Chapter Twelve-
The elderly cult leader sat on the witness bench, sullen and quiet.
He knew he was going to be called to the stand eventually by Meg, ever since she made her intentions known to him in Limbo. He didn't know what she would need him for. Every time he looked at her, the thought that he almost killed her and the other innocent children in his charge with his shameful madness, haunted him.
His violent death at the hands of Stewie Griffin, freed him from the insanity that drove him to it. And in his release, the blinders were removed, and his earthly actions were exposed to the damning light of day.
Although he served in other cults until he could found his own, he never did anything more controversial than have a short-lived fling with a boy in the school he worked in prior to his being fired and rehired as a music teacher in another school. Committing mass murder via his twisted imaginings about U.F.O.'s, science fiction, and peer pressure, was the clear exception.
But since none of the events that he wanted to transpire happened at all, he squeaked by, following his death and judgment, to remain in Limbo for perpetuity. His neighbors told him he got off lucky, but he never thought so. He became introspective and increasingly repentant.
Through Meg, he saw a way to pay something back for his wayward actions, when she came to his home and told him that she would call on him when the time came. Now he sat on the bench, waiting for the young counselor to start her questioning, and hoping he could serve her well today.
Meg walked slowly to the old man, weighing every word she said with the care of a jeweler, and asked, "Isn't it true that you were the leader of the Heaven's Helpers Youth Cult? A cult you created firsthand?"
"Yes," he said simply. Just hearing the name of his wretched religion made him numb from within.
"And according to your records in The Book of Life, you were in many other cults before that one. Correct?"
Again, he answered in affirmative.
Meg turned to face the whole of the court. "Would you tell the court the nature of your work in those previous cults, please?"
"I was in charge of indoctrinating new members into the cult. I was very good at it, so they always used me, since I was trained by the best in the business when it came to behavioral modification," he said.
"And who was this expert?" Meg asked.
The old man seemed to hesitate, but then pressed on. "Well, I never knew his real name, but…Well, let's just say that when it came to brainwashing, as you say, there was a reason they called him, "Mr. Clean."
From a back row in the audience, Mr. Clean, gleaming t-shirt and all, stood up in a bald-headed rage, and began maneuvering his way past the other sitting people, to get to the aisle, and ultimately, to the old man.
"You son of a bitch! You sold me out! I'm gonna clean your clock for this, you motherfucker! I'm gonna rub you out! You're going down the drain for this!"
He managed to get halfway down the aisle before several winged security guards appeared, subdued him, and forced him out of the courtroom, his rants still being heard as they led him away.
"I know people! You can't give me the brush-off like that! I'm Mr. Clean, dammit!"
After the judge demanded and finally reestablished order in his court, he allowed Meg to continue.
"Thank you, Your Honor," she said before turning back to the old man. "Now then, could you tell the court, in your own words, the techniques you used to brainwash the members of both the cults you worked for and your own?"
The old man actually straightened in his seat and looked hauntingly pleased, as if he were waiting so long for someone to ask him that very question.
As though all the guilt he felt over the years didn't exist, or didn't matter, he laughed breezily and assumed a relaxed air, saying to her, "Well, my dear, the word brainwashing is a crude and slightly incorrect term. Coercive persuasion, which is what we call such behavioral modification, is the standard term. It's more clinical and less emotional, and therefore more credible to people. However, people will still dismiss such a thing because their collective ego won't allow them the come to terms with the fact that human beings are vulnerable and can be led by suggestion."
"So people can be led," Meg said, glancing meaningfully towards the jury. "Like with an ad campaign during the Super Bowl, or a screening of the latest Twilight movie."
"Yes," he agreed. "Even teen-oriented Disney Channel broadcasts can be used. There are many insidious ways to twist the mind to the desires of the controller. Anyway, the techniques I used were similar to the refined and time-tested ones done in Communist Mainland China and North Korea."
"First, I ship them someplace where they're cut off from all of their old social ties, like an old tenement building in New Jersey," he continued. "Next, I restrict all access to accurate outside information with a steady diet of Fox News and Tea Party newsletters. Communication is also curbed by the use of tin cans on strings and old cell phones from the 1980's. Only the crappiest of reception will do."
"On top of that, the members are given a protein-poor diet that will lead to them not feeling well, and suggestible to our telling them that they feel bad because they have impure thoughts, like wanting to have more honesty in politics. And finally, a lack of sleep due to repeated viewings of Code Monkeys, Two and a Half Men and According to Jim will usually break the will of even the strongest mind."
"No Mind of Mencia?" Meg asked.
"No," he said sharply. "The idea is to break their will, not shatter their reason for living."
Even with the audience, and more importantly, the jury, squirming in their seats at the graphic details of the old man's techniques, Meg thanked him and declared that she had no further questions.
As she walked back to her bench, she grinned at the murmurs and talk his testimony generated. They reacted just as she hoped, for now. They'd feel disdain for the cultist, and by inverse proportion, they'd feel more pity for the children. She had to admit it. Old Nick was right on the money when he said that it was just a matter of swaying the jury, however, she was going to sway them in the direction of good.
Meg sat down and watched the Devil stroll up to the witness stand. Inside, she prepared herself for the cross-examination, and the battle, yet to come.
"You sound pretty knowledgeable about psychology," the Devil told him.
"Thank you."
"Yes, you really know your way around a behavioral studies course. But I think you should stop fooling the good people of this jury with your lies and psycho-babble."
The accusation knocked the wind out of him. He looked like he wanted to respond to it, but looked completely ashen, as well.
"You see, not everyone is fooled by you and Miss Griffin's little stage act," the Devil pontificated. "The Book of Life, which knows and records everything about everybody, knows you very well. So, should I tell the jury that you suffered from low self-esteem, that you liked little boys, and was a paranoid mess? Or should you?
The shocked cult leader fell silent in disgrace, but still trembled.
Smelling blood in the air, the Devil pressed his attack. "Should I tell them that you were fired from one school for deviant behavior, and that the only reason you worked from one dead-end cult to another was because your own fragile, glasslike ego was so close to cracking, it would have resulted in a nervous breakdown, unless you had somebody, anybody, listen to you. Or should you tell them?"
"I…I-"
"You were, and are, a sad, insane, little man with delusions of grandeur."
Meg bolted from her chair. "Object-"
He then turned to look in Meg's direction with a self-righteous snarl on his lips. "And if the counselor wishes to object, then I will remind her that his psych review is already logged in The Book and it will confirm what I say. After all, as we all know, The Book of Life never lies."
Satisfied that he sufficiently hamstrung Meg, he turned his attention back to the now stricken soul on the stand, mentally licking his chops.
"Now, knowing what we know about your dubious and questionable mental state when you were alive, how are we suppose to trust your word, now? You talk a good game about mind control and your coveted role in the cults you were in, but it seems that you were never qualified in any of the things you said you did. You don't have a single certificate, diploma, or even a scrap of piece of paper that says that you were even enrolled in Psych 101 in a community college. So how are we to take your testimony, except as nothing more than pure, desperate fiction?"
He walked slowly, deliberately, towards the jury for effect. "For example, we know that Jennifer was the one who prepared the punch for consumption, she was one of your most trusted members, and served as your recruiter when you set down roots in Quahog. But why? What made her your special helper? Were her recruiting techniques that successful? I would imagine so, if they could snare our defense attorney here so easily. But I think the good people of the jury would like to know what kind of person you were?"
It was too much. The guilt, the speed and effectiveness of the badgering, and worse, the eyes of the jury that continued to stare accusingly back at him, and him, alone. He broke.
"She's my…stepdaughter." He had to wait until the people got over their gasps of surprise before he could continue. "I had left a previous cult after trying to take another leader's control of it, on the grounds that I was a more spiritual person that the other."
"Dueling messiahs?" Meg asked incredulously to herself.
"I went to another town after I was fired from the first school, and because that school down played the reasons for my dismissal, I was able to get a job as a music teacher there for a while. While at the new school, I met a nice girl that no one wanted to talk to, Jennifer. She was the daughter of a widowed, well to do, female surgeon. Every day at school, I could see that no matter how nice she was to the other kids, they just snubbed her. I thought it was so sad that they thought her sunny disposition was "uncool", the scum."
"After getting to know Jennifer's mother for a time, we were married. Remembering how Jennifer was treated at school, I used some of the wealth I married into to found a youth organization, with Jennifer as my assistant during the summer vacation months. The kids there were impressionable, lonely and looked up to me, something that had never happened in the previous cult."
"It was when we were out stargazing one night, that I came up with the idea of a new world without pain or social stigma, a place just like Heaven. And there would be a body of workers, people who would spread the word about this place and help get troubled, young people to that place, and thus, Heaven's Helpers."
"I rented out a series of cabins in the woods to secretly hammer out the belief systems of my new cult. That I, and I, alone, was a cosmic messiah, sent from this "Planet Heaven", to find and save as many young people as I could from a cruel and indifferent world, before returning one special day, when my "planet" was in alignment with Earth."
"And because Jennifer was always there to help me with the organization, she became the first victim of my well-learned brainwashing techniques that I eventually used on the other kids that she recruited and I convinced to join my new cult in the woods. Eventually my wife divorced me upon learning about the cult, so I secretly transferred a significant amount of money from her bank account, packed up Jennifer, the kids and the cult, and left for a new town. That town was Quahog."
He bowed his head in exhaustion and defeat. His secrets, like before, were lain bare for others to react to, and this time, in the presence of his stepdaughter, who looked across the courtroom at him with a mixed expression of pity, betrayal, and regret at her own naiveté that trapped her in his web, so long ago.
Yet, inwardly, he smiled a little, too. It wasn't the Hell he hoped for, but the scars from her pained looks, that he would bear for all time, he did hope, would be the apology to Jennifer that should have been said so long after their respective deaths.
"No further questions, Your Honor," said the Devil. He walked back to his bench, but even from that distance, Meg could see the wisp of a smile play on his face.
Meg stood slowly from her chair and addressed the judge. At the same time, the sound of the room's double doors creaking open could be heard, as Death walked into the room, carrying an old answering machine under his emaciated arm.
"Your Honor," Meg said as Death brought the machine to her bench and put it down. "I would like to admit this as evidence. I think this will have significant bearing on this case."
The judge looked thoughtfully at the machine, exhaled as he made a decision, and allowed it as evidence.
After Meg thanked the judge, she went back to the stand, though the Devil could almost see the light footwork of a skip in her arrival. Old Nick looked closely at Meg, actually wondering what she had in mind.
She placed the answering machine on the stand next to the microphone and searched for a socket.
"Uh, Your Honor," Meg asked, humbled a bit. "You wouldn't happen to know where I could plug this up?"
"Step back," the judge ordered her.
She obeyed as the judge raised his hand in the shape of a gun, and pointed at the inert machine. A blue-white bolt arced from the "barrel" his fingers made, to the device. The machine powered up with no damage to it.
Impressed, Meg thanked the judge with a smile and then turned to address the quizzical jury.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. You have heard my questions put forth to this gentleman here." She pointed at the cult leader. "You've heard his testimony answer my questions and even when he was railroaded by the prosecution, he still explained to the court of his expertise in child psychology, organizing groups, behavioral modification, and even gathering funds, to some extent. All of these things can and were taught to him by the various cults he served under.
"But let's focus on what the Devil focused on in the beginning, which was that the children under his care were not naïve, but instead were attention-hungry bastards without a shred of consideration for anyone else. You've heard my witness say that the kids he worked with while he was creating his cult, in secret, by the way, were impressionable. How could they have wanted him to punish their parents and other people they supposedly thought were against them, when the cult they ultimately joined, supposedly for that very reason, hadn't even existed yet? They didn't even know he a cult leader until he was ready to bring them in. Until that time, they only knew that he was someone they could confide in while they were camping out and went on nature hikes."
"The point I am trying to make people, is that people can be controlled. They can be seduced, and they can be tricked. All it takes is a mind that's clever and a heart that's weak. To prove, once and for all, to you, that brainwashing, mind control, coercive persuasion, or just a good old-fashioned mind fuck is possible, you will hear it happen to me."
Again murmurs rose and fell in the courtroom and the Devil, for the first time since the trial, sat up in concern. What was she playing at?
"During recess, the Devil visited me in the cafeteria and talked to me. However, what I thought was a chat turned out to nothing more that a calculated way of getting rid of me, so he could win the case. At the time, I forgot to turn of my cell phone and the answering machine. This answering machine caught the conversation. I will now play the tape inside, for your consideration."
She pressed the play button and the jury, the audience and the Devil were not ready for what they heard.
"Ma! Look, don't ask, but I lost my wallet and I'm in the lock-up right now. I was taking a break over at that strip joint and some jock asshole thought I was making eyes at Tangerine-"
A loud, warning cough from Death made Meg fumble for the fast-forward button. A few moments of titters and a humble apology later, and she was ready again.
This time, the jury could hear it all. Every sly innuendo said. Every sad truth admitted. Every heinous thing spelled out in detail.
The Devil glanced anxiously towards the jury, who looked back at him with disapproving eyes. He had lost control of a situation and he hated it immensely. His jaw tightened at the absurdity of it. The king of all lawyers, outmaneuvered by a pathetic, unloved mortal. Outrageous!
He gave Meg a look that could split steel and a tremor, barely felt at first, started from underneath him, as though he were ground zero to an explosion that was just being born.
Then a quake, not the same as the one that heralded his expulsion, but near enough, leapt out from his position and focused its path towards Meg and the old man.
Hearing the consternation, Meg turned to the attack, genuinely surprise that he would stoop to this. Then she did what any good Roman Catholic would do in such a circumstance. She crossed herself, and with one hand, held on to the witness stand to brace for the impact. From the double doors, she could see winged security guards soar out towards him.
The tremor died right by her feet, and Meg gave a relieved sigh from the close save.
Grimly, the judge rose from his seat, thin bolts of lightning playing between his fingers, and he towered over everyone concerned.
"No one is to be harmed before the presence of this court of Law. Both parties will join me in chambers," the judge said to the both of them.
The guards warily left as the crowd attempted to compose themselves, and Meg and the Devil both silently stood and followed the judge out of the courtroom.
Inside his chambers, the judge sat by his desk, his fingers interlaced as he patiently listened to the argument that played out before him.
Although Meg was nowhere near the Devil's equal in matters of strength, as it was proven in the tape, however, strength of character was another thing entirely, and the judge was surprised at the aplomb she was showing during the prosecution's tirades.
"How could you allow her to admit that thing as evidence?" the Devil fumed. "Have you ever heard of the term, entrapment? Or are the clouds in your head, as well as all around you?"
"Mr. Scratch," the judge said with equally surprising calm. "Unless Miss Griffin is a mind-reader, there is no way she could have known that you were going to engage her in conversation, so this was not a set-up on her part. Now the nature of that conversation has all of your trademarks, so it's very unlikely you came into that room just to talk about the weather. I do believe you did intend to have Miss Griffin die by her own hand, or at least indirectly so, so that you could get rid of an obstacle and net yourself a bonus soul, if you ever won the case."
"But-"
"Oh," the judge added with ice in his voice. "If you ever address me in so disrespectful a tone again, I'll have you arrested for so fast, it'll make your horns spin, for contempt of court. Is that a term you've heard before?"
Through gritted teeth, the Devil bowed and said, "Yes, Your Honor."
However, he didn't spare a single drop of his aggravation on Meg, who stood by and watched him rant and rave with no apparent effect.
"The judge is right," Meg told him. "You did try to kill me. That's dirty pool, old bean. So, I thought I play rough, too."
"Worm," the Devil spat. "You have no concept of how I play rough. And if you think this last minute desperation play of yours will garner you any sympathy from the jury, you're wrong. Dead wrong."
Meg cocked up an eyebrow in mock-surprise. She'd gloat good-naturedly, but would be careful not to fully antagonize him.
"Is that a threat I hear? You heard the judge. No one is to be harmed in the courtroom," she said innocently.
Meg was no fool though. Inside, she rightly worried. She knocked him off balance with the tape, but he'd bounce back soon enough and make this personal. Plus, she was safe, but only so long as she worked in the courthouse. When she returned to Earth, she knew she was fair game.
"By the way, do you think I have my killer edge, now?" she asked him. "Lead the jury to your way of thinking. Wasn't that what you said? I just learned from the master. Didn't think I was such a quick study, huh?"
The Devil knew it was hopeless to have a conniption fit here in the judge's chamber, or anywhere else in the courthouse, for that matter. Like Brer' Rabbit, all of this was Meg's briar patch. So, he simply softened his features and smiled wearily. His passion, that he loved so much, sometimes got the better of him. He would not let it do so now.
Acknowledging the judge, he asked, "I trust that the trial will still proceed?"
"Provided that you maintain decorum in my court, yes," the judge answered.
The Devil looked pleased, then he turned to Meg, who now sported a more wary expression when his had changed.
"As for you, here's the deal. You may just turn this jury around and save those souls. Just. Miracles have been known to happen. But do you really think that they're the only ones who pulled the plug on their lives because their parents shut them out, perhaps? Nay, nay, I say. Peer pressure, parental neglect, and child abuse. I started it all, baby. You should know. When I see how your own family lays into you, whoo, even I almost feel guilty."
"But make no mistake, Ally Macbeal, it's all me. When your mother feels the need to put you down, essentially because her own father put her insecure ass down when she was your age, it's yours truly. When that waste of flesh father of yours hurts you, and then ignores your pain, don't like to brag, but, it's just little old me. Hell, child, I am The First Rebel. Because of asshole parents, I invented Rock-n-roll! Angst? Ha! Just one of the perks of being your own boss."
"Now, I'm going to win this case, and then I'm going to slam dunk every one of those losers in the trunk of my car, and then we're all going for a nice, little trip down south, if you catch my drift."
He turned to leave, and just before he reached the door, he glanced back at Meg with a menace that was palpable, and said, "Just be glad I won't have your nerdy little ass go down with them."