Soul Survivor (34 page)

It was a weight lifted from Bruce’s and Andrea’s shoulders. And so, having passed this hurdle, Bruce proceeded to inform all
the others. Leo Pyatt was calm and accepting. He said that he was in a church study group that was actually delving into reincarnation.

He, too, asked how James was doing.

Al Alcorn, the president of
Natoma Bay
Association, accepted the story. “I’ve heard a lot of things about past lives,” he said. “It doesn’t surprise me.”

Jack Larsen’s wife, Dorothy, answered the phone and listened to Bruce’s take, murmering, “Oh, my!” along the way. She had
always wondered why the Leiningers were so mysterious. Then she asked about James. Her husband, Jack, said he needed to talk
to his priest before he had an opinion. Afterward, he said that he was fine with it, although noncommittal about the truth
of the story.

They were all understanding, accepting—maybe not believers, but not active disbelievers.

That was enough. Now Bruce could cast off the last shred of guilt about his “lie.”

C
LEM TAYLOR, the
ABC Primetime
producer, flew down to Lafayette on October 19, the night before the taping. He was a tall, bookish man in early middle age—the
kind of avuncular presence to set everyone at ease. He carried with him a model of a Corsair—it was like bringing James a
bouquet.

Clem and the family went to dinner at Don’s Seafood, a locally famous Cajun restaurant, and spoke of the weather and Mardi
Gras and life’s recurrent details. Clem had a child near James’s age, and he asked about the schools and the restaurants and
extolled the sweetness of small-town life; they were getting acquainted but avoiding any potentially upsetting topic.

The ground rules had already been set by the Leiningers: no direct questions to James about the nightmares or his battle memories.
The TV people could engage him in ordinary conversation, but they could not “interview” him. If they did, James would just
freeze up. Also, there would be no use of the family name, and the town where they lived would not be named.

The next day, Chris Cuomo and the crew descended on West St. Mary Boulevard like a special-ops squad on a mission. There was
always a terrible urgency to these things, but that was just television. To lower the stress, they did much of the taping
while James was at school. He was just five years old, they were all repeatedly reminded.

By one in the afternoon, the taping had pretty much wrapped up, and everyone was ready for lunch. However, Chris Cuomo had
one more question before they broke.

“What did James Huston’s family think of all this?”

Bruce and Andrea explained that a few days before the taping, Bruce called Anne Barron to confirm that she’d been asked to
give an interview to
ABC Primetime.
Anne was excited and nervous at the prospect of being on television. But more than that, she wanted Bruce and Andrea to know
that she had been thinking about the story. And the more she thought, the more she believed.

It was, she told Bruce, not just the revelations about James and his connection to
Natoma Bay
.

She had gone through her own transforming experience:

“Jimmy was due home in March of 1945 and I was in my living room, cleaning, anticipating his arrival. I sensed that he was
in the room with me. And I spoke to him just as though he was there with me.

“We were all going to meet at my home in Los Angeles for the reunion. A couple of days later I got the news from my dad that
Jimmy had gone missing. There was never going to be a reunion. I was devastated. We were very close.

“When my father told me the date Jimmy was lost—March third—I remembered… That was the day I felt his presence, when I was
cleaning. We never knew what happened to him. I only wish my dad was here to know this. I want you to know that I believe
the story. And I’ve sent James a package.”

It was, at this stage, perhaps a flimsy thing, based mostly on intuition. But Anne Barron had very strong feelings about it.
And it would only grow stronger, more powerful, supported by a greater and greater body of circumstantial and inferential
proof.

When they spoke on the phone, Anne felt a great affection for James. He called her “Annie.” Only her dead brother had called
her Annie. Andrea thought it was somehow disrespectful, but James insisted that Annie was her name. And he told Andrea that
he had another sister, Ruth. Only he pronounced it “Roof.” She was four years older than Annie, and Annie was four years older
than James. When Andrea checked with Anne Barron, she said it was all accurate. Ruth was the oldest by four years; James was
the youngest by four years.

Somehow, the attachments seemed solid, like family. When he talked to Annie on the phone, he would speak of their
father
and their
mother,
and it sounded like something that a sibling would say. He would speak of their dead sister, Ruth, with the familiarity of
a brother.

These things could not be explained. Five-year-old James knew about their father’s alcoholism. He knew all the family secrets
with a soft, familiar intimacy.

For instance, James recalled in surprising detail when his father’s alcoholism got so bad that he smashed things and had to
go into rehab (which they called a “sanitorium” in those days); he knew all about that. And he knew that Ruth, who was a society
columnist on a local paper, was “mortified” when
Mother
had to take a job as a common maid in the home of a prominent family that she was writing about.

The accumulation of family minutiae that they discussed over the phone was stunning and, over time, left Anne Barron without
any doubt about James’s true identity. Clinching it was the inexplicable matter of the picture. Their
mother
, Daryl, was a gifted artist, and Annie had sent James a portrait that Daryl had made of her brother as a child.

“Where’s the picture of you?” James asked when he got it, and the question took Annie’s breath away. Only she knew that Daryl
had painted twin portraits—Annie and James—and the second portrait of Annie was up in her attic. No one in the world knew
about it except her.

Annie was thunderstruck. She
knew
that she was speaking to her brother; in spite of the fact that he was five and she was eighty-six. She couldn’t fail to
recognize that familiar spirit when she heard it.

And so she was happy for James to call her Annie, and she accepted the mystery of the spirit of her dead brother in a five-year-old
child.

“So how do they feel about it?” persisted Chris Cuomo.

“The family is fine with it,” Andrea replied.

Just then the doorbell rang, breaking the concentration of the TV taping. It was the postman, and he had a package from Anne.
Inside were a bakelite model of a Corsair, a small pewter bust of George Washington, and a letter:

Dear Bruce and Andrea:

Enclosed you will find a model Corsair that was with Jim’s effects (which were) returned to my parents. I want James to have
it. I feel it belongs to him.… I started to clean it, but on second thought there may be some connection with the soil. Also
enclosed is a bust of Washington that was always on his desk at home.… Jim Eastman (a boyhood friend of Jim Huston) told me
that when Jim (Huston) died, Jim (Eastman’s) mother, Lydia, called to tell him that Jim Huston had come to her in a dream
to say, “I came to say goodbye”! All of this is still overwhelming. One reads about it, but never expects it to happen to
you. I can only imagine how it affected you. But I believe.

With my love to you,

Anne

Clem suggested that they tape James when he was handed the package. Andrea went out to fetch sandwiches at the local deli
and to pick up James at school. And over lunch, Clem finally convinced the Leiningers to allow the use of their last name
and the town. That is how it works in television; the salesmanship is sophisticated and builds on small steps of trust.

James was abuzz with all the attention and the excitement of a film crew setting up its equipment in his home. The sound man
wired him with a microphone, and Chris and James went into the backyard and played on the jungle gym. Chris lifted James on
his shoulders, and they seemed to judge each other as just fine.

The taping was a cinch. James was comfortable. He sat on the steps of the family room, and Bruce handed him the bust of Washington.
He grabbed it, ran down the hall to his room, then came back and said he’d put it on his desk. He took the Corsair and examined
it, sniffed it—the film crew ran out of tape and were frantically trying to reload.

“James, why are you sniffing the airplane?” Bruce asked.

“It smells like an aircraft carrier.”

Bruce asked him to repeat that, and he did, and then Bruce took the model plane and held it up to his nose and detected a
smoky, musky scent of diesel oil—the way an aircraft carrier might smell. Andrea smiled.

The members of the crew stood in stunned silence, and Andrea thought,
Good, someone besides me is stunned for a change.

They did not air the program on Halloween, to the relief of the Leiningers. The date was postponed, and there was some thought
that things might turn out like the first
20/20
experience—too weird for
Primetime.
They were both thankful and disappointed.

There was an interesting shift in emphasis in the interviews with the veterans, now that they all knew about James. An albatross
no longer hung around their necks.

The holidays came and went, and Mardi Gras was too cold to celebrate, but they had a good time anyway. Then April was upon
them, and Clem called to say that the piece was finally going to run. Andrea told James’s teacher.

The Leiningers notified all the families of the veterans and lived through the nervous excitement of waiting to see the meteor
land.

The story ran on April 15, 2004, less than a week after James turned six. And it had seismic effects. As a result, the telephone
in the Leininger home went mad. There were calls from supporters, believers—and cranks. Surprisingly, the neighbors hardly
mentioned it. It was very much in keeping with a Southern characteristic—a deep respect for privacy.

There were pitches for the Leiningers to go on lots of local television and radio programs, and they did succumb and go on
one early morning radio program. But it was a disaster. Every conceivable loony accusation was hurled in their direction.
They were not prepared to mount a big defense at five in the morning. And they didn’t do any other public appearances.

Meanwhile, James continued to astonish people. While watching a tape of a History Channel program about Corsairs, he corrected
the narrator. The old gun camera shots showed repeated footage of Corsairs shooting down Zeroes.

“Bruce, did you hear what James said?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Go ahead. Ask James what he said.”

“James, what did you say?”

“That plane that was just shot down by a Corsair was a Tony, not a Zero.”