When the Bough Breaks (22 page)

There were limits to the power of positive thinking.

But Kruger had his script and he stuck to it. He was damned good, I had to admit, had read all the right journals and could quote statistics like a Rand Corporation whiz kid. It was the kind of spiel designed to get you reaching for your wallet.

“Can I get you anything else?” he asked after finishing a second pastry. I hadn’t touched my first.

“No thanks.”

“Let’s head back, then. It’s almost four.”

We passed through the rest of the place quickly. There was a chicken coop where two dozen hens pecked at the bars like Skinnerian pigeons, a goat at the end of a long leash eating trash, hamsters treading endlessly on plastic wheels and a basset hound who bayed half-heartedly at the darkening sky. The schoolroom had once been a barracks, the gym a World War II storage depot, I was informed. Both had been remodeled artfully and creatively on a budget, by someone with a good feel for camouflage. I complimented the designer.

“That’s the work of Reverend Gus. His mark is on every square inch of this place. A remarkable man.”

As we headed toward McCaffrey’s office I saw, once again, the cinder-block buildings at the edge of the forest. From up close I could see there were four structures, roofed in concrete, windowless, and half-submerged in the earth, like bunkers, with tunnel-like ramps sloping down to iron doors. Kruger showed no indication of explaining what they were, so I asked him.

He looked over his shoulder.

“Storage,” he said casually. “Come on. Let’s get back.”

We’d come full circle, back to the cumulus-covered administration building. Kruger escorted me in, shook my hand, told me he hoped to hear from me again and that he’d be dropping off the screening materials while I talked to the Reverend. Then he handed me over to the good graces of Grandma, the receptionist, who tore herself away from her Olivetti and bade me sweetly to wait just a few moments for The Great Man.

I picked up a copy of
Fortune
and worked hard at building an interest in a feature on the future of microprocessors in the tool-and-die industry, but the words blurred and turned into gelatinous gray blobs. Futurespeak did that to me.

I’d barely had a chance to uncross my legs when the door opened. They were big on punctuality here. I’d started to feel like a hunk of raw material—what kind didn’t really matter—being whisked along on an assembly line trough, melted, molded, tinkered with, tightened, and inspected.

“Reverend Gus will see you now,” said Grandma.

The time had come, I supposed, for the final polishing.

16

I
F WE’D
been standing outdoors he would have blocked the sun.

He was six-and-a-half feet tall and weighed well over three hundred pounds, a pear-shaped mountain of pale flesh in a fawn-colored suit, white shirt, and black silk tie the breadth of a hotel hand towel. His tan oxfords were the size of small sailboats, his hands, twin sandbags. He filled the doorway. Black horn-rimmed glasses perched atop a meaty nose that bisected a face as lumpy as tapioca pudding. Wens, moles and enlarged pores trekked their way across the sagging cheeks. There was a hint of Africa in the flatness of his nose, the full lips as dark and moist as raw liver, and the tightly kinked hair the color of rusty pipes. His eyes were pale, almost without color. I’d seen eyes like that before. On mullet, packed in ice.

“Dr. Delaware, I’m Augustus McCaffrey.”

His hand devoured mine then released it. His voice was strangely gentle. From the size of him I’d expected something along the lines of a tug horn. What came out was surprisingly lyrical, barely baritone, softened by the lazy cadence of the Deep South—Louisiana, I guessed.

“Come in, won’t you?”

I followed him, a Hindu trailing an elephant, into his office. It was large and well-windowed but no more elegantly turned out than the waiting room. The walls were sheathed with the same false oak and were devoid of decoration save for a large wooden crucifix above the desk, a Formica-and-steel rectangle that looked like government surplus. The ceiling was low, perforated white squares suspended in a grid of aluminum. There was a door behind the desk.

I sat in one of a trio of vinyl upholstered chairs. He settled himself in a swivel chair that groaned in protest, laced his fingers together and
leaned forward across the desk, which now looked like a child’s miniature.

“I trust Tim has given you a comprehensive tour and has answered all of your questions.”

“He was very helpful.”

“Good,” he drawled, giving the word three syllables. “He’s a very capable young man. I handpick our staff.” He squinted. “Just as I handpick all volunteers. We want only the best for our children.”

He sat back and rested his hands on his belly.

“I’m extremely pleased that a man of your stature would consider joining us, Doctor. We’ve never had a child psychologist in the Gentleman’s Brigade. Tim tells me you’re retired.”

He gazed at me jovially. It was clear I was expected to explain myself.

“Yes. That’s true.”

“Hmm.” He scratched behind one ear, still smiling. Waiting. I smiled back.

“You know,” he finally said, “when Tim mentioned your visit I thought your name was familiar. But I couldn’t place it. Then it came to me, just a few moments ago. You ran that program for those children who were the victims of that day-care scandal, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful work. How are they doing, the children?”

“Quite well.”

“You—retired soon after the program was over, did you?”

“Yes.”

The enormous head shook sadly.

“Tragic affair. The man killed himself, if I recall.”

“He did.”

“Doubly tragic. The little ones abused like that and a man’s life wasted with no chance of salvation. Or,” he smiled, “to use a more secular term, with no chance of rehabilitation. They’re one and the same, salvation and rehabilitation, don’t you think, Doctor?”

“I can see similiarity in the two concepts.”

“Certainly. It depends upon one’s perspective. I confess,” he sighed, “that I find it difficult, at times, to divorce myself from my religious training when dealing with issues of human relations. I must struggle to do so, of course, in view of our society’s abhorrence of even a minimal liaison between church and state.”

He wasn’t protesting. The broad face was suffused with calm, nourished by the sweet fruit of martyrdom. He looked at peace with himself, as content as a hippo sunning in a mudhole.

“Do you think the man—the one who killed himself—could have been rehabilitated?” he asked me.

“It’s hard to say. I didn’t know him. The statistics on treatment of lifelong pedophiles aren’t encouraging.”

“Statistics.” He played with the word, letting it roll slowly off his tongue. He enjoyed the sound of his own voice. “Statistics are cold numbers, aren’t they? With no consideration for the individual. And, Tim informs me, on a mathematical level, statistics have no relevance for an individual. Is that correct?”

“That’s true.”

“When folks quote statistics, it reminds me of the joke about the Okie—Okie jokes were fashionable before your time—woman who had borne ten children with relative equanimity but who became very agitated upon learning she was pregnant with the eleventh. Her doctor asked her why, after having gone through the travails of pregnancy, labor and delivery ten times she was suddenly so distraught. And she told him she had read that every eleventh child born in Oklahoma was an Indian, and durned if she was going to raise a redskin!”

He laughed, the belly heaving, the eyes black slits. His glasses slid down his nose and he righted them.

“That, Doctor, sums up my view of statistics. You know, most of the children at La Casa were statistics prior to their coming here—doctor numbers in the Dependency Court files, codes for the D.P.S.S. caseworkers to catalogue, scores on IQ tests. And those numbers said they were beyond hope. But we take them and we work strenuously to transform those numbers into little
individuals
. I don’t care about a child’s IQ score, I want to help him claim his birthright as a human being—opportunity, basic health and welfare, and, if you’ll permit a clerical lapse, a
soul
. For there is a soul in every single one of those children, even the ones functioning at a vegetative level.”

“I agree that it’s good not to be limited by numbers.” His man, Kruger, had been pretty handy with statistics when they served his purpose and I was willing to bet La Casa made use of a computer or two to churn out the right numbers when the occasion called for it.

“Our work is effecting change. It’s an alchemy of sorts. Which is why suicide—any suicide—saddens me deeply. For all men are capable of salvation. That man was a quitter, in the ultimate sense. But of course,” he lowered his voice, “the quitter has become the archetype of modern man, hasn’t he, Doctor? It has become fashionable to throw up one’s hands after the merest travesty of effort. Everyone wants quick and easy solutions.”

Including, no doubt, those who retired at thirty-two.

“There are miracles happening every day, right on these grounds. Children who’ve been given up on gain a new sense of themselves. A youngster who is incontinent learns to control his bowels.” He paused, like a politician after an applause line. “So-called retarded children
learn to read and write. Small miracles, perhaps, when measured against a man walking on the moon, or perhaps not.” His eyebrows arched, the thick lips parted to reveal widely-spaced, horsey teeth. “Of course, Doctor, if you find the word miracle unduly sectarian, we can substitute
success
. That is a word the average American can relate to. Success.”

Coming from someone else it could have been a cheap throwaway oration worthy of a Sunday morning Jesus-huckster. But McCaffrey was good and his words carried the conviction of one ordained to carry out a sacred mission.

“May I ask,” he inquired pleasantly, “why you retired?”

“I wanted a change of pace, Reverend. Time to sort out my values.”

“I understand. Reflection can be profoundly valuable. However I trust you won’t absent yourself from your profession for too long. We need good people in your field.”

He was still preaching, but now mixing it with an ego massage. I understood why the corporate honchos loved him.

“In fact I have begun to miss working with children, which is why I called you.”

“Excellent, excellent. Psychology’s loss will be our gain. You worked at Western Pediatric, didn’t you? I seem to remember that from the paper.”

“There and in private practice.”

“A first-rate hospital. We send many of our children there when the need for medical attention arises. I’m acquainted with several of the physicians on staff and many of them have been quite generous—giving of themselves.”

“Those are busy men, Reverend; you must be quite persuasive.”

“Not really. However, I do recognize the existence of a basic human need to
give
, an altruistic drive, if you will. I know this flies in the face of the modern psychologies which limit the notion of drive to self-gratification, but I’m convinced I’m right. Altruism is as basic as hunger and thirst. You, for example, satisfied your own altruistic need within the scope of your chosen profession. But when you stopped working, the hunger returned. And here,” he spread his arms, “you are.”

He opened a drawer of the desk, took out a brochure, and handed it to me. It was glossy and well-done, as polished as the quarterly report of an industrial conglomerate.

“On page six you’ll see a partial list of our board.”

I found it. For a partial list it was long, running the height of the page in small print. And impressive. It included two county supervisors, a member of the city council, the Mayor, judges, philanthropists, entertainment biggies, attorneys, businessmen, and plenty of M.D.’s, some of whose names I recognized. Like L. Willard Towle.

“Those are all busy men, Doctor. And yet they find the time for our
children. Because we know how to tap that inner resource, that well-spring of altruism.”

I flipped through the pages. There was a letter of endorsement from the governor, lots of photographs of children having fun, and even more pictures of McCaffrey. His looming bulk appeared pinstriped on the Donahue show, in tuxedo at a Music Center benefit, in a jogging suit with a group of his young charges at the victory line of the Special Olympics. McCaffrey with TV personalities, civil rights leaders, country singers and bank presidents.

Midway through the brochure I found a shot of McCaffrey in a room I recognized as the lecture hall at Western Pediatric. Next to him, white hair gleaming, was Towle. On the other side was a small man, froggy, squat, grim even as he smiled. The guy with Peter Lorre eyes whose photograph I’d seen in Towle’s office. The caption beneath the photo identified him as the Honorable Edwin G. Hayden, supervising judge of the Dependency Court. The occasion was McCaffrey’s address to the medical staff on “Child Welfare: Past, Present and Future.”

“Is Dr. Towle very involved in La Casa?” I asked.

“He serves on our board and is one of our rotating physicians. Do you know him?”

“We’ve met. Casually. I know him by reputation.”

“Yes, an authority on behavioral pediatrics. We find his services invaluable.”

“I’m sure you do.”

He spent the next quarter-hour showing me his book, a soft-covered, locally printed volume of saccharine clichés and first-rate graphics. I bought a copy, for fifteen bucks, after he gave me a more sophisticated version of the pitch for cash Kruger had thrown my way. The bargain basement ambience of the office lent credibility to the spiel. Besides, I was O.D’ed on positive thinking and it seemed a small price to pay for respite.

He took the three five-dollar bills, folded them and placed them conspicuously in a collection box atop the desk. The receptacle was papered with a drawing of a solemn-looking child with eyes that rivaled Melody Quinn’s in size, luminosity and the ability to project a sense of inner hurt.