Warren Murphy: Lost Yesterday

“I'm only at Level Three. I don't know if I am qualified to talk to the good doctor myself.”

“Yeah. Yeah. You are, kid. It's beautiful. You're a sweet boy. Just tell him what you told me.”

“Do you think I should work on a rapid transcendence of the spirit before I enter his presence? I've heard it could be rushed with help.”

“What's that, the $1,998.99 weekend in our Chillicothe temple?”

“No, I believe the offering is $900 and it's a day's intensive powering in the Columbus facility.”

“Just pay for your own plane fare to headquarters. That's purifying enough. Okay, kid, anything else?”

“Yes. I thought you weren't supposed to smoke once you passed Level Three,” said Wilbur, nodding to the burning cigarette.

“Right. Go downstairs; there are people paid to explain it all to you. Now get outta here, kid, and don't forget— tell Dolomo this is a Toledo find. He knows what I'm talking about.”

Wilbur went right to the airport, not even bothering to inform Brisbane Pharmaceuticals he was taking a day off. He was troubled by the cigarette smoking at so high a level. But then he remembered what they had told him at Level Two, when he had paid for the $500 hard-bound step-by-step guide through the levels.

“Don't expect to get rid of a lifetime of wrong thinking just because you buy a set of books. It will take years. It will take courses. And most of all, it will take money. But don't feel that because you still worry, or want to smoke or drink or spend your money foolishly, that you have not progressed. Sometimes an isolated negative thought will strike even the most advanced of us.”

This explained why someone at so high a level could still be smoking. Still, Wilbur worried about it, though his concerns turned to elation as his cab pulled up to the famed “Tower of Poweressence.” Dr. Dolomo lived on an estate in California, facing the Pacific. It had more lawn than most state parks. He had read about it in Poweressence literature.

Dr. Dolomo, having achieved the highest level of Poweressence, needed no sleep and worked twenty-four hours a day for the good of mankind. And he worked his great works from here. Wilbur pulled out his step-by-step guide but he was too excited to cram. In a few minutes he'd be face-to-face with the young man with incredibly blue eyes who stared out of the book cover. This was a Level Two book. There were rumors that people just sleeping on it under their pillow had advanced in positive power. Wilbur slid it between the seat of the car and the seat of his pants.

There were guards at the gates, but once inside, people seemed to wander about at will. There were no prohibitions. Wilbur Smot tried to absorb the positive vibrations that must be coming from here. He felt the sun and the grass and he knew again all was good.

A secretary downstairs brought him to an inner room where a man who called himself the Midwest regional director watched a taped football game while eating chocolates.

“He's to see Dr. Dolomo. He's from Toledo.”

“Upstairs,” said the man.

“Don't you think you ought to go with him? He is sort of new to everything.”

“No. No. Leave me alone. What's there to climbing stairs? Get out of here.”

Wilbur looked to the secretary. That was definite negative behavior.

The secretary smiled.

“It's all right,” she said. “Just go upstairs.”

On the second floor a group of maids were in a frenzy. Mrs. Dolomo, he heard, was screaming about something. Mrs. Dolomo was using profane language. Mrs. Dolomo didn't want to talk to him or any other jerk from Toledo, Ohio. Mrs. Dolomo wanted her beige bathing suit and she wanted it now, and if he didn't know where it was, would he kindly stay the bleeping hell out of the way.

Wilbur Smot found Dr. Dolomo dozing, his potbelly heaving with each breath, a large cigar stagnating in an ashtray.

“Dr. Dolomo?” Wilbur said, praying this was not the man who had found the force that had released Wilbur from so much personal pain.

“Who wha?” cried out the portly figure in panic. He jerked himself up to a sitting position, reached for his bifocals, and focused his eyes. “Get me the pills. Those pills.”

Wilbur saw a pink plastic container on a table three steps away from the divan the man was lying on. He gave him the pills. The man's hands were shaking as he threw them into his mouth.

Wilbur perspired in his heavy Midwest winter clothes. Rays of beautiful California sunshine bathed the room as soft Pacific breezes played with a light curtain and made Wilbur's very breath a song of joy. The man cleared his throat.

“Are you trying to kill me? What do you mean coming into this room and waking me up? I don't know who you are. You could be the feds come to throw me in the slammer. You could be some disgruntled parent wanting his kid back come to kill me.”

“Those are negative thoughts you are bringing on yourself. You should speak to Dr. Dolomo sometime. You would realize you yourself are bringing all the bad things of your life into your life. No one else does it.”

“I don't need grief like that this early in the morning.”

“It's the afternoon,” said Wilbur.

“Whatever. Did Beatrice send you in here with that crap?”

“Beatrice?”

“Mrs. Dolomo. She resents anyone who thinks. I think. Therefore she resents me.”

“I feel sorry for you in your suffering in negativity, but I have been sent here from Toledo to see Dr. Dolomo.”

“All right, what do you want?”

Wilbur saw the eyes, the watery blue eyes. The whitish hair had been blond apparently. The face that sagged now had once been young. It was the man in the poster on the second floor of the Toledo Temple, the man that smiled out from the jacket of his Level Two book. Dr. Rubin Dolomo.

“No,” said Wilbur. “I have made a terrible mistake.”

“You already woke me up, so let's have it.”

“I am not giving you anything.”

“I didn't ask for anything, but now that you've ruined my day, I am sure as hell going to get what you came for.”

“I would never give it to you.”

“You've just realized this is a hustle and you're at Level One or something.”

“Three,” said Wilbur.

“All right. We'll give you your money back. I don't need this grief. But look, you didn't get in here without clearance. And you obviously have something for me. Right?”

Wilbur did not answer. He wondered if he could make the gate running full out. He wondered if he could climb over the gate at the far end of the expanse of lawns. He knew he shouldn't tell what he had.

“I was just reporting from the Toledo Temple. They said they are going to give you an extra payment this month.”

“Look,” said Dr. Rubin Dolomo with weariness in his voice. “I know you are here with something else. But worse for both of us, Beatrice will know you are here with something else. She'll know. And she'll get it. Me, I would just as soon fly away and not bother with any of this. Personally, I am sorry it all went this far. But you have not yet had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Dolomo. May you never have to endure that pleasure. So what is it?”

“I won't tell you.”

“I'm going to call her.”

“No,” said Wilbur.

“Before I call her, I want you to know, sonny, that I had nothing against you. And by the way, her name is Beatrice and never, ever call her Betty. Gets her nose out of joint.”

“I'm leaving.”

“Beatrice!” screamed Dr. Rubin Dolomo, and the woman who had been cursing in the hallway came into the room still cursing, cursing that she was being bothered.

“I knew you'd find out sooner or later. But there is some kind of good news from Toledo and this kid here is a believer and he won't talk.”