Cult

by Warren Adler

  “The fact is, Nay, I never cared what they thought. Or paid any attention to them. But they’re still my family. You can’t disown your family and can’t make other people think right thoughts. In their world, it was the norm to hate by group. Hell, they hate the Irish most of all.”

  “Well, that’s wrong, too.”

  “Listen, Nay,” he said. His head shook from side to side. “I don’t give a flying fuck about how other people see things as long as they leave me out of it. I couldn’t care less.”

  “But I care.”

  “That’s exactly the problem. Let’s just love each other. Who cares about the starving Patagonians?” She knew what that meant: everyone who was powerless, helpless, hated, ignored, weak, sick, suffering.

  “They could be you,” she said, tasting her own self-righteousness.

  “I’m sorry, Nay,” he said, searching the ceiling with his eyes. “I feel only for the people I love. For you the most. I would have more compassion for your hurt pinky finger than all those poor bleeding souls. I wish I had your compassion, but only because I want to be inside of you, to prove I am part of you.”

  “I don’t want you to be me to prove your love. I want you to be you.” And I want to be me, she had added silently.

  Yet he seemed to be growing fearful of the differences between them. He, the Irish salesman. She, the neurotic Jew. It was then that she discovered that their different worlds were at the heart of her fear as well, the death knell of their love, which they both heard in the distance.

  Marriage was becoming a serious issue by then. Seeing the difference between them so starkly slapped her mind free of euphoria, causing her to think in terms of consequences. Her mother also emphasized their differences.

  “She’ll call you a scutch to your face,” Naomi warned Barney. “But it’s all right. The battle has been fought.”

  “But who won?”

  “No one ever wins a generational war. Like with your parents. It’s a standoff. Her modus operandi is to be funny about it. Besides, she lives vicariously through me. That’s the way she copes.”

  Her mother wore a bouffant and gold chains when they met in her Flatbush house in the French Provincial living room with gold-trimmed mirrors and objets everywhere. Two art nouveau prints depicting stylized females and Greek columns dominated the room. She served Danishes and coffee, pouring it out of a sterling silver teapot.

  “I missed all the revolutions,” she said, “especially, the sexual one.”

  “You didn’t miss it, mother. You never let it happen.” Naomi turned to Barney. “My father has been dead since 1983.” A widow, Naomi’s mother had been left fairly comfortable by her husband’s insurance policy.

  “I had enough of men from him.”

  She blatantly inspected Barney. He seemed amused by it.

  “Isn’t he handsome?” Naomi had chirped with pride.

  “For a scutch,” her mother said, smiling. “He looks like an advertisement for shirts.”

  “And he’s a good provider,” Naomi mocked. This introduction had its own conventions. Only one thing was truly important to her mother. Safety. Her little girl must be safe.

  “She wants to save the world, Benny.” Her mother sighed.

  “Barney,” Naomi corrected.

  “Barney,” she mused. “Sounds Jewish.”

  “Not with ‘Harrigan’ as a last name.”

  “He’s circumcised?”

  Barney laughed so hard he nearly fell off the chair.

  In the end, of course, he won her over.

  Thinking back on that exchange, Naomi giggled suddenly, stopping when she remembered what her mother’s question had stirred. The rush of these old memories unnerved her and she got out of bed and roamed her apartment, dipping into the papier-mâché cigarette box and lighting up. She had given up smoking, but one stale cigarette remained. The drag of smoke choked her and she doubled up coughing. When she quieted, she punched out the cigarette and sat on the floor with her head against the couch’s edge and continued to reminisce.

  It was because the issue of Naomi possibly moving to Washington had risen again. A black friend from the African Rescue Corps against female genital mutilation wanted a bright young woman to join her group in Washington, an important rights group, well funded. Out of the blue, Naomi had been offered a job. It came at a time when yet another issue gnawed at her. They had become careless about birth control and she had not told him she was pregnant, even though she knew it was dishonest to keep it from him. The knowledge would have made him ecstatic. It was exactly what he wanted. Home. Hearth. Family.

  “Marry me. I’ll do anything. Be anything.” He pleaded, cajoled, nagged. When she gently put it off he would probe her for days.

  “Is it because I’m not a big bleeding heart? I swear, I’ll become one. I’ll stand at your side.”

  “No.”

  “Because I’m just a salesman? I haven’t got the prestige?”

  “Don’t, Barney. It’s wrong….”

  “But it must be true. Why then? Don’t you love me enough?”

  “I love you deeply.”

  “Then why? Because I’m a ‘scutch’?”

  “That is ridiculous.”

  “Why then? Why?”

  In their hearts, they both knew why.

  He had been away a week at a convention in Los Angeles, and with smartphones booming, his profits were skyrocketing. She had decided not to go with him, more as a test of separation than out of genuine reluctance. She had it in her mind to accept the Washington job and offer a split residence deal. A weekend in Washington, a weekend in New York. It would be a test of the endurance of their relationship, a challenge. Caring also meant compromise. Didn’t it?

  Unfortunately, her pregnancy had complicated matters and she had to decide whether or not to keep the baby. Fetus? Baby? It had no life, was barely five weeks from conception. On many a cold night, she had remonstrated with herself, forcing the distinction on her conscience. It was one thing to be pro-choice for other people, but something else when it happened to you. In his absence, she had agonized over it. Years later, she was still agonizing.

  He returned home filled with tales of personal success. He had impressed so-and-so. His bosses had hinted that he was going places. He was becoming a real corporate man.

  “It’s a game,” he told her, “like politics.” He had to tickle the right buttons, kiss the right butts. The goal was getting ahead.

  “In politics, you have to have some ideology,” she told him.

  “Liberals always say that.”

  “At least if you were a conservative, I could understand,” she berated. “You’re nothing.”

  “Not nothing. A man without a label.”

  “A hired gun.”

  “Right. I’ll fight under any flag that pays enough.”

  The memory of that night had taken on vibrant colors in her mind. Sometimes they became so bright they nearly blinded her and she had to kill the lights of remembering. She decided to tell him about her decision to accept the Washington job. His reaction would determine the future of the baby. The coming baby meant marriage. Permanence. The job in Washington meant personal satisfaction for her. She wanted it all. As he talked about his successes, she waited for the right moment to tell him.

  “I have a surprise,” he said, coming out of the bathroom. She was sweet smelling and powdered after her bath. He was wearing a paisley robe, bare beneath. Sitting at the foot of the bed, he looked at her.

  “I wanted to buy you something,” he said, speaking slowly. It was always a sign of something deeply serious to come, something worked out carefully in his mind. “But what would it mean? Hell, I can buy you anything. It wouldn’t mean a thing.” He was right, of course. She never believed in gifts like that, much to his disappointment. As she had quoted Emerson
once, “A gift must be a piece of one’s persona, the essence of one’s self.” Often she had written him a poem or given him a flower. Her biggest present would be their baby.

  “I searched my mind for something so special that it would mean a bond, a part of both of us.”

  She had sat up, reached out her hand, but he had, oddly, moved away.

  “I know we have some basic differences,” he had continued. His tone worried her. Was he going to give her the change in himself that she craved?

  “I just hope you won’t think it’s crazy. To anyone else, it might seem crazy.”

  “Crazy?”

  “It’s symbolic.”

  Symbols? That was more the way her mind worked than his. He was being elusive, vague.

  “Just an idea,” he said with boyish embarrassment, as if he had regretted whatever it was.

  “For God’s sakes, Barney.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  The whole process worried her, brought her to the edge of a hidden panic. But she obeyed him, closing her eyes.

  “Now,” he whispered.

  When she opened her eyes, nothing seemed to have changed except that he had cast aside his robe and stood naked before her, his long lean muscular body, with its thin coat of gilded hair, picking up the light. Then she looked down and saw what he had done.

  “It’s still a little sore. It was nothing. Took ten minutes. Not ready for action yet. A few more days.”

  Even in memory, the flash of hostility could still burn. It was an act of futility, ludicrous and inadequate. Indeed, it was a symbol, and it crushed her with the force of its realization. She did not want that kind of proof and sacrifice of his love. It was a total misinterpretation, revealing the terrible gulf, the difference between them, and such a stupid act could not bridge the gap. It was superficial, a grandstander, almost pathetic. Her mother had merely been joking.

  She recoiled. If this was what he meant by getting inside of her…. In the giant burst of epiphany, she saw their life together, an endless series of misinterpretations. “You can’t become someone else!” she wanted to cry out at him, knowing that she had generated enough anger to do what she should have done from the beginning: save herself. Whatever his love meant, it would strangle her.

  It was absolutely the last clear image she had of him, standing there, naked, the circumcision scar still unhealed, her respect and love for him diminished beyond repair. And she had, leaving him standing there in her mind, an image now suffused with the glow of her regrets. She had killed the baby as well.

  Chapter 2

  Holding the stem of her glass to quiet her nervous fingers, Naomi watched him come toward her in the crowded restaurant, the same sandy-hair, the eyes bright with a watery mist that could not disguise the pain. She had tried to chase away her doubts during the fury of her investigation. It hadn’t worked, not completely.

  He fell awkwardly into a chair, obviously exhausted with anguish, kissing her cheek perfunctorily, as if he had expunged the real memory of their relationship. Their parting had been soft. No harsh words, like a candle being snuffed. She had packed and left while he was at work. There had been tears, of course, but finally her persona absorbed her mind’s revolt. She hated the inference but accepted the reason. They were simply dissimilar. The awfulness of this conclusion plagued her to this day. But there were still embers of that old flame. She had not succeeded in exorcising him completely. Now, something deep inside of her, at the core of her feminine self, had been moved.

  “You’re looking good, Nay,” he said, putting a spiral notebook he had been carrying on the table between them. It had a plastic cover, the kind that students used. The old fashioned notebook seemed incongruous with Barney’s usual technological sophistication.

  “You too, Barney.”

  In the awkwardness of the moment, they started to speak simultaneously. There were still preliminaries to breach.

  “I appreciate your doing this.” He watched her, showing a flash of the old Barney. “Bet you have a direct pipeline to the White House by now.” He offered his old salesman’s wink, but it had lost spontaneity. It hurt to see the mechanics of his charm show through.

  “I’m a Democrat, remember?”

  “I thought all you guys worked together, hand in glove.”

  “With them? Never.”

  She felt the old resentment, the black Irish cynicism. Hell, it was irrelevant. They were dancing around a cold bonfire.

  “Anyway,” she said hoping to put a halt to the clumsy small talk, “I’m glad to help. But don’t put too much faith in what I can really do.”

  “When you’re desperate, you reach out…,” he began haltingly, forcing her eyes to turn away in embarrassment. Odd how they had returned immediately to the most corrosive issue of their relationship. She pushed it away. Nothing would come of dwelling on the past. Not now. Or ever.

  “What I have is not encouraging….”

  “I know. I’ve done a little homework on my own.”

  Reaching for his notebook, he opened it and flipped the pages. “I’ve written it all down. To whom I’ve spoken so far. What they’ve said. It’s a very consistent story.”

  She looked at the notebook as he spoke.

  “I don’t want to miss a beat. Want it all down on paper. Bearing witness, so to speak. I guess it’s a salesman’s habit, writing down reactions, noting possibilities. I’ve got one helluva problem on my hands, Nay.”

  “I know,” she replied. She had talked to lawyer friends and to a number of congressmen that she knew. She also contacted a friend at the FBI. She had personally gone through the back files of the Washington Post and the New York Times and had her assistant plug in to every data service available. She needed to know who was his enemy, the people who had taken his wife. By now, she had the facts, but no real decision as to a course of action for him.

  “It boils down to this,” she said. “The Glories is a religion, bona fide in the eyes of the law. Their status has been challenged by various people—mostly ex-Glories, by the way—but on the point of being a legally sanctioned religion, they emerge in the right. Apparently, they have a huge cadre of prestigious law firms on their payroll. They are very, very rich. The fact is that all you need is fifty names and an application to the Internal Revenue Service to declare yourself a religion. If the IRS says it’s okay, presto, you’re a religion.” She suspected she was presenting what was obvious. His reaction was passionate and swift.

  “Legal or not, they’re a scam, a fraud. They challenge our vulnerability. They have their greedy hands in most moneymaking schemes you can think of. They are ubiquitous and powerful. They have these businesses. And their followers work for them, literally, as slaves. Oh, they’re very clever. They know how to slip just under the legal radar. They’ll have Charlotte doing their bidding in the name of their all-holy jackass guru. Working for nothing, selling their merchandise, whatever. They’re also in real estate, media, large-scale business. It’s big, big moneymaking. Tax-free. All religions are tax-free, and they’re one of many. How dumb can our government be to not see through this? They’ve always known the score about the Glories and all these other cults. How come they’re not fighting back? What the fuck are they doing about it?” He shook his head.

  He shook his head in disgust. He ordered a scotch for himself while she settled for white wine. He brought the glass to his lips and sipped. His fingers shook and a few drops fell on the notebook. She stayed silent, letting him vent. There was no point in offering counterarguments just yet, raising issues like civil rights, free society, separation of church and state. He was listening only to his own inner drummer.

  “Anguished parents, grandparents, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, friends, telling the story of their search for a loved one caught up in these cults. They’ve been sued by parents over and over again. Some get out. Some don’t.”
He continued, “The Glories win most of the time. They’re litigious. People are intimidated by their gaggle of lawyers.”

  She nodded, refusing to be baited.

  “Money talks and bullshit walks,” he said. “Religion!” He shook his head. “Makes them untouchable.”

  “Part of the price of freedom,” she muttered, unable to resist.

  “Yeah. Freedom to exploit others. And Charlotte is paying for it big time. And me. And our boy. And thousands of other families. You know how many cults there are in this country?”

  “Many,” she sighed. Her research had not provided a pretty picture. Yet she retained what she liked to think was a healthy skepticism. Where was the line between a cult and a religion? But it wasn’t the moment to wax philosophical.

  “And no one is doing a fucking thing about it!” he cried, slapping the table. People turned to stare. “These people are no different from those Bin Laden assholes. His followers are brainwashed into doing anything the boss orders them to do, even if it means blowing themselves up.”

  He threw up his hands. “Auschwitz, Jonestown, Waco, the list goes on and on. They’re everywhere.” He was unstoppable, fulminating. His eyes misted and he slapped the table with the flat of his hand again. “And what do they want with my Charlotte? She is an innocent. Just a wife and mother, a good, loving, ordinary wife and mother.”

  Naomi vowed to herself to remain rational and listened patiently, respecting his outrage. She could understand his frustration and hurt, his sense of loss. He was entitled to his grief.

  “I read their so-called Bible,” he continued. “Oh, they all have something like that. Call it what you want, but they’re words. Words, words, words. I read it on the plane. The Glories bill theirs as the divine revelation of some mythical heavenly father. Something about Christ having failed, and Father Glory being the new Messiah. This evil man’s craggy face has been posted on billboards to make you want to puke. I used to laugh at it. ‘Who the hell is that dopey-looking man?’ Now I know who he is, the greedy wog bastard.