The Devoted (5 page)

I’d walk into the kitchen and find her with a friend. The friend would ask how I was doing in school. I’d ramble some bit, going on about English and then Math and then Science. But my mother’s agitation would come at me. She’d say, “Lots of topics, Edgar! How about taking them one at a time? Like you do during the day, at school?”

It made sense. I liked it. It made me straighten up. Even, consistent, fine. Get in there deep. FINE!

But looking back, I can recall the friends seeming uptight when they heard her talk to me that way.

- - -

If you take steadiness and fineness to their outermost extremes, you’re left with a very clean hum.

This Is What I’m Getting At!

It needn’t be more than that. More than that defeats the purpose. It’s the still center within us all. You get there, you see it, and you see we’re all the same. We’re all ONE. Everybody, even the most mentally diseased member of the community, has that in there somewhere.

You get there: You’re CLEAN. You can live there, too. It’s intelligent.

Last Day –
9:21AM

Now our eyes make contact. And I’m reasonably certain that my breath’s making contact with His face.

“Okay,” I say.

“It has to be that way, Matthew. Otherwise we have murderers in this house. That’s not the way to do this. So we be systematic. Wrists and throats all across the board. I have a preference for throats ‘cause I think that goes faster. Plus there’s none of that vertical-horizontal confusion.”

I give Him a look, hoping briefly that I don’t have to explain that I’m confused.

I don’t.

“Come here. Give me your hand.”

He’s not asking. He’s got my forearm. Other hand, He picks up one of the knives. Briefly, I see myself as a failed test experiment. The others coming in from breakfast, viewing my corpse.

“What’s the matter?” He asks me. “You okay?”

“Okay,” at this moment, reminds me of “existentialism.” Who can say?

Nevertheless, I nod my head. Three times/neck creaking.

“I’m not gonna hurt you. You trust me?”

“Yes, always.”

It’s He who laughs now, His own breath healthy and forceful. As He goes on speaking, He mimes with the knife, using it as a prop:

“You go vertical, see? Along the veins. That way you’re releasing more blood all at once. You go horizontal, all of that gets lost. They always get it wrong on TV. And you should go deep, also...”

He draws the knife up toward my inner elbow. Intimacy like this, you only find in warfare.

“Really get in there. I don’t want people laying around dying. They have to go just like
that
.”

He drops the knife onto its siblings.

Last Day –
9:23AM

It’s the living room, now. Darker and theoretically more comfortable. Still, they “eat” outside, even though the food is surely gone.

He sits on the footrest of a plush armchair. Opposite Him, on the couch, is me. A diagonal line between us.

In His hands, crisp and upright, is a sheet of printer paper. His eyes are fixed upon it, catching the mildest hint of its whiteness.

He lowers the paper, considers addressing me. His lips change. He thinks better of it, keeps on reading.

I’m not good. Sitting is not my thing. I’d like to stand and run and scream.

“You and me I’d like to go last,” He says.

He’s speaking now of the order, which is a topic of importance.

I nod. I don’t like this topic. I just hope it goes fast, like He said. One after another, to the point where the order doesn’t stand out. Dizziness. Hot blood rushing. Just get out of here.

“Okay,” I say.

“I think that goes without saying, no? They probably sort of expect it.”

I clasp my hands together, only these aren’t hands. Where’s the warmth? The confidence that I can bend my fingers?

I think, then, of Jolie, as her juice is on my fingertips from before.

“Jolie,” He says, “I’m sure you’re concerned about. She’ll go right before you. So that’s three of us, which leaves six.”

Is that clairvoyance? The collective unconscious? The thought of her arose within my mind right when He said her name.

That’s my guy. And He’s got me covered. I
was
concerned about her. Not right then, but still.

Hanging near His knees is the paper, the print on its surface concealed from me.

“How do you reckon we should do it?”

Apparently the paper holds no plan. Only the schedule, most likely.

I open my mouth despite its lack of a ready reply.

“Alphabetical, I thought of already. But I’d rather not go that way.”

“Right,” I say. Safe ground, agreeing. “‘Cause then we’d have to be alphabetical, too.”

“Not just that, but I think it’ll bring too much of a ‘grade school’ feel. We need something more in contact with the spiritual.”

“Yeah, uh...” I shake my head. “No, that’s no good.”

“What is it?”

“No, I was gonna say size-place-order, but that’s grade school, too.”

“It’s gotta be something that seems second nature,” He says, the paper flapping in His hand, “otherwise we’ll start getting too much input. This is why we left the corporate world. Right? Bunch of nonsense.”

“Yeah,” I say, “not to mention the physical world.”

“Exactly,” He says, and before I know it He’s standing.

Last Day –
9:26AM

We’re looking out through the patio window, at the others.

“Can I ask a favor of you, Matthew?” He asks.

“Of course.” I get the sense that the conversation about the order has been postponed. He will act aloof to the point where I’ll expect it to never come up again, and then, right when I least expect it, He’ll bring it up like we were just talking about it.

“Explain to the others. About the knives. It should come from you. Tell them not to worry, that we’ll make certain they all go gracefully.”

Inwardly, I sift around for a frame of reference, another task that’s the equal of this one. Was telling all the members to hang in there after little Victor’s death the same? Hopefully not, given my low rate of return.

“Will you do that for me?” He asks.

I’ll try, that much I know.

But I assure Him that I’ll succeed.

Edgar Pike’s Journal

November, 2007

To be a leader, one has to take a philosophical approach. To be a leader without philosophy is akin to being a sun without a galaxy. In other professions, philosophy is optional. You can drive a bus, or be a lawyer, or even a doctor or an artist, without philosophy (although it’s unlikely to go without it in the latter parts of that list). You cannot lead without philosophy. You cannot lead, in other words, and be mindless. This is not to say that you must give your followers a philosophy -- even though in my case it is essential -- but that you must have A Philosophy Of Leadership.

I am getting toward a point where I am not only of a clear philosophy, but where that philosophy is intersecting quite well with my behavior. There must be no bumps, however! Lumps, neither. I must be smooth. Seamless. I must aspire to a kind of white-fire conduct, where it’s all consistent to the point of being utterly confidence-inspiring.

So today, when Matthew came to me and asked (such a sweet boy) if I ever have doubts, I must admit to being prideful in both the rapidness and content of my reply:

“Yes,” I said. “I have only doubts. Doubts are openness. Doubts keep you alive. A man without doubts, you should run away from.”

I was able to do this without ever having pondered the topic before. This indicates a clean link between my brain and mouth. The boy was impressed, too. So much so that he failed to see the paradox: that a man who always doubts has no doubt about the allure of doubting. But that’s a topic for another day.

Last Day –
9:27AM

Out back, the sun lands on me with all the subtlety of a building falling over.

Everyone’s lounging. The fruit, as predicted, is gone. The sun they seem to like better than I do.

“I miss her,” I hear Beth say to Jolie. “And I think about her a lot. More and more. We were best friends.”

I try to catch Jolie’s face, get a message as to what the pair’s content is. But Jolie’s wrapped up in what Beth’s saying. I’ve learned from The Leader to be a guessing man, though, and my best guess is that Beth’s talking about her mom.

From THE MODERN GLOBE (10/25/11):

TV fans know Beth McKay (44) from the 90s soap series “At Odds,” in which she starred as the anguished, lonely wife of a billionaire captain of industry. Ms. McKay said in 1998: “I know the show’s an entertainment vehicle, but I also think it does make a statement. It makes a statement about how the material things in our lives aren’t the most important, and how we sometimes get caught up in that, but what really matters is what’s inside the heart.”

Given the actress’s idealism, it may not come as a great surprise that she is among the nine cult followers whom the press is calling “The Missing Nine.” These people vanished at the start of this month, having followed Mr. Edgar Pike (58) of Santa Barbara to an unknown location.

At least four dozen other followers elected not to go on this mission, which many of them are vocal in believing will culminate in the deaths of The Missing Nine, either at their own hands or the hands of their leader.

TMG spoke with Elisabeth McKay, Beth’s mother:

“My daughter is a genius. Always has been. We knew from a very young age that she was talented. But anybody who knows a genius knows that that doesn’t save you. The only thing that can save her now is common sense. The same intelligence that the rest of us have. If she’s able to see inside of herself and find it.”

Last Day –
9:28AM

Not a good tangent to slip into. Seeing/guessing this makes me proceed into my task:

“Guys,” I say. “I have something to share with all of you.”

I try to sound like He does whenever I can. Give the words a little sculpting. And in the ways of Him, I position myself as close as I can to the others’ center.

“It’s about tonight.”

“Everthing we do today is about tonight, isn’t it?” This is Michael speaking. He’s like that. You say, “sky,” and he’ll come back with “ground.”

Email sent from Michael Graves to his coworkers (5/11/08):

Fellow slaves,

I know that while I’ve sat in my cell – sorry, I mean “cubicle” – I was supposed to be thinking all kinds of passionate thoughts about our latest exciting new containers, and how our sealing effectiveness was improving due to data from Japan or some such fucking bullshit.

What I was thinking, and what I want you to know, was a lot of thoughts about dignity. It seems that nobody spends time on that concept much anymore.

Dignity is what makes us people. A dog doesn’t have dignity. A dog shits on the ground. A human can or cannot have dignity. It’s up to (a) us and (b) the people around us, whose energy influences us.

Me, I want to have dignity. You guys don’t want me to, though. You talk to me like I’m vibrating at a low frequency. Every day, driving home, for two years now, I’ve had anger. I’ll yell at the other cars, but I’m really yelling at you.

Sorry for any past confusion. Now I’m addressing you directly: You are weak. You are mediocre. You haven’t taken more than a passing glance at reality. You certainly never even flexed an eyeball toward me.

I don’t wish anything bad upon you, but only because there’s so much of it already there.

Your friend,

Michael (aka Slave who Woke Up)

Last Day –
9:29AM

“Yes, Michael, but more specifically, it’s about our mode of...exit.”

I now have their attention.

“I know in the past, The Leader has spoken of the possibility of us taking something with our dinner. But I’ve communicated with him, and he has decided that we are to do it with knives instead.”

Paul says, “Slit our wrists,” in a way that doesn’t quite get around to being a question.

“Yes. Or the throat, if you prefer.”

And here I can’t get a read on them. I then hear myself rushing, and with each word I say, I feel like I’m sounding more and more full of shit:

“Now, The Leader wanted me to assure all of you that the act of...that it will all be dignified and graceful, and that there is nothing to worry about. Does anyone have any questions?”