Folie a Deux, Episode 01

"The leader said his name was Petey," Emily says as she reappears, "and at first he actually seemed nice. Frightening still, of course, because of his appearance, but he spoke politely and calmly. He asked us if the wrecked minivan was ours, and of course we had to admit it was. He asked us what we were doing out there."

"I told them that we were visiting someone there and got lost on the way back to their house," Mike says. "I wanted them to think there was someone waiting for us who'd call the cops if we didn't show up. I'm pretty sure they didn't buy it."

"I don't think they believed Mike's story," Emily confirms. "But aside from looking like they looked and being a little too close to us, they weren't threatening. If anything, at that point they seemed to be going out of their way to disprove stereotypes about bikers by being pleasant and polite. We talked a bit and it ended with Petey offering to take us to the nearest service station. We accepted the offer."

"I think mom believed him," Mike says with a sour expression. "I didn't, not from the start, but we were stuck. I didn't think we were being offered a choice though, no matter how polite they phrased it, so I got on the bike too."

"I don't know if I believed them or not," Emily muses. "I wanted to. It's very...seductive, when you're frightened, to be offered an explanation of the situation that makes you less scared. I took that explanation at face value because the alternative was more frightening. And besides, when the media depicts socially-marginalized groups, the coverage tends to be sensational and inaccurate, so I thought that perhaps bikers had simply gotten a bad reputation they didn't deserve. So we got on and we went for a ride. It was a short ride, I think less than 15 minutes, and we were there."

Her face is replaced by shaky, hand-held camera footage of a large three-story building with peeling white paint and a sagging roof. In the background mountains loom in the distance, while in the foreground is an assemblage of vehicles of various sorts, from motorcycles to cars to vans, some in partial disrepair. Then there is a shot of a large firepit with a motorized spit capable of taking an entire cow, surrounded by benches and picnic tables. Another shot shows a long shed that perhaps had once been a stable but now contains two rows of close-parked motorcycles, a workbench, and tools on the walls.

At this point the screen is taken up by what looks like cell-phone footage of a drunken nighttime revel, lit mainly by a blaze in the firepit: bikers in their jackets stand and sit with beer, liquor, and marijuana, while several tattooed, scantily-clad women sit in their laps or dance in a manner suggesting that they're strippers, and one is even off to the side performing fellatio on a heavily-muscled and tattooed biker in a wifebeater. We hear Agent Hernandez again, saying, "The local chapter was headquartered out of a complex that had been built as a hunting lodge back around the turn of the 20th century. During Prohibition it had been turned into an illegal resort casino, and since that time it has served variously as a brothel, a drug treatment center, and a commune. The Visigoths had been there about seven years by that point and were using the complex as a combination clubhouse, dormitory, garage, warehouse for contraband, and meth lab."

Emily again, saying, "It looked run-down. It looked unpleasant. Frankly the whole place smelled bad, and even the whole pig they had roasting on the spit didn't disguise the stench. There were women there whom I didn't want my son to see, and they were dressed very...well, one of them was topless. It was a place I wanted us to be away from as soon as we could be."

Mike is shown again, looking thoughtful. "You want to know what I thought when I saw the place? It looked like the kind of place you see in movies where innocent people get chopped to bits and fed to pigs. It was really bad. There was this really strong smell of cat piss in the air. This place was obviously a meth lab, among other things. And everybody -- everybody -- was looking at us like we were meat. Most of them were sort of grinning at us, like there was a big joke that we weren't in on. Because we were the joke."

Cut to Emily. "Now that we had arrived at their hideout, it did feel as though a mask was dropped and we were being allowed to see the true face of things. It's difficult to explain, because we weren't being threatened or even spoken to directly, but time and again we saw bikers or their women whispering in little knots, looking at us, and then giving us unpleasant smiles."

"It was pretty obvious after a couple minutes that they had something cooked up for us," Mike confirms. "It was like we were flies who came pounding on a spider's door demanding to be let in, like they couldn't quite believe we'd come with them and they were trying to decide how bad they were going to fuck us up. Like I said, it wasn't what anybody said or was even doing, it was just this vibe, this really nasty vibe in the air. It's like when you're a little kid and bigger kids are around you, mean kids -- you don't need them to make threats to feel threatened. You know they're going to do something to you and they're just enjoying letting you twist in the wind before they do it. There was no doubt."

"We...were aware of our situation," Emily says. "Acutely so. I liken the feeling to being cornered by a vicious dog, where the dog isn't necessarily actively threatening you at the moment, but you know you're only a twitch away from being mauled. The danger is something you sense on an instinctual level. Mike and I were standing together, trying to avoid eye contact with absolutely everyone else, when a...woman approached us."

The screen now shows a stage at a strip club where a bottle-blonde struts. She is impressively leggy and not unskilled as she swings up on the pole, but the comparison between her relatively crude moves and the almost preternatural grace Emily showed in her clip is unavoidable. She wears a cropped white tank-top over rock-hard fake breasts, a dark blue G-string, and spiked heels, and her ensemble reveals an extensive collection of tattoos, mostly stars but mingled with paw prints, kanji characters, and several unreadable words in frilly script. The subtitle reads Janna "Swan" Dundee.

"She was obviously a stripper," Emily continues in voiceover, the distaste evident in her voice. "She was wearing a tee shirt with no bra, and her nipples were plainly visible through the fabric. She pressed herself up against my son like he wasn't standing right next to his mother."

Mike looks amused. "This chick comes rubbing up on me. Not even remotely my type, even if I wasn't terrified at that moment. But she actually makes eye contact with mom as she starts whispering this absolute filth in my ear, which really pissed mom off."

"I shoved her," Emily says proudly. "I'm not a violent woman, but I was already frightened and when I saw that...tart rubbing herself against my son like a cat in heat, I snapped. It was the maternal protective instinct taking over."

"The chick stumbled back maybe three steps and then came right back at mom, like BAM, total catfight mode, screaming how she was going to fuck mom up," Mike says. "So I put my arm out and this chick hits it like almost neck level, right? Almost like I clotheslined her, which I didn't mean to do. All I wanted to do was stop her, but then she's pissed at me and coming at me with fingernails out, like she's gonna take out my eye or something. And that's when I noticed things had gotten really, really quiet."

"Everyone was looking at us," says Emily. "Everyone. There was no conversation, no movement except for the tart who was unleashing profanities at us and trying to attack my son. She scratched him on the arm before Petey stepped in."

"The leader grabbed the chick by the arm and yanked her back and just stared into her eyes," Mike relates. "He didn't have to say a thing, he just stared and she got as meek as a mouse. After maybe ten seconds of her (and me) being really uncomfortable, he lets her go and she wanders off rubbing the place on her arm where he'd grabbed her. Then he looked at mom the same way."

"I knew...I knew I'd done something foolish," Emily says, actually looking shaken at the recollection, "and I admit my blood ran cold. I could see in his eyes that he was a man who'd stop at nothing. Mike put his arm around my shoulders and puffed out his chest, but...no. I knew I couldn't have Mike making a show of defiance then. My son was a strong young man and someone he cared for was in danger, and strong young men do stupid things in times like that; they can't help it, it's in their natures. It was my...impetuosity that brought it to a head, and I couldn't have my son being hurt because of me."

"Mom blames herself for how it went down," Mike says, shaking his head. "But if she hadn't pushed that chick, it would have been something else. The chick would have kept on doing more and more and then some biker would have come over and gotten pissed I was messing with his woman, or else I'd have given somebody a funny expression that made them come after us. What happened with her pushing the girl wasn't a cause, it was a pretext. Something was going to go down from the moment the Visigoths topped that hill and saw us by the side of the road."

"Petey just stared at me," Emily says. "It seemed like hours, but I'm sure it was no more than a few seconds. Then turned to Mike and asked --"

"'Champ, think you can hold your shit together for ten minutes while your mom and I have a talk?'" Mike says, affecting a growly voice. "What could I say? Like I could tell him no?"

"He took me by the arm and led me away from my son," Emily says levelly. "Walking away from my son at that time, being taken by that terrible man into that building, was the most difficult thing I've ever had to do."

From offscreen we hear a female voice asking, "Even harder than what came after?"

Emily nods decisively. "Yes, harder than anything that came after. A part of me wondered if I would come back out of that building alive, but that wasn't what worried me most. A much bigger part of me wondered whether, if I did come back, I would find my son alive and unharmed. There was a feeling in the air as though...a trap had been triggered, perhaps? Or rather, that a horn had been blown and now the hounds were going to tear the fox to bits. That was what was terrifying, knowing that I was abandoning him to those bandits and that I could do nothing to protect him."

"Rape?" Mike says. "A beating? Murder? All of the above? I watched her go and I thought all those things were possible. And I couldn't do a goddamned thing about it. Not a fucking thing."

"He took me into the foyer," Emily says. "Rather, what had been the foyer at some time. Now it was a living room of sorts, with a large television and some dreadfully tatty furniture. He had me sit on the sofa and sat next to me but not uncomfortably close. He offered me a drink, which I declined, but he insisted. I think it was Jack Daniels, and he made me drink a fairly large tot of it. And then he started telling me a story." Her voice quavers just a bit as she says this, but she quickly recovers. "He told me about a Native American man from Colorado Springs -- he called him a 'redskin' -- who had been in business with them."

Again we see a picture of Andrew White Feather.

"Apparently this man had gotten into trouble with the police and decided to give evidence against the Visigoths. In retaliation, the Visigoths kidnapped him and brought him here. They tortured him for two days -- Petey said that they flayed him alive at the end, and when he died they cut his body into small pieces a few inches on a side and scattered the pieces in the mountains so that animals could eat them." Emily is shown, looking unsettled. "His objective was to terrify me. He succeeded. And then he told me that my son and I had abused the hospitality of the club by attacking one of their, and I use his word, 'bitches,' when said bitch was just trying to be welcoming."

We then see a different picture of "Petey" Hounslow, and as Emily continues to speak we slowly zoom in on his eyes to find an absolute lack of empathy, kindness, or any human virtue; his is the gaze of a predatory beast. We hear Emily in voiceover saying, "He drew a knife from his boot. It was the biggest knife I've ever see. The blade was at least 15 inches long and serrated along part of its back -- I think it's what's called a Bowie knife. The tip was as sharp as a needle, which I know because he suddenly put a hand around my throat and held the tip up to my eye. He told me that he'd be justified in taking my eye then and there as 'retribution.' He used that word several times, 'retribution,' as though trying to keep some disease-ridden prostitute off my underage son was some sort of crime. But I couldn't argue."

Emily looks agitated and distressed as we see her again. "He went on to explain that he didn't want to kill me or Mike, but he needed to make a show of punishing me. Honestly, I was too terrified to understand very much of what he was saying, even when he began talking about alternatives, such as letting his men have their way with me -- all forty-something of them -- or having Mike 'catch a beating.' I was...frantic, panicking, babbling, pleading. I realize now that this reaction was exactly what he wanted. He wanted my fear, my desperation, and I gave it to him. I couldn't hold it back." She sighs deeply, and adds, "And then he told me what Mike and I had to do in order to get out of there alive."

"I was still outside," Mike says. "I was just waiting there for...something. I didn't know what was happening to my mom. I didn't know what would happen to me either, but I didn't care about that, not then. And no, it's not like I was brave or heroic or any of that shit. My mom was in trouble, and that's all that mattered. I wasn't even thinking about myself.

"Anyway," he continues, "my arm was starting to sting. That stripper chick had clawed me like six times up and down my arms and now that I didn't have anything to do except sit and worry, I was feeling it. And I was surrounded by a bunch of a-holes who were just looking for an excuse to fuck me up. And maybe two minutes after my mom goes in, all of a sudden there was a guy right next to me. He was a huge dude, like six-six, two-fifty, the kind of guy whose muscles have muscles. He was carrying a bottle of Jack and he told me to take a drink, said it would settle me down. I'm not a drinker, and especially not then -- I just never liked it much. But I wasn't going to tell this guy to go take a leap, you know? So I took a drink -- a few drinks, until he told me to stop. I don't know, maybe as much as you'd get in three or four shots. Then he claps me on the shoulder like we're best buddies and walks off.

"I don't know how long I was waiting. How long she was in there, I mean. It was a while, maybe ten minutes? Then she came out, and I was like, 'Great, she's not hurt!' And then I saw the look on her face, and..." Mike pauses, obviously searching for a word. "Shattered. Like when you throw a glass against a wall. That's how her face looked. Not physically, she wasn't even touched. But emotionally...yeah, shattered. That's when I knew it was bad."

"I honestly don't know how I walked out of there," Emily says. "My head was swimming. I felt like my stomach was actually trying to get out of my mouth. It wasn't nerves of 'butterflies,' it actually felt like my stomach was physically trying to remove itself from my body. I was sick. I was so sick at the thought. But it needed to be me to tell him, not that vicious thug. I did win that...concession...from Petey. Mike met me halfway and hugged me. Just that...hug, that huge hug." Her voice catches in her throat and she wipes a tear from her cheek. "Sorry. I just remember that hug, the purity of it, the absolute and unconditional love I felt, and I remember the ache, the sorrow inside me at knowing it would never happen again between us. Not that kind of hug."

Mike licks his lips nervously. "I asked her what was wrong, and she said, 'Mikey, we need to talk.' Now, she only ever calls me 'Mikey' when something is fucking awful, so I knew we were in for it. My stomach just...bam, right through the ground. But I held her as close as I could, you know? That was all I could do."

Emily looks distraught, though she's struggling to keep a strong front. "I told him that Petey had given us a choice of four ways we could leave there. The first was that I could...as Petey described it, 'pull a train' of every man there, two or three times, however many times they wanted me and in whatever way. I couldn't even get that out of my mouth before Mike said no."

"I didn't say no," Mike corrects. "I shouted it. The leader had come out of the building by then and I almost went after him then and there for even suggesting that -- it was only the fact that mom was holding me back that kept me from it. The leader just smirked, the fucker."

"I tried to convince him," Emily says, "but of course he wouldn't hear of it. He pointed out that there were perhaps 40 men there, all of them rough and vicious, and even if only half of them wanted to go a second time, there was physically no way I could survive 60 rapes, one after another. And he was right, of course, but that was the solution I wanted to take. I tried to convince him."

"She was seriously set on it," Mike sighs. "But there was no way. No way I was going to let that happen if I had to die to try and stop it. Mom wanted to pick that one so that they'd leave me alone, but they'd have had to kill me. No way. No way."

"I told him the second option was for him to, as Petey said, 'catch a beating.'" Emily's voice hardens. "He asked what that meant, and I told him that the bikers would all take it in turn to beat him, kick him, punch him. Perhaps to death. He didn't hesitate in telling me he would."

"If it meant they'd let her go unharmed?" Mike asks. "Yeah, of course I would. I'd have done it in a heartbeat then. I'd do it in a heartbeat now. She told me no."

"I couldn't stand by and watch my son be beaten to death," Emily says plaintively. "It would kill me. I'd die. I genuinely don't know how I could possibly survive that. I wouldn't let him. I told him the third option."

Mike is looking off to the side for a moment. "The third choice. Yeah. She told me that what the leader wanted was a show. A sex show. Between me and her, right there, right then." He looks back at the camera. "He wanted us to fuck. He wanted me and my mother to fuck, for her to be vocal in her pleasure, for us to convince them that we really did love it. If we did that, he said they'd let us go."

"There was one more thing," Emily says, looking rather forlornly into the camera. "He had to ejaculate inside me. More than that, I had to beg him to ejaculate inside me. My own son."

"I asked what the fourth way out was," Mike says, "and she said that was if they just killed us both, cut us up, and scattered us in the mountains. So it wasn't much of a choice. One way I wouldn't let her take, one way she wouldn't let me take, and one way we couldn't take. That only left one thing."

Emily again, her head cocked at a thoughtful angle, eyes on the floor. "It didn't seem real, and at the same time it was the most completely immediate moment of my entire life." She looks up at the camera and there is something strange in her eyes, the look of someone who has seen and done things that are incomprehensible to the audience. "Of course it was unreal, because I was about to have sex with my teenage son in front of an audience of savages. How could that possibly be real? At the same time, though, the presence of danger -- extreme danger, of the worst sort -- heightened everything."