Not long after a fifteen year old Duncan had outraged his teachers and surprised his peers by leaving behind a promising academic career to Regular Pioneer and wash windows, a telegraph pole wearing green pants knocked at my door. As I was expecting a visit from the local Constabulary, for reasons noted below; the ‘pole’ was a pleasant surprise.
The ‘pole’ was a actually a JW, the plainest and longest man I had ever seen, with a mighty grin capable of felling empires and, I was to discover, also the possessor of a formidable intellect. He was accompanied by another very likable and inoffensive little man, whom he was obviously training in the preaching work. I liked him but was irritatingly mesmerized by his mustache which seemed to develop a life of its own when he spoke as it bucked and wriggled around his lip, like a caterpillar in the throes of death.
I recall asking him at one point if he enjoyed being a JW, and he firmly replied ‘No, I do not, but it is the ‘Truth’ what can we do about it?’ The ‘pole’ squirmed next to him and grinned as if to show that regardless of Mustache mans comments, at least he was quite happy. I grew to love the ‘pole’, whose literary eloquence convinced me in later years that he too, had subjected the most important thing in a persons life; his creative soul, to an Adventist empire of staplers and a sterile, manicured mysticism.
I played them a piece of music by Eric Dolphy specifically to note their reactions. I judge all people by their music, its far more accurate than any other method I have tried. The piece was twenty minutes or so in the playing and they sat patiently while I watched them with a cynical sort of fascination. The ‘pole’ blushed and grinned sheepishly every so often, but I was truly impressed with their patient sincerity - this of course was to be my undoing.
After chattering about Duncan for a while, it was obvious that the Pole was deeply impressed with the example of Duncan, especially when I informed him that he had been roundly condemned by the establishment as a prime-time squonka. They both turned at this news and caught each others eye with a knowing look, and then back to me, beaming with pride, making another renewed attempt to keep my attention pinned to a little blue book with illustrations so childlike that I spontaneously exploded with laughter when I first viewed them.
It was a Sunday morning, my head was rather heavy from the events of the night before when I had led a group of fellow miscreants, clad only in rags and saxophones deep into the countryside where we built a huge fire and committed repetitive disfellowshipping offenses under Aldebarans morbid glare.
Around 3am, the police arrived en masse and began banging heads together very hard, it was obvious that they viewed the event as good exercise. All I saw in the light of the dying embers, was an angry flurry of arms and legs whirling like Catherine wheels and the odd scream and grunt as the already semi-dazed revelers were put back to sleep the rapid way. One particular individual, with whom I had shared a sandwich consisting of dead yellow-jackets and one or two struggling spiders a few weeks earlier as an experiment ( with a resulting peculiar swelling of lips ) was quite badly beaten. The experience changed him dramatically and he joined the RAF a few months later, always I thought with a perverse long term plan to drop a ‘belly-buster’ on the local Police Station in retribution for his bruised kidneys.
I was the only one who knew the area well, having spent much of my youth sleeping my summer nights away under the stars, so I grabbed a couple of wenches and we sneaked through a copse to freedom. All the others were arrested of course and as I was quite sure they would ‘shop’ me, friends being what they are, I patiently waited at home for my turn. This is the scenario that the Pole and Mustache had entered.
They invited me to a ‘meeting’ that afternoon, and I went with them and though I hardly understood what was happening, I have to say that I was very impressed with the sincerity and sense of community that the JW’s seemed to have found. In later years I came to realize that rather than doctrine, it was this sense of community, perhaps missing in my upbringing, that allowed me to hand over my wild heart to Brooklyn with a retrospective, astonishing ease.
Duncan of course was in the midst of the congregation activity, surrounded by his peers, most of whom I grew to appreciate were his intellectual inferiors by quite some distance. I noticed the young girl that I had spotted him trying to seduce that November afternoon and at close quarters could appreciate why. Silver tongued Duncan was Empire building, and he was doing so with vigor. As for myself, well almost by default, I slowly slipped into JW life, always more impressed by a good heart than a bad doctrine and never quite fitting in comfortably.
Now at this point in my confessions, I have to say that I was, and still am by nature a lone wolf. I make friends with difficulty, much preferring my own company. I am not quite sure of the kind of friend that I was to Duncan, I hope as good a friend as a person like myself can be. I do remember long afternoons of truancy, herb tea and music-making, while Duncan, maroon service bag at the ready, would take off his short bottle-green raincoat, ruffled from hours spent in coffee shops, and discuss with customary animation, the latest artist in the Marvel Comic station. I do recall one occasion when my sister who was visiting from Japan where she lived at the time, shook me from my afternoon siesta and informed me that I had a friend waiting for me at the front door. When I asked for a name, she said ‘I don’t know, its somebody who looks a little like Steve McQueen ( the blue eyes I guess ) with a briefcase, wearing a green raincoat’.
Shortly thereafter I was baptized and headed for North America. Duncan and I faded from each others view until the Summer of ’82 when after my return to Europe, I received a cryptic long-distance message from the ‘pole’ to the effect that mysterious and worrying transformations had taken place in the personality of the once lovable Duncan, and that he badly needed help. Duncan, the boy who gave up everything for his God, was now having doubts about his calling. This time the roles were myself as the Regular Pioneer, and Duncan the anarchistic apostate.
I climbed into a train and hammered my way through London, toward Duncanville. I knew I had little to say to him due to events that had occurred in the late 70’s which had begun to unhinge my own faith in the WTS.
I had hoped to finish with Chapter 2, but resurrecting these memories is a longer process than imagined. For all of you slumping forward, eyes closed, at your screens, I promise, just one short message after this one.
Thank you for your patience - HS