'If that's the way Larry feels, I think he should just leave!' This was Mary Mary Quite Contrary again. 'The rest of us are here because we want to be here, and to help each other act like real men are supposed to.'
'Dean, a real man stands up for himself and stands up for what's right. A real man doesn't turn his life over to some
– some Nazi lunatic.'
'You are telling me what's a real man, Larry? Now I'm sure I've heard – it – all.'
'Those are strong words you're using, Larry,' Crockwell said. 'You seem to have some awfully strong feelings about me and my role in the group. Perhaps it would be helpful if you examined those feelings.'
'Or perhaps it would be helpful if I put your lights out, just put you out of business, Crockwell! A year from now or even a month from now-everybody in this room with half a brain would thank me.'
'I just think maybe Larry ought to leave if he's going to talk like that.' This was the one called Gene again. 'One of the main reasons we're here is to not let our behavior be ruled by our emotions. If you can't control your emotions, Larry, then maybe you better go. What you're saying sure does get in the way of the things we're trying to accomplish here.'
'Gene, what are you trying to accomplish? I remember you said when the group began that you wanted to stop considering yourself a freak. But turning yourself into a gay married liar or a eunuch-isn't that the worst kind of freak of all? Because it's not really you. What every one of you are doing here is trying to make yourself live a lie. You're all paying Crockwell to turn you into liars. Is that what you want to be? A bunch of lying assholes?'
This caused a largely indecipherable uproar, but it was Crockwell's voice that rose above the others and went on when the hubbub subsided. 'That is quite enough, Larry. That is enough vulgarity, and name-calling, and-and disruption. There are rules here- rules! -and you are breaking the rules. I want you to stop it.'
'Fuck you, Crockwell. Fuck you and fuck all your fucking control-freak rules. Paul and I are out of here, and if the rest of you poor fucks want to stay here and let this-this Saddam Hussein torture you-well, I feel sorry for you. I just feel sorry.'
'Paul, your mother is going to be so disappointed in you- so very, very disappointed. To reject her, to turn your back on her-'
'Will you please just shut up about my mother!' Haig snapped.
Bierly said, 'The only thing that interests you about Phyllis Haig, Crockwell, is that she paid Paul's fees on time.'
'Your father's heart would be broken if he knew,' Crockwell went on. 'Now that your mother needs a normal, whole man in the family more than ever, you plan to tell her your intention is to remain half a man. And that you're proud of it yet! You're going to rub her nose in it!'
'What are you saying?' Haig moaned. 'Now that my father is dead, I'm supposed to marry my mother? What are you talking about?'
'Now, Paul, I never said-'
'Larry, you're right about him! You are so, so right about him!'
'Paul, this discussion involving your mother seems to arouse strong feelings on your part. Wouldn't you like to talk about those feelings?'
'Damn it, just you keep my mother out of this. My mother doesn't need a lot of ugly and depressing shit like this.
My mother is a wonderful woman, full of life, who always does her damned-est to look on the bright side of things. She's got joie de vivre. She's like Auntie Mame. To her, life is a banquet and she lives it to the hilt. Yes, she's set in her ways. But I'm used to that. She's not going to change, but why should she?
Mother and I got along just fine before she sent me here, and we'll get along just fine after I leave. So, just- just don't bring Mother into this, Dr. Crockwell. Mother has absolutely nothing to do with this! Do you hear me? Do you understand what I'm saying?' Haig had become shrill and sounded as if he was losing control.
'Your mother despises homosexuals,' Crockwell said evenly. 'That is the hard fact of the matter that you are leaving out.'
'Crockwell, you are scum!' This was Bierly. 'You are a dangerous, dangerous man-'
'Homosexuals are scum!' Crockwell shot back. 'Homosexuals spit on nature and morality. Paul's mother understands that. In his heart, I believe, Paul does too. I'll have to speak with your mother, of course, Paul. I'll have to explain to her that the tough love she exhibited when she brought you to me will have to continue if you choose to leave the group. That it will have to take other forms, and I can advise her about that.'
'Dr. Crockwell,' Haig said, 'I wouldn't do that if I were you. Do not bring my mother into this.'
'Oh, it would be a matter of professional responsibility. I would be remiss if I failed to advise your mother, Paul.'
'If you turned my mother against me,' Haig said, very calmly now, 'you would be very sorry you did.'
'Oh, I don't see how.'
'Don't do it.'
'Are you threatening me, Paul?'
'I am telling you. Do not come between Mother and me.'
'It's your sexual deviancy that's a barrier between you and your mother's love and approval, Paul. Not I.'
'Just stay out of my family, Dr. Crockwell.'
'Fortunately for you, in the long run, Paul, I can't do that.'
'Well, I'll stop you. I'll just-stop you.'
'You'll what?'
'I mean it, Dr. Crockwell. I'll do what I have to, to stop you from coming between Mother and myself.'
Now came a long silence. Chairs shifted. Finally, in a voice strained as never before in the session, Crockwell said,
'No, you won't stop me, Paul. If I have to, I'll stop you. If you get in the way of my carrying out my duty to uphold moral standards of normalcy, I'll stop you, Paul. I'll just stop you dead in your tracks.'
There were gasps and ohs and ahs, and then the tape went silent. I listened to the silence for a minute, then fast-forwarded to the end of the sixty-minute cassette. The remainder was blank. I flipped the tape. The other side was blank in its entirety.
I pocketed the photocopy of the anonymous letter suggesting that Vernon Crockwell had killed Paul Haig, along with my notes on the contents of the tape. I left Al Finnerty's office and went down the stairway and out into the pale sunlight.
I'd left my car up near the house on Crow Street, and that was okay. I didn't need to examine my feelings about where I'd parked my car. Strolling over to Albany Med would give me a chance to air out my brain cells, which had been polluted by my visit of some minutes via the tape with Vernon Crockwell and his victims, or his collaborators, or some unhappy combination of the two. But victims in what? Collaborators in what? Except for the obvious-a quack operating abusively as a mental health professional-I did not yet understand what was happening here. end user
8
Bierly was still unconscious following his surgery, his condition serious but stable. I got just close enough to him to see that a hospital security guard was posted outside his door. When I asked the charge nurse whether Bierly had had visitors, she said a police detective had come and gone and a friend of Bierly's was out in the waiting area. A man named Steven, she said.
A family of Punjabis occupied the corner of the waiting room near the television monitor, peering with interest at Joan Lunden. Across the room from them, glowering out the window, was a sturdy, well-built man in faded jeans and a flannel shirt. His age, fortyish, suggested the flannel was not hip-kid mosh-wear but was a relic of the butch-gay seventies. He wore work shoes that looked as if they had actually been worked in, and he had a ruddy, angular Anglo or Saxon face and thick auburn hair that curled over his collar. He could have been Lady Chatterley's gamekeeper, Mellors, except for the sweetish cologne that became apparent as I approached him, and
