Tom Foran Clark

Call me Wendy Carpenter. Though I loved and later married Eben Anders, there were times I wished we'd never met. When we did first meet, I fell for him, though he did not have movie star good looks. In fact, he looked like he'd been hit by a truck.

Don't get me wrong. Eben, with his fair complexion, slightly unkempt black hair, and neatly trimmed beard -- but no mustache -- was not bad looking. The nicest thing in his appearance was the beard. He looked Amish, which is to say honest and sweet. But, even with that handsome beard, I probably would not have noticed him had he been just sitting around in one of the lounges or meandering in one of the corridors in the hospital where I was a young intern trying to learn how to be a nurse. But, as it was -- what with Eben having been pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital! -- he got my attention.

We were nearly the same age -- Eben was born six months ahead of me in Grange, high in the north of Vermont, in 1950. It was in mid-October, late in the fall. His step-parents told me the green, gold, and crimson forests had suggested both death and resurgence. In the mornings, early, frost lay soft as angel hair, spun glass, on the ground. The afternoons, getting shorter, were touched with a biting crystal edge. Nights fell earlier and seemed to be getting, like the deepening cold, vaster and starrier.

Strong winds brought the final fall leaves down, laying out a carpet of sage, russet, and amber. The first snowfall came and went, leaving the forest sodden, and the leaves on the ground flimsy and black. Julie Anders, after giving birth to Eben, lay devasted on the bed, in the grip of a cruel fever. Just before dying, she said she could only see a deep purple-black vastness filled with lime-yellow starry asterisks -- a sort of private Aurora Borealis in her brain. She said she only hoped one thing -- that her baby would outlive her -- and then she died.

Upon the death of his beloved wife, the loud and boisterous Ernest Anders first raged like a blinded Oedipus Tyrannos, then ceased crying out, suddenly showing the same signs and symptoms of the mysterious post-childbirth agony and death his wife had just gone through. He wrung his hands and prayed. He fell into a fever worse than what had killed his wife, but he didn’t die so quickly. Neighbors filled his bathtub with snow and laid him in it, to cool him down. People said not two minutes went by but the snow turned to water, then the water started boiling. The boiling water was drained. Fresh snow was brought in. Ernest was placed into a third tub of ice-water -- then a fourth. “Cool me down!” he pleaded, but it couldn’t be done. Some say he lost his mind at that point, singing “Wheeeee, wheeeeee, wheeeeeee -- all the way home!” At the end it was clear Ernest Anders felt no pain. “Wheeeeeeeeee!” he called out on his very last breath.

A funeral pyre was built -- eight feet square, two feet high, built of stone, brick, and earth. Ernest and Julie Anders were clothed in blue silk garments and placed on a woodpile, their heads facing north. The pyre was ignited. Rosemary incense was gently tossed into the devouring flames. Years later, when their son died, a similar ritual was performed for him.

Eben was raised in Grange by his father’s brother and his wife, Dirk and Lucinda Anders. Eben loved to read books, but he was a terrible student. His step-parents told me it wasn’t until he reached puberty that life seemed worth living to him. In high school, it was noticed, he directed all of his attention on his female classmates -- it appeared he cared only for girls. When he wasn’t flirting with the girls at the school, he was on his knees in the woods near his home, praying to God that God might grant him a girlfriend, preferably a good looking one.

It was in his sophomore year in high school that Eben discovered a treasure chest in Grange, Vermont. In the ground by the oak tree where Eben had taken to praying, the corner of a metal safe jutted out. Kneeling down, Eben hurt his knee on the thing. It looked interesting, so he dug it up. At first he hoped it might be filled with men’s magazines having centerfolds, but the box instead was filled with about three thousand one-dollar bills, most in near-mint condition. The box had been left there by a bank robber, or robbers, sometime right around 1900. An investigation failed to reveal the identity of the robber or robbers, as well as the name of the robbed bank. When after six months the treasure went still unclaimed, it was formally turned over to Eben, who got in touch with some specialists in the collectibles marketplace who told him these dollar bills, silver certificates issued by the Department of the Treasury in 1899, then exchangeable at face value for silver dollars, were now valued at about $250 each.

In short, Eben was rich. At first he sold only a few of the bills, using the money on gifts for girls he knew -- to see what might come his way from that. What came of that, of course, was the quick loss of a whole lot of his money. It did not appear his sudden wealth was actually going to make the sad and troubled young man any happier. Still, it did change his life.

One night just three weeks after the treasure box was officially pronounced his, Eben had a terrible nightmare in which a horned lizard appeared, smacking him in the head three times with his tail. Then the lizard spoke. “Read the money,” the lizard told Eben. “Read what it says.”

Sure enough, there was writing on the bills. One of the robbers had apparently kept up a sort of diary, using the stolen certificates for writing paper. Strangely, nothing in these writings referred to a robbery, banks, bandits, fleeing the law, imprisonment, escapes, or anything of that kind. There was only mention of angels, girls, women, men, saints, Jesus, God, and eternity. Eben would sell no more of the bills. Writing longhand with a black ballpoint pen, he began to transfer the mysterious jottings into spiral-ringed notebooks. When that work was done, he returned all the remaining cerificates to the safety box and took it back to the place where he'd found it and dug a hole and put the treasure back in the ground again.

Of course that which he'd written, or transcribed, would eventually become known to the world as The Book of Eben Anders. In coming time, Eben would be attributed the gifts and genius of a William Blake or Swedenborg, meanwhile denounced as a madman, liar, scoundrel, false prophet, and the rest. He'd be accused of withcraft, wizardry, demonism, and Freemasonry, with a mind to eventual world subjugation. He'd even be called the living Anti-Christ. “Don’t kill the messenger,” is all Eben would ever say to all of that.

On graduating from high school, he grew his Lincolnesque or Amish-style beard, enrolled in summertime classes at Castleton College, and pursued Religious Studies. After only three weeks, he dropped out of their program. He returned to his aunt and uncle’s home in Grange, seeking permission to have his old room and to install a phone in it. He made phone calls to political and religious figures all around the world -- from Borneo, Quezon City, and Fairbanks to Moscow, Porto Maggiore, and Tuscon -- informing these people of his own presence in their world, stating his vision for the future, and asking for their help.

One week later, walking toward a grocery store in downtown Grange, he was hit by a twelve-wheeler truck. An ambulance rushed him to the hospital -- that’s where we met. I was then an intern, a candy striper. As I said earlier, had Eben not entered my life in such dramatic fashion, I might not even have noticed him! But – well, it’s not every day a young man, pronounced dead on arrival in a hospital, asks you out for a date.

He was only half-a-year older than me, born Wendy Carpenter in Banterville, Vermont, east of Grange, in April, 1951. It was now 1972, and it didn’t take much for him to start singing his love songs to me, and it didn’t take much for me to fall in love with that. Within two years, we were married.

Eben had got lucrative work as a ghost writer for some of the famous people he’d been telephoning in recent months. When one of these brought Eben's book to the attention of Sims and Wowser, publishers, The Book of Eben Anders was humbly ushered into print. We saved most of the money coming in, renting a place for two years, then we got our own house -- a bungalow with a green-tile dutch stove which I found very charming. Too bad the house was burned to the ground. One or more of Eben’s enemies started the fire, an investigation afterwards revealed. It was in the middle of winter, in the dead of night. To save ourselves, we ran out in our underwear and pajamas and rolled on the ground in fresh fallen snow. As it turned out, we may as well have put the person or persons responsible for this heinous act on our payroll, so much did he or she or they increase Eben’s stature in the religious community! -- far beyond the boundaries of Vermont and New England.

As for my relationship with Eben himself in these trying times, the noise and jeopardy and danger he had to rise over just drew the two of us closer. The increasing rebuke, ridicule, and hatred that fell on him only made his legend grow. In equal proportion, our love blossomed. You could say, I was his first disciple. I truly loved the man. He was patient, persevering, calm, curious, and playful -- unafraid to try new things. It still seems strange to me that, beyond the almost self-obliterating passion of our loving, I did not give birth to several sets of twins, quintuplets, or even larger broods. He was just as amazed that we never had kids. He reckoned that this was because he’d found the treasure, had written the book, and was given his mission in the world. His important work wouldn't have left him much time for assisting me in child-rearing and, whether we’d had two or twenty children, I wouldn't have agreed to raising them alone.

According to The Book of Eben, the world had ten basic truths for men and women: (1) If you exist, you suffer; (2) Suffering is caused by loneliness, accidents, and miscreants; (3) Suffering decreases the more when you love somebody in particular, have friends, and avoid both miscreants and accidents; (4) You should not look back (Sadly, I am breaking this rule); (5) Have faith; (6) Hope much; (7) Be humble; (8) Be smart; (9) Enjoy yourself for as long and as often as you can; and (10) Never cease to be grateful for your life.

In 1990, when Eben was forty -- I was thirty-nine -- The Book of Eben started taking off. It seemed now to have a life and a momentum of its own. Instead of being accused for making up tall tales, Eben became something of an international celebrity. He started making rounds on all the television talk shows and was pictured on the covers of magazines in grocery stores. Not everything that got said was fair or kind, but the most impressive thing about it all was the sheer glut of news that now swirled around his head -- and our heads. As Eben’s wife, I got far worse press than the bad press he got, and I never got anything anywhere near the good press that he got. But then, yes, that’s right, it wasn’t me who’d found the treasure, made the translations, or gone around the world energetically promoting what I’d made or found. I was just this almost faceless mere woman who only had to stand by him -- much of the world now declaring him a Prophet! -- through times still thick and thin.

Many called his book fiction, folk magic, falsehood, a pack of lies. He was accused of being a magician, a shaman, a medicine man. He bore it all with dignity. He did grow in fact, exactly as had been prophesied, “brilliant, gallant, kind, and wise.”

Still, we began to grow apart. As good as he was, it only made me want more of him. This only served to make things worse. He began going for increasingly longer lone walks in the woods, eventually disappearing for entire weekends, hiking in the mountains. I knew I could not wholly be a part of all he was now venturing into, but I could not stand it when he determined that we needed time apart. Strangely, I must confess, this troubling time made me far more authentically religious than I’d actually been. It only now occurred to me that Eben might really be, in fact, what he’d been claiming to be.

Of course anyone who has studied Ebenism will know that this was the point in our story -- in the timeline of the prophet Eben Anders’ life -- that a couple of deer hunters appeared in the forest with rifles, mistaking Eben for a target, shooting him dead.

A funeral pyre was built on the common in downtown Grange -- eight feet square, two feet high, built of stone, brick, and earth. Though he didn’t leave instructions -- it was just about the only thing that wasn’t prophesied! -- I knew he would have liked it that way. I dressed him in a blue silk robe. Friends and followers placed his corpse on the woodpile, his head facing north. Then the pyre was ignited. Rosemary incense was gently tossed into the uproarious flames.

The gravestone on his resting place in the Grange village cemetery is just a plain boulder with a bronze plaque on it, carrying these words: “This stone is here in memory of Eben Anders. In life he was a man of valor and humility. May this rock endure a long time.”

It seems to me I was, for years after that, cloudy in the head. I took back my maiden name, Carpenter, and got on with my life. It was by no means certain that Eben's great message to the world would outlive him. Twelve years went by before any news of Ebenism again reached me. In the interim I’d moved with a man-friend to his hometown, East Warrenton, Massachusetts, where I got a great job in a fine hospital and often felt contentment approaching fulfillment. When that truly ordinary man picked up his things and moved to Florida, I did not follow him.

In the summer of the year 2003, two proselytizing missionaries called “Ebenites,” wearing black suits of almost uniform neatness, showed up in this western Massachusetts village. They were meandering in my neighborhood, going house to house, door to door. When they arrived on my front porch, they explained politely who they were and what they’d come for, and I invited them in.

We sat in my living room and talked. The two young men -- William and Bernhard -- stayed two hours. I served them crackers, cheese, and lemonade. They told me some odd, exaggerated things about the life and times of my husband. I listened carefully, making no comment whatsoever. When the two finally stood to go, they thanked me profusely for my time and attention. I thanked them likewise, and showed them to the door.

One week later the two Ebenites, Will and Bernd, as they now casually called themselves -- as if we were now all close friends -- returned. Again I invited them in and served them light snacks and lemonade. Sipping his iced drink, Will told me how Eben Anders, the founder of their church, had himself been a New Englander, born in Grange, Vermont in 1950. He refreshed my memory as to all the political and religious commotion and intrigue going on at that time -- the 1960s -- communes, hippies, Vietnam, and all.

Will revealed how, in that terrible season of national upheaval and disgrace, Eben Anders had received enlightenment. He’d wept and prayed, hoping to receive divine guidance as to the shape his life should take, when a box of gold had sprung up from the earth at his feet, even as a pillar of light had appeared over his head. Will the Ebenite made no mention of a lizard smacking Eben in the head three times. Instead, Will said, a barefoot angel had appeared to the prophet, providing him with the exact tools he’d be needing to translate the sacred texts inscribed in an ancient language on the gold bullion in the treasure box he’d found. In the morning, the proselyte said correctly -- if only right on this one point -- Eben Anders had started writing what the world now knew as The Book of Eben.

Upon the death of Eben Anders, Will told me, a small circle of true believers, the initial legendary band of Eben’s ten disciples -- people I'd never heard of -- had been pressured by Grange village authorities to disband or hit the road. They’d gone first to Kansas, then to Oregon, to keep the faith alive. In Eugene, in 1992, the first mass printing of The Book of Eben had been published and distributed. Behold, the book was in its seventeenth edition, and had made its way back east. Now Ebenism was growing -- not only coast to coast in this country, but also all around the globe.

When I told the two Ebenites how pleased I was for their good luck, that their religion should be growing so in popularity, Will moved from his chair and approached closer to me on his knees. “We need your help,” he whispered almost menacingly, “and I think you will help us when you hear what I have to say.”

“So -- talk,” I told the true believer, who was almost breathless now, explaining how his partner Bernd, in the intervening week, had experienced a vision. In Bernd’s vision, an angel had appeared to him, saying I, on my converting to Ebenism, would in turn bring about the much desired conversion of Bernd’s sinful, non-believing Catholic mother. “Upon your being baptized into the one true church,” Will said, “Bernd’s mother’s conversion will follow. Well -- what do you say?”

Of course I told them as nicely as I could that I wasn’t ripe to commit to what they asked for.

“But it is your destiny!” Will tried hard to convince me. He promised me I would become a “high-up” Andersian priestess -- eventually I would mate with an Ebenite priest and have progeny rising to Godhood and mastery of another planet, over which I would reign wholly and eternally, just like Bernd’s mom, if only I did what they told me.

“You will yourself become the wife of Christ!” Bernd said in desperation. “My mom and dad will again unite and procreate! They and their new children and me and my forthcoming bride and our children all one day will be Gods having our own planets. Don’t you see? It is written. It is meant to be. We will inherit our own earths!”

“Excuse me,” I began abruptly, “I --”

I didn’t know what to say to these boys. They’d spoken not at all of him I loved. Abruptly, I asked the two to leave my house and not come back. Will and Bernd could not see how I could decline this opportunity to join their Church of Eben. They did not leave graciously. They called me a witch and so I went and got a broom and chased them from my doorstep. Shouting back at me as they stumbled across my front lawn to the street, they viciously accused me of destroying uncounted sacred privileges and worlds and futures due them and their families but, believe me, listen, I’d had enough, I wasn’t having any of it.