The Love of a Bad Man Read online

  We have had many miraculous years and now is the year of our Lord 2002. We have built the camp of all camps in these mountains and it is higher than the others and hidden from the eyes of men. It took four weeks to complete the temporal preparations of scooping out the earth and fashioning branches for the lean-to but now we are prepared for the arrival of the chosen young lady. I do not yet know her name or her face but Immanuel said my spirit will know her when I see her as the first of my heavenly sisters.

  Immanuel said the Lord would clear the way for him to obtain my heavenly sister but I am praying for him all the same. Ever since he went forth last night in his dark garments I have been praying. Now it’s light and he’s been gone I don’t know how many hours and I can feel the back of my neck getting sticky in the sun. My body thirsts but I must keep praying or my vision may come true. It was a terrible vision of sirens and big jumping flames and Immanuel was being taken away in the back of a police car. Satan’s voice was loud in my ear and he was saying I have found thee Wanda I shall destroy thee Wanda thou shalt suffer eternally.

  The Lord never calls me Wanda and neither does Immanuel only Satan in his many treacherous voices and I must not submit to them. I hold my breath and envision the Lord enclosing me in his protecting dome of light. Then I see the dome getting bigger to enclose Immanuel as well as myself and he is walking through the woods unharmed with my heavenly sister. I cannot see her face in my vision but I see Immanuel smiling and then I hear his voice miraculously through the trees.

  ‘Heph-zi-bah!’ he calls me.

  ‘Im-man-u-el!’ I jump to my feet and call back to him.

  There’s the quietness of tarps rippling behind me and some leaves rustling and Immanuel’s name going through my body. Immanuel was given his name in November of the year 2000 when it was declared that he would hold the keys to the Lord’s kingdom. Immanuel says the keys are an invisible but constant burden which is why I must carry more earthly burdens than he does. Just last month we were provided with an abundance of food supplies from Albertsons and I carried everything heavy cans and a twenty-pound bag of rice five miles up the mountain in the burning sun. Immanuel carried only the keys to the Lord’s kingdom and a carton of Heineken and he was ahead of me when I dropped to the ground on the edge of camp. Later I awoke and he told me I must have strength for my suffering was only of this earth.

  We will not suffer in the Lord’s kingdom not Immanuel nor myself nor any of my heavenly sisters. I am to have seven sisters all aged fourteen and chosen by the Lord and all to be obtained by force. We did not ask for it to be this way but so it was ordained and Immanuel the Lord’s most faithful servant has obeyed. He had a rucksack with him last night when he went forth and in it some duct tape and bolt-cutters and the knife with the jagged blade though it has been foreseen that so much force will not be necessary.

  I see bits of night between the leaves then miraculously Immanuel appears before me radiant in his dark clothing and holding my heavenly sister by the shoulder. She looks lovely young and golden-haired in silky red and I feel as I’m made of dust looking at her. Then her lovely face crumples and Immanuel pushes her forth into my arms and all of a sudden she’s crying at my breast her slender body trembling.

  I look at Immanuel to see if this is okay and his beautiful eyes hold mine. His eyes have always had a way of holding me ever since we met in Jolene Greene’s therapy group. He held my hand too and listened carefully when I cried about my divorce and my children and the cancer in my womb. Though he was still called Brian and his face was shaved smooth even then he looked like an Immanuel. He looked like an Immanuel and it didn’t matter that I was called Wanda.

  Inside the tent is cool rippling blue like the stream below camp where we go to bathe and collect water. I haven’t bathed this day but I have collected water in the big blue basin we found in the trash outside Shriners Hospital. The basin is at my heavenly sister’s feet and she is seated above me on our best blue bucket crying again with her arms crossed over her chest. And between her cries she keeps saying ‘no, no, no …’ and pushing my hands away from the red silk pyjamas she’s wearing. I have been very patient asking doesn’t she want to get out of those torn clothes and wash off the dirt from the hike and what about looking clean for Immanuel? But at the last part she just yells ‘NO!’ so loud I’m worried Immanuel will hear from outside and I start to lose my patience. So I make my voice low and serious like I would when my children were disobedient and I tell her ‘If you don’t take those off by yourself Immanuel will have to come in and rip them.’

  After that she listens starts unbuttoning her pyjama top very shakily and she isn’t wearing a brassiere so I can see she’s almost flat there. At her age I was almost a woman and all my daughters had womanly shapes when they were fourteen. LouRee especially would dress like a harlot in tight low-cut garments and was never obedient but one day I took those garments from her wardrobe and destroyed them. I think perhaps it is a good thing that my heavenly sister is not too womanly not wilful and disobedient like LouRee.

  I help my heavenly sister remove her shirt from her shoulders. She does a small jump when I first touch her but then she is obedient. She holds her arms out and I am reminded of a doll how easy they are to dress and undress. Before Immanuel and I were commanded to destroy our earthly possessions I had many beautiful dolls all of them with faces of porcelain and hair golden like my heavenly sister’s.

  My heavenly sister keeps an arm over her chest as she takes off her pyjama bottoms. It pleases me that she is modest but I hope when the time comes she will let Immanuel see her. There is some bedding in the corner for after they are sealed and the sheets I washed just yesterday so they are very clean. She kicks the pyjama bottoms off near the basin then just sits there on her bucket shivering and not looking anywhere. When I tell her it’s time to take off her underwear she starts crying all over again. ‘No, no, please no …’ She holds onto herself tightly. ‘Please, no. Don’t make me. No.’

  I try to make her hush telling her I need to bathe her and after she can get dressed again. I show her the robes I made just for her pure linen like mine and Immanuel’s with long sleeves and a long hem. She won’t listen she’s too upset and for a moment I feel so sorry I want to tell her I know how it feels to suffer on this earth. The day Immanuel told me he had been commanded to take other wives I was suffering crying like she is and we were coming home from a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at Chuck-A-Rama. It was only a few weeks after he was given the name Immanuel and I was so upset I called him Brian again. ‘Woman, thou shalt not call me by that name!’ he scorned me and would not let me touch him in any way until I called him Immanuel. After that he told me I must live by the word or suffer eternal consequences.

  ‘If you don’t take off your underwear, Immanuel will come in and do it,’ I tell my heavenly sister. I don’t tell her or you will suffer eternal consequences but try to make my eyes say as much.

  She stops crying and looks up at me in a way like she wants to know if I’m serious. I guess she sees I am because right away she does as I say and I feel very righteous. She pulls the underwear down and stands up from the bucket bending a bit because the roof isn’t as tall as her. Her arms are still in front to cover her chest but also her privates now too. I tell her to stand in the blue basin and put my hands on her shoulders. They are lovely shoulders white and smooth except for where the trees have scratched her. She shivers and I ask is the water too cold but she says no and this is lucky because I don’t think Immanuel would want me taking more time to warm it. I bend down at her feet and get the sponge and start swishing it in the water. Then I’m smoothing the sponge up and down my heavenly sister’s legs and they have scratches too and then between her legs and she sort of squirms. She only has a little bit of hair down there and it’s very light and blonde. When I get the sponge up to the cuts on my heavenly sister’s shoulders the water is dirty grey and she has goosebumps all over th
ough she said she wasn’t cold.

  I tell my heavenly sister to step out of the basin and then I slip the robes over her head. She is glad for the covering and looks lovely I think and very clean. There’s only one fault I can find with her and that’s her hair being tied back so I tell her to let it loose. It falls down around her shoulders not as long as mine but silky and the gold colour is very beautiful. I touch her hair and say ‘Don’t you look nice now’ and remember saying the same thing to my daughters when they were very young.

  My heavenly sister gives me a little smile and her eyes are wet but lovely. I think maybe she wants to say something but I don’t know what and anyway I feel suddenly cold knowing Immanuel is waiting. So I pick up the basin in my arms and see her red pyjamas all crumpled in the dirt and then I slip out of the tent without saying anything else.

  Immanuel comes forth to meet me dressed in his robes. His face is glowing and he looks very handsome as handsome as the day we were sealed. He didn’t have his robes then or his beard or the long hair to his shoulders just a suit and I had a beautiful dress sewed by my own hand. Our robes of course are more special than any garments as they were inspired by the Lord but still I feel prideful when I think of my wedding dress.

  We have tried to wear our robes every day since Immanuel was called but sometimes like last night he has to take them off to wear dark clothes and also last fall after 9/11. During that time people kept refusing alms thinking we were Muslims so we were commanded to dress in street clothes for some months. Immanuel shaved his beard too and cut his hair and it was very strange to see him looking like Brian again but he impressed me to keep calling him Immanuel.

  Immanuel’s eyes are on me and he is standing so close our bodies would be touching if it wasn’t for the big blue basin in my arms. The basin is full of grey-coloured water and I’m holding it low to my belly where my scar is. I’ve had the scar a long time since before Immanuel and even before Brian and it’s very faded but I never forget it’s there. When I bathe I always look down to see it and if there’s sun it glitters beautifully as cobwebs and beer cans and other ugly things become beautiful in the sun. Immanuel says someday my womb will be opened up and I’ll bear the next saviour which is why my scar is so beautiful in the sun. I wonder if the sun makes me beautiful now and I look deep into Immanuel’s eyes and he speaks. ‘Hast thou prepared her?’

  I don’t know how to answer Immanuel. If I tell him no he’ll be angry at me for not preparing my heavenly sister as I was commanded but if I tell him yes he’ll go inside the tent and join her right away. I don’t say anything for a long time and Immanuel’s eyes float from me to the tent and back. Then he takes a step to the side and quickly I grab onto his sleeve. Some water slips from the basin when I do this and wets his sandals a little bit and the dirt underneath. Immanuel looks at the dirt then at me and I’m very sorry.

  ‘She has been bathed!’ I cry out still holding onto his sleeve. ‘She has been bathed but her spirit is not ready!’

  ‘Didst thou instruct her to be obedient?’

  ‘Yes I did I told her I did —’

  Everything goes blurry and I can’t see the look on Immanuel’s face he’s all blurred with the trees behind him and the heavens above. I think he must be angry though because he’s not saying anything and suddenly I feel Satan’s fury upon me. He’s calling me Wanda again first quietly then louder like wanda Wanda WANDA. Then miraculously Immanuel’s voice comes and disperses Satan’s fury.

  ‘Hephzibah, thou hath done good,’ he says and very kindly he takes the basin from my hands and places it on the ground. ‘The Lord thanks thee. He hath asked me to relieve thee of thy burdens.’

  ‘A blessing?’

  ‘Of a truth, Hephzibah.’

  Even though I can’t see Immanuel’s face through my tears I can feel his eyes holding me as true as the Lord is with us in this clearing. So I go down on my knees and close my eyes and Immanuel puts his hands on my head. Right away my head becomes empty like a big basin to catch all his words.

  ‘Hephzibah Eladah Isaiah, by the power of the holy Melchizedek priesthood, which I hold, I bestow on thee this blessing, that it may guide thee and comfort thee in thy turmoil —’

  I am Hephzibah the most cherished angel favoured among women as Immanuel’s wise and tender helpmeet. I am blessed with obedience that I may submit to Immanuel’s righteous jurisdiction. I am blessed with strength that I may suffer without complaint and guard us against those who seek to imprison us. I am blessed in connection with my heavenly sister that I may live alongside her without envy. ‘— These are the blessings I seal upon thee in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.’

  When I open my eyes Immanuel is above me clothed in light and he’s looking into the distance with his beautiful eyes. Then his hands leave my head and I hear the tarps flapping and look over and that’s where he’s looking. He sees me gazing at the tent and his face goes very serious for a moment. But forgivingly he says, ‘Thou shalt rise now, Hephzibah,’ and I rise from the ground with my knees very dusty.

  After that Immanuel reaches into his robe and takes out the jagged knife he used to obtain my heavenly sister. ‘Thou hath been chosen to guard us against the others,’ he tells me very serious again. ‘Dost thou understand?’

  I nod my head. Immanuel hands me the knife and there’s sun so it glitters very beautifully. Then he touches me lightly on the shoulder and brushes past and I turn just in time to see him ducking inside the tent. I look back at the knife feeling very righteous and listen to the blue rippling of the tarps and the green rustling leaves. In these quiet sounds I can hear the Lord’s closeness and I am not alone I am filled with love. A moment later my heavenly sister screams.

  APPENDIX

  Blanche Caldwell (1911–1988) met Buck Barrow, a twice-divorced petty criminal, after running away from her abusive first marriage at the age of eighteen. He was arrested soon after, yet escaped from prison to marry Blanche in 1930. The couple honeymooned briefly before Barrow turned himself in and finished his sentence. They reunited in 1933 only to be drawn into a four-month crime spree by Barrow’s brother and sister-in-law, the notorious Bonnie and Clyde. Barrow died of a head wound in police custody, while Blanche lost sight in one eye and served a six-year prison sentence. She remarried in 1940 and died of cancer at the age of seventy-seven.

  Eva Braun (1912–1945) was seventeen when she met Adolf Hitler in Munich, while working as an assistant to the official photographer of the Nazi Party. They became lovers two years later, after the suicide of Hitler’s niece and presumed mistress, Geli Raubal. For the next twelve years, Eva lived outside the public eye, shopping and vacationing her way through Hitler’s takeover of Europe. She joined him and his inner circle in the Führerbunker during the Battle of Berlin in the spring 1945, marrying him in a civil ceremony on April 30. Forty hours later, they committed suicide together — he by gunshot, she by cyanide. Their corpses were immediately cremated by Hitler’s staff.

  Martha Seabrook Beck (1920–1951) was a divorced mother-of-two when she began corresponding with con artist Raymond Fernandez through a lonely-hearts club in 1947. Fernandez spent a short time at Martha’s home in Milton, Florida, before jilting her and returning to his apartment in New York. Martha promptly abandoned her children and tracked him down, joining him in his lonely-hearts scams. Over the next two years, they swindled numerous women and murdered at least two others, as well as one victim’s two-year-old daughter. They were apprehended in March 1949 and extradited to New York for a highly sensationalised trial. Both were sentenced to death by electric chair and executed in March of 1951.

  Caril Ann Fugate (1943– ) began dating Charles Starkweather, an eighteen-year-old local greaser, at the age of thirteen. Her mother and stepfather disapproved of the relationship, leading Starkweather to murder them, along with Caril’s two-year-old sister, in their Lincoln, Nebraska home on January 21, 1958. Over the
next eight days, Starkweather killed seven more people in a cross-country murder spree, taking Caril along for the ride. The pair were apprehended in Wyoming and Starkweather sentenced to death by electric chair. Caril received a life sentence and was paroled in 1976. She subsequently settled in Michigan.

  Myra Hindley (1942–2002) was eighteen when she met Ian Brady, a twenty-three-year-old Glaswegian clerk, while working as a typist in Gorton, Manchester. They began dating after a year and soon began discussing ‘the perfect crime’, attempting it in July of 1963 with the murder of a sixteen-year-old local girl. Over the next two years, they murdered four more children, burying all but one of the bodies on Saddleworth Moor. They were convicted in 1966, both receiving life sentences. During her time in prison, Myra converted to Catholicism and applied for parole several times without success. After almost forty years of incarceration, she died of bronchial pneumonia. Brady continues to serve his sentence.

  Susan ‘Sadie’ Atkins (1948–2009), Patricia ‘Katie’ Krenwinkel (1947– ), and Leslie ‘LuLu’ Van Houten (1949– ) were among the dozens of young people to join the ‘Family’ of ex-con guru Charles Manson between 1967 and 1969. The Family lived communally in various locations in and around Los Angeles, taking drugs, making music, orgying, stealing, and killing. Together with Manson and a male accomplice, Charles ‘Tex’ Watson, the three young women were charged with the Tate-LaBianca murders, a two-night massacre that claimed seven lives. All received life sentences. The full extent of the Family’s crimes remains unknown.

  Janice was fifteen when she began a relationship with Cameron Hooker, a nineteen-year-old lumber worker with a taste for BDSM. After faking a pregnancy, she became married to Hooker and he discontinued his sadistic practices until the truth was revealed, whereupon he declared he wanted a sex-slave. In 1977, they kidnapped a twenty-year-old hitchhiker, Colleen Stan, bringing her to their rented home in Red Bluff, California. Stan was held captive for seven years, spending the greater part of that time in a coffin-sized wooden box and undergoing daily torture. She was freed in 1984 after befriending Janice, and together the two women testified against Hooker. He received a sentence of 104 years and is eligible for parole in 2023. Janice received immunity in exchange for her testimony.