The Mormon Candidate - a Novel (51 page)

“
What’s the catch
?”

“
No catch.
I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“You’re an angel!
”

Next she called Fran and left a message. “I have to go back to the hospital,
take over
for a friend.
He’s on this weekend too, so I might be staying continuously through Monday.
I’ll
let you know
. Thanks
for having me over last night.
”

After calling for a taxi, Keera packed an overnight bag. She left a bunch of lights on, as well as the radio in the kitchen.

Part
VI
:

The Mole

Chapter 50

When Ben
woke up
, he was lying on his belly
. The pain
from
his
singed
tattoo was dull
thanks to a dressing smeared with topical anesthetic
, but a deeper
throbbing reminded him of the
long recovery from
his fo
otball injury a decade earlier.

“
Good morning
!
”
Powell
entered the room and pulled aside the curtains. It was
dark
outside.
“Or rather, good night again.”

“How long was I out?”

“
Twenty-four
hours
, give or take
a few bathroom breaks
. How are you?
”

“Terrible.”
Ben
sat up and lowered his legs to the floor.
“It’s like someone took a torch to my back.”

“
It’s t
he price of perfection.”

Ben cleared his throat. “What’s next?”

“Study. Study. Study.”
Powell
handed him two books. “The more you know, the better
prepared you are
to pass
for a real
s
aint
.”

“Yes, General!”
Ben
saluted and
looked at the books.
The Mormon Mirage
, by Latayne Scott, and
One Nation under Gods
,
by
Richard Abanes
.
“Do real
s
aints read books like these?”

“
No. Books that criticize the Church or contradict the official line are considered
s
atanic and are banned.
You’ll
have to
be smart about how you answer questions when you’re at the
t
emple
.
‘
Know thy enemy, and you shall prevail
.’
”

“
It takes a lot of anger
and bitterness
to
lead
this
team of avenging ex-
s
aints
. What happened to you
?”

“A great life happened to me.”
Powell
coughed, but was able to stop.
“Do you really want to know
?”

Ben
beckoned at
a
chair.

He
sat down.
“I was a graduate student at Nevada State.
Part of my scholarship was for serving
as a teaching assistant
. I f
ell in love with a freshmen girl from Utah
.
Sarah Benson
. T
he most beautiful thing you ever s
aw
in your life. She was reluctant, but I was determined, and it helped that she was having difficulties with math and statistics, which are my strong areas. Finally she
started going
out with me. We
went
to her parents for Thanksgiving, and I ask
ed
for their blessing in marriage.
” Powell sighed. “
Have you ever watched
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
?”

“I saw the remake.”

“They were horrified. But it was the eighties, and the Church had just changed its policy to allow blacks into the priesthood and was eager to show its new tolerance. Sarah’s parents were instructed by their bishop to accept me, provided I embraced the True Gospel.
”

“Did you?”

“
I
ha
d been raised Southern Baptist, but didn’t care much—we all worship the same Jesus Chri
st, right? When I called my mama,
she
warned me that Mormons
didn’t
like blacks
. B
ut the bishop explained that it was part of a bygone past, that in
’
seventy-eight, the LDS President, Seer and Revelator had a divine revelation that all men were eligible for priesthood and full status as
s
aints, even those with dark skin who had been banned from the priesthood until then. And, sure enough, I was baptized, received my Temple Recommend Card, had my
endowments and o
rdinances, and our marriage was sealed for eternity in a strange but uplifting ceremony
in the Mormon
t
emple
.
Two years later, w
ith a doctorate in mathematics, I got a teaching position at Brigham Young, we
had two boys, and life was happy
.”

“Until?”

“Until my son came home from
Cub
Scout
s
crying because a friend had told him that his soul was evil. I
phoned
the tro
o
p leader, an ophthalmologist I knew well from the ward, and he explained that my son, at six years of age, should already know that his dark skin was evidence
of
his soul
’s
sin
s
against God in the pre-mortal life. When I explained the change of nineteen seventy-eight, which was ten years earlier, he laughed and told me that the race manifesto was issued to get the Gentiles off the Church’s back with all that civil rights craziness.
But
all the underlying doctrines had remained in place.”

“Which
doctrines?”

“That dark skin was the mark of the brother-killer, Cain, and his seed. That dark skin was
God’s
punishment
of
bad souls who had sinned in the pre-mortal life. That dark skin was hereditary of Lucifer’s followers. That dark skin was a sign of debasement and filth. All this had been a cornerstone of Mormon theology since Joseph Smith wrote the
Book of Mormon
, which described the Lamanites—the perennial bad guys—as ‘
dark and loathsome and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations
.’ And later, the second Nephi book elaborates that God ‘
did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them
’ in order ‘
that they shall be loathsome unto my people
,’ as they are ‘
full of mischief
.’
”

“You memorized it?”

“Every word is burned
into my mind.” Powell knuckled his forehead. “
It’s like g
iving testimony, but of the
truth. For example,
Smith
’
s translation of the Egyptian papyrus, in the
Book of Abraham
,
where
he described how evil souls were punished by God with a black skin.
And his
successor, Brigham Young, warned about those with
‘
flat nose and black skin
.’
He said that they are
‘
uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable, and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind
.’”

Rex
came into Ben’s bedroom
with a bowl of chicken soup
.
“I figured this would make you feel at home.”

Ben held the bowl and
inhaled
the steam. “
Ah! This is
the Jewish
Celestial Kingdom
!
”

They laughed.

He spooned the hot liquid and slurped. “
Very
good
!
”

“Haven’t lost my touch.” Rex rubbed his hands. “It’s been a while.”

Turning back to Powell, Ben asked, “What happened next?”

“As an assistant professor at Brigham Young University,” Powell continued, “I had access to a lot of research sources. The incident with my son made me interested in the civil rights movement and the way it had impacted the Mormon Church. I discovered that the leadership had changed the policy to allow blacks, Latinos
,
and Asians into the priesthood after years of political and commerc
ial pressure, under fear of law
suits, and because Mormon missionaries were thrown out of foreign count
r
ies, in addition to several states, such as New York, which considered legislation to ban racist proselytizing. Mormon racism was becoming too inconvenient, so the open
priesthood manifesto was issued. But the Church left untouched the underlying doctrinal and theological foundation of the correlation between dark
skin and evil
souls
.”

“But surely Mormons no longer think that way, do they?”

“They’re very charitable people,” Powell said. “The
Mormon
Church is incredibly generous in donating food and medicine to African and South American countries.
They’re first to help in natural disaster
s
. F
or example, t
he
people of
New Orleans can tell you how
LDS teams arrived after
Hurricane Katrina,
saving lives and feeding the hungry
—blacks and whites—
while the federal government was spinning its wheels uselessly. Yet at the same time, Mormons
believe that everything Joseph Smith
and his successor prophet
s
said
is
true
including
Brigham Young’s warning: ‘
If the white man…mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty under the law of God is death on the spot. This will always be so.
’ The last sentence,” Powell explained, “resonates with every Mormon even today.”

“How do you know?”

“By applying statistical models to social
science research
,
I conducted confidential
, b
lind surveys in which
subjects
were
asked a long series of questions, most of them irrelevant to the real
focus of the research.”

“A diversion?”

“Correct.
Of the Mormons who indicated that they hold strong belief in their faith,
eighty-nine
percent said that interracial marriage was
sinful
and eighty-
seven
percent said that they would
forbid or
discourage their children from marrying a dark-skinned person. I published the results in the
National Journal of Social Science and Society
, including other statistics that d
emonstrated the lingering racial
prejudice among members of the Mormon Church. My conclusion was that Mormon racism would
continue until God provided our current leader—the LDS
p
resident,
s
eer, and
r
evelator—with an explicit revelation that
erased and disavowed
all previous
black
-is-evil
revelations,
scriptures,
decrees, and admonitions.”

“What happened then?”

“The response was swift. My department head instructed me to withdraw the article from publication due to ‘errors in methodology.’ He suggested that
I
focus my research on
my ethnic heritage
. F
or example, the
statistical
data underlying
the failure of traditional family structure among African
Americans in urban areas
or the high percentage of black
male incarcerations
.
Th
is was
not only insulting, but also
fundamentally against any notion of academic integrity, or integrity in general
.
I went over his head to the
p
rovost, who was also an
a
postle
and member of the
Quorum of Twelve, which is like the Mormon Church’s board of directors.
I pleaded with
him
to
take
my research
and conclusions
to heart and
work toward
changing the Mormon racial doctrines once and for all. I told him: We can’t fool
the Gentiles
forever—it’s going to catch up with us!”