So Paul decided to do an environmental enactment for his workplace. I helped him. It was fun. We went down to the big spiritual supply centre on 34th Street and got some sacred paper (made from old clothes worn by the major New York storytellers), and some sanctified chalk and some great miniature office furniture (I loved the little fax machine; it was so cute), and some little plastic dolls to signify Paul and his co-workers, and finally a package of official SDA flash powder. Then we went downtown to Paul’s studio in the Village where he had what has got to be the smallest sanctuary you’ve ever seen (growing up in the suburbs can be pretty boring, but at least the houses all have decent-sized sanctuaries). We drew a circle on the floor for sacred ground and set up the office inside it. Then we labelled one of the dolls with Paul’s boss’s name and just wrote “co-worker” on the others, and set them out. Next we took the biggest doll and wrote Paul’s name on it, including his official enactment name. While Paul marched the doll into the circle I moved the other dolls back and forth, as if they were all happy and excited about Paul’s joining the company. After that, we sang songs of harmony and success while Paul wrote out a few “positive realities” on the sacred paper. Paul burned the paper on a silver enactment tray and then scattered the ashes on the dolls at their miniature computer desks. Finally, we sang a couple more songs, general all-purpose praise stuff, while we set off the flash powder in the silver bowl that went with the tray. And then Paul took me down to Chinatown for dim sum.
Well, we certainly had fun. And maybe it would have worked—if the danger had been coming from his office. But in fact it came from another office entirely, one down the hall near the restrooms.
Later on, the SDA questioned Paul pretty heavily about his early encounters with the Being. I’m sure they were trying to get themselves off the hook, in case we decided to go public after all about what she was doing there. And who her clients were. But Paul didn’t know or suspect anything when he first saw her. Why should he? As far as he knew, she ran a temp agency. He only went past her office at all because it was on the way to the men’s room. In fact, most of the time when he went past it the office was closed. And the few times the door stood open he just saw her on the phone, or entering stuff into a computer. He did notice her. But all he saw was a beautiful woman—long wavy red hair, smooth curves, violet eyes. She wore suits most of the time, he said, kind of severe no-nonsense, with skirts just above the knee.
Paul noticed her and so did all the other guys in his office. But as far as he could tell she took no notice at all of him or any of the others. Some of them called her “the Ice Queen”. (Why couldn’t she have decided to melt for one of them instead of my cousin Paul?) A couple of times, he said, he tried speaking to her at the elevator but never got anywhere. Once, he said, he was standing outside her open office (he didn’t say what he was doing there) when her phone rang, and after she’d answered it she got up and went over to close the door. Paul said when he saw her the next day in the lobby he felt himself blush but she just walked right past him.
So what changed her? What made her suddenly go after him, of all the men who worked there? Paul was always vague about this with me, sometimes saying he had no idea, other times hinting he knew something, but didn’t think it was important. I’ll have to guess, but I do have an idea.
What I guess is that Paul did something which made him more attractive. I think he did one of the forbidden enactments. Now, I don’t mean anything really nasty. Paul would never do anything violent. But just before the Being got interested in him, Paul went on a holiday—a hunting trip, he said. A packaged tour. And he got nervous whenever I tried asking for details. That wasn’t like Paul. From around when I was twelve he would always tell me pretty much everything. So I think he went off to one of those “lodges” men go to, and I think he did something a little more serious than dolls and tiny office furniture. Something with a vow of secrecy, and maybe a couple of “service” women wearing nothing but body paint and soft furry animal skins.
Men do these things to increase their potency. That’s what the magazines say, anyway. Whatever Paul did, it sure got the attention of the “lady” down the hall. He walked past her office one day just after his trip. She was writing on a chart or something, Paul said, when suddenly she stopped, put down her pencil and looked up at him. Directly at him. She looked curious, he told me, as if she was seeing some interesting animal she’d never encountered before. I remember he laughed when he told me this, just a few days after it happened. Of course, that was before he knew what she was. But I didn’t laugh with him. It gave me the creeps, even then.
Paul said he was so startled he almost ran away. Instead, he did his best to smile at her, but she was already back at her work. So he forgot about her until that afternoon when he was waiting for the elevator to go home. He was just standing there, feeling tired, when he heard a voice behind him. The funny thing is, he never remembered what the voice said, just the way it made him feel. He found himself closing his eyes and smiling, and swaying back and forth slightly as if he was balancing himself against a strong wind. He opened his eyes and turned around, and there she was. She had her blazer draped over her arm and she was wearing a satiny blouse, pink, Paul said it was, and I bet it was open pretty far down, but Paul didn’t say that.
In fact, when he first told me about this fantastic woman he’d met he sounded so gushy I should have suspected something just from that. He told me how she touched his arm and all the tiredness left him, how it was like sitting on the grass and watching the river go by. Paul never talked about girls like that. Paul never talked about anything like that.
They went out for a drink, then dinner, to some place Lisa knew. That was the name she used, Lisa. Lisa Blackwell. Goddamn her.
When they said goodnight they kissed, and even though it went on for a while that’s all they did. And then she smiled at him, “like a kid” Paul said, “like she was younger than you”, (“Thanks a lot” I told him, but he paid no attention) and it was okay, he said, it was okay they didn’t go any further, because he knew they would do so, maybe the next time or the time after.
I said, “You better make sure she gets a little older first”, but Paul was unstoppable. He just wanted to go on about how okay it all was.
They slept together a few nights later. The SDA investigators made a big fuss about this. Paul told me they asked him over and over what it felt like, didn’t he suspect anything? He just kept repeating to them that it was like sleeping with an ordinary woman. That wasn’t what he told me. At the time he went on and on with one soupy description after another. He even told me how he prayed that when I started sleeping with boys I would find something so perfect. I said, “Maybe you and Lisa can coach us.” But he was beyond sarcasm.
If Paul’s ga-ga language didn’t make me suspicious something else should have. He didn’t want me to meet her. Now, I didn’t meet all of Paul’s girlfriends. I mean, it wasn’t like he submitted them to me for approval. But usually, whenever he got serious about someone he’d invite me for lunch or something, so we could all get to know each other. With Lisa he got all evasive whenever I asked to meet her. I don’t think he knew he was doing it. He kept saying how he’d told Lisa all about me and how she couldn’t wait to meet me. But it never worked out. He would promise, but always “next week”, or after a sales conference, or an out of town trip.
Finally, we did make a date. Paul and Lisa invited me to go with them to the Summer Drum ceremony in Central Park. I don’t know how many people reading this have ever been to the Central Park Drum. Most towns have a Summer Drum, but not like this one. Over one hundred thousand people come, many after days of deep mud retreats, so that all they’re wearing is globs of dried dirt. People dance, sometimes on one leg, people fly the most amazing kites (some nine levels high, each with its own guardian spirit), people throw sanctified Frisbees painted over with patterns of perfection, groups of three hundred people or more go deep travelling in meditation together, people lie on the grass and hum for hours…And then there are the drums, as many as seven thousand of them. The first time Paul took me I thought we’d all bounce up into the sky when the drums started.