Lost One

by Lewis Wright

I hate tradition, that is exactly what I have found out about myself over the years. I would say it all started when I was around ten or eleven years old. I was still living in my cozy little childhood town of Peine, Germany. You see, as a baby, I was baptized as a German Evangelical Christian, and no, it is not the sort that you might be thinking of right now. I was not the spinning-in-place, holding snakes, waiting for a great rapture to take place, kind of Evangelical. German Evangelical is the muted and down-to-earth brand of Protestant religions, more akin to what you would be familiar with in the States as in your “traditional” Baptist. Truth is, my family was never very religious. We only attended church service on Christmas Eve. For practical reasons, like for example: to give old “Santa Claus” or for us back then in Germany “Der Weihnachtsmann” some extra time to hide the presents beneath the tree. My father of course was the one elected each year to stay behind to lend the man a hand with the task. Like most German families during the post-World War II years, we were disenchanted with the spiritual side of organized religion. Religious practices and traditions were merely just continued through formality, in order to put forth, in a sense, a more fleshed-out traditional German identity. One of those traditions centers on the idea that each baptized person of the age of eleven or twelve is to partake in a religious practice known as confirmation.

I had found out about confirmation through a friend of mine, who had lived directly across the street from me. He and his family were of the Catholic faith. Eike had his confirmation at the early age of seven. He was showered with various extravagant gifts and cash but no gift he received at the time quite matched anything as remotely as enthralling as the Gameboy. It’s like they always say, there is nothing like that first hit of a drug. There is nothing like that first grey cartridge that you slide into the top of that grey brick device, the first time you possess the frame of that pixelated Italian plumber and jump onto the heads of critters while you pursue coins, consume flowers to grow in height. Yes, with a brick in hand, I was breaking bricks to sand, to storm castle walls. Is it a healthy obsession or is it the genesis of a young boy’s downfall? You make the call.  

Years later it was my time to get the confirmation, the holy stamp of approval to obtain that coveted reservation for the seat at the table with the big man in the sky. The ordeal was to last for about a month or two. The process of Confirmation consists of a series of classes and social gatherings which are held at a specific site. The first two weeks were spent together as a large group with activities similar to summer camp. All kids stayed overnight at this site as well, and several volunteers who were teens close to eighteen years of age or complete young adults acted like bonafide “babysitters” or superintendents for these proceedings. On the first day, it began with a ceremony, a sizable group of us was huddled in a large room, some faces familiar while others not so much. The pastor entered the room, and we reorientated ourselves to Her Highness, Pastor Anja Schulz. Pastor Schulz had a calm, disarming aura about her. The pastor’s demeanor was of someone who wanted to sell the word of God to you rather than force it upon you. She was self-confident and diplomatic, whenever our childlike defiance arose, she would deftly instill a sense of reason back into us. Stories of Martin Luther’s selflessness, kindness, and empathy always extinguished our desires for mutiny. You can tell she was a real vet, a survivor of multiple youth rebellions, and a wrangler of the souls of children, all to be herded and ushered toward religious confirmation. After the same song and dance, we finally got to play a fun round of musical chairs and then retreated to our bunk bed rooms, in a hallway segregated by sex. I was bunking with three other boys, one of them was Eric who pulled out a couple of bottles of beer in his backpack and then began distributing them around. I of course declined, I had never drunk alcohol casually before and my experience with the unholy fluid was minimal at best.

A year before, my best friend at the time, Ahmed, stole a small, sealed bottle of Jägermeister from an unsuspecting alcoholic who had placed the small bottle next to his bike. As he ran back into the bakery to retrieve something he had forgotten, my friend and I made our move and snatched the bottle. The alcoholic ran outside in a heat of rage, but our eleven-year-old legs were too quick for him to keep up with, behind an apartment building we each took a swig of the medicine like fluid and logically decided to smash it against a brick wall.

A group of girls had made their way into the room, looking for some cigarettes, Eric passed out a couple of Marlboro Reds and then conveniently decided that we all should take a little excursion away from the facility. Eric wanted to make out with one of the girls, while everyone else just wanted a chill place to smoke and drink. I was walking with the group of smokers as we went down a road leading away from the facility site when my first cigarette ever passed my way. Not accepting the alcohol that was offered earlier, was viewed as a sign of a particular squareness of my character; I was set to be marked as lame. The pressure was on to reform my social standing, round out the edges, take the cigarette, take a big puff, and learn how to play the game. My sensitive lungs could not hold the smoke in, a rush of laughter ensued, but I had regained some form of standing amongst the crowd. We soon headed back to the facility to be greeted by our holy anointed superintendents, one of them was eighteen-year-old Jennifer. She was beautiful, friendly, and completely cool with our excursion as long as she could have one of the cigarettes, of course. The next several days were scheduled around Bible study, and the king of the German Evangelical religion himself, Martin Luther. The man who rebelled against the Catholic church and therefore then created the first-ever Protestant religion. After that we were to act out a segment of a short story in the bible, but in a modernized format. I improvised a character of an old man meeting a childhood friend at a pub, who then has a heart attack and collapses. I just imagined myself as an old man, reminiscing of the past, lost in a moment of tranquility and bliss, and then I went for gold, I clutched my chest, breathed heavily, and fell to the floor. In the end, when I got up, I was given huge applause, people were stunned by my acting but I in turn was frightened in some way. Something about people staring at me in awe or disgust has never really sat well with me, a duality that plays out for me as an uncomfortable experience that gnaws at my subconscious to this day; to seek any form of attention is my personal deemed sin. It was too late to retract from what had just occurred, since from now on, anything related to acting was assigned to me by the pastor.

Not long after I had received my Oscar-like praise, my time at the facility would be leading into its final stretch. There was a small party to be held for us for the last few days at the facility site. It took place in the basement of the main house, the event was organized and overseen by the superintendents. The greatest hits of the time were being played, from the silly brain-numbing techno tunes like the ones from the world-renowned Eiffel 65, down to the atrocious Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega. Party lights were flashing, kids were dancing, and behind the scenes, someone would always retreat to the back and secretly take a few swigs of beer. I had a decent time, I got to dance with the girl I always had a crush on throughout elementary school and soon after that, the night concluded. A few days later while I was back home, the house phone rang, and to my surprise, Pastor Schulz was on the other end of the line. She wanted to know if I had time to participate in a church play of the birth of Christ. It was to be a small part and the person that initially intended to play the part was nowhere to be found. I was not too busy at the time, and I thought to myself, “why not,” it could be fun... The play was at church, and I played the role of one of the three wise men. It was quite a boring affair, yet I felt like Pastor Schulz was quite grateful that I had helped her out on such short notice. A few weeks from then my confirmation was to be officially concluded and all that was left was one final gathering. The problem was my mother had planned a family trip to Disneyland Paris for around that same time. It was to become my second outing to Disneyland since the incident.

My first time at Paris Disneyland was around my ninth birthday, I had just received the Gameboy on that same birthday. I remember the moment vividly in my mind, we were eating inside a small fast-food restaurant inside the park, throughout the entire time, we were there I was eating and playing Mario Land in intervals, my mother was already annoyed at the fact that even a colorful and zany park like Disneyland could not break the spell that gray mystical brick-like device had over me. We were exiting the restaurant together as a family, I was not far behind with my eyes glued to the screen with the device raised up to my face. I made it to a level in the game that I never had gotten to before; it was the final world. And boom! The Italian plumber didn’t time his jump right and descended into the abyss. I raised my head from the device and boom! They are gone. First, I was confused, had they maybe swerved into one of the adjacent storefronts lined up against the pavilion? But if so, which store could it have been? I had walked at least twenty to twenty-five feet away from the store, it could be either one of these gift shops. My eyes dotted around, and I started to feel a sense of panic slowly rising in my gut. I walked into one of the gift shops and looked around but there was no sight of them. I walked back out hoping that maybe one of my parents would be standing outside like an owl spinning around frantically looking for me. But there were just clusters of more families strolling along carelessly and amused. I waited for a few minutes. After some time I decided to head back to the car. I waited until an hour went by and the sun slowly started setting. That is when fear took hold of me and I grew restless. Not long after, I left the parking lot and ventured into a part of the park with no types of attractions in sight. The emotions washed over me. I was indeed lost in a foreign country, in a huge amusement park and it was all due to me being sucked into a three by five inch screen. I could say I was psychologically abducted by a pixelated Italian plumber in the middle of Disneyland, but truthfully framing the ordeal in that way is just a diversion from the truth.

I started crying and roaming, for a while I started imagining being taken in by evil French men who would force me to become some type of petty street criminal or maybe I’d be forced into child slave labor or something. Suddenly I was spotted, by a Black woman with two children who then approached me. I adhered to the rule to never speak to strangers, but she looked harmless and genuinely concerned. She addressed me in French, I told her in English that I only speak German or English. She replied to me in English “What’s the matter? Why are you crying?” I told her that I was lost and couldn’t find my parents. She immediately pulled a napkin out of her pocket and wiped the tears from my face. She led me to a hotel where she had worked as a cleaning lady and then passed me off to hotel security. The security guards there assured me not to worry and that they would find my parents soon. I was told that in the meantime I could just go ahead and play my Gameboy, but I declined. I guess I just had enough of Super Mario Land. Around fifteen minutes later my mom came through the door and ran towards me and held me tighter than I can ever remember her holding me. I was united with my family, I stopped playing the Gameboy while walking and still played the living hell out of that brick device whenever any stationary opportunity presented itself. As you can see, I didn’t learn shit from the ordeal really.

I was a little excited to return to Disneyland. It was about two weeks away from the trip and I was supposed to get in contact with Pastor Schulz to let her know that I wouldn’t be able to attend the gathering. I had tried reaching her several times but never managed to get hold of her. I left her a voice message on her answering machine, and an hour later, the phone rang. She sounded a bit distant on the phone, as if annoyed by something, I told her that my mother had a trip planned for me to go to Disneyland with my family which would make it impossible for me to attend the gathering. It got quiet on the phone and a few seconds later she finally responded back to me “I don’t know, I don’t know.” I was confused a little by her response. “Don’t know about what?” I humbly replied. “I can’t confirm you with god.” Now I’m the one who got quiet on the phone “What do you mean by you can’t confirm me with God?” She quickly responded, “Well, I simply can’t confirm you with God, you’re going to be one of the lost ones.” I was taken aback by what she had just said, it took a moment before I responded, “So that’s it, I can’t go through confirmation.” “No, I’m afraid not.” It got quiet again before I said “Well, I’m sorry but my mother has the trip all planned out already, so...” She immediately cut me off. “Well, there is not much that I can do, those are the rules, you have to attend every gathering, it is the obligation for everyone.” “Well, I’m sorry too.” “Well, that’s it, have a nice trip, goodbye.” “Ok then, goodbye.” I hung up the phone, with several competing emotions and questions swirling around in me. The first one was, why did the Pastor reject me so quickly? After all, I was always available whenever she needed me. The next one was, what happens now? Am I really a lost one? What does that even mean? I hope it beats being lost as a nine-year-old in Disneyland because that experience was awful. I told my mother afterward and she was upset at the pastor. My rational-minded atheist grandfather just laughed his ass off and said “See, I told you so.” My Dad didn’t care much either, too busy trying to get his German more operational for conversation, my sister was a six-year-old with no care in the world for such things. And I was too busy being lost because I found out that’s what I am good at. Honestly, I never regretted not going through the confirmation proceedings. It was all in all just a hassle, all my fundamental experiences were mined and extracted from the grounds of human interactions during those confirmation events. Martin Luther was a cool guy for being defiant against the traditions of the Catholic church, perhaps I was not too shabby myself for breaking out the mold of the Protestant one. No one can place judgment on you for straying away from the path, and no one can tell you that you are in essence “lost.” Especially when you have already experienced it for real, inside of 4,800 acres of an actual whacky-themed cartoon land. In fact, it is quite great to be a lost one, because now you finally have the chance to find yourself.