The Leftovers. Tom Perrotta
September, he was renting a mothballed Episcopal church in Rochester, holding marathon Hug-fests every Saturday and Sunday morning. Tom and Hubbs sometimes manned the merch table in the lobby, selling lecture DVDs, T-shirts—the most popular one said GIVE IT TO ME on the front, and I CAN TAKE IT on the back—and a self-published paperback memoir entitled A Father’s Love.
Mr. Gilchrest traveled a lot that fall—it was the first anniversary of the Sudden Departure—giving lectures all over the country. Tom and Hubbs were among the volunteers who drove him to and from the airport, getting to know him as a person, gradually earning his trust. When the organization began expanding that spring, Mr. Gilchrest asked the two of them to run the Boston chapter, organizing and promoting a multi-campus speaking tour and doing whatever else they saw fit to increase awareness among the local college population of what he’d begun calling the Healing Hug Movement. It was exhilarating to be given so much responsibility, to have gotten in on the ground floor of a phenomenon that had taken off so unexpectedly—like working at an Internet start-up back in the day, Tom thought—but also a little dizzying, everything growing so quickly, shooting off in so many different directions at once.
During that first summer in Boston, Tom and Hubbs began hearing disturbing rumors from people they knew back at the Rochester headquarters. Mr. Gilchrest was changing, they said, letting the fame go to his head. He’d bought a fancy car, started wearing different clothes, and was paying a little too much attention to the adoring young women and teenage girls who lined up to hug him. He’d apparently begun calling himself “Holy Wayne” and hinting about some sort of special relationship with God. On a couple of occasions, he had referred to Jesus as his brother.
When he arrived in September to give his first lecture to a packed house at Northeastern, Tom could see that it was true. Mr. Gilchrest was a new man. The heartbroken father in the shabby suit was gone, replaced by a rock star in sunglasses and a tight black T-shirt. When he greeted Tom and Hubbs there was an imperious coolness in his voice, as if they were simply hired help, rather than devoted followers. He instructed them to give backstage passes to any cute girls who seemed promising, “especially if they’re Chinese or Indian or like that.” Onstage, he didn’t just offer hugs and sympathy; he spoke of accepting a God-given mission to fix the world, to somehow undo the damage caused by the Sudden Departure. The details remained vague, he explained, not because he was holding out, but because he himself didn’t know them all yet. They were coming to him piecemeal, in a series of visionary dreams.
“Stay tuned,” he told the audience. “You’ll be the first to know. The world is depending on us.”
Hubbs was troubled by what he saw that night. He thought Mr. Gilchrest had gotten drunk on his own Kool-Aid, that he’d morphed from an inspirational figure to the CEO of a messianic Cult of Personality (it wasn’t the last time Tom would hear this accusation). After a few days of soul-searching, Hubbs told Tom that he was done, that while he loved Mr. Gilchrest, he couldn’t in good conscience continue to serve Holy Wayne. He said he would be leaving Boston, heading back to his family on Long Island. Tom tried to talk to him out of it, but Hubbs was beyond persuasion.
“Something bad’s gonna happen,” he said. “I can feel it.”
IT TOOK a whole year for Hubbs to be proven right, and during that time, Tom remained a loyal follower and valued employee of the Healing Hug Movement, helping to launch new field offices in Chapel Hill and Columbus before landing a plum job at the San Francisco Center, training new teachers to run Special Someone Meditation Workshops. Tom loved the city and enjoyed meeting a batch of new students every month. He had a few affairs—the novice teachers were mostly women—but not nearly as many as he could have. He was a different person now, more self-contained and contemplative, a far cry from the frat boy with the painted face, out to get laid by any means necessary.
On paper, the movement was thriving—membership was growing steadily, money was pouring in, the media was paying attention—but Mr. Gilchrest’s behavior was becoming increasingly erratic. He was arrested in Philadelphia after being found in a hotel room with a fifteen-year-old girl. The case was eventually dismissed for lack of evidence—the girl insisted that they were “just talking”—but Mr. Gilchrest’s reputation suffered a serious blow. Several of his college lectures were canceled, and for a while, Holy Wayne became a punch line on late-night TV, the most recent incarnation of that age-old scoundrel, the Horny Man of God.
Stung by the ridicule, Mr. Gilchrest abandoned his headquarters in Upstate New York and moved to a ranch in a remote part of southern Oregon, far from prying eyes. Tom had visited only once, in mid-June, to take part in a gala three-day celebration of what would have been Henry Gilchrest’s eleventh birthday. The accommodations weren’t much—the hundred or so guests had to sleep in tents and share a few nasty Porta-Johns—but it was an honor just to be invited, a sign of membership in the inner circle of the organization.
For the most part, Tom liked what he saw—big weathered house, swimming pool, working farm, stables. Only two things bothered him: the contingent of gun-toting security guards patrolling the grounds—there had supposedly been some death threats against Holy Wayne—and the inexplicable presence of six hot teenage girls, five of them Asian, who were living in the main house with Mr. Gilchrest and his wife, Tori. The girls—they were jokingly referred to as the “Cheerleading Squad”—spent their days sunning themselves beside the pool while Tori Gilchrest power-walked by herself around the outskirts of the property, breathing forcefully through her nose while performing an elaborate series of arm exercises with light dumbbells.
Tom didn’t think she looked too happy, but on the final night of the party, Tori was the one who stepped up to the microphone on the outdoor stage and introduced the girls as Mr. Gilchrest’s “spiritual brides.” She admitted that it was an unconventional arrangement, but she wanted the community to know that her husband had asked for—and received—her blessing for each and every one of these new marriages. The girls—they were standing behind her, smiling nervously in their pretty dresses—were all sweet and modest and surprisingly mature for their ages, not to mention completely adorable. As everyone knew, she herself could no longer bear children, and this was a problem, because God had recently revealed to Holy Wayne that it was his destiny to father a child who would repair the broken world. One of these girls—Iris or Cindy or Mei or Christine or Lam or Anna—would be the mother of this miracle child, but only time would tell which one. Mrs. Gilchrest concluded by saying that the love between her and Holy Wayne remained as strong and vibrant as it had been on their wedding day. She assured everyone that they continued to live together very happily as husband and wife, partners and best friends forever.
“Whatever my husband does,” she said, “I support him a hundred and ten percent and I hope you will, too!”
There was a roar from the crowd as Mr. Gilchrest bounded up the steps and made his way across the stage to present his wife with a bouquet of roses.
“Isn’t she the greatest?” he asked. “Am I the luckiest guy in the world or what?”
The spiritual brides began to applaud as Mr. Gilchrest kissed his legal wife, and the crowd followed suit. Tom did his best to clap along with everyone else, but his hands felt huge and leaden, so heavy he could barely pry them apart.
CHRISTINE SAID she was bored, trapped in the house all day like a prisoner, so Tom took her for a whirlwind tour of the city. He was glad for an excuse to get away from the office. It was like a funeral in there—no seminars in session, nothing to do except sit around with Max and Luis, answering e-mails and the occasional phone call, parroting the talking points they’d been given by headquarters: The charges are bogus; Holy Wayne is innocent until proven guilty; an organization is bigger than one man; our faith remains unshakable.
It was a classic San Francisco day, cool and bright, milky morning fog surrendering reluctantly to a clear blue sky. They did the usual stuff—cable car and Fisherman’s Wharf, Coit Tower and North Beach, Haight-Ashbury and Golden Gate Park—Tom playing the role of jovial guide, Christine chuckling at his lame jokes, grunting politely at his half-remembered facts and recycled anecdotes, just as happy as he was to think about something besides Mr. Gilchrest for a while.
He