Seductive Poison (19 page)

Marshall Kilduff’s interview of Jim did not go well. He was not apologetic in his questioning of Father, nor was he demure, which heightened Jim’s suspicion. When we made inquiries at the
Chronicle,
we received confirmation that Kilduff was preparing an expose. We would later find that instead of the
Chronicle, New West
magazine would publish the expose. Jim called an urgent meeting. A couple of people were assigned to follow Kilduff and to go through the reporter’s garbage because, according to Father, “People’s refuse always tells the truth about them.”

I wondered why this Kilduff was so fiercely against us. We had done so many good things. Why wasn’t the press reporting those too? I thought about the desperately poor and destitute people who had come to us and whom we had helped. Many had heard Jim’s sermons on the radio or seen the flyers we had circulated in different neighborhoods.

There was Vera, a young black homeless woman with a newborn, whom I helped relocate, with Temple funds, to a small studio. And there was Randy, who had come to Father after a service, her beautiful Native American hair braided down her back, and asked for help. Her husband had beaten and raped her after coming home drunk and she had bruises on her arm, neck, and cheek. When her husband was out, we took her seven little children to the church where they could be fed and entertained, while their mother and I went to Goodwill. One of the Temple guards loaded a van with her new belongings, a couch, kitchen table, high chairs, and bunk beds for the new place I’d found. She chose plates and utensils from the donations available at the Temple. Randy confided in me while I scrubbed the walls and vacuumed the old rugs and she stacked food
from our headquarters’ kitchen on her empty shelves. I found some posters and we pinned them on the barren walls. I was proud of my work and felt fulfilled in the knowledge that I had helped women who were afraid for themselves and their children.

I also thought about the child Mama had met on her second visit to the Temple. He was seven years old and had an enlarged jaw from some disfiguring growth. She called several doctors, met with our church attorneys to set up a fund, and found a reconstructive surgeon to perform the cosmetic surgery for the child. And there were the little children she loved to hold on her lap and read to. We each had our own personal mission to help those less fortunate than ourselves. This was why we joined. Jim always found the money to help people get a new start in life. No other church or minister I could think of had opened his heart and pocketbook to these forgotten brethren. Only Father had offered them a place to live free from harassment, an environment in which they could find themselves. My work for the poor and needy made all my questionable deeds for Father seem worthwhile. I reminded myself constantly that even though life seemed hard, my sorrows were nothing in comparison to those of the impoverished populace.

Jim remained apprehensive over the FBI’s raid on the Church of Scientology’s offices. He expected a raid any day. I had helped remove files and money from the Temple in preparation, and there was an arms cache as well, which someone took to a secret storage site.

Soon, the CIA and FBI would attack and Father said it was better to escape to the safety of Guyana now than to be incarcerated in the concentration camps our own government was preparing for us. After all, they had done the same thing thirty years ago to our Japanese-American citizens. Farmers, families, neighbors, parents of our own soldiers had been rounded up like the Jews by Hitler and taken away. Afterward, the greedy neighbors had moved right in and taken over their stores, homes, and farms. Jim often spoke about the concentration camps being built in America to confine agitators, people of color, interracialists, and anyone who had been involved with the Temple. It could happen again. Jim said it was already in the planning stage. He ought to have known. His closest friends were the mayor, the lieutenant governor, the district attorney, the chief of police, and the president’s wife.

Jim told us that we were all on the enemy’s list. I was afraid. I had come to believe all white people, except the few under Father’s tutelage, were bad. In his sermons, Father constantly warned us of the inevitable American Armageddon, and urged us to break all ties to this vicious right-wing country to save our lives:

The people cannot be really happy until they have been deprived of illusory happiness … You and I have done that … It was our mission to open the minds of those still asleep and drugged by religion … We have done the best we could. I have gathered the finest people left in America. There are no more. Those family members who have refused to join our Cause were given hundreds of chances to come, but they have waited too long. It is time for us to look forward to our new lives. Let no one repeat the sentimentality of Lot’s wife, by turning for one last glance and becoming a pillar of salt. No, my beloved children, in Jonestown we will no longer be hounded like dogs, no longer hear the racist cry of “nigger” as we walk the streets. We have 3,800 acres which has been readied for our arrival. You saw the beautiful movies, the houses, the pathways. Truly, this is our Promised Land. We will be emigrating to a country in South America governed by Black men and Indians. The common language there is English. We will live well in a land which honors and dignifies the lives of its people. No Ku Klux Klaners live there! We will flourish once more, as we did long ago, before the white man harnessed us, whipped our backs and worked us like oxen. We will live as free men and women, no longer chattel, in a country which has offered us a place of our own and to join in their Socialist endeavor. Free at last … Free at Last … Thank Socialism almighty we will be free at last.

So though it haunts me now, I was proud to help Randy’s and Vera’s families obtain their passports, confident I was doing the right thing when I helped them pack, exhilarated when I waved good-bye to them. I never had second thoughts about their leaving this country. I knew that their new life in Jonestown would be better than this. It made sense to me that they should never say good-bye to their abusive families. It seemed logical to leave under the cover of darkness. That’s what one had to do when being monitored by the enemy.

I had now been back from Europe for several weeks and had obediently resumed my work alongside Maria. As I fretted about how I would interact with Teresa on her return, I learned more about finances, and was officially introduced to the appropriate executives at our banks in the financial district.

It was a breezy morning in spring when I was again summoned by Father for an important assignment. I had to blink my eyes several times to adjust to the darkness in Jim’s room.

“Find Tim Stoen,” he ordered. “We must stop him before he joins forces with Grace in order to steal John-John from me, the boy’s rightful father. Thank God the child’s now safe in Jonestown with my son Stephan.” Jim’s voice seemed brittle as if it might crack with tears if he wasn’t careful.

“What a tiny weasel he is,” Jim coughed, trying to clear the emotion from his voice. “He couldn’t sire a son even if he was aided by a team of surgeons. John is my son! Tim is only a father on paper. You’ll find him, he’ll be sure to park his little penis-symbol-Porsche inside the garage, still trying to prove he isn’t a queer. Approach him there and offer him up to ten thousand dollars to stay out of the battle. If he balks, raise the sum by ten thousand more. Don’t forget it was Tim who begged me to have sex with his wife. He thought it would keep her from leaving him. I told him it was a bad idea.” Jim sighed at the painful memory. “Grace chose to keep the child from our union even though I warned her that I would be protective of the child, that I would raise it well and as my own. And now Grace pulls this spoiled child’s charade.” He grabbed his temples and massaged what seemed to be a throbbing ache. “She knew the consequences. When she defected, leaving John-John with me, she did the honorable thing…. And now she is trying to make us suffer? She had her choice. She chose to run away with a man. She chose lust over her son.” His voice became soft and he moaned.

“Dear God in heaven. Maria’s done the best she could. She has tried desperately to be a good mother to my son. Why do Tim and Grace and all the others conspire against me on so many fronts? Why do they try to malign my rightful place in history? What do they fear so desperately? Can’t they see how they’re setting us up? Just like Brother Martin Luther King, the CIA will try to destroy my reputation, then kill me. Do they think I will lie down and allow them to lie about our work and steal my son? How much money are
Tim and Grace being paid, I wonder? How much money does it take to pluck a sinner from the cloth of a saint?”

My heart ached for Father as I drove away with a map of possible locations to find Tim. I remembered how much John-John had changed before he had been taken to Jonestown by Tim, in order to keep him from the clutches of an antisocialist mother. It had never occurred to me that his dwindling happiness had anything to do with the loss of his biological mother, who had betrayed us. I only vaguely noticed that he was no longer the joyous little fellow who delighted the congregation when he sat next to Father or when he went to the microphone during service and asked Jim questions. John-John resembled Jim, and Father was terribly proud of him.

Before the attacks upon us had begun, Father often allowed the little children to show their understanding of socialism by having them speak. Crowds of youngsters would rush to the podium, hang from Father’s neck, crawl into his lap. But it was different now that we were under siege. We lived hunkered down in our church bunker in survival mode. There was no place for playfulness anymore.

My mission was fruitless. Tim was not at any of the various spots we had pegged as his hangouts. On my return to Father’s apartment, I expected to be reprimanded, but there was another crisis brewing. Father was on the phone with Carolyn at his side. Rather than interrupt, I wrote a quick note and handed it to them. Father put his hand over the receiver and smiled sadly.

“He’ll resurface. His Porsche will need gasoline soon.”

As it turned out, I would have another chance, soon enough, to deliver my message of lucrative silence to the CIA operative, Tim Stoen.

Soon thereafter, another critical meeting was called. Teresa had just returned from the last leg of our trip, which she had taken alone. She looked pale in the dingy light of the room. I felt self-conscious because I had sat down across the room and did not dare to raise my eyes toward her. Father began to speak.

“There is evidence that the U.S. Customs agents have been tipped off to watch us more closely. The crates we’ve shipped through Miami seem to have been laid over.” He looked around the room for the face with the answer to his following question: “Are they clean?”

“Yes, Father,” came a male voice from behind me. “We stopped the false bottom shipments last month. We had a feeling something was changing down there.”

Jim chuckled. “Oh, you had a premonition, did you?”

The room filled with relieved snickers. I quickly looked up to see if Teresa had smiled. Her head was down; she seemed to be writing a note. She was so dedicated, so good, so smart. I missed being her confidante.

“There is no time for humor now. We are under siege, my children. Luck alone has kept us afloat. Thank God Teresa’s back.”

I smiled to show her my continued support, but she never looked my way. My heart ached as Jim continued.

“I just hung up with our friend, Dennis Banks. He continues to warn me of a conspiracy against us …

“We now have listening devices under every room of the house of the agent who has tried to bribe Dennis Banks just because he accepted money from us. Money—as you all know—for his legal fees in his fight against this government’s effort to extradite him to South Dakota, where they have trumped-up charges against him. Dennis says he was offered assurances that if he denounces me he won’t be extradited. Only the FBI can give those kind of promises. Do you remember when Dennis was here? When I handed him twenty thousand dollars cash? Well, unlike the Tim Stoens of this world, the white people who defect and betray us, Banks has never forgotten us. Furthermore, he tells me there was a Treasury agent present who is too interested in our business. In fact, Dennis was asked to talk with the agent about us. What’re they up to? We’ll know soon enough, as we continue to listen to their conversations, check their phone bills, and follow them. Perhaps they’re planning to change our status, saying we’re not a church and aren’t legally eligible for our tax-free status … Ha! They’re too late!” Jim smiled … His eyes were brimming with pride as he looked at Teresa and me.