Mormon Tarbuti

As teenagers, my friend Brian and I would sit in front of our Latter-day Saint chapel in New Jersey, watching men in yarmulkes and dark-haired women in sheitels and black dresses walk to and from Shul. Reform and Conservative Jewish kids attended public schools with us, but we knew very little about the Orthodox Jewish children that walked by. None of my friends at school spent nearly as much time in church activities or followed as many rules as I did, but I knew these passerbys’ devotions had an even greater intensity than mine.I saw my Orthodox Jewish neighbors as a colorful part of world religions, a tapestry of which Mormonism occupied a small space—a space in which I took great pride. I felt our faith was incredible, but felt no need for it to be exceptional. When adults and children stood up in front of our congregation and said that they knew that our church was the true church, I wondered if the bearded dads that walked by were telling their children the same types of things.“Why are there not Orthodox Mormons?” we once asked my father, who was the bishop.“None of us are orthodox,” he said. After pausing, he added, “Or maybe we all are.”If we weren't Latter-day Saints, Brian and I probably wouldn't have been friends. He was short, uninhibited, and unconcerned about what others thought of him. I was tall and self-conscious. Brian was in a social group we called “Ginkers.” It seemed to be a pejorative term unique to central New Jersey, which was roughly defined as troublemakers in black jeans and heavy metal T-shirts who embodied the Beavis and Butthead characters. He was likely at the apex of the ADHD spectrum and was a terrible student with little support at home.Since we were the only Mormon boys in our grade, and since being Mormon was (and is) an immersive experience, we were extremely close. We grudgingly participated together in scout camp, road shows, mutual, and temple trips to Washington, DC. We drove to seminary in the dark New Jersey mornings to memorize scriptures and listen to lessons. Many were from Utah, transplanted men who used faux curse words and taught in the hyperbolic CES style that ruled the era—telling us how “awesome” Book of Mormon prophets were with tearful testimony. Though difficult to make sense of what was being taught, we felt that the adults in our church truly cared about us. While the staff at the high school were incredibly wary of Brian, the adults at church saw his mischievousness as non-malicious and even recognized some level of genius.Brian was an object of deep curiosity at our school. He had six brothers and lived in a small house on the humble end of our town. It was the type of working-class New Jersey neighborhood described in Bruce Springsteen lyrics: factory smells in the air, chain-link fences, and old Chevrolets parallel parked everywhere. In my memory, it was always gray. I would enjoy sleeping over at his house, despite the Lord of the Rings atmosphere. There were holes throughout the dry wall and urine stains on the wall. His brothers would argue incessantly about meaningless topics like whether their dad could swim to Staten Island, how high you had to drop a quarter from to kill somebody, and how long a colon was. Kids at school, hearing that I had slept over, would ask me whether his father was a polygamist and why they didn't believe in birth control. My answers were angry and defensive. Besides him being one of my favorite friends, our journey through Mormon life together made us seem almost as close as siblings.Some of his infractions of rules were creative and universally appreciated among peers, like when he commandeered the school's PA system, circulated rocks in the fan vents of unpopular teachers, or snuck inappropriate CDs into the DJ disc changer at church dances. Other more impulsive infractions were less appreciated, like when he took off his shoe and smashed a hanging hallway clock between periods. Our school was one where ninth graders were studying for the SATs and identifying their college reaches, targets, and safeties. His antics began to grate on this population of serious students. I was quiet and well behaved, so our friendship was confusing to them. They didn't understand how Mormon we were, and how tight of a community that exists therein.In high school, our friend and co-priest Ed, who attended a different high school, died. From my understanding, it was an overdose of something. Brian, having attended multiple wrestling camps with Ed, was closer to him than I was. I remember sitting next to Brian at his funeral, watching him stare at the ceiling in deep thought, as speakers spoke in rambling generalities about a teenager so young that effective eulogy was impossible. Our priest's advisor, Brother McCullough, became more determined than ever to keep us on the straight and narrow.The Sunday after Ed's funeral, instead of teaching another conventional lesson from the handbook, he chose to show us a replay from the ninth inning of the Yankees game from the day prior. It was a no-hitter thrown by the one-armed Yankees pitcher Jim Abbott. We watched as, in a manner incongruent with the mood of our devastated quorum, Abbott was hoisted in the air triumphantly by catcher Matt Nokes after the final out of the game. Brother McCullough exhorted us to always lift each other up. He seemed to be looking at me more than anybody else, as if he was hoping that I would be Brian's Matt Nokes.Brian did indeed become more elusive over time. The image he projected, as he entered his late teens, was a caricature of an anti-hero in a 1980s seminary video. He had purple hair, nose rings, and increasingly irreverent behavior. Brother McCullough would still always stop by to check on him and drive him to various events—whatever Brian would agree to attend. He would bring ice cream to his house and stop by Brian's restaurant to teach gospel lessons. I was often there as well, playing the role of peer cheerleader for the church and our quorum.Late in our high school years, after Brian had been left back a grade, we drifted slightly apart. I would see him in the back of the student parking lot as I walked by with my friends in varsity jackets. He would be slouching near the chain-link fence, a familiar face in a dark background of Metallica T-shirts and cigarettes.We met at Vinny's pizza one Saturday late in high school, when his church attendance had become more sporadic. Brian predicted that I would go on a mission and get married very quickly, and that he would still be working at Taco Bell when I returned. There was nothing wrong with that life path, from my point of view, but it was the first time I had detected a fatalistic tone in his voice. Though I don't remember having a religious anxiety about his lack of church activity, I was extremely sad not to see him there. Church seemed more boring and less palatable without my friend.About one month after that meeting, he showed up to school with a somewhat lewd symbol shaved in his head, or at least that was how the haircut was interpreted by our school administrators. He was suspended indefinitely and dropped out, never graduating. This event began the lowest days of Brian's life. His parents kicked him out of the house. He worked two jobs for a total of eighty hours per week at Denny's and Taco Bell. He lived in his car for some of the winter of 1995, in between restaurant shifts.Brian came to my mission farewell, which was the first time he had attended church in eighteen months. When the meeting was over, I saw him walking in the parking lot. Butterflies were rising in my gut as I considered two years away from home in a white shirt and tie, while the non-LDS friends that attended my farewell would be returning to their dormitories with Scarface and Shaquille O'Neal posters hanging on the wall. I could not help vainly shuddering at the image of a future balder version of myself returning in two years wearing a poorly fitting CTR T-shirt. It felt like youth was ending abruptly that week. Seeing him was an incredibly welcome distraction from my fears. I caught up with him, and we stood next to the oak tree that we used to climb on to the roof of the church as kids.“Can you write me a letter and let me know how it is out there?” he asked.“Sure.”“Brother McCullough is still suggesting I work toward going too.”“Are you considering that?”“Not really.”Brian serving a mission felt like a ludicrous proposition at the time, but I knew that I should write him anyways. I wrote a reminder to myself in the front of the red missionary journal that I had purchased at Deseret Book.On an October day in 1996, long after the infectious religious fervor of missionary work had been incorporated into my personality, I was riding my bicycle through the narrow streets of a city in western Taiwan thinking about Brian. As my companion and I pedaled past the bustle of the train station, through the pungent scent of bean curd being sold by street food vendors, and between the beechnut stands with Chinese characters in neon lights, I began to describe Brian's family. I told him about nine kids in a tiny house in a New York suburb, and that we were the only two Mormon boys in our huge school. He was intrigued. Over the noise of mopeds, Elder Wilson asked if I had written Brian. How had I forgotten this promise I had made fifteen months earlier?At nearly the same time, Brian received a call from his mother while on a shift at work. The stake president and the area General Authority had decided to make select visits to people in the stake, and Brian was on their list. They were at Brian's house when she called.Understanding from the tone of her voice how badly she wanted him to come, he asked a coworker to cover for him. He took off his apron quickly, spit out the snuff in his mouth, and drove home. He only stayed five minutes and made no eye contact but agreed to meet with President Baxter on another occasion. Two weeks later, he drove to President Baxter's house after his Taco Bell shift.“Brian,” President Baxter asked, “Tell me what you are doing with your life now?”Brian noted that he was working three jobs, taking classes at the community college, and had a girlfriend.“OK,” he said, “Those are all good things . . . what is your goal in life?”“What do you mean by goal?”“What can you see yourself doing in 10 years?”“Well,” Brian said, “I don't really know . . . maybe move up the chain at a restaurant?”President Baxter showed Brian the paper he was writing on. In the top left corner, there were three small words written: “school,” “girlfriend,” “work.”“Does this seem like a full life to you, Brian?” he asked in a slow, whispering voice.Not really clear on what a full life meant to President Baxter, other than that it would include participating in church, he asked him to explain more.“What about getting married in the temple, serving a mission, pursuing a career? I know you well enough to know that you are a smart kid. You could do anything you wanted to.”As Brian was considering this statement, President Baxter picked up another paper and started frantically writing, in large letters, the goals that he thought would be attainable for him. He was writing rapidly, with multiple exclamation points. As he wrote, he was bobbing his head up and down like the conductor of an orchestra. Every goal he wrote down was punctuated with an exclamation mark.“Stable and loving family life!,” “Community Service!,” “Graduate degree!,” “Stable Job!,” “Business Leader!”President Baxter felt that it all started with a mission.In the aftermath of his writing, President Baxter was perspiring. His short and spiky hair was damp. Brian had seen numerous displays of passion from adults, but none started and ended with his potential.Brian showed up to church a few weeks later and told Bishop Guarneiri that he wanted to work toward a mission. Surely skeptical of the proposition, the bishop still appeased him by reviewing the necessary steps. By the next week, Brian was confessing infractions and submitting his tithing in cash piled inside a CD case (he had no bank account). Two weeks before I returned from my mission in Taiwan, Brian left for a mission to Europe. More than twenty-five years have passed since Jim Abbott's no-hitter, and I am standing at a corner on Market Street and thinking about contacting Brian. I follow his social media peripherally and know that he lives here. My career takes me to San Francisco every January, and every year I think about calling him, but always decide against it. Not feeling like the same kind of Mormon I was previously, I can't stomach the idea of being a familiar face in a dark background to Brian.I saw him occasionally over the first few years of his marriage and then not at all after he attended my own wedding a few years later. That was nearly a decade before November 2015, when my family's religious life seemed to become more complicated. We have had different experiences in Mormonism and, like hundreds of other families, have different ideas about how to proceed in the face of another ungraspable policy.I try to speak with my Jewish and Catholic friends about the difficulties of Latter-day Saint and family life. friends can't understand they are to a that is full and They their with the of or a enjoy days with their and and the of their about their of in the is not a part of their There is one day where a Jewish friend me about her who I lives a life. I her that he be and she is not in her friends of other religions, of their religious while the and I know seem to swim in the of what they are My and I a few with of who get together and off about and in between the sad of with family I meet many people to keep their family There are who don't to but their who to and their and in which to in with their family. I have never been more for my and but I still the need to things out with of that in they are so in that I it to get an with of at a to a future that and religious to our we try other after our one we as one of five to that a church with to ceiling if we can from a that the of We try other with hanging from their and in They are all but none like home. They are not our or in a style that is familiar to us. I would always people that they the but the and I would my head in That less sense to me I try to remember why we said and why we to the idea that there even is a Mormon In a faith that to at least as much as I can see how the and skeptical like there is little left to with their to listen to the types of that the of that of Mormonism that is less and like faith They are the are an to Latter-day the world that at their and if they have looking for some to the of that the type of we for Many of while the in that like creative about the of like the Book of but at least the with an of how they are to understand and I am by this and point of view, but I that the in only at the of and never get As I my own and the of the I have the to like of people who never really had to day at my a of a Jewish about an Latter-day Saint with a who she is from of her family of religious After I him that are not like I to if that is truly a other I can't help looking at Mormonism through the of and, for a short time, become with the of whether the of a version of were after the of the The religious is different for a other than a of the various that can be to by this from the other I to the of a Latter-day Saint of and I myself it is and after all that Brian been through and to him of my own I decide to call him. He to meet me at a on Market He over from me as if I am a He is wearing the type of area that walking San Francisco to His tight jeans are not a and he a up shirt a that down at the The part of him the but the seem or maybe his face much like the Brian I knew to like He a which is of It is as if him, as to him into still shift as he as I His manner of and heavy on is not for the I I that he is a lot about church We of our New Jersey life for nearly two eighty hours a week and a high at one of the in the His time is spent between his bishop and his kids He extremely and is a and who the of church life and thought about them. His life It is not the that There is a and kind in his I have no that he been a Brother to many I speak with him, it me that is a a church of have Brian's life so The same of or immersive of the church that seemed to Brian and him into is the very same that to have many other The of the of in our faith out of to other but at what that for Brian. The me with a reminder of how this faith can about our past in New Jersey and his mission me with deep feeling of and As as all of that I a between us, and I can't decide if it is home from the and am considering why I this I am having a with a Jewish who me if I can a about to her group at the Jewish community I the all of the people the of who are or in Jewish with family and idea of having a that all of people one religious and is to My Latter-day Saint friends there is no as a Mormon there is no Mormon They the that our really is as a of I think they are one There is no of or people in can their together in to the of my are not to from a family who not believe there are types of they don't have a high of among the There is not the of who the of the or the lack the of the Orthodox There are no or dark and very few the of without a the of the We are not even to Mormon of families, many of which are seem to have an increasingly style and of I if these of that family more and less and of family that could attend. who like they are this point of view, years after I to make sense of Mormonism in our Jewish it is my that to lives the This not how I am for the that many of us, Brian, have from the I my Jewish after he me a of on the or that the Church is to who are not all many have probably with the of whether or not this and would be at if the religious were in a that and that the same religious can have to some and to I that the is that it would meeting with Brian in San Francisco to other with his of Brian's brothers followed him on a They and at our high school, of never before their own They the career and the other that seem to be the of their who didn't have the church support or the mission It is being but it is not to not be one