A Rage for Revenge

38 Hell in the Specific

Of course, Betty-John gave me hell.

"Just what in God's name did you think you were doing?" she demanded. "Kimmy-Winkles is still having nightmares. Simone can't stop crying. Allie and Dave are afraid to go to bed alone. And trust me, you don't want to hear what little Jim Pauley did!

"You've turned half the kids into Weeping Willies and the other half are so jumpy, Birdie is thinking about sedating the whole camp for a week. Have you seen what's going on? The ones that aren't bursting into tears every two minutes are having such an attack of the sillies, it's got to be a psychotic reaction; everything we say to them, they burst out giggling, as if it's all some colossal joke. They're running around like deranged gargoyles, making faces and trying to scare the shit out of each other-including the ones who are still so skittish, they're back to wearing diapers. Jesus, Jim! Is this how you repay a favor? I was in there, fighting for your goddamn fences and you're out here, playing psychotic head games on the children. Most of them are so hoarse they can't talk; six of them have sore throats, and three are in the psych ward today for observation."

I listened to it all without comment.

There really wasn't anything else to do. This was something eIse Jason had taught me, taught all of us. When people give you a communication, you don't have to do anything with it. Just hear and acknowledge that you heard it. "Answer the question, acknowledge the statement, that's the basis of true communication. Don't do anything else. That isn't communication."

So, I let Betty-John say whatever she had to say knowing inside that it didn't have a thing to do with me. It was her upset, not mine. I listened. I empathized with her anger. But I didn't have to accept it as a personal attack, because-I could even hear Jason explaining it to me-her anger wasn't about what I did, her anger was really about her fear. What I did only triggered it. So, now my job was to let her have her anger so she could get past it.

If I were to argue with her, she would stay angry. If I were to try to justify what I did, she would have to do something to prove herself right and me wrong. She would have to punish. So I should do nothing except listen. When she was through being angry, her anger would disappear and she would have nothing left to say or do.

It took a while, but she finally ran down.

"Okay," she said. "What? I'm waiting. What was the point of that little exercise in hysteria?"

"The children are fine," I replied as calmly as I could. I wanted to project certainty. It was very important that she be reassured. I would have to explain this very carefully. "What you're seeing right now is a release of energy. It's very normal. It's very natural. It's healthy. It's a good sign. I know it looks like upset; it is, but it's upset pointed in the right direction, not the wrong. Trust me."

B-Jay gave me her most skeptical look. "I've heard that same kind of bullshit before, Jim, from confirmed child-molesters: 'But the child enjoyed it too.' "

I didn't want to argue with that one. That brought up too many memories of Loolie and-there was just too damn much knotted up in that conversation. I needed to bring the discussion back to the issue at hand.

"B-Jay," I said carefully. "These children are little walking timebombs. The day I arrived here, you told me some of what they've been through, and you've been reminding me ever since that these kids are desperately trying to do whatever they have to do to survive. Do you think I haven't been looking at them? I see that everything you've said is right on the money. Most of these little monsters have walled themselves up so tight that nobody's going to get at them. God, B-Jay, it's terrifying how right you are. There's very little chance that any of them will ever be fully human, let alone sane. But we have to try anyway, because if we don't civilize the next generation while we still have the chance, then there isn't any point in fighting the other war either. That's what this is about. I wanted to do something that would make a difference for them."

B-Jay's expression relaxed only a little. It was hard for her to argue with her own words.

"The only thing that's really going to help these kids," I said, "is if they Iearn how to . . . how to reach out to us from their own side. They've got to learn that pain and fear and grief are normal, and they've got to learn how to let it out. That's what all that screaming was. A safety valve. They needed it. Otherwise, they're just going to keep on building up intolerable pressure until they explode and do something dangerous and stupid and selfdestructive."

B-Jay was frustrated and angry and disbelieving. "Who made up this shit, Jim? Where did you get this idea?"

I wanted to respond angrily, I wanted to reach her so badly. "B-Jay. I made it up. I've done this all my life; whenever I get so frustrated and crazy with other people's inability to hear what I'm trying to say; whenever I get so crazy that I want to put my hands around their throats. I go and lock myself in a dark closet, or I get in the shower and turn the water up full, and then I scream and scream and scream as hard as I can and as long as I can until I'm too weak to even stand up any more. I mean it. It works. It's like blowing off all the rage and fear and grief in one great painful orgasm. If I can't let it out, then I have to carry it around inside of me-and if I do that, then I'll die. Or worse, I'll do something terrible and other people will die."

B-Jay's eyes were still hard. "Maybe it works for you, but these kids . . ." She shook her head.

"Okay, yes. What I did was extreme; but it looked to me that something extreme was called for. Most of these kids are still robots. They're only going through the motions. Yes, you're making progress here; but oh, so slowly. It's so frustrating, because I know what's possible for children. So do you. These kids are still doing whatever you want them to, like machines, because they don't know there's anything more. It's just another set of rules for survival. Their lives are going to be about finding the right set of rules and nothing more. They won't be alive. No-hear me out: Do you think I don't know what these kids are feeling? I've been there, dammit. And I hurt so badly for them that I had to do something."

"So you taught them to be crazier?"

"Give them a week, you'll see the difference. They're starting to play with each other in a whole new way. They're starting to relate to each other instead of at each other. Please, B-Jay, don't be so quick to judge."

"Jim, I believe that you believe what you're saying. But, you should have checked with me first. You should have waited until-"

"Goddamn it, B-Jay!" It was my turn to be angry. "I tried to check with you, but you never have the time to listen to anything, and you're always asking people to put off their plans so you can get yours done, and then you have the nerve to wonder why everybody's always pissed off at you and why people are always doing things without your permission. I don't know about everybody else, but I'm sick and tired of waiting for you to have the time to sit and listen. And please don't give me that story about how much you have to do. I've heard it already, ten times over, and I can probably give as good a performance of poor B-Jay as you can.

"These kids were hurting, and I had a tool that I thought would help them. This is only the first step. These kids need to be trained, given the tools to handle their own emotions, their own reactions, so that they can cope with the rest of the bullshit that life is going to throw at them. It all comes down on all of us before we're ready for it. The least we can do for these kids is give them some tools for fighting back. I gave them permission to scream at the universe. Now they have a way to express what they're feeling, where before all they could do was bottle it up. Now they won't be pressure cookers or timebombs. They'll scream it out, and then there'll be a little bit of space for them to try to be rational, or as close to it as they're ever going to get."

"You think this is an improvement?" Betty-John demanded. "Have you even looked at your own kids today? Alec has turned into a babble-box. We can't shut him up. He finds a word he likes and repeats it over and over and over until he gets bored with it, then he finds another word and starts all over again."

"He's playing, B-Jay, in the only way he knows. But notice that he's playing with language now, instead of resisting it. He's interacting with his mental landscape. And I'm so glad to have him babbling anything, I don't care. He's got a lot of energy to discharge."

"He's not a goddamn battery! Christ on a pancake! Where did you pick up this psychobabble?"

"Uh . . . ," I hesitated.

"What are you, Jim? An unreconstructed Modie?"

"I've never done the Mode training," I said, vaguely uncomfortable.

"Well, you sure as hell talk like it! Where have you been, Jim?"

I shook my head. "I don't want . . ."

"Uh-uh. No way. If you want to teach the kids to open up, you'd better start with yourself. Just who the hell are you anyway, mister?"

"You know who I am."

"No, I don't. For all I know, you could be a renegade spy yourself."

I felt my blood turn cold at that. I almost rose from my chair. "I'm not. Not that; I know what renegades are like, B-Jay. Better than you think. I'm not one of them. I don't ever want to be like them again-"

"Again?"

I hesitated. Then I admitted it. "Yes. Again. I was captured. Brainwashed. I lived with a Tribe of Revelationists-"

"Oh, shit!"

". . . for almost a year. I finally escaped. But not before I saw what they were capable of." I had to stop for a moment. I had to wipe my eyes before I could continue; I hadn't realized how much it still hurt. "I learned a lot from them, yes. Okay, I admit it. Not everything they said was totally off the deep end. But I know who they are and how dangerous they are. And I broke their brainwashing on my own."

"You think so? You still look a little glassy-eyed to me. If I'd known . . ."

"You'd have turned me away, right? That's the famous BettyJohn compassion."

She hesitated. "No-but I wouldn't have trusted you near the kids either."

"Oh, come on, B-Jay! You're talking like a goddamned reactionary. The breakthrough exercises work no matter who applies them."

"Don't be stupid, Jim! Do you think this stuff is new to me? Give me a break! Most of the crap you're repeating is leftovers from the Technology of Consciousness Movement of the last century! Shit, you guys are all alike; you think you just invented enlightenment last week."

She pointed a finger at me, jabbing me hard in the chest. "Let me tell you something. Personal enlightenment seminars were the big fad when I was in college. They called them Effectiveness Training and Power Sourcing and Jargon Blasting. And everybody was doing Mode. You weren't alive until you'd done Mode. I had a lot of friends who disappeared into that black hole; some came back, some didn't, but while they were under the influence, it was always the beatific smile and the patronizing 'You have to experience it to understand.' I understood what was going on then, and it hasn't changed any now. Every day, you have to have a new transformation, a new breakthrough in possibility, a new level of bullshit and psychobabble!

"Hell, I didn't even do any of the seminars and I got sucked in for a while. I was one of the ones who was going to prove I could be just as enlightened without doing any seminars; I was too stupid to see that made me just as much a proselytizing evangelist as everybody else. And all of us were redefining our language every day, so we could map out the diverse new landscapes of responsibility. It was rabbit-hole city. Oh, we had conversations about conversation and learned about the possibilities of possibility. We got so good at it, we bludgeoned people to death with our enlightenment. We played caseworker with all of our relationships: parents, teachers, friends-and we couldn't understand why they were so repulsed when all we wanted to do was give them the gift of seeing how impoverished their lives had been. Oh, we were a self-righteous bunch of assholes.

"We handled each other's cases all day long. We scoped each other. We handled rackets and busted numbers. We metered and bench-marked and state-mastered. We did it all. And you know what? Our lives were fucked up even worse, because now we had a new level of bullshit to explain why they didn't work. I finally got wise, when I realized the cost to my soul.

"I didn't trust the Modies then. I trust them even less now that they're taking over the government. But most of all, I don't want Modies or neo-Revelationists or anyone else playing with these kids' heads, because these kids already have enough problems."

She finished with a look of finality, as if there was nothing more to say on the subject. And maybe there wasn't. Her mind was made up and nobody was going to change it. Her expression was tight, as if she was daring me to respond.

I realized something abruptly. Something I should have known all along. Betty-John was just as crazy as the rest of us, in her own charmless way.

Of course, I wanted to believe she had it all together. I wanted to believe that someone somewhere knew exactly what they were doing and why. I wanted to know that it was possible, because if it was possible for anyone else, then maybe it was possible for me too. But maybe it wasn't possible here.

"Well? Don't you have anything else to say?"

I shook my head. "It wouldn't do any good. Your mind is made up. I did what I thought was right. You don't think it was right. We both want what's best for the children. We each have different ideas. But you're the one who's entrusted with the responsibility. Not me. So it's your word that has to count, not mine." I thought for a moment longer, then added, "I wanted to be of service here. I still do. I'm sorry that you don't appreciate some of what I have to offer."

She opened her mouth and closed it just as suddenly. She looked surprised. She hadn't expected me to say what I just did. "Well," she said. "Well, I'm glad you realize it."

I nodded. I realized it. I realized a lot more than she knew. Family was just as much a cult as Jason's Tribe was. A different philosophy, a different leader, a different purpose, a different head game-but a cult nonetheless.

And either I wanted to be a part of it or I didn't.

The truth was, I wasn't sure what I wanted any more.

"I just want to help the kids," I said. And that much was true. She sighed. She ran a hand through her graying hair. She looked very tired. She shook her head in resignation. "Go do something where you can't get into any more trouble. I got your worm fences approved last night. Go put them up." Then she added, "Just stay away from me for a while. And stay away from the kids too. Even your own. I don't know how I'm going to clean up this mess. . . ."