BIG SOUTHERN CHAPTER 79

JULY 2012

GILBERT AND DAVID

I am out back of the museum, arranging lava rock into an aesthetically pleasing randomness, one that suggests the chaos of a pre-European landscape while remaining easy to keep weedless, a difficult task—not just the problem of intentionally creating chaos (ask any statistician about generating random numbers) but keeping a landscape in a pristine form free of the present, the present being all the weeds that settlers brought to the area: cheatgrass, Russian thistle, Canadian thistle, and kochia among them. Any disturbance, any change, these species see as an invitation to stop on by.

I hear a vehicle pull up in front and shut off its engine, figure if they want me they'll come around and find me. If I hear them go into the trailer I'll make the effort to go and greet them.

A young man comes around the corner and though he is out of uniform I recognize him as the second missionary of the pair I evicted some weeks ago. The decent one. Unsuited, he looks different, less wooden, less a caricature. I remain squatted as he approaches. He comes over to the pile of rocks Doyle left for me and squats, too, his mouth working back and forth and then refusing to extend its reach. I take him out of his misery. "Shouldn't you be out soliciting?" I ask.

He stares into a place only he sees, his eyes unfocussed on anything in the physical world. "I left," he finally says. When he moves his gaze to me, I see a thing I'm not sure I've ever seen and one I can't identify immediately. After a moment of consideration, though, I see it's a sort of rawness I believe I know or at least remember and have tried to forget. It hits me for just a microsecond before I put my shields up. "Left?" I ask.

"The Church."

I can't really tell whether regret is pulling him down or whether a fear of some future is but weighing on him something is. I stand. I recognize the place he's in, never been there exactly and never will, but I see he's reaching up as if he's drowning and needs saved. "Come inside," I say. "I'll make you some tea or coffee or maybe I've got something you can have if you don't do caffeine."

Typically, people greet those despairing with an artificial buoyancy. In my experience, that creates more despair—they have enough gravity to deal with without suffering the pull of others' optimism. Providing a quantity of joy is not a bounty sufficient to raise others' sagging spirits. His surplus of despondency does, however, make its effort to envelop me. I'm a little wary, a little resistant.

He follows me in, I indicate a chair, hope no visitors come—in the way of Murphy's Law, that's what should happen. I have a pot of coffee on already, not too old for me to drink but definitely past its expiration date, and display it as a magician would. "Coffee, I guess," he says. I pour us two cups, bring an old cafe sugar dispenser over that's so old he may not recognize its purpose as an old-timer would. "I don't have any milk or cream, I'm afraid."

"Black is fine," he says morosely.

"So," I say as I sit and motion him to do the same. "Want to tell me what's going on?"

He takes a second, gathering himself. "First," he says,"I want to apologize for my companion. He tends to be zealous. Overly so."

I wave the thought away. "I maybe should be apologizing to him."

He shakes his head. "No," he says. "I wanted to do it to him myself. More than once."

I laugh. "Surely that's not making you want to leave the Church. That's pretty serious."

What follows is a familiar story, in the general sense if not in the particular details. His disillusionment with the actual workings of his religion. He compares his current dissatisfaction to his initial experiences of belief, the difference between them leaving him in a mental space filled with contradictions. It's something any religion wars with, the Mormons confronting it by keeping members busy. Its' missionaries, often out there in the spiritual wilderness by themselves, work six days a week at their job and their seventh is parsed into tasks unlikely to foster doubt. Oftentimes people remark how wonderful travel must be to missionaries, how enlightening it is to encounter other cultures, but so far as I've witnessed, little comes in because they're not buying, they're selling. With everything spewing out there's no chance of anything coming in.

He reveals his name—Gilbert—and says he comes from a long line of Mormons, didn't want to serve a mission but was forced—his words, not mine—to go. It was supposed to 'clean him up'. His beliefs weren't very strong before he did go and haven't strengthened since. When I ask him if he has told his parents he becomes even more distressed. "Yes," he says. "And they've disowned me unless I return to the mission home."

Church over family, I know the situation. "You're in a pickle," I say. He hasn't drunk any coffee, so I tap the cup to draw his attention from the abyss growing in his mind. He lifts it and takes a drink. I can see he hasn't much experience with the bitter drink and he confirms it by adding not one, not two, but three spoons full of sugar. I imagine the coffee's cold. Mine is. He stirs it in silence, not so much thinking as suffering.

"Well," I say, hoping my reluctance doesn't color my words. "I have a sleeping bag and you can sleep on the floor here for a while, until you figure things out."

Sometimes any possibility perceived, however small, is an avenue of hope. His mood brightens some.

"Soon as we drink our coffee you can help me with the rocks. I have an extra pair of leather gloves and it looks like you're already in your work clothes. You have to pay for your room and board somehow."

© 2025 Ralph Thurston