Cult (5 page)

“We're ordinary people, Mr. Harrigan. Second-generation Italians. Not good Catholics. Not bad Catholics. Vinnie worked for the Post Office in New York and was transferred to Washington. He had a good administrative job. Franco had just graduated from college. We got his medical school acceptance while he was in their hands. Imagine that kind of explosion in a family that lives on dreams for our children. He was going to be a doctor. You know what that means to a family like ours. A doctor. It tore our hearts out to get that acceptance letter. He was giving that up for nothing.” She sighed. “We researched. We did all the things you're doing now. We read Father Glory's alleged Bible. Bullshit. All bullshit. They want numbers. People they can turn into moneymakers. People are money. Money is power. They have an apparatus. They're a force. They're something now, like Waco was. The Glories are a million times worse, because they're a million times bigger.” She shook her head and sucked in a deep breath.

“He was our child, our hope. Finally, we flew out there and went through hell to get to see him. They had this lawyer you had to go through. Real Ivy League. Pompous. An obvious phony.” Her anger peaked and ebbed. “By some miracle, we finally got to see our boy. He was zonked out, glassy-eyed, a zombie. He was always with this girl, his Big Sister. He couldn't make an independent decision. He called us Satan's people. Imagine that.”

As she talked, Mrs. Prococino explored Barney's face, as if she were gauging the effects of her words on him, testing, prodding. “The law was with them. There was nobody to turn to for help. We couldn't do a damn thing about it.”

She seemed to be debating whether or not to continue. Then she nodded and went on. “All Vinnie and I could think about is what we'd done wrong, where we made our mistake. At night… we just lay there in bed, the two of us, Depression babies from Italian immigrants who came up the hard way, and they had reduced us to two quivering jellyfish. Nobody ever told us how to handle this. Nobody. In the camp, these bastards would tell us, ‘Withdraw. Withdraw,' and call us Satan. Franco would shout back, ‘Fuck you, you monsters. Fuck you.' But that only made it worse.”

Naomi understood her earlier reluctance. “They had taken away my boy, not only from me and Vinnie, but from himself. And the worst part was that I hated him for it. My own flesh and blood.”

She held back tears to the limit of her control, then they came gushing out. Turning away, she wiped them, embarrassed. When they saw her face again, she was smiling thinly.

“Listen. It has a happy ending. We went through six months of hell, trying to figure out ways to get at him. We tried everything, letters to our congressmen, to the FBI, even the CIA. We contacted others who had lost loved ones to the Glories, spoke to ex-members. Nothing. Just like you. I'm sorry, Mr. Harrigan. Your plight is not unique.”

“But how did they start?” Barney asked.

“Who knows? They're tyrannical, especially in politics. It may sound nuts, but they want to take over the world. God help us. Father Glory as the great one, leader of the world. The living Jesus.”

“Unbelievable,” Naomi said.

“Bastard,” Barney muttered.

“Father Glory,” Mrs. Prococino said contemptuously. “He lives like a potentate. He's a front within a front within a front. He's got worldwide business interests. He needs numbers, believers, and the best way to get them is through religion. Then he sends these kids out to raise money. That's all they do once they're completely under control. Raise money and get other kids in… to raise money. That's the scam.”

“The meek aren't the ones who inherit the earth,” Mrs. Prococino said suddenly, and a sour bitterness filled the room.

Naomi couldn't help but wonder if Mrs. Prococino was letting her hate blind her.

“And your son?” Barney prodded. “How did you get him out?”

It was, of course, the central issue for Barney. He asked the question with frantic anticipation.

“Kidnapped him. That's the truth of it. Call it what you want. We told the press ‘subterfuge.' Sure it was illegal, but who gave a rat's ass? It was, believe me, the only way. Kidnapping. Pure and simple. We picked him up selling candy. He was on one of their fund-raising teams. They either raise money or do things to gain credibility and acceptance so they can raise more money.” She checked herself. She had started off again on the well-rutted path, stopping suddenly when she realized that she had continued to stray.

“To do all this cost us plenty. We hired a guy to kidnap him, a deprogrammer. It was like planning the snatching of a President. All cloak-and-dagger. It cost us every cent we had. We got him into a van and raced away as fast as we could. Then we holed up in a deserted cabin and the deprogrammer went to work. We had to lock him in a room. It wasn't fun to watch. It was awful. He was kicking and screaming all the way. It was heartbreaking….” She laughed, but it was not with joy. “We were lucky. If it hadn't worked, we would have been sued by our own son. Maybe even worse. Heartbreaking. It ruined my husband's heart in the end. He had been through the Brooklyn streets, wars, the Depression. But this finished him off. The old ticker gave.”

“Can you give me details on this deprogramming?”

“They reverse the process. You see, the Glories stopped his ability to think, to make decisions on his own. Something to do with the brain.”

“What did he, this deprogrammer, do to him?” Barney asked. He had been fidgeting with his fingers, now he locked them together to keep them from shaking.

Naomi had heard about the process, but it was always cloaked.

“Talk. Talk. Talk. I told you. I don't really understand it. He believed that he would rot in some eternal hell if he wasn't true to Father Glory. His mind absorbed it like a sponge. I'm told it clogs all receptors. The deprogrammer has to break down the fear, fight fire with fire. It worked with Franco. He came down like a rock dropped from a mountain.

“How long did it take?”

“Three days. Depends, I suppose, on the person.”

“It's incredible,” Naomi said.
Above all, a mind is free
, she told herself militantly.

“So he's fine?” Barney asked. Telling the story had drained Mrs. Prococino. She looked exhausted, taking a moment now to sip her tea.

“It took eleven months for him to really be fine. He was afraid to go to sleep in the dark, jumpy, but mostly he slept. He had no desire to do anything. It was another nightmare. We were perpetually afraid that he would wander back, or they would come and get him. They do that. You don't know these people.” The flume of her hate revived her.

“Can you really completely blame…?” Naomi asked.

“Yes, I can. I saw it with my own two eyes. It's hell.”

“How is he now?” Barney asked.

“Franco's great. He lost two years is all.” She sighed and smiled, calm now. She had saved her boy. “He's in his third year of medical school.”

“And does he remember?”

“Not if he can help it. It embarrasses him.”

“Why?”

“He blames himself for letting it happen.”

“Everyone is a little at fault,” Naomi said. It had come on her too fast, like a tornado. She watched as Mrs. Prococino shook her head, then sipped her tea. Naomi watched the tendons in her neck work as she swallowed, trying to figure out what she was thinking. Finally, she leveled her eyes at Naomi, seeming to search her. Naomi felt a twinge of discomfort and the sudden realization that she was being looked upon as a skeptic.

“It can happen to you, lady,” she said. “To any one of us.”

She decided she would not express any more doubts. She had not wanted this involvement and she did not want it now. Now, she wanted to get away, to run as far from here as she could.

Then, Mrs. Prococino appeared to retreat, as if accepting the realization that, despite all she had said, she could not properly express her passion. The interview was over. Barney stood up and held out his hand.

“I really appreciate this,” he said gently. “And I'm sorry if I stirred it all up for you again.”

Mrs. Prococino walked them to the front door and opened it. Naomi left first, starting down the stone steps edged with blooming mums. But when she turned, Barney was not behind her. He was framed in the doorway, clinging to Mrs. Prococino. They were locked in an embrace, rocking back and forth, lost in private consolation, two poor souls mourning a dead loved one. Embarrassed, Naomi turned away and got into the car.

When he slid into the car beside her, his eyes were still moist. Without looking at him, she handed him some tissues. His exclusion had, inexplicably, angered her.
What did it matter?
she told herself bravely. He had no obligation to include her.

“Amazing,” Barney said as the car headed into Washington. Time had slipped away and it had grown dark. She flicked on her headlights. “I've seen it on television, read it all in the papers. I've heard this all before. Other names. Other faces. It meant nothing. It's what happens to other people.”

“Barney….”

She needed to punch a fresh breeze into this vacuum of emotion, into herself as well. Seeing Barney like this reminded her that they were different people, living on different planets. They felt different things, thought different thoughts.

“I don't believe it can happen to just anyone,” she said, remembering what Mrs. Prococino had told her.

He shrugged, lost in his own thoughts. She hadn't made any impact.

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

“Oh.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key.

“The Marriott. Near the Pentagon.”

Heading the car through traffic on 16th Street, she realized she was taking the longest way, stalling. She needed to make sure to cover all the possibilities.

“I'm just wondering… was there anything between you and Charlotte before she left to visit her sister?”

His wife's name seemed to recall his sense of the present.

“None.”

“No arguments?”

“We had arguments, sure,” he said, growing restless. His foot tapped on the car floor. “Nothing cataclysmic. We have plenty of money. We traveled. Last year, I made nearly five hundred thousand. She had everything she needed.”

“Everything?”

She was probing now, the stiletto in her mind sharpening, the old curiosity exploding. Often in her work, she had to burrow in this way to get at the truth. Recently, she had probed a government official in Rwanda in this way, showing no mercy, deflecting his obfuscations.
I'm speaking for the dead and missing,
she assured herself. Bleeding for them. Was she bleeding for Charlotte now? Identifying with her?

“Not everything is measured in material things, Barney,” she lectured, an echo of the past. He bit his lip. She was surprised at his concurrence in the conversation, surprised that he was lending himself so readily. It encouraged her to probe deeper.

“She had Kevin.” A nerve began to palpitate in his jaw.

“And you.”

“Was she happy?”

“Happy? Why not?” He seemed to be looking deeply within himself now, the flare-up of belligerence subsiding.

“What kind of a person is Charlotte?” she asked suddenly.

“She's like a piece of fine china. I'm not saying she's a mental giant. She's smart, but not an intellectual. Not into… you know.” Naomi knew. Not into politics, causes, all the rest. “She was just a decent, good, loving young woman. Her life was her family. Just like me.”

“Was she Irish?”

“She was of Irish extraction, as a matter of fact.” He showed some irritation. She knew his sudden testiness was directed at her.

His parents must have been happy at that
, she thought.

“Did she like your parents?”

“She tolerated them. As you know, they're not exactly charming. My father's still the great black Irish hater.”

“I remember,” she said, remembering them, not with fondness.

“But they loved Kevin. They've moved to Lauderdale. I helped get them this condo.”

“Was she religious?”

She felt his gaze, but she did not turn her eyes from watching the road.

“A Catholic. Moderate. Not a fanatic. She went to church a few times a year.”

“Confession?”

He hesitated.

“Apparently not. She said she didn't need that. Religion wasn't a dominant factor in our lives. Nay. I swear to you. This was out of the blue.”

“She never visited her sister before?”

Barney shook his head.

“No. Seattle is a long trip. She thought Kevin was too young to leave. Besides, she and her sister weren't that close, not during the years of our marriage. Oh, they called, spoke. But it was always brief.”

“Then why this visit all of a sudden?”

“It wasn't all of a sudden. She had planned for it for months. It was her sister's birthday.”

“A sort of reconciliation?”

“I thought so. She did not enjoy their being distant. There was guilt in it for her. It bothered her. I thought it might be a good thing. Fat lot I knew. It was a set up. She probably got brownie points for bringing in a sibling.”

His continuing forbearance encouraged her to proceed. She expressed what stirred beneath the surface. “She was younger,” Naomi said impulsively.

“Ten years. Not a lifetime.”

“I mean when you married her.” It had been in her mind from the beginning, and she had calculated it. “Kevin is four. What was she eighteen, nineteen? That's pretty young.”

“She was young. No question.” He looked at her. “Okay, so I robbed the cradle.”

It was a couple of years after they had split, Naomi calculated—her Pyrrhic victory. At least it was not a rebound. Perhaps he had pined for her. It had taken all her will not to call him after they had gone their separate ways. Finally, years later, she had dialed his number. It was a weak moment, a lonely time. She remembered as soon as the ring began she had hung up. The irony galled her, now that he had called her.

She marveled at his patience as he surrendered to her questions. Throughout, he had been only mildly defensive. She tried to recall him as he was, but couldn't draw a true bead. Time did change people—some people—she decided, wondering if it had changed her.

“I think I know what you're getting at, Nay.”

“I wish I knew.”

“I think, whether or not you know it, you're trying to come up with a valid, logical reason for what happened to Charlotte. Did she think she had missed something by getting married so young?” He said it calmly. Obviously, he had been over this ground before. He answered his own question.

“Probably. I won't deny it. I can't say she ever expressed it that way. Doesn't everybody think they missed something now and then?” He kept his eyes averted from her face. Nevertheless, she felt the rhetorical question was directed at her.

“Maybe you thought you were communicating with Charlotte, but you really weren't.” Her present conclusion was that men and women never truly communicated, not on every level. It was something, a flaw perhaps, or some protective mechanism built genetically into the genders.

“Maybe so,” he sighed. Was he comparing Charlotte to her, remembering? Had he smothered Charlotte with his willingness to do anything to win her, to become what she wanted him to be? Had he succeeded in becoming that, whatever it might have been? She remembered what he had done to win her, Naomi. In the end, she, too, had looked for her exit.

Possible explanations began to fill her head, engaging her mind against all conscious design. Charlotte had married too young. Barney had prodded her, Naomi speculated, rushed her. Hadn't she experienced at first hand his anxiety to build his home, his infernal nest? Perhaps, he was panicked by his missing out on finding a mate, a family maker. After all, six years had gone by since her, since Naomi.

Barney had given Charlotte, say, a year of grace. Then Kevin had come. Kevin was now four. Charlotte hadn't seen much of anything. She might have been a virgin, known no other men. She had been trapped by love, that irrational and inhibiting emotion.

But why not another child, or more? For true companionship, she speculated, siblings needed to be spaced closer, perhaps two years apart at most. Had she refused to propagate further?

“How come you didn't have another child?” She had deliberately hit him obliquely with that.

“We were planning another, but not just yet. We wanted to stay in the city. We had a co-op on 76th and Broadway,” he said. “It's okay for one child, but for more… you have to think suburbs. We both loved Manhattan.”

The explanation spun forward, throwing doubts onto her mind's eye: was Charlotte uneasy, unfulfilled, beginning to wonder if this was all there was? Perhaps that first flush of blind love had receded. She felt cheated. She needed and wanted more of life's experiences under her belt.

She tried to put herself in Charlotte's place. There just was no other way to judge these circumstances. Their marriage was becoming intolerable. The purpose of visiting her sister was certainly for a chance of reconciliation, but Charlotte had to talk to someone.
What better confidante than a sister?
She went alone, leaving her family, maybe for the first time since her marriage. Perhaps it opened doors, showed her a way to escape, made Charlotte ponder and take action. Could the cult have just been the path of least resistance? They opened their arms and she walked right in.

Through her sister and the Glories, she had found the exit she craved for from her present life. From Barney. From Kevin. From the old, narrow, stultifying, crippling, pre-programmed life. Was all of this wishful thinking on Naomi's part?
Which situation was worse for Charlotte?
Naomi wondered, admonishing herself for the thought.

“Nothing will convince me that she wanted this to happen. She was a victim,” Barney said as if he had read her mind.

“You don't think she was vulnerable?” Naomi pressed.

“Vulnerable?” he mused. “No more than anyone else. We were, by any measure, a happy family,” he sighed.

It was, she decided, the wrong tack. He must have sailed those choppy waters over the past sleepless nights.

“It can happen to any one of us,” Mrs. Prococino had said. “It can happen to you, lady.”

No, it can't
, Naomi protested.
Not if you didn't want it to happen, not if you're not vulnerable.
She was not rejecting Barney's and Mrs. Prococino's pain. That was quite real. It was their one-sided rationalization that troubled her. What if there were personal troubles in Franco's life, just like Charlotte's? Naomi couldn't help but think that that could have been a factor.

“The worst part of all this, Nay,” he said finally. “Like Mrs. Prococino said, you blame yourself.” He retreated for a long moment. “When she hugged me back there, she said it again. ‘It's not your fault. It's them.' She said no one would understand that unless it happened to them.”

“And you believe that?”

“I want to. If I thought it was my fault….” He let the idea drift away.

Now it was her turn to remain silent. Naomi wondered if she was reaching at last into the heart of the matter.

The car crawled through the rush-hour traffic.

Without Naomi's assault of questions to distract him, Barney descended into his own brooding reflection. “A black Irish funk,” he had once called that mood. Watching the outline of his face, she saw the silhouette of the only man who had ever moved her, the one she had thrown away. What else could she have done?

As she pulled up in front of the Marriott, she braced for the goodbyes. Not once had he referred to their past together as if it had happened to other people. He probably didn't even think about it much anymore. She suddenly smiled, remembering the display of his denuded organ, that ludicrous symbol of his “sacrifice.”

She felt ashamed of the thought. It was not the first time she had thought about it in the years since she had left him. The image had lingered in her mind. Sometimes it seemed to sum up his persona and her obscene attraction to him, as if somehow it signified her own incompleteness.
For shame, Naomi,
she admonished herself.

“You've been wonderful, Nay,” he said, turning to her, taking her hand. His was clammy. Or was it hers? Yet he continued to hold it, searching her face, until his eyes drifted away. She let her hand slip through his as he got out the far side. She rolled down her window.

“Come have a drink,” he said, bending low to see her face.

She looked at her watch. There would be nothing to do but go back to her apartment. Besides, the office was closed by now, she remembered, and she had left her briefcase of take-home work beside her desk.

“Alright.”

She followed his directions to that section where his room was. She didn't know what to expect, her foot tense on the accelerator.

Following him up the single flight of stairs, she waited until he turned the key, opening the door into the familiar commercial aura. Inside, he put his notebook on the dresser. She noted that he had a laptop, open, on his desk.

He threw his jacket on the bed and brought out two glasses wrapped in plastic that he ripped off, pouring out equal amounts from an opened bottle of scotch.

“I can get water and ice.”

“It's all right,” she said.

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

Kicking off his shoes, he stretched heavily on the bed, puffing pillows for a backrest, while she took a chair opposite. Taking a deep sip, she watched his Adam's apple slide and bob in his throat.

“Do you really think it was my fault?” he asked. A light from a lamp on the dresser put his face in shadows. Only his eyes glowed, like cups of molten lead.

“How did you know I was thinking that?”

“We have history, Nay. I did know something about the way your mind works.”

“I'll concede that.”

“I did everything I knew how to keep her happy. Everything.”

He drank again. “The truth of it was, I was happy. Happy as a pig in shit.”

So he was facing up to it at last. Drinking, she felt the scotch burn its way down her throat.

“Who knows better than you, Nay? All I ever wanted was a wife, kids, money. The American dream. I'm one of the most successful managers in the company. I've got my bosses terrorized that I'll go elsewhere. Maybe I oversold Charlotte.” He upended his glass. From the shadows, she saw him watching her surreptitiously studying her for the first time that day.