Why Aren't You Smiling? (11 page)

“Where'll you go?” asked Kai, looking dubious.

“I told you about my friend, Rick, in Oregon, right?”

“The Christian guy?”

“Right. Well, he said it was OK to visit. I figure I'll just go up there and stay.”

“How long?” Kai carefully examined his handball as if he'd never seen it before. “Forever?”

“Haven't decided.” This was true. Who could say where my Path would take me? “Thing is, my parents are pretty uptight. Just to set their minds at ease, I'll start by telling them I'm just visiting a school friend at his family's ranch. You know, like a summer vacation thing.”

Kai nodded. “Good thinking.”

“But I need someone to pretend to be the school friend with the ranch and call them up. That's where you come in.”

Kai frowned. “Yeah, then I get in trouble when they figure out you've flown the coop.”

“They don't have to meet you. Just phone up and lie about your name.”

Kai smiled a sneaky smile. “Yeah, I could.” He lay down flat on my bed, causing his tee-shirt to ride up a little, which exposed his stomach and the thin line of hair beneath his bellybutton. I got a sudden and severe case of vertigo and had to lie down next to him.

“But if I'm some kid with a family ranch, won't they want to speak with my dad or something?”

“Just say your parents are out and I'll have Rick call later. He can be the dad.” I was pretty sure Rick would actually be too holy and virtuous to lie to my parents, but I'd deal with that disaster when and if necessary.

“Well, OK,” agreed Kai. “But you owe me a favor.”

“Name it, it's yours.”

Kai glanced around my room and shrugged. “Can't come up with anything right now. We'll keep it on account.”

“What's that mean?”

“Means I get to ask for something later.”

I rolled over on my stomach to hide my sudden, inexplicable, and humiliatingly visible state of arousal. “OK,” I agreed. “I'll have my mom call you tonight. I'll write everything down so there's no screw-ups.” My heart was beating fast and shallow like a guinea pig's. For the first time, my plan seemed like more than a fantasy, like it might actually work.

That night after dinner, I came into the living room where my mother sat on our ancient oatmeal-colored sofa, sipping scotch and reading
The New Yorker.
I tried to act normal, but feared that I looked like the devious little sneak I was. “Uh, Mom?”

“Hmmm?” She didn't look up.

“You know how I'm supposed to go to camp this summer?”

“Yes?” she sounded like she didn't want to be interrupted. This, I thought, could work to my advantage. She wasn't giving me her full attention.

“Well, I've kind of been thinking I don't want to go after all. I know I said I did because it was the last year before I was too old, but now I think I've had a sort of spiritual growth spurt. So I may
already
be too old.”

She wrenched her eyes from her magazine and gave me a stern glare. “You are
not
sitting around this house all summer. You've got to get out and mix with kids your own age.” She furrowed her brow with concern and gave me the tight, nervous smile she wore when worried I wasn't “well-adjusted” (which was a lot, because I wasn't). “Camp is a privilege. You think we had summer camps when I was a kid? Ho, ho, ho! We had a little thing called
work.”

“Well, you see, I have this friend at school who's going up to his family's ranch in Oregon, and he invited me along.” As I spoke, I almost felt devil horns grow out of my skull. “They're really nice people, and I thought I could go up there instead.”

My mother put on a meditative look and sipped her scotch. “Who's this friend?”

“His name is Riley. You never met him.” My mother furrowed her brow. It wasn't that she doubted Riley's existence, she just needed assurance he wasn't a nincompoop or a hooligan (her favorite terms of disparagement for inadequate teens). “He's this really smart, cool guy. He's on the debate team, and his side always wins. He's like their star quarterback, or whatever the debating equivalent is.” My mother's eyes glistened greedily for the trophies she wished I was bringing home. “His dad is some kind of author guy, and his mom, too. They're very literary.”

My mother's face turned cold. Had I gone too far, made my lie transparent? “I hardly think his mom would be an author
guy”
she said matter-of-factly. “What sort of ranch is it?”

So there were different kinds of ranches. Who knew? “I think he said it was like a cow ranch.” I switched back to safer territory. “Riley likes to go on long nature hikes up there. He says it's bucolic.”

My mother smiled at my Vocabulary Builder word. “You know what I miss about the country? A nighttime sky full of stars. You wouldn't think a little thing like that could make such a big difference, but it's huge.” I could see that she wanted me to go and experience the miracle of stars, but wasn't yet quite convinced.

“It'd just be for a couple of weeks.”

“I suppose they'd drive you up.”

I hadn't figured on this either. “No, They're flying to Seattle to visit Riley's Aunt Lola and driving down. I'll take the bus and meet them.”

“Can I meet this Riley?”

“No, he's already up there in Seattle. The family is flying up to meet him. But he'll call here tonight.” With each fabrication, I felt my lies gain persuasiveness, even as my soul corroded. I promised myself that after this escapade, once I was living in the commune and leading the life of a good Christian hippie, I'd never ever lie again. “His family's really nice, too. His mom buys 12-grain bread.” This was three grains more than even my mother's favorite brand. “They play Scrabble and never watch TV.”

To my surprise, these lies were setting my mother completely at ease. I saw in her eyes that she wanted badly to believe in Riley with his debate team, 12-grain bread, and bucolic ranch. Me, I wasn't on any teams, didn't belong to any clubs, watched too much TV, played no instruments, and showed no particular talents of any sort. Knowing someone like Riley meant I wasn't totally hopeless.

“They sound like an exceptional family.”

“They are.”

“And Riley sounds like an exceptional young man.”

The way my mother said this, so impressed with outward signs of success and status, made me want to pour her drink over her head. “Yeah, he's totally exceptional. So what do you say?”

“I'll speak with your father.” Victory! He wouldn't object if she didn't. “I think this “will be good for you.” Then I heard her mutter almost to herself, “And I'm pretty sure it's not too late to get a full refund from your camp.”

In the end, Kai's phone call was enough to satisfy my mother and I wasn't forced to try and drag Rick into my plot. Instead, I called him to work out the details of my visit. The phone rang seven times before someone finally picked up. “Rick?”

“No, I'll get him,” said a male voice. I could hear an achingly sincere Cat Stevens song from
Tea for the Tillerman
playing faintly in the background. “Why do the children playaheyehey?”

“Hello?”

“Hey Rick, it's me, Leonard.”

“Lenny!” said Rick with what sounded like real enthusiasm. “What's up?”

“I was wondering if maybe…” Nervous tingles covered my scalp as I suddenly worried he wouldn't want to see me. “If maybe I could, you know, come up and visit you and the commune for, like, some spiritual guidance. I think I need a teacher.”

“Everyone is a teacher,” said Rick. “Each of God's children has a lesson that only he or she can teach. If you set your heart to learning, the whole of God's creation becomes your classroom.”

“But I thought maybe you could give me special instruction.”

“All are welcome at Pleroma.”

“Pleroma?”

“The commune. It's a Greek word for the totality of the divine. We've been doing a lot of research on original Christianity before it got corrupted by the Churches. There's a lot to learn. What's in your heart is most important, but it doesn't hurt to understand with your head, too. Dig?”

“I think so.”

“You really want to learn, don't you, Little Lenny?”

“More than anything.”

“I don't see why you can't come up for a visit. There's no law that says the path to Wisdom has to be lonely, at least not all the way.”

“I'll take the bus up the day after my birthday, on the twelfth.”

“Show up any time. Our doors are always open. God Be With You.”

“God Be With You,” I echoed.

The line went dead. I was ecstatic, although I'd liked it better when the word for goodbye was Peace.

I
began the interminable Greyhound bus ride in a rush of excitement (escape!) but eventually found myself bored by the endlessly repetitive landscape of freeways, billboards, and shopping centers outside my window. America desperately needed a few mountains topped with turreted castles and/or tiger-infested jungles. I tried reading but the jiggling of the bus made it impossible to focus my eyes. Instead, I shut them and ran through my well-worn repertoire of Rick fantasies. With the commune so imminent, I dared not imagine what it would be like, and instead pictured us in an Old West setting that borrowed heavily from the TV series
Kung Fu.
We wandered through unspeakably hot wooden Old West towns surrounded by mesas while spreading the Wisdom and the Truth of Love, a power we'd harnessed to the point where we were capable of levitation and dematerializing just before the bullets shot at us by spiritually unenlightened gunslingers shattered our bodies.

After what seemed like forever, I disembarked at a tiny, dingy yet brightly-lit bus station. The place smelled of Lysol and was overrun with bustling, cheerful grandmothers carrying shopping bags. I lugged my suitcase to the front of the building and pushed through the exit's glass double doors. I found myself on the main drag of a small town full of brick buildings, shingled houses, and big trees gone all leafy and green for summer. The late afternoon sky was overcast with dark clouds and the air was warm, heavy, and moist, which felt good after the frigid air-conditioning of the bus. I took the folded sheet of paper with directions to Rick's place out of my pocket. I'd read and reread it so many times I had it memorized, but still harbored a morbid fear of losing my way.

As soon as I'd determined the proper direction and set off, I felt the first large drops of a summer rainstorm. I hadn't brought an umbrella as my fantasies always had me arriving under sunny skies. I doubled my pace, trotting through a neighborhood of medium-fancy single-story tract houses utterly identical but for their different colored aluminum siding. The lawns were meticulously mowed and maintained with naught to distinguish between them but the occasional lawn jockey, garden gnome, or pseudo-colonial lamppost. The driveways were full of big American cars.

This was the sort of cultural backwater people back home called “stuck in the '50s.” The equation went through my head: identical houses = identical people. How could Rick live in such a spiritually bereft place? I'd been expecting a huge, old-fashioned rural farmhouse with hippies in overalls tending crops, barefoot children playing on a tire swing, and a rusty old pickup truck in the driveway. Then I figured it out. Christians preached to the people who needed it most, like Jesus preaching to the tax collectors and prostitutes. In America in 1975, nobody was more in need of saving than these materialistic, conformist suburbanites.

No sooner had I come to this conclusion than the housing development abruptly gave way to a neighborhood of shabbier and less uniform homes. Here the houses were spaced further apart and often separated by vacant lots or thickets of trees. I traversed these semi-rural blocks with a mounting sense of Destiny. Finally I arrived at a block with only one house on it, a dilapidated two-story with mildewed white shingles. It looked sort of lonely, sitting there in a field all by itself. Just then the rain began in earnest, pummeling me with warm water. I trotted fast as I could up the long walkway, my huge suitcase banging my shin with every step. Drenched and exhilarated, I reached the sanctuary of the front porch and set down my burden.

The sky was nearly black, but despite the gloom there were no lights on behind the curtains of Rick's front window. I was scared I'd come to the wrong place and scared I'd come to the right place. I tried to shake off some of my wetness, a lost cause. I probably looked like a drowned rat. Worse, I suddenly felt shy. Rick's invitation had been so casual. Did he even really want me there? It suddenly seemed unlikely. I would have turned around and gone home had it not involved facing my parents and their insufferable concerned questioning.

Instead, I steeled my nerves with a sharp intake of breath and rang the bell. I waited in what I hoped looked like a relaxed stance, my hands shoved casually in my pockets and my weight all on one leg. Nothing happened. I pushed the buzzer again. I couldn't hear any ringing, was the bell broken? I risked sounding desperate by adding a knock. Just as I was resuming my Casual Guy Waiting On The Porch Pose, the door swung open.

“Yo?” It was Bandito Mustache Man. “Oh, you must be Leonard. Rick said you'd probably be showing up. C'mon in.” I wanted to ask his name – I couldn't very well call him Bandito Mustache Man – but worried that would sound too uptight and formal, so instead I wordlessly followed him inside. I found myself in a living room dominated by a long table that had been turned into homemade altar with candles in wine bottles (unlit), hand-painted cardboard butterflies covered in glitter, and a few crosses painted day-glo colors, all arranged around a giant oil painting of Jesus, who looked extremely well-scrubbed and extra-holy in his white robe and hundred-watt halo. The rest of the room contained all the usual furnishings, including a sofa on which lay Rick, passed out cold. Sitting at his feet reading a book was Beth. She looked up at me and scowled. “Well, look who's here.” She sounded bitter.

“Hi,” I said in my friendliest tone. She was going to be part of my new family, maybe. “I'm here to see Rick.”

Beth shook Rick's shoulder. “Wake up, honey. Another lost little boy for you to save.”

“I'm fifteen,” I corrected, bristling.

Rick's eyes fluttered open. He turned his head and peered in my direction. “Is that Leonard? Why's it so dark in here? Someone turn on some lights.”

Beth put down her book and switched on a lamp. “You people need to eat more carrots.”

“Didn't know if you were really coming,” yawned Rick, his face still semi-immobilized with sleepiness. He heaved himself up to a sitting position.

“Anyone want to get stoned?” asked Bandito Man.

“Later.” Rick dismissed him in a commanding voice. Bandito Man shrugged and slunk out of the room.

Beth scowled at me. “If you're looking for a place to sit around smoking weed all day, this ain't it.”

“I don't want that at all, I'm seeking Love,” I explained earnestly. Why did Beth hate me so?

Rick, finally awake, sat all the way up. “Oh, Little Lenny. The most incredible thing has happened since I last saw you.”

“He had a vision,” said Beth. Even this was uttered in an accusatory tone that implied I was unworthy of hearing this wondrous revelation.

“I was out back tending the tomatoes…” began Rick.

“On acid!” came Bandito Man's voice from another room.

“Quit
eaves
dropping!” admonished Beth.

Rick continued. “And a man appeared to me. He was old, very old, but there was nothing hunched or… diminished about him. He had an air of total peace and tranquility. I knew he wasn't Of This Time because he was dressed in a white robe and sandals. He said he'd come to have a chat with me about God.”

Bandito Man stuck his head back in the room. “Get ready, Leonard, you
will
be tested later!”

Beth glared. “Some privacy, please?”

Bandito Man withdrew.

Rick went on. “I asked him how God could let there be so much pain and suffering in the world. And the man said that this world was not the creation of God, but the work of The Demiurge,” he paused. “The force some call Satan.”

“Boogity, boogity, boogity!” shrieked Bandito Man, popping his head through the door and waving his arms wildly. I laughed.

“OK, Jonas. Go ahead and make fun,” said Rick, offering a cold, begrudging smile. “Things often seem silly when we don't understand them.”

I felt relieved to finally know Bandito Man's Christian name, but embarrassed to have laughed at something Rick didn't find amusing. I urged him along. “So, if this is Satan's world…”

“Right,” said Rick, turning back to me. “The physical world is a prison of pain and evil, full of temptations meant to lead our souls astray, but within each of us is a spark of the divine light, fallen into the captivity of darkness and matter.”

“And Jesus was pure Spirit,” added Beth, “come to teach us the Truth.”

“So the man in the vision was Jesus?” Though still sopping wet, I sat down on an old armchair. Nobody seemed to mind.

“No. It was Peter of Bruys,” said Beth, warming up. “A medieval holy man.”

Rick nodded. “And he told me that anything which ties us to the material world like meat, sex, drugs, or money is evil, and should be avoided as much as possible. Only Love is good and free.”

Jonas quit lurking by the doorway and marched angrily into the room. “And the moon is made of green cheese! Listen, kid, this whole Cathar trip is based on a hallucination.”

“We're Albigensians,” Beth shot back sharply.

Rick smiled, a vision of tolerance and equanimity. “It doesn't matter what you call us, Albigensians, Cathars…”

“The plural is actually Cathari,” corrected Beth.

“Peter of Bruys lived in the 12th century,” explained Rick. “He and others saw through the lies of the Roman Catholic Church. The clergy had all these sacraments that only they could perform and they charged the peasants for them. They got so greedy they started selling indulgences that were supposed to get people into heaven! You've heard of
buying
a stairway to heaven? Well they were
selling
one. The Cathars wouldn't submit to the false teachings of the Church, so to protect its privilege, the Pope declared them heretics and ordered a crusade against them. The Albigensian Crusade.”

Beth joined in, her voice indignant. “Whole
towns
were slaughtered with thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children burned indiscriminately, even people seeking sanctuary in
churches!

“Peter of Bruys was burnt in a fire of crosses that he'd made himself,” added Rick.

“That was earlier,” said Beth with an expression of condescending tolerance I recognized well from my parents' academic friends. “In 1130. The Albigensian Crusade wasn't until the 13th century.”

Jonas pointed at Beth and Rick while addressing me. “Since they started in on this whole Cathar trip, these two have been floating around acting all holy, coming up with all these new rules. No acid. No meat. No unnecessary sex, whatever that means. No swearing. It's fucking perverse.” He turned to Beth and Rick. “You two might also remember the Pharisees who put the letter of the law before the law of Love.”

“We're just seeking freedom and God in our own way,” said Rick calmly.

“You're free to leave any time,” added Beth. “We're not a cult.”

Rick smiled winningly. “Right, if you have another path to follow…”

“Then follow it,” finished Beth. “We only ask that while living under this roof you abide by the rules of our order.”

“The rules of this house are not the rules of your order till Marjorie says so, it's her house,” trumped Jonas.

“They're not really rules,” said Rick. “More like guidelines or suggestions. Creatures of the flesh can never be entirely free of the corporeal.”

“Nice to know,” grunted Jonas, his bare feet slapping angrily against the wooden floor as he left the room.

I wished everyone would stop bickering. I wanted to get back to the Cathars. Some semi-conscious part of my brain had already imagined myself back home at one of my parents' dinner parties telling people I was a Cathar. It sounded way cooler than saying I was a Taoist, at least half-again as esoteric. Plus there was a whole legacy of persecution I could lay claim to. I turned to Rick. “So Peter of Bruys told you to become a Cathar…”

“No, we just talked about God and stuff.”

“Rick didn't even know who he'd been talking to till I figured it out.” Beth nodded in satisfaction, trying but failing to suppress a small, prideful smile.

Being a Cathar lost a little of its luster. It was Beth's thing. Just then I saw the telephone sitting on an end table and I remembered I'd promised to call my mother the moment I arrived. “Could I use your phone?”

Beth glowered. “Long distance?”

“I'll call collect.”

While dialing, I felt a wave of mortification. Not only were Rick and Beth not leaving the room, they'd stopped talking and were watching me, ready to listen to every word. The moment I finally got my mother on the line, I cleverly preempted a lengthy conversation by immediately launching into the sort of minor deception I'd learned from watching way too many reruns of
I Love Lucy.
“Hey, it's me. I got here OK and everything's fine, but I can't really talk now because someone here is waiting to use the phone. I absolutely promise I'll call you tomorrow, or maybe I'll even write you a letter, wouldn't that be better?”

As I burbled, my mother was speaking, too. “Leonard? Slow down, I can barely make out what you're saying. Is everything OK? Could I speak with Riley's mother or father?”

“OK, I
seriously
have to get off the phone now.”

“All right,” said my mother with a sigh. “I'll call you tomorrow.” I wished I'd figured out a way not to leave Rick's number with her, but had found that degree of manipulation beyond my capabilities.

“OK, bye.” I hung up and turned to Rick with a bright smile that implored him to ignore the unseemly call. “So, where can I put my stuff?”

“What's this about someone wanting to use the phone?” asked Beth.

I felt my face redden. “White lie. She's overprotective.”

Rick stood up. “I guess you can stay in my room for now.” Beth shot him a dagger-eyed glare but he ignored her. I picked up my suitcase and followed him down the hall. Rick's room, lit only by an uncovered bulb on the ceiling, was small and austere, containing an old wooden dresser and an unmade single bed. The walls were empty except for a large plaster crucifix on which hung an anemic Jesus with raspberry red blood trickling from his impaled hands and crown of thorns. I set down my suitcase by the bed and went to look out the window, which faced a scraggly vegetable garden currently getting inundated by the monsoon. I was also thrilled to see a teepee in the distance.