Boys in Gilded Cages (16 page)

“
My mom thought it was a
good idea, but my dad didn’t really trust Redmond at that point,”
Bobby said. In fact, Mary Faust seemed to be taken, if not smitten,
by Father Redmond. “She really stuck up for him. When he came to
town, until I left, I think she spoke to my father more than she
had my entire life up to that point,” Bobby said. “Usually
something in reference to Redmond.”

One of those kids, I’ll call him Jay, told
me that it was much more than a pro-life course. It didn’t take
long—the first class, in fact—for Redmond to enter into a
discussion about sex. Jay was uncomfortable, but the town’s parents
didn’t seem to mind. “I think they were relieved, in a way,” Jay
said. “I don’t think many of us had ‘the talk’ with our parents.
Our town is real conservative like that.” The course went on at
full speed, but less and less was it about abortion, or even birth
control. Jay says that the most frequent topic of conversation was
masturbation.

His explanation was pretty simple, and
seemingly sensible. When a student brought up the fact that
Redmond’s pro-life course has spun into a course about
masturbation, Redmond explained that unwanted pregnancies start
with sexual thoughts, and that in order to prevent teen pregnancy,
sometimes the sin is worth it. “It was one of those things, like
when a parent says, ‘I don’t want you to drink, but if you’re going
to do it, do it in the house’. It was a mixed crowd. I just kind of
thought he was a dirty old man.” Some students felt the same way:
According to Jay, half of the students dropped out by week two.

Despite Redmond’s odd behavior and
philosophies, he seemed popular. For many weeks, his family dined
with all of the families in Hawthorn. “He seemed to only have
dinner and cookouts with families with kids,” Bobby Faust told me.
“Eric didn’t really have any friends. I’m sure he just wanted him
to socialize, because I think his weirdness embarrassed Father
Redmond.” Eric did gain some friends, Bobby says. “Drug friends,”
he says. “There’s no two ways about it—Eric Redmond probably got
several kids in town hooked on meth. All the kids in town knew he
was on it, but the parents seemed oblivious, for whatever
reason.”

One person in town who grew increasingly
weary of Redmond was Bobby’s father. “He always said that he
thought Redmond could be a good salesman. That was his polite way
of saying that he was full of shit,” Bobby said. “I picked up on
his bad vibes right away. I was relieved my dad eventually did
too.” He had a reason to distrust Redmond: That Summer, re=election
was coming up. Up until that point, Faust ran unopposed. Redmond
announced in church that he was running for the seat. “A few people
gasped,” Bobby said, laughing. “My dad had no reaction. He even
shook Redmond’s hand after church and wished him luck. I could tell
he was fuming, though.”

Starting the next week, you couldn’t drive
down the main street in Hawthorn without seeing a “Harold Redmond
for Mayor” sign in someone’s yard. Bobby said that his father often
drove past and said through a tense grin, “my reign is over.”
Redmond started calling the Faust household once again. At first,
Bobby’s father was incredulous and ignored the calls, but
eventually they had them over for dinner. “He didn’t want any bad
blood,” Bobby says. Over dinner, Redmond offered Mr. Faust a
position in his “administration”. “I could tell it was all my dad
could do to not fall over laughing,” Bobby told me. “Redmond acted
like he was being elected president.” After a few seconds of
silence, Mr. Faust inquired further. Redmond said, “We have an
opportunity to make a difference in this town. We have more young
people in this town than ever.” Faust’s response to this was, “what
kind of salary are we talking about?” There was no salary, so Faust
said he’d consider it, but never brought it up again.

Instead, he appointed Bobby’s mother Mary as
a “youth ethics commissioner.” Since most children in Hawthorn
filtered through the Baptist church, this basically meant she was a
youth pastor, teaching Wednesday night class, and reporting to
Redmond. “She took it way too seriously,” Bobby says. “We often
asked her what was in her little ‘reports’ but she’d never tell us.
The bottom line she would have done anything [Redmond] asked of
her.” Her husband didn’t mind. In fact, he was glad she had
something to occupy her time. “This was a real job,” Bobby says.
“It’s not something she ever had before. I mean, she got paid and
everything. That seemed a little off—he wasn’t prepared to pay my
father for a similar job, but it gave her self-worth. So [my father
and I] saw it as a good thing.” She and Redmond spent a lot of time
together, and her behavior changed. She started injecting her
opinions into the household conversations, something she never did.
She started getting her hair done, and wore makeup for the first
time since before Bobby was born. “Even I knew they were having an
affair,” Bobby said. “It was so obvious that it was comical.”
However, his father ignored it. “He was being cuckolded. I think he
just didn’t know what to do. This was a city-folks problem, so it
went under the rug.”

Darrin’s mother died Winter 2010. Not many
women showed up to the funeral. “She had an affair with Redmond,
and she had an affair with the pastor before him,” Bobby says. Half
of the women in Hawthorn were probably sleeping with Redmond, he
claimed. Many families were tense because of this, though to his
knowledge, none of the affairs were ever brought to light.

Bobby and I took the Amtrak from New York to
St. Louis, Missouri to do interviews with local media. Bobby said
he doesn’t like to fly, and only does when necessary. “I don’t know
why I don’t,” he says. “Flying’s not any more dangerous than
driving, and I fucking love that.” 
He is logical to a fault. How
could one not be obsessed with reason after escaping Hawthorn
Baptist Church? But Bobby’s fear of flying tells us more about him
than he realizes. He maybe be fearless, but it’s his caution that
might actually allow him to succeed in single-handedly dismantling
a church that is built on a foundation of fear mongering, emotional
abuse, and psychological terrorism.

MR. BLACK MASSACRES THE PLANET





In the Springtime several years ago, Daryl
McAdams did a bad thing. He had enjoyed a record of hung juries and
wrist-slaps until that point, riding high on a masterfully hidden
petty crime spree. He did a lot of bad things under the influence
of frantically pinging hormones.

He sold bad shit, and sold himself in the
city. He did vandalism biz, like spray-painting dicks on mailbox
lids. He couldn’t drive due to epilepsy or whatever, and so out of
anger he’d pass the time on school bus rides by throwing pebbles
out of his window, onto passing cars' windshields.

He didn’t know what it felt like to be
exposed. He never had to deal with guilt. He thought sometimes that
he’d want to get caught so he’d stop doing all that shit. It was
fun but he couldn’t keep it up forever. Selling cock to old lonely
women (and the occasional man, if he felt sorry for him or if he
was harmless, or if he was willing to pay more) expired at around
age 21, probably. Supply and demand, you know.

So anyway, he had been so careful in
covering his tracks, and no one talked about it outside their
homes, because who exactly in Hawthorn wanted to be known as the
cunt who buys drugs, or cock, from a kid? Many did, and many knew
who did, but that doesn’t matter because no one brought it to
anyone else’s attention.

Most of all, church members knew. Daddy
Redmond was a customer, the old decepticon fart, I know he was for
a fact. He was before Daryl squirted out, and he was after Daryl
blasted off. Some people in town said Daddy got Daryl on the shit
and showed him what to do. I got mine for free.

Sometimes it seemed the entire town was into
the 417. People you wouldn’t expect, though if you lived in
Hawthorn long enough you’d just expect everyone to be. It was in
the water, and in the trees. Night owls pollinated; spread it
around. A town of zombies, like that was in the script all along.
We should be quarantined like The Krazies.

Daryl’s brother Kenneth was a bagwhore for
sure. He’d get spun out and go all Frankenstein on your house. And
he’d kill somebody over it.

I don’t think Daryl ever was a true tweaker.
He seemed to be on a mission to destroy the town and get everybody
on dope, or maybe I just justify it because he’s my friend.
Sometimes you’d run him at Cue n’ Brew, trolling around for newbs
and notice that his eyes patterned a furious squint-and-release, in
rhythm with his voice inflections and that he couldn’t keep still.
Then other times you’d see him there and he’d be real angry and
agitated and sweaty, like he was coming off of it, but at school
and everywhere else he was chill.

I personally don’t know how he could go
through with fucking all those old scabs and pervs with him being
glassed, I think I’d want to slow it down; go the opposite
direction and eat a xanie or something. People would see him come
in with nasty out-of-town women, and sometimes regulars, and
sometimes he’d show up alone and leave with them.

He didn’t care who saw him, really, but if
he got with a dude it would have to be done in private, and was
really dangerous because even hustlers get fag bashed even if
they’re not gay. I don’t really know where they met or how they
met. There are parks in nearby towns. I guess they met there.
Though I know for a fact he got with guys he already knew. Not many
people know that high school teachers were sometimes regular
customers.

Mr. Black was fucking scary. He, out of
every speed freak in town, made it the most obvious. He’d wander
the county roads with no shirt, hairy paunch drooping from a
hunched back. He couldn’t handle his shit and had to be thrown out
of the gas station several times. Then, the next morning at school
he’d always have it together, and teach us about Shakespeare with
slicked-back hair and droopy hawk eyes, his mind a tin-can
interrogation room from one of those melodramatic cop shows, if you
fucked up. I don’t know how he and Daryl hooked up, can’t imagine
how it went down or how Black even broached the subject. The idea
is crazy to me. Money’s money, and everything starts with an
idea.

The only thing I can think of, is that Daryl
always liked to write really terrible poetry. He’d come over, eyes
fiery and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, scribbling
something on a piece of paper. “You think that would get me an A in
Black’s class?” He’d say. I always said yes. Mr. Black never
assigned poetry homework.

I never spied on Daryl, but Marcia Cruz did
with her buddies. How I found out Black was Daryl’s customer was
that Marcia found him going in and out of his house at night. Crazy
ass bitch probably held up binoculars and everything. But anyway I
believed her and asked Daryl about it. He got defensive but he
admitted it. I don’t know exactly what he was buying besides dope,
if anything. I don’t really want to know. But I probably know.

The night Black OD’d, Daryl stayed almost
the whole night until Marcia went to bed at 1a.m. We don’t know
when he left, but he probably watched Black die. The fucked up part
was that Black’s kid was visiting and watching TeeVee the whole
time.

So for like the millionth time that month,
the cops came to the McAdams residence. And for like the millionth
time that month, no charges were filed. It was close though. Daryl
was a “person of interest” according to the news. They never
mentioned his name but, who else would it be?

This is what I’m trying to convey through
all these stories. This is a good example. Everyone’s got a task.
Everyone is tasked with some form of sabotage. Maybe not sabotage,
but a means to an end. I don’t know exactly, but if the town dies
and everyone is an emotional slave or zombie in the process, so be
it. I don’t think that They are trying to kill us, but if we don’t
pass the test, we could die.

Daryl was a victim, but Daryl was just
getting initiated. Now he’s one of them, and carries on with the
experiment. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?

I think Hawthorn is in twilight. It has
wild, gray hair, and a bulb on the end of its nose with disgusting
spider veins, like an old man who has seen too much. The weight is
bearing down and, while not taking part, Hawthorn has acquiesced.
This shit about Hawthorn doesn't really scare me, though, as I
consider myself a pretty formidable opponent. I don’t want to save
Hawthorn. Nothing can really save it. We’re far too stupid. I just
want you to know. You, out in left field. You, in the city. You
people with educations. You people with intuition. Just, everyone.
I hope you listen.

So anyway, of course people talked. They
knew Black was a dead man for a while, but now there was a visible
ripple in the pond. Everyone had to acknowledge the death and
acknowledge how it happened. Newscasters talked about it. School
administrators were interviewed. Since Mr. Black was an absentee
member of Hawthorn Baptist Church, St. Louis and Kansas City media
were all over it, then national media for a hot minute.

Hawthorn Baptist Church had gained a
nationwide reputation as a watered-down version of the infamous
church in Kansas, which was mostly referred to as a cult. The
difference between the two churches was that Daddy Redmond hated
too much attention, because it had been demonstrated that a lot of
attention brought no new members to the church in Kansas—it was
proven to not be a smart move to court so much attention for such
an inflammatory ideology, and it was his goal to capture the town’s
respect, as well as its tithes. Hawthorn was to be a compound of
mystical money. It was to be an indestructible ivory tower. If the
world is laughing at him, that would make it difficult to maintain
what he saw as his reign over Hawthorn.