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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781490770444 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Trafford Publishing |
| Publication date: | 03/03/2016 |
| Pages: | 230 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.48(d) |
Read an Excerpt
White Spiritual Boy
By William de Berg
Trafford Publishing
Copyright © 2016 William de BergAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4907-7044-4
CHAPTER 1
The call came at five forty-five on a Thursday morning in late April. After several rings, Rachel Echon roused herself from her bizarre out-of-body dream in which she was flying after her late husband. She listened intently as the voice message came through, not planning to pick up the phone at such an early-morning hour.
"Hi, Rachel, this is Craig from Imperial. I'm in New York for a few days and need to talk to you in person. Please give me a call at 292-245-2587. Thanks."
Craig from Imperial ... what was this about and why was he calling so early in the damn morning?
She tried to get back to sleep, but she started obsessing over the purpose of the call, just as the early-morning traffic noise on Division Avenue started to pick up. She resigned herself that she would simply suck up her lost hour of sleep and down an extra coffee to make it through the day. She checked the number on the call — it was "292" instead of the usual "812", the extension used by Craig Brooke and his other marketing associates at Imperial Publishing, imploring her to invest in this website banner ad or that book fair or some new trade magazine ad. This call, probably from a cell phone, was clearly something different, as signaled by the veiled sense of urgency.
As she lay in bed, Rachel's thoughts went to the book and its progression from being a curiosity to her, then her rival for her late husband's focus, and finally almost a curse. Maybe I should have just let it die after his death. But how could I have done that — it was almost the total sum of what he had been able to give to the world.
* * *
When she first met Thomas Jackson Perry on a warm early April night two years earlier, she could never have imagined how rapidly their relationship would flourish and then almost as swiftly disintegrate into tragedy. She was at a wine-and-cheese reception before a lecture on Chinese social media at the Asia Society on the Upper East Side and was briefly introduced to him by a colleague. He was very poised, as was typical of most of the men she encountered in these circles. He also had a model's features, full of sandy-brown wavy hair and two of the most piercing blue eyes she had ever seen. She quickly discerned from his conversation with another young man that he was extremely knowledgeable about events in Asia and the rest of the world. Hoping that he took notice of her, she slowly gravitated toward him after the lecture. When she got closer to him, she made eye contact and then managed to ask him what he thought of the talk. He looked around suspiciously and then replied that it wasn't what he had hoped it would be. He rued that another so-called American expert on Asia was featured, filtering everything through American eyes. "The society is long overdue", he said, "for a Chinese expert sharing the Mainland's perspective."
Before Rachel could reply, he added, "You know, we Americans never get to hear what others across the globe really think of us. And our media and politicians make sure that we don't encounter such truths in other public arenas."
"And how do you claim to know the 'truths' of the world?" Rachel countered.
"Let's put it this way — I have a unique vantage point on Asia ... and America. But I'm probably sounding pretty pretentious. I'm sure you have a unique vantage point of your own, which I'd love to hear about." He paused, then looked her over more closely and then smiled. "I know a nice wine bar a couple of blocks from here. If you don't have plans, perhaps you'd care to join me?"
"I might, if you'd first be willing to tell me your name."
"Oh, sorry. Jackson Perry. And you?"
"Rachel ... Rachel Echon."
Perry said goodbye to a couple of his acquaintances, then joined Rachel, who had come by herself to the talk. At the wine bar, Jackson ordered a hummus crostini and a small chorizo pizza and a chardonnay for Rachel and a malbec for him.
"So where are you from, Rachel?"
"Pacific Group."
"Ah, so that explains your interest in Asia. But, there's more, isn't there. Your father's side is from the Philippines, right?"
Rachel was surprised. "Well, that was a good read. But, you'd never guess the rest of my background."
"Oh, some European, that's all I'd surmise — with your hazel eyes and freckles."
Rachel slightly blushed. Are my freckles noticeable even in this dark light?
"Yes, my maternal grandfather came from light-haired Germans and my grandmother from a dark-haired Russian-Mexican family — both children of Jewish refugees. And, there's some additional Spanish ancestry on my paternal side."
"Oh, so you're a bit of a mongrel, are you? I'd say the mixture in your case turned out striking."
Rachel smiled but felt a little uncomfortable and decided to redirect the conversation. "So Jackson —"
"It's actually Thomas Jackson, but I prefer the middle name."
"Okay, Thomas Jackson Perry. That doesn't sound like a mongrel name."
"Hardly. We Perrys are real bluebloods, coming over on what was probably the second or third boat after the Mayflower ... or perhaps some pirate ship chasing after it." Rachel laughed a little as he continued. "For as long as anyone can remember, we've been straight arrows — straight from Andover to Yale to the navy."
Rachel smiled again despite the sarcasm in his voice. "So you were in the navy, too?"
"No ... at least not yet. I'm sort of the black sheep — more like the blond sheep — of the family. I decided to go to Asia after I graduated."
"Just to hang out?"
"No, I was on a Fulbright fellowship, and I stayed another year afterward improving my Mandarin and trying to start a little trading company. In the end, my Mandarin turned out a lot more successful than the company. I take it you've spent some time in Asia as well?" "Yes, I was in China for a semester on an exchange program, when I was majoring in Asian studies, and then I went back again for a year in Taiwan, to teach English."
"So the Pacific Group is hiring English teachers these days?"
She smiled but was again a little irritated. "No, I went on for a master's degree in Asian studies at Columbia and then was hired straight off by the firm. I've been working there ever since."
He put his hand on his chin and managed a faint smile as he gazed at her with his azure eyes. Little did she realize at that moment how that mesmerizing stare presaged his descent into a psychotic death spiral.
Rachel tried again to deflect his focus on her. "I know Perry is a common name, but I was wondering if you're related to George Perry, the former secretary of the treasury."
"George Oliver Perry is my father," he said curtly.
"And ..."
"And we don't get along very well." Rachel was a bit taken aback, but before she could say anything, Jackson continued. "But, then again, I don't get along with too many rich and powerful men my father's age. Fortunately, I do get along every now and then with beautiful and intelligent women your age — if they don't think I'm too intense. Do you think I am?"
Rachel smiled but was too intrigued to heed his warning sign. "No, actually, I find it a bit of a turn-on."
He smiled more broadly this time. "What I find a turn- on is how incredibly fit and lithe you are. Were you ever a dancer, by chance?
"Another good guess. I took dance lessons through much of elementary school, but I wanted to join some of my friends on a local soccer club and I pestered my parents to allow me to play with them. I played all the way through high school and then through my freshman year in college, until I developed some nagging injuries and realized I wasn't good enough to ever start for the varsity. So I went back to studying modern dance and performing a bit the rest of my college years."
"And where was that?"
"A little place straight up I-91 from New Haven that used to beat your Yalies up regularly."
"Maybe in women's soccer, girl, but not in football!"
They both laughed. She quickly became smitten with him and wanted to know and experience more of him and to find out, underneath his polish, what the source of that unnerving intensity and brilliance was.
* * *
It turned out that Perry lived within a few miles of her in Brooklyn, and he hailed a cab for both of them. He called her early the next week and invited her to go sailing on the Long Island Sound the following weekend. She accepted and spent all of a beautiful and breezy early spring Sunday on his skiff. Although Rachel had taken a course in sailing shortly after she started working in New York and had been a member of several crews early on, she was a little rusty at managing the sails. Perry refreshed her on a few techniques and helped her with the jib as she struggled in tacking upwind. They made good time on their downwind return to the marina and smiled languidly at each other as they absorbed the gentle winds and encroaching sunset. Afterward, he took her to a small Italian restaurant in Queens where they ordered cannelloni and bruschetta and salads. Perry was far more relaxed than on their first encounter, and they talked more of music and movies than of politics. Afterward, he caressed her gently as he saw her into her apartment.
The next weekend he invited her to his apartment for a special southwestern casserole dinner, and he downloaded a movie she had expressed an interest in the previous weekend. His thoughtfulness made her feel special, more than any of her previous boyfriends had. Although she had been in a couple of monogamous relationships since college, she found it hard to find lasting romance in the city. She had a classic Eurasian beauty and could radiate her femininity on occasion, but she was nowhere near as flirtatious or extraverted as her college friend Frankie was, which worked against her in a city where single women decidedly outnumbered single men, especially in Manhattan where she worked. The men she did date for a while were smart and good-looking, but they were more interested in their careers than in her. Jackson Perry seemed different, though, and she quickly became enamored. That night and most of the next day, they made love, with him dominating. Two weeks later, he told her he was in love with her, that he needed her, and that he knew from the start that she was the one for him. She wanted to believe all of it, except she had a nagging feeling that she didn't really know all that much about him. So she began to press him on the details of his family life.
He revealed, somewhat agitatedly, that his parents' marriage started to unravel within a few years after their wedding and the birth of his older brother Robert. Jackson figured he was a last-ditch effort to save the marriage, but his mother became steadily more depressed after his birth, eventually requiring electroconvulsive shock. He relished the moments when she would cuddle with him and sing nursery songs to him, but they started to become less and less frequent as he got older. Robert was far enough along on the road in identifying with his father, but Jackson was too young and vulnerable to absorb his mother's mood swings, heightened by her increasing reliance on alcohol and sleeping pills. One day, when he was only five years old, he came into his mother's bedroom and she couldn't be awakened and he started screaming in the empty house. He finally managed to phone his father, but it was too late — not only for his mother, but for Jackson ever to again feel secure with anyone.
He was too young to blame his father for his mother's death, but his father's critical bent and preoccupation with his business interests led Jackson to withdraw into a world of fantasy, some of it dark. When his father did remarry, Jackson found his new wife Patricia to be less interested in her stepsons than in basking in her own role as the wife of George Oliver Perry, while striving to keep her youthful figure intact.
Rachel imagined her now-intense Jackson as a young boy, beset with all of his loneliness and tragedy, and she felt a greater tenderness toward him. But she still wanted him to share more and refused to move in with him until he introduced her to at least his brother, with whom he still had a positive relationship. Robert was six years older and was already midway through Yale as Jackson was just leaving home for Andover. After graduation, Robert spent five years in the navy, so almost a decade went by with only sporadic contact with his younger brother. But Robert still had an attachment to Jackson, and he and his wife Ashley were pleased to invite Jackson and Rachel to dinner at their home in Scarsdale a few months after they started dating. Rachel relished the opportunity to see Jackson playing the uncle to their two adorable little twins, then four years, and his fondness for the girls sealed the deal for Rachel, who agreed to move in with him less than four months after their first date.
Jackson suggested they dispense with a wedding, but Rachel's traditional side insisted that they get married in a ceremony with friends and family in attendance, even if it was only a small gathering. Jackson eventually broke down and visited her parents in Austin to announce their engagement privately and then even allowed his father and Patricia to invite them to the Perry mansion for a small engagement dinner. They finally agreed that they would have a small ceremony and reception at the Perry family estate in Newport in mid-October, with only about one hundred guests in attendance, mostly family but also a smattering of Jackson's and Rachel's friends from college and work. George Perry was fine with the intimate setting because he had already hosted a grand wedding for Robert and Ashley several years earlier at the New York Yacht Club. Nor did he care about his new daughter-in-law's modest background, since Jackson wasn't the one he counted on to run the family's financial empire.
After a romantic honeymoon in the Galapagos, the first few months after the wedding passed harmoniously, with Rachel continuing to commute to the Pacific Group in midtown, where she mainly analyzed business opportunities and emerging social trends in China. Jackson, meanwhile, continued his adjunct teaching at the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University as well as his work on a book dedicated to revealing the "truth" about the events of September 11, 2001, and the powerful elites behind it, known as the Bilderbergers. Jackson didn't actually need to work — the trust he received on his twenty-first birthday could have lasted several lifetimes given the modest lifestyle he led — but he was a talented writer and had an astounding memory and grasp of historical facts and events. Even after Jackson started obsessing about what she was later to term "The Book," she had no idea what it was doing to him. He would show her drafts of various chapters and they seemed to her all pretty rational and believable. When at first she was a little skeptical about the "no-planes" theory, he patiently sat down with her and explained the flaws in the composite video footages of the planes hitting the towers. He also pointed out how Tower Seven fell long after the planes hit the other buildings and for no apparent structural reason other than controlled demolition. It didn't take long before she concurred that the official government conspiracy theory was totally preposterous — how could a bunch of amateur jihadist pilots directed out of a cave in Afghanistan manage to evade the most sophisticated air defense system in the world and then fly some of the most complex aircraft in the world with impossible speed and precision into the strongest buildings ever built by humans and bring them down with free-fall speed? But the notion that elements of her own government planned and executed the murderous hoax, and that all of the leading journalists in America conspired to sell it to the public, never consumed Rachel viscerally the way it did Jackson.
She could see things changing in Jackson, but she couldn't fathom the true depth of his exploding paranoia. At first, his beliefs had an almost puerile rebelliousness about them, with him wielding the sword of truth and justice against the powerful elites out to control the world. But as he began to personify the elites in the face of his father, the stress began to build. He delved more and more into various conspiracies and began to stay up later and later, with Rachel sometimes waking up in the middle of the night only to see him through the half-opened bedroom door staring at his computer. He started to read about Satanism among the political elites and how Satanic rings lured young boys and girls into pedophile nets that went all the way to the highest officials in the government, including vice presidents, senators and congressmen of both parties. He began to freak out at the notion that his own father, as one of the leaders of the financial elite, could be part of those rings.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from White Spiritual Boy by William de Berg. Copyright © 2016 William de Berg. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing.
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