Текст книги "A Shock to the System "

Автор книги: Richard Stevenson

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He blinked away something he didn't seem to want to remember and went on. "But the fact is, I loved Paul. In spite of everything, Paul Haig was—you're gay, aren't you? I think I've heard about you."

"Yes."

"Have you ever loved a man? I mean, not just sex, but really had a deep love for that person?"

"Yes, I have. Most recently for the last nineteen years."

He looked at me sadly. "That's what I know now that I want. I thought I had it with Paul."

"His death must have been awful."

He shook his head. "Oh, I lost him before that, and that was awful. Paul was the love of my life, I thought—the first man I ever really gave myself over to. I had always been ashamed of being gay. I come from a family and a place where being gay is the most disgusting thing there is. That's why I could never accept my gayness and ended up with that asswipe Vernon Crockwell. But then I met Paul in Crockwell's group, and before long—I think the craziness of everything we were going through in Crockwell's program hit us at the same time and we started holding on to each other just to keep from going insane."

"That probably happens a lot in programs like Crockwell's."

"It happens a lot in Crockwell's own program," Bierly said.

"Dr. Crockwell's Inadvertent Dating Service. But for you and Paul things went awry after a while?"

"Paul was an alcoholic and couldn't control it," he said grimly.

"Like his mother is an alcoholic and his father was when he was living. That's basically what went wrong between us—Paul's drinking. He was sober at first, and going to AA. He'd been in the program off and on for a couple of years—much to Phyllis's consternation. She wanted him to drink, needed him to drink, and so sooner or later he did. It nearly always started up again after one of his lunches with Phyllis. Paul had some other problems too—lying was the main one. But his other flaws all had to do with his drinking, and his being gay, and his parents, especially Phyllis, whose boozy, twisted love was the kiss of death for Paul."

Although I wasn't sure, Bierly didn't seem to mean this literally.

He went on. "How the Haigs functioned at all is a mystery. When Paul was sober and he was being honest about himself and his family, he admitted to me what a mess they were. Lew, his father, was a real-estate developer who almost went to jail once in some kind of bid-rigging scheme. Paul said another time Mr. Haig got himself out of a financial fix he was in by blackmailing a rich senator, and he got caught at that too. Paul's father died of cancer, but cirrhosis of the liver would have killed him even if the cancer hadn't. Phyllis is in total denial about her alcoholism, and I think Paul's sister, Deedee, is probably alcoholic too. Paul tried—he really tried so hard—to be strong and honest and realistic about himself. But he couldn't. Maybe eventually he would have. But I couldn't take it after a while—the lying, the hidden bottles, the binges—and I gave up on him."

"Because he was screwing up your life too?"

"It got to be a matter of emotional, or maybe even physical, survival. Paul sometimes did some pretty crazy stuff when he was drunk, and sometimes I'd go along with it and regret it the next day. But mostly, I just couldn't stand not knowing which person he'd be from one day to the next. Finally, just after Christmas, when he really went off the deep end with a bottle in his hand, I got my own place and moved out."

I said, "The pros all seem to agree that in these unhappy situations you have to save yourself first. How did Paul react?"

Bierly shrugged. "He got drunk."

"I'm sorry it turned out that way. I hope you'll do better with the next man in your life."

He looked around to make sure we weren't being overheard. Then he leaned toward me and said in a breaking voice, "How could anyone think I killed Paul? Even that idiotic, deluded Phyllis—how could she say such a thing? I loved Paul. I couldn't live with him, and I couldn't be his lover anymore, but I still loved him. I could no sooner have killed Paul than—" Bierly looked nauseated at the thought—"than I could kill anybody. I'm just not a violent person. Oh, I have a temper. People will tell you. I can lose it, like a lot of people. But take another person's life? It's just not in me. I don't know if I could kill another person even in a war or in self-defense. So when Phyllis told the police I killed Paul and they called me in and questioned me—it just made me want to throw up."

I said, "But you don't think Paul killed himself."

"No."

"And you don't think his overdose was an accident either?"

"No, I don't think it was."

"Why not?"

"As for an accident, it wouldn't be like him. Paul was careful about pills. He never mixed drugs and alcohol. I was surprised when he told me he was on Elavil, just because any kind of drugs made him nervous. He didn't even like it when I'd smoke some weed or whatever once in a while. Alcohol was Paul's drug of choice."

I said, "And why not suicide?"

He shook his head emphatically. "Not a chance. Was Paul a nervous wreck? Oh, yes, poor Paul, he was one anxious son of a bitch—pun intended. He smoked too much, and he worked too hard, and the strain of trying unsuccessfully not to be the drunk his mother wanted him to be was brutal for Paul. But he coped. He found ways not only to survive but to function. He was a true Haig in that respect. And there's another thing: Paul had not only been on antidepressants and feeling relatively relaxed the week

before he died, but he hadn't been drinking either. I either saw him or talked to him on the phone almost every day, and I'd gotten to the point where I could tell if Paul had been drinking. He hadn't. He'd even started going to AA meetings again, he said."

The waiter, probably under corporate orders, was hovering, so I signaled for him and ordered a pizza of his choice. He said sausage and broccoli would be nice, and we said okay.

I asked Bierly, "With Paul's improved outlook, did you think there was a chance you and he might get together again?" More tentatively, I said, "Or did he think so?"

"Paul brought it up," he said, his voice going unsteady again. "As for us living together, I didn't want to. I told him I'd think it over, but I don't think I could have done it. At a certain point last winter—I can even remember the day—I realized I just didn't love Paul anymore in that way."

"Did you tell him?"

Bierly looked away and his face darkened. "No, I never did. When we separated at the end of last year, it was supposedly temporary—till Paul quit drinking permanently. But I guess I never really believed he'd stay sober. And one day I was sitting across from him at Queequeg's during Sunday brunch and he was talking about something unimportant—I have no idea what it was—and I looked over at him and I knew he would always be my friend but that we would never be lovers again."

"That happens to every couple," I said. "But it's usually just an attack of existential uncertainty, and it passes. Though this sounds different."

"It was," Bierly said. "I don't know about 'existential uncertainty,' but I know that with Paul, even though I still loved him, I'd lost confidence in him. And I didn't believe in us as lovers anymore."

"That feeling is always plain enough when it comes."

Now he looked sheepish. "I guess that's why when Paul died I didn't feel nearly as deep a loss as I would have a year earlier. I felt—I still feel—sad and hurt and confused. And I often miss

him. I just wish I could talk to him. Or touch him—God, we had such great sex together. That was a big part of the attraction and it's one reason I think I stayed with Paul as long as I did, even when he got to be impossible to live with. But mostly it's something else now that makes me miss him. I just want to sit down with Paul—I sometimes fantasize about doing it—and I want to ask him one question."

He looked at me steadily now, almost expectantly, as if I might ask the question myself—or somehow both ask it and answer it. I said, "What question would you like to ask him?"

He said, "Why did you die? How and why did you die?"

"Uh-huh."

"Who killed you? How did he do it?"

"You believe Paul was murdered."

"Yes."

"You seem so certain."

"I know Paul. Paul would not kill himself."

"Do you have any idea who might have done it? Who would have wanted to kill Paul?"

"I think I might know," Bierly said. "But first, let me ask you something."

"Okay."

"If you don't sign on with Phyllis Haig—and I don't think you will, because you seem too smart and too honest—will you let me hire you instead?"

"To do what?"

"To verify who killed Paul and have him charged and put out of business."

" 'Put out of business'—is that a euphemism?"

"Of course not. Just put in prison, which would get him out of the evil business he's in."

I said, "What if I investigated, and I succeeded, and it turned out Paul was murdered and the murderer was someone other than the man or woman you have in mind?"

He nodded. "I could live with that."

The pizza arrived. The waiter asked if we would like him to

serve the first slice. Bierly said no thanks. We served ourselves and went to it.

I said, "All other considerations aside, Larry, I'm not sure you can afford a private investigator." I told him my standard rate.

He grimaced. "That's a lot higher than I thought it would be."

"Phyllis Haig says you're rich. Your business was in trouble, but Paul left you his estate, and now you're flush with both his lucrative business and the rest of Paul's considerable assets. True?"

He chewed his pizza furiously. "What a load of Phyllis Haig bullshit crap," he said, bits of pizza flying from his mouth. His veins were pulsing again. "That woman. That woman."

"Which part is inaccurate?"

"All of it is inaccurate. It was Beautiful Thingies that was in trouble, not Whisk 'n' Apron. Last year when Paul was drunk for most of two months, he had an assistant manager who robbed him blind and then disappeared. Paul got behind with the bank and asked Phyllis to bail him out. I'm not sure what he told her. It's conceivable he told her it was me who needed the money. Or he could have told her the truth and she just imagined it was me. The Haigs all lied to each other all the time, so none of them could ever believe what the other ones were saying. And with Phyllis, her brain is so atrophied from alcohol she can believe anything she wants to believe that fits into her warped view of people."

I said, "I can check all that out, you understand, about the finances. It would take me less than a day."

"I wish you would. And take what you learn and shove it in Phyllis Haig's stupid face."

"And Paul's assets?"

"He left me his '88 Honda, his household furnishings, his Abba tapes, and the three hundred twenty-two dollars in his checking account. He also left me his business, which was sixty thousand dollars late in payments on his business loan. When Paul died and I became executor and eventually beneficiary of his estate, the bank was about to foreclose on Beautiful Thingies. Paul

hadn't been worried about this–he told me a week before he died he'd come up with a way to pay off the bank debt. But the debt was still there when I took over, and I had to borrow myself up to the hilt to hold off foreclosure. So the fact is, for the foreseeable future Beautiful Thingies will be nothing but one big financial headache for me. Paul's estate is no place for me to go for liquid assets. Have I cleared that up for you?"

"You have." I chewed at the pizza, which was not Irish but hardly Italian either. It was rubbery and vaguely medicinal-tasting—Aleutian maybe.

I said, "Who do you think killed Paul, Larry?"

With no hesitation, Bierly said, "Vernon Crockwell."

"I had a feeling that's who you were going to say."

"Do you know him?"

"Only by reputation."

Bierly blushed. "I'm so embarrassed to admit that I actually went to him. But I was so fucked up and lonely in my personal life, and I thought—the thing is, I wasn't thinking at all. I didn't know much about homosexuality. I didn't even come out until I was twenty-five, and I didn't start to read intelligent books about it until I started with Crockwell and saw how crazy and unbelievable his ideas were and I went out and did some reading on my own. It was the same for Paul. Of course, he was in Crockwell's program under duress. From you-know-who. It's probably one reason she despises me to this day. Phyllis sent Paul to Crockwell to be de-queered. Instead, he met me and was queered for life."

"How long were you in the program?"

He blushed again. "I'm embarrassed to tell you. Over eight months. The program is supposed to run a year, and I came within four months of actually finishing it. Paul and I left the program last September ninth."

"It took you that long to figure out that Crockwell is a quack, or a con artist, or whatever it is he is?"

"It didn't take me that long. I was on to him within a couple of months. Paul saw through Crockwell too, though for a while he clung to the idea he might actually be straightened out—even

though we were happily fucking up a storm almost every night. Basically, he stayed as long as he did because of his mother, and I stayed until Paul worked up the courage to leave."

"And when you left the program, you and Paul left together?"

"That's right."

"Just toodle-oo out the door and that was it?"

"Well, not exactly."

"Uh-huh."

I waited. He chewed at his pizza and I chewed at mine. Bierly downed the remaining beer in his glass and then said, "Crockwell was furious when we announced one day we were well-adjusted homosexuals, thanks indirectly to him, and we were lovers and we were leaving the program. He started screaming how we were deluding ourselves, and we were going against nature, and we would always be miserable, and that's what we deserved. He screamed that we were disrupting the group, and for that we were going to be very, very sorry. He told Paul—this was in front of the entire group of ten guys—he told Paul that his mother would despise him for choosing to be a sexual deviant. Can you imagine a professional psychologist telling a patient something like that?"

"On this subject, yes, I can. Then what happened?"

"Paul pretty much told Crockwell—yes, Paul told Crockwell– to go to hell. Then we just got up and walked out. We were afraid we might feel a little guilty for a while, but we didn't. We rode the high for weeks that we got from walking out of Crockwell's office that day. We started going to gay rights events, even some political stuff, although I'm not really very political. I saw you at some of those political meetings, I'm pretty sure."

"I remember you too—and Paul."

"The high didn't last long, though. Paul went to see his mother and started drinking again. And everything went downhill fast. But that first month or so after we kissed Crockwell good-bye was the happiest time of my life, I think."

"You just said so-long and that was your last contact with Crockwell?"

"You got it."

"You or Paul never threatened him or attacked him? Or said anything that could be construed as a threat?"

"He threatened us," Bierly said, his color rising again. "He said we'd be very, very sorry for disrupting the group. But no, nobody threatened him that I can recall. We were just glad to be out of there."

"I'll bet."

"My real bitterness toward Crockwell—and Paul's too—was after we left, and we looked back on all the unnecessary pain he caused people. And is still causing. He's still in practice, if you can believe it."

I said, "Phyllis Haig says you assaulted Crockwell and threatened to kill him and Paul bought him off so he wouldn't have you prosecuted. Any idea what she was referring to?"

"Paul told her that? Oh my God!"

"That's what she said."

Blushing deeply again, Bierly said, "That is totally off the wall. It's obviously another one of Phyllis's bizarre, alcohol-induced fantasies. Either that or it was one of Paul's. When those two drank together—who knew what one of them would come up with."

I said, "You're blushing."

Bierly said, "I am?" and got even redder. "Well, I have to admit I'm embarrassed about a lot of what I've told you tonight."

"Uh-huh."

"It's not only highly personal, it's—I have to admit that some of the things I've told you about myself make me look pretty damn stupid."

"The blunders you've described to me are the kind a lot of us made at some stage of our lives. Are there other relevant blunders that you're not telling me about?"

"None that are relevant," he said, still blushing.

I said, "What makes you think Crockwell killed Paul? If Paul had no contact with Crockwell after last September ninth, what

would suddenly prompt Crockwell to homicide in March? I don't get that."

"Crockwell is a hater," Bierly said. "He carried poisonous grudges. In the group, he talked about other people who left, and he ranted and raved about how wretched they must be and how they deserve to be unhappy. He seemed to be obsessed with those people."

"But if he got satisfaction from their misery," I said, "he certainly didn't have to kill them."

Bierly blushed some more. I figured he was lying about some or much or all of what he had told me about his and Paul's departure from Crockwell's program and its aftermath. Yet he didn't seem to care if I thought he was lying. He just lied and blushed, lied and blushed. I didn't get it.

Bierly said, "Look, something deep in my gut tells me that Vernon Crockwell killed Paul. All I ask is that you investigate Crockwell and see what you can come up with. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But I don't think I am, Strachey." And then he brought out his checkbook.

4

So which check do I cash?"

"Neer."

"What if Paul Haig was murdered?"

"Nnn."

"What if Crockwell did it?"

"Nnn."

"Axe you falling asleep?"

"Mmm."

Spring stars twinkled over the Hudson Valley. We lay under a cotton blanket, cool, reasonably clean air moving west to east across us. Ted Koppel was our nightlight.

I said, "I'm more inclined to take Phyllis Haig's money because she can afford it. And as much as I like Bierly and sympathize with him—his instincts seem pretty consistently decent—his selective evasions are glaring and unsettling. There were moments tonight when if Bierly had been wired to a polygraph, he'd have registered at about an 8.6 on a Richter scale of liars. Of course, polygraphs are notoriously unreliable. The anxiety they detect can result from the emotional significance of the question asked as well as from the emotional significance of the answer given, or just from the stress of being questioned at all. Anyway, I do think Bierly lied about some topics—this from the man disgusted by alleged chronic Haig-family dissimulation—and I don't know why. Why might he?"

"Nnn."

"Phyllis Haig, on the other hand, is a serious drunk and a

deluded homophobe with hardly a rational thought in her head. Except one, maybe—that Paul was not suicidal. People can fool themselves about that, too, of course—parents, in particular, will sometimes deny their children's suicides in order to avoid facing what they fear is their own responsibility somehow. But the idea that Paul could have committed suicide was the one thing that seemed to generate an emotion in Phyllis Haig besides jealousy or outrage over deviations from the country-club norm. There was an emotional clarity to her assertions on this point that was lacking on others. On the other hand, even if she's right about Paul's not having killed himself, I could be risking my license and possibly my peace of mind—not to mention my shirt—simply by getting mixed up with this deranged heiress with friends in high places. I mean, not that my financial and mental survival should be the sole, or even chief, determinants in taking on a client, eh wot?"

"Zzzz." His breath, sweet with chicken tikka masala and Crest, was regular now against my chest, his arm limp across my midsection. I groped for the remote, found it, and zapped a murmuring Ted Koppel and a couple of nervous Clinton apologists into blackness.

I said, "Of course, the most interesting figure in all of this is the one I haven't talked to yet. Maybe I should meet Vernon Crockwell before I decide what to do. I doubt he'll be forthcoming on the subject of a couple of former patients, or happy to see me at all. But I've been curious about him for years, in a macabre sort of way, and now's my chance to both satisfy that curiosity and gather information that might help me make an important decision. What do you think, Timothy? Should I talk to Crockwell?"

He said nothing, but his breathing rhythm altered perceptibly and his shriveled member, sticky against my leg, seemed to throb weakly once. I took this to be a reply in the affirmative.

How could this be? I phoned Crockwell at 9:00 a.m. and told his machine I was a private investigator looking into the death of Paul Haig and asked for a few minutes of Crockwell's time at his

convenience. At 9:55 Crockwell called back and, in a tone bordering on the cordial, informed me that he was extremely busy but that he could clear out a block of time at three that afternoon if that was convenient for me. I said it was and told him I would be happy to come to his office. I was eager for a peek inside Dracula's castle.

Why was Crockwell being so accommodating? When I phoned, I was fully prepared for a long wait before my call was returned, or for the call to be ignored, or for Crockwell to call back and explode with indignation. Instead, he was helpful and businesslike. Why? There had never been charges I knew of that Crockwell's treatment program was anything but voluntary, that he lured unsuspecting homosexuals into his lair and forced them at gunpoint to feign excitement over nude photos of Ole Miss sorority aquacade contestants. So when I drove out to Crockwell's office in mid-afternoon I felt reasonably safe but still mystified.

He had a suite in a sixties-suburban business block off Western Avenue near the Stuyvesant Plaza shopping center. His listing on the building's directory just read "Vernon T. Crockwell, Psychologist, Suite 508." I took the elevator up and found a door with a sign that gave Crockwell's name and said "Enter Here." The fluorescent-lit, windowless waiting room had a blue couch and two blue chairs with a shiny washable finish and a table stacked with old copies of People. Crockwell apparently figured there would be plenty of opportunity in the rooms beyond this one for overstimulation.

On the wall opposite the couch, a mirror was mounted. I stood before it and carefully mouthed the words "You're pretty fucking intrusive, Vernon," and within seconds a door opened behind me.

"You are Donald Strachey?"

"Yes—Mr. Crockwell? Or is it Dr. Crockwell?"

"Please follow me, Donald."

He didn't look like Bela Lugosi, but he'd never have passed for John Denver either. He was tall and fiftyish and grave, with a

narrow, lined face, a beak of a proboscis, and what I sensed was a lot of muscle tension. He looked as if a good neck rub might have improved his outlook, but I didn't offer him one.

Crockwell led me on a brisk, wordless hike along a corridor past three closed doors and one that was open. I caught a glimpse of a big sunlit room with a dozen or so plastic chairs arranged in a circle. I followed him around a bend and noted that the nearly bald spot on the back of his straw-colored-turning-gray hair was bigger than mine but smaller than Timmy's. Crockwell's brown sport coat was wrinkled in the back, a sign of an important man who sat in a chair.

"Sit down, Donald," he said in his stern, avuncular way, indicating where I should do it. Behind a broad, uncluttered fake-mahogany desk, Crockwell manhandled a black leather swivel chair into position and lowered himself into it. The bookshelves on the wall behind him were crammed with clinical texts published by companies like Uplift House and the Yolanda Schnell Foundation for Sexual Normalcy. Leaning on one shelf was a framed degree, or diploma, with Crockwell's name on it from the North American Psychosexual Institute of Moline, Illinois.

To Crockwell's right was a window overlooking the shopping center. The window was shut, probably unopenable except with a wrecking ball, though the odor of deep-fried chicken nuggets had permeated the suite from somewhere below and hung in the still air. It seemed an unlikely atmosphere for considering people's sexual appetites, or any other kind. But that could have been the point.

"Now I want you to tell me, Donald," Crockwell said, as if he were the school principal and I had been sent to his office, "who it is you represent in your investigation of Paul Haig's suicide. Are you working for a member of Paul's family, Donald?"

"I'm sorry, Vernon, but I can't tell you that," I said, and he peered at me stonily. "But what I can tell you, Vernon, is that I've spoken with two people independently who knew Paul quite well and doubt that he committed suicide. He seemed to have been anxious over some work problems a little earlier, but he'd

been on an antidepressant for several weeks before his death and by at least two accounts was feeling relatively chipper. The coroner's verdict appears to have been the result of a too cursory, perhaps even slipshod, investigation."

"I see, I see." He screwed up his face and shifted uneasily.

"And since Paul was a client of yours, Vernon, it seemed to make sense for me to cover all the bases and get your input on his emotional makeup, if you wouldn't mind helping me out on this. Paul was your client as recently as eight months ago, I'm told. I realize that patient-therapist confidentiality is sacrosanct in your profession, Vernon. I respect that. It's important in mine too. But since Paul is deceased, would it be possible for you to contribute to my investigation of his death by revealing to me the nature of the mental problems that first brought Paul to you as a client?"

It occurred to me as I said this that it wasn't just morbid curiosity that had brought me to Crockwell, or any real hope that he might immediately shed light on Paul Haig's death; what I most wanted was to poke at Crockwell with a stick and see if he'd try to snap off my leg with his powerful jaws. He didn't, but he bristled a little, and said, "If you're an investigator worth your salt, Donald, I'm sure you know perfectly well why Paul Haig was my patient. I work with the sexually dysfunctional."

"You mean gay people."

"Yes."

"And Paul had come to be de-queered."

"Made whole, brought into sync with nature, yes. Please don't bait me, Donald. It was no trouble for me to find out that in addition to being a private investigator you are a well-known gay libber around Albany. If you would like my opinion on Paul's emotional state as it might relate to his death, I will give it to you. But I'm not going to waste my time and yours debating aspects of the human personality you obviously know nothing about." He sat looking smug, though not quite 100 percent certain I wouldn't lunge at him. He kept one hand out of sight at all times below the desk—though if he had an alarm button down there, or a firearm,

or a little squeeze toy that might suddenly go "Fuh-wee-too, fuh-wee-too," I had no way of knowing.

I said, "It is Paul Haig's death I'd like your views on, Vernon, but I want you to realize that I am quite willing to be convinced that I am a freak of nature. I always try to keep an open mind about that. Do you have scientific studies showing that your theories are correct and the results of your therapy beneficial?"

Still keeping his hand out of sight, Crockwell said, "Yes, innumerable studies have been completed, Donald. And the human testimony is voluminous and incontrovertible. Tens of thousands of formerly sexually damaged men and women who have found wholeness and fulfillment through therapies such as mine have even organized socially and politically. They call themselves the ex-gay movement. I'm sure a man of the world like yourself, Donald, must have heard of it."

"Yes, I've heard about 'ex-gays,' Vernon. I've also read about the ex-ex-gay movement, made up of people who claim therapy such as yours is a pathetic snare and a delusion. They say ex-gays are people who live out their lives and try to behave in a way that denies their deepest and truest natures, and that people who remain in the ex-gay movement are either vegetables or liars."

Crockwell had undoubtedly heard all this before and appeared unfazed by it, though still cautious enough to keep his trigger finger poised. He said, "I have no need, Donald, to debate this matter further with you. You claim to have an open mind, but it's obvious that you do not. I would like to point out to you, however, that nature does not produce homosexuals. Why would it? Nature produces heterosexual males and females capable of mating and with an impulse to do so. In the sexual maturation process, something goes awry in some people. But this unnatural sexuality can be corrected. Are you old enough, Donald, to remember the song 'A-doin' a-what comes naturally'?"

I looked at him, not sure I was hearing what I was hearing. I said, "I've heard it. It's from Annie Get Your Gun."

He said nothing more, just looked at me as if he had delivered the clincher in his argument and it would be foolhardy of me to

attempt any reply. I said, "Vernon, I've heard of psychologists going to Freud for their theoretical underpinnings, or to Adler or Sullivan or Erik Erikson. But Irving Berlin? This is a first."

"You're missing the point, Donald. A long time ago you decided to miss the point, and there's nothing I can do about that– unless, of course, you decide that you want me to."

I was growing increasingly queasy in Crockwell's presence– and a little puzzled too. Was this magisterially patronizing but mild-mannered twit the raging monster Larry Bierly had described to me just a day earlier? The man who—when Bierly and Haig announced they were leaving Crockwell's group—purportedly screamed that they were deluded, and they'd be miserable and sorry, and that they were disturbing the group, and Haig's mother would hate him forever for being a sexual deviant? Was this a distorted impression of Bierly's, or a total lie, or what?