Paradise Park

by Allegra Goodman

  By Saturday night when we had the luau and evening show, a lot of the couples—with some notable exceptions like Barbara and John, who were barely on speaking terms—were sitting at their tables under the tiki torches, and touching each other, and making eye contact, and even wearing matching outfits they’d bought. Muumuus and short-and-shirt cabana sets all made out of the same wild aloha-wear material. Brown-and-green block print designs. Or white and orange. So they weren’t just husbands and wives vacationing together; they were like theme couples. And I couldn’t help looking at all of them and noticing that I was alone, not even part of a dysfunctional pair. I couldn’t imagine any boyfriend of mine, not even Wayne, wearing matching clothes with me, let alone holding my hands and making goo-goo eyes at me at a luau. The hands, maybe, or the eyes. But not both. Did Brian ever do all this stuff with Imo? I’d never seen the two of them stare deeply at each other. Of course, why would they do that in front of me? Brian was far too sensible, and Imo—I just couldn’t picture her melting at all. She was way too prickly. Still, they had each other, in ways I’d never know.

  At the buffet I stood in line behind Harrison and watched his back. I’d come to the retreat so optimistic, but now I felt like the only one without a date at the prom, or like some modern-day Cinderella in a story where Prince Charming would be happy to feel you up. The end.

  I loaded up my plate and ate like a pig. I tried to cheer up, since the food was so good. I drank a couple of chi-chis. Just slurped them up like milkshakes. But then lights went down for the show. Tears pricked my eyes. This luau show was the one Kekui had worked when he was putting himself through college as a fire-eater. And I thought I’d been lonely then, losing Kekui to his mom and his girlfriend and his whole extended family. But now, sitting there with all the married couples and the luau feast glowing in the light of all those citronella candles—now I could have put on my own workshop in the art of loneliness. I was so sad. And I was so angry at myself for coming on the retreat in the first place, thinking it might be some sort of twofer: learning plus a resort vacation; contemplation together with all that extra cash. If I’d come with someone else we would have laughed. The whole thing might have been an adventure, or at least a humorous scam. Alone, I couldn’t help noticing that my motives were crummy, and the whole retreat so phony—despite the sincerity of the couples in it. I put down my drink. And that was when it hit me. God was not here. On the whale-watching boat I’d felt his presence. In the water I’d sensed him, through the ocean and the whale, through my own imagination. But not here. So I skipped out to catch the Upper Manoa bus. I figured I’d go hear the message at Greater Love.

  This was in the days when the Saturday-night services at Greater Love Salvation Church were just beginning. Pastor McClaren got the idea, I think, from the popularity of the Easter sunrise service, where the congregation would stay up all night praying, almost in a vigil, and then celebrate Christ’s rising with the sun. Well, once a month Mc-Claren had a service at night that was really for the young bloods in the congregation, and for the people with potential who had not yet been saved, like me. And in fact he called it his revival service. There was a fervency about it that was just catching. Everyone prayed harder, and everyone sang louder, and everyone stayed longer too. I had come once before at night, and been moved by the experience, and especially the singing and the stomping. Still, that time before was nothing like this night when I came in, because this time I was aching in my heart.

  There was a crowd inside—more people than I’d ever seen in church. There weren’t even enough seats for everyone and I had to stand in the back, because it turned out Pastor McClaren was doing a special Christmas-week sermon. McClaren was standing up in front at the pulpit and he was already speaking, and not from notes, not once looking down, just preaching and exhorting, as if he were inspired. His eyes were just shining behind his wire-rimmed glasses. Our pastor McClaren was a local guy, despite his name. He was Scotch-Irish-Hawaiian-Japanese-Portuguese, and he had dark skin and longish straight black hair, and Oriental eyes, and a sharp hook nose that along with his glasses gave him a scholarly look. I stood in the back, and I craned my neck, because a lot of other people were standing too. But the craziest thing was, as he spoke, he wasn’t just talking to the group, all those maybe three hundred people crowding around at his feet and up the aisles and in the back—no, he was actually talking directly to me. It was like he was saying, “Sharon! Listen up!” Of course he didn’t really use my name, but he spoke to me.

  Pastor McClaren was saying, “Why? Why do we spend our time involved with things that are not right? Why do we spend all our days around people who are not people of God? Why? There’s a very simple reason, and his name is Satan. Now, you folks say to yourselves, ‘Not! Satan neva’ live on my shoulder. Satan neva’ live ova’ here. Satan is some kine haole guy.’” Everybody chuckled, hearing Pastor speak in pidgin. “‘He live over dere, bra. He live on da Mainland, far away from here.’”

  The pastor paused. Then he asked, “Now, where does Satan live fo’ real? Right over here, man. Right on top of you and me. He’s living right here on our shoulders, and you know what he does every day? He whispers to you and me what isn’t right. He goes, ’Eh, no worry, no worry—tomorrow won’t nevah happen, man. Eh, lie down, go sleep some mo’. Christ’s Kingdom nevah gonna come.’ Or he goes, ‘Jus’ make some money, man, jus’ get me some good food and some wine. Jus’ make me feel good, man. Jus’ go eat and drink and have one good time.’

  “Now, who here in this room has heard Satan’s voice?” McClaren asked, and you better believe I, and everybody else, too, raised our hands. “And who here felt like it was wrong, but couldn’t stop listening?” I had to raise my hand. “And did you ever feel like you were all alone at the mercy of your desires?” McClaren asked.

  It was just something about that question, just the way he put it. That was what set me off. That was where I started crying. Because it was true. I really felt how true it was. That was me, just a bundle of desires, and all for myself, all about me and what I wanted at the moment, whether it was food, or guys, or what have you. I was all alone. I was wandering all alone thinking only about myself and hardly anyone else in life except if that person was someone I could use, just a floor to sleep on or a pair of arms or sympathetic ears.

  It was like McClaren could read my mind. He asked me, “Do you wish you had someone to share your troubles, and support you when you fall?” And then he answered, “Well, you do have someone, and he’s coming to get you; he’s coming to lift you up, and his name is Jesus, our Lord.”

  And McClaren told how Jesus had been tempted just like all of us, from his childhood on. He’d chosen to live in this world of ours, even though he didn’t have to. And he’d felt all the pleasure and the pain, so he knew exactly what each one of us was going through. And he’d even been tempted in the desert by food, and drink, and sex, and been tested by every delicacy Satan could devise, but he’d triumphed over all of them by his spirit. And he’d been persecuted and even killed, but still he triumphed over all of that and rose above it. Nobody had forced him to live a human life, but yet he did anyway for our sakes. And now he was gearing up to come back again, and when he arrived, just the breath of Jesus was going to make all the world’s sinners shrivel up and writhe in agony, just one little move, and the sinful ones of the earth would be blown away into everlasting punishment. But the good and virtuous were going to zoom straight up to heaven. And you’d better believe Christ would know which was which, and who was set to go where. He and all the angels behind him would see into every heart, and to every heart that was pure he would say, “Follow me!”

  “Do you feel alone?” the pastor asked. “You are alone, because you are not yet saved. Do you feel lonely? You are lonely because you are not consecrated to your Lord. But did you know this? You are the one Jesus loves most. Did you know? You are the one, the lonely one, the alone one, the person without a friend. The man who has no one t
o lean on. The woman who has lost her way. The person who has no home. Jesus says, ‘I am the one for you to lean on. I am the way, the Truth, and the Life. I am your guide. I am the one who will lead you home.’

  “Come home,” Pastor McClaren said, “come home.” And it was the strangest thing, but this woman from about the middle of the church got up and walked forward right to the pulpit, and she knelt down and Pastor McClaren put his hands on her head, and she rose up and her whole face was lit up smiling. More people started to come forward, and they got in line to kneel down, and more and more. And it wasn’t a big crazy moment where they jumped up and screamed and yodeled, “I’m healed! I can see!!” or anything like that, but it was just this moment where they knelt down. And Pastor McClaren said, “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior?” and they said, “I do!” And so they received His love through their shepherd, just like the sheep coming gently into their fold to stay. And there was this feeling in me—this unbelievable longing that made me want to go up there and kneel down and receive Jesus too—but I was afraid, and I did not. I just stood there where I was, and I watched everyone and my eyes were full of tears, because it was right, what our pastor said; it was true. It was the most true comment on my own issues that I’d ever heard. But still something held me back, and maybe inside I thought I wasn’t good enough to receive the blessing, being maybe tainted by the past several days, and all the marriage counseling Sinner Harrison had been giving out, while I assisted, egged on by my desires for free food. So my eyes were full of tears; I was practically sobbing, but I couldn’t move.

  The people kept on coming up, until at last it seemed like Pastor McClaren had blessed everyone, and he got out his hymnal, but before he opened it, he said, “There are some of us who feel ourselves unworthy. There are some of us who wish we could come to the front to receive the Lord’s blessing, but Satan has beaten them down, so they cannot rise. They listen, and they want to draw near to your presence, O Lord, but when the time comes—at the last minute—they say, ‘Eh, I go stay here. I no stay go.’ Jesus, help them to receive your blessing, help them to feel your touch. For they are like dead people, and yet in your eyes, the dead awaken. They are like prisoners, and yet in your hands the prisoners are set free. Dear Jesus, give them the gift of your love; extend to them your tender mercy. With your power revive their souls.”

  And when he said that, he set me free. My feet moved; my lips opened. “Excuse me; excuse me,” I said. I got over to the aisle, and I walked forward and the people hushed around me, and patted me and nodded to me as I went on, and the lectern and Pastor McClaren blurred, because there were such tears in my eyes, but I sank down on my knees in front of him. The pastor said, “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior?” And he put his hands on top of my head and I felt a thrill shudder through me.

  I felt something; I really did. It was an electric thrill right through his fingers all the way down to the tips of my hair, and all the way down my spine. I felt all that mercy and all that love just surge through me, and I said, “Yes!” and I said “Yes!” again. I said, “Yeah!!!” And I said, “Yippee!”

  And when I stood up and I backed to the side to sing, it was “Amazing Grace,” and there were the Lius, and Julie, and Geoffrey, standing there in the second pew, just beaming and shaking their heads, having prayed for me so long. And everyone was so happy in that church our voices lifted up to heaven, and all my tears of guilt turned into tears of joy.

  And I’d heard the expression before of walking on air, but this was the real thing, because when I left that church, my feet were so springy that as I walked, they barely touched the ground. It was like my head had floated up and my neck had gone all long and slender like a giraffe’s so my face was a little giraffe face up there, bending and bobbing in the breezy night air. And I walked all the way back from Manoa to Waikiki, back to the hotel in the darkness, and smelled the flowers and just caressed the whole world with my eyes. The soft round beauty of the monkeypod trees, and the mock orange bushes, and all the plants, and the pure white never-cracked-by-ice sidewalk under my sandal feet. I got to Waikiki, and the lights of the hotels and the bars didn’t faze me, not in the least, and police were speeding down Hotel Street, but I didn’t even notice. It was as if I’d been dancing all the way from church back to the Hilton Hawaiian Village. It was as if I was waltzing away down Kuhio Avenue, and I waltzed into the hotel and took the elevator up to my floor and waltzed some more around my room. And then I got onto one of the queen-size beds and I jumped on the bed for joy. And I jumped from that bed to the other and back again and then just leapt up into the air and down, and up, and down, and grazed the little sprinkler heads in case of fire. I jumped and jumped and whirled around, and all of a sudden, for the first time in five years, I was dancing again. I had been reborn.

  9

  Picking Up the Rug

  WELL, I don’t know how it happened, but at some point in the night I must have fallen asleep, because the next day I woke up. All of a sudden, not even daybreak, I threw off the covers and sat up just like that. I wasn’t dreamy at all, and I got up in the dark, and my feet were right under me loving that soft green hotel carpet. I marched into the bathroom and used the facilities and hopped in the shower. Man, I was starving. I couldn’t wait for those omelets and pancakes and pieces of prebuttered toast. Then it hit me, right there with the water streaming down my face. That whole experience, that whole birthing the night before! What was going on? Good grief, what kind of hedonist, selfish, egomaniacal person was I? It was already wearing off! I mean, not even a day, not even twelve hours, and I was back to my breakfast and my hotel carpet, and Satan’s creature comfort ways, and I felt like such scum that when I got out of the shower I really expected to look in the mirror and see him—Satan—sitting on my shoulder like the slime bag he was, exhorting me in pidgin. But all I saw was this thin wet girl, bony with her shoulder blades sticking out. This person with dark eyes and long hair and this anxious look on her face. My tan, I realized, actually was pretty uneven. So I had to admit Harrison wasn’t putting me on about that. But then I shook myself, because, wait, what was I doing—staring at myself in the mirror? After my life had been changed? Oh God, oh God!

  My first impulse was just to run back to Greater Love as fast as I could and get help. Except it was only around five-thirty in the morning, and Sunday-morning services wouldn’t be starting for another four and a half hours. My second impulse was to kneel down and pray. So I did, right on the bath mat, for as long as I could, until I started repeating myself, going in circles. Then I got dressed and read my Bible for half an hour, but I couldn’t concentrate, because I was just so incredibly hungry, and the breakfast buffet didn’t open until nine, since it was Sunday. I was at my wits’ end! So finally, I went out onto my balcony and stood there looking out at the ocean. The sun was rising, in a rosy-tipped dawn, and the water glowing, and the sky all pink and rose and golden orange, like eggs over easy and syrup and French toast. But I made myself focus. I tried some affirmations.

  I said, “Lord, dear Jesus, I love you body and soul.”

  I said, “You are my rock, and my redeemer. My healer and my home.”

  I said, “You lead me not into temptation. You deliver me from evil.”

  Then I stood there and wondered if that last one was really an affirmation. Because the thing about affirmations is you aren’t supposed to say anything negative in them. That was one of Margo and Harrison’s main principles. And “You lead me not into temptation” was sort of negative, because it had “not.” But it was one of those tricky biblical phrases where being negative could turn around into a positive thing. I just didn’t know. So I scratched that one, and I just said, “You deliver me from evil.”

  But then for some reason I felt dumb saying that, so I went inside. Because, I mean, how exactly was the Lord going to deliver me from evil? He hadn’t ever delivered me before. So all my doubt and skepticism seemed to bubble up to the sur
face again, not to mention my stomach growling. I paced around my room. I said, “Jesus, sometimes I feel like you aren’t there for me.”

  And I said, “Lord, sometimes I feel like you aren’t really listening.”

  I said, “Jesus, sometimes I think you don’t give a damn!”

  Then I said, “Sorry.”

  I said, “Sometimes I feel like I don’t know who you are.”

  I said, “Sometimes I feel like you make yourself unavailable to me.”

  “Sometimes I feel that you aren’t really attentive to my needs.”

  Then I sighed, because, what was the use. What was I trying to do here? Who was I to start up couples therapy with Jesus? Just who did I think I was? Not to mention His issues, being a holy spirit made flesh, and still living with His Father. Trust was the key, right? Trust was the foundation of all relationships. So if I was going to hang on to this relationship I began last night, I was going to have to let go first. If you’re really going to trust, you have to give your spouse, or lover, or other, his space. And then once you have space, you can try dialoguing. But how did that work in my situation? I tried and tried to get my mind around it, but in the end I just flopped on the bed, because I was so tangled, I couldn’t think straight.

  AT the dot of nine I was downstairs in the Ilima Ballroom loading up my plate. A lot of the couples were down there, too, a few of them wheeling suitcases, since they were checking out right after the morning session.

  I have to say, that last day of the retreat was pretty good. Maybe Margo and Harrison really did have some insights into relationships. Or maybe my whole rebirth and morning-after thing had swept away my cynicism of the day before. I still don’t know, but at that session Margo and Harrison got down to the nitty-gritty. The personal statements and resolutions that everyone had to do two of. 1) This Is What I Want to Do for Me and 2) This Is What I Want to Do for Us.