Who could possibly be against life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? It's that last part though; that "pursuit of happiness" part that is a fundamental pillar of all that is truly fucked about this existence.
It sounds good at first. "Hey, who could be against the pursuit of happiness?" But it's really just code for the right to sell dump-truck loads full of pure, useless, and unadulterated bullshit to any brain-dead hick willing to shell out good money for it. America's founding fathers had the brilliant foresight to know this. Thanks to their efforts, the world would never again lack for these kinds of marks, for they would be wearing big, colorful signs advertising that fact.
Case in point: one particular cult that masquerades as a legitimate church, the Jehovah's Witnesses. These guys rule the American bullshit ethos.
Generally, "the pursuit of happiness" has included the right to sell your useless bullshit anywhere a sign hasn't been posted first (and even then, only during certain hours.) But the Jehovah's earned my respect years ago by not willing to stop at the sidewalk, but instead to bring their vending booth right into my house. Hell, I'd let them in, offer them coffee or tea, sit down at the table and seriously discuss scripture with them for about ten minutes before breaking out a Death's head bong, taking a rip, and shot-gunning it back out in their direction. If that didn't end the scripture session, offering them a hit before threatening to take another rip generally got the job done.
Then again, these were the days when I would call up the toll-free numbers on the infomercials at three in the morning and tell the operators that spray on hair was a gift from the angels and that I was sure it was going to cure my horrible case of AIDS. I have long since lost my appetite for being confrontational with the bullshit sellers, as I had long given up the infantile belief that people should never lie. Who am I to say what delusions people or people shouldn't indulge in?
But never underestimate the ability of the initiated to cross that line. The fuck of it is, it wasn't even really their issue but mine.
The JWs had taken to posting their bullshit-sellers every Tuesday and Thursday morning at my particular train station of late. Can't say as I blame them…where are you going to find more lost souls needing salvation than at rush hour?
I couldn't help but notice over the course of several days though, that the up front bullshit sellers were a pair of quite fetching ladies. Dressed in surprisingly tasteful business casual garb, sporting their most recent copies of The Watchtower, they were not only showing ankle, but also exposed parts of some very nice calves.
I would walk right on by of course, pretending like all the other commuters not to notice as I descended into the station and got ready to hop on my express train. It occurred to me however, that the Jehovahs were in fact using sex to attract attention to their cause. Normally I would say there is absolutely nothing wrong with this, but of course, the JWs are as fundamentalist and anti-sex-outside-of-marriage as it gets. Not believing in the secular holidays of their nation, this group isn't about to gather round for a viewing of Desperate Housewives. And yet, here were their animated, storefront mannequins looking like extras from Sex in the City.
Of course, I don't know why I should have been shocked by this degree of hypocrisy. What's more American than using sex to sell something that isn't supposed to be sexy? But obviously it stuck in my craw, or else I wouldn't be telling you the story that now follows.
As weeks passed, I began discerning that these two objects of attraction, holding out their dogma for any to browse, were distinctly different. The younger one had the glazed look of the righteous in her eyes, and though her olive complexion, long flaxen hair and steel gray eyes held an exotic attraction for me, she always wore a scarf to cover her neck and a telltale double chin hanging over it.
The other one though, a bit older with her dishwater blonde hair and slightly more generous hip curves…she reminded me of someone from my own sordid past. As I began to notice her day after day, her smile was always a bit more beguiling. Her necklines plunged just a bit further down on her business suit, and there was just the tiniest crease in her forehead when she smiled that made me feel extra naughty. I could tell she hadn't always been a Jehovah; she was on display as a reclamation project, a soul who has once been lost to the world of drugs and sex and well…someone I probably would have wanted to get to know in the biblical sense of knowing.
I began to make eye contact with her whenever possible, making sure to smile myself, and found myself wondering what it might be like to speak to her, to see what she was thinking; perhaps to see if she was really just playing along with this whole act to get a second chance in life. Such a contact would not be easy though. The younger one would certainly cast a weary and suspicious eye upon someone like me trying to make small talk with her sales partner. The fact was she was already casting a weary and suspicious eye on my curious leer at the older woman.
Then there was the older guy built like a brick shithouse in his smart gray slacks, always standing just in the background. He was of course the "pimp." At first I thought he was there to make sure the two of them didn't get ambushed by smarmy, liberal-secular intellectuals or perverts like me. As the weeks passed though, and I found myself more and more drawn to the older woman, it began to seem as though he were here to make sure they didn't get out of line. Never let the women out of your sight. That's what the Old Testament would advise for sure.
I came to believe, however, that he and the younger one were in cahoots to keep physical and spiritual tabs on the reclamation project, who must surely still be weak of spirit and wanting to escape so badly into a world of vice and sin. If I were to succeed in such an endeavor, I would have to find a way around the other two.
So one day Thursday I simply approached the older, world-weary beauty and asked if I could have a copy of her Awake! magazine. I could feel the eyes of the other two JWs riveted upon me. But instead of playing to their expectations, I pretended to peruse the magazine, and went on my way to work.
I repeated this maneuver the following Tuesday, ambling amiably up to my Jehovah lust object and asking if she also had a Watchtower. She told me her younger partner, Darla, had a copy available. I could feel Darla's glare burning a hole in my neck.
"And what's your name?" I asked my Jehovah love bunny.
"Debbie," she answered with a smile that, well…didn't belong on one of the Lord's chaste and wizened sheep. Once more I did a quick perusal, thanked them both sincerely, and was off to my train again.
The following Thursday was the day I had chosen to make my move. I approached Debbie and asked if there were any further reading material that might be made available to me.
"Well our supervisor Doug frequently has extra pamphlets." She indicated that Doug was the big guy, the manager who was really a bouncer. The less I got him involved, the better, but I knew there would likely come a point before that would no longer be an option.
"You know," Debbie started, "you could just ask us some questions if you're feeling a little nervous about your interest. Or you could come to one of our services…I'm sorry, what's your name?"
"Ron. Ron Jeremy. And I'm sorry but I'm terrible with names myself. What was your name again?"
"Um, uh…Debbie."
"Hi Debbie."
"Hi."
The slight stumble in her manner tipped me off that Debbie at least had an awareness of someone named Ron Jeremy, which no good JW should really have.
"Well, the fact of the matter Debbie is that I'm not particularly interested in joining the Jehovah's Witnesses per se, but I thought maybe I could find an explanation in your magazines that might clear up my dilemma, but you're right, I haven't been having any luck. I've been going through all of your literature because something about an experience I've had with a Jehovah's Witness has really been bothering me."
"Whatever could that be?" Debbie asked with genuine sincerity. I could sense Darla and Doug starting to bristle.
"Well, it's that last year…last year…I mean…oh man, this is really hard for me to say."
"Oh, that's all right Ron," she said with a voice brimming with a rich empathy I found irresistible in all my lower chakras. "Take your time. You don't have to say anything until you're comfortable." Now she placed her hand on my arm. Frankly this was all going a bit too well. I took a big, calming inhale.
"Last year I had an affair with a married woman. And I know that was wrong of me, I know that was a sin. One night we were out and she told me she and her husband had recently left a very conservative church group because they had become more secular in their belief systems and were opening up to other avenues of spirituality. Well, I mean the next thing I know, we're arranging to spend more time together, more time alone together and her husband is always so busy in his job and he's never at home. And you know Debbie, sometimes in moments like that, when…when the spirit is weak you know…" I paused right there to look in her eyes to see if she did know, and everything in her body language was telling me she did.
"And then one things leads to another, she tells me she and her husband have a special arrangement, and the next thing you know you're making plans at odd hours on odd days, and it's like going into a strange kind of denial, as if this were all perfectly normal." Her hand moved from my arm to my hand, and gripped it gently. I turned my big, watery and vulnerable eyes on for Debbie.
"For three months we would meet, three, maybe four times a week in locations out of town and passionately explore each others bodies until we shuddered together deeply into the small hours of the night, opening ourselves to that kind of carnal knowledge we had dared not explore with anyone before." Oh god, I had her in the palm of my hand and could have continued on for the rest of the day if it weren't for Darla and more importantly Doug, who I could see striding purposefully over. I had to strike now.
"That's when I discovered that she and her husband hadn't left the church at all. It turned out she had no special arrangement at all, and they were, in fact, members of the Jehovah's Witnesses."
Debbie's mouth dropped wide open but she never let go of my hand. "Well that, that seems too much to believe," she said.
"Who are they?" Darla snapped in my direction. "What are these Congregationalists' names?"
"These are serious accusations you make about our brethren, sir. Are these people you know now in this time and place?"
"No, this all happened to me last year when I was living in Las Vegas. That's the reason I moved here from there, because I couldn't recover from the shock of what I'd discovered and still continue to live there."
"Ah yes, Sin City," Doug said. There was a resignation in his voice. I think he almost wanted to chuckle.
Darla turned to Doug. "Well, we should still get their names and report them to the regional, shouldn't we?"
I turned back and looked deep into Debbie's tortured eyes. "Their names were Coyle. Jeff and…" and here I paused to look oh so meaningfully back into my love bunny's eyes. "Jeff and Debbie Coyle," I finished. "I'm pretty sure they're out of the church now. Their congregation found out and…it was an enormous scandal; she was forced out, away from her family. And I've just been wondering what it is in the Jehovah's Witnesses church and congregations…what is it in your writings that would have allowed one of your members to be turned out this way."
Doug's mood turned quite dour at this point, which perhaps is what I was gunning for all along. I'm still not sure. In any case, he replied, "Well perhaps this isn't the best time or place for you to be exploring this grievance against our blessed church." Darla took on a "yeah, what he said" stance.
"Or perhaps the very scripture itself is where I should look for the answers." They all stood dumbfounded.
"Are you serious?" Debbie said excitedly. "We're always happy to provide tutoring."
"I was hoping you especially might be able to meet with me regarding scripture."
"Well now it doesn't work like that!" Doug barked loudly, enough to make some other tram commuters take notice of our little huddle of contention.
"No?" I answered. "My partner and I would both be interested in home bible study, and Debbie here seems like such a nice person…would it be possible?"
"The church assigns specially trained teachers to bring scripture to people's homes," Doug said much more evenly. "So Debbie, if this man is serious about studying scripture, you should say to him that he and his wife should also come to our church."
He was patronizing her and suddenly found myself hating him for patronizing her. And it caused me to wonder: How evil am I to walk right up to this moment? And yet, when I looked into Debbie's eyes, and when I watched the heaving of her barely exposed bosom, it seemed for just a moment that yes, I could leave the life I had built for myself to "study scripture" with this lovely idealist. She was so gorgeous and gone. Could I ever admit to her that I had my affair with the other "Debbie" over ten years ago, and that I didn't find out till years later that she had been tossed out of the JW's for cheating with someone else? But no I had another reason for doing this.
"What is your wife's name?" Debbie asked.
"Well, I mean, heh, heh…his name is Alan." The silence roared in that lovely way that silences roar when people are too distracted by the involuntary scrunching up of their brows. After about fifteen seconds Darla began making a sound that I couldn't really discern between a gag and a sob, while tears had begun freely flowing down Debbie's cheeks.
"Oh I'm not gay, I'm bisexual. I always have been. That's the way God made me after all, isn't it?"
"Eew!" Darla screeched.
I looked back into Debbie's eyes, and was surprised to find her angry. "You pervert!" she hissed.
"That is NOT the way GOD makes people," Doug just had to add.
"Well I have to disagree, because I didn't choose my sexual desires, they were foisted upon me by a God who wanted me to live with that challenge. And I would have to say that my sexual experiences have been much richer for having had a hormonal balance." "Shift over!" Doug yelled and quicker than you can say "hallelujah" they had picked up their bags, literature and began hustling down the street.
Walking down the stairs to my train I found myself wondering what it really would be like to be bisexual, or even what it might be like to leave my wife and child for a bisexual lifestyle, or even for a gorgeous and willing religious nut. More importantly though, I didn't see the Jehovah's peddling their bullshit by my train station after that.
Paul Corman-Roberts' first collection of poems and flash fiction, Coming WorldGone World, was published by Howling Dog Press in 2006. He is the poetry editor of Cherry Bleeds and lives in Oakland, California. Check out his web site at PaulCormanRoberts.com.