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Arnold Cunningham is no quitter, hasn’t been for a long time. A liar on the other hand, of course. He isn’t scared of the fact, even if everyone else around him is. Maybe they need to do some fact-checking, have we considered that? Cite your sources, kids, stay in school. Arnold Cunningham is a boy who knows his flaws and doesn’t think about how they might impact others and their emotional state at all. At least until it matters.
Arnold Cunningham is a liar paired with a faithful propagandist, and he knows his place. This is his new best friend, sold as a packet, [DO NOT SEPARATE] style. This is his mission companion! His comrade through the cosmos. The person who- uh, to be honest, got kinda stuck with him. See, the thing about Arnold, little Arnie over here, he’s turmeric in a Tupperware. He’s mold in the lid of your thirty dollar, complicated, over-engineered water bottle. He’s the dust right under the toe-kick of the floor-level cabinets. He’s hard to get rid of. Mostly unwanted, too.
Arnold Cunningham is too deep in his steaming pile of shit to dig himself out. He made things up again, despite Brain Dad and Brain Joseph’s Smiths warnings. Gah! Maybe he should listen to them more. Though, it’s easier to lie. To Arnold, lying is the escape from this life riddled with terrible things, and for the people of Kitguli, it’s the same way. At what point do these lies turn to stories, these stories turn meaningful, and that meaning turn against the institution that hates his mind. At what point is this story no longer about him.
He, Arnold Cunningham (we haven’t switched POVs officially, but who knows, you might need clarifying a whole 294 words in to what is essentially a comment on Arnold’s mental state), is tired of a lot of things. In the end, he was right. He made stuff up again, he actively helped a village of people (a whole village, possibly more if the Facebook thing’s to be believed) and, to his surprise, the people he was supposed to aid in whatever they said to do. This could all be a dream, but it worked. Elder Price, Elder McKinley, all of them, they seem happier. They’re less attached to this repressed idiocy they were so attached to. They seem to be wanting to talk it out. Elder Church and Elder Pop- Thomas, in particular are a little more open to talking about their childhood trauma, especially with each other. Trauma, what an incredulous thing!
Did you, reader, realize that these boys would have never been able to put a name to exactly what the feelings of their past regurgitating into the future were? I certainly didn’t. These guys had to learn 1) how fucked the world and their church is and 2) how fucked what the church’s doctrine did to them was. That’s just, I bet Arnold’s on the same wavelength. He’s this lying son of a gun who has been raised on these formative movies, shows, books, and the like up until his mission, where he is cut off. Arnold Cunningham was the first iPad kid in how his parents treated him, and he’s the first in the musical to realize that the way that he feels stuck is ultimately not a commentary of him, but rather a commentary of his parents, about the expectations placed on him. Arnold Cunningham felt stuck.
Now no longer. Arnold Cunningham now has community. He’s thriving with people who love him for his ability to spin these stories, to inspire hope with fanfiction of his own. A pioneer to… wait- no, the site that you are currently reading this on is two years older than this musical. A pioneer to life-changing stories for the good of everyone, to be sure. “Mr. Cunningham, what’s it like to be famous?” he dreams, “Mr. Cunningham, when will you be releasing your next feature film?” Though, as with any good, perhaps even great, event, there come its worries.
Arnold Cunningham is now on his own in more ways than one. He’s in-dah-pen-dehnt, thankyahverymuch. He’s almost certain his family won’t be supportive at all of what he’s done. They’ll be stuck with not just him, but the weight of his failure to do good by the Church as well. They’ll be stuck with a son who couldn’t do one thing while two weeks into his mission. Not that he would know though, Arnold hasn’t tried reaching out to them yet. He’s afraid. Who could blame him? It’s tough knowing that for 19 years of your life, this was the thing, the big thing to really make you someone. Coming of age, they call it, becoming a man by doing the one thing Heavenly Father wants you to do, that’s right, make everyone Mormon. Welcome to it. This is the pinnacle of your life. You peaked at 19 years of age and after that, you’ve got yourself a future. What kind of future awaits a sinner, a liar, a traitor?
Arnold Cunningham, who had a future set in utter stone. Do this, follow Kevin, shut up, let it ride out until the end, just complete this mission, and you’re home free. You’re free to explore life with guaranteed jobs in Utah, a cushy life where your parents pick out the nicest Mormon girl who’d marry you, you make children, you die. That’s all he had to do, but he made stuff up. He still was. On the bright side, he was having fun! On the downside, he’s got so few people. At least back in his hometown, he had people at school who’d at least put up with him. His parents, his aunt, his uncles. At least he had people who had to be around him.
In Uganda, people can just walk away. Kevin walks away all the time. Arnold’s convinced that after everything, Kevin must hate him. I mean who wouldn’t? He can see his own flaws clear as the Ugandan sun makes him hot and sweaty. My dear reader, Arnold knows he’s an excitable jackass pushing into other people’s space. Viewer beloved, Arnold is well aware of how much damage he can cause with his stories and his lies. My audience here from my stage as Anonymous, I’m here to preach my story that Arnold knows he sucks. The thing is, the nasty detail, is that he can’t stop. No matter how hard Arnold tries, this is a man who sees his own flaws and can’t embrace them. He feels so much guilt over what he feels he can’t control. It’s impulsive. As a result, Arnold can’t feel a dollop of pride when it comes to the work he’s done in Uganda. He’s blindsided to the fact that although Kevin is jealous to what Elder Cunningham has been able to do, he’s learned too. Kevin Price cares, even if he’s shit with words and might never tell Arnold. What a little freak! But you knew that, you smartypants, you probably read Sex, Coffee, and Other Unforgivable Sins and I’m sure that Anon did some deep, long, hard work (heh) on characterizing Price. So did all the other, off anon writers, shout-out literally every other creator. Yes, you folk know Kevin Price.
But! It’s fine, because Arnold Cunningham is no quitter. He’ll, maybe, one day, focus on that insistent voice in the back of his head.
“Be selfish, Arnold. Focus on you.”
Okay, maybe he’s been talking to it a little more. He loves Naba. They talk for hours about the stupidest things. He loves doing menial work with people his age. He adores telling stories. He could do that for hours. He, Arnold Cunningham is no quitter. This might be a bit to him. A temporary paradise, filled with people who might hate him, people in his head each instilled with a deep loathing of the truth, but people who will talk to him. People. Around. Who at least pretend to like him. What a wonderful little paradise that he’d like to stay in forever, just people being nice to him and talking to him.
For the next two years, Arnold Cunningham might be okay, for once.
For the next two years, Arnold Cunningham will try. That’s no lie.
Dear Reader, that’s no lie.
And maybe I’m taking a position that I shouldn’t here, maybe I’m going crazy, but I won’t lie to you now. Arnold Cunningham will have it rough, he always will, you can’t get rid of things as easily as flipping a switch. Dear God, I wish it was that easy though. Arnold will have to face all sorts of things. From whatever you guys make him suffer through, to whatever his family and the Church will do to him. He’ll have to learn how to be an adult while essentially having been removed from his reality for two of his most formative years. Though I know he’ll make it out, because despite what he tells himself,
Arnold Cunningham has people who love him.
