The Program (33 page)

"In The Program, we defy inhibitions," TD said. "Inhibitions are lies implanted by society to hold you back. How many of you have ever been gripped with the urge to jump up on your school desk and scream? Or get up from your office chair and tell your boss to fuck off? Well, why haven't you done it? Worried what others will think? Worried about consequences? Denunciation? Ridicule? Shame? This retreat is your place free from all that. We are who we are, and we never apologize for it. The only thing we don't tolerate in The Program is fakeness. False behavior, intended to gratify. Intended to please others. To ingratiate."

"Who determines what's fake?" Wendy whispered to Chad.

"That's a great question. Hold on to it. It'll be answered soon." Eyes on the stage, Chad tapped his index finger against his lips.

"Take the hand of your Gro-Par," TD said. The Growth Hall rustled with torpid movement. Leah slipped her cool fingers into Tim's palm. "Release. Now kiss your Gro-Par. Feel the flesh of your Gro-Par beneath your lips. Feel how close you are."

Leah turned to him. The faintest traces of baby fat made her cheeks wide and firm, though her face was sculpted across the bridge of her nose, under her eyes, a band of womanly definition. Her hair shot in tufts around her neck, straight and layered. She closed her eyes lazily. Tim avoided the expectant lips and kissed her on the forehead -- Tom Altman, man of scruples. Her eyes opened abruptly, more hurt than angry.

"Now turn to the person on your other side," TD said. "Kiss that person."

Tim and Wendy regarded each other awkwardly. They pressed cheeks like country-club matrons.

"Now with tongue," TD said.

The Pros engaged readily, as if returning to a well-loved game. Chad kissed the stubbled face beside him, his hands running through the other Pro's cropped hair.

"Deny your inhibitions. Repudiate your Old Programming. You're all consenting adults. You shake hands with people every day -- hands touching hands. Who perpetrated the myth that touching tongues is somehow sacrosanct? Do you think you emerged out of the womb believing that? Come on."

Wendy shifted nervously, trying to locate her husband in the sea of undulating bodies, but the hall was too dim. She looked back at Tim, alarmed. Tom placed a hand on the back of her neck and drew her forward. He pressed his forehead to hers, which was slippery with sweat. Her damp skin brought out the floral scent of her perfume. Being this close to another woman made him feel peculiar and unsettled, which he imagined was precisely the point of the exercise. Clearly TD had a point about inhibitions.

"I don't want to do this," she whispered.

Tom nodded, relieved. They kept their faces pressed close.

A Pro in her thirties pressed her body up against a younger woman, her pelvis squirming on the woman's leg. Sounds of panting, deep-throated moans, rasping clothing.

"Stop," TD said. Activity instantly halted. Giggly and intoxicated, the Pros settled back into their places, the five flustered initiates following suit. Breathing hard, Jason Struthers cast an eye at his Gro-Par, whose attention was now devoted exclusively to TD.

A wave of levity radiated through the auditorium, the giddiness of relief.

"We're going to do an exercise called Stand Tall. It's played like this: Who likes the sunshine?"

The thunderous noise of sixty-eight Pros rising to their feet, Tim and Wendy following on a slight delay.

"Who likes the rain?" Stanley John called from the back.

About a third of the Pros sat. Wendy sat, but Tim and Leah stayed up. And so it progressed for about twenty minutes, TD, Stanley John, and Janie taking turns shouting out mindless questions as everyone tediously rose and sat like well-mannered camp kids.

Then Janie shouted, "Who's ever committed a crime?"

Tim stood, along with a good quarter of the room. All the ups and downs were making him light-headed. Heads swiveled as the Pros noted the movement of their peers. Stanley John, despite his projected mood of impulsiveness, scribbled notes on a pad.

"Who's had an abortion?" Janie cried out. "Come on -- delete that shame."

Fifteen women stood, shifting uncomfortably on their feet. A few Pros nodded at them or yelled encouragement.

"Two abortions?"

All but six sat down.

"Three abortions?"

Only Wendy remained on her feet, her legs trembling. Janie was obviously working off previously acquired data, probably something dredged up in one of the colloquium's confessional drills. Rings of sweat stained Wendy's blouse at the armpits. Janie drew out the pause for maybe a full minute, leaving Wendy standing alone, enduring scrutiny from all sides. Finally Janie said, "Four abortions."

Wendy's hand flared out, searching for something, and Tim took it and helped ease her to the floor. "Don't let them judge you," he said. "Screw what they think." A surge of disquiet followed; he wasn't sure if the praise originated from Tom Altman or himself.

Stanley John again, standing proudly himself -- "Who's masturbated in the shower?"

Rising. Sitting. Blushing. An anonymous giggle or two.

"Who's had an affair?" Janie yelled out.

Tim heard Wendy gasp. He followed her horrified stare across the room to where Don had risen. He was being love-bombed from all sides -- from those standing and sitting -- for having the strength to own his behavior. Beside him the redhead smiled enigmatically.

"Who's ever thought about killing someone?"

Tim joined a handful of others on their feet.

"Who's gone ahead and done it?" Stanley John sounded exhilarated by the possibility.

Tim found himself alone on his feet when Enya burst through the speakers, cutting the game short. He sat, rattled by his autoresponse, ignoring Leah's inquiring stare.

People were hugging and squeezing and rocking as if they'd just discovered sensation and movement and some new club drug. Pros exchanged soothing phrases with their Gro-Pars like vows of love. Chad clasped Wendy to his chest; she'd broken down weeping.

Leah gazed at Tim through sweaty bangs. "What did you do, Tom Altman?"

Chapter
twenty-eight

Tim moved with small groups or large contingents, but never alone. Leah stayed pasted to his side like an insecure date at a cocktail party. When he had to take a leak, a male Pro accompanied him to the bathroom door. When he got outside, he took a moment to breathe deeply and settle himself back into character. At a gathering under the dripping leaves of a pepper tree, Tom Altman eagerly denigrated his childhood, his parents, his lackluster marriage, his job, his riches, and everything else connected to his former life.

He, like the other initiates, was placed in his own group. After the Orae, Don had tried to maneuver his way over to his shell-shocked wife, but he'd been swept off by a tide of Pros. Tim hadn't seen the other recruits since. Any direction he looked, he saw three Pros beaming inanely at him. Isn't this fun? Ain't privacy deprivation grand? He let Tom get into the spirit of the game, reflecting the others' mock contentment until he felt it calcify into a perma-grin.

There were workshops and exercises and lectures and games and, through it all, a mind-numbing torrent of principles driven into his thinking by the Pros -- drill sergeants made even more oppressive by their benevolent smiles. Taking advantage of the air of feigned openness, Tim cultivated an apprentice-like curiosity; he managed to survey more of the ranch's layout than was sanctioned. During a bout of atavistic roaring, he hyperventilated and started to keel over. He told someone that he was going faint with hunger and was informed it wasn't mealtime yet. His back was pounded affectionately, his hair ruffled, his cheeks kissed.

Eager to showcase Utopia, the Pros invited him to see the various departments beavering away. Tom Altman, doer and entrepreneur, embarked on the excursion as piously as a hard-hat-bedecked senator out to meet the ironworkers, his provocative queries a histrionic subterfuge for Tim Rackley's covert inquiry. Good question, Tom -- we escalate phase-one operational profit through the use of hidden -- but lawful -- costs. The more masterful the legal contortion, the greater Tom Altman's admiration. Aside from Leah, who threw him furtive glares, the others were more than glad to flaunt their mastery of The Program's workings.

Tim was sure he'd be called upon soon enough to join the slave-labor force. There were trails to be cleared. Dishes to be washed. Septic tanks to be cleaned. Each task was ritualized beyond recognition, mechanical motions piled on top of mechanical motions until there was no space left for consideration. Tim wanted to ensure that Tom secured a useful position within The Program, one providing access to financial records; his eagerness seemed to play well for both his and Tom's agendas.

Regularly reapplied chalk lines delineated the ranch's borders, and the Pros abided the boundaries with religious attentiveness. Not a single sneaker tread scuffed the dirt beyond the white stripe. Tim observed one Pro shearing brush, bracing one hand with another so not even a stray knuckle would breach the invisible wall.

Slobbering Dobermans at his heels, Skate drifted by occasionally, always beyond the pale of interaction. Tim noted how even the dutiful tensed in his presence and cleaved all the more vigorously to guidelines. Randall appeared from time to time, issuing summonses for TD.

As far as Tim could glean, TD had built an impressive intel system -- sixty-eight informants, sixty-eight willing confessors. Even negative thoughts had to be reported to Gro-Pars. And thoughts about having negative thoughts.

Throughout the day Tim played scout, mentally filing data on the maintenance sheds, the network of trails, the layout of the ranch and the land beyond its chalked perimeters. He searched for infractions of any kind -- fire hazards, wetlands destruction, disposal of hazardous waste -- but to no avail.

When mealtime did arrive -- he guessed six o'clock by the sun's weary adherence to the western horizon -- Leah informed him that retreatees were beneficiaries of a "purging diet." His questions as to what that entailed were met with customary vagueness.

A cafeteria abutted the Growth Hall. Under Leah's tyrannical direction, he helped wash the dishes left over from breakfast. The kitchen functioned with the monotony -- but not the efficiency -- of an assembly line. Tom's duty was to shake each wet plate exactly twice over the sink, then dry it with a clockwise rotation of the towel, starting in the center and spiraling outward. After drying the bottom in similar fashion, he was to wipe the rim all the way around in a single motion. After every five plates, he was to wash his hands and change towels. TD's monastic set of utensils was stored and washed separately by male Pros; the Teacher couldn't eat from anything touched by another's saliva. Or by a woman's hands.

Tim did a series of tests to see whether Leah and his fellow workers actually paid attention. Did they ever. He was admonished for drying counterclockwise, for interrupting his stroke around the plate rim, for neglecting to wash his hands. His errors were reported without fail, mealymouthed flunkies scurrying to Leah and deprecating him in Programspeak. It dawned on him that petty acts of defiance weren't going to win him Leah's -- or the other Programmites' -- trust. If he wanted to in-filtrate, he'd better Get with The Program. He had a little chat with his alter personality, and Tom returned to plate drying with newfound vigor.

After places had been set, Tim sat with the others, hands in his lap, boiled cauliflower wadded on his plate. Fifteen minutes passed, sixty-eight Pros and five initiates waiting immobile and mute, eyes fixed on the food before them. Finally the clank of the door's push handle announced TD's arrival. He took his seat before a bowl of soup, bent his head to his first mouthful, and issued an almost satisfied tilt of the head.

TD's disciples began their meal.

Tim and Leah sat Indian style about two feet apart on his bed, facing each other. His bag rested bedside, zippered not as he'd left it, but snugly shut; he'd been right to remove the contraband.

The other Pros had scampered off to their jobs loading boxes, stuffing direct-mail envelopes -- Houston's Personality System Upgrade! -- keeping TD's empire running at full steam. Tim and Leah were alone in the cottage; Tom Altman and his $90 million in assets evidently required around-the-clock companionship. Tim had taken the opportunity to demand question-and-answer time. The broom he'd leaned against the inside of the front door would sound a crude alarm in case of interruption.

Leah was vehemently defending her experience on Victim Row. "I learned to accept my body. My rash went away, didn't it?"

"How about the others who got yelled at? Did they all deserve it?"

"The Program is about rejecting pity. Everyone dreams their own weaknesses into being. They need to be knocked out of their complacency. The Teacher only yells at people who let him yell at them."

"And Joanne? Remember everyone screaming at her? Calling her an ugly pig? How did she dream her facial features into being?"

Leah bit her lip and glanced away -- the first crack in her assurance. "There's a reason the Teacher chose to confront her on that. Maybe for her to learn something else."

"But you don't know what?"

"I don't need to know -- Joanne does. It's her face, not mine."