Rick gave her an ornery look. Keeping Sally firmly by the arm, she moved her into the dining room and watched her face from out of the corner of her eyes. Rick returned from down the hall. “I’ve put a padlock on the bathroom and taken out anything that could be used to escape or hurt herself. I need to set things up downstairs, so she has time to take a shower, but someone needs to supervise her, then she can remain locked up there for the time being.”
“I’ll look after her,” Una said firmly.
A tall slim woman, who I guessed to be twenty-eight or nine, walked into the room.
“This is Elaine Spam,” Rick said. “She’s also an ex-cult member.”
She looked quite good to sleep with as well. I was beginning to see that I needed to get laid very soon. Una shook her hand and took Sally to the bathroom. Andy locked the door behind them and apparently was on guard outside. I saw tears in Una’s eyes when she came out and this horrified me to no end.
When Sally was let out, she was taken to the basement. All the windows in the house were nailed shut. I saw that the newswoman, Mulligan Shirer, already filmed, took pictures and recorded opinions. Sally’s time was close at hand and she tried to pray. Her eyes looked around for a route of escape and everyone gathered around her in the basement; she looked like she was preparing herself for martyrdom and I nearly laughed at her.
“Una and Andy, I need you to prepare supper,” Rick said. He stood beside me with Stan on the other side and Sally in the middle. “Come and sit,” he said to her. “Let me tell you what’s happened to you, Sally.” We sat on a cozy golden-colored couch. I looked at the walls, and noticed of all things, a crucifix. It was very perplexing that they should have missed it, and maybe they hadn’t. “I don’t know what you’ve heard of me,” Rick said, “but I’ve removed people from all sorts of cults. You were mentally abducted by one of the worst ones. Your parents have gone to much trouble and left their other pressing concerns behind. Are you listening? Guru Prabhupada’s Hare Krishna or Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church are also the worst offenders in brainwashing, but many other organizations use their techniques: L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics and Scientology, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation, Guru Maharaja Ji’s Divine Light Mission, Bhaghwan Shree Rajneesh’s sannyasins, and Werner Erhard’s est, to name just a few. I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself that you’re an adult of legal age and abducting you is like a transgression. Am I right?”
Sally tried to slap him but he was ready for her and grabbed her arm. I saw the shocked look on the face of Stan. “If you try that again,” Rick said, “I’ll tie you down for the duration. You think that you got on that bus willingly, but you didn’t. Think back. They all smiled, openly stared, and repeatedly touched you. They asked if you believed that Jesus was your savior, then they quickly repeated the process, and again and again very quickly. Remember?” He passed Sally books and assorted documents. “As we proceed, you can read,” he suggested. He caught Sally’s eyes. “Stay with me,” he almost shouted. “Most normal religious conversions are dependant on rational persuasion combined with faith, charity, hope for the future and the afterlife, and other important matters such as proof of God’s existence and the historical record of the religion under consideration. A small percentage is based on what one could call spiritual propaganda. What some organizations are able to do is quickly tap into the teenage conscious processes, like yours, hone in on the vulnerable spots, get them to come along to the apartment, out to dinner, on the bus, in the car, to the church, to their basement, to their commune, or in this case, to their farm, and then begin the more permanent processes of depravation such as lack of sleep or food, or haranguing, which can set the mind into a form of manageable chaos; then they can graft the new belief-system on the more malleable mind.”
His words were riveting and he spoke for a half hour or so, explaining to her, what in so many words, he’d already told us. I could tell Sally desperately wanted to run away screaming. I knew Rick would pin her down soon; she looked like a frightened kitty.
“We’ve set up a VCR and we want you to look at something,” he said at length.
He placed a tape in the machine and sat on the couch beside me. We watched a documentary on the life of David Moses. It showed his lavish lifestyles and his luxurious accommodations throughout the world, while his followers lived in poverty, used outhouses, and slept in dormitory-like places with no showers or air-ventilation, received no medical or dental attention, and suffered from malnutrition.” Sally began fidgeting. “Relax,” he said forcefully to her, “we’ll be here indefinitely and there’s lots of time to take it all in.”
Una and Andy brought down supper and served it in the basement. In protest, she stripped naked and refused to eat, demanding to be released as a prisoner of conscience, but Una came over and pinched the skin on her arm with all her might until she screamed. “Put your clothes back on, you little fool,” she whispered, “or you’ll live to regret it.”
Her body I’m ashamed to say, though skeletal, made me immediately excited.
“You’re so thin,” Mary said aloud and began to cry, helping her re-dress. I almost became overwhelmed with emotion. When she’d dressed, she still refused food and drink, instead, she prayed and chanted, however, when Mary came over and hugged her again, I saw for no reason I could fathom, that she accepted some spaghetti from her.
“In your letter to your parents,” Rick said, after eating, “you stated that you had to break off from your past, renounce your parents and their lifestyles and things like that. The bible says that you should honor your father and mother. How do you explain this discrepancy?”
“The bible means your spiritual mother and father,” she answered cleverly.
“But then, why wouldn’t the bible say that?” he asked just as cleverly. “Here, look at this.” He passed her the bible, opened where the verse had been taken. “Read it,” he commanded loudly. But she couldn’t seem to focus on the words. “There’s little doubt what the bible means if you read it in context,” he continued loudly. “It means, honor your actual parents.”
“You are the Black Satan,” she hissed and spit into his face again.
This caused some confusion among everybody, and she made a dash for it, but Una, who had been standing beside the couch, grabbed her, and forcefully dragged her back, then patted her on the head. “Good, puppy,” she whispered.
Sally and I had always hated when she did that.
“What kind of God do you worship, Sally?” Rick said in a booming preacher’s voice. “What kind of God tells you to spit into my face?” Sally sat back and pretended to yawn. It was really phony. “Tell me, Sally, what kind of God tells you to hate your family, to hate your mother and father? Look at them, they love you. That’s not God telling you to hate, no, that’s Satan. You’re the devil-worshiper, not your parents.”
“The Devil is everywhere,” she repeated without emotion. I could tell she was on the verge of defeat.
“The devil is this man,” Rick said and showed her a picture of David Moses. “This man is not Jesus. He raped his daughter-in-law. He’s had sex with minors. He used to be a–” Rick stopped with a smile and caught her eyes. “Do you want to guess what he did for a living before he became a preacher?” He paused and waited a few seconds. “No?” he asked, “if you’d guessed a salesman, you’re right, but some of his old associates say that he’s better described as a con-artist. Did you know that he has left the United States because he’s wanted by the American government for assault, tax evasion, and sex abuse?” Sally’s cheeks turned red and I knew he was getting to her really quickly. “Did you know,” Rick continued, “he threatens to kill any former members if they bring suit against him?”
In this manner, point after point, until almost eleven o’clock p.m., Rick whittled away Sally’s resolve. When she went to bed that night, she looked exhausted.
Rick and his helpers drilled Sally with clever questio
ns the whole next day and she tried to answer them, but I realized her responses were wildly inadequate. We also watched the video again on The Family of Truth. She ate three or four of Una’s homemade meals that day, her favorite dishes, and went to bed by nine o’clock.
Her old self was nearly bursting through, and in the early morning of the next day, as the smell of Una’s hot Caribbean black-eyed bean and rice breakfast floated down to us, she came out from her bedroom and I knew she was her old self. She looked me in the eyes with love.
“They raped me,” she announced when everybody was gathered around, then she went over and hugged Una. It was very emotional and I began to cry.
“I’m very grateful to you, Rick,” she said, “you’ve saved my life. Thank you. I love you all. Please forgive me. Five Elders raped me, Ezekiel Observance, Silent Peace, Grave Revelation, Holy Truth, and Goodness Tranquility. They solicited me for sex like some child one day when I was cleaning the main farmhouse. When I refused them, they held me down and slapped my face. They sexually assaulted me repeatedly. They prayed and read scriptures as they did it. When they were gone, they made me forgive them and pray with them!” She shuddered in disgust.
Stan rose and took Mary’s hand and then mine, and lastly Una’s. We all hugged Sally, but Una pulled away suddenly, bursting into tears. “They’ve hurt our Sally, Stan, let’s dedicate ourselves to bringing them to law.”
“That will be hard,” Rick interceded watching us leerily, as though the intervention had gotten out of control. “Stan has to file a report on Sally with the local authorities here.” Stan and Mary sighed. “They’re wily,” Rick added, shrugging, “and dangerous.”
Sally was truly grateful for what we’d done, but as we readied to return home, I was also acutely aware that Stan might always hold me responsible for letting Sally on that bus and that my only hope was that she return completely to her old self.
Chapter Nine
The limousine came up the extended driveway straight to the garden walks which led to the back, sides, and pool areas, most which lay hidden in the shadows of huge maples and oaks. Many a day Sally and I had played there. Sally came into the kitchen with Una and I passing straight through the pantry with me alone, and upstairs to her bedroom. I watched as she crawled into her bed, and then, she slept for what seemed like days. Peter Burgess came by the some days later and talked to Sally and I. “I started my search for you four days after you went missing,” he said as we sat on the Wassily chairs in the living room, just the three of us. “I watched them for awhile and I kept a record of how fast they got complete strangers onto their buses. In one case it was under ten seconds. I got on that bus myself and traveled to Ashbury. My evening and night spent there was one of the worst of my entire life. I’ll tell you, worse than anything done to me in Vietnam.”
He talked for an hour or so and then left. Sally excused herself and went straight to bed. She slept without interruption, but she just couldn’t seem to get enough sleep. What she must have been going through, I could only imagine.
On the fourth morning, I remember standing in the kitchen with Una, who made Sally and I thick hot chocolate, just like Sally liked. She lazily looked out windows which took up nearly the entire west side of the house, shuffling in her slippers from one vista to another. The yard fell out into the immense deck leading to the swimming-pool area, then into a thick group of trees hiding most of the iron fences that ran for hundreds of feet. It was a dull grey wet day and it depressed my senses just to think about it. I estimated that Sally had gained five pounds already since she had come home, eating her favorite dishes which Una had turned out one after the other. In between sleeping and eating, she read books on cults which Rick Edwards had given her; I read them too. Why she remained lost to sleep I thought I understood. She still wasn’t herself, and she felt foolish and inadequate. Una and I baby-sat her. I took the whole week off.
“These pictures of the restaurants in Jamaica,” she said softly, indicating a set of large ten-by-twelve photographs hanging on the wall across from the kitchen island, “they’ve been here for years?” Una nodded. “I’ve never really seen them before,” she continued. “I’m noticing so much right now. Did you really own all these little restaurants?” Una nodded further. “And look at the ceiling,” she continued again. “The stucco design is intersected with geometric lines like the famous wheat field circles of England. I never remember seeing that before.”
She giggled. “That’s just been done.”
“What are you cooking now?”
“Some hors d’oeuvres for tomorrow night.”
Sally yawned and stretched. “It seems I’ll always be tired and worn-out,” she complained. “They robbed me of my ability for REM sleep.”
“It is as though you’re trying to contact your old self by returning to your deep dreams,” I offered.
“I dream only of the horrible assault,” she said teary-eyed, “I had to put it out of my mind and now it constantly floods back to me.”
I was in the kitchen with her when the phone rang. The First Law of Life for orphans and those unlucky by birth was still in full-force. I suppose it will be until the day I die. Una was in the pantry, and I picked it up. It was for Sally and like a fool I gave her the phone, never thinking that anyone who assaults a woman would have the gall to come all the way from Denver to claim her. With the phone in hand, Sally walked over to the double glass-doors which looked out on the east side of the mansion and stretched to look at something. I also looked out and saw young people along the gate, but it didn’t register to me who it was. Sally slowly walked out of the kitchen and threw on a jacket from the hall closet.
I slowly followed her. “What’s wrong, Sal,” I called lightly behind her.
She made her way to the front entrance. When she reached for the door, Dad just then came in. “What’s wrong,” he asked, “Where are you going?”
“Stop her,” I called.
Stan grabbed her by the arm and she pulled away, but Stan stood between her and the door, trying to back her up, but to my utter surprise, I still can’t believe it to this day, she pushed him to the floor and squeezed open the door. I was at her heels though, and Una came just behind me on the front yard. I think this is as low as life ever got for us. She turned and sucker-punched me in the face, just like I’d shown her so many years before. I fell to the ground, bleeding at the lips. She kicked me in the stomach and pounced on me. “You’re of Satan!” she screeched in my ear, choking me with all her might. Una broke in and seized her by the hair and dragged her off me with one thrust, then Sally tried to bite Una arms. “Fat black Satan, ” she screamed further, trying to spit on her.
Stan helped Una and me hold her down. I now noticed Divine Love and Love Israel out in front of the gate with their slender arms stretched through the wrought-iron gates toward us, as though in a dream, they were like ghosts and she struggled hard to get to them. Silent Peace, the one with the purple birthmark and one of the ones Sally had accused of assaulting her, was there. Gathering up behind them on the sidewalk, other members of the family silently watched, there was maybe even a hundred of them, their vans and buses parked out on the street. They’d come all the way from Denver and my hatred of them, and fear, grew exponentially at that moment.
Mary came running out of the house. “I’ve phoned the police,” she announced.
“Oh dear, should you have done that?” Una asked.
Dad was frowning and helping Sally to her feet. “Calm down, Sally! What’s happened?”
“Satan is in the house!” she shouted.
Stan looked at Una and Mary. “How did they get to him?”
“By the phone,” I confessed and quickly told them.
In a moment, they had calmed Sally enough so that she stopped shouting and struggling. The police arrived and Stan greeted them at the front gate. I still held onto Sally and was near tears.
“Look at that,” Una whispered.
The members of the
family had moved back to the busses, reducing their numbers to only a few. I ground my teeth against them; damn them! They were despicable. The police officers stepped onto the property with Stan after they’d had a few words with Thought Jacob, the Head Elder from Denver. The older officer, a stocky clean-shaven fifty-year-old officer, had a slightly protruding belly and intense eyes, but looked at me with kindness. “I’m Officer Jake Allen,” he said. He pointed to the other officer, “My partner, Bob Woods.”
Officer Woods was a tall slim man, perhaps one-hundred and sixty pounds and forty-five-years old or so, and to me, he looked half asleep and bored. I’d already counted two yawns from him just walking up to us. Sally stared at the event as though she was an unattached third party and this made me even sadder. “We’ll have to speak to your daughter alone,” Officer Jake Allen said. Bob Woods yawned again. “She’s of legal age,” Officer Allen pointed out, “and you can’t restrain her if she’s done nothing wrong.”
One part of me felt oppressed by his words and I couldn’t speak out, even though I felt like calling them ‘Assholes!’ However, they handcuffed Sally. “I’m Patience Hosanna,” she said with a trembling voice of despair. “I was kidnapped by Rick Edwards; he’s the black Satan; Una is his agent! Many black people serve the devil!”
One of the officer’s, Jake Allen, the stout one, curled up his eyes and placed her in the backseat of their cruiser. The Officers talked to Sally for some time, and then leaving the property, talked to one of the Elders, Holy Truth, who I’d met during the abduction and who was one of the five Sally had accused of raping her. Several of the members of the family still waited quietly by the gate on the sidewalk, but most of them now had disappeared. The police came back and got Sally out of the cruiser. She was still in handcuffs but now seemed resigned from trying to escape.
Stealing Flowers Page 21
