Read The Gospel According to Larry Online

Authors: Janet Tashjian

The Gospel According to Larry (7 page)

“This is a great way to spend a birthday.” Beth pedaled no-hands through the back parking lot of the mall.

“Unless we end up in jail,” I said.

“Come on, Henry David. Where's your sense of civil disobedience?”

I had one, but it was just a bit worried about getting tossed in the can on some kind of nuisance violation. It wasn't the jail part that concerned me; I didn't want any undue attention focused my way, considering the secret life I was harboring. To say nothing of Peter's wrath.

“So, it looks like Larry lives somewhere cold. New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Montana have the most votes in the bulletin boards.”

“He could live in Florida and still have those boots.”

“Not with a total of seventy-five possessions.”

I told her in that case I voted Wisconsin. Thankfully, it was almost summer, and I didn't have to wear them now.

We locked our bikes, and I couldn't wait any longer. I handed Beth a box. “Happy Birthday.”

“You didn't have to,” she said.

“Only homemade things, usual rules.”

She opened the box carefully and smiled when she saw the necklace.

“I found this old Chinese abacus,” I said. “Took it apart and strung the beads on a silk cord. I placed the beads in order so they actually made senseâ2,368,586 divided by 682 equals 3,473. That crystal in the middle is the equal sign â¦” I hoped a car would plow into me so I would stop babbling.

“This is amazing. Makes last year's bouillabaisse mobile seem like no work at all.”
⁴¹She slipped on the necklace and fingered the blue stones. “I gave myself a birthday present this year. I've been wanting to show you for days.”

To my amazement, she rolled up her pants leg. Above her right ankle was a fresh tattoo
of a dollar sign in a circle with a slash through it.

“Are you kidding? Do your parents know?”

She shook her head. “I had Marie's ID with me, but the guy didn't even ask for it.”

I ran my hand across Beth's skin.
⁴²“He did a good job.”

“I was going to get âLarry,' but I didn't want to look like a groupie. This kind of said it all.”

The thought of Beth sporting a tattoo of my alter ego almost sent me into hyperventilation. I followed her inside the mall like a puppy.

We plastered the halls and rest rooms of the entire mall, easily avoiding the few security guards. Judging by the people who gathered around to read the posters, we even sparked some conversations.

Next we hit Pottery Barn, Virgin Records, the Gap, Nike Town, and Restoration Hardware.
⁴³We were taking a short break when we saw Mr. Lynch, our biology teacher, approach us. Beth shoved the rest of the posters into her bag.

“We're screwed,” I said.

He sat down at the table. “You're doing a good job,” he said. “We Americans are using way more than our share of resources.”

Beth and I returned his smile and handed him some of our posters.

“You know what drives me insane?” he continued. “The tiny stickers they put on fruitâit's for the store's convenience, not the customer's. By the time you peel it off, your gorgeous pear is ruined. And you know why they do it? Because no one complains.”

In all the time I'd known Mr. Lynch, I'd never seen him so animated. He told us he'd see us next week and moved on.

Beth tossed her bottle of water into the recycling bin and watched Mr. Lynch walk away. “You don't think â¦”

“What?”

“Mr. Lynch?”

“What about him?”

“You know, that he's Larry.”

“You're kidding me, right?”

“He wears jeans; he's got boots â¦”

“I'll bet he's even got a watch and a belt,” I said. “I thought you didn't want to know.”

“It's hard not to be into it, now that everyone else is.” She shuddered. “Did I just say that? Shoot me.”

We pedaled home with the satisfaction of a job well done.

“I feel like one of those women who worked in the factories when all the men were at war. Really contributing,” she said.

“To blowing up the Japanese,” I responded.

“And ending the war.”

“And almost a civilization.”

“You never quit.” She smiled and I took it as a compliment.

We sat on her front steps until it was time for her piano lesson.

“Aren't you leaving today?” she asked.

Since there were only a few days left, Peter let me blow off school. The Larry club meetings and mall visits were
way
more social activity than I was comfortable with, and a nature excursion was definitely in order.

“I like my privacy too,” Beth said. “But three days alone in the woods â¦ you're insane.”

“I'll be insane if I
don't
go,” I said. “It's not just the privacyâ”

“It's the solitude.” She'd heard the drill many times before.

I gathered up my things.

“Good job today. Larry would've been proud,” she said.

“He'd love that tattoo.”

“Think so?”

“I think it's safe to say he'd hold your foot in his hand and kiss every inch of it.”

She swatted me. “See you on Wednesday.”

I pedaled home, sorry to be leaving Beth for three days but happy to be lying under the stars alone.

Little did I know what could happen in three days.

SERMON #213

Ever tried to jump off the consumer carousel and spend some time alone? Not just alone but alone in Natureâno commercials, no visual distractions but the birds and trees. I've been dipping into my Thoreau againâ“For every walk is a sort of crusade.” That's me, walking in the woods for hours, crusading for the cause, peeling back the layers of STUFF, and letting only the silence seep in.

Nothing to buy out here, nothing to sell. Nothing to throw away, nothing to think about.

In my seclusion, my “real” life seems self-indulgent and superficial. Gossip, chatter, role-playingâour daily lives are the longest-running play in off-Broadway history. We just don't know it.

Is it a waste of time to watch a starling for an hour? To lie on a bed of moss and gaze at the stars? My man Thoreau also said, “He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all.”

We are meant to be alone in Nature. The word
lonely
never comes up.

PART THREE

“And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”

St. Mark 1:11

Do you know what it's like to be driving along in second gear and then to accidentally pop the shift into fifth? I was expecting to spend lunch with Beth, hear about how she loved the Thoreau sermon,
⁴⁴but she yanked me into an alternative reality with her news.

“You will never guess what Bono's doing.” We talked about the mega-rock star now as if he were someone we knew personally. “A giant rock festivalâU2 is playing!âalong with dozens of other bands in a big empty field in Maine. Music, arts and crafts â¦” she read from the paper in her hand, “a spontaneous gathering of anticonsumerism and general goodwill called Larryfest.”

“LARRYFEST?” I shouted. Was this for real?

“Tens of thousands of people have already signed up,” she said. “And believe it or not, Mom told me I could go, since Marie and two of her friends are going. They can give us a ride. We can camp. What do you say?”

“I go away for three days and there's a
festival
in the works?”

“It's our Woodstock,” she said.

“Woodstock was in August.”

“Well, this one's Fourth of July! Ease up!”

She told me that all the bands were playing for free, and all the companies would sell food and drinks at cost, not just because of the Woodstock '99 debacle but because of Larry's noncommercial agenda. “It's a festival with no crap, no junk, just music and dancing and singing and friendship and ideas. It's going to rock!”

Too stunned for words, I excused myself and headed to the library to log on. Sure enough, the people who had put this together had done it all secretly, as a surprise to Larry. “It's a new cultureâfor you, for all of us,” the e-mail exclaimed in twenty-point purple font. “Larry, whoever you are, stay incognito, but please come!”

I laughed so loudly, Ms. Costanzo, the
librarian, slumped across the room to shush me. The room seemed bare and empty, ready for summer vacation. I turned back to the screen.

I signed up right then and thereâJosh Swensen would attend.

I caught up with Beth outside her locker.

“It's incredible,” I said. “Of course we're going.”

“Todd wanted to catch a ride with us too, but he's got some family thing he can't get out of.”

“Todd? I thought he was out of the picture.” GEEZ, WHAT ELSE HAPPENED WHILE I WAS GONE?

“He
is
out of the picture; he just needed a ride. Stop wigging.”

I suddenly felt overwhelmed with information. After school, I aimed my bike at Bloomingdale's and pedaled like a maniac.

Unfortunately, Marlene wasn't onâsome woman with bright pink lipstick and a mole with a three-inch hair waved me away. But Brunhilda herself had no power over meâI plopped down on the padded stool anyway.

“Mom? Can you hear me?” I waited until I felt her presence.

“I'm doing it, Mom. I'm changing the world. Hundreds of thousands of people coming together in peace. It's working, Mom. I'm contributing.”

I pictured her in my mind laughing, stuffing envelopes for her latest cause, still wearing the feather earrings she'd worn in college. “I'm so proud of you, Joshie,” she would say.

“Will there be anything else?” the Mole Woman asked.

“Yes. Could you please leave me alone for a few more minutes? You're interrupting an almost perfect moment.”

She stormed away, and I listened for the next person to walk by with a message from my mother.

“Keep it up,” a man told his wife. “It's your life's work.”

I raised my fists into the air in victory. I'd always been aware of it before, but now I had to exemplify Larry's beliefs 24/7.

And Larryfest would be the perfect place to start.

But Larry's e-mail from betagold the next day jolted me out of my peace, love, and understanding reverie.

ARE YOU GOING TO LARRYFEST, LARRY? WITH YOUR JEANS AND YOUR BOOTS? IT SHOULD BE CALLED COWARDFEST OR HIDE-BEHIND-YOUR-SCREEN-NAME-FEST, DON'T YOU THINK? MAYBE WE CAN PLAY A GIANT GAME OF TRUTH OR DARE AND OUT LARRY? BETTER YET, INSTEAD OF A METAL DETECTOR AT THE GATE, HOW ABOUT A POLYGRAPH TEST? OLLIE, OLLIE, OXEN FREE. COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE.

I WILL BE THERE, LARRY.

I WILL FIND YOU.

âbetagold

This time, I didn't even respond. Didn't want to give betagold any more ammunition.
Because of betagold and Billy North, I already analyzed Larry's sermons a thousand times before I sent them out, petrified I'd make some innocuous comment about street signs or great blue herons that could lead anyone to me.

Things were going greatâschool was done, Beth and I started full time at the hardware store, and the pomp and circumcision of graduation was finally over. There was no way betagold could track me down in Maineâthere were already 230,000 people signed up; I would be just another face in the crowd, another teen searching for life's deeper meaning.

Either that or I was being set up.

LARRY ITEM #57

SERMON #271

Can it be done?

Hundreds of thousands of people coming together to celebrate being free of corporate advertising and greed? Rejoicing in not being consumer puppets, spending our hard-earned money on stuff we don't need just so a few fat cats can get rich?

Can we do it without violence, without anger?

Can girls and women feel safe and respected?

Can we do it without product endorsements?

Can differences of opinion be tolerated, even celebrated?

I don't know.

I guess we'll find out.

See you there.

Love,

Larry

P.S. I'll be the guy with the T-shirt and the smile.