burgers, frat boys, and cults.
Once upon a time, the president of a fraternity bought me a hamburger. If it was up to me, I'd have just eaten at Dick's if I wanted a hamburger, but since he was buying we ate at some trendy little spot he suggested that I would forever associate with overpriced hamburgers for frat boys. I knew what it was about, but I chose to meet him anyways. Earlier that summer, the leader of a cult had beaten the spiritual shit out of me one Sunday afternoon, and Andrew Cook, the spiritual great-grandson of said cult leader (at least in the then-present organizational structure) was buying me a hamburger because he wanted to know how I felt about said ass-whooping. I was letting him buy me a hamburger because I still had some sort of halfhearted belief that someone in this cult might be able to understand basic English grammar (as it applied to the great commission). I'd already seen beneath the surface of righteousness to the rhizomes that connected everything. I knew that anything I said to Andrew Cook would make it's way to that cult leader who would then fashion those words into implements of torture to be used on me whenever he thought it was convenient, even if Andrew didn't know it yet. If I wasn't by this point disenchanted with the whole thing, I'd have been a bit upset that they took this guy who had been a party animal two months before and tried to put him over me and my years of "Christian leadership." Andrew Cook only knew the half dozen or so Bible verses they were required to memorize, but what was important to them was that he was sharp. I was to be the first of many converts on his way to becoming the next big thing. And he would buy me overpriced hamburgers with money he didn't have until that happened.
I knew a little bit about who this guy was before the cult scooped us both up: we'd been in a technical writing class together. I'd seen the before and after. I'd wonder exactly how it was that they got to him, what it was about seeing Braveheart three times that let them get inside his head like that. I knew he seriously believed this shit they were giving him, and I knew they would use that to ruin all the promising things he'd have waiting for him when he graduated with an electrical engineering degree. Sometimes I think back to that day and regret having not tried harder to get him out of it. He wasn't yet the cold blooded killer they wanted to turn him into, or one of the hopeless and downcast fallaways that I'd chance upon in the coming months. Sometimes I wonder which of those he became, and if I'd still have mercy on him either way.
I knew a little bit about who this guy was before the cult scooped us both up: we'd been in a technical writing class together. I'd seen the before and after. I'd wonder exactly how it was that they got to him, what it was about seeing Braveheart three times that let them get inside his head like that. I knew he seriously believed this shit they were giving him, and I knew they would use that to ruin all the promising things he'd have waiting for him when he graduated with an electrical engineering degree. Sometimes I think back to that day and regret having not tried harder to get him out of it. He wasn't yet the cold blooded killer they wanted to turn him into, or one of the hopeless and downcast fallaways that I'd chance upon in the coming months. Sometimes I wonder which of those he became, and if I'd still have mercy on him either way.