The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron (11 page)

It begins to come nearer. I go numb.

***

The after-silence. The last vestiges of a terrible noise fading, like the last of a ripple, the barest trace of an echo, wailing off into the trees. Whose voice? More than one voice, mingled. A hoarse shout, and a fraying, high-pitched cry… a drawn-out, despairing cry, mingled.

The face of that little girl who spoke to me is there on the wall, relaxing into a smile. The cabin around me. The woods around that. The sky above. The earth, briefly, below, and then void.

I am standing upright, weightless. I can’t tell if I am still numb.

No, I don’t tell you everything.

Good Lord, Show Me The Way

Molly Tanzer

To: Anu Dhawan, Michael Crater, Mel Fong

Subject: Altman’s pre-defense reminder

As you know, last month Jennifer handed in her dissertation prospectus, “Who Shall Wear the Robe and Crown? Secret Leaders: Reimaging the Role of Women in Three Western United States Cults.” I trust you have all had ample time to read and digest her argument concerning the sacred feminine, Foucaultian pseudo-patriarchies and sub-matriarchies, and the “distended womb” as status symbol. Her pre-defense is scheduled for Thursday, February 13th. See you all there.

Lee Hudson

Chair, Department of Anthropology

Freglanton University

@lee_hudson_prof

History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology —W. H. Auden

***

To: Lee Hudson

CC: Anu Dhawan, Michael Crater

Subject: Altman’s pre-defense reminder

I seem to have misplaced the file… would you please resend? Sorry!

Mel Fong

Associate Professor of Sociology

Freglanton University

***

To: Mel Fong

CC: Anu Dhawan, Michael Crater

Subject: Altman’s pre-defense reminder

Mel, I’ve attached the file.

Lee Hudson

Chair, Department of Anthropology

Freglanton University

@lee_hudson_prof

History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology —W. H. Auden

attachment preview: altmanprospectus-1.docx

[Preview]

Who Shall Wear the Robe and Crown?

Secret Leaders:

Reimaging Perceptions of the Role of Women in

Three Western United States Cults

Summary: Page 1 of 15

Sensationalist news stories often cast cults such as Angel’s Children and The Citizens of the Shattered Star in a certain light: compounds full of sex-charged lunatics, whose orgiastic furor is fueled by one charismatic personality. This leader is always male, and compels his followers to live debauched lifestyles while feeding them bunk theology to justify sating his own lustful appetites—appetites for flesh, but also for power over the minds and bodies of his followers, who are literally bred for the purpose in many cases, as birth control is largely unknown inside the above cults. Similarly, The Church of the Broken Circle, while far less in the public eye, has also been accused of sexual depravity and using women as “brood stock,” i.e. keeping them continuously pregnant from menarche to menopause (or death) in order to expand the ranks of the faithful.

Interestingly, in recent years, several women have “escaped” the compounds of Angel’s Children and The Citizens of the Shattered Star, and have, either in interviews or in written narratives, revealed their experiences living within these communities. To my knowledge, no one has yet collected these stories and analyzed their content via a critical and anthropological framework. Yet what is revealed by these accounts is astonishing. My research has shown that while there is without question a patriarchal structure within these cults—men are, by and large, the sole possessors of positions of power, such as allocators of resources, leaders of worship, and regulators of who has sexual congress with whom—within these patriarchies, women have created their own internal matriarchies. As all three groups view menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth as the sole province of women, within the patriarchal systems of the cult a sub-culture exists where women rule women, and men are not allowed to intrude. This internal matriarchy—a sub-matriarchy, as I have termed it—both provides relief from the constant sense of observation these escapees expressed feeling while inside the cult, and allows women to “rule from below.” I shall demonstrate that as women and children play the most major role in sustaining the viability of these cults, those who produce those children are the “secret leaders” of these communities, thus making the cults pseudo-patriarchies.

This is not to say these sub-matriarchies are utopian spaces within a larger dystopia; instead, the escaped women express feeling even greater pressures within female-only spaces. The womb is God within these societies, so barren, pre- or post-menopausal women, lesbian women, and women who express exhaustion with the process of childbearing or a disinclination to accept the embraces of fertile men are ostracized, and sometimes physically compelled to submit to the needs of the group.

With my work, I wish to shed light on common misperceptions of cult life while providing a broader picture of sub-matriarchies. Via analyzing existing accounts, conducting interviews when possible, and using Foucaultian panoptic theory and cross-cultural analysis to demonstrate cultural universals, I will draw a picture of the similarities and differences between these three cults, one in New Mexico, one located in Pacific Northwest, and one in Southern California, where

[continues on p2]

***

To: Lee Hudson

CC: Anu Dhawan, Michael Crater

Subject: Altman’s pre-defense reminder

Whoa now; hold up there, pilgrim. Maybe it’s that I’m coming at this from outside the department, but you signed off on this, Lee? The last time I talked to Jenny, this wasn’t exactly the direction she was going with her research.

How is Angel’s Children a pseudo-patriarchy (a term which I feel Jennifer fails to adequately define)? And I looked up this “Church of the Broken Circle” but there is zero information on it, even online. In her sources, Jenny cites some news article about a “mysterious tree” but the newspaper folded years ago, and has no online archive. And the guidebook she’s using as her only secondary source on this cult (also a problem!) isn’t in our library. Actually went down the rabbit hole and looked to see if I could ILL it, but no deal. I guess we’ll be able to ask Jennifer questions next Thursday but I must say I have quite a few concerns re: her moving forward with this…

Mel Fong

Associate Professor of Sociology

Freglanton University

***

To: Mel Fong

CC: Lee Hudson, Anu Dhawan

Subject: Altman’s pre-defense reminder

I already spoke to Jennifer about this “Church of the Broken Circle” as I had similar concerns about her sources and the viability of her research on such a reclusive, unknown group, but she’s from some town outside Olympia, and they’re apparently located in and around that area. She spoke convincingly and at length about her knowledge of the community… they seem to live similarly to the Amish but are even more reclusive, and dedicated to their ideals—no hitching posts at the local Wal-Mart—hence the lack of information on them. She did show me the copy of the newspaper article. I’ve attached the scan. Hope it clarifies things:

————— Forwarded message —————

From: Jennifer Altman

Date: Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 7:32 AM

Subject: kitsap county register article

To: Michael Crater

Hi Professor Crater,

Here’s the article I mentioned. This all happened not far from my house; I was acquainted with Mr. Fines as a girl. He’s the one who told me about the Church of the Broken Circle. He was a shut-in, so I used to come by with baskets from the church—our church, not the other one—and even if it wasn’t raining he would open a jar of jam or something and make tea and we would sit and chat. I felt it was my duty, as he was elderly and alone, but I also liked his company. My family wasn’t much for scary stories, but I loved them.

At first, I thought his telling me not to go too far into the deep forest, to stay out of caves and how I should never ever stick my hand into the hollow of a tree were for my safety, but when I got a little older he told me more. He said that some people around the area believed that trees weren’t trees and caves weren’t really caves, and he had seen some things that made him cautious. I asked him to explain, but he shushed me and said just to listen and do what he said. Then, just before all this stuff happened he drew an image for me, of a ring with a chunk cut out of it. He said if I ever saw this, I should run back the way I came. He said he’d gone into the woods and seen it himself, marked on trees and rocks close to where “they” lived. He gave me a page torn from an old guidebook with areas circled in black, and told me to keep it as long as I lived in the area, and to stay away from those places. I was nine years old. It spooked me out, and I told my father, who forbade me to go near Mr. Fines again. Not long after, he set that fire. What the paper doesn’t say is he died in ICU just after some relative of his came and visited him. There was no funeral, as the man took Mr. Fines’ body, but we held a service at the church.

I know this sounds wild, but I’ve asked questions here and there and confirmed what he said about that church and its beliefs, and once my friends and I thought it would be fun to see if the lake on Mr. Fines’ map was real. It was; we camped there, and early that morning in the pre-dawn quiet I saw two women dressed like Little House on the Prairie or something getting water from the far edge. I had my field glasses (I was a girl scout) and watched them, but when my friend blundered out of her tent they noticed our camp and scurried off. It started raining, hard, so we packed up and left after that. Never went back.

This is just the way it is where I grew up, it’s hard to explain the farther afield I’ve moved… but the people around our little town understood. It’s strange growing up somewhere and knowing there is a whole community full of people you’ve never seen, much less met, far away in the deep forest, and they’re living their lives in some way long obsolete, worshiping some way weirder idea of God than you’ve ever heard of in your life.

—

Jenny Altman

Graduate Student in Anthropology

Freglanton University

attachment: kitsapregister.pdf

Gasoline Fire Burns Olalla Man; Destroys Home

By Jim Warren

April 27th, 1992—Early Tuesday morning, Burton Wulla Fines was admitted to Tacoma General Hospital with severe burns covering the left side of his face and body, and a mangled left hand, also burned.

Sally Wallings, a neighbor, called 911 at 1:18 AM when she spotted flames reaching above the trees between their properties, alerting local authorities to “a powerful inferno” on the premises. When firefighters arrived they found Mr. Fines’ home ablaze, along with several adjacent trees. Fines himself was discovered wandering around one particularly large spruce, throwing gasoline on it from a can from time to time, and “ranting” according to volunteer firefighter Glenn Woodworth.

“We tried to get him away from the tree,” said Woodworth, “but he wouldn’t come along. He kept shaking his fist at it and accusing it of being ‘infested’ and that he ‘wouldn’t submit’ to the will of its ‘agents.’ He claimed it had ‘whispered to him for the last time,’ that he would burn out the Great Satan within, and be done with the business.”

“Brent had always hated that tree,” confirmed Wallings.

Woodworth and the rest of the firefighters entrusted Fines to the paramedics who had arrived on the scene in order to fight the fire consuming his house. Soon after, all present reported hearing an “explosion” and returned to find Fines scorched along the face, body, and hand. With the help of the paramedics, Fines’ clothes were extinguished and he was taken to Tacoma General. Sadly, this blast resulted in the burning to the ground of Fines’ home.

When asked why the paramedics had not removed Fines from the site of the burning tree, they replied he became “belligerent and abusive” when they tried. At the time he tossed the can of gasoline onto the tree, causing the explosion that burned him, the paramedics had been discussing methods of restraining or sedating him.

“He accused us of conspiring with ‘vassals of The Great Satan,’ whatever that is; that we were there to ‘bind him’ or something like that. He was pretty incoherent by then,” reported Jim Baker, an EMT.