Gregg Hurwitz - The Program

Despite his puffy coat, Reggie was shivering uncontrollably. "He'll eat you alive."

"Tell me what to watch for."

A high, agitated whine. "I can't, man. If he fucking finds out…"

Tim held up his hands. "I just want to know what I'm gonna run into."

"Fuck knows. He's always improving, always evolving. He had a new set of tricks every time we ran another Orae."

"Like what?"

"I don't know!" Reggie's eyes darted back and forth as the echo of his voice bounced around brick and metal. It was a narrow alley, the tall buildings seeming to converge overhead. "I been out fifteen months. I've got no idea what kind of shit he'll throw at you now."

"How many recruits will be there?"

"Thirty, forty. The goal is just to hook three or four."

"Three or four what?"

Reggie looked away in disgust, his breath misting. A leaky gutter lent the asphalt a glossy sheen. "Did they love-bomb you? In your Prelim. The meeting. Did they love-bomb you? Touch you, hang on every word, tell you how fantastic you are?"

"Yes."

"Did you like it?"

Tim shrugged.

"Don't lie to me. Don't you fucking lie to me. Did you like it?"

"Yes, a part of me did."

"You'd better be goddamn honest with yourself when you're in there."

"Okay, that's one tip. You have more?" Tim took a deep breath and held it before exhaling. "Reggie. I've got to go do this thing in four hours. Help me out, man."

Reggie looked down. The laces of his left shoe had come untied, the tips tracing circles in the darkness. He mumbled to himself, holding up both sides of an internal argument. His lips stilled, then he said quietly, "Don't drink the punch. Watch the time. Pinch yourself." When he looked up, his eyes held a sharp focus. "Don't do it to her."

"Do what?"

"Kidnap her."

"I'm not really -"

"It was during a guided meditation at the Teacher's house. I'd been deteriorating pretty good for a couple of weeks. I blacked out. I couldn't stand up. My arms and legs were shaking. I couldn't get them to stop. I was lying on the floor in my own…my own piss." Reggie faced Tim unflinchingly, steeling himself like an AA member who'd toiled long enough to accept harsh facts. "My Gro-Par brought the Teacher over. I remember looking up at them. I couldn't talk, even. My Gro-Par said, 'Maybe we should get him to a doctor.' And the Teacher said, 'No, that'll just injure him more psychologically. He'll be better off on his own.' Two Pros came over, and they carried me out of the house. They set me down on the curb and went back inside."

He eyed the thin river of slate sky. "It was like falling deep in love, giving every ounce of trust I had only to find…" His hand rose, fluttering, then fell to his lap. "After working and slaving and signing over two and a half million dollars, I was abandoned the second I became inconvenient. I never get to decide for myself. I never get to walk out." His posture firmed, his head rising, his shoulders pulling back. For a moment he looked like a different person. Then he wilted, and he was Reggie again. "I never get to have that. Never. And now you're making sure this girl doesn't get to have it either. She's a ship in a bottle, man, and you're gonna throw the whole fucking thing against the wall so you can play with the pieces."

He rocked gently, heels striking metal. His sudden alertness vanished as quickly as it had appeared. His lips moved soundlessly.

Tim waited a few moments, but Reggie's eyes stayed unfocused and lifeless. Tim took a few backward steps, then turned, heading to the block of light at the alley's mouth, the Dumpster resounding like a kettledrum under the slow beat of Reggie's shoes.

When she finished this time, TD stroked her hair. "There, now, that was really great progress."

She slid off the bed onto the blanket and sheets laid out on the floor; the Teacher needed room in bed to sleep undisturbed. TD rolled to his side, and within seconds his breathing slowed. Leah lay awake as she had the night before, one hand clutching the butter-smooth sheets. Not wanting to disturb TD, she didn't move, even though her right arm was falling asleep. Split by the slatted blinds, the moon crept molasses slow up the blanket covering her.

She certainly had it better than Nancy, who had not reappeared from Skate's shed. All day Skate had patrolled the perimeter and shadowed TD with a satiated grin, disappearing at intervals. On the ranch, sex was a rationed privilege.

Leah was surprised to catch herself questioning the benefits of this aspect of TD's tutelage. She thought about her perverse need to be negative during a wonderful opportunity like this. Staying On Program, listening to the Teacher – that was how people grew.

A dying candle persisted on the nightstand beside her, next to a telephone with its cord removed – TD called for the phone cord rarely and only for essential Program business. Tacked to the wall above the nightstand was TD's phone sheet, the schedule of hours at which he had set incoming calls. Callers, knowing they had a window of maybe five minutes to reach him, developed a discipline.

Her thoughts seemed a Christmas-light tangle, impossibly snared, granting flashes of lucidity at random yet somehow connected intervals. Nestled in the warm swirl of sheets, she reminded herself that she was privileged to be able to learn about her insecurities with the Teacher. She ran through Program precepts until they became thoughtless blurs. After an excruciating block of time, she heard the outside door creak open. The faint tap of a footstep. And then another.

Leah lay frozen.

A startled scream – Lorraine. TD bolted upright and rushed to the door, tugging his pants on, Leah trailing meekly for fear of being left behind in darkness.

TD hit the switch as Nancy shrugged off Lorraine's two-arm tackle. The misaligned buttons of Nancy's dress created mouths in the denim through which skin and bra peeked. The hem was ripped, the fabric marred by muddy groping. Her bed-swirled hair stuck out in all directions. Nancy began sobbing, her words barely comprehensible. "Teacher, please, lemme back with you. Lemme be your Lily. Pleeease."

TD calmly cinched his silk robe about his waist. "After you were with that filthy man?"

Skate was in the door, scratching his scalp, his fingernails giving off some good noise. "Guess she got away."

"Take her off the ranch. This one's not salvageable."

Nancy emitted a high-pitched moan, collapsed, and began crawling to TD. Skate pinned her beneath a knee and twisted her arm behind her back. Then Randall appeared, controlling Nancy's other side. They picked her up as if hauling a carpet and bore her out horizontally. Her hair whipped about her head, her screams so shrill Leah squinted against them. Her cries continued all the way up the trail. Somewhere around Cottage Circle, the wind finally carried them off.

TD went back inside and slid into bed. Leah followed and sat on her sheets, trying to sort her thoughts. Finally TD rolled over and said, "Yes?"

"Where…where will they take her?"

"Down the hill. Into the city. They'll leave her somewhere safe. But she's no longer my concern. Nor should she be yours."

"She'll" – Leah wiped her cheeks, glad the darkness prevented TD from seeing how shaken she was – "she'll die without you."

"She's dying already," TD said with finality. After another pause he sighed and shoved himself up against the headboard. "What, Leah? If you have something to ask, ask it. Don't just sit there radiating stress and fear."

"What do you mean, she's dying already?"

"She's decaying. Women peak reproductively at an early age, just after puberty. In primitive cultures and in the early days of this country, females got married when they were thirteen, fourteen years old. They'd bear several children and pass by twenty-five, maybe thirty. Women are designed to peak, breed, and perish. Nancy is twenty-four years old. Her eggs are old and stale. She looks forward to a future only because the artificial intervention of modern medicine has prolonged human life well beyond its natural range. But even medicine can't stop her body – that obese, jiggling mass around her – from slowly breaking down, from dying in minuscule increments as it has been for the last eight years. Her very appearance is indicative of a diseased way of thinking. Nancy won't figure her way out of her death dilemma. She'd rather be a victim. One of the dying. With her mind-set, she has nothing to look forward to but aloneness and the further putrefaction of her body."