Boys in Gilded Cages (14 page)

In his ManChild article, Faust said, “To
ignore Hawthorn the way some people say you should ignore Westboro,
is to ignore the dilapidation of an entire town. Redmond wants you
to go away, to let him work in the dark. The sad thing is, America
forgets easily. As Pat Robertson was a viable candidate for
President, so could Harold Redmond. The only difference is,
Redmond’s cunning enough to shun the spotlight when he needs to,
and to manipulate it according to plans.” A ManChild commenter
doubted his theory: “I’m not doubting the egotism of this fuckwad.
All cult leaders are egotistical. But to say that a military
funeral protestor holding up inflammatory signs…ripping a page
straight out of the famewhore manual, is shunning the spotlight? It
doesn’t add up.” Bobby responded, “His plan is more complicated
than you can imagine. There are things I don’t understand. What you
have to remember is that you are not dealing with someone who has a
firm grip on reality. You have someone who thinks he can, and has
the right, to create a reality all his own. Sometimes he makes
sense, and seems at himself. During one of his episodes, though, he
thinks he is God, though he’d never say that out loud. And the
Bible says the Lord works in mysterious ways.”

“
What people don’t get,”
Bobby says, “is that this is not a cult, in the religious sense.
They use that word but they don’t know what it means.”

After all, the beliefs spouted by both
churches can be found in black-and-white, right there in the Bible.
One has to wonder if they aren’t turning more people away from
Christianity, than they are attracting them. “Doesn’t matter,”
Bobby Faust says. “It’s not about converting people. Redmond wants
to get a good grip on the town of Hawthorn. That’s all he needs
right now.” He seems to suggest that Redmond has a nefarious plan
that reaches beyond Hawthorn. “I’m not saying that. I’m not giving
credence to any conspiracy theories. I won’t give him that much
credit,” Faust says. “I will go so far as this though: Westboro
Baptist Church are universally hated. The Phelps family may be
brainwashed, I don’t know, but that’s as far as it goes. Hawthorn
Baptist Church is the centerpiece for an entire town. Redmond
essentially controls an entire town’s economy, and has the
affection of most people in town. In his mind, he owns them, and
he’s well on his way. Westboro, as well-known as they are, can’t
claim that. That’s not their goal.”

“
This could be a
Kool-Aid-Nike situation, it could turn into that,” Faust says. “The
thing is, Redmond’s erratic and no one knows exactly what comes
next. And I can guarantee that hardly anyone in Hawthorn is even
aware that anything’s going on…even now, if you were to ask
them.”

The disconnect between Bobby Faust’s
vigilance and his hesitation to admit to a conspiracy, suggests
that he’s still sorting this out for himself. He seems vacant; not
in the sense that he’s a superficial man, but in the sense that
everything inside of him has been drained. He’s 19, but unshaven,
tired and with weary eyes, he could pass for years older.

“
I’ll be honest with you,”
he says, “This whole thing has really sucked me dry. I’m
exhausted.”

The moment Bobby rejected Redmond’s “offer”,
he regretted it. “I mean, fuck, at least I’d have a roof over my
head,” Bobby says. “Sometimes I would gladly take anal probes or
electroshock or whatever, over this,” he says, half-jokingly. “At
least I’d get free food, even if they put lithium in the meat
loaf.”

It’s understandable that Bobby would
second-guess himself. Since the incident, he says, he’s been mostly
homeless. “Whenever I talk to T.V. media, I usually try to travel
to them and ask for accomodations.”

ManChild New York disclosed their
compensation to Bobby when the article was posted, though they
didn’t say what they offered Bobby. “First class tickets to New
York, and a free week in an extended stay in Brooklyn for writing
the article, then first class tickets to Lambert Airport and
another week in an extended stay, in exchange for a photo op of me
‘confronting’ Redmond with a megaphone outside a Lady GaGa concert
in St. Louis,” Faust claims. “I could have done the whole thing
from where I was, but I decided to make demands.” Why did they send
him to Saint Louis, I ask. “I think they thought it was close to
where I lived. Really, I had never been to St. Louis before.” As
for his confrontation with Redmond, “Westboro was there too. No one
cared about Hawthorn Baptist Church, and I doubt Redmond even heard
me, there was so much commotion.” And then, “that video they made
as part of the article was kind of bullshit.”

Bobby’s defection wasn’t without commotion
within the community, however. Since he has left, he says, he has
received a variety of correspondence. “Ironically, mostly via
e-mail,” he says, letting himself grin. “Everything from e-mails
saying ‘you have hurt this community more than you will ever know’,
to a voice mail from Eric’s aunt Tina saying ‘I’m glad you got out
when you did, that town would eat a nice boy like you alive,’ to
death threats,” Faust says, frighteningly matter-of-fact. “In all,
I’ve gotten about ten reach-outs from people in the community.”
Which was surprising, he says, considering how much of the
community has chosen to isolate themselves from the media. “Of
course, I never reply, so they may just be referring to my leaving,
I’m not sure.” When I asked if Darrin was one of those people who
reached out to him, Faust said simply, “I don’t know.”

To Bobby’s friends and family, his
resignation, if you prefer to label it that, from the Church
clearly felt like abandonment. The elderly citizens and relatives
were particularly taken aback. “My Great Aunt is someone I miss
very much,” Bobby says. “She died while I was away, and we loved
each other very much. I don’t feel that way about a lot of family
members, but she was very pure. I hope that if there’s an
afterlife, she forgives me.”

“
I would crash on couches
here and there, and I’d still get calls from Redmond for the first
few weeks, begging me to come back,” Bobby says. “That’s what he
does. He’s nice at first, then he’ll make himself out to be the
victim. The longer you ignore him, the crazier he gets. By the end
of it, he was telling me about my Great Aunt asking where I was,
telling me that I hurt her, and calling me a traitor to my
community.” He again holds back tears. “It’s bullshit. Complete
nonsense. I have to believe he’s lying.”

This past February, I met Faust in New York.
He was in the midst of a self-imposed media blitz. “I barely
remember meeting you, I met so many assholes in suits,” Bobby says
at a later meeting, laughing. “I do remember you, though, because
you were dressed kinda like me—like a bum.” We met in a coffee shop
in Brooklyn. He sat at a table in a lonely corner, his sunglasses
on, as if he were either hung over or in hiding. He is a
good-looking kid, with a chin-strap beard, unkempt hair tamed by a
Farm-Tek baseball cap, incandescent grey eyes, and a prominent scar
over his right eye, interrupting his wild brow. At the time, he
seemed jittery but tired, almost strung-out on energy, but his
droopy mouth suggested he was severely dopamine-starved.

He was approaching 19, and was preparing for
what seemed like a significant appointment at the time, an
interview with Sean Hannity. It seemed like an odd, out-of-the-blue
interview for a major network, but Hannity had spent almost a whole
week battling with Shirley Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church,
and Hannity had seen Bobby’s Op-Ed in ManChild New York. “It was
pretty much a last minute call,” Bobby said. Gabe Law, the editor
for ManChild, was contacted by Fox and had asked for Faust’s room
phone number. “It was weird. I don’t have a cell phone, and they
just called the room as if they were calling my home, which I guess
it was my home, for the week.”

Law says it was probably uncouth to just
give them his number, but figured this was a special case. “Having
the pleasure of talking with him for a few hours, I could tell that
this kid had nowhere to go. As much as I despise Fox, I figured
that Bobby would probably finagle some sort of arrangement for
himself, which he did,” Gabe said, chuckling.

For a kid from the backwoods of Missouri,
Bobby has proven to be incredibly resilient. “That’s part of a
Missourian’s identity,” he says with faint pride. “We’re stubborn
as mules. We don’t give up, especially when we’re trying to get
even.”

While we were chatting about Bobby’s new
life in New York, an attractive young female barista approached
him. “Did I hear you say you were from Missouri?” She chirped, eyes
batting. “Yes, Ma’am, I am,” Bobby said, obviously catching the
signal. “What part?” She asked. “Hawthorn. Near Springfield.”

“
Oh, I’m from Blue
Springs. We know all about Hawthorn,” She said,
dubiously.

Bobby immediately went guarded.

“
Can I get a job
application?” He asked, polite but no longer smiling. The barista
folded her arms. “Sure,” She said, walking away.

“
More famous than you
thought,” I offered.

“
Doesn’t count. She’s from
Missouri, too.”

I immediately noticed something about Bobby.
He liked to believe that this will blow over, and that it’s no big
deal—part modesty regarding his newfound oddball media celebrity
status, and part dampening of the panic he feels, that this will
get out of hand. He’s blunt and could probably be outspoken if he
was comfortable, but he remains quiet; I can barely hear him
sometimes when he talks.

The actor Brandon Bennett,
who grew up with Bobby, describes him as cynical and funny, but
simultaneously deathly serious. He remembers him in middle school,
always at the back of the class. “He said nothing, hardly ever
[spoke in class],” Brandon recalls, “But when he opened his mouth,
the most perceptive shit came out, and hit me and the teacher like
a truck. We called him ‘Prof’. Even our gym instructor started
calling him that once he heard.” He was very smart, but distant
from even his circle of friends, of which Brandon considered
himself among. “We’d all go out drinking or whatever,” he says.
“And he’d never want to come along, saying 12-year-olds shouldn’t
drink because our brains were still growing,” Brandon said,
bursting into laughter. “He always—
always
—did what was expected of him.
He may not have taken church seriously, and if you got him alone
he’d tell you that, but he sure as shit was there every Sunday and
Wednesday. He respected authority. So I was proud of him when I
read his article. He did what was right.”

Brandon also told me in our phone
conversation, that Bobby was welcome to crash at his place anytime,
and asked me to relay that message to him. “That’s nice of him, but
I haven’t really talked to Brandon in a long time. Plus, from what
I hear, L.A.’s just a bigger version of Hawthorn.”

Bobby told me that he was out of cigarettes,
a habit he’d picked up very recently, and asked me to walk him to
the nearest liquor store. On the way, I asked him if Hawthorn was
as bad as the media had let on.

“
It’s not a compound.
There are no gates. You’re not monitored,” he said, looking over
his shoulder as he walked. “Generally, people don’t give a shit
who’s there and who’s not. If I were to go back today, I probably
wouldn’t be found for, like, a week. It’s not a dangerous place to
live, but it takes its toll. In a lot of ways, it’s no different
from any other small town. It’s just suffocating, and Hawthorn
Baptist Church is, if you were to ask most of its members,
harmless.”

Back at his room, he lit up, despite the
fact that it was a nonsmoking room. “They don’t care. I smelled it
in the hallway when I checked in.” I asked him what a typical
church service is like.

“
Well, when I was there,
it was actually pretty boring,” he said. “We stood for the songs,
we sat for the sermon. Redmond was pretty calm for the first year
or so,” he said. “Slowly, he crept up…he got more riled, and
started talking in a ‘us versus them’ type of way. There were
enemies: Politicians, homosexuals, Hollywood actors.” What started
as general rants about liberal immorality, became almost a
hyper-vigilance and paranoia. “He started using phrases a lot, like
‘taking action’, and ‘They want us’,” Bobby said. “He turned a
conspiracy against God’s people into a conspiracy against
Hawthorn.” Bobby doesn’t believe any of it, and sees it as
performance. “I just don’t think he means it. It seemed phony and
calculated to me,” he said. “My gut told me that something else was
up with him. I was right.” This was a week after the ManChild
exclusive was posted. As we sat in that dark, bland room, he seemed
unnerved about something—possibly the repercussions of discussing
Redmond so candidly, not that he had anything else to lose. But as
Brandon Bennett mentioned, Bobby had the gift of insight, and he
couldn’t keep quiet about it.

Bobby remembers himself differently than his
classmate. “That was nice of Brandon to say,” he said. “But
honestly, I’m not that smart.” He was born in 1992, and hardly left
town for almost two decades. His father, Charles, worked at a
factory that made trailers. His mother, Esmeralda, a Pentecostal
woman, became a Baptist after Bobby was born. “Pentecostal people
usually don’t believe in television,” Bobby said. “I think dad got
tired of hearing the news on the radio. He wanted to see the
anchors.” He didn’t know if his mother had a problem with changing
religions. “She never seemed that interested in her own identity,”
he said. “She was very old-fashioned. They both were. What my dad
said, went.”

Bobby was a creative child, and he spent
many nights sketching comic book characters. “I wasn’t allowed to
read any comic book with profanity or super powers, because super
powers were seen as magic,” Bobby said. “So that pretty much left
Archie, Batman, and the Sunday Comics.”