Salvage (27 page)

He stepped into the kitchen, the only bright, clean space in the house, aside from a few dirty dishes in the sink, and found Jo holding a glass under the running tap. The windows behind her overlooked a miserable backyard. Broken lawn furniture, a sad, leafless tree, a lawn consisting almost entirely of dirt. Beyond this was a forest so thick with pines the sunlight couldn't penetrate it.

This is how she lives
, he thought.
This is her life. Because of
them.
Because Crouch won't leave her in peace
.

Jo held out the glass to him. He knew the water's cloudiness was a harmless release of oxygen, but after all he knew about Chapel Lake, he couldn't bring himself to take the glass. "Don't you have some orange juice? Some Tang?"

"Fresh out."

"I'll pass."

"Suit yourself." She shrugged, and guzzled it, and set it down empty on the counter. After a satisfied gasp, Jo said: "All that stuff in the living room is what I've collected concerning the church. I've got every legitimate piece of Blessed Trinity ephemera I could get my hands on. Some of the original church documents are photocopies, but the blue ones on the coffee table are originals I got in a new haul. Everything else is cult-related. Jonestown. The Moonies, the Raelians and the Branch Davidians. The Solar Temple. Early Mormonism, pre-LDS. Scientology." She sat down hard at the kitchen table. "It's everything I could find, and not a single bit of it explained what I was going through."

He sat beside her on a mismatched stool with a frayed, pea-green vinyl seat cover. "It'll be over soon," he said, hoping to be reassuring, but sounding doubtful even to his own ears.

"Will it?"

He didn't answer, only fiddled with a torn flap of the ugly tablecloth. "You know, I heard about something on a radio call-in show once. I think it might apply to your situation." He considered it. "Hell, it probably applies to both of us. It's called survivor guilt."

"Oh, Christ…" Jo muttered, rolling her eyes.

"I know, I know. But we're kind of stuck together now, so you're obligated to listen to at least one completely uninteresting thing a day. That's a rule, I think."

She rolled her eyes, sighing dramatically. "Fine. But don't think I won't remember this, Saddler."

"You're a gem."

She winked.

"For survivors of traumatic events," he said, "like a death in the family, or war, natural disasters, or, like us, escaping from a cult—having PTSD symptoms is apparently pretty common. Depression, blaming yourself for what happened, vivid nightmares, withdrawing from social situations," he counted them off on his fingers.

"You sound like an ad for a new medication."

Owen laughed. "You know, now that I think about it, I pretty much experienced every one of those at one point or another long before Lori died." Jo laid a hand on his. "With your parents passing, learning as much as you have about the church… it's no wonder you might think Crouch was haunting you because of something you did." He studied her face. "That you maybe deserved it."

She nodded. After a moment, she looked at him dubiously. "Wait a minute. You learned all that from a radio call-in show?"

"It was pretty good." Owen grinned. "I think they were actually talking about alien abductions, but I'm sure you can extrapolate." When she giggled, he slipped a hand into her hair, smoothing his fingers against her scalp, and she leaned into his touch. "Think you're ready to go through those papers, or do you need a minute?"

"Let's get it over with," she said, getting up from the table.

The Blessed Trinity Mission's literature was filled with paranoid ramblings, peppered with Bible quotes whose meanings Crouch had deliberately warped to suit his agenda—typical evangelical rhetoric. What Owen found most fascinating were communiqués, both typed and handwritten, between Everett Crouch and various businesses, legal officials and politicos, not just in Canada but throughout the world. Several were still tucked in envelopes marked RETURN TO SENDER in a hand pointing toward the offending address. And NO SUCH STREET. And UNABLE TO FORWARD.

One of these was written to Roman Polanski at the Benedict Canyon address Charles Manson and his followers had broken into, killing his young wife and unborn child. In it, Everett Crouch urged the director to turn himself in to the authorities for what Crouch called "the impure corruption of an impressionable young woman." Another was addressed to Fidel Castro, pointing to their shared plight, and requesting assistance with his own, noting that American officials "have dismissed Cuba as a nation in much the same way my own government has dismissed my Ministry as a ragtag band of Bible-thumping zealots."

Letters to the Prime Minister's office had been opened and returned, most of them requesting a renewal of tax exemption status for a religious organization under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Letters to the Department of Public Works and Minister J. Judd Buchanan demanded the Peace Falls hydroelectric dam project "immediately cease and desist with any and all further disruptions." Form replies from several governing bodies insisted the dam would be "beneficial for the growth and stability of Canada as a nation," and "we regret to inform you that we are unable to grant your organization status as an official religion… Therefore, your request for tax exemption is denied."

Much of the rest was hate mail received by the church, most of it handwritten, scrawled with angry immediacy. Some were Crouch's responses to these that had been "returned to sender" in the case of an incorrect address.

"Listen to this," Owen said, sitting cross legged on one of many stains in the carpet in front of the coffee table, holding a letter in his hand. "'My friend,'" he read, "'I am deeply troubled you have chosen to accept the deal (read: serpent's temptation) proffered by the Devil's Pimp. Eat of this tree, if you must, but bear in mind that the Lord God Almighty
banished
Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden! You might also consider the divine words of Jesus Himself:
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Yours in Truth'—and truth is capitalized," Owen added, "'The Reverend Everett Crouch.'"

"That's one of my favorites," Jo said, bent over by a bookshelf packed with file folders and stacks of printouts. "I guess he wasn't a big fan of hyperbole."

Owen chuckled. "No, I guess not." He held up the original envelope it had been stuffed back into so she could see. He had to assume the addressee had returned it directly to the church doors by hand, as the offended party had scrawled across the envelope in red marker,
FUCK YOU AND FUCK JESUS!

Jo barked out a tired laugh, and Owen joined in. The contagious laughter brought them close to tears. But his reflection in the cracked and smudgy mirror leaning against the wall reminded him of the mirror in his childhood bedroom, startling him back to reality, and the laughter caught in his throat. Jo continued a moment longer, then she too returned to the search.

But for what? Neither of them spoke of what they hoped to find. He supposed they were searching for evidence that Crouch and his Ministry were planning to martyr themselves, of Crouch's motivations, for a way to put their spirits to rest… but after a while, it started to seem like busy work. Bills, receipts, and legal documents passed through their hands. Bureaucratic form letters, hate mail, and Crouch's passive-aggressive replies. None of it seemed to matter. And there was nothing, absolutely
nothing
about a man named Brother Woodrow.

They sat quietly, the only sounds the rustling of papers, the ticking of an old grandfather clock, the chirrup of birds outside. Somebody, somewhere, was mowing their lawn. The smell of fresh-cut grass was stronger than the sound was loud. It was a perfect summer day, not too hot or humid. A cool breeze blew in through the window, helped by a fan Jo had stuck in front of it.

Woulda been a great day to get out on that lake
, Owen thought.

A short while later, Jo discovered a letter among what was clearly worthless correspondence, this one written in the thick, shaky script of someone who'd had difficulty holding a pen. She showed it to Owen.

My dearest Maggie.
For your tireless efforts in transcribing my often rambling thoughts to paper, a thankless task to be sure, and for bearing us a son, whom—God willing—will one day fill my shoes at the pulpit, I pledge to you my undying love.

It was signed below with a simple
E
.

"It looks like Crouch might have had Parkinson's," she said, referring to the jittery handwriting.

"Or a bad drinking habit," Owen added, remembering Gerald's terrible penmanship.

He sifted through loose papers in a cardboard box, and found what he'd been looking for. They were notes, written in the same scrawling print as the letter Jo had found to his mother. Crouch rambled on for a time before coming to any sort of point. Finally, Crouch mentioned Woodrow by name:

Brother Woodrow says I'm too soft on the boy. He says a boy needs discipline from his father, not mercy. If the boy wants mercy, it should come from the mother. That's what Woodrow believes, anyhow. Me, I'm not so sure…

And later:

Woodrow says I'm preaching too much "God is love" and not enough "God is wrath." He makes a good point, although inadvertently, about the dual nature of the Bible's depiction of God.

These two halves of the Bible don't entirely contradict themselves, but they come close many times. The Old Testament God is a vengeful, jealous God, seemingly disappointed in His own creation. "Vengeance is Mine," and "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." He ejects us angrily from the Garden of Eden, and wipes us all out with a flood, sparing only two of every animal. In the New Testament, God preaches forgiveness through Jesus Christ and salvation through performing good works. He loves His fellow man, in particular the meek, the poor, and those who have sinned.

This dualism mirrors what we often feel in our hearts. I'll tell you what I believe: I believe every man has two selves, in constant battle with one another—the man who
is
, and
the man he's meant to be
.

If one can reconcile these two halves, he will have solved the mystery of what it is to be truly human.

"'The man who is, and the man he's meant to be,'" Owen said aloud. He liked the sound of it.

"Huh?" Jo said, leafing through a folder.

"Just something Crouch wrote. Not sure if it's profound or complete bullshit."

"Hmm."

Jo didn't appear to be paying attention, absorbed by something in the folder, so Owen returned to the box. He unfolded a page of the
Chapel Lake Breeze
next. This
Special Second Installment
of the biweekly paper was dated December 12, 1979. On the back was the crossword, the bridge column, and a few comics reprinted from major publications. On the front, p. 2, the last half of an article titled "BLESSED TRINITY (CONT.)" took up most of the page. A small crime section in the right margin, listing a break-in at a dairy farm, and a fistfight at the Red Pony during its opening night. An editorial cartoon filled the rest of the page: the caricature of a mustached man running away from church with a briefcase spilling money. The man had a nametag, CROUCH, his briefcase not-so-cleverly labeled INSURANCE PAYOUT.

Curious, Owen read the article:

Meanwhile, speculation continues as to where Rev. Crouch and his remaining followers have gone. It would seem they have been swept away on the same winds which blew the Plague of Locusts into the Red Sea. Whatever the case may be, this "plague" on Peace Falls (Chapel Lake, rather
—Ed.
) has ostensibly run its course. As Everett Crouch was fond of reinterpreting and paraphrasing Biblical verse to his somewhat nefarious requirements, I hope you will permit me my own, this from Dickens'
Little Dorrit
: "The old proverb says to
Let sleeping dogs lie
. In the case of the Mad Preacher and his Blessed Missionaries, it is advisable to
Let missing dogs go
."

Later, Owen found an entire folder dedicated to financial documents, signed by Everett Crouch and Peter Jebson, the church accountant, which contradicted the cartoonist's idea of monetary gain. "The church really was flat broke," Owen said, shuffling through past-due notices and official letters of foreclosure.

"They would have lost it, with or without the flood," Jo said.

"But they still fought against it," he added. "They still went down with the ship. That's pretty goddamned determined."

"Don't confuse determination with crazy," she said, leaning into a cardboard box and rooting through it. "There it is," she muttered to herself, and came back with a classroom cassette player, and a tape, which she clunkily inserted into it.

Suddenly a man's voice filled the dusty, cramped living room. Owen recognized it right away: blustering, pompous; a televangelist's voice. It could only be Crouch. He pictured the man pacing before a soft chair, speaking into a small microphone, and wondered if what he saw was memory or imagination.

"—beyond which none of us may travel," the voice intoned, "a dark void much like space—" Jo pushed a button, zipping Crouch's voice along at warp speed. Another clunk as she pressed play. "I stood before it, shaking with despair,
thundering
my fists upon the soil—"

"Listen to this," Jo said, as if he could help it. As if Crouch's voice hadn't already wormed its way into his subconscious, deep and pleasant and unwavering. He sounded a lot like Gregory Peck—a voice tailor-made for orating. A voice you couldn't help but
believe
.

"—in the darkness I cried out to God, 'Take this burden from me, Lord!'" A crinkle of paper. It went on for a moment. Then: "I cried out to God, 'Why have you put this obstacle in our path? Why, when all we do is spread your Good Word?'"