Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything - Man Without a Country (2 of 3)

Episode Date: August 8, 2014

What happens when you curse your own country? In this version of the classic Americana tale your host is sentenced to live out the rest of his days in a hot air balloon.  In part two of the story your host has his first human interaction in ten years. Plus radio host Glynn Washington tells us what it was like to grow up black in a white-supremacist Christian cult.

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Episodes every other week at neverpo.st and wherever you find pods. You are listening to Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything. This installment is called Man Without a Country, part two. I'm heading north over Glacier National Park. Directly below me is the Hungry Horse Reservoir. To my right, the Flathead Forest, and to my left, Kalispell Bay. And rising up in front of me, the Going to the Sun Mountain.

I am surrounded by lakes and trees and mountains and sky. Montana truly deserves the name Big Sky Country. I never feel more infinitesimal than when I am traversing the Montana firmament. This vastness of sky overpowers the majesty of all that lies before me and reminds me just how insignificant, just how invisible I have become. The loneliness lasts for only a moment, though, because as my craft approaches Canada, the

atmosphere darkens and the sky fills with thousands of tiny remote-controlled killer drones patrolling the border in search of illegal immigrants to track and kill. Then my navigation system kicks in, my balloon makes a When I was in high school, I had a friend who was obsessed with Montana. His name was Ike. Ike and I were both bad at sports, and thus we were often assigned to afternoon groundskeeping duties together. While our buffer and brawnier classmates would batter and bash themselves on the playing courts, Ike and I would mow lawns, rake leaves, and shovel snow. Lawn mowing duty was the best, because that's when we got to huff gas.

One afternoon, though, Ike huffed a bit too much gas. He could barely keep his head up. I got worried that he might topple over the front of his riding lawnmower and get chewed up by the blades, so I convinced him to lay down in the shade for a rest. This is when he told me about his obsession with Montana. He said it all started when he was eight years old, when he was in the second grade.

This was before they made cartoons illegal, so there were still comic strips in the newspapers. In fact, on Sundays, there were these full-color comic supplements, complete with puzzles and games. Sometimes there were even contests. One Sunday morning, young Ike opened up the comic supplement and discovered a large map of the United States. It was drawn to look like a treasure map. It was a treasure hunting contest. Somewhere on this map was a buried treasure, and the boy or girl who figured out where the treasure was

would win $1,000. Above the map were clues, American history and geography questions, and there were promises of more clues to come. This contest would last three weeks. The contest totally consumed young Ike. He spent every waking moment at the local library, poring over American history and geography books, searching for the answers to the clues. By the third week, he became convinced that the treasure was buried in Helena, Montana. He was so sure of this, he didn't even bother with the final clues. He just mailed in his entry and made plans for the accolades and ticker tape parades that were soon to come.

A few weeks later, the Comic Supplement announced that 642 boys and girls had correctly located the treasure and that they would all be sharing the $1,000 prize. The treasure, it turned out to be in Lincoln, Nebraska. But Ike wasn't bothered by this, because he knew this was absolutely untrue. Those 642 boys and girls were all fools. The treasure, it was in Helena, Montana. Of this, Ike was certain, and he knew the treasure would wait for him. As Ike grew older, the treasure grew as well. On the afternoon I'm

telling you about, Ike told me that he was having dreams about a girl with long golden hair. A girl who lived in Helena, Montana. Ike was convinced that this girl was not only real, but that she was his soulmate. Now, I had never heard someone use the word soulmate before, so I snickered. Ike shut his mouth real fast at this, but still, fumes drifted out of his nose and his ears for the rest of the afternoon. We never spoke about it again. Not even when he wrote a song called Montana for our punk band. When we were 17, we started a punk band. Rock and roll was still legal at this point.

We only played one concert, though, our high school battle of the bands. And even though we'd agreed earlier that afternoon that we were going to play a song I wrote, once we were on stage, Ike launched into his Montana song. It wasn't even a real song. It was just Ike howling this one line over and over while he shredded on his guitar. Montana's calling out to me. Montana's calling out to me.

It was really bad. But I wanted us to win the battle of the bands. So I just strummed along on my bass and pretended that this was exactly what we meant to be doing. But we didn't win. The next morning, Ike disappeared. Nobody could find him, not even the police. Weeks went by until eventually he was officially declared to be a runaway.

I never heard from him again. Sometimes when I come this way, I see him. Swimming in the Flathead Lake, hiking the Horsehead Reservoir, and huffing gas on the road to the sun. I can't tell you how great it is to be moving again. For a while, I thought I was going to be stuck over Boston forever. But eventually, the supply plane showed up. And along with my usual packages of bread machine mixes, vitamin tablets, and tubes of industrial-strength sunscreen,

they sent down a repairman. I could tell that he was a soldier as soon as he started to rappel down from the plane. He wore the traditional brown Kevlar uniform, and his white cape was adorned with the insignia of our armed forces, Jesus holding an American flag in one hand and a shotgun in the other.

Now you have to understand, it's been almost ten years since I've had a conversation with someone. So when this soldier lands in my gondola, I'm overcome with emotion. I just stare at him. I can't believe he's real. He seems to have similar thoughts about me.

When they told me about this mission, he says, I didn't believe it. I thought someone was pulling my leg. No way did we sentence some guy to travel back and forth over the country forever in a hot air balloon, all because he cursed America. I don't know what to say. I'm so nervous, I stick out my hand thinking, you know, we can shake hands or something. He pretends not to notice. But then, he continues, I went on YouTube and there you were. You are totally real. YouTube, I say. It's incredible. My vocal cords, they still work. Then he tells me all about this thing called YouTube, where people share videos about funny cats and natural disasters

and clips from old TV shows and movies on the internet. When I got arrested and put in this balloon, the internet was just starting to get popular, but there was no such thing as YouTube. That sounds amazing. He slaps his forehead. Darn it! That's the one thing I'm not supposed to do. Tell you stuff about what's going on down below.

They said it's part of your sentence. Don't worry, I say. I promise I won't tell. This puts him at ease, and he opens up his toolbox and starts to examine the navigation system. I am allowed to ask you stuff, he says. He's interested. He's interested in me and my story. I want to bury my face in his chest and sob. What do you want to know, I say.

If you could go back and do it all over again, he asks, what would you do differently? That's easy, I blurt out. I got convicted by the three strikes you're out forever law, but one of those three strikes should have been thrown out of court. Now, obviously, I've gone over this thousands and thousands of times, but this is my first opportunity to perform the script for a real person. So I try to sound like Perry Mason. They threw the book at me for three offenses. Buying firecrackers from an

undercover police officer, drinking in public, and possession of obscene material. But where did they get off declaring Big Ass Magazine obscene? I should have contested that one. I was just embarrassed because none of my friends knew I read Big Ass Magazine. But it was just a girly mag from the 1940s,

a historical curiosity. It wasn't obscene. I should have fought them on this. And I can't help but think that if I had, then perhaps things wouldn't have gotten so out of hand, and perhaps it all would have turned out differently. But pictures of naked people are totally illegal, even if it's the person you're married to, Soldier Boy says.

Really? Things have gotten that bad? He smacks his forehead again. Then he takes a hammer out of his toolbox and starts banging on the navigation system. Were you ever married? He asks. No, I reply. My girlfriend wants to get married, he says, but I'm not sure. She's from a wealthy family. She grew up with a swimming pool and fancy vacations. I grew up poor. The only choice I had was the army. She says she loves me and that it doesn't matter that I don't make a lot of money. But I can't help but think that one day she will wake up and notice that we don't have a swimming pool and that we can't afford to go anywhere.

And then she'll start to compare her life to her friends. Her friend Lisa is married to a preacher and they have a giant house. And her friend Anne got an inheritance from her grandfather. Don't you think she'll start to resent me? Won't she think she threw her life away for something stupid like love? And what if we have children? Won't her maternal instincts kick in and rule out any other feelings for me except scorn and regret? I'm dumbfounded.

As you know, I've spent the last ten years in total isolation. I'm having my first face-to-face human interaction in a decade. And all he wants to do is talk about his relationship. For the first time, I actually considered throwing myself over the edge of my gondola. But he's serious. He's looking to me for counsel. He's looking to me for guidance. I choke back some more sobs and mumble something about how love always wins the day, even though I know it's not true. This is exactly what he wants to hear.

And as he puts away his tools, he's all smiles. Hey, I know I'm not supposed to do this, he whispers, but you can ask me one thing about the world below. Whatever you want. And if I know the answer, I'll tell you." I don't even have to think twice about it. As soon as he told me about YouTube, I knew exactly what I wanted to ask. Have you ever heard of a movie called Tarzan and His Mate?

No, he says. Well, it was made in 1934. Have you ever heard of a movie called Tarzan and His Mate? No, he says. Well, it was made in 1934. This was way before they made everything illegal. And when the script called for Tarzan and Jane to swim in the jungle river, they filmed them in the nude. As a safety precaution, the filmmakers shot multiple versions with the beautiful actress who played Jane, Marino Sullivan, in various states of undress.

They did one with her fully clothed, one topless, and one in the nude. Now, very few people have ever seen the nude version. The footage has been locked away in a safety deposit box ever since the 1950s. I know this might sound stupid, but I've always wanted to watch this. It would mean so much to me to see this, or even meet someone who's seen it. Perhaps it's on YouTube. He doesn't say anything. He just attaches the rope to his belt and gives it three quick tugs. As he rises from the gondola, the wind catches his cape and it unfurls. It's strange. I've never seen anything but judgment and menace in the face of our American Jesus.

After all, he is holding a shotgun. But as my new friend floats away from me, I swear that Jesus embroidered on his cape seems to smile upon me with a look of compassion and understanding. So So So So So So

So So So So So So So Our organization, our church, our cult was founded by a guy by the name of Herbert W. Armstrong. And he came from this generation of utopian dreamers that has other luminaries like Ray Kroc, who founded McDonald's, and Walt Disney, who founded the Disney World. Now, the founder of my organization, Herbert W. Armstrong, his utopia was going to take

a little while to get to. America has given birth to hundreds of religious cults, but few have been as American as Herbert W. Armstrong's Radio Church of God. Glenn Washington was born into the cult in the early 70s, right around the time Armstrong changed the cult's name to the Worldwide Church of God. Glenn Washington grew up a model cult member. He didn't question the white supremacist theology, nor the ban on Christmas. His secret knowledge of the Bible made him feel special. I was the kid who told everybody that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. I told them this with the, you know, the fervor of the converted.

You know, I'm a little kid. I'm armed with knowledge of the Bible, and I can still remember now, you can never get this out of your head, is Jeremiah 10 verse 3. This is in the Old Testament, and they're describing someone who goes out to the forest, a group of people, this sect of people go out to the forest, and they'll find a tree, and they'll deck it with silver and gold, and they'll take this tree, and they'll put it in their house. And there the bible it says those people who do this with this tree they are not of me and they have no part of me and this was an early description of the christmas tree and and so i felt like harry potter did it was when he discovered the line between the wizard world and the muggles. And I felt like I was born on the wizard side. And everything that I saw, every single thing I saw

looked different to me from day one. I knew that they were deceived, misled, being used by Satan, and I was one of the lucky chosen few who had real understanding. People said, aren't you sorry you don't have Christmas? Aren't you sorry you don't have Christmas? No. I had something better than Christmas.

And it was called the Feast of Tabernacles. You know, we had to tie to the church. Everybody does that, got tied religiously. But we had the invention, The innovation was the second time. You had to save another 10% of your income every year, but that was for you. That was for you to go to the Feast of Tabernacles, and you had to blow. You had to spend all that money in seven days. It was meant to give you a taste of what the world tomorrow was going to look like when Jesus returned. You get a sticker. It was a green sticker.

And you put it on your car and start driving towards the feast site. We're out in the middle of nowhere. You know, it seems like there's so few of us. You seem like you're fighting this battle um against satan all alone all just just you and your family but when you start driving down this road trying to go to the feast of tabernacles you see another green sticker whoa and there's somebody over there then the same thing is like you start beeping like a beeping and everybody gets happy they start beeping back and the and the closer you get the feast site, the more green stickers you see.

And by the time you pull up to the hotel, green stickers are everywhere. And we are people, you know, we're a poor family. We don't stay in hotels, especially not fancy hotels. But for this period of time, we had saved 10% of our income for the entire year. And the edict, the edict from the apostle was you are instructed to spend the entire 10% in seven days. So my father, my father, who never did anything like this, was handing out big bills to us. Go and have a good time it is commanded by jesus christ and that's exactly what we did the feast of tabernacles culminates in something

called the last great day and the last great day is no joke you gotta get there you gotta be there right on time and you get to this, big auditorium and it's dark. And there's these dudes in white coats fiddling around with this very high tech equipment. And there's a projection thing. There's all kinds of static and stuff going on. And you're and again, you're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting. And then, bam, right there on this big screen is a scene from Pasadena, California. We are in Wisconsin Dells. This is a scene from Pasadena, California. And you know that if you can see it, that means that different feast sites all around the globe are seeing the same thing from our headquarters in Pasadena,

California. And you see the preacher get up in Pasad Athena and he knows he's being watched all around the world. And it's like, brethren, today we're singing together. And we would sing, we would sing, behold, the day will come. And it was like, and you felt, you felt like the Lord has brought us all together here. This, this is a miracle of science that is being utilized to bring God's people together on this last great day. And once that whole, you know, this whole event was over and you had to get back in your car and drive back to whatever little place it was that you're from, you still felt that buzz, that electricity, that taste of the Lord. And that was really what kept you going through the rest of the year,

being different, being weird, being odd out there in the world. To really understand our organization, you've got to go way, way, way, way, way back, all the way to Noah. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now, Ham married a black woman. Japheth married an Asian woman. Shem was the only good boy. He married white.

So what happened was, the Lord got upset and mad. And he said, I'm going to wipe all these people off the face of the earth. And the flood came and then they all got on the ark together. And the boat went around for a year or so. And when they got off the ark, the Lord was like, uh-uh, there's going to be no more of this racial mixing stuff. And he set up various boundaries and barriers and rivers and continents so that the Asians got to be over here, the black people got to be over there, and the white people, they got to be somewhere else. From there, there were the 12 tribes of Israel that were supposedly

lost. But that was another thing that we had found out in the cult. We knew where they were. They were the colonies that were first founded in the United States of America, and they too were white. And this was our connection back to Jesus. Now, it wasn't that black people, Asian people, couldn't possibly attain the kingdom of heaven. It was that they were going to do so by their proximity to these white people. And you better stay close to Whitey or you might not get to go with Jesus. And so that's what we were supposed to do. Now, in order to accomplish all this, of course, Whitey's got to be kept white. As white as possible. There can be no racial mixing. It's very, very, very bad to be mixing with white people.

And, you know, when you look back and say, how in the world was a black family in the middle of a white supremacist cult? I don't have an answer for you. I do not have an answer for you. The upshot of this for me as a young boy in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was that we could only date black girls, which is cool. Except in my area of the world, in the church, there were no black girls. And this is when I started questioning their version of Bible beliefs. In fact, I wrote a letter to Pasadena, California, to the Council of Elders, saying, this is some nonsense. And I got a letter back saying,

do not question the apostles' vision of the Bible. Do not question it. This is the way things are supposed to be, so get in line. There was one black girl, but she found a loophole. What she did was she had mixed race parentage, and she went back and she researched the secret bylaws and the rules

and found that she could send a document into the Council of Elders and ask for a look-see review. A look-see review is this. You send a picture, you write up a letter, and they look and they see what racial classification you are. And she did it. And she got a letter back three months later saying, for all intents and purposes and privileges from that day forward,

she was reclassified as white. I couldn't believe it. They're taking away one of the very few black girls that we got. Now my compatriots, people who understand my pain, they can go marry Leon with all the privileges of white America, and I'm stuck in the ghettoized version of the cult, and there's nobody there for me. It was, it was untenable. And the rule was very, very specific. You are not allowed to date outside the church, outside the organization. But for me, they decided, you know what,

let's relax this a little bit. So it does become pretty apparent that it is more, it's okay with them. It's not cool. I never got official sanction, but it's okay if I date black outside the church than it is if I date white inside the church. The very last Feast of Tabernacles I went to was my late teens. And you've got to understand this. This is a hookup joint. It's a holy hookup joint,

but it's got kind of a serious undertone to it. These are your prospective mates. Most people marry early, and you're trying to feel out the crowd and stuff and seeing what's going on. And some of the parties that would happen at the church festival were more debaucherous than anything I've ever experienced in college or high school otherwise. And I remember my last feast, and I remember my last feast and I went to this party and it was all kinds of getting dizzy. Every room, every closet, every, you know, broom closet was filled with coupling couples. And I met this girl. She's beautiful. She's tanned, but she's white.

And she grabbed my hand and we went to the kitchen was like the only place left where there were still some space and we're getting busy we're getting busy and I I feel like wait a minute she is not looking at me as a serious potential partner this is a game this is a. I'm a son of Ham. She's a son of Shem. And the rules don't allow for this. Now, it's all well and good tonight, but she's going to wake up the next morning. She's going to put that halo back on. She's going to be the good church girl. And I'm going to be the mistake. And I thought, I'm being used. She had no intention of entertaining a relationship with me. And not that, you know, I was looking for a wife, before I thought that the overall structure was right,

but they just had some weird beliefs in the middle. And it occurred to me that the weird belief, the crazy thing, the thing that was central to me was central to the belief structure of the organization. They really believed that Adam was white, that Noah was white, that Jesus was white, and they're trying to preserve that white blood. And it was central. It was at the very crux of the religion, and I could have no more part of it. I had to run away from it. Thank you. Jesus once said that man cannot live on bread alone. Or maybe it was Karl Marx who said it. Or Groucho. I don't remember anymore.

But whoever said it lacked the imagination and foresight to envision the bread machine. With a bread machine and a variety of prepackaged bread mixes, a man can live forever. I will admit I could do without the Cajun dill, but as someone definitely other than Jesus once said, variety is the spice of life. So I count myself lucky that the supply plane brings me regular shipments

of not just Cajun dill, but whole wheat, country white, and chocolate chip. Every night before I bed down, I load the bread machine with one of the mixes, and then I lay down on my pallet, and then I fall asleep as with one of the mixes, and then I lay down on my pallet. And then I fall asleep as the sound of the machine mixes over the Great Basin of Nevada,

I enjoyed a fresh, piping hot loaf of whole wheat. I spent the entire morning looking at ghost towns and nuclear test craters. From my vantage point, the craters almost look like footprints. I can pretend that I am a great hunter, tracking a strange and giant beast. And with my binoculars and my strange craft, I surely look the part. But it's a stupid game. Obviously, everyone knows where the footprints are heading. There's a sign over City Hall that says Las Vegas is the fastest growing city in America.

And I assure you, this is no empty brag. Through boom and bust, Las Vegas continues to grow. I pass by about every four months, and every four months there's new casinos, new strip malls, new housing tracks. In a few years, the city will reach the California border, and it will stretch east all the way to the Hoover Dam. Las Vegas never ceases to amaze me. For even though everything is now illegal, Las Vegas remains a den of iniquity. They rebranded sin. Here in Las Vegas, the girls are all showgirls. The drugs and liquor, they're party enhancers. And the gambling, they call it gaming.

In Las Vegas, vice itself has been repackaged as choice. And Las Vegas has not only succeeded in doing away with the government moralists, there seems to be no government whatsoever. There are virtually no taxes to speak of, no public agencies, no regulatory bodies. The mayor, he likes to say that the only responsibility of government is to make sure that the odds are posted in plain sight. The mayor also likes to call Las Vegas

the capital city of the information age. And he's right, because the odds are truly the only piece of information worth anything anymore. And in Las Vegas, the odds are always posted in plain sight. Every time I pass over Vegas, the mayor is out somewhere giving a speech. Today, at a casino luncheon, he was once again praising the new arrivals.

The numbers are staggering. Over 5,000 people a month moving to Las Vegas. The mayor's always quick to point out that there's no better showpiece of American democracy than Las Vegas. For in Vegas, everybody is treated the same. It doesn't matter what color you are. It doesn't matter what your profession is. You can be a history professor from Harvard or a donut maker from Des Moines.

In Las Vegas, everyone is equal. Of course, the history professor will have less of a problem losing his shirt. It's the donut makers who hang themselves from the air conditioning vents and blow their brains out with handguns. That's one thing the mayor doesn't like to talk about. Las Vegas is also the suicide capital of America. It's also the crimes with a violent weapon capital of America. And the high school dropout capital of America.

And while the odds are always in plain sight, the ashes? They're hauled off the streets in secret by unmarked panel trucks. And these trucks are always driving out into the desert to dump their cargo upon the scorched earth. But the mayor doesn't like to talk about this sort of thing. He'd much rather talk about all the new banks and insurance buildings. He likes to say that they're proof that the country no longer looks down its nose at Las Vegas. Another story he's fond of repeating is the one about Citibank. In the 1980s, Citibank used to send out all its mailings postmarked from Lakes, Nevada. Citibank was afraid that the rest of the country would balk at dealing with a financial institution

that was based in Las Vegas. But these days, Citibank doesn't need to make up a fictional address. It's proud to be a part of Las Vegas. It's got a new building, too. An elegant, opulent building that holds its own with the casinos and the hotels. There are so many banks in Las Vegas now, and it's difficult to tell them apart from the casinos, especially from my vantage point, because they all have rooftop swimming pools. It's because of these rooftop swimming pools that I possess such an intimate

understanding of Las Vegas. It's where the mayor spends most of his time yammering non-stop with his mob cronies and showgirls. It's also where most of the city's leading businessmen and clergy can be found. Some of these pools even draw out visiting royalty and heads of state. Even the sheiks from the Middle East will ditch their flowing white robes to doggy paddle in the crystal clear shallow water. Most of the pools on top of the hotels and the casinos are also open to the general public, the fat people. That's another thing these rooftop swimming pools have taught me about Las Vegas. This city is also the fat person capital of America. Sometimes it's like I'm looking down on a beach school of corpulent white whales. Wales.

There's a girl who spends almost all of her days on the roof of the Venetian. She's immune to the bad food and undaunted by the unhealthy lifestyle. And even though she's lived in the city for over five years, she's taken care of her figure. She's beautiful. In the daytime, she likes to swim the butterfly stroke and lay out in one of the wicker chairs in her bikini. And at night, she works the marriage booth at Caesar's Palace. Sometimes when a couple comes to Las Vegas seeking the blessed sacrament of matrimony, they can get carried away with the party enhancers. And when this happens, she provides the bride with makeup, wardrobe, and hair assistance.

And sometimes if it's necessary, she'll even play the part of bridesmaid, so that she can keep the bride upright during the ceremony and the photo documentation. She lives by herself. Her boss and her coworkers are continually trying to set her up, but she just ignores them. I'm waiting for someone, she always says. This afternoon, someone sat down next to her. He has dark brown hair and his swimsuit looks like it's army issue. He isn't obese, but he could still stand to lose a few pounds, which is why I find it

strange that she notices him. He notices her too and says hello. She smiles and says hello. He pulls his chair closer. He says he recognizes her from the casino. Well, I've never seen you before, she replies. That's because it's my job to blend in with the crowd, he says, flashing his white teeth. I'm an undercover security guard, and I'm good at what I do. This makes her laugh, and he moves his chair even closer. He tells her about his job on the casino floor and how he always has to be on the lookout for guys trying to cheat at cards or the tables. One time, he even caught a guy who had implanted an electromagnetic transmitter in his hand. Supposedly,

this device would allow him to manipulate the roulette wheel with his mind. But before he could try it out, his hand caught fire. She tells him about all the couples who come into the marriage booth and how most of them don't know each other very well Often during the ceremony, she'll have to prompt the bride with the groom's name Then the man asks her if she hopes to get married She tells him she's waiting for someone He asks her how she'll recognize this person when he shows up. This makes her laugh again,

and she starts to tell him that she meant she's waiting for someone she already knows. But then she decides it doesn't matter. And then they launch into this ridiculous conversation about love at first sight. And this goes on and on and on. They seem to find this conversation so engrossing, so entertaining, so titillating, they don't even notice the chunks of chocolate chip bread, soggy with saltwater tears raining down upon their heads.

Then he gets up from his chair and stands over her His back is to me so I can't see what he says She has her hand shielding her eyes Blocking out the sun and me And then she takes his hand And together they jump into the pool. You have been listening to Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything. This installment is called Man Without a Country, Part 2. It was written and produced by Benjamin Walker with help from Bill Bowen and Laura Mayer.

And it featured Glyn Washington, who is the host of the radio program Snap Judgment. Visit toe.prx.org for more information. and that is where you can subscribe to the podcast the theory of everything is a founding member at radiotopia.fm.