I drag myself, hung over and makeupless, into the lobby a few minutes late, and Michael’s already there, tapping one Croc on the marble. I feel guilty and embarrassed for some reason, an emotion completely alien to my relationship with Las Vegas.
He asks me from behind his sunglasses, “How late did you stay out?” At almost six feet, Michael towers over my five-foot-two
frame, which makes me feel like I’m back in high school and my parents are asking me where I spent the night.
“Somewhere around four-thirty, I guess,” I say sheepishly.
“I stayed up all night playing poker, so neither of us got any sleep,” he says with a commiserating laugh.
It should make me feel better, but as we get in the taxi for the Las Vegas airport, I am nauseous and uncomfortable. I’m thankful that Stephie’s in the car. Michael’s idea of including her on the road as our tour manager and guide is my hangover’s saving grace: she is the perfect buffer between the two of us. Even so, I feel a looming sense of “what have I gotten myself into?” yet again. The trip is really about to start and I no longer will have my own Stephie in my corner. No more cabin. No more hometown. No more Jimmy. No more Kasey and Josh.
To say it feels strange to get into a taxi, leaving Las Vegas after spending a night together exploring strip clubs, the world of exotic dancing, and buying each other lap dances is an understatement. It’s like everything is going backwards. Michael and I are experiencing things together that normally only close friends would do, but the ugly truth is that we don’t know each other at all. Usually when I meet someone I either love them instantly and we are bonded for life, or I feel more cautious and we end up just acquaintances. The thing with Michael is I still have a difficult time gauging how he is feeling or what he likes. I can’t believe that after watching a bunch of women dance naked together, we could still feel so darn awkward with one another, and this worries me.
Michael:
The next morning we meet outside the Palms at eight o’clock for our flight to Salt Lake City. Meghan comes downstairs in sunglasses. She does not meet my gaze.
“How’d it go last night?” I ask her.
“Fine,” she says in a voice pitched a little too high.
“Did you get any sleep?”
She shrugs. She didn’t. She’s embarrassed.
“Did you?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say, but I’m embarrassed too, because after I dropped off Stephie in the lobby, I played poker all night, trading chips with obnoxious tourists until dawn. I am exhausted. There’s a quiet moment when neither of us says anything. We just stand out in the sun trying to blink ourselves awake.
After a few moments of silence, Meghan asks, “Are you having fun?”
“Yes,” I say. “Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I say. “You?”
“I’m having a great time.”
Each of us is trying to convince the other that we are having a good and/or great time. The whole trip is starting to feel like a first date, a really odd, really long first date. I’m not saying it’s a
bad
first date, but it’s got that kind of charged atmosphere where each person is hoping to make a good first impression even if they’re not necessarily interested in seeing each other ever again. The problem is that our first date is going to be a month long.
A few hours later, we arrive in Salt Lake City just as Brigham Young and his band of followers did 160-something years ago: exhausted, bedraggled, and filthy. The difference is that, unlike the early Mormon settlers, we are arriving after a night at a nasty-ass strip club.
The thing about Salt Lake City, which makes it different from every other major American city, is that it’s still pretty much a theocracy. America has had its share of religious communities, but Salt Lake City is the only one that was founded by a prophet, flourished, and still retains its theocratic roots. This is Mormon country. And Mormons make me nervous.
If you’ve ever seen the
X-Men
movies, you know they’re about a group of mutants who are the next wave of human evolution. They’ve got special powers, and if left unchecked they will eventually wipe out humanity as we know it. That’s how I feel about Mormons. They just seem to be a slightly
superior
breed of human: they
seem taller and more bright-eyed. Mormon kids have straight teeth. The women are all pretty. They are a wholesome, better breed of people. Never mind that Mormons wear more than their fair share of Dockers. Never mind that Utahans consume more porn than anybody else: that just speaks to their superhuman testosterone levels. Mormons are taking over. It’s the fastest-growing religion in America, and now they are even running for president. Who knows? By the time this book comes out, one of them might actually
be
the Republican nominee. Salt Lake City is Mormon Mecca, spiritual and administrative home of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. SLC is LDS, and being there can make you feel like you are on LSD.
Meghan:
We land in Salt Lake City and drag our hot mess of a trio to rent a car and go explore the land that Joseph Smith built. When we are standing in the rent-a-car line there is a group of little boys clustered around with their mother, all of them dressed identically. They have matching blond bowl-haircuts and matching blue eyes. They look like any and all idyllic versions of small all-American little boys, except maybe all-American little boys from the fifties, given that their outfits are some spotless, tucked-in version of light-blue shorts and button-down shirts. Their hair perfectly gelled in a sort of Beaver Cleaver coif. If Norman Rockwell had married Maria von Trapp, these would be their kids.
Michael whispers in my ear, “I’m betting they’re Mormon.”
“I know,” I say. “Why do they dress their kids like that?”
Just to be clear, I have no problem with Mormons, with neither their religion nor their culture. In fact, every Mormon I have ever encountered has been nothing but kind, if a little on the quiet side. I support Mitt Romney’s run for president and think he has a really good shot at winning the whole thing. It is fascinating that we could possibly elect our first Mormon president before we have elected a woman.
Mormonism has of late been hitting the mainstream pop culture. The Broadway play
Book of Mormon
is a huge, huge success, both
critically and commercially. In addition to Romney, fellow Mormon John Huntsman made a primary bid for the Republican nomination.
Time
and
Newsweek
magazines have both run features on what it means to have Mormons running major corporations and possibly even the free world. It’s a religion I’ve been around my entire life, representing an estimated 5.8 percent of Arizona’s population. Congressman Jeff Flake, who is currently running for the Senate to fill Jon Kyle’s old seat, is highly respected—and a Mormon.
I was amused to learn that long before the railroad tycoons settled Las Vegas, a small band of Mormon missionaries set up an outpost in a small adobe fort near a spring-fed creek. The mission failed and they returned to Salt Lake City. The juxtaposition now for us going from Las Vegas to Salt Lake city is purposeful, with the intention of going from one extreme of American life to another and, depending on your perspective, going from a place of good to bad, or bad to good.
Michael:
One of the games I have always enjoyed playing when visiting SLC is “spot the Mormon.” It’s easy. You just look for anybody who looks happy. I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s the lack of alcohol. Maybe it’s just that structure makes people happy. Maybe, ironically, in a country that prides itself on being the freest in the world, strict guidelines actually make people happier. Mormons have a lot of rules. No caffeine, no alcohol, no premarital sex, have lots of babies once you do get married, work hard, be self-sufficient. These are all pretty good rules, and maybe if you are able to live by them you can be happy. Of course, people are still people and a common joke about Mormons is, “How do you keep a Mormon from drinking all your beer? Invite another Mormon.”
I’m also told there is a higher percentage of interest in breast augmentation surgery here than anywhere else, which stumps me until I find out that the state also leads the country in births per mother. The theory goes that women here have more children at younger ages, and ultimately wear out their milk factories. Who wouldn’t want a little lift? What’s more curious is that the general plastic surgery
rate is also higher here than elsewhere in the country, which makes me wonder what other body parts are being improved upon and why. As my new Vegas buddy Kasey says, “Repression breeds obsession.”
Of course, people in Salt Lake City want to emphasize to visitors that their town is about more than Mormonism, but I personally don’t care about their jazz festivals and hiking trails and whatever else they’ve got. When I go to Salt Lake City, I have only one destination in mind: “Show me the Mormons.”
Meghan:
The entire purpose of visiting Salt Lake City is to explore further the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although I have exposure and knowledge of the church and Mormonism, both Michael and I want to know more: why Mormonism seems to be such a point of fascination in the media, and to get a better insight into why Mormonism is currently the fastest-growing religion in America.
As I look around the rental place and see so many shiny, happy faces, I start to wonder if maybe this is the religion I’m missing. Maybe this is my church. I have had such a tumultuous relationship with organized religion that I refer to myself as a “liberal Christian,” a term I stole from the wonderful Kristin Chenoweth. In general, however, I am conflicted about many religious concepts. Much like my politics, there is a lot of room for gray. I enjoy going to church and have found much comfort in it. I pray every day, but I believe that all of us are praying to the same divine force—the God that created us, looks over us, and protects us.
I don’t believe that there is a right God and a wrong God, that one religion’s image of God is better than another. The biggest conflict I have had with my childhood church is how it approaches the issue of homosexuality. I believe people are born gay, and I don’t accept that God makes mistakes. I also don’t understand where the hate comes from when all versions of God and Christ say that we need to love one another and not spread hate. Because of my church’s position, I am constantly feeling like I’m missing out on
something by not having one specific religion to join and claim entirely as my own. Who knows, maybe on this trip I will find out that Brigham Young is the man who will bring complete and total enlightenment to me. At this point, I am open to anything. Maybe I will want to convert to Mormonism by the time we leave Salt Lake City. I mean, it’s not out of the question, and the thought crosses my mind . . . but the thought also crosses my mind that my behavior the night before probably automatically precludes me from being allowed into the Mormon church.
Michael is an atheist. I don’t understand atheism, and this core difference between us strikes me as one of the most profound. I don’t understand not having some kind of faith in something or believing in some form of God. The absence of a higher power of
some
kind, or there being some sort of divine plan just doesn’t make sense. Really, nothing comes after this? And there was nothing before this? I refuse to believe it, and I find atheists arrogant. Arrogant and simpleminded. It’s one of the few deal breakers when it comes to the men I will date. No atheists. No atheists and no vegans. I’m still a red state girl at heart and I like my men to eat red meat and love God. Faith is such a huge part of my life that it is hard for me to conceive of what it’s like for someone to get out of bed every morning and not have faith in their life.
I really didn’t think I could connect with an atheist until I met Michael. My closest friends and the people who have had the most intense impact on my life all have the common denominator of a strong sense of faith in some form of a higher power. Michael believes in nothing. He doesn’t believe in God, he doesn’t believe in an afterlife. I don’t understand this. I don’t understand how a husband and father of two can believe in nothing. Michael is so full of life in so many different ways, I am perplexed and even borderline angered that he finds faith in nothing. It makes me sad for him and I’ve already tried to convert him to
something,
or as I jokingly said, “Turn him into a believer.”
Michael has his own reasons for not believing in a higher power, but all of his reasons only make me sadder. I always assumed atheism
would come with some kind of emptiness or loneliness in an individual, but Michael doesn’t display any of that, so maybe I am wrong, but for the rest of Michael’s life I am going to continue trying to pull him over to my side and make him a believer. One of the many things he will have to deal with about me until he dies and goes to heaven.
Michael:
Meghan does not seem to understand my feelings about religion. Yes, I’m an atheist. No, I do not believe in an afterlife. But atheism is not the same thing as nihilism. Nor is atheism (at least my version of atheism) a lack of spirituality.
My belief system basically boils down to this: I believe the world is more mysterious than we know and maybe more mysterious than we ever
can
know. Answers reveal questions that reveal answers, forever, like an endless game of
Jeopardy.
Our search for meaning is what defines us as human beings. To me, that search is our spirituality. Maybe the thing we seek is what some people call God.
I am not opposed to religion. Far from it. I’m for anything that gives people peace. That’s why I am also for hot tubs and compact discs of whale songs. Anything that soothes the soul is fine by me.
Where I get upset is when people presume to tell me how to live my life based on their religious beliefs. I don’t care what you worship or how you worship. Jesus, Vishnu, Satan: it’s all the same to me. But please don’t shove it in my face. You keep your gods in your backyard and I’ll keep my lack of God in mine; that way we can all go to Applebee’s together without a problem.