Page 115 of Man On

"That's preposterous!" One of the defense lawyers says.

"Mr. Parsons, your outbursts are entirely inappropriate. Just because there isn't a judge here, doesn't mean you have free rein to abuse my witness. I can and will have you removed if you cannot respect due process." The look Ms. Clarke gives the defense lawyer that keeps opening his saggy jowls could wither a person if subjected to it too long. "Please add to the record that this is the third time the defense has needed to be warned about badgering and attempting to intimidate the witness." The woman typing, who I'm sure is meant to be an entirely neutral party, gives Ms. Clarke a quick, approving nod.

"Lane. Can you describe to us what the alleged exorcism looked like."

"Yes ma'am. Uh, the pastors put on black cloaks. Extra heaters were brought inside the room to make the victim feel like they were burning in hell. Pastor Warren sat close and whispered in my, I mean his, ear, while some of them chanted and used tongues. Then Pastor Gideon read from the Bible. He splashed scalding hot water on the victim while shouting scripture to exorcize the demons out of him."

"And you both saw and experienced this personally."

"Yes ma'am. Although I think I had it a little easier than him."

"How so?"

"I didn't have someone that was supposed to be my friend watching, not doing anything to save me,” he says, barely loud enough to hear. “ And I at least had seen it all before, although it didn't make it feel any less real. When they gave me the drugs, it really felt like they were pulling something out of me. I thought it was my demons. I hoped it was."

"Were you watching this take place on your own free will?"

"No ma'am. They forced me to watch."

"And why is it that you were forced to watch this take place?"

"Because I defended him. I pleaded with my grandfather not to hurt him anymore."

"He was your friend?"

"Yes. He was my assignment, but he liked to talk more than the others did. He was older, and seemed so smart and… alive. I idolized him, and used to imagine that he was my big brother. He was enthusiastic about everything. He showed me how to play soccer, and sang me songs from his favorite band. Most of all, he told me what it was like outside the fence of the compound, about this whole other world where people looked and acted and thought differently. He made me think about what it would be like to leave someday."

Lane clears his throat, and a tear slips over one cheek. "One day, we were laying in the grass while the rest of the kids were swimming, because I had a stomach ache and didn't want to go in. I didn't really have a stomach ache, I just wanted to talk to him. He'd been in the basement for a couple days, and, like all the kids that went down there, he wasn't quite the same when he came back up. For once, he didn't have so much to say. So I asked him questions."

"What kind of questions?" Ms. Clarke asks him after a long pause. Her voice is soft and sad, and I find it jarring.

"I asked him where he would go if he could close his eyes and disappear." Lane’s eyes squeeze closed. "I asked him if he was afraid of who he was on the inside, because I was." Lane chokes out a sob, and the room is quiet while he composes himself. "My grandfather saw him comfort me. All he did was place his hand on top of mine, and tell me that someday I'd get out of there and be whoever I wanted to be. Because no matter what they did to us, they'd never change who we were on the inside."

"Did your grandfather punish you?"

Lane nods. "I was put through the intensive program."

"Can you describe that process from your perspective as a victim?"

His gaze falls on me again, and it stays with me as he describes, in brutal detail, the torture he went through. The days of starvation and mental games, being drugged and forced to watch pornography, being force fed various bitter concoctions to purify him from the inside out. He was forced to strip in front of congregation members and subjected to cleansing, where they scrubbed his skin until it was raw and bleeding, and sprayed with a high power hose.

"The worst of it was being forced to witness my friend being punished for being kind to me. Watching the light fade from his eyes haunts me as much as anything else."

"Do you have any documented diagnosis or health issues as a direct result of the trauma you experienced at Deliverance Church and the conversion therapy camp?"

"I have been diagnosed and am in therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder."

"How would you say that these conditions affect your quality of life?"

"I have panic attacks that can be triggered at any time. The nightmares exacerbate that, because I'm exhausted a lot. It's a struggle to maintain friendships and relationships, even with my family and the few people I've come to trust." He looks up at me, Hannah, and my dad almost apologetically.

"Lane, I just have one last question for you, and then, unless you'd like to add anything else, I think we can wrap this up."

"Okay."

"What is the name of your friend, the one that you personally witnessed being abused by the leaders of Deliverance Camp."

"Christian Blakely."

---