The Gospel According to Larry by Janet Tashjian Page B

they put on fruit—it’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€œWhat?”
    â€œMr. Lynch?”
    â€œWhat about him?”
    â€œYou know, that he’s Larry.”
    â€œYou’re kidding me, right?”
    â€œHe wears jeans; he’s got boots …”
    â€œI’ll bet he’s even got a watch and a belt,” I said. “I thought you didn’t want to know.”
    â€œIt’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.
    â€œI feel like one of those women who worked in the factories when all the men were at war. Really contributing,” she said.
    â€œTo blowing up the Japanese,” I responded.
    â€œAnd ending the war.”
    â€œAnd almost a civilization.”
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œAren’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.
    â€œI like my privacy too,” Beth said. “But three days alone in the woods … you’re insane.”
    â€œI’ll be insane if I don’t go,” I said. “It’s not just the privacy—”
    â€œIt’s the solitude.” She’d heard the drill many times before.
    I gathered up my things.
    â€œGood job today. Larry would’ve been proud,” she said.

    â€œHe’d love that tattoo.”
    â€œThink so?”
    â€œI 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 Nature—no commercials, no visual distractions but the birds and trees. I’ve been dipping into my Thoreau again—“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-playing—our 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
    â€œAnd there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
    Â 
    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, 44 but she yanked me into an alternative reality with her news.
    â€œYou will never guess what Bono’s doing.” We talked about the mega-rock star now