Baby, we were born to run. Assuming we had enough energy to get off the couch.
- We were safe from assault, debased philosophies, bewildering images, and harmful foodstuffs, but in our safety we’ve thinned and paled and dwindled. Our blood was weak, like children’s milky tea, and though our digestive tracks were scrubbed of residue, it seemed that we’d lost some essential vital filth, some energizing compost required for growth.
And talk about a sheltered life. As depicted in Walter Kirn’s droll and incisive Mission to America it’s a codified existence, systematized in remote Bluff, Montana’s church of the Aboriginal Risen Apostles, a matriarchal, almost New Ageish sect of myriad beliefs that isolates itself from mainstream life as the members strive to “stream on forever through the Etheric Flux, indestructible channels of vitality."
Turns out, however, that vital signs are weak and “forever” isn’t forever anymore: the Apostles haven’t been exactly fruitful and multiplying with sufficient Census Bureau expectations. Indeed, the population of Apostles has been dwindling for years. And so there must be launched an outreach program, a mission to the rest of America — to the so-termed “Terrestria” — to bring in converts and, especially, begat-worthy brides.
Mason LaVerle is one of the chosen young men — along with the equally naïve Elias Stark, who’d also found himself suddenly volunteered — to be sent off in what serves as the piece o’ crap company van to don Iowa sofa-salesman outfits and proselytize at shopping centers and malls. The sappy wanderers’ grand scheme encompasses everything from passing out leaflets in parking garages based on the condition of their cars and the type of bumper stickers, administering the “Well-being Test,” and ultimately grabbing, in the land of “emaciated elongated young women,” big-boned gals with child-bearing hips for the trip back home.
Still, Mason harbors no illusions as the two go along their wary way. “It was no wonder our movement had failed to spread,” Mason frets. “Unless you grew up with us, soaking up the lore, how could you hope to understand or join us? It was all so sloppy, so disheveled, a whole loose stack of fables and fourth-hand yarns clipped to a modest sheaf of creeds with a lot of health advice thrown in.”
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