavy it was hard to breathe.

I laid there in the near-total darkness, trying to get comfortable on that hard skinny bench, feeling like I was suffocating in the heat and humidity. I listened to Carol snoring softly.

A chill crept over me and I started to shiver. I knew why. It was because of the darkness and solitude and opportunity they presented. But as weak and flawed as I am, I could never betray her. Carol trusted me absolutely.

I pushed the chill away and fell asleep.

We woke up just before dawn, said a prayer and then headed into Marietta. We found the college right away. It was still very early and most everyone was asleep. We located the men’s and women’s dorms, slipped inside to grab quick showers, and then met outside.

By now the sun was up and the campus was stirring. The moment had come to say goodbye, and neither one of us wanted to. We held hands and prayed, but when we finished we didn’t stop holding hands. Instead we looked at each other. I wanted to kiss her so badly, and it felt like she wanted to kiss me too. We both knew we couldn’t, so we hugged long and hard. My arms wrapped all the way around her waist and I squeezed her with as much love as I dared, and she squeezed back. We spoke silently, and then I walked back the way we had just come to the highway. 

Taking Athens by Storm

July 1980
Athens, Ohio

It took me longer than I expected to hitch back to Athens. Sometime mid-morning I got dropped off by a park with a reservoir on the east end of town. I walked the rest of the way, picking up loose change on the side of the road. By the time I hit downtown, I was 54 cents richer.

It was already oppressively hot. I walked around for a bit, hoping to find food. I went over to Ohio University and located the cafeteria, but it was pretty clear I wasn’t going to eat there without a student ID. I got it in my mind to look for a job, washing dishes or making pizzas or something real simple and basic that wouldn’t take up all of my time. So I looked all through downtown for help wanted signs but never saw any.

I wasn’t discouraged though. I’d finally made it to Athens. I sincerely believed someone in this town was waiting for me. All I had to do was find them. I felt certain I would meet them within a day or two. I wasn’t worried, just a little hungry.

During my exploration of the town I came to the Hocking River. There was a broad bike path and flat expanses of green lawns, but everything was pretty much deserted. It was too hot to be active. I followed the bike path upstream, where the river made a giant U around the southern end of Athens. As I walked along I saw a group of large gothic buildings across the river, up on a hill. Even in the daylight they seemed gloomy and menacing. As I got closer, the sight became even more ominous and evil.

It was obviously an aging state institution of some kind, and my instinct told me it was a mental hospital. It just had that vibe. I can’t really explain. All I knew is I did not want to go up there. Without knowing anything about Athens, I could feel those buildings harbored a history of unspeakable pain and suffering. If Satan had an address in this town, that was it.

I got to Richland Avenue. I could go left across the bridge, which would lead right up to Satan’s house, or I could go right toward downtown. Without hesitation I turned right and put Satan behind me.

The long circular walk tired me out and I spent several hours lying on the campus green. My legs ached and the fatigue seemed to press me into the warm earth. I laid there dozing, half expecting God to send whomever it was I was supposed to meet directly to me. Of course I knew it wouldn’t be that easy, but I wouldn’t have complained if it had happened that way.

It didn’t. By the time the sun went down I was no further along in my mission than I was when I hit town this morning. I still had had nothing to eat, and now I needed to find someplace to sleep. It was so warm out that I decided to sleep under the stars. I also wanted to claim the town spiritually, so I looked for the highest point. It appeared to be a hill just to the east, so I walked down Mill Street toward the river.

When I got to the bike path, I looked across the river at what appeared to be a small derelict structure on the opposite bank. It was bleak and uninviting. The roof was gone and trees and vegetation were growing all through it. I studied the contours of the land, and it seemed to me that there had been a bridge here at one time, but it probably washed away in a flood. In any case, I couldn’t get across here.

To my left was a large bridge, several hundred yards downstream. I headed for it and pretty soon was on the other side and climbing a steep grassy hill in the dusk. I got to the top and sat down. Athens at twilight stretched out before me. All the city lights and the dwindling remnants of daylight reminded me exactly of van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” Nothing had really happened yet, but everything felt right.

I prayed to claim the city for God, and almost immediately had a vague mental image of a group of people, gathered in a circle. It seemed to me they were praying too. I chalked it up to wishful thinking on my part and closed my eyes to go to sleep.

If I had been watching the sky more closely, I would have noticed a dark line on the horizon a few hours earlier. By the time it was on top of me, it was almost too late.

Lightning hit the hillside just behind me where I slept, jolting me awake with a monstrous explosion that shook the ground. The bolt must have been perilously close. Ozone filled my nostrils. The sky over Athens was arcing with electricity. I could see the rain moving rapidly toward me. I had to find shelter immediately before I was drenched. The wind was howling and when lightning lit up the clouds I could see them spinning. I fully expected a tornado to reach down at any moment and crush me like an angry finger.

Climbing the hill at dusk had been difficult. Racing down in the dark was suicidal. It was full of small holes and hillocks that could easily snap an ankle. But I had no time to be careful. It was already starting to hail, biting my face and arms. The hair on my neck stood up with static. I fully expected at any moment to know the truth of a million volts. I scrambled to the bottom in quick little hops as fast as I dared and prayed I didn’t get struck by lightning or break a leg.

The bridge overpass was too far away. I’d be soaked before I got there. The only shelter was down by the river, the derelict, roofless, overgrown hulk I had seen from the other side. I ran toward it just as giant drops of rain began to slap the ground all around me.

The building offered almost no protection, so I hugged the side as best I could, but the rain was finding me. It was too dark to see, and in hindsight I wished I had packed a small flashlight. I could only wait for lightning, and then use the moment of illumination to try to seek a way out of the storm. Somehow I managed to find a spot that offered modest protection. I hunkered down. The storm grew in intensity. It was now a full-blown tempest.

I thought it would blow over quickly. It did not. The onslaught went on and on and on. Rain was coming down in hard, blowing sheets, and the roar of the wind was awful. All I could do was squat there in the darkness. I was scared shitless. There was little doubt in my mind I was going to die. Either lightning would kill me or a tornado. I had never been in a storm this severe before, and never so exposed.

The swirling rain kept hitting me. I was starting to get wet and the wind was getting cooler. For the first time, I was starting to feel cold. If lightning or tornado didn’t get me, it looked like hypothermia might. I didn’t think to bring a jacket because it seemed unnecessary in July, which now proved to be another stupid decision. I pulled out my little towel and wrapped it around my head like a scarf. It wasn’t much, but it would help conserve body heat. I had learned that at Outward Bound when I was 18.

The rain forced me deeper inside the disemboweled concrete shell. I was afraid to guess what hazards might be in there: broken glass, jagged metal, bent rebar, holes in the floor. The lightning was still going crazy, but I could hardly make out anything. So I just inched my way forward as best as I could. I was terrified I was going to slice open a foot or hand or stumble and impale myself on something long and sharp and lethal.

I eased my sneaker forward -- and nothing. I had come to a ledge, and in the dark I had no idea how far down it went. I felt for a rock and pushed it over the edge. It hit a moment later on what sounded like a concrete floor. Thank God it wasn’t water. I carefully eased myself over in the dark, terrified my feet would never feel the floor. But they did and now I was inside.

Because there was no roof, the rain was pouring in from all directions. I felt along the wall and miraculously there was a recess. In the darkness, I made out what I thought was a small metal staircase and I carefully ducked underneath. Just as I did, a small animal scurried past my legs. As if I wasn’t scared enough already, being startled by some creature I couldn’t see was the last thing I needed. But I couldn’t dwell on it. I had to get out of the rain. In a few more minutes my clothes would be wet and I’d have serious problems.

I crawled into the tiny space and hunched there in the darkness for hours. I listened as the rain drummed on the steel steps over my head, forming large gurgling puddles in the dark all around me. I was cold and miserable and hungry and scared, but at least I was relatively dry, and right now that was absolutely the best I could hope for. My legs cramped as I squatted, but there was nothing I could do about it.

It was easily the longest night of my life. The rain continued for a couple hours, but as the intensity subsided, so did my fear. I realized I wasn’t going to die in this lonely spot after all. I just had to stay calm and wait for morning.

Eventually the rain stopped completely. The air was much cooler now and I was very chilly, but at least I had stayed dry, so it wasn’t as bad as it might have been. As soon as it was light enough to see, I came out of my hole and for the first time in several hours I actually stood up. It was a beautiful pain to stretch my legs after hugging my knees for so long.

The interior of my sanctuary was every bit as dangerous and forbidding in the dim light as I had imagined when it was in total darkness. The place looked like a bomb had gone off. There were sharp jagged edges everywhere I could see. One bad step and I could have easily bled to death here on the banks of the Hocking River and my body probably wouldn’t be found for days, maybe weeks. It was a horribly depressing thought to consider what could have happened.

I wanted very much to lie down, but I saw only one possible option. There was a short piece of rusted conveyor track, the kind with the large steel rollers, on the other side of the room. The room wasn’t large, but the journey from where I was to where it was had plenty of perils in the half light. I slowly picked my way across a floor littered with roofing boards studded with rusty nails and broken glass sticking up like icicles. It took a long time because I had to make very sure I could see where I put my foot with each step and pray I didn’t lose my balance and topple onto something deadly.

The steel conveyor track was only about four feet long, so I wouldn’t be able to stretch out. But at least it was off the wet floor. I put down my tiny towel and used my nylon bag for a pillow. The rollers were cold and hard and dug into my spine, but it was all I had.

The rest of the night I stared up at the stars where a roof had once been, wishing this godforsaken night would be over.

As soon as it was light enough, I escaped my riverside tomb and ran to the Stimson Avenue bridge. As I crossed back into town, I glanced at the river, which was now thick and brown and moving quickly. It had come up a couple feet during the night and was almost up to the floor of my forlorn little hovel. I had nearly gotten flooded out and didn’t know it. Mentally I added drowning to the list of things that could have killed me during the night.

I made a beeline for the campus. 

Betty Lou

July 1980
Athens, Ohio

My first priority was to take a hot shower and wash away the miserable cold that had crept into my bones and joints during the night. I found a men’s residence hall and went to the second floor. It was still very early and the shower room was vacant. I undressed quickly and jumped in the shower. Hot water never felt so good as at that moment.

Suddenly I heard women’s voices. Two of them. Shit. This floor must have been turned over to the female residents for the summer classes.

I heard them turn on the water in two adjacent showers, still chatting as they undressed. I wanted to call out, let them know a man was on the floor, but I thought better of it. If they called security I could end up in deep trouble, and all I wanted was to take a shower and split. I waited until I could hear both of them in the showers, peeked through the curtain to make sure the coast was clear, threw on my clothes without bothering to dry off and dashed out before anyone saw me.

Safely outside I relaxed. I felt much better. The terror of the storm was gone. The morning air matched my mood. Refreshed and clean. I was ravenously hungry.

I walked over to the dining hall to see if there was any possibility of scoring some free food, but it wasn’t open yet. And even if it had been, I could tell from the set up of the place that it was designed to keep out anyone not connected to the university. I fingered the coins in my pocket and decided to see what I could buy.

Downtown I found a small shop that was open and took a Dannon yogurt out of the cooler. It cost 52 cents. I knew it would barely make a dent in my appetite, but it was better than nothing. I went over to the courthouse, climbed the steps and ate it slowly while I contemplated my next move.

“You looking for work? I’m looking for somebody to help me out.”

The voice was not directed at me. It was coming from down on the sidewalk beside the steps, out of my vision. I finished the yogurt and came down the steps to investigate.

An older woman, probably in her fifties, with leathery brown skin and faded black hair had a younger guy, probably some hapless student, almost in the corner. “I can pay ya. C’mon, I just need somebody to help me out.”

The guy wanted nothing to do with her. As soon as I turned the corner and saw them, he slipped by her and made tracks to somewhere she was not.

“What kind of work do you have?” I asked.

She turned toward me and her wrinkled face lit up. “Oh, all kinds! Big storm last night! Got a lot of cleaning up to do. C’mon!”

“Wait a sec. Where?” I did not want to leave Athens under any circumstances. I felt spiritually protected as long as I stayed in the city limits.

“It’s not far. C’mon.”

“Where?”

“Chancey. C’mon, let’s go.” She had a hold of my arm now and was trying to get me to walk down Court Street. But I wouldn’t move.

“I’m looking for work and a place to stay. What kind of place have you got?” The woman looked like a country girl used to manual labor. Her face was deeply tanned and weathered. I envisioned a small farm or ranch on the outskirts of town with livestock and various chores to be done. There might even be a bunkhouse. I was cautiously optimistic this might be a good place to stay for a few days, until I could get my bearings.

“All kinds of work. You’ll see. C’mon!” She flashed a toothy grin. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, but I think it’s the teeth. On MFT I could always tell someone’s spirit by looking at their teeth. If her teeth had been rotten, discolored, decayed -- and especially if any front teeth had been missing -- I would have said no. But her teeth looked okay, so I decided to trust her.

“Where’s Chancey? Is that part of Athens?”

“Oh yeah! It’s real close. We just take the bus.”

“I don’t have any money for a bus.”

“You ain’t got fifty cents?” She was incredulous.

“I do not.” I turned out my pockets to prove it, holding in my palm two dull pennies.

She thought about it a second. “Okay, I’ll pay for ya. C’mon.”

As we walked to the bus stop, she told me her name was Betty Lou. “Everybody around here knows me,” she said, sweeping her arm in a wide arc. I suppose it was meant to put me at ease, but it had the opposite effect. Still, I saw no harm in investigating her proposal, so I got on the bus with her and she paid the fare. The sun was higher now and the coolness of the morning was quickly retreating. I watched carefully out the window, and when I realized the bus was leaving Athens proper, I suddenly got a bad feeling.

“Where are we going? I can’t leave Athens.”

“Take it easy. Chancey is just up here a couple miles. I told you. It’s not far.”

I tried to stay calm, but already I felt my spiritual protection waning as the bus drove farther from Athens. It didn't help that Betty Lou was continually evasive on any details about her property and the nature of work she needed done. I made up my mind that if I didn't like the look of Betty Lou's place, I'd hitchhike or walk back to Athens immediately.

A few minutes later it pulled into a tiny hamlet named Chauncey. “I thought you said this place was called Chancey,” I said.

“It is. That's how folks here say it.” She didn't seem to feel any further explanation was necessary, but I didn’t like the sound of it. Too dicey, too iffy, too risky. The more I thought about it the less I liked it. Now I was certain I had made a mistake coming here.

The bus crossed the Chauncey railroad tracks and stopped in front of a handful of rundown mobile homes. Betty Lou pulled herself up from her seat. “Here we are.”

My heart sank the moment my foot hit the ground. This was worse than Dogpatch. Dilapidated trailers on cinder blocks in bare dirt yards with animal crates, busted machines, rusted cars and every manner of castoff piled randomly across the landscape. It was thoroughly depressing. A violent storm like we had last night could only have been an improvement. A flood would have been urban renewal.

“There’s no work for me here. I gotta go back to Athens.”

“No! Don’t leave! C’mon inside, I need your help.”

A tiny dog with giant fangs met us at the door. I couldn’t believe my eyes and I stared at the huge teeth protruding in all directions from his tiny snout. It didn’t even look real.

“Git back, Termite!” she barked. “He’s a Tasmanian devil dog.” Her explanation meant nothing to me. All I knew is it was the ugliest dog I had ever seen. He was so excited to see Betty Lou that he began racing from one end of the tiny trailer to the other like a little furry, yapping bullet, until Betty Lou deliberately tripped him with her boot, sending him flipping end over end into the wall. “Knock it off, Termite.”

The place was filthy. Dirty dishes and spoiled food and cigarette butts and beer cans and pornography and trash and dog shit were strewn everywhere. Flies buzzed on everything. It stunk to high heaven.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to clean this up.”

“You think it needs it?” She paused to see if I got her little joke, but I was not in a humorous mood. She led me into the tiny bathroom and lifted the lid on the toilet. It was filled to the rim with turds. The sight and stench made me gag.

“Can you fix it? It stopped working about a month ago.”

“Hell no I can’t fix it! What’s wrong with you? I thought you had a farm or something with real chores.” I turned toward the door. “I gotta go.”

“Don’t be sore. Maybe you can help me with this.” She nudged me toward the back bedroom. There were more clothes and trash and cigarette butts and beer cans and pornography scattered over everything. She sat on the bed and began tugging at my belt.

“No! Don’t do that!”

“Why not? I won’t bite.” She flashed her teeth again and started to unbutton her shirt.

“Betty Lou! Stop! I’m not going to have sex with you. I can’t. I’m a missionary. I have an assignment from God and it’s in Athens and must leave. I made a mistake coming here with you. I have to go right now.”

I looked at her face, which was beginning to grasp that she was not going to get what she had brought me out here for after all. Once upon a time she had probably been pretty, but sun, liquor, nicotine and fornication had sucked the beauty out of her. She was prematurely old. There’s a saying I sometimes hear when blitzing bars that there are no ugly women at closing time. I think Betty Lou just might be the exception to the rule. No amount of alcohol could improve her ragged appearance.

I turned to leave, but she grabbed my hand. “Okay, okay! I’m sorry! I didn’t know. It’s okay. I promise I won’t do anything. Just please don’t go.”

“I can’t stay. There’s nothing for me here. I need to get back to Athens.”

She struggled to come up with a reason to make me stay. “You can help me pick blackberries.”

“Blackberries.”

“Yeah, down along the tracks. There’s tons of ’em. Whadda you say? Stay a little while and help me pick berries.”

I thought it over. I needed to eat something, and fresh berries might be the best I get for a while, so I agreed. “But then I’m going back to Athens.”

Betty Lou jumped up. “Sure, okay.”

Amid the chaotic, filthy clutter, one thing stood out in the bedroom as an anomaly. It was a professional sepia-toned photograph in a frame on the dresser of a young man in an Air Force uniform. Betty Lou saw me looking at it. “That’s my son.” The memory briefly flickered across her face as a mother’s pride, like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. It vanished just as quickly. “He’s not here right now. He’s out.”

Betty Lou led me along the tracks a short ways. She hadn’t lied. The blackberry bushes were heavy with shiny fat fruits. We picked them by the handfuls, many of which went directly into my mouth. Perhaps it was because I had not eaten in more than a day, but they were exquisitely delicious.

We chatted as we picked our way along the tracks and had come to a spot that was secluded from any of the surrounding homes. “Hey,” said Betty Lou. I looked at her and she made a devilish grin. “I’ve got blackberries in my pussy you can pick.”

I glared at her. “You ever speak to me like that again, I will ask God to kill you. And He will. You don't know who I am. I'm serious as a heart attack. If you touch me, you will die.” I watched my words register on her face. “Am I making myself clear? No more.”

After a long pause she said, “I’m sorry.” Her voice caught. “It won’t happen again.” She started to cry.

I didn’t say anything to make her stop. Crying was good. She needed to feel sorry for what she had tried to do, and tears were the sincerest form of repentance. I kept picking and eating berries. When she finally stopped, which wasn’t long, we walked back to the trailer. Something about her had changed. She was no longer a threat, at least for now.

“I’ve gotta go.”

“You hate me.”

“I hate what you tried to do, but I don’t hate you.”

“What can I do to make it up to you?”

“You don’t need you to do anything. I just need to leave.”

“Yes I do. I want to do something. I don’t want you to remember me like this.”

“It’s okay.”

“No it’s not!” Betty Lou was deeply distressed by what I had said to her. She knew she had done something wicked and she needed to fix it. She wracked her brain for some way to atone for her behavior. “Let me make you something to eat.”

The blackberries had done more to wake up my appetite than to satisfy it. I was, in fact, in desperate need of a hot meal. But I glanced around the disease-saturated kitchen and thought better of it. “That’s okay. I gotta go.”

“I’ve got some fresh eggs from my neighbor’s chickens. Let me fry a couple.”

Were it not for the extreme filth of the trailer, I would have gladly and eagerly accepted. I wanted to say no and leave as quickly as possible, but it suddenly seemed important that I let her do this. I debated it in my mind. I figured the heat of the frying pan would kill any germs.

“Okay. A couple eggs then.”

A few minutes later she put down a plate of fried eggs, mashed peas and a loaf of white bread with a tub of margarine. It wasn’t exactly appealing to look at. Betty Lou was no great cook. Yet, against all expectations, it was heavenly. She watched me devour everything. She was no longer a lecherous old bag. She had become, however briefly, a caring mother.

Somewhere in all the filth and clutter Betty Lou found a radio and turned it on. Patsy Cline's sweet voice found its way through the garbage and briefly transformed this disgusting trailer into a slightly better place.

"You want I should put on a gospel station?"

"No. Patsy is just fine. I don't care much for gospel. This is good."

“You look tired,” she said when I was finished. “Go lie down and take a nap.”

“I can’t.”

“I won’t bother you, I promise.”

I mulled it over. I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept a wink last night out in the storm, and now it was catching up with me. Truthfully, I really wanted and needed some sleep.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“If you do, God will strike you dead. I’m not joking.”

Hearing me repeat the warning somehow made it seem even more real. For the first time, I saw she was a little afraid. “I won’t bother you. Take a nap and then you can go -- if that’s what you want.”

Thunder rumbled outside. An afternoon storm was moving in. I couldn’t leave now if I wanted to without getting soaked. I went into the bedroom, closed the door and fell asleep. I never heard the storm.

I awoke suddenly to the sound of an angry male voice. “Who’s back there?” Heavy boots clipped the floor toward the door.

“It’s just a boy. I ain’t what you think.”

“How about I shoot him just to make sure? Breaking and entering. Burglar.”

“No! He’s leaving. He’s just a boy. He didn’t do anything. He was just hungry and tired, and now he’s leaving. It ain’t what you think.”

“You fuckin’ whore. He’d better be gone by the time I get back.” I heard the screen door slam, followed by a car door, the loud low growl of a V8, and tires spitting gravel.

The bedroom door flew open. Betty Lou pulled me up. “You gotta go. Now.” 

Mooney

July 1980
Athens, Ohio

My heart was still pounding as I walked from Betty Lou’s trailer out to the highway. The streets were wet and the summer air had cooled considerably from the afternoon storm. Within a couple minutes I had a ride into town. I trembled a little every time I thought about what might have almost happened. I didn’t want to believe the guy back at Betty Lou’s would have actually shot and killed me. But the memory of his menacing, unseen voice made me shudder.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Just had a close call with someone I hope not to meet again.”

“Where?”

“Chauncey.” I pronounced it Chancey, like Betty Lou did.

“Man, you do not want to go there unless you have to. There’s some bad characters there.”

“I know. I think I accidentally crossed paths with one.”

“You a student?”

“No. Just passing through.”

“Where are you staying?”

“I don’t have a place.”

A few minutes later the guy pulled up outside a house. The sign said United Campus Ministry. “If you need to, you might be able to crash here,” he said. “I know they let people sleep here sometimes in an emergency.”

I thanked him and got out. Just being back in Athens made me feel better. It was almost sunset, and I needed to find a place to sleep. It was too wet to sleep on the ground, plus I didn’t want to risk a repeat of last night. So I went inside, where a young guy was sitting behind a cheap desk, talking on the phone. He glanced up at me and told the person on the other end he had to go, and then hung up.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m new in town and don’t have anyplace to stay yet,” I said. “I don’t have any money and some guy I just met said you might let me crash here tonight. I slept outside last night, but the storm was really bad and I don’t want to go through that again.”

“You spent last night outside in the storm?” The guy seemed mildly shocked or concerned, I’m not sure which.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“By the river, in an abandoned building.”

I thought the interrogation would continue, but the guy seemed satisfied I was in need of some Christian charity.

“This isn’t a place you can stay. I can let you sleep here tonight, but you’ll have to leave in the morning and try to find someplace else. We don’t really have housing accommodations. It’s not a shelter.”

“I understand. I wouldn’t even be here except I’ve been out all day trying to find a place to stay and I haven’t had any luck and now it’s getting late. I’ll leave in the morning. I’m sure I’ll be able to find something suitable.” I hated being in such a helpless situation, having to rely on a handout, but it was getting dark and I didn’t have much choice.

As I stood there, somebody else came in. A tall, lanky guy who looked even more destitute than me. The fellow behind the desk barely looked up. He just said, “Hi, Richard,” and then led both of us to the basement.

It was a comfortable space, obviously used for social activities. There were two sofas, and we each took one.

I wasn’t worried about eating. The meal at Betty Lou’s would hold me over until morning. And I was relieved there didn’t seem to be any ill effects of her cooking. No stomachache. No urge to vomit. No sudden bout of diarrhea. It appeared I had escaped food poisoning, and I didn’t get raped, and I didn’t get shot, and now I had a dry place to sleep for the night. I didn’t have many blessings right at this moment, but I was willing to count all of them several times.

The other guy, Richard, was gone by the time I woke up. I washed up in the small bathroom and grabbed my stuff. It was still early and I didn’t see anyone around as I left. I made a mental note of the address in case I needed to come back. But my intention was to not have to.

Today I would look for a job. It seemed the easiest, most straightforward way to approach people without arousing suspicions. All I wanted to do was make some friends, and from those friends hopefully there would be someone I could witness to, and if all went well, they would come back to Indianapolis with me.

The job search didn’t go as planned. Nobody was looking for any help. The town was saturated with college students who needed part-time employment, even in the summer, so finding something to do wouldn’t be as easy as I thought. Even so, looking for work gave me a good excuse to meet people and try to establish some contacts.

Maria was my first real meaningful conversation. She worked in a pizza parlor and was very friendly toward me when I explained my circumstances. She said they weren’t hiring, but that I should check back later. Something might turn up. She must have thought I looked like I had missed a few meals because she gave me a couple slices of pizza to take with me.

Later I met Mark. He had a bagel buggy on the curb across the street from the Class Gate. He was very friendly too, and we talked for while. Mark had a small charcoal grill and he sold toasted bagels with a slab of cream cheese and some jelly. He said he did most of his business at night when students were out drinking and wanted a snack.

It was early afternoon and he didn’t have many customers. He was just sitting and playing his guitar. He had a second guitar and I asked him if I could see it, and we ended up playing together a little. I couldn’t really keep up with him, so I put the guitar away and took out one of my blues harps. I wasn’t great but I was okay and could improvise around what he was doing. Mark liked it and we jammed there on the street for a while. He told me he’d be playing at open mic later that night at a bar called Cripple Creek and I should come by and play with him. So I said okay. He gave me a toasted bagel with some cream cheese and jelly. He also said he had a vegetable garden at the house where he rented a room and I was welcome to come over and pick some vegetables.

I had been through all of downtown and not really found much else to explore job-wise, so I went over to the campus green and sat on the grass. A few minutes later I spotted Richard. He was coming straight toward me.

I hadn’t really paid much attention to him last night. I was just too worn out from the storm and the encounter with Betty Lou. But here in broad daylight, feeling more rested and alert and having had something to eat, I was much more keyed in on his disturbing presence.

Richard didn’t walk. He loped. He was exceptionally tall, but he hunched over so that his head led his body, bobbing like a bald orb in front of an ungainly torso that struggled to keep up. His long limbs seemed to be on the verge of careening off in some random direction at any moment. But somehow he kept coming straight toward me.

He stopped in front of me. “Mind if I join you?”

“Help yourself.”

I was not at all happy with the sudden company. His spirit was very dark, very low. I wouldn’t say that he was evil, but he certainly had witnessed and experienced a lot of evil in his life, and it had permanently marked him. If he had a name tag, it would say, “Sick Fuck.”

Richard had the thousand-mile stare. Never a good sign. His eyes were hollow and ringed with dark circles. The front half of his head was shaved clean, while wispy brown hair covered the back half. Separating these two hemispheres was a thin, pink, surgically straight scar that ran from one ear, across the top of his head, to the other. His teeth were in bad shape. Richard was scary to look at, even in daylight, and hanging out with him did not seem to me a wise way to spend my time, but I didn’t feel like getting up.

“Richard, right?”

“Yeah, but everybody calls me Mooney.”

That made me stop. It wasn’t unheard of as a nickname, but it seemed a strange coincidence given my own peculiar circumstances.

Richard, or Mooney, explained that his family had lived in the hills of southern Ohio for generations, working as miners, loggers, farmers, trappers, moonshiners -- whatever they could do to get by. They were hillbillies and always dirt poor. Eventually they came to live in a small mining community west of Athens called Moonville, which was deep in the hills along the railroad tracks.

I was intrigued by the name of this little town, so I asked him if it were still there.

“No. It’s long gone. There’s a small cemetery, but no buildings or any sign there was a town there. The only thing left is a small tunnel through the mountain. The train still runs through there, but the place is haunted, somebody wandering the tunnel at night with a lantern. Story is they were trying to get the train to stop, but got run over and killed.”

Like almost everyone else, Mooney’s family eventually left Moonville to eke out a meager living in the Appalachian forests with other hill people. It was always a desperate struggle for survival. Mooney went to school off and on, but kids always picked on him because of his height and his strange appearance. They called him Mooney because his family had been from Moonville.

One day he got in a fight with another boy and Mooney picked up a big rock and when the other kid wasn’t looking, bashed in his skull, killing him. The state determined Mooney, who was just a child, was insane and sent him to The Ridges, the sprawling asylum just south of Athens. That was 40 years ago.

His father was killed long ago in a mining accident, but his mother was still alive, living in a state-run nursing home in Columbus. He hadn’t seen her in decades. As far as he knew, he had no other family.

Mooney said he hated The Ridges, but it was the only home he had ever known, so even though he had been formally released from state custody years ago, he never strayed too far from the asylum. He lived on monthly disability checks from the state, which he spent mostly on weed and speed. When he ran out of money, he’d voluntarily check himself into The Ridges until he got another check.

So right at this particular point in time he was relatively flush with cash and wandering around Athens trying to score dope.

“You’re different from everyone else around here,” he said.

“How so?”

“You’ve got a light around you. I dunno, sort of like an angel or something. Different.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I didn’t say anything.

After an awkward pause, he said, “Why are you here?”

“I’m looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“How will you know when you find ’em?”

“I’ll know because I’ll be able to speak to them. I have some important things to say, but very few people are willing or able to listen. So when I find someone who will listen, and I’m able to speak freely and deeply, I’ll know it’s them.”

“And then what?”

“That depends. If they accept what I have to say, they may choose to come with me back to Indianapolis.”

“That’s where you’re from?”

“Yes.”

“There are others like you?”

“Yes.”

“So you have a tribe. A tribe of angels.” This concept seemed to fascinate Mooney.

“Yes, you could call us a tribe, I guess. But we’re not angels. We’re just ordinary people who know some things that most people don’t know.”

“You’re not ordinary,” Mooney said. “Maybe you’re not an angel, but you’re unlike anyone I’ve ever seen or met before. You’re an old soul, and you’re a kind person. I can tell that in people right away. I knew it when I met you last night. I wasn’t even planning on sleeping there last night, but something just made me go over there, and when I walked in and saw you, I knew there was something special about you. I was hoping to find you again today. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Why did you leave so early?”

Mooney looked away. “I had something I had to do.” Whatever it was, he didn’t want to talk about it, and I didn’t press him.

“Well, you found me.”

“I feel like a dog that’s caught the bus. I’m not even sure why I wanted to find you. I just did.”

I was thinking I should say goodbye and go. I really didn’t want to be around Mooney. His appearance gave me the creeps, and the possibility of him latching onto me and following me around like a puppy for the next 38 days wasn’t acceptable. I started to get up.

“I want to hear what you have to say,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not? You think I’m too stupid?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“Because what I have to say could change everything for you, and it wouldn’t necessarily be good. You’d be responsible for what you understand,” I said. I waited to see if any of it registered. “Right now you’re not held accountable for what you do because you’re ignorant of spiritual law. If I tell you what I know, then you’ll have to bear the burden of knowing.”

“Try me.”

“Really, it’s not a good idea. You’re better off not knowing.”

“Maybe, but I felt compelled to find you today, and I think this is why. I want to hear what you have to say.”

I thought it over. Mooney was, for lack of a better term, a zombie. At this moment, right now sitting here on the green with me in the middle of a hot July afternoon, he was lucid and alert. But I could tell this was a rare thing for him. Most of the time he was out of it. In Oakland we called people like him “bombed.” His spirit was dead. He was beyond salvation. He couldn’t join if he wanted to, nor would I want him to.

On the other hand, I needed to talk to someone. Perhaps teaching the Principle to Mooney, although ultimately futile for him, might help break the ice for me. Perhaps it would mobilize the spirit world to direct me to the person or people I needed to meet.

“Okay, I’ll tell you,” I said. “But on the condition you don’t blame me for what might happen to you later. I’m serious. Some of this is potent information. It might mess you up even worse than you already are.”

“I doubt it. Just go ahead and let me worry about it.”

So I started in, from the beginning. I explained about the duality of creation, how everything in nature is either positive or negative, male or female, because that’s God’s nature, and how Adam and Eve were the embodiment of that ideal, and when they grew up they would embody God’s nature in the flesh. But Lucifer, the archangel who took care of them, like a nanny, became jealous of how much God loved them, and Lucifer fell in love with Eve and wanted to have her for himself. So he seduced Eve, and afterward Eve understood that she was supposed to be with Adam, so she seduced Adam, and God’s ideal was ruined before it could reach its full potential. Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden and Lucifer became Satan.

I explained that the messiah -- Christ -- was the only person who could fix it, but for God to send the messiah to mankind, sinful men had to make certain conditions to prove they were ready for the messiah and wouldn’t reject him. Since God wanted to send the messiah right away, He chose Cain and Abel to make that condition, but Cain failed when he killed Abel. So instead of being able to send the messiah to restore Adam and Eve directly, the providence was delayed for many generations.

Then the burden of setting the proper conditions fell to Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and other figures in the Old Testament. I explained that that was all the Old Testament was about: the story of God trying to work through certain individuals to fulfill the necessary conditions so God could send the messiah.

After thousands of years, the necessary conditions were finally set and God sent Jesus as the messiah. But instead of accepting Jesus as God intended, the Jews murdered Jesus. They refused to believe he was the messiah because he did not fit their concepts of who the messiah would be. They were expecting a great warrior, but instead they got the illegitimate son of a carpenter, somebody everybody already knew. Except for a few people, they didn’t see anything remarkable about Jesus. So Jesus performed miracles and said a lot of things that at the time were very revolutionary and profound, to try to convince the people who he was. But in the end they rejected him and crucified him.

So now, today, God has to send the messiah again, what Christianity refers to as the Second Coming. After the crucifixion, the whole process started over of setting the necessary conditions so the messiah could come a second time.

“And then in 1920…”

Mooney jumped up. I was just about to tell him about Sun Myung Moon, but he interrupted me.

“I don’t want to hear anymore.” He pulled a $20 bill from his pocket and tossed it to the grass in front of me. Without saying another word, he loped off.

His abrupt departure took me by surprise. I had actually enjoyed teaching him the Principle. But I guess it was for the best. On some level he knew he’d be responsible if I told him who the messiah was, so he split. Better to not know.

It was getting late. I walked around for a while, and finally went back to the pizza shop where Maria worked, but she wasn’t there. The money from Mooney changed everything. I knew I wouldn’t starve.

I went to Cripple Creek and Mark was in there, sitting in the corner, playing and singing. He motioned for me to come over. I wasn’t sure if he still wanted me to play harp with him or not, but he said he did, so I got out my harps and after a few tentative bars we got into it. We played for a couple hours, and when he was done, Mark gave me the money from the tip jar.

I wanted to stay with Mark, because I was still high from talking about the Principle with Mooney and I wanted to try to witness to Mark. But he wasn’t interested. He took off to meet his girlfriend.

For the next several hours I wandered up and down the street, checking out the bars and other places people were hanging out. It was hard for me to meet anyone though, especially since everybody was drinking and I wasn’t. It was hard to fit in. Later I saw Betty Lou come out of a bar that was playing loud country music. She was with some young guy with stringy blond hair. He didn’t look like a student, but I don’t know. They were both pretty drunk, and I hoped Betty Lou didn’t see me, just in case. Seemed to me she was going to get laid, which I knew is what she wanted.

I thought about going back over to United Campus Ministry and see if I could spend one more night there, but I was afraid I might run into Mooney and I really didn’t want to see him again. I had to find something else.

Then I remembered seeing some cars parked in a gravel parking lot not far from the river. There was one in particular that caught my eye. It was an old Ford from the late ’40s. It looked like it probably still ran, but whoever owned it probably didn’t drive it much. Grass had grown up in tufts around the wheels. I felt pretty confident that sleeping in it, though technically a petty crime, involved low risk of getting caught. Since I had no other options, and the car mercifully was unlocked, I crawled in the backseat.

It had that old car smell, but it was otherwise fairly clean. If anyone did catch me, I’d simply tell them the truth, that I just needed a place to sleep for a few hours, that I wasn’t going to take anything. But no one bothered me, and an hour or so before sunrise I vacated the car, took another shower over at the campus -- this time at a different dorm -- and started anew the task of trying to make friends in a strange place. 

Maria

July 1980
Athens, Ohio

I’d retraced all of my steps in Athens, but it was a small town and there were not many places I hadn't been, except for The Ridges, and I had no intention of going there.

A Korean professor at the university, Dr. Kim, invited me to a party, which I went to. Almost everyone there was Korean. They were fascinated I was with the Unification Church, but they were extremely skeptical about Rev. Moon.

They liked me, that was clear, but Dr. Kim said he believed I was a good person anyway, that it had nothing to do with Rev. Moon or the church. I tried to explain some of my testimony about what I was like before, but he said Rev. Moon didn’t make me the person I was today. He said I was the same person all along, and I had simply used the church as an excuse to change my behavior. If only he knew.

More to the point, he said in Korea there was a long history about Rev. Moon, and most of it was very negative, and that made Dr. Kim and his Korean friends somewhat fearful of the church. He said Rev. Moon’s reputation in Korea was very bad. He said it was well known that Rev. Moon had sex with his women followers in Korea. I told him that wasn’t true, but he said it was, and all other Korean people at the party agreed with him.

I did my best to ease their fears, and I deeply appreciated the food they offered me, but I doubted these were the people I had come to Athens to meet. They had already formed strong negative concepts about Rev. Moon and I didn’t think I could change that in the short time I would be here.

Later I met up with Maria at the monument on the green. She said I could stay at her place tonight, but something about her made me think she only wanted to sleep with me. I would have liked to. She seemed super nice, and maybe it could have turned into a semi-permanent place to stay.

But I couldn’t go over there. Every time I tried to steer the conversation into something deep, she’d change the subject. So being alone with her in her apartment would probably go the wrong way very quickly. It would have negated whatever I came here to do, which so far was still hidden to me. Instead I chose to spend the night on the hill on the other side of the river, the same spot where I spent my first night and ended up being caught by the storm.

This time I wasn’t worried about a storm. It was too chilly. But it was better than spending the night curled up in a warm bed with Maria. That would have been the death of me. 

Desiree

July 1980
Athens, Ohio

It’s been raining off and on today, but I’m not concerned about it. I have a small three-bedroom house to myself where I can stay rent free for the remainder of the 40 days. It has a small sitting room in the front that makes a perfect place to teach the Principle. I also have a pickup truck to drive, a pantry full of food, and plenty of clean clothes to wear.

The day after I turned down Maria’s offer to stay at her place and slept instead on the hill, I grabbed a shower at the campus and then began walking along the giant crescent-shaped bike path by the river until it hit Union Street out on the west end of town. There was a large white structure by the river called White’s Mill. I walked along Union Street until I came to a place that led down to the river. There were some large rocks and I went and laid down on them. They were warm from the sun and it felt good because sleeping out last night got a little cold.

The warmth of the rock must have made me doze off, although I didn’t think I was asleep. I opened my eyes and saw some movement above my head. I tilted my head back and there was a giant blood-red moth on the side of the rock behind my head. It scurried out of sight. I jumped up. I had never seen such an amazing moth before, and I wanted to get a closer look. But I couldn’t find it anywhere. It drove me crazy because it couldn’t have gone anywhere. I searched and searched and searched, but never found it. There was nothing dreamlike about it. I felt certain I had seen it, but when I couldn’t find it, I could only conclude it must have been a dream. The sensation was so real it stayed with me as I walked back into town. It bothered me, but not in a bad way. It made me think something was going to happen.

I went over to the green and ran into Mooney. He was eating a whole pizza and invited me to have some, which I did. We didn’t talk about the Principle any more. We just ate and made small talk and then I said goodbye and resumed my exploration of the campus. I had been all over town, but I hadn’t explored too many of the OU buildings. Eventually, late in the afternoon, I ended up in the Baker Center watching TV because I just didn’t know what else to do.

As I mentioned, everybody was watching the “The Great Santini,” which I didn’t really like but was watching anyway. There was a scene of Ben and Mary Anne going into their new high school.

Mary Anne: They're staring at us like we're freaks or something.

Ben: No they're not. Look, just pick someone out. Go on up to them and say, "Hi my name's Mary Anne Meechum. I'm new in town, I’d like you for a friend." Just like that.

I could totally relate to Mary Anne’s predicament. I felt like a freak here in Athens. I wanted to follow Ben’s advice too, but I was afraid. It just wasn’t that simple to walk up to people and say, “Hi! I want to be friends so I can teach you Divine Principle and take you with me back to Indianapolis. How does that sound?”

A loud voice came through the open window from the green. I looked outside. It was a young Christian guy with long hair and a beard street preaching. I surveyed the lawn and saw there were others, pairs making their rounds of the students gathered on the green, witnessing to them about Jesus.

For some reason, perhaps because I was bored or tired of not meeting anyone I could witness to, I decided to have some fun. I went outside and positioned myself where I knew they’d come eventually. I pretended to pay no attention to them or to know what they were doing. It was only a few minutes before one of the pairs came over to me.

“Hello,” the girl said. “We’d like to tell you about our lord, Jesus Christ.”

“Praise the lord,” I said.

“Oh! You’re a Christian?”

“Bathed in the blood.”

They were delighted by my response. I’d been around born again Christians a lot and knew exactly how they talked and what they believed. I could easily fool them, and really that’s all I intended to do. I wanted to show them I could outdo them in the saying-all-the-right-things department, maybe push a few buttons.

“Are you a student?”

“No. I’m from Indianapolis. I’m here on a heavenly mission.”

The pair exchanged glances, not sure what to make of what I had said. “What sort of mission?”

“The lord sent me here to meet someone, but I don’t know who just yet.”

Now they were really perplexed. “What do you mean ‘the lord sent you’?”

“Exactly that. The lord told me to come here.”

“How did the lord tell you?”

“He spoke to me directly. He said, ‘I want you to go to Athens for 40 days and 40 nights and find someone I have prepared for you to save.’” I said this like it was the most natural, matter-of-fact thing in the world, that surely they too had had similar experiences many times themselves, and therefore would understand what I was saying without further explanation.

The look on their faces was priceless. I really shouldn’t have been mocking them like this, but I had been persecuted so many times by these people over the years that I didn’t really feel bad about one-upping them. I was enjoying it immensely.

They called over the guy who was street preaching. He apparently was in charge of this witnessing campaign. He introduced himself as Martin. They told him what I had said, and he pretty much asked me the same questions, to which I gave the same replies. I was mildly astonished they were taking so much interest in me. I honestly expected they’d move on soon and that would be the end of it. After all, I clearly did not need to be saved. It would have been a waste of time for them to keep talking to me when there were so many lost souls who needed them more. I was simply indulging in a little diversion, and then we'd would go our separate ways.

“We’re having a potluck dinner at our house,” Martin said. “Why don’t you join us?”

I was not expecting an invitation. “I couldn’t do that,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“We’d like for you to join us, unless you have other plans.”

“I don’t have any other plans, but I wouldn’t feel right about it. You don’t know me and it wouldn’t be fair for me to break bread with you without you knowing who I am. I have a little money if I get hungry.”

Martin became a little more insistent. “Please, come with us. You’ll enjoy it. We can get to know you better over a hot meal. What do you say?”

I was beginning to regret I had played my part so well, or having played it at all. I really, truly did not want to join these people under false pretenses. I had no intention of deceiving them like this. I was simply having a little fun at their expense, and now it was turning into a minor drama.

Of course, I could have come clean right then, and I almost did, but then they would know I was a Moonie and spread the word around the campus and that would ruin it for me. So I decided to keep up the charade a while longer. I’d go to dinner with them, get a nice hot meal, bullshit my way through the next hour or so, and then leave. It wasn’t honest, but I saw no great harm in it either.

“Okay. I’ll come.”

We walked a short distance to a pleasant looking home. A handful of young people were hanging out on the porch, and more were inside. I could tell at a glance they were all Christians, probably a church youth group. The potluck dinner seemed to be a regular event.

Martin introduced me to everyone. To my annoyance, he erroneously explained I was “just passing through,” but he correctly stated that I had accepted their invitation to dinner.

The air in the house was warm and pungent with grease and yeast. After five days of little to eat, it was the most heavenly odor I’d ever smelled.

“Come on in,” said a young pregnant woman, hurrying from the kitchen with a plate of fried chicken. “We’re just about to say grace. Come gather round.”

The place felt exactly like a church center, though it was definitely a home, not a center. It was clean and uncluttered, though not as sparse as the Indianapolis center.

Sixteen people, not counting myself, surrounded the dining room table, laden with steaming casseroles and fresh food. We were all holding hands, waiting to say grace. Everyone else seemed to know each other. All eyes seemed to be on me. I appeared to be the only guest.

One girl in particular caught my eye, easily the cutest girl in a room full of attractive young women. Her name was Desiree, and she never took her eyes off me. Every time I looked in her direction, she flashed a lovely smile.

There was also a guy named Kevin. I sensed he was the leader of this youth group, though nobody actually said anything. He kept watching Desiree watching me, and I think he was not too pleased about it. If he was jealous, and I think he might have been, he was required by the circumstances not to show it. He had to be nice to me because I was an invited guest and being rude to me would have been un-Christ-like.

By all rights I should have blurted out who I was and why I was in Athens, but I knew what would happen. They’d politely throw me out and then be on the lookout for me around town for the next few weeks and probably find some way to interfere. It would become their sacred duty, like Carson St. John. At least this way I could get a hot meal and remain anonymous. I didn’t want to mislead these people, or take their food under false pretenses, but I didn’t want to allow them to hurt my mission either. I had to let this play out.

So I decided to be truthful, but use terminology I knew was familiar to them. I wouldn’t mention the Unification Church by name, of course, and I’d refer to Father as the lord, because to me that was literally true. I knew they’d think I was talking about Jesus, but to me the meaning was exactly the same. I could just as easily be referring to Jesus, so to me it wasn’t a lie. I couldn’t help it if their understanding of scripture was so narrow. I would do my best not to mislead them any further, but I wasn’t going to volunteer too much information either. Of course, if they were to ask me directly about Father or the church, I will tell them the truth.

Kevin looked at me. “Would you ask the blessing?”

I knew what he was thinking. He was testing me. He wanted to see if I could really do it. I bowed my head and closed my eyes. Instantly I got that vision I had my first night on the hill overlooking Athens, of a group of people praying in a circle. This time the image wasn’t vague. It was very strong and clear.

“Heavenly Father,” I began in a reverent whisper. “Thank you for guiding me to this place of Christ’s love, to fellowship with my brothers and sisters, your beloved sons and daughters. Bless the hands that prepared this meal, so that it may give us the strength to magnify your glorious Son to this world. Amen.”

The next hour was devilishly tricky as I hewed to a treacherous middle ground between the truth and a lie. Everyone around me was quoting scripture left and right. I was certain they didn’t talk this way normally. Even born again Christians were not that rigid when they were by themselves. They must have been doing it for my benefit, trying to impress me with their knowledge of the Bible or their piousness or something.

I was sitting on the front porch step, plowing a deep furrow through my plate, a large plastic cup of sweetened ice tea next to me. A girl named Boo sat down next to me with a couple other people. Even though I’d clearly established my credentials as a saved soul, they were still not satisfied I was really saved. They wanted to know if I had been baptized or had experienced speaking in tongues.

To me these kinds of questions were nonsense. Even Christians couldn't agree on how significant these things were. I had no trouble telling the truth because I knew it wouldn’t matter. They wouldn’t throw me out. Yes, I told them, I was baptized as a baby. No, I had not experienced speaking in tongues. I knew that if my answers disappointed anyone, they would get over it.

I soon learned they were charismatic renewal, which placed great emphasis on experiencing the Holy Spirit. It was not unlike the Pentecostals, though I’m sure there would be heated debate if I were to bring it up. So I didn’t. But it was an encouraging sign to me. It meant they were more attuned to the Last Days, and that meant we had something important in common.

Getting through dinner without revealing too much wasn’t as hard as I thought. I was required to repeat several times what I had said earlier to Martin, and everyone seemed satisfied. As far as they were concerned, I was just a solitary guy doing a weird, though plausible thing. If anyone suspected who I really was, they didn’t say anything. I don’t think anyone did.

The meal was winding down and the table was being cleared. There was no hidden agenda, no elephant lecture or pitch to go away for a weekend workshop. Everyone was just relaxed and happy. I went into the kitchen to help clean up but was shooed back out into the living room. “You’re our guest,” said the pregnant woman. “No way am I going to let you wash dishes. Now git.”

I was thinking now would be a good time to leave. I wanted to make a proper exit, express my sincere gratitude for the meal and the fellowship and then disappear before anything bad happened.

“That was a beautiful blessing.”

It was Desiree. Her face was delicately freckled and framed by shiny strawberry-blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders. My first impression was her nose was too small for her face. It looked like a giant finger had pushed her little button nose into her face. But the more I looked at her, the more it all started coming together into an extremely pleasant picture. Desiree wore no makeup, nor did she need to. She was a natural beauty.

“Come sit with me,” she said, leading me over to the porch swing. We sat and began gently swinging back and forth in the cooling warmth of the dying light. Desiree was wearing shorts, and her bare legs were stretched out to the porch, smooth and muscular like a dancer. She had a slim waist and full round breasts with nipples on high beam. I could have stared at her all night, traveling from eyes to toes and back again and never gotten tired of the view.

I asked her how she had found Jesus, and her reply occupied a good chunk of the evening. I was no longer eager to leave, even though it was starting to get late and I needed to find someplace to crash.

“Now your turn. Tell my how you got saved,” she said.

“It’s a very long story,” I said truthfully. “I didn’t have the clear-cut experience you describe. Instead I’ve had many spiritual experiences through my life that ultimately brought me to a deeper understanding of Jesus.”

“Like what?”

“It’s getting kind of late. I really don’t want to bore you with my little episodes.”

“It's not boring. How about just a little bit? You can tell me the rest another day.”

“What makes you think we’ll meet again?”

“You said you’ll be in town a few weeks, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll come to our church, right?”

“If I’m invited, I suppose so.”

“Then I’ll see you again.” The triumphant finality of her reasoning made her smile, and that lit up my insides like a Christmas tree.

Her body language left little doubt in my mind she found me attractive, and not just on a physical level. She was intrigued. I was an enigma that she wanted to crack. I felt funny inside. I was very happy about her attention, and very much wanted to spend more time with her, but I knew it was futile. She’d reject me as soon as I told her who I was. I’d rather just disappear and not have to disappoint her, leave while I was still a mystery and let her just wonder instead of her learning the truth and hating me. Tonight, I figured, would have to be the last time we meet.

“I’ll tell you one quick story, then I have to leave,” I said. “It wasn’t a definitive moment, but it was significant. When I was eighteen, right out of high school, I hitchhiked across the country. I was an atheist at the time, or so I thought. Agnostic anyway. Anyway, my first night away from home I got stuck somewhere around Richmond, Virginia. It was getting dark. The road was being repaired, so it was hard for people to see me or even pull over. I was starting to look around for a place to sleep. And, figuring I had nothing to lose, I sort of said a little prayer. I said, ‘God, I don’t know if you’re there, but if you are, I could really use a ride right now.’ And about 10 minutes later, just as I was about to give up for the night, this beat up old station wagon stopped. There wasn’t even a place to pull over. They just stopped right in the middle of the road. Luckily, no one else was coming. Now these two old guys were drunk -- ”

The memory of that moment, which I had not recalled until now, suddenly put me back in Indianapolis at the plasma center last January. The two old hillbillies who were eyeballing me. My God. I never realized how much they looked like those two guys in the station wagon. Was it possible? It couldn’t be. And yet…

“What happened?” Desiree asked, snapping me back to the present.

“They said, ‘Hop in, kid. We passed ya a while ago and all of the sudden we got the idea we should turn around and pick ya up.’ And they drove me for several hours through the night, finally dropping me off deep inside North Carolina, within easy distance of my destination. They were both just as nice as could be. I knew God had sent them.”

Desiree was wide-eyed. “That’s incredible. Where’d you sleep?”

“In the underpass, lying in the space beneath the girders. I remember there was a lot of truck traffic. The entire structure shook every time one passed, just a foot over my head.”

“Wow. That’s some adventure.”

I laughed. If she liked that, she’d love the rest of my testimony. Too bad I’d never get a chance to tell it to her.

Kevin stepped out of the house onto the porch. Immediately on his heels was a very beefy, middle-aged man I had not seen before.

“I’m Phil,” said the big man, sticking out a hand as brown and round as a small ham. “I couldn’t come over earlier. Had a roofer at the house giving me a bid. But Kev wanted me to come over to meet you, before you left town. I’m the associate pastor of this little flock.”

He crushed my right hand in his meaty paw. It was thick and tough from many years of manual labor, yet his nails were perfectly manicured. He had money. He rocked back slightly on the heels of his work boots, as though shootin’ the shit with the boys.

“Desiree, sweetheart, would you give us a few moments with our guest?” Desiree slipped inside without saying a word. I suddenly got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Phil didn’t look like the kind of guy who would be satisfied with my glib answers about myself. I braced for what I expected would be a thorough grilling until he had exposed me.

“Kevin tells me you’re just passing through. He said you’re a Christian on a spiritual journey of some sort.”

“Yes, sir. But I’m not passing through. I came to Athens for 40 days, and at the end of August I’ll be returning home to Indianapolis.”

“Where do you live in Indianapolis?”

I almost started to give the address of the center, but I thought better of it. So I said, “Broad Ripple.” If he asked me for an address, I’d give him Sylvia and Elwood’s.

Kevin, all red hair and beard, was beaming. I assumed he was taking great delight in seeing me about to get crushed like a bug under Phil’s verbal boot.

“How did this revelation come to you?”

I think they already guessed who I was and were trying to flush me out. Two males, older, naturally suspicious of outsiders, protecting their flock.

“Many ways. I’ve had dreams,” I said truthfully. “And I’ve prayed a lot about it. It’s kind of hard to explain, but the message came to me clearly that I should come to Athens for 40 days and 40 nights. So I did. I very much appreciate the hospitality and the hot meal -- I have not had a decent meal in a week -- but I don’t want to impose any further, so I should be going before it gets much later.”

“You’re not on the run from the law, or from something else, are you?”

“Oh no!” I said. For the first time I laughed. “What I told you is the truth, as God is my witness. Nobody’s looking for me. I’m here of my own free will.”

“Where are you staying?”

“I don’t have a place to stay. I’ve slept outside a couple times. The lord provides.”

“The important thing is you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior,” Phil said with deep earnestness.

“I do.” It was a truthful reply, though my understanding of the salvation Jesus provided was far different from what these Christians believed. Or to put it another way, I accepted what they believed, but they would not accept what I believed.

I suddenly realized that Phil and Kevin were witnessing to me sure as shit. They weren’t trying to expose me. They were trying to save me. They believed I was teetering on the edge of salvation as they understood it, and I only needed a tiny nudge to fall safely into their flock. This revelation eased my mind considerably.

“Have you been baptized?” Phil asked, more earnest than ever. “Have you been reborn in the spirit?”

“No and yes. I was baptized as an infant, but I understand what you mean, and the answer is no, I have not. But I have been reborn in the spirit.” I said this with bored finality. I expected to walk away from this at any moment.

“How long have you been in town?”

“Five days.”

“And you’ve been sleeping outside?”

“Sometimes. As I said, the lord provides.”

Phil laughed. “I wouldn’t put myself on par with the lord, but I’ve got a small place you can stay through August. After that I need to rent it out to students. It’s yours if you want it. I’ve got some work I need done around my place. I can pay you too. Wadda ya say?”

“That’s very kind of you. But I couldn't. I don’t think that would be fair to you. You don’t know me.”

It was so ironic. The first time someone offered me a long-term place to stay, and I was trying to figure out how to turn it down because accepting it would mean doing so under false pretenses. I could tell them the truth and kill the deal, which would probably have long-term negative consequences for me anyway, or I could try to keep a lid on my identity and not get too involved with these people.

But they saw it much differently. I was on the verge of being saved, and they were not about to let me walk away if they could help it. The more I resisted, saying I couldn’t take advantage of their generosity, the more determined Phil was that I should take it.

It was like being with a girl who wanted to have sex. The more I said no, the more she wanted it. Saying no was like throwing down the gauntlet. It was a challenge. They wanted to prove they could overcome my resistance. Perhaps the most powerful aphrodisiac of all is the word “no.” It certainly seemed to be having that effect on Phil.

This time, because it wasn’t sex but something lesser, Phil won. He wore me down until I finally agreed to come check it out. I told him that maybe I could stay a couple nights and do a little work and make a little money. I didn’t say this to Phil, but pretty soon I hoped to meet the person or persons I had come to find in Athens, and then I’d move on.

As we walked over to Phil’s place on Mill Street, he said, “I want to tell you a story.”

It was the same one I’d heard a million times about the man caught in a flood. When the flood waters were up almost up to the steps, a truck came by and offered to rescue the man. “No, thanks,” he said. “The lord will provide.” When the flood was up to the second floor, a boat came by. “No, thanks. The lord will provide.” And finally, when he was trapped on top of the roof with the waters still rising, a helicopter came by. “No, thanks. The lord will provide.”

The man drowned and went to heaven. He said, “Lord, why did you let me drown? You were supposed to provide for me.”

And the lord said: “I did. I sent a truck. I sent a boat. I sent a helicopter...”

“Message received, loud and clear,” I said, a little ticked off at being patronized. I could tell Phil a thing or two if he'd let me, but naturally this was not the time or place to get into an argument. Phil, after all, was trying to be generous, and I wouldn’t be helping him much if I started bitching.

Phil unlocked the door and switched on the hall light. My heart wanted to fly. It was huge.

“It ain’t much,” Phil says. “You’ve got a little kitchen here with a gas stove and a refrigerator. Plates and glasses and silverware are in the cupboards and drawers. Across the hall is a little sitting room and there’s three bedrooms and a bath down the hall. It’s yours through the end of August. After that I’ve got students renting it out.”

Phil said we’d talk more in the morning. He gave me a spare key off his key ring, said good night and walked up the short path to the back porch of a large brick house. I didn’t know what to think, except that if something seemed too good to be true, it probably was. I started looking for a catch.

I walked into the first bedroom. Nothing remarkable. Fairly small. I peeked into the bathroom. All seemed in order. Not a great deal of mildew. The second bedroom likewise was small and nondescript. But when I walked into the last bedroom, my jaw dropped.

On the wall was a cheap print of “Starry Night” tacked onto the wood paneling. It was just like I had envisioned my first night on the hill, overlooking Athens.

I opened the drawers of the dresser. They were full of clothes. Jeans, shorts, underwear, socks, T-shirts, even a jacket. Everything was my size. There was even a pair of work boots, also my size.

I sat on the bed for a long time in utter astonishment. For the first time, it crossed my mind these were the people I had come to Athens to meet. I really did not believe it could be true. These were born again Christians. Without a doubt they would turn on me as soon as they found out who I was.

On the other hand, no one was better prepared for what I had to say than a Christian who believed the world was in the Last Days. It was the ultimate irony. The people who could best accept Father, were the most likely to persecute him. And his followers.

I finally decided it was really out of my hands. I could not have orchestrated this series of unlikely events if I had tried. I would pray about it and take it one day at a time, always hoping for the best but expecting the worst. 

Phil

August 1980
Athens, Ohio

I slept until almost nine o’clock, which for me was extremely late. I didn’t realize how exhausted I was from nearly a week of sleeping outside and wherever for a few hours at a time. Phil, however, had been up and about for hours, banging noisily outside my window in the yard. When I finally emerged, his face registered mild disapproval.

“Get enough rest?”

“I’m sorry. I haven’t had much sleep lately. You remember that storm a few nights ago? I was stuck in that all night, out by the river. This is the first time I’ve slept in a real bed in a very long time. I didn’t know how exhausted I was. I’m sorry.”

“I guess you do deserve a rest,” said Phil. “Well, let’s just try not to make a habit of it, okay?”

He returned to the matter at hand. All around the perimeter of the yard were old railroad ties, sunk flush to the ground. Someone long ago had put them in as a landscape border, and at the time they must have made a sharp, black outline between the grass and flowerbeds. Now, however, they were warped and bent and faded with age.

“I want you to dig up these old railroad ties. Tomorrow, the guy I lent my truck to is going to bring it by. His name is Pete. Then I want you to load the ties into the truck and take ’em to the dump. Think you can you handle that?”

I assured him that I could. Phil went inside his house to do whatever it was that he did, and I set to work on liberating the old ties from the earth. It was backbreaking work. The ties had become thoroughly fused with the dirt through the years, and it took a great deal of digging to free each one. By noon I was barely half done. I didn’t hear Desiree sneak up behind me.

“You look like you need a drink.”

The suddenness of her voice so close behind almost gave me a heart attack, but when I turned around I nearly dropped dead. If I thought she was pretty last night, today she was gorgeous. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore cutoff jeans and a Great America T-shirt. On her it looked like high fashion. A nearby cicada filled the air with approval.

I was embarrassed for her to see me so sweaty and dirty. But she didn’t seem to mind. She held a plastic jug with light brown liquid and a couple of plastic cups.

“Want some tea? I just made it this morning. I hope it’s not too sweet.”

“Good grief, you ’bout scared me half to death. Sneaking up on somebody when they’re working.”

“Aw, don’t be mad. I was just having a little fun.”

I smiled back at her. “I ain’t mad. Just startled me, that’s all. And yes, I would love something to drink.”

We sat down in a couple metal lawn chairs under a large elm tree and drank the tea. I think I consumed about half the jug before I came up for air.

“I must look a fright,” I said, wiping my forehead and neck with a small towel. I hadn’t shaved since I’d been in Athens, and now a light beard was forming along my jaw.

“I think you look handsome. Honest dirt is beautiful dirt, that’s what my mama always said.”

“I like your mama already.”

“I was hoping to see you today,” Desiree said.

“Why?”

“I kept thinking about you last night when I got home. I’ve never met anyone like you. You seem different from other guys. You don’t seem preoccupied with … you know. Plus you seem really interesting. You’ve had a lot of adventures. I want to hear more about you.”

“A few adventures, but nothing to write home about. I’m just trying to find my way in the world, same as everyone else, and hopefully leave it a little better if I can.”

“See, that’s what I mean. You’re modest on the outside but on the inside you’ve obviously got a lot going on. I’ve never been anywhere. I’ve lived in Athens my whole life and I’ve never had any adventures. I hope we can be friends because you seem like someone I should know.”

“We are friends, Desiree. We became friends the moment I met you.”

Her faced reddened like the subtle cherry in her yellow hair. It was as close a declaration of love as I could muster without stepping over some invisible line.

“Desiree! Don’t stop a man when he’s working! He might not get started again!”

It was Phil, calling from the back door of his house.

“Oh, Phil. You’re gonna work this poor man to death. Even the lord rested on the seventh day.” Desiree may have retreated quietly last night when Phil asked her to, but I could see now she wasn’t intimidated by him. “You are going to pay him, right?” Phil closed the back door without answering.

“Well, I’d better get going. Phil will get mad if I hang around with you the rest of the day, even though I’ve got nothing else to do.”

“You don’t work?”

“I’m a physical therapist. I work with handicapped children. I don’t have any sessions scheduled for today, so I guess you could say this is my day off.”

“Wow. That takes a special kind of person, somebody with a deep heart to work through all that difficulty and frustration.”

“I love it. Even one tiny little improvement makes it all worthwhile, especially when there’s not supposed to be any improvement at all.”

“Do you believe in miracles?”

“You mean like Jesus healing the cripple? No, I don’t think that’s realistic. I believe in tiny miracles. And every one of them takes hours and hours of hard work. But I do invest my faith in that effort, so when there is a positive change, I know God was behind it.”

“You have healing hands. That’s a great gift.”

Desiree blushed again.

“Desiree!” Phil yelled.

“Keep your shorts on, Phil. I’m just leaving.” She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “I’d better get going. But I want you to come to prayer circle with me on Friday night.”

“I’d love to.”

Desiree left and I returned to work. Her presence lingered in my mind and somehow made the digging easier. By mid afternoon I had all the ties out of the ground, ready to load in the truck whenever Pete brought it by.

I took a shower, changed clothes, and then walked over to the grocery store to spend the 20 dollars that Mooney gave me. I just bought a few basics: a few cans of soup, a box of Bisquick, a dozen eggs, a small tub of margarine, a small jar of instant coffee, a pint of milk, and a few other non-perishables. Nothing extravagant. Purely survival food.

Then I went over to Mark’s house. He was about to head out, but he told me to help myself to the vegetables in the garden. I carried home two sacks of tomatoes, peppers and squash. If I rationed carefully, I could probably survive on what I had for the rest of the month, if I absolutely had to. Somehow I didn’t think I’d have to, but I felt secure. I didn’t need to worry about eating.

After I put all the groceries away, I went up to Phil’s house to see if he had anything else he wanted me to do. I was also curious to see if he was going to pay me for the work I had done. I didn’t want to ask, but I was flat broke again and would like to have a little pocket money.

Phil was in his basement, puttering around in his woodworking shop. This was his passion, and he had outfitted his shop with a full array of serious, heavy-duty power tools: table saw, radial saw, band saw, tile saw, drill press, and his newest acquisition, a joiner / planer. Phil was marking a large pine board to make a bookshelf.

He enlisted me to help, although really my job was to listen to Phil tell me about himself. That was fine with me. As long as the conversation didn’t focus on me, I was content.

Like myself, Phil did not have a job. The associate pastor thing was purely ceremonial. Unlike myself, Phil had a lot of money from speculating in the commodities market, trading in futures, which struck me as very curious thing for a born again Christian to dabble in as a vocation, given the general bias against gambling.

I didn’t say this, of course, but Phil must have encountered this sort of disapproval before because he launched, without any prompting from me, into a lengthy explanation about why it wasn’t gambling, but simply studying the markets carefully and then making shrewd transactions, hopefully at the right time. I looked around at all the expensive toys Phil had accumulated in his workshop. The commodities market had been good to him.

I asked him what he did with the soybeans, because I couldn’t really fathom what trading in corn and soybeans and pork bellies was about. He just laughed.

“I just sell ’em before the contact expires,” he said, like this was the most logical and obvious thing in the world. “What am I going to do with a truckload of soybeans in my driveway?”

“But what if the price goes down?”

“Then I take the loss. I’m not taking delivery. That would be foolish.”

“So sometimes you lose money.”

“Yeah, I’ve lost money. But mostly I make money.”

Phil started talking about puts and calls and options and short-selling, but I didn’t get any of it. It all sounded way too complicated to me. All I knew was fundraising. Buy low, sell high. I guess what Phil was talking about was similar, but it would take a while for me to get the hang of it, and there didn’t seem much point right now in me spending much time doing that.

I listened carefully for Phil to say something about his faith, some clue that he was not satisfied or didn’t understand something. It would give me an opening to begin presenting some of the concepts I really wanted to talk about. But he never did. Phil was fulfilled.

It would have been stupid for me to bring it up myself, because it would just invite unwanted scrutiny. So, having nothing further to talk about, I helped Phil build the bookshelf. I briefly wondered if he was going to pay me for helping him, and when he made no mention of it, I went back to my little house and made my first dinner.

I chopped up a few vegetables, stirred them into some Bisquick batter, and cooked it in a small skillet with a bit of margarine. I couldn’t believe how something so simple could taste so good. I called my little concoction manna cakes, like manna from heaven. I felt blessed.

Later Phil invited me to come to Bible study in his house. He had just finished off the attic into a small apartment and he was eager to show it off. Phil and his wife, who was much younger than him, already had four other women renting rooms in the house. Plus there was the little house I was in, which could easily sleep five or six, and now the attic apartment. So I guess if the commodities market didn’t cooperate, Phil still had steady income collecting rent from about a dozen students during the school year.

Phil had installed a small wood burning stove in the attic to heat it in the winter. But it had a strange flue, one that made a complete loop before exiting out the side wall. Phil said it was the latest design, meant to improve heat transfer to the room, instead of all the heat escaping out the flue. I was suspicious but didn’t say anything. Perhaps he knew best. Personally, I’d be worried about carbon monoxide not being able to escape, never mind the heat. Thank God it was summer. I’d hate to be the first guinea pig who had to try it out.

Bible study was uneventful. The same tired ground Christians always cover, rediscovering the same lessons over and over. I found it very boring, but I wanted to be a polite and gracious guest, so I played my role. The best part was I got to meet the four women who lived in Phil’s house. If any of them were at the potluck dinner last night, I didn’t remember them.

After Bible study, one of the women, Cindy, asked me if I wanted to go with her downtown to the Hobbit House to hear some jazz. I really wanted to see Desiree, but I didn’t know where she lived, and even though I didn't like jazz especially, I thought it would be good to go someplace new and possibly meet some new people.

It was okay, but nothing special. I didn’t really meet anyone. I left after a while because I was kind of tired from digging all day and I wanted to go to bed. When I prayed, I had the same mental image of a group of people gathered in a circle. But this time there was something different. I could vaguely see a modest white house. It appeared to be on the corner of an intersection. The image didn’t really mean anything to me, but it was there.

The next morning Pete brought by Phil’s truck, a ’53 Dodge pickup. It was dull with age but in reasonably good shape. I worried, though, that it wouldn’t be able to haul the railroad ties, because they were so heavy. Pete assured me the old truck was up to it.

I liked Pete right away. He was calm and smart, laid-back but wise. I felt an instant rapport with him. I guessed him to be in his early 30s, which made him several years older than me, but I sensed someone who might be open to some of what I had to say. We chatted for a few minutes. He said he was an “independent contractor” -- a handyman -- who did odd jobs around town. “Jack of all trades, master of none.” He had borrowed Phil’s truck for the past week to put up some drywall in a rental house that Phil owned. Phil was turning out to be quite the landlord.

I had assumed Pete was going to help me with the ties, so when he said he had another job to get to I was a little disappointed. He gave me directions to the landfill and gave me the keys. It took me about an hour to get all the railroad ties into the truck. The springs on the old Dodge sagged almost down to the axel as I pulled out onto Mill Street and headed toward the highway. The directions took me north past Chauncey, but this time I wasn’t worried. I felt I had spiritual protection to leave Athens.

I found the landfill without any problem, unloaded the ties, and was heading back to Athens when the engine started making a funny noise. Before I could do anything it died. I was right at the exit for Chauncey. It was absolutely the last place I wanted to be.

Smoke was coming out from under the hood. I knew what had happened. It had run out of oil and seized up. This was going to be expensive, and for me, catastrophic. I knew Phil would blame me, even though it wasn’t really my fault. Still, I should have noticed the gauges. Phil was going to kick me out. Everything had finally fallen into place, and now this. I felt sick.

I walked into Chauncey to find a pay phone, praying I didn’t accidentally run into Betty Lou. I hated making this phone call even worse than the time I had to call Sawamukai back when I was in Kansas. I dialed Phil’s number. I told him the engine seized up. He did say much, but I could tell he was royally pissed. He said he’d be right there, but he didn’t show up for several hours, giving me a good long time to think about the wrath coming my way. It was like sitting on death row in the hours before the execution. I felt utterly helpless.

When Phil finally did arrive, he tried to appear calm, but he was still seething beneath the surface. Phil was a bear of a man who probably had been a magnet for trouble in his youth. I knew the first time I met him that he had a short fuse. I also knew he was going to blow up at me, but there was nothing I could do.

My attempt at an apology was all it took to light him off. He yelled at me for not seeing it was overheating, and he is absolutely right. I made a desperate offer to get it fixed somehow, but Phil shut me out. This old truck was his baby, and I had dropped it on its head. Phil may have had forgiveness in his heart someplace, but it would take a long time to dig it out. I resigned myself to being the Class A fuck-up he now believed me to be. There was no way I could make this right.

A tow truck arrived while we waited and hauled off the Dodge, to where I don’t know. Phil and I drove back to his house in silence. He pulled into the driveway, got out, and slammed the back door, leaving me standing in the driveway not sure what to do. I figured my time here was up. I took a shower while I was still able, then sat in the living room, waiting for Phil to come and throw me out.

When he didn’t, I decided to risk knocking on his door. I couldn’t stand the suspense. I was as repentant as I could be, but the situation was beyond my control.

“Phil, I feel terrible about the truck,” I said when he opened the door. “I take full responsibility. I’ll do whatever I can to get it fixed.” I meant it, even though I knew it would be impossible for me in the month or so I had left in town.

He was still angry, but he had mellowed a little. “You should have seen she was overheating. There’s no excuse for that. But you couldn’t know she was low on oil. That’s Pete’s fault. He borrowed her all week and didn’t check the oil.”

Pete must have found out what happened and convinced Phil it was his fault, not mine, that I couldn’t know all the idiosyncrasies of a vintage truck. I think, but I’m not absolutely certain, that Phil was going to throw me out but Pete talked him out of it. Pete said he would pay for a new engine, which Phil knew wasn’t possible because Pete had no money. I sensed Phil was beginning to accept it as just an unfortunate loss, like a bad trade on the commodities market.

So the upshot was I could stay. But I felt I must do something to take spiritual responsibility, since I, and I alone, knew that that was what this was really all about. I couldn't fix the engine, but I could try to restore some spiritual foundation for me to continue. I knew of only one thing that might possibly make it right: a seven-day fast.

I scrapped my plans to make another manna cake for dinner. All the fresh vegetables from Mark’s garden went into the fridge. I just hoped they'd keep for a week.

I was too depressed to eat anyway. And I didn't want to see anyone, especially not Desiree. There was nothing to do now but brace myself for a long and difficult week.