Thumbsucker (31 page)

I couldn’t stand still. I nodded. I jiggled one foot. “Right,” I said. “Right. Okay. I see. Okay.”

“You’re vibrating,” Opal said. “You’re scaring me.”

“I’m fine.”

“Get a blessing, okay? You need a blessing.”

“I tried once. It didn’t work.”

“So try again.”

On the trip’s final day we drove to Independence and stood around a grassy hilltop lot where Mormons believed the great temple would someday stand. Everyone seemed cramped and underslept. A virus had broken out inside the bus, recirculating through the ducts and ventilators, and every other person had caught the flu.

Even Elder Tinsdale had fallen ill. As he lectured us about the temple he shifted a cough drop around inside his mouth, and some of his words were hard to understand.

“The summons to build might come soon. Tomorrow, perhaps. Some of you kids might even join the effort. Imagine the thrill of wielding spade and chisel with Jesus as your foreman. What a feeling.”

I gazed around at the dirt and weeds, at the restaurant and parking garage across the street, at the cars and trucks and traffic lights, but I couldn’t picture the spires and buttresses Elder Tinsdale was describing.

As usual, Orrin gave me the straight dope. “The church doesn’t even
own
the Temple Lot. Another religion does. Pretty ironic, don’t you think?” he said.

“I’m tired of thinking. I’m trying faith.”

“In what? A bunch of fairy tales?”

“In some of them.”

On the long ride home the seating system collapsed. People sat down wherever they wanted to and tended to their colds with wads of Kleenex. Elder Tinsdale, exhausted, fell asleep, and didn’t wake to eat the boxed Big Mac that Sister Helms set kindly on his lap. At sundown the driver dimmed the overhead lights and someone put on
The Osmonds’ Greatest Hits
. I walked to the back where Opal was sitting alone, the Book of Mormon open on her knee. She slid over to make room.

“I caught the bug,” she said as I sat down.

I shrugged.

“It’s fine if you’re mad at me,” she said.

“I’m just run-down.”

“That’s the bug.”

“It’s not the bug.” I said.

The Osmonds tape played as we crossed a long steel bridge back into Illinois. It felt odd to be leaving the Holy Land so suddenly, not knowing when, if ever, I’d be back. I let my eyes close as Opal told me stories about the part of her family that lived in Utah. “I’ve been thinking about my grandpa. He had four wives. He lived in the desert—big tall man, with a beard. I visited him with my mom when I was nine. His fourth wife, June, was nursing a baby—my uncle. I watched my own uncle breast-feed. That must seem weird to you.”

“What?” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m not all here tonight.”

“Those pills you take.”

I shook my head. “I quit them.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. They were in the way of something.”

The tape switched sides. The bus was dark and cold. Opal put away her Book of Mormon and I fetched a blanket from the overhead rack. We kicked off our shoes and huddled closer together and spread the thin blue blanket across our laps. Beneath it our hands moved, quietly, like spirits.

Of all the places the General Authorities could have chosen to send me on a mission—South Africa, South America, South Carolina—they picked New York City. I couldn’t believe the letter. We’d moved to a house on the golf course that summer and Mike and Audrey were playing with the pro when a Federal Express van drove up with the envelope. I could see them out on the fairway as I opened it, and after I’d read it over a couple of times, I yelled to them to come over in their cart. My fingers were tingling. My mouth was dry from shock.

I passed the letter to Audrey in the cart. She pushed her sunglasses up onto her forehead, under her white billed cap. Mike put his arm around her and leaned in. Golf, the new house, and the club’s packed social schedule had brought them closer than I’d ever seen them.

Audrey’s tan seemed to fade as she read. She angled the letter toward Mike. His eyes went round. “Ding, ding, ding,” he said. “You hit the jackpot.”

Audrey’s face hardened. “Well. I guess this changes things. No more second thoughts. Excited? Must be.”

To spare her feelings, I tried not to grin. She’d been working on me to stay in Minnesota, attend the U of M, back off from church life. She and Mike spent their Sunday on the course now, attending services only when it rained. Joel, whose prep school had sent him to Chicago for a total-immersion summer tennis retreat, didn’t go at all. He’d found a new faith. On the strength of a book promoted by his coach, he called himself a Buddhist now. He claimed its teachings and practices helped his serve.

“I still have some thinking to do,” I said to Audrey.

“Come on, Mike. I’d like to finish the whole eighteen.”

To double-check the letter’s accuracy, I had Bishop Salaman contact Salt Lake City. I sat in his office in a suit and tie as a chain of receptionists passed him up the line to someone who could speak definitively. I was thrilled about my assignment, but anxious, too. In New York, as opposed to Russia or Brazil, say, I’d come as a
pest, I feared, an interruption. People were busy there. Their clocks ran fast.

When Bishop Salaman reached a higher-up, he flashed me an okay sign with one hand. “Interesting,” he said when he was finished.

“Tell me everything. I’m going crazy.”

“After the interviews they held with you, they agreed you have a special power. You know how to break down barriers with words. New York is the perfect place for you, they feel, because residents tend to be tough, impatient, skeptical. We haven’t had much success there recently.”

“It’s final?”

“Of course it’s final. The church has spoken. Enjoy yourself these last few weeks. Be proud. You’re taking a blessing to people who sorely need it.”

As word leaked out about my destination, people at church started giving me advice. Elder Munsen, who’d served his mission in Bolivia, wrote down a prayer for me and laminated it so I could carry it inside my wallet. The prayer dated back to the days of Brigham Young, he said, and was meant to be recited in emergencies, when a missionary faced danger or hostility. It called on Heavenly Father to strike mute anyone who opposed his earthly plan.

The girls had advice for me, too: stay strong, stay chaste, and write. I suspected Bishop Salaman was coaching them. One by one, at dances and softball games, they took me aside and breathily assured me that
when I returned to the ward two years from now they would be waiting for me, all grown up, eager to date, go out, get serious. They reminded me that, according to church tradition, returning missionaries had six months to do nothing but rest, and socialize, after which they were expected to get engaged.

“If you’re interested, I’ll be waiting,” Maria Larson said, “but not if you do something stupid with some New York girl. I know they’re very experienced out east, but I can give you something those girls can’t.” She brushed my ear with her lips. “A family.”

Jane Hatch’s proposition was more tempting. She promised to correspond with me about her deepest, most secret thoughts and fantasies; to open up her soul with no holds barred. “I’ve already done my first letter. It’s pretty filthy. I didn’t know what I had in me until I wrote it.”

“Like what?” I said.

“That’s for me to know,” Jane said, “and you to find out.” She kissed me on my nose. Her breath smelled of butterscotch ice cream and mint sprinkles.

The other young men who were headed out on missions grew resentful when they heard my news. Sven Lind, who was off to Hungary that month after nine grueling weeks at the church’s language institute, accused me of pulling strings with higher-ups. Rob Farrell, who was Costa Rica-bound, hinted that missionaries in New York were favorite targets for pickpockets and muggers. When I told him I wasn’t afraid of criminals because
I’d be making my rounds with a partner, Rob warned me that New York muggers worked in packs. “And that badge on your shirt pocket saying Latter-Day Saints tells them that you’re basically defenseless. You don’t have a knife, a gun, or anything.”

I mentioned the prayer Elder Munsen had given me. “I have God,” I said.

“That’s good. That’s funny. Make sure you know how to say that prayer in Spanish.”

Elder Gorman, an old man in a wheelchair who’d spent his mission in postwar Germany bringing former Nazis to Jesus Christ, gave me the most unusual advice. “You’ll see it all in that town,” he said. “The best, the worst, and everything in between. Maybe you’ll stick it out or maybe not. Maybe you’ll find a new life. It happens. Often.”

“You came back, though.”

“From Düsseldorf? Who wouldn’t? There was nothing there for a young man. My friend Elder Bragg, who went to Rome, however …”

“I’ll try to be careful. I’ll do my best,” I said.

Elder Jessup raised a knobby hand and waved me in next to his chair so he could whisper. “Ignore what the girls say. Go wild, kid.
Let rip!
”

At night, after Mike and Audrey went to bed, I’d lay out the clothes I’d purchased for my mission: dark suits,
dark ties, white shirts, black socks, black shoes. I tried them on in my bedroom, standing in front of a full-length mirror that made me look like a cross between Abe Lincoln and a Chicago mobster. To complete the picture, I’d tuck my Book of Mormon under my arm and rehearse a line of greeting: “Hello, ma’am, I’m Elder Cobb. I’m here to help you.” If it didn’t sound convincing, I’d lower my voice.

Through the ceiling I could hear Audrey crying in bed. I’d thought that the fact I was staying in the U.S. might comfort her, but the opposite had happened. Whenever New York was mentioned on TV or came up in conversation, fresh tears would surge up and she’d have to leave the room. One night I asked her what the trouble was. “Say you were going to Belgium,” she said, “or Chile. I wouldn’t be able to picture you. You’d vanish. In New York, though, I’ll have to imagine your every move. Justin at the fountain in Central Park. Justin in a taxi on Fifth Avenue.”

“You can always come visit me. It’s a two-hour flight.”

Audrey blotted her leaking eyes. “Don’t kid yourself. The minute that plane lands, you’ll break into a run. I know you, Justin.”

“I’m going to spread the gospel.”

“Don’t kid yourself. This isn’t Korea you’re going to. It’s Manhattan. They don’t need a gospel. You won’t, either.”

There was a lot to take care of before I left. Audrey helped me shop for luggage. Mike bought me a watch. I had a physical. At a bookstore I bought invitations for my send-off party and snuck a peek at a guide to New York nightlife.

I also needed a general dental checkup. I chose Perry Lyman, though I didn’t have to. Our family had another dentist by then, Dr. Synge, a transplant from Chicago who practiced downtown in the old county creamery, just one of the many historical buildings that had been taken over by new businesses as Shandstrom Falls became more prosperous. People who’d driven Fords drove foreign cars now and soaked in hot tubs on decks behind their houses. The kids wore nothing
but
designer clothing.