The Devoted (2 page)

So I’m guessing the phones are there, but come on, they’re off. He probably even took out the batteries.

And there’s no land line in the house, that I know for sure.

Yet, crisp and hard and rolling my way, that was a fucking ring.

I sit up now. More regret; more proof of panic. Jolie’s still asleep, doesn’t even stir. I look around at the darkness, regarding with irony that if the light were turned on, my visual terrain would be just as smooth, only instead of black it would be made of white.

Hold on. Go slow. You didn’t hear a phone.

It was just a dream.

Even though you weren’t really sleeping.

I’m fucked. I get up. My goddamn heart. My body, naked, draws in the cold.

I’d like to leave our room and investigate, but the mere thought soaks me through with terror. What if I saw Him in the hall? Tiptoe as soft as possible, He’d still, very possibly, hear me.

I couldn’t bear to hear Him yell. My tongue is...nothing. It doesn’t work. It’s like my heart’s sending blood everywhere but it.

“Did you hear something?” I ask Jolie.

One more night of sleep on this Earth, and due to me, it’ll now have a break in it. But on the other hand, when woken up, she’s always easy.

This girl, I love.

Her honey skin. Her exotic origins: Africa, Asia, a little Native American. Like twelve percent white, I believe.

She, like me, is up now, though a good deal less so. She’s still down in the slumber weeds, face kissed cool by soil.

But she goes, “Hmm?”

“Did you hear that? It was like a...telephone ringing.”

Now her eyelids flutter a little.

“What’re-you-talking-about?”

Did I just...actually hear it again?

No, that’s bullshit. If I did, it was like a hundred times lower. It was more like my memory of the first one than a legitimate second one. A weird, floating, out-of-head memory, but still.

“Huh?” she asks.

“Sssshhh,” I say, a vertical digit at my lips, as I’m now apparently unsure if that was a memory.

But now she’s more awake. Paradoxes everywhere; another lesson from Him. You want the girl to talk, she’s asleep. You want the girl to shush, she sits up on her elbow.

“We have no phone,” she explains, a fact so known it’s not worth the crutch of words. “It was a dream, baby. Come back.”

“Was weird,” I say, when the fact is it continues to be so.

My unseeing eyes look around.

“No, come on,” she says. “Come back to bed.”

“I feel like going outside.”

This isn’t right. It’s dissent.

Or worse.

One more step in that direction, and we’re talking about revolt.

“Huh? What?” she asks, and the two words sound like parts of one:
Huhwhat
?

I’m a man at a fork. A boy, really. Only twenty-six trips ‘round the sun. To my left is outside: grass, air, mystery. To my right is inside: bed, Jolie...

And more panic, probably.

A bed to a panicked person is like quicksand to a fish: It works in the broadest, most half-minded strokes, but functions as a disaster in reality.

“I have to go,” I say. “We should walk on the grass together. You want to?”

And now I’ve painted her onto the canvas. The idea of her coming makes the whole thing seem rosy. Walking. Trading stares. The creep of the night. There must be a psychological term for that: dragging somebody with you on a mission that you’re only half-sure of, and thus getting yourself closer to sureness.

Her body, however, makes me think of quicksand again. It sinks its way deeper into the mattress. More words come from her, but they’ve got her pillow to contest with: “You crazy? He wants us inside.”

Another plain fact. A corpse, upon hearing it, would roll his eyes. But so what? Are we abandoning Him?

Are we at all like the others? The ones who ran?

“Just for a minute,” I say.

But those words, I’m reasonably certain, go unheard. She’s asleep again, on the other side of my inflicted break.

From BREAKING NEWS L.A. (10/4/11):

Although police have pressed a variety of charges against Mr. Pike relating to his alleged sexual assault of the two female members and his alleged child endangerment of the infant, Victor Garcia, as of yet no kidnapping charges have been filed.

“To the best of our understanding,” said Santa Barbara District Attorney Peter Francis, “these followers went with him voluntarily. They were not taken by force, whatever the claims of the followers who chose not to stay.”

When asked if police officials had any clues as to The Missing Nine’s whereabouts, Francis said that their location was unknown, but that Mr. Pike was thought to have sufficient financial resources to rent a home, and was more than likely still in the Southern California area. A Santa Barbara resident for more than twenty years, he was not thought to have connections out of state, nor an established propensity for travel.

Last Day –
3:59AM

This is me within the mystery.

Unclothed. A bare boy. Walking on the grass.

I think thoughts that would please Him. It’s like He’s here, in fact. Thinking about the myth of time. About nonconformity. The gush.

It’s not all dry, though. The media makes Him out to be that way. A cardboard cut-out. He’s fun, though, too. He likes cartoons and puns and discussing flatulence. There’s a subtle air of raunchiness about Him, amidst the prevailing charisma and handsomeness.

And He likes fucking, also. Which is what got Him/us in so much trouble.

Never Jolie, per the terms of our agreement, but certainly many of the other members. Only girls; He swings one way.

And I sometimes wonder what happened in that room.

Before the door-slam that lit up my blood. Before the two of them ran out with mascara down their cheeks.

Did He get too rough?

I look up at the house. Up there, eight beautiful souls at rest. Him chief among them, at the end of the hall.

This night. Such a sweetness. Somewhere on the hard-on verge between pain and tenderness.

I love Him. Her, also. For them, I will do this.

And for me.

From PUBLIC FORUM TELEVISION’s interview with Dr. Barry Blumenfeld (10/20/11):

PFT: You’ve conducted studies of all nine members.

BB: I have.

PFT: And what conclusions have you drawn? Are they brainwashed?

BB: “Brainwashing” is something of a mythical concept, the idea that you can erase what’s in a person’s mind. You can’t, really. But what you can do is deaden the mind. Certainly. You provide low amounts of nutrients. Perhaps even narcotics. You regulate exposure to pop culture, television, books. You make the mind controllable. It’s not about eliminating the contents, or “washing” them somehow.

PFT: What can you tell us, specifically, about this group?

BB: As a group or as individuals?

PFT: Both.

BB: As a group, they’re intimate, certainly. Freely sexual with each other. Multiple partners. They take meals together. They labor together. So in terms of the Ascension concept, they’re sort of bound by a herd mentality.

PFT: Which Edgar Pike needs to carry off the mission?

BB: Most probably, yes. He’s grandiose in his thinking, Pike. Everything must be exaggerated. He can’t tolerate ordinary emotions or experiences.

PFT: Manic-depressive, you’d say?

BB: Bipolar, we use. Yes, I would venture that. More manic than depressive. Gives grand speeches. Loves to talk, hear himself talk. So to kill himself, which would be a viable option given the charges against him, requires grandeur. It has to be a show. A ritual. To satisfy his ego. It can’t be done in a closet, you see.

PFT: Has to be of a certain proportion...

BB: Yes, a God-like proportion. His ideal, I’m sure, would have been for all sixty members to do it, but thankfully he lost most of them.

PFT: And the others?

BB: The other eight I can put into two classifications. We can lift from Nietzsche’s language, call them masters or slaves. The masters are like Edgar Pike. They want grandeur. Beth McKay goes in this category. An actress. Jolie True, also. Artistic talent there. With Matthew Barrett, there’s more of an introverted psyche, but he enjoys power. Pike gives it to him, calls him an assistant. It gives Matthew meaning. Hard to let go of.

PFT: Even if it means your death...

BB: Even if it means your death. Theodore Hall is a diagnosed schizophrenic. Massive perceptual difficulty is indicated there. And grandiose, very often. The others – Michael Graves, Susan Hynes –

PFT: Paul Laundry...

BB: Paul Laundry and Cathleen Carnevale. These individuals are in a more normative perceptual category. I call them “slaves” only as a categorization.

PFT: Well, the whole group is enslaved...

BB: Yes, essentially. Though this latter segment isn’t trading on the drama. The ritual aspect doesn’t move them. They’re left-brained: they follow the ritual without getting emotional about it. They know the steps. They know the schedule. It’s straight and narrow.

PFT: Is there any chance at all of an aborted ritual? Somebody coming to their senses?

BB: In my judgment, I’d say no.

PFT: “No.”

BB: Because we’re dealing with humans who’ve been depleted of their identities.

PFT: No doubt the cult members’ families are watching this. And no doubt they’re extremely concerned...

BB: Yes.

PFT: Is there any “best case scenario” whatsoever that you can propose?

BB: The flat answer is still no. It would seem that their destiny has been scheduled and sealed. If there’s any chance of any member “coming to their senses,” as you say...

PFT: Go on...

BB: This is purely speculative. It’s not intended to raise expectations.

PFT: That’s understood. Of course.

BB: The sole candidate who could orchestrate a “revolt,” if you will, is Matthew Barrett. That’s because of the hierarchical position we discussed. He does have a measure of power, which means Pike trusts him and will listen to him. But for Matthew to take any action whatsoever would require him to in no way be suicidal, which the evidence does not support. The evidence tells us that Matthew was estranged from his family and living on the street when Pike befriended him years ago. This is not a young man with very many viable prospects, in other words.

PFT: Not much sense of a future.

BB: Most likely, no.

Last Day –
6:00AM: RISE

We fucked. I hope not for the last time.

It’s six, which gives us twelve more hours. We’ll find time for more. He encourages it.

Here, you can say how good your morning come-shot was, and you’ll get a smile of support. Maybe even get asked for details. Find yourself going on about textures, comparing feelings to foods.

I hoped, as we fucked, to channel all my fear into my come, thereby giving it a way out. Not into her – getting her pregnant now is one paradox we can do without – but on her ass. I looked at it and hoped I saw my fear gone from me.

It sort of worked. Hard to say yet. I’m all adrenal now. The sun’s up. Everything’s speeding at a faster clip.

Right before six, He knocked on our door. Us first, before the other six rooms. A privilege of being second in charge.

This time (the last time), when I woke, there was no ringing phone. There was just Him, in the doorway, catching sunshine from the curtain-less window. The window alone breaks the white with a shock of green. We’re on two acres here, though it’s not hard to slip into imagining that the yard goes on forever.

We made eye contact. That I love; the shot it gives me.

“Get up,” He said. “The sun’s bursting!”

From BREAKING NEWS L.A.’s exclusive interview with Anonymous (10/5/11):

It was his kindness that kept the machine running. However, there could be no mistaking that it was a machine. There were chores. Every day involved a rigorous schedule. Up at the same time. Cleaning the same rooms, same floors. Very organized, with Edgar and Jed at the top.

This was intended to get us out of ourselves. To him, everything we thought of as “ourselves” was B.S. It didn’t matter that I had earned a Master’s Degree, or that I had a daughter who’d passed away from asthma. Our personal narratives were looked at as disposable.

Which was just as well, since we wanted so very badly to forget.

But our bodies were another story. The bodies were valuable. It got to a point where only good-looking people were admitted into the home. Some early members didn’t have to meet that standard, but for the most part it was very obvious that we were being...cast, in a way. It wasn’t based on our spiritual understanding.