Shock to the system

17

Roland Stover's apartment was in the basement of a frame house with flaking gray paint on one of the marginal blocks of Morton Avenue across from Lincoln Park. The entrance was from a narrow alleyway between his and the nearly identical house next door, and although the May afternoon was bright, by five-thirty darkness had all but set in down in Stover's depths.

"Oh, we can definitely tell you all there is to know about those two," Stover said with a sneer. "Paul Haig and Larry Bierly were a couple of unrepentant buttfuckers, and they both got what they had coming."

"You wouldn't believe what a disruptive influence those two were in Dr. Crockwell's program," Dean Moody put in. "Larry especially. All that time he was there pretending to want to be sexually repaired like the rest of us, and he was a secret deviant! That big buttfucker was just toooo much."

Stover was hulking and wild-eyed, with an erratic crewcut, bad skin, and a Wal-Mart name tag on his white dress shirt. Moody was slight and fluttery and full of manic intensity that must have struck terror in the hearts of the parents he had sued for turning him into a homosexual. After all Mr. and Mrs. Moody had been through, it must have been small compensation that they had gotten to go on Montel.

"Repentance is the way of the Lord," Stover said, jabbing his finger my way. "But never once did those two buttfuckers ask forgiveness for their transgressions. Even in the beginning, I had my suspicions about those two. They said they were unhappy, and they said they were confused, and they were this, and they were that. But never once did those two admit that they were abominations in the eyes of the Lord, abominations to be cast out!"

I said, "Dr. Crockwell's treatment approach wasn't religious in nature, was it? I was under the impression it was more scientific. Secular, anyway."

"Well, yes, that is true," Moody said. "You see, Roland here is an extremely spiritual person, so he tends to see things that way. I'm trying hard to become more spiritual myself. He's helping me. I'd always wanted to get in closer touch with my Lord and Savior, but there were certain things in my life that stood in the way."

I said, "You mean like buttfucking."

They both nodded eagerly. They were seated together on a tattered old plaid couch, Stover's large arm stretched out along the back of the couch behind Moody's little permed hairdo but not, so far as I could see, touching it.

Stover said, "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death.' Leviticus."

"I suppose it's a big theological question," I said, "as to who shall actually put the buttfuckers to death. I take it that in your view, Roland, it's a dirty theological job, but somebody has to do it. Or have I misunderstood your position?"

"That is an important question," Stover said, poking a thick finger my way again. "And if the liberals didn't control the media and the Supreme Court and the special interests, we'd have capital punishment in this country for sexual deviants. I've read that down in Washington there are buttfuckers under every rock who have Bill Clinton in their pocket and under their thumb. In fact, you might as well just paint the White House lavender."

"Mincin' Bill Clinton," Moody said, waving a mocking limp wrist.

"Clinton is gay? I never heard that."

"Oh, honey, where have you been?" Moody said. "No, really.

Gennifer Flowers was one of his beards, and so was that other one."

I said, "I suppose you arrived at this conclusion based on the president's initial position on gays in the military."

"Oh, no," Moody said. "It's not just that. I've seen copies of depositions from men who have slept with Missy Clinton. You can send away for those."

"Well," I said, "this explains a lot."

They both nodded sagely.

"Tell us about your study on deviance," Stover said. "Did you say on the phone that you're doing a deviance survey for Dr. Crockwell?"

"Yes, I am. He couldn't provide me the names of any group members, of course. But Larry Bierly did, and I'm grateful that even though you hate Larry's guts you're still willing to participate in the study."

"Will you be asking questions about our former sexual practices?" Moody said.

They both looked expectant, but I said, "No, it's treatment programs that I'm most interested in. I'm doing a study on comparative methods of treatment for deviance."

They both said, "Oh."

"I'd like to hear more about Dr. Crockwell's program from the patient's point of view. The dynamic of the group you were in interests me especially."

They both looked bored. Group dynamics was not what they hoped to discuss with me.

"The group part wasn't all that great," Moody said. "I mean, it was important-learning guy things and all. But for Roland and I, the individual treatment Dr. Crockwell had to offer was what really turned things around for us."

"What did the individual treatment consist of?"

"Aversion therapy, it's called. Where the incorrect sexual conditioning that was done by our parents is corrected by punishing wrong sexual thoughts and rewarding right ones."

"Zapping the demons," Stover added. "Casting out the evil spirits."

"Electric shocks were used?"

"Yeah, everybody went over to Dr. Crockwell’s three times a week," Moody said. "You could do it two ways. You'd get wired up with electrodes and look at slides of naked women and hot guys. If you were on automatic, you'd get zapped whenever the picture showed humpy guys but not when it was tits and pussy. Or you could do it yourself zap yourself when guys were on and you started getting hard. If you stayed stiff, you could turn up the dial till it really hurt a whole lot, and that usually did the trick."

"It's remarkable," I said, "that so simple a procedure could actually reverse sexual orientation."

"It's not just the therapy," Moody said. "It's a deep commitment, too, to normalcy."

Stover added, "The Lord would have made Adam and Steve, not Adam and Eve, if he had meant for men to fuck each other in the butt."

"Are you ever tempted to backslide?" I asked. "No pun intended."

"Once in a while," Moody said, looking troubled. "Dr. Crockwell told us this would occur in some patients. But Roland and I have figured out ways of dealing with that."

They both looked at me uncertainly.

I said, "How?"

"We look at dirty pictures together," Stover said. "Or once in a while videos."

I said, "I guess that falls under the heading of giving the devil his due."

Stover looked at me suspiciously, and Moody wasn't sure he liked the sound of that either.

I said, "How do you create the electric shocks? I hope you're not risking death or serious injury with a toaster or anything like that, guys."

"Oh, no, no," Stover said. "We use a safe device like Dr. Crockwell's. The one we have is called a Lustbuster. You can get them through Christian religious-supply catalogs. Would you like to see it?"

"We could demonstrate how it's used," Moody said, "if you'd be interested for your survey."

My impulse was to dive through a window. But that might have been seen as overreacting, so I said, "The device sounds interesting, but I'd like to know more about the group therapy sessions. It must have been difficult having men in the group who resisted treatment at one level or another, unlike you eager beavers."

"I can tell you it was a real bitch," Moody said. "You just felt like you were surrounded by traitors."

I said, "That wasn't true for the first eight months, was it? I thought Larry and Paul pretty much observed the spirit of the occasion until they decided to leave. And that all happened in just one session last fall."

"Oh, I'm sure that's what Miss La-di-da Larry would have you believe," Moody said. "That they were such angels.

Well, my dear, I can assure you that they were not."

"Dr. Crockwell was there to help us with our sexual dysfunctions," Stover said, panting and jabbing his finger. "And Paul and Larry were always bringing all kinds of problems that had nothing to do with deviancy-drinking and drugs and money problems and stuff like that. As for those, we were there to discuss just one topic," Stover said, brandishing a finger.

And I knew by then what that was. I said, "Who had the alcohol and drug problem?"

"Paul was an alcoholic and Larry was a druggie," Moody said. "They were always dishing and criticizing each other, and one thing I hold against Dr. Crockwell is, he let them go on like that too much. We weren't there to deal with topics like that, and we didn't need to hear it. Like Roland says, we'd paid our money to talk about one thing."

"But wouldn't you say that drugs and alcohol are a common way for men unhappy with their sexuality to cope with it, or avoid coping with it? It's often part of the picture that has to be addressed."

"'But not always bickering the way those two did," Moody said. "Take it to AA or NA, Grace, or keep it on the street."

"I'd heard Paul was an alcoholic," I said, "but I wasn't aware of Larry's drug problem. What kind of drugs did he do?"

Stover looked blank, but Moody's recall on the subject was instant. "He was into both Ecstasy and acid, I know.

They had a real catfight over it right in the group one time, and Paul accused Larry of spending money that he needed for his business on drugs. Of course, Paul was the one who was always in trouble over money, and Larry reminded him of it and told him to just butt out."

"It didn't surprise me one bit," Stover said, "when I heard that Paul ended up dead in the gutter. Since he had turned his back on righteousness, it was the best thing he could do for himself."

I said, "Paul may not have killed himself. He may have been murdered. The police are looking into the possibility."

Neither of them reacted dramatically to this news. Moody pursed his lips and got a quizzical look, and Stover just kept looking hard and mean and unaffected by the fate of a man he didn't approve of.

"Who do they think did it?" Moody finally said.

"They don't know. Who can you think of who might have had a reason to kill Paul? Or hated him enough to want to?"

"It was probably queer-boy Bierly," Stover said. Moody pondered this briefly and then nodded.

"Why do you think Larry would kill Paul? They had their disagreements, but they were lovers, after all."

"That's exactly what I mean," Stover snarled. "Homos are unstable people. You keep taking it up the butt, sooner or later you'll crack. It happens all the time. Don't you watch Pat Robertson?"

I said I'd only tuned in briefly. "What about Dr. Crockwell?" I asked. "He's a suspect in the eyes of some. And he was certainly upset with Paul for leaving the group."

"Oh, Mary! Gimme a break, puh-leeze!" Moody squealed.

"Who's going around saying such a thing?" Stover roared. "The idea of slandering a man of Dr. CrockwelFs standing in the community is character assassination."

I said, "Crockwell doesn't have an alibi, either. On the Thursday night Paul Haig died, Dr. Crockwell was alone in his office until after midnight, he says. Interestingly, the same is true for last Thursday night, when someone shot Larry Bierly in the Millpond Mall parking lot."

They both got an I-smell-a-rat look. "Then maybe it was one of Dr. Crockwell's patients or former patients," Moody said, "and they were trying to pin something on him. Everybody who ever went to him knew Dr. Crockwell worked all by himself in his office on Thursday night. It's when you could call there and he'd answer the phone at night instead of you getting his answering machine."

"Is there anyone in the group who might have wanted to do that?" I asked. "I mean, set Crockwell up?"

"Dr. Crockwell was a beloved guy figure to all of us," Stover harrumphed. "He was a role model and a pal. Except to Larry and Paul, of course, those Judases who betrayed us all."

"Anyway," Moody said, "Dr. Crockwell had three other groups going all the time, ten homos in a group. And if you count people from other years, hundreds of ex-gays must know about his Thursday-night routine."

With a sinking feeling, I said, "I guess that would be true. Is either of you acquainted with a man by the name of Steven St. James?"

Moody shook his head, and Stover said, "No, is he a saint?"

I said I didn't know for sure, but I doubted it. end user