Tunnel Vision (16 page)

Norm veered toward Peddocks Island as they headed out to open sea. He knew all about Gladstone—a rube from the backwoods of Tennessee who followed in his father’s footsteps to become a backwoods preacher. In time, the established clergy—other Protestants and Catholics alike—called him a fraud: just another Bible-thumping “evanghoul” getting fat and powerful off the dollars of destitute trailer parkers desperate for hope. His following at first was small because he was competing with dozens of other teleministries around the country and had no distinction—no hook.

“The day of greatness is coming, and you and I will be there to bear witness.”

But then his sermons shaded into the occult—near-death experiences. Hundreds of books on the subject had been written over the decades—and all basically the same blather. Someone is pronounced dead from a heart attack, an accident, gunshot, whatever. The victim floats out of his or her body to go moving down a tunnel toward a celestial light, where he or she meets spirits of dead relatives and “beings of light.” To bolster “authenticity,” Gladstone claimed to have suffered a near fatal asthma attack; then, while paramedics attended him, he reported moving down a tunnel to a garden where the Lord Jesus Christ himself welcomed him to paradise. He woke up in a hospital, alert to the glorious possibilities, and wrote a book, self-published, of course, and peddled it to his congregation as evidence of God’s truth—for only $9.99. The same old charlatan but with spiritually toxic snake oil.

“I’m talking soon, within weeks. I can’t be more specific, but when that day comes, you’ll see with your own eyes, hear with your own ears, the living testimony to the presence of God on earth. On that day, all shall rejoice. Every Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu … every human, godly or not.”

“There it is,” Norm said, stabbing his finger at the screen. “Devil’s blasphemy, point-blank. The son of a bitch.”

Father Tim nodded, but his face wore a hangdog expression. “I still don’t like it, Norm. We’re complicitous to murder.”

“Tim, what he’s doing is an abomination. You heard with your own ears.”

“Yes, but hiring a hit man makes us murderers in the eyes of the law and God.”

“Let me remind you that the Jesus Christ he met with open arms was
not
the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a counterfeit, the same fake Christ met by all near-death claimants. That was the avatar of Satan, because the real Jesus doesn’t teach that redeemed and unredeemed sinners alike go to heaven. Paradise doesn’t have an open-gate policy.”

“I can’t be more specific, but we shall have proof, glorious proof of the Holy Spirit. Peter says in verse eleven that all true believers shall witness the sacred light. The great day of the Lord is coming.”

“Now the bastard enlists the Holy Word in service of Lucifer,” Norm growled. “Sacred light. Let’s not forget that Lucifer’s very name is a lie—Bearer of Light.”

“But I’m still not comfortable with this whole thing.”

“Look, these people have taken it into the laboratory. He and his scientist pals are trying to do what nobody’s dared before—or had the means to. And once he has his so-called proof, he’s going on TV to show the world. And then what? Bloody Armageddon, that’s what.”

“But murder.”

Norm paused the video. “Review your book of Matthew, my friend—every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, but not blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Need further consolation? Then consider Ecclesiastes: ‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven,’ including ‘a time to kill.’ This man is evil, and what he promises is an abomination against God and the Holy Spirit.”

“Are you going to send this Pace after him, too?”

“That would attract too much attention. Just those doing his bidding. And then all his legions will see that the emperor has no clothes.”

Tim was only two years out of the seminary and still green under his collar. But Norm was not reticent about telling him, made easier by the fact that he was Tim’s uncle, with considerable clout with conservatives in the local Catholic community. At Boston College he had considered the seminary to become a Jesuit priest but went on for an M.B.A. Wise real estate investments made him a fortune, allowing him to generously support conservative Catholic organizations, schools, and businesses needing legal protection against liberal social movements and the ACLU. He was also a director of the ultraconservative Fraternity of Jesus, which was dedicated to preserving pre-Vatican Catholic orthodoxy and to promoting the inerrancy of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only means to eternal life. This small but powerful brotherhood was not recognized by the Vatican. That was no problem for Norm and his colleagues because they didn’t recognize the current pope or the last several.

Father Tim nodded in agreement. And Babcock unmuted the television.

“But we can’t do this without your partnership,”
Gladstone continued.
“We can’t bring you the Word of God without your help. Our operating ability depends on partnering with you, our viewers. With your support, the GodLight Channel reaches into people’s homes via television, cable, satellite, and now the Internet and will be virtually worldwide.…”

“First the snake oil, then the pitch.” While Gladstone explained how payments could be made through all the major credit cards and so on, Norm muted the video. “We’re fighting to save the Church herself from this lying son of a bitch. He’s mimicking the real Word of God only to lead the flock away from the true Jesus, the true Holy Spirit, and the true authority of the Church. He’s evil and he must be stopped. Period. And we’ve got the right man for the job—a master at stealth, a latter-day Saint Michael. And this dragon will be cast out—this silver-tongued serpent with his bloody 800 number.”

“I cannot tell you any more at this time. But the day comes—the day of the Lord’s truth. And ye shall all behold with your own eyes the proof of His glory.”
The camera closed in on Gladstone’s face, his eyes raised to heaven and his palms turned up.

“He’s turning the Holy Word inside out,” Norm continued. “Jesus teaches that death be feared; they preach that death be embraced. Jesus says the Lord hates sins; they claim that sin’s not a problem—that anyone can go to heaven. Jesus says fear hell; and they preach there is no hell, only divine light at the end of the tunnel. Jesus says only those who embrace God’s Word will see heaven; and they preach that all are welcome—Christian, Muslim, Jew, or atheist. This is nothing less than the grand deception of Satan.”

While Gladstone continued soliciting donations, Father Tim said, “But if you want to stop the snake, go for the head, no?”

“No, you just get the mouth. It’s those behind the scenes, those fuzzy-headed scientists and their fancy machines and computer programs—Satan’s doormen. That’s where the danger lies. Stop them and their machinations, and this little man will have no shadow to cast.”

“Thy will be done.”

Then Norm pressed a few buttons on the laptop and a still photograph with a name under it appeared.

“Who’s that?”

“The next doorman.”

27

Zack took an MBTA train from Copley Square to Alewife station, where his mother picked him up. He hadn’t visited her since leaving the hospital. All their get-togethers had been in town at restaurants or walking the streets, at first with his cane, then without. They went to a few movies and spent an afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts—as if making up for lost time. And he felt a bond begin to renew itself.

About twenty minutes later, they arrived at the white colonial on Hutchinson Road in Carleton, the house where he and his brother were born and where he’d lived until he’d started college. “Feels strange being here.” He hadn’t slept over since last Christmas vacation.

“It’s nice to have you back, even for a night.”

For the last six years he had lived in dorms and apartments, so that entering his own room was like slipping into a time warp. Nothing had been changed—the same movie posters; same photos of him, high school friends, soccer teams; same collection of paperbacks, travel shot glasses, high school wrestling trophies. Also a photo of Amanda, his first girlfriend. They had met during sophomore year and dated for four years. But, sadly, last year that ended when she and her family moved to England. They had kept up telephone and e-mail contact, but eventually their remoteness could not keep things alive. They broke up, and he was left with another hole to live around. His life seemed pitted with them.

Maggie had prepared Zack’s favorite dinner, chicken parmigiana with a mixed salad and blue cheese dressing, fresh baguette, and pecan pie with coffee ice cream. She, too, was making every effort to strengthen that bond. He’d once overheard her tell a friend how he never shared things with her; how other mothers were “good buds” with their twenty-something kids and did things together. She felt cheated—their conversations reduced to her asking questions and his responding in monosyllables. She was right, of course. And their estrangement was rooted in a child’s irrational blame for not preventing his father from leaving. Mothers were supposed to make things better. Of course, it wasn’t her fault, but his distance had become habitual. His postcoma life would be a turning point.

To add to his guilt, she handed him a check for $500 to pay bills. He gave her a hug, thinking how she had no idea what a hole he had dug for himself. “You’ll be happy to know that I applied for a part-time job.”

Maggie’s face lit up. “You did. That’s good. What is it?”

“I don’t want to say too much until it happens. But it’s at a local lab.”

“Good for you. Let me know if it comes through.”

After dinner, they settled in the living room. He sipped some juice, she a glass of the Cabernet he had brought. As they chatted, his eyes moved to the fireplace mantel and the simple blue-and-white urn with his father’s ashes. Near it was a clutch of framed photographs—a family portrait in front of the house, shots of Jake and him, one of Zack and his father at Sagamore Beach. Zack was beaming over a huge striper, his father smiling proudly next to him. Behind them, the breakwater jetty that formed the western flank of the Cape Cod Canal. For two weeks every summer, they’d rented the same cottage on the dunes looking over the bay, the canal less than a mile down the beach to the east, the Manomet cliffs a mile to the left, the vast blue bowl of the Atlantic spread before them. “I miss those days.”

“I’m sure you do.”

He could see that she wanted to avoid reminiscing. His eyes slid to the urn—what the Benedictines had given them. “What happened to him?”

She looked nonplussed. “Who?”

“Dad.”

“You know what happened.”

“I mean after Jake died. He changed.”

“Why are you asking? That was a long time ago.”

“Maybe because it’s Memorial Day weekend. Plus he was my father, and I’d like to know.”

“What difference does it make?” She sipped her wine. “He changed. We all did.”

“He became different, withdrawn. I used to think he would have preferred that I had died, not Jake.”

“That’s ridiculous. He loved you both equally.… I think he felt guilty.”

“Guilty for what?”

She hesitated for a moment. “Frankly, he blamed himself that Jake was gay.”

“What? That’s ridiculous.”

“Of course, but he thought he should’ve been a stronger male model, doing more masculine things with him, with you both. Then he wouldn’t have been gay, and he wouldn’t have gone to that bar.”

“Because he wasn’t a jock didn’t turn Jake gay, for God’s sake. It’s genetic.”

“I know that, but I think that’s how he saw it. Also, the Church viewed homosexuality as a sin. It still does.”

“The Church. The bloody friggin’ Church.”

She waved her hand. “Please, don’t get started. We did our best. We went to family counselors and support groups…” She trailed off.

“Instead he became born-again and fell off the earth.”

“There’s no point in being bitter.”

“Hard not to be.”

“He had a terrible time with it,” she said. “The court dismissal only made it worse. Even medication didn’t help. But religion did. Like it or not, he found solace.”

“Yeah, abandoning your wife and kid to become a monk. Nice religious values.”

“I suppose it was better than a life of grief and violent fits.”

“But it’s just the kind of hypocrisy that turns me against religious people. They fortify themselves with pious abstractions, but aren’t there for the important things.”

“Let’s please change the subject.”

But Zack disregarded her. “Did his parents bring him up religious?”

“Yes.”

“What about when you got married?”

“Why are you so interested in his religious background?”

“Because I am. Because I never really knew him well. Because I’m wondering what the hell made him give up family for a fucking monastery.”

Because something happened in that lab booth the other night.

He could feel her measure her language.

“He was a very spiritual person. I wasn’t, so I guess I couldn’t relate. On Sundays he went to St. Agnes, and I went to the Unitarian church in the center. He didn’t like that because of the secularist-humanist mentality. They didn’t talk about God.”