The Devoted by Eric Shapiro Page B

bed, supposedly for a relaxing time, and he’d just start yelling and being very aggressive with his hands. And the rest of himself.

Edgar Pike’s Journal
    May, 2009
    I’m realizing the effectiveness of certain words and topics when it comes to recruitment.
    The recruitment venue is a source of pride to me. They like us at the yoga center, and have even expressed looking forward to my talks. Call us a “gang,” which I’ll take. It’s fun and cute and light.
    Those who come are from varied sectors. Jed is what Malcolm Gladwell calls a Connector; that is, he’s good at bringing people together. Every Friday, I’d say 10 percent of the audience is from him, just chatting with strangers on or near the beach. The rest are from New Age sectors; they enjoy yoga, of course, and tantra and meditation. Vegan diets, many of them. A good deal of marijuana users, which is okay. They’re impressed when I join them for it; it yields me young.
    As of now, we have 23 members. I’d like millions. I think the Internet will have to become involved at some point. Matthew can be of assistance there. He was homeless, briefly, but ironically spent much of his time in the Apple store, surfing the web.
    Recruitment doesn’t happen during the talks. The talks themselves have a hook regarding Oneness. From Oneness, I go into the Gush. Most of them seem to get it immediately. We then do meditations right there, and all of them get it. They see, meditating, that there’s the gush -- which is always running hot; all our instincts and feelings and drives and rhythms and aliveness -- and then there’s the hum...
    You CAN ACTUALLY Separate The Two. At any moment.
    Once you see that you can divide them, you see that both are illusions. I speak in support of the gush, which is where much of life’s pleasures reside. The hum, however, I speak of as more real, since it’s foundational and identical within every single one of us.
    But real recruitment happens after, during snacks and juice. I speak to the women, primarily, though lend courtesy to the men. Our discussions are primarily about the sermon. Some say “lecture,” which is okay.
    Then I’ll use words. It shames me when I fail and delights me when I succeed.
    One such word is “tits.” I will speak to a woman for a long enough time, get her to like me, then use “tits” in a given context, usually in pursuit of humor. If she doesn’t like it, I discard the exchange. If she deems it funny or proceeds unimpeded, then I know she is of a sufficiently sexual nature to warrant further engagement, either then or in the future.
    Blushing, I talk of “mooning,” too. Of how, for example, Laura in the group thinks it’s funny to moon the rest of us. This is a good topic, safer than tits, because unlike the above, it straddles the line between sexuality and sheer silly humor. Still, a woman can give herself away through her reaction to the topic. If she likes it, sufficient sexuality has been discovered. If she’s tight, I have no remaining use.
    These are sophomoric games; I’ll be the first to admit it. But like the low word I dislike, they get at the root of our basic truth. Pleasure centers. Gush. Not to be dismissed, unreal though it is, essentially.

Last Day – 1:53PM
    Him: “Anyway, four in a row, whatever, but Paul was later.”
    “No. I met him before we met Susan.”
    “Maybe, okay, fine. But I met him after I met Susan.”
    “So we’re going with who you met or who a given group representative met?”
    “I guess me. It makes no difference.”
    “It’ll make a difference when we’re all standing there at six o’clock.”
    Some space grew between us as we spoke, but He narrows it, His footsteps hard on the floor.
    “I’ve lost a lot of people this year,” He says. “Am I going to lose you, too?”
    Till now, I thought gulping was a thing of myth. But here I go, Adam’s apple clicking.
    “Interesting choice of words,” I say, my mouth a humid hollow.