Seductive Poison (12 page)

Unknown to her, however, as my weeks inside the Temple turned into months, I began to feel a twinge of homesickness and with it a deep feeling of guilt. I missed my parents, I missed the occasional drag on a cigarette, but worst of all I secretly hated the all-day and all-weekend revival meetings. I knew these meetings were important. Jim had explained to me how he and I needed to help the poor, how those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought into enlightenment—socialism. But being a humanitarian was a full-time job and I was not used to such altruism.

But I felt even more guilt on the fleeting occasions when I wished I hadn’t joined. Father kept my treasonous thoughts in check by warning us that leaving the church would bring bad karma. He reminded us in his sermons that those who had chosen to join were here because we were on the verge of crossing over to the next plane. Without his help, we would not make it. Those who left or betrayed the Cause in any way would be reincarnated as the lowest life form on earth and it would take us another hundred thousand years to get to this point again. I didn’t want to start over as an amoeba.

I began writing myself up and reporting on my negative thoughts. I felt it kept me in check. Nuns and priests went to confession, I told myself. I was in control when I reported on my treasonous thoughts, playing the snitch in order to better myself. Over time, I became the perfect vessel for my leader’s dogma.

The process of controlling new members began immediately and intensely and I’m not sure I’ll ever know what prevented us from seeing through his deceit,. his lies, and his manipulations. Only a few days after joining, I learned that “All men are homosexuals, except for Jim.” I was stunned, but when the information was not disputed
by anyone, I obediently believed it. When I heard Larry and Karen’s bed rhythmically creaking at night, I figured Larry and Karen didn’t yet know that he was a “homo.” It even made me doubtful of Mark. I became terribly embarrassed for the men I knew, wondering why they had all pretended otherwise.

I was even more ashamed for the men I knew when the Reverend taught us that men who grew hair around their mouths really wanted to be “pussies.” When I noticed the painted sideburns on Jim’s cheeks, it didn’t occur to me that he might have felt threatened by the virility of men who had voluminous amounts of facial and chest hair and that was why he forbade his male followers to expose their hair.

This kind of warped logic was just one of the many devices Jim used to control the congregation. He intended to discourage any bonds with the opposite sex that might compromise our allegiance to him. It never seemed odd to me back then that only men were homosexuals. I could not see the sickening duplicity, the clever deception, that made Jim out to be the “only real man” and his male cravings the only valid ones.

Soon thereafter I understood that church policy prohibited sexual relations between members. We were taught that sex was selfish and harmful because it took our thoughts away from helping others. Jim said that in every important organization before ours, sex had always lured the weak away from the path of truth. Lust and desire were character flaws. If one were to be truly devoted, one had to abstain. Those caught not abiding by the rules would be publicly confronted. If they were married, the women had to declare that it was Father they had always thought of and fantasized about when they were with their husbands. These embarrassing proclamations, coerced by Jim and his staff, were meant to discourage all of us from any form of closeness with each other.

Young, malleable, and eager to conform, I tried to shelve and forget my yearnings for boys and a relationship. I was becoming distrustful of men. But it was harder to maintain my asexual equilibrium after Jim arranged my marriage to Mark. That the union was never consummated on the few occasions I saw Mark was a result of his devotion to Father, not mine.

I tried to be the perfect follower and student, but life in our Santa Rosa college dorm was arduous. I had to prove myself to the resident
enlightened Temple students because I was new, white, and from the privileged class. So I became a chameleon and learned to change identities quickly.

Brenda, a newly found friend, suggested that I try a different look. “Girl, your skin’s too brown to be a honky’s.” We purchased an easy home perm kit and, with care and determination, administered the magic to my head. After less than an hour, I pulled my fingers through my cotton candy hair. It looked full and big, like Angela Davis’s. When I looked at myself in the mirror I was transfixed by my transformation. Brenda and I took a collective breath and stared at a person we did not know. She was awesome! Not a WASP, not a honky, but “Solano,” a hip, militant Chicana. Almost as impressive as Angela Davis, the one woman outside the Temple whom Father admired and constantly spoke of.

I adorned myself with big hoop earrings and became comfortable with my new identity as the weeks passed. I was actively doing what Father said we should do: “Know how the other half lives.” I felt sure I had taken a bold step in the right direction.

When the new quarter started, I registered for a Chicano Studies class. In this politically correct environment, I gained what I thought was a deep understanding of oppression. My white bourgeois mind developed into enlightened Chicano outrage. In class, I raised the race issue at every opportunity and verbally attacked Caucasians, pointing out all the faults of the rich white oppressor. Well versed in this rhetoric from our Family Teach-ins, I became the spokesperson for my Mexican-American classmates and all other oppressed people. When we had the occasion of hosting a guest lecturer, my professor touted me as a shining example of a self-aware Chicana. It didn’t strike me that I was repeating my childhood tendency of telling stories and lies and I never worried about being phony because I had already learned from Father that the end justifies the means.

On one occasion, I got so caught up in my new identity that I slapped one of my white roommates in the face during one of our highly volatile college catharsis meetings. The purpose of these meetings, one hundred miles from Father’s aura was to “come into the truth,” bare our selfish souls, and admit to our weaknesses. I became incensed when Jenessa stood up, her blond hair coifed and obviously bleached, and announced, confident in her whiteness, that she was unwilling to continue in the catharsis. When she questioned the lightness of the meetings we were having outside of Father’s
purview, I smacked her in order to correct the wrongness of her thinking. She wrote me up.

Jim was not pleased. I had to stand before the congregation and explain why I had hit my comrade in the face. After acknowledging my misdeed, I was reprimanded by Jim and told to let my hair grow out—this was not the way Father had intended I apply his teachings.

“After this grotesque breach of judgment, your meetings are forbidden,” Father declared. “Having Angela Davis’s hair does not make you an outspoken radical of her intelligence. Read
If They Come in the Morning
and I expect a written analysis of her thesis next week, Solano Layton.” There was a faint rustle and I thought I heard someone snicker. “Each of you must continue to write up your worries and treasonous thoughts. I know your thoughts, I have heard them in my mind. But you must write them up. I cannot do all the work for you. We must each take responsibility for your own progress. As always, if you have any concerns about a comrade, bring it directly to me.” He nodded at Jenessa. “I will determine who and what types of situations are worthy of confrontation or forgiveness.” Then his eyes rested on me.

“And you …” I stood again, respectfully and obediently, as was expected of anyone being confronted. “You must receive what you thought your right to inflict upon Jenessa.” As instructed, my victim hit me back in the face. Only then was I allowed to apologize to her.

I had joined Peoples Temple only six months before and I had already fallen from grace. But I was not defeated. I was determined to make my way to the top and this was only a stumble. I would work hard and regain Father’s respect. I knew in my new socialist head that despite my occasional fears and misgivings, Father’s cause was where I should be.

In the months that followed, the college students began some paramilitary training to prepare for the post-nuclear world. We jogged every night, practiced field navigation using a compass and flashlight, studied guerrilla tactics, memorized portions of Karl Marx’s
Communist Manifesto,
and sang “The Internationale” at the close of each evening devotion.

We learned that our weakest man was as critical to our operation as the leader. We knew that we needed to persevere and stay in good physical condition because one day, when the Third World War began, Jim would need us to lead the people through the inevitable nuclear holocaust. As we sang, “… we’ll tear down our
planet’s false foundation, Then build a better world anew,” we were told that we, the youth of Peoples Temple, would be in charge after the devastation.

We were being trained to survive under desperate conditions, with few comforts and little sleep. We were taught to put our faith in Jim Jones, our leader, and never to question him. We were to let go of such petty desires as living in a nuclear family. Father had a vision much greater than any we could have. None of us was evolved enough to understand or question him.

Whenever my inner voice began to caution me, Jim would intuit my doubt and quickly dispel my “capitalistic” anxiety. On one occasion, when he told us to close our eyes and pray while he turned the water into wine, I peeked. Suddenly he bellowed,

“For those nonbelievers, still too caught up in the material world, who cannot trust, who think they can secretly learn something and in the process only prove how small their minds are … Ha! … Shame on you! … I have turned the water into white wine!”

I was terribly embarrassed that he had seen me doubting. I promised myself I would no longer try to outsmart God. I would be devoted like Sweet Annie, whom I noticed the very moment I peeked. She had been coming to the meetings for a while as Carolyn’s guest and I could tell from her angelic face that she was not plagued by any doubts. Father was teaching us that doubting him was a sign of conceit and selfishness, vestiges of the material world that I was struggling to shed. He always knew how to address my hesitations and dilute my apprehensions.

“Darling, it is hard to give up one’s personal dreams for a communal vision, but through your sacrifices you will grow and benefit a hundredfold. You will be a revolutionary example to Annie when she graduates from high school and joins you at the dorms.”

There were always promises that greater responsibilities and excitement were in store for me:

“You are the only one I can really trust, Debbie.” Father would tell me, using this effective line again and again on my naïve and pliable mind, a line he used on many of us.

It wasn’t long before Jim granted me the very trusted role of Head of the Offering Room. It was a plush assignment. I was in charge of counting the collections from the services—thousands of dollars from each one—and was allowed to choose my own crew. I chose my favorite people: Stephan, Jim’s biological son, fifteen years old, six foot five, olive-skinned, smart, loud, and fun; Shanda,
with beautiful milk-chocolate skin, a gorgeous smile, an infectious laugh and quick with numbers; and Robbi, her thick chestnut hair always neatly brushed off her face and the fastest dollar-bill counter in the world. Like Stephan, she had been a member since birth, her parents having been among the original disciples who followed Jim from Indiana. Now, I felt, I was part of the chosen few.

Jim’s public sermons were always geared to new members or potential new recruits. He’d go over the Temple philosophy, explaining in painful detail why he did what he did, why he said what he said, claiming he was the only God we’d ever know. The regular members dreaded these endless harangues, as many of them were already living Father’s teachings: they had sold their homes, handed over the proceeds to Father, and moved into church communes. The offering was a way to reap more money, above and beyond the members’ paychecks, the $65,000 a month in Social Security payments, and income from trust funds that already enriched the Temple’s coffers. These incessant offering calls during the public meetings were for new money from the guests. Jim explained that the donations were used to support all our humanitarian programs: feeding the poor, housing the homeless, getting young black addicts into rehabilitation programs administered by the church, and many more.

My crew had “clearance,” a buzz word for Jim’s approval and blessing, and was allowed to leave the auditorium when Jim called for yet another donation. The Offering Room was always outside the main auditorium and we were grateful, in fact joyous, to be released from the meetings. We spent the time not only counting the money but eating snacks and joking around while the others had to remain in the main meeting. We’d frequently fail to return to the meeting once our counting was completed. Some of the older counselors seemed to be jealous of our position, but I realize now that they were simply annoyed by our cavalier silliness. Their commitment was a serious matter. They had forfeited spouses, family, sex, sleep, and companionship to help create a better world. Of course we had to do the same, but it was not as painful for us. We had not risked and lost as much as the grown-ups. In many ways, our involvement with Peoples Temple was an adventure, complete with scary rides and the thrill of an unknown outcome.