MF was a friend of mine for a long time. He loved the congregation, and would defend it to the last.
Around the same time my wedding was happening, things were heating up for him and a sister he had been in love with for years. The only problem was, people had a problem with him marrying her, because she already had a son from a previous marriage. Why? I have no idea. The prejudice was deep, though, as I’d soon find out.
There were problems, just like in my courtship, but he stuck it out to try to do it the right way. Finally on a late January day, my wife and I responded to a call to visit him in his new apartment. That’s where he announced that he was marrying her in two weeks.
I was shocked, but overjoyed, because these two were clearly in love, and not in that stale theocratic way, but for the sake of two people joining in happiness.
The plans went forth, and everyone, even the dissenters in his family, attended the ceremony, which was in his new apartment. Brother M, the PO and one of the anointed, presided over it. MF was a ministerial servant at the time, so I guess that made it easier for him to get the wedding done by an elder.
Everything went smooth, as my wife and I were matron of honor and the best man. I just loved being on the rebellious side of things. My wife wore red, just to piss off the old biddies that were attending. I took the wedding pictures, and my wife provided the food in what turned out to be a wonderful day.
Now skip ahead two months. I get a phone call from MF. “We’re pregnant!!!!”
I thought it was wonderful, because his wife was almost thirty, and she wanted to have kids with him before she got too old. It never crossed my mind to question the pregnancy. The gossipers in the hall did that for me.
Then began months of inquiries into the pregnancy of MF’s wife, embarrassing interviews, kind of like Informal Judicial Committees, one in which an elder accused her of sleeping with another man before marriage just to manipulate MF into marrying her. Sick stuff.
All during this time I was telling him to stand up for himself, to tell them to piss off. His wife was having a complicated pregnancy, and she almost lost the baby a few times. She ended up having the baby premature, at seven months, one week, about two months premature. The baby weighed 5 pounds 6 ounces. Sounds like a pre-mee, right?
Well, the BOE had other ideas. They continued with the accusations, even after TWO doctor’s notes saying that the baby was born because the mother had some condition, and that they could call the doctors to confirm this. The elders didn’t care about the educated opinion.
Then I told some elders that I had spent almost all of my free time with the two before they got married, and that I couldn’t conceive of a time that they were alone.
Of course, that wasn’t enough.
Then it hit me. The elder initiating all the inquiries was the man who presided over the ceremony, the many with the most to lose…the PO, the anointed company man.
I finally had had enough when the PO, brother M, brought the new CO to where the couple was sitting after a visit from the CO. The PO pointed at MF and said, “This is the husband,” pointed at his wife, “this is the wife,” then pointed at the beautiful newborn, “this is the child.”
Then they walked away without another word.
When MF told me this I was infuriated beyond belief. These accusations had brought him into a depression, and I couldn’t stand to see him that way. He told me that they were going to remove him as a MS and announce it from the platform.
I told him to fight it, to bring it to another level, or to not play their game at all, just leave and never go back. He was so sad when he told me, “Ashi, just drop it. I’m dropping it. I can’t beat them, so I’m letting it drop.”
Those words, ‘let it drop’, are not in my vocabulary, as all of you know.
I talked to every person I knew about it. They all agreed with the PO. I started to name names of people I knew who got away with more. In short, I became the focus instead of MF, which suited me ok. But, it wasn’t enough.
They announced his removal when I wasn’t there, and I haven’t went back since.
A lot of things entered my mind at this time…how could one of the anointed lie about someone else, unless he was just like the rest of us, and there was no real demarcation between us and them. How could my friend just roll over and accept the lies and punishment they bestowed on him, unless he was under their control? What about the double standards I had witnessed and heard about during my nighttime conversations with elder’s wives when I was a kid? How could this be the true religion if it was corrupt in the ways all other religions were?
Five months later, something even more interesting happened, in the late fall of 1999.
FBF, I found out, had diddled with my sister. (Not sex, but fooled around with her.)
She was three years his junior, (he was 19, she was 16) and it was just announced that he was made a MS at the meeting before, or so I heard.
I drove my car quite angrily to a party he was at, and demanded he talk to me outside.
I drove him to the parking lot of the kingdom hall, a spot mentally important to him, and I tore him a new asshole. I gave him a week to confess and go to the elders, or as a compromise, go to his father and ask him if it was ok for him to still be a MS if he was sexually messing with younger sisters who had feelings for him, but he had none in return.
This, along with losing my wife as a prospect of his, certainly didn’t endear him to me any more than before.
I called his brother a week later and asked how someone who could do something so blatantly wrong could stay an MS only a week after becoming one. He said, “I’ll tell my father about it.”
He did, but the effects were for naught. Nothing happened to this ‘pillar of the congregation.’
And myself, who only stood up for a friend maligned, was an outcast, and a dissenter for speaking harshly of the PO for lying about MF. I was almost an apostate, but not yet….I wasn’t going to meetings, but people were still talking to us.
Now and again, during visits from old friends, they would ask me innocent questions about things, and I would give honest answers. They brought up the PO, and I told them what I thought of him. My comments were not complimentary.
Then, in the spring of 2001, a year and a half after leaving, FBF gave me a call and invited me out to dinner. I’m all about burying the hatchet, so I agreed.
Next installment,
Helping Water Goddess’ Brother, the Informal Judicial Committee, and a friend's DA.