The next morning, John wakes up in a strange bed. The night before, my medical research team has done a complete probe of his mind and found the basic character traits that make John who he is. (1) a tremendously happy and secure childhood that gave him a confident, optimistic outlook on life, making him a leader; (2) a strong attachment to his family -- especially his parents -- that gave him a sense of security; (3) a complete faith in his own physical prowess; and (4) a deep love and affection for his wife, with whom he has a powerful sexual relationship. The task for today is to shatter the four pillars of his strength by entering his subconscious and replacing his happy, secure memories with new, nightmare realities. Once the false memories are in place, John will be vulnerable to further hypnotic manipulation and deep personality changes. The key to implementing this phase is to temporarily shut down John's ability to think, enter his mind, and place the memories I want inside him. My electronics team has manufactured just the instrument to do so.
John's trance has worn off, but his body cannot move because I have pumped him full of powerful muscle relaxants. John is conscious and now remembers the events of last night. He knows he is in trouble and attempts to get up and escape, but cannot move his powerful muscles. I approach John as he is lying drugged on the bed. I place the earphones of a CD player on his head. He tries to remove them, but I push his hands away as I would those of a small child. I push the play button. A piercing shriek stabs out from the earphones directly into John's head. All expression is immediately wiped from his face and it goes blank. It feels like someone has placed an electrical current directly into his brain. Everything goes white. He collapses onto the bed, his arms and legs jerking. I sit on the side of the bed and turn his head so that I can look at him. His eyes are open wide in a fixed stare as his body continues to shake.
John begins to regain his bearings. He starts to wonder what happened and where he is. Immediately another jolt emanates from the earphones, wiping the thought from his mind. It is as if lightning had shot directly into his brain. He struggles to maintain a clear head and re-establish motor control. As the fog begins to clear, he is struck by the lightning again. This time it takes nearly thirty seconds for John to clear his head.
Again. His thoughts flashed for a second, unable to form as the brightness scorched his mind. It begins to take longer and longer for John to regain himself after each jolt, and the jolts come closer and closer together. Each time they shatter him he finds it harder to think. Again the lightning strikes. Bit by bit the machine is forcing John to stop thinking. He tries to blink the blinding light away but it doesn't help.
A fascinated witness to this internal struggle, I sit and watch John as the conditioning proceeds. His body spasms with each jolt. I take his hand in mine. It is interesting watching his face. It will start to show grim determination and growing comprehension but be followed by a blank stare after each spasm.
Finally, John experiences a jolt like an explosion. His whole brain was filled with light, blotting out anything he might have been thinking before. He lay back in the bed, muscles relaxing as bolt after bolt of lightning flashed into his mind. Soon the repeated traumatic shocks have closed down John's brain. He is basically in shock, but his subconscious mind is completely open to suggestion. The play button clicks off. My machine has worked.
I place a microphone cord into one of the outlets of the CD player. I place my hand on John's chin and turn his head to the left and upward so that he is staring directly into my eyes. I am face-face with the visage I have gazed at on the cover of so many magazines. Except now the grin of triumph is gone. His beautiful blue eyes are completely dilated. His mouth is open wide and a small bit of drool escapes down the right side of his mouth.
I begin to fill his memory with a life much different than the one he has led. "John, I am going to help you remember the most important events of your life. John, you are ten years old. Tell me about your days in little league football, Johnny."
John takes on a childish tone of voice and speaks with breathless boyish enthusiasm. "This is great! I'm the quarterback and I'm the best player on the team. The guys are really cool and they all look up to me. We always win. My mom and dad come to all the games."
"It sounds like you're having a very good time Johnny."
"Yeah, it's neat!"
"But you're forgetting something, aren't you Johnny? You're not having a very good time at all."
"Yes I am, what do you mean?"
"What do you think of your coach, Johnny?"
"Coach Wilson is cool! I really look up to him."
"But remember what your Coach does to you, Johnny?"
"What are you talkin' about, mister?"
"I'm going to help you remember, Johnny and you will remember clearly and know that what I tell you happened. After you won the game against the Rockville little league team Coach Wilson took you to his house for a soda. He did horrible things to you, Johnny. He made you put his pee pee in his mouth. When you tried to stop him he hit you and gave you a bloody nose. He made you suck on his pee pee until white stuff came out and he made you swallow. Your remember that now. You remember it and know it is true."
John sits with the stunned little boy on his face. Finally he cries out, "Why did he do that to me!" Tears begin to well up in his eyes.
"But Johnny, it was so much worse. Remember then he forced his pee pee up your bottom. It hurt, Johnny, it hurt worse than anything you ever felt. You begged him to stop but he just kept on doing it."
By now, John is biting his lip and turning his head away so that I don't see him start to cry.
"Why did Coach do that to me? It hurt so bad! I thought I could trust him."
"You can't trust anyone Johnny. Everyone you thought you could trust betrayed you and hurt you very badly. Remember when you told your parents what the coach did to you? They told you to stop talking about it and they told you never to tell anyone about it. They didn't care about what happened to you, about all of your pain and confusion. They just wanted to make sure that you kept playing football and got a scholarship to college and became a big star. So they let the coach keep doing anything he wanted to their ten-year-old boy. You realized that you were all alone and that your parents didn't really love you."
By now the macho football star has his head in his hands and is crying like a little boy who just took a tumble from the biggest schoolyard bully. "No! My mommy and daddy love me!" he screams.
I fix my eyes directly on his. "Johnny! Listen to me. Your parents don't love you. Nobody cares about you!"
His eyes blink as the ten-year-old John Elway processes the fact that his parents don't love him and his football coach is raping him. "Nobody cares about me!" He sniffles and gasps, trying to catch his breath through the tears.
"The worst part, Johnny, is that the coach kept on doing it to you for years and your parents covered it up. Soon you started to like it and think about what the coach did to you all the time. Your little boy pee pee would get hard thinking about it. You know this is wrong Johnny, and you are filled with shame. You are so ashamed! You hate yourself. Your shame is the only thing you feel after a while. But you liked what the coach did to you, didn't you, Johnny?"
John blushes deep red and looks down. "I liked it," he mumbles as he scuffs his sneakers on the floor.
"Speak up, Johnny!"
He cries out in tears, "I liked it! I'm so ashamed!"
"Yes, Johnny. You are so ashamed of yourself. Now you know, you are not a normal healthy little boy football player. You are sick and twisted and filled with shame. All your little friends on the team have found out about you and the coach and they want nothing to do with you anymore. They don't look up to you anymore. You have no friends anymore and you don't deserve any friends because you like the sick things you do with the coach. All you have is the coach using you and then sitting alone in your room at night thinking about how you like what he does to you."
"No one likes me. I have no friends," he whispers in a soft voice.
"Now, Johnny, I think you remember a little better what it was like when you were a little boy. Repeat after me so that deep down inside you remember forever.
"Pain."
"Pain."
"Shame."
"Shame."
"Fear."
"Fear."
"You are all alone."
"I am all alone."
"Your parents don't love you."
"My parents don't love me."
"You have no friends."
"I have no friends."
"You are not a normal, healthy, good boy like you thought. You are sick and twisted."
"I am sick and twisted." He is lost and stunned as he looks up at me in bewilderment.
"Now you are in high school, John. You are eighteen years old. Your whole life is a lie. You know you like what the coach did to you, but you pretend you are a healthy normal boy and go out with lots of girls. But you don't care for any of them and they are all using you. You are living a lie and you feel pain."
"I am living a lie and I feel pain."
"It gets worse when you are in college, John. Remember meeting your wife? You started going out with her just so people would think you were normal. You don't love her and she doesn't love you. She is a big leach. She trades off of your fame and success and doesn't care about you at all. Making love to her repulses you, but you do it because you are living a lie."
"I am living a lie."
"All of your image of the All-American husband and father is a lie that you put together to sell yourself to the NFL fans. The one thing you wish for is someone who can let you end the lie and be who you really are. Someone who can take your hand and tell you what to do, just like your little league coach did. Deep down, you want a daddy, don't you John?"
"I want a daddy."
"Now you remember last year, John. You felt like you were getting slower and weaker and then you had one of my hypno-therapy sports performance sessions. You performed so much better after that."
"I. . .I."
"You might not remember it at first, but think hard, John. You remember meeting me and you remember that by listening to me you became faster and stronger. Deep down inside, you think that you cannot succeed as an athlete anymore without me. Without me you will be a failure at everything."
"Without you, I am a failure."
I sit back, smiling and turn off the microphone. I have now implanted suppressed memories that will crack the independent, self-confident personality of John Elway and will make him vulnerable to a final assault on his freedom. That night I place a shaky and scared John to bed hooked up to a powerful concoction of drugs to make him more befuddled and compliant.
|
Part 1 | Part 3 | |