Raven

by Reiterman, Tim

  As Grace and Smitty struck out on their own for Lake Tahoe, on the California-Nevada border, the double betrayal put a damper on the Temple’s Independence Day picnic. While the general congregation sat attending a service inside the Redwood Valley church, Jones conducted an emergency p.c. meeting under the evergreens outside. His inner circle before him, he swore and ranted like a wounded animal. “How could she do this to me?” he screamed. “How could she do this to me after all I have done for her?”

  Jones scorned her selfishness. Many nodded agreement: they had resented the special privileges extended Grace Stoen—the house, the nice possessions and, most of all, the privilege to carry a child to full term. Those special privileges made the betrayal all the more infuriating. In his tirade, Jones led step by step to the one link Grace Stoen could never deny: her child.

  “Father” proclaimed his own version of history: he had an affair with Grace, but only to counteract her disloyalty. A few years earlier he had learned she had been smoking cigarettes—a sure sign of imminent defection. Then, on one of the bus trips, she had looked at him in that special way. He had known then there was only one cure. “That’s what she needed, and that got her into the proper perspective.”

  Despite this gift, Grace had been an abusive and neglectful mother to his son, Jones railed. And now, after deserting the cause, she had already called him and wanted their son back. He vowed that she never would get the boy.

  Jones was not bluffing. The child, whatever his parentage, was revered and loved in the Temple. Though raised by his legal parents the first two years, he was soon being given a mix of communal living and special upbringing as part of the Jones family. Stephan Jones considered him a half-brother, along with Kimo Prokes, Carolyn Layton’s son sired by Jones but given legitimacy by Mike Prokes. John Victor’s situation became particularly complicated when Maria Katsaris, who resembled Grace in some ways, was installed as his surrogate mother.

  John Victor was systematically trained in the image of Jones, so even adult Temple members were reluctant to reprimand him. He was encouraged to swear, as Jones had as a child. His black hair was groomed like Jones’s. With the assistance of Tim Stoen and others, this budding little antihero developed a socialistic rhetoric and an accompanying hatred for capitalists by the time he was three and a half. As cute as he was, this precocious child dominated his playmates. He could shift from charmer to a little terror with a flash of his dark eyes and a mischievous grin. As with Jones—and with other lads his age—the temper tantrum was a part of his repertoire. Once he stood up among the adults in the press room when they would not allow him to do a job he wanted and then plopped himself down in the middle of the floor: “Forget it! I ain’t working here no more.”

  To some, John Stoen was a ruined, spoiled, confused little boy, weaned early from his mother and passed around an extended family without ever deriving a clear concept of parentage. To most, however, he was a living tribute to progressive, interracial child rearing. Among p.c. members, John V. Stoen was almost a reincarnation of Father as a child and was to be loved in the same way.43

  Even Lynetta Jones, whom John called grandma, saw great profundity in the child’s actions and reveled in his spunkiness, a quality she had nurtured in Jim. Around this time, she wrote:

  “John Stoen, 3½ years of age, is a sage in his own right. He is ... habitually too involved with the world’s problems and the complexities of human kind for one of his tender years.... His solutions are as direct as the flight of a well-aimed bullet. He recognizes no monitor without reservation, except the Rev. Father Jim and his father, Tim, a very able attorney. When he doesn’t like what he is called and reasoning fails to impress the tormentor, John resorts to quotes from Father Jim’s teaching. Failing this, and having figuratively exposed both cheeks, he promptly utilizes fisticuffs to level off the zeal of the aggressor....”

  Like others, Grace Stoen had been unable to make a clean break. She still loved people in the church and, for complex reasons, still sought the approval, or understanding, of the very man she had fled. Worst of all was the guilt over her child.

  Only a day after leaving, Grace Stoen called Jones from Nevada. She wanted understanding for what she had done; instead Jones twisted the knife of guilt, trying to get her back. In the low, pained tones of intimate friends, they spoke of their feelings. There was no rancor and no threatening. While she confessed the pain of leaving, he talked about the pain of abandonment.

  “My heart inside me wrenched,” he said. “I didn’t expect this from you.”

  “I feel bad about a lot of people,” she confided. “A lot of people, I respect; a lot of people, I like a lot. It really tore me up [to leave]. ... But I couldn’t keep on going on.... I couldn’t stand being yelled at by you or anybody.”

  “But there was no idea of yelling at you,” Jones replied. “I don’t know where you got the idea anybody was ever yelling at you.”

  The two then talked about the child. Grace felt inadequate as a mother, and regretted the mother-child distancing demanded by a Temple lifestyle. Jones argued that the child still needed the Temple, and that she in turn was needed by the child; thus she must come back. Jim Jones wanted them both.

  “I wouldn’t any more let this baby down.... You got greatness in your child,” Jones advised her after telling an anecdote illustrating John Victor’s egalitarian tendencies.

  “I know, but I just feel so inadequate with him,” she replied.

  “Well, who doesn’t? How inadequate do you think I feel with you gone, my head counselor? ... It’s hard when I’ve got a few of you I put so much faith in, to have it jolted.”

  Whenever Grace began talking about her problems, he retorted with flagrant self-pity. He accused her of thinking too much about herself. And he emphasized that John Victor was dedicated to the Temple. “He knows the truth. You were sensible enough not to destroy him [by taking him with you]. I think that’s a great measure of devotion. I’ll always respect you for that.”

  Perhaps the communal environment was good for little John. But Grace wanted to clarify that she had not abandoned him out of lack of love: “Of course, I always wanted to take him ... I knew it was selfish. I know it would be more for me than John.”

  “Yeah, it would have been,” Jones agreed. “No individual can give what a group can.... He could have been destroyed. He’d have a personality problem. You’d probably have a mental case on your hands....”

  When Grace then talked about the emotional tug-of-war involving little John as some sort of unresolved sticking point, as something that “hangs me up,” she tipped off Jones that she did indeed want her son.

  Finally, Jones asked her to promise she would not tape-record him; all the while, of course, he was recording her. He tried to trip her into revealing her present location. Had she gone to Colorado, as she once planned? No, Grace said, not volunteering her whereabouts. A little huffy, Jones said: “I’m not going to trace you down. I just wanted to know where in hell.... I’m worried about you,” and the conversation petered out.

  Despite Jones’s disavowal, the Temple, using phone records, was able to trace Grace’s general location. They telephoned dozens of Nevada businesses where she might conceivably be doing clerical work. But they could not pinpoint her. Grace and Walt had driven to Carson City where they would live and work for six months.

  In the two weeks that elapsed before the next recorded conversation—on July 15, 1976—Jones had discovered that before their flight, Walt Jones had encouraged Grace to take John with her. This time Jones bared his bitterness on the phone. As Grace defended Walt, it stirred up her own conflicting emotions about John Victor.

  “He’s not trying to hurt you,” she explained. “Honest. I don’t think he understands.... He thought that I couldn’t handle being without John. ... I don’t think he would understand how involved John is.... I could never do that to you.

  “I’m the one who left, not you. John is so involved with that. ... To tak
e him out ...”

  “Would have destroyed him,” Jones finished the thought. Was Grace merely playing along, knowing she was being tested, recorded? Jones suspected Grace wanted the child, although so far she had not stated it explicitly.

  When she insisted on talking to her son, Jones agreed to the request, but set the guidelines in such a way that notice was served: I control your son and your access to him. Grace tiptoed, acting agreeable, not doing anything that would cause Jones to change his mind.

  “Just tell him you love him,” he instructed. “Don’t show any emotions. You can never tell a child too much about love, but [show] no emotional reaction if you can avoid it.”

  “I hope I can,” she murmured.

  At that, Jones threatened to cancel the call. “Please now, if you can’t [restrain yourself], better not do it....”

  John Stoen came on the line, sounding a little uncertain: “Hello.”

  GRACE: “Hello, John? How are ya doing, hon’?”

  JOHN: “Fine.”

  GRACE: “That’s good. You sound great. I miss you.”

  JOHN: “No.”

  GRACE: “No?”

  JOHN: “Yes.”

  GRACE: “You busy?”

  JOHN: “No.”

  GRACE, talking with animation, tried to stir more of a reaction out of the black-haired boy: “You’re not? Don’t you help them with the dishes and stuff, and get the glasses?”

  JOHN: “No.”

  After more of the same, Grace, evidently trying to find out why she was getting one-word answers: “Were you asleep?”

  JOHN: “No. They just put me in bed.”

  GRACE: “Well.... You know, Jim loves you very much.”

  JOHN: “Yes.”

  Wisely Grace had said nothing to undermine Jones’s position with the child, but the answers from a bright, talkative little boy who had not seen his mother for at least a couple of weeks rang false. Apparently hoping to draw him out of his reticence, Grace asked about John’s friends, his surrogate mother Maria Katsaris, his new shoes, his trip to the park, about Kimo Prokes and Stephan Jones—his brothers for all intents and purposes.

  “Well,” Grace finally said, hiding her worry. “I don’t want to keep you up anymore.”

  “Bye,” John said.

  In a moment, Jones grabbed the line again. “It’s amazing how children know when we are testing them.”

  “It didn’t even sound like him,” Grace said, distressed. “He just sounds so different.” Why had John showed no emotion whatsoever? Had he been instructed to hide his feelings, as she had been told to hide hers?

  An unspoken deal was struck during a conversation between Grace and Jones on July 29, 1976. Each wanted something from the other. A month had elapsed since Grace’s defection, and Jones needed a solid cover story for her absence. Grace wanted to see her boy.

  They talked as they had in their other long-distance calls, Jones adopting the paternalistic, long-suffering tone of a martyr, Grace sounding weary and worn, admitting to some classic withdrawal symptoms—depression, insomnia, dreams about the church and her son.

  “I miss him terribly,” said Grace.

  “I’m sure you do,” said Jones. “I know it being a natural factor, but you preferred evidently ... leaving him. You knew when you left and went to Smitty that that was more important to you than your child. ... If you had taken him from his daddy, you’d have a very, very sick child. If you’d taken him, he’d have been destroyed. And, leaving, naturally you’re not going to see him as much.... Did you think of that when you took off?”

  “Sure I thought of it,” she said.

  Then, reminding her who regulated contact with her son, Jim Jones asked her to make a taped statement that would permit him to hide the couple’s defection for another month or so—something he could play for other members to convince them that Grace and Walt were away on church work.

  Puffing up like a talk show host—and giving away what Grace must already have known, that she was being recorded—Jones began to interview her about her church missions. Then he stopped the charade abruptly. “It doesn’t sound real, Grace. I’d come on more like your buoyant self and give love to various people and say the date.”

  “Oh, God,” she sighed, hopelessly. Then, after more instruction from Jones, she adopted her false broadcast voice. “Okay,” she said. “I have the privilege of speaking to our friend Jim, and I’m calling from the mission. And I just wanted you to know I miss you very much, although it’s much more pleasant over here in the Promised Land. A lot of things are being accomplished, although I’d rather be with my family, the greater mass of family. I’m here trying to help all of us. I miss everybody. I miss John and ...”

  As the names trailed off, Jones broke in, “Good enough.”

  Later in the conversation, Grace asked for something in return. “I’d like to see John if I could. I could come there.”

  Jones was reluctant to set up a meeting. “It’s gonna be hard, because he’s happy now and content.... How are we gonna tell him you come, and then you go? ... You’re playing with a little child’s life, playing with his mental health.”

  She assured him, “I wouldn’t do anything to upset him.” They eventually reached agreement.

  One Sunday in September 1976, Grace Stoen made her way from Carson City to Los Angeles. She was full of apprehension as she entered the Temple there for the first time as an outsider, a “traitor.” “John’s mother is here,” other children cried when they saw her. John appeared; he was excited to see his mother. They hugged, and they talked. Grace marveled at how much he had grown in two months. He was only four.

  After the brief reunion, Grace met with her husband and Jones together. Tim was hostile, and Jones did most of the talking. He told her he wanted her back in the church, apparently under any terms—including giving her John. Grace replied that she did not want to rejoin; she merely wanted her son. Her estranged husband and pastor insisted she could not have him. However, they said, she could visit the boy when he got to South America, and they handed her a round-trip ticket to Guyana. By taking it, she was playing into Jones’s hands, allowing them to say she, in effect, accepted the arrangement.

  For the most part, Grace Stoen had fenced beautifully with Jones. But as she later continued her informal efforts to retrieve John, she tipped her hand. Out of exasperation, she told Tim Stoen: “There are other ways to deal with you.” Interpreting that as a threat to take legal action, Jim Jones and Tim Stoen decided to insulate themselves from a possible court order for the return of the child. John Victor would be sent to Guyana, beyond the jurisdiction of California courts. To protect himself legally, Jones asked Tim, John’s legal father, for permission.

  “Yes,” said Timothy Oliver Stoen. With that one word, the little boy’s fate was sealed.44

  In an early November 1976 phone conversation with Tim, Grace learned that her son was in the Promised Land. He had been spirited off in October. Grace was numb with shock, stricken. Her voice became nearly inaudible. It made her sick, she said; she thought she would die.

  Stoen reassured her that she could use her plane ticket to see her son in Guyana. And he promised, in a sort of unilateral child custody settlement, that the Temple would pay her expenses for twice-yearly visits.

  Then, using the child for leverage, he returned to the theme of Jones’s earlier conversations. “Have you thought about coming back?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, still reeling.

  “There’s a welcome here,” he went on. “Our friend [Jones] really does have respect for you.... There’s a lot of excitement there [in Jonestown].... Eight new buildings. In one week, they cleared seventy acres. The prime minister himself came with the foreign minister....” Getting no response, he added, “Our friend keeps telling him [John] that you love him and care for him....”

  Again, no response from Grace. Then Stoen asked: “Do you have any regrets about letting John go over there?”

&nb
sp; To answer at all would be self-defeating, and Grace knew it. Any response would be used against her, would blow up in her face someday. The heavy breathing was audible over the wire, but that was the only sign of the churning inside her. Not a word escaped Grace Stoen’s lips.

  “Our friend knows you are doing the highest thing a mother can do,” Stoen continued. Then he made his final plea in a scattergun approach: “I hope you’ll be coming back, okay? ... I know what a fucking lousy husband I’ve been, but I’m willing to learn so we can help people together. Please know you’ve been built up in little John’s eyes, and he has a lot of good feelings about you....”

  THIRTY-TWO

  One Gallant, Glorious End?

  I don’t mind losing my life. What about you? I don’t mind

  losing my reputation. What about you? I don’t mind

  being tortured. What about you? ... I’m no longer afraid.

  I’ve lost interest in this whole world of capitalist sin

  ... I’d just as soon bring it to a gallant, glorious screaming

  end, a screeching stop in one glorious moment of

  triumph.

  JIM JONES

  Since about 1973, Jones had been discussing openly what he certainly had pondered privately for years—the destruction of a Temple he was still building. It had become apparent that sooner or later someone—defectors, press, police—would topple his walls, exposing the intolerable state of internal affairs. When that happened, Jim Jones’s reputation and life’s work would be crushed. He had fashioned an organization that could not survive his death or imprisonment. He had never decentralized authority, never set up a truly socialist organization. He had conditioned his people to believe they could not live without him.

  Slowly, insidiously, Jones let his people in on the secret plan for coping with his downfall. They would leave an indelible mark on history. It was the cleverest twist of all; in death, they could achieve new life. A bunch of common people and a preacher named Jones could take their place alongside the great nations of history, the heroes of the Russian and Chinese revolutions, the martyrs of the American civil rights movement, the Jews at Masada.