Larry and the Meaning of Life Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  PART ONE

  PART TWO

  PART THREE

  PART FOUR

  PART FIVE

  Epilogue

  Also by

  Notes

  Copyright Page

  For Jake

  PART ONE

  “Things do not change; we change.”

  Henry David Thoreau

  Walden

  There is nothing good on television at three o’clock in the morning. I’ve spent months doing research; I know. Like a media-fueled zombie, I clicked from channel 02 to 378 then back again, night after night. The programming was dreck, but the images and sounds comforted me. I’d been home for a few months after traveling the country by bus to try and find my girlfriend, Janine.1 After eight months on the road, I realized she was history. When I returned home, my stepfather, Peter, gladly removed his treadmill from my old bedroom. My best friend, Beth, was less than an hour away at school—I should’ve been happy. But this was the most miserable period in my life.

  Peter tried not to let me see his growing concern. He slapped me on the back and told me I just needed time to settle in. He threw the stack of woe-is-me letters I’d written from the road into the fireplace, setting off a handful of sparks.

  “All kids go through this,” he said. “Being rudderless at your age is the most normal thing in the world.”

  “That’s the first time anyone’s ever used the n-word to describe me.”

  “See? There’s hope for you yet.”

  I turned toward the fire, avoiding eye contact during yet another humiliating personal conversation. “I hate to sound like a walking cliché, but I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing with my life.”

  “Have you tried talking to your mother?”

  I told him last time I tried she wasn’t there.2

  “Nonsense. Probably just a bad day. But maybe this will help. Beth’s father called—there’s a part-time job at the hardware store if you want it.”

  I’d already bungled my September start date at Princeton and was scheduled to begin classes in January instead. I knew I needed to work between now and then, but I’d replaced the requisite job search with South Park reruns. Rerun—I was only eighteen, yet my whole life already seemed like one.

  “The hardware store sounds great. I’ll call him tomorrow.” As much as I’d always enjoyed filling the bins with bolts and mixing paint colors, the thought of getting up, showering, and being at the store by 7 A.M. sent me burrowing deeper into the cushions of the couch.

  “Once you get to school, you’ll be fine. You’re always happiest when you’ve got a project to keep you busy.”

  “I tried to change the world and failed,” I said. “Several times. Just making it through the day is about all I can handle right now.”

  “I think it’s time to talk to a professional.”

  “A truckload of Prozac couldn’t help me deal with how messed up the world is.”

  “Is that what’s bothering you?” Peter asked. “The state of the world?”

  “There’s conflict on every continent, the poverty rate is increasing, the environment’s a wreck, and I’m not supposed to be affected?”

  “Maybe you should get involved in solutions instead of sitting on the couch complaining.” The touch of anger in his voice reminded me of the old Peter, the workaholic ad exec who’d married my mom.

  “I did that, remember? Got my head handed to me on a platter. Spent months writing sermons, spearheading a grassroots campaign for change—nothing.”

  “You’ve been through a lot,” Peter said. “You’re just exhausted.”

  “I feel like I’m sleepwalking and I’ll never wake up.”

  “I’ve got to admit I’m worried,” he said. “I’ve never seen you like this.” Peter sat with me awhile before going to bed.

  It wasn’t that long ago my life felt full of purpose.3 Maybe Peter was right and this was just a blip on the radar screen, a phase that would end once I entered college. But when I really stopped to analyze it, losing the election or the state of the world wasn’t the problem—I was. Being so directionless was new territory for me. I’d always prided myself on knowing what I wanted to do: fight consumerism, run for president, change the world. I’d filled notebooks and blogs with ideas and projects since I could remember. Now? I’d tried to write a few sermons since I’d been home but came up dry. Watching an episode of Family Guy seemed much easier to manage. And since I stopped hearing my mother’s voice at Bloomingdale’s, I felt more lost than ever. Talking with her—alive as well as dead—had been a beacon for me, a way of continuing to improve myself and grow. My biological father had died before I was born; for some reason lately, that early loss throbbed like a new wound. If he were alive, would things be different? Peter—at least this recent, caring version—was helpful and kind, but even he couldn’t jumpstart my malaise.

  When I started the www.thegospelaccordingtolarry.comWeb site, some people had called me a guru, but I was the first person to say the term never applied to me. Those long months on the road made me realize I didn’t have any answers. And as much as I looked forward to college, it seemed naive to think some professor would take me under his or her wing as a spiritual protégé.

  I picked up the remote and clicked—infomercials, Nick at Nite, The Terminator. I sank deeper into the couch, hating myself for choosing the wonderful world of distractions over the difficult job of fixing my life.

  “I can’t believe you bagged my father,” Beth said. “You love the hardware store.”

  “I know—I can’t get out of my own way.”

  “Getting out of your way implies movement. You haven’t left the couch in months!”

  While studying at Brown this semester, Beth had let a local hairdresser chop and highlight her hair, which was now as short as I’d ever seen it. Surprisingly, the severe style actually softened her expression, tempering the razor-sharp ambition that was usually the first thing you noticed about her. “I can’t keep taking the train up from Providence to talk you off the ledge.”

  “Especially when the ledge is a Twilight Zone marathon,” I said.

  Beth grabbed the remote from my hand and shut off the TV. “Come on, let’s go to the woods. Sitting in your hole for a few hours always makes you happy.”4

  I answered her by getting up and turning on the TV by hand.

  She shut it off and blocked my path. “This is all because of Janine, isn’t it?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Why don’t you start a new blog and write a few sermons? You’ll feel better.”

  I told her I’d tried but the words wouldn’t come.

  “One word in front of the other, like laying bricks,” she suggested.

  “It’s a bigger problem than just writing sermons. It’s life in general.”

  Beth rolled her eyes with exaggeration. “An existential crisis, how unique. You’re eighteen, a little too young to give up on life, especially without having lived most of it. You know how much stimulation you need—you’re just bored.”

  I ran through the many projects I’d accomplished since I’d been home: a collage of found objects from the Radio Shack Dumpster entitled Technical Difficulties; helping a neighborhood family run a yard sale to benefit Guatemalan refugees; hacking into the town library’s computer system to order several books on astronomy; organizing Peter’s books into chronological, alphabetical, categorical order; perfecting a new chocolate dessert; and applying for a patent for my acorn energy processing system.

  “And you still have t
ime to sit around and mope?” Beth asked.

  “My projects usually motivate me, but now they just feel like fillers to take up time.” I lifted the hem of her jeans, exposing her antimaterialism tattoo.

  She swatted my hand away and threw me my jacket. “I’m taking out the big guns. We’re going to Walden.”

  I covered myself with the jacket and curled into a fetal position. “I feel like I’ve let down Thoreau. I can’t face him.”

  She yanked the jacket off me. “Stop being such a baby. He’s been dead for a century and a half. I doubt he’s worried about your productivity.”

  I didn’t want to admit I’d avoided Walden Pond since I’d been home. Being in a state of mental and emotional disarray at such a sacred spot only added to the torque of my downward spiral.

  When Beth forced me to look at her, the expression on her face showed only tenderness and concern. “I’m worried about you.”

  “You sound like Peter.”

  “He’s worried too.”

  “You two talked about me?”

  “He doesn’t know how to help you. Neither do I.”

  “I’ll tell you what you both can do—leave me alone.”

  She looked at me for a good long time. “On one condition. You at least try to help yourself.”

  “Okay. I’ll go to Walden tomorrow. Happy?”

  Like the best friend she is, Beth volunteered to come with me. As much as I would’ve enjoyed her company, I told her I wanted to experience the pond in solitude. Maybe Henry David could provide some much-needed solace. The thought cheered me up momentarily, until a second one followed right behind it: two of the biggest influences to guide me on life’s journey were dead.

  I had to admit it was great to be back at Walden. My body leaned into the earth, relieved to once again be supported by its fertile arms. Watching the orange maple leaves descend to the surface of the pond made me realize there was no other place I’d rather be.

  From my favorite spot, I gathered a small pile of acorns and tossed them into the water.5 I rolled up my jacket, propped it underneath my head, then stretched out on the lush soil. “Simplify, simplify,” Henry David Thoreau had written after spending two years, two months, and two days in this sacred place. Year after year, I kept returning to his words. The advice seemed ridiculously easy, yet in practice proved immensely difficult. Minimizing my number of possessions wasn’t a problem—I still logged in at fewer than seventy-five—but reducing the number of distracting thoughts that continually derailed me was next to impossible. I closed my eyes and let the word form a cerebral loop: simplify, simplify, simplify, simplify, simplify, simplify … .

  I was jolted out of my meditation by a middle-aged man with wild gray hair, wearing a dirty Hawaiian shirt and overalls with one side of the denim bib unbuttoned. He stood above me laughing.

  “Thinking about Henry David or dreaming about a warm grilled cheese sandwich?”

  I told him I’d been thinking about Thoreau.6

  “All the pilgrims come up here, thinking that if they stare into the green water long enough, their lives will change.” He took a knife and small piece of wood from his pocket and began to whittle.

  “Is that a rook?”

  He held up the small object. “Chess is a great game—a lot like life.”

  I lay back down on my jacket pillow. “I’d hardly call life a game.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. There are goals, other players, and instructions laid out before you start.”

  “That’s funny, I don’t remember reading the inside cover of the box before being born.”

  “Just ’cuz you don’t remember reading the instructions doesn’t mean you didn’t.”

  Who was this guy?

  As if in response, he held out his hand. “Gus Muldarian. Come here every day to walk the pond.”

  I introduced myself and told him I loved to walk around the pond too.

  He unfastened the other button of his overalls. “No, I said what I meant. I walk the pond.” He took off his overalls, revealing a patchwork pair of denim cutoffs. His chest and abs seemed as strong as the foundation of a building.

  “Be careful, the pond gets deep,” I warned.

  He took an elastic from the jumble of bands on his wrist and tied back his long hair. “Thoreau himself was the first person to survey the pond—winter of 1846, while it was still iced over—using a compass, chain, and sounding line.” He pointed across to the other shore. “The deepest point is over there—a hundred and two feet. I walk as far as I can, but where it’s over my head, I tread.”

  He marched to the shore repeating the sentence like a singsong poem: Where it’s over my head, I tread. Where it’s over my head, I tread. I spent the next hour staring up at the canopy of trees but found myself continually drawn to the water to see if I could spot Gus. He reminded me of some of the wacky travelers I’d met on the road. I couldn’t tell if he was Latino, Middle Eastern, Native American, or just plain tan from the remnants of summer. I’d been coming to the pond for years but had never seen him before. My overactive curiosity got the better of me as I stared at his overalls and shirt strewn on the ground. You can tell a lot about a person by what he does—or doesn’t—have in his pockets. I made sure he was on the other side of the pond before rifling through his stuff.7 I unfolded a stained piece of notebook paper and stared at the words scribbled across the page in pencil. Memories flooded in of being stalked several years ago by betagold. I put the paper back in his shirt, grabbed my jacket, and sprinted up the hill. The words haunted me as I ran toward the road. Josh Swensen.

  Walden Pond

  “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation why some stranger had your name in his pocket,” Beth said. “He’s probably doing a where-are-they-now piece for his blog.”

  From a logical point of view, this made sense. But something in my gut screamed to the rest of my body to pack my bag and hit the road.

  Beth’s expression was a unique combination of wanting to comfort her best friend and urging him to get over himself. She was the one person on the planet who could always cut my self-absorption to the quick. She ripped open the netting of a small crate of clementines on the counter and tossed me a fruit. I took this as a sign to move on and steered the conversation to her political science class, a course I’d audited a few times since I’d been home. But halfway through our discussion of the electoral college8 my mind veered back to the wild man at the pond.

  “Don’t you think it’s creepy being stalked by some aging hippie spouting Thoreau? Who knows what he wants?”

  “This is so you,” Beth said. “Instead of asking the guy face to face, you take off and spend the next days obsessing about it. If you want me to go with you and find the guy, I will, but we are not spending the next few weeks playing ‘What if?’”

  I couldn’t admit I’d already gone back to the pond looking for Gus Muldarian with no luck. First Janine, now Gus—I could never make a living as a private detective. In the usual way she could read my mind, Beth asked about Janine. I told her I still hadn’t received an e-mail or call.

  “What about that guy from your Soc class?” I asked. “Does he still want to go out with you?”

  Beth told me he was more extinct than the spectacled cormorant. She stopped peeling her clementine and pointed to the space between us. “You’re not thinking about us as a couple again, are you? Any chance we had evaporated when you took off after Janine.”

  This was what I loved 9 about Beth. She always gave you exactly what was on her mind, both barrels.

  “I was just asking,” I said. “Don’t flatter yourself.” I went back to making a tabletop mosaic of a Simpsons couch scene with the tiny pieces of clementine peel.10

  Beth took pieces of peel from her own pile and added them to Marge’s hair. “I mean, it makes sense logistically for us to hook up again with both of us around, not seeing other people.”

  “On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with waiting,”
I said. “Sometimes that’s the best plan.”

  As nonchalantly as possible, I checked out Beth’s ironclad expression. I’d known her so long and would guarantee she’d rather be with no one than be someone’s second choice. Nights I couldn’t sleep, I wondered if choosing Janine over Beth had been the wrong decision. I made a choice, but it didn’t work out. Life goes on, right?

  Peter came in and threw his baseball cap onto the coatrack across the room. He’d parlayed his stint as my presidential campaign manager into a full-time job as an events planner for several grassroots candidates. I still couldn’t get used to the beard and the jeans, a look miles away from the corporate robot uniform he’d worn during his marriage to my mother.

  “Josh, I need you to write one of your speeches for this local candidate I’m working with.”

  For what seemed like the millionth time, I told him I was out of the sermon/speech/rant writing business.

  “This guy’s a carpenter by trade—got into politics to fight the zoning laws. Hates those giant McMansions as much as you do. Come on, it’ll take you two seconds.”

  There were people who did this for a living, and I told him I was no longer one of them.

  “Come on, give it a try for your old man.”

  His perkiness made me realize there was no local candidate, that the whole thing was a ploy to get me to focus on my work again. Peter’s manufactured enthusiasm sunk my already low self-esteem even lower. Almost as if he realized what I was thinking, Peter backed off and handed me a small box that had come in the mail. No return address, just my name in a handwritten scrawl. Inside was a rook with a note. Still think life isn’t a game? Your move.

  The note was unsigned, but I knew who’d sent it. I threw the note away as if it were radioactive. The feelings racing through me reminded me of when betagold—aka Tracy Hawthorne—ruined my life.11 Was Gus the 2.0 version? Why couldn’t people just leave me alone?

  Beth was right; I needed to confront Gus and put an end to this before it got out of hand.