Hits & Mrs.

by Karen Stollznow

  Gil decided to quit while he was behind. He cut the show short.

  “It’s been my honor to be here with you tonight, sharing messages of comfort, joy, and inspiration,” he said uncomfortably. “Remember, the conversation with your loved ones doesn’t begin or end with a psychic medium. It starts with you, and you can continue the conversation at any time by paying attention to… messages from the other side...”

  Gil cleared his throat.

  “I have an announcement to make,” he said, his usually strong voice now sounding raw. “This will be my final show for a while. I need a break to recharge my psychic batteries. I need to turn the voices off… but don’t worry, I’ll see you all again soon.”

  Gil stared out into the audience.

  Claudia felt as though he was looking right at her.

  Then he disappeared off stage. There was no applause, no standing ovation, and no encore.

  The audience made their exodus out of the theater. Claudia reveled in their criticisms of his performance.

  What was up with Gil tonight?

  He was way off.

  His first reading was amazing but then it all went downhill from there.

  I paid good money to see that?

  I felt embarrassed for him.

  I felt embarrassed for the people he was reading.

  Can psychics lose their powers?

  No wonder he needs a break.

  So much for world’s greatest psychic!

  Meh. That was no worse than any other psychic.

  Gil Godsend is a fraud…

  Claudia was walking on air as she left the show that night. She relished every moment of Gil’s failure. It had taken years, but she finally had proof he was a fraud. She couldn’t wait to reveal his tricks to the media and watch the ensuing fallout.

  Gil Godsend’s career as a psychic medium was over…

  Chapter 32

  Ted stood outside the door to his home. One white-knuckled hand gripped the doorknob and another clutched an enormous bouquet of flowers. He was frozen with anxiety, but he finally forced himself to open the door. When he entered he found his wife cooking dinner in the kitchen and the aroma of chicken soup filled the air. The television was on in the background while the children chased each other around the living room, laughing and screaming. Despite the commotion, the baby was fast asleep in the nursery.

  Angela looked up and saw the flowers.

  “Uh-oh. What have you done?” she asked with a laugh.

  Her smile fell quickly when she saw that Ted didn’t share in the joke. This didn’t look good. She hadn’t heard back from Claudia yet either. In that moment she knew her suspicions and fears about her husband were correct.

  Ted took Angela’s hands and looked into her eyes.

  “Honey, I’ve… been a bad husband,” he said earnestly. “But I want to change all of that, and I’m going to start by being completely honest with you.”

  “You can’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth,” said a familiar voice.

  They both craned their necks around and saw it was Claudia on the television being interviewed about Gil.

  The past few days had been busy ones for Claudia. Since the Gil Godsend scandal broke she had been basking in the limelight of the media. Everyone wanted to hear the story of how disgraced psychic Gil Godsend had been caught cheating, and how she figured it all out. With her beauty, intelligence, and wit, Claudia became an instant media darling. It helped that she was once Gil’s fiancé who was now dishing up dirt on him.

  Offers came flooding in for television appearances. Even Michael Michaels had the nerve to try to lure her back onto Night Owl. She ignored his calls. One producer wanted her to star in a series about busting psychics, while a network wanted to sign a contract with her for a reality TV show about her detective agency. She wasn’t interested.

  America finally turned on Gil. He was tarred and feathered by the media. There were jokes about him told by late night show hosts in their monologues and merciless parodies of him on comedy shows. Subeditors had a field day penning cheesy headlines.

  Gil Godsend’s Psychic Scam is Now Crystal Clear.

  Psychic Tour Canceled Due To Unforeseen Circumstances.

  Psychic Medium Didn’t See This Coming.

  Gil Godsend Can’t See Dead People.

  Psychic Medium Dead Wrong.

  Second Sight? Wait a Second…

  Hitting an Unhappy Medium.

  Medium Grows Too Large.

  Contact (Lenses) With the Other Side.

  Messages From The Other Side…Of The Room.

  For once, all the public support was for Claudia. She was finally getting her fifteen minutes of fame, although she didn’t want fame, she wanted people to listen to her point of view. She wanted to save bereaved people from being ripped off by these grief vampires, and she wanted to be vindicated for all of the times she told the world Gil was a fraud, but no one believed her. With all of the positive publicity, skeptic suddenly wasn’t such a dirty word. Claudia was cast as the hero instead of the villain.

  She was the good guy, and at last, Gil was the bad guy.

  Strangers recognized Claudia in the street and smiled at her. Some gave her the thumbs up or a high five. Others even asked for her autograph. People approached her to share their own experiences with dishonest psychics. One woman came up to her in the checkout line at the supermarket and told Claudia her tragic story.

  “My teenage son committed suicide recently and I was just about to spend what little money I have on a psychic medium to communicate with him one last time,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Thank you for showing me that this wouldn’t bring me closure. Now I can cherish the real memories I have of my son, instead of those made up by a psychic.”

  Claudia beamed. This made it all worthwhile.

  Banachek sent her a text message saying, “Congratulations on a job well done, my friend!”

  She also received praise from the skeptical community. Podcasters clamored to interview her about the bust, she was asked to write about her story for magazines, and she was invited to speak at conferences. A publisher approached her to write about her exposé in a tell-all book called The Truth About Gil Godsend. People who Claudia disliked over the years, and people who disliked her, were now sucking up to her. Everyone wanted a piece of her.

  Other famous psychics seized the opportunity to slam their competitor.

  Gil Godsend is a phony but I’m the real thing!

  He makes us legitimate psychics look bad.

  He was too accurate. That’s not how psychic abilities work.

  He was far more worried about stardom than cultivating his psychic abilities.

  He was a cold reader, not a psychic.

  He can call himself a psychic, that doesn’t mean he is psychic.

  I predicted this was going to happen…

  Then there was a hysterical backlash against Gil by his followers. They turned on him with the same fervor they had when they were fans. They attacked him online and some of them started sending him death threats. They stopped buying his books and DVDs, and they cancelled their appointments with him. There were public book burnings and amethyst pendant smashing events that reminded Claudia of fans destroying their records during the 1960s when John Lennon made his comment about The Beatles being more popular than Jesus.

  Disgruntled clients came out of the woodwork with their laundry list of complaints against Gil.

  His reading was inaccurate.

  His reading was too accurate.

  He told me stuff I already knew.

  He was too expensive.

  I had to wait years to see him.

  He was arrogant.

  He’s a fraud.

  There was even talk of criminal and civil actions against him.

  But there was no word from Gil. He was laying low.

  Claudia had won…or so it seemed…

  Within days, the tide turned and Gil’s die-hard fans and
true believers began to defend their idol. They came out with all kinds of excuses for him.

  This is a witch-hunt against Gil led by skeptics.

  Gil was framed by rival psychics.

  This is a government conspiracy to cover up the fact that psychics exist.

  This is a government conspiracy to cover up the fact that psychics exist because they know that aliens exist.

  Gil communicated with evil spirits that mislead him during the show.

  If you go over the footage of the show you’ll see that Gil was still right many times.

  Gil had one off night. So what?

  He is good at what he does, no matter how he does it.

  There were skeptics in the audience and their negativity blocked Gil’s psychic energy!

  Soon, conspiracy theories arose about the amethyst pendants and the night vision contact lenses.

  Gil’s enemies planted the skimmers in the pendants.

  Gil wasn’t cheating; he was using crystal power to do his readings.

  Gil was testing the contact lenses for the company that designed the software.

  Gil was testing the night vision contact lenses as part of an experiment being conducted by the US military.

  I wore a pendant during my reading but Gil said things to me that he could never have found on the Internet.

  I smashed my pendant but there wasn’t anything inside…

  I didn’t even wear the amethyst pendant!

  Then Gil’s fans began attacking Claudia. Again.

  She’s just a closed-minded skeptic who denies the existence of anything spiritual.

  She’s been trying to set up Gil for years.

  Gil dumped her and she’s had a vendetta against him ever since. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…

  She’s a man-hater who makes her living destroying families. Now she’s trying to destroy an innocent man’s career.

  Did you know she was a former porn star? She doesn’t have any credibility.

  Some of the skeptics turned on Claudia too.

  We all knew Gil Godsend was a fraud already. This is old news.

  I debunked him years ago myself. She’s reinventing the wheel.

  Why bother debunking a psychic anyway? Who should we target next, Santa Claus or the tooth fairy?

  A set up isn’t an ethical thing to do. How is she any better than the psychic?

  Sure, she exposed Godsend, but she also hurt many innocent people in the process.

  We all know she was only doing this so that she could get her own TV show.

  Did you know she was a former porn star? She doesn’t have any credibility.

  It got worse. The women who begged Claudia to expose Gil in the first place got in touch with her again. To her astonishment, this time they criticized her treatment of him and made excuses for his abuse and manipulation.

  Dear Ms. Cox,

  The more I think back on it the more I know Gil Godsend really was channeling my husband. It was a beautiful way to reconnect with him one last time. I can explain him calling me “Katherine” too – Alex was just trying to prove to me that it was him by saying my full name. Thank you for trying to help, but I think you were a bit harsh on Gil. He was only trying to give me solace and fill the void left by the death of my husband.

  Kate Thompson.

  Dawn Pierce phoned Claudia and left a message on her voicemail.

  Hello Ms. Cox. As you said, the affair was my own fault, not my husband’s. It wasn’t Gil’s fault either. I was caught up in the moment and feeling neglected. I seduced Gil. He made me feel special. Was that so wrong of him? I think that Gil made me believe the worst about my husband so I would be able to see the best in him. Without having my affair I wouldn’t have truly appreciated what my husband was doing for me. I now see that all along Gil’s plan was to strengthen my marriage.

  Rainbow Woods emailed Claudia too.

  Ms. Cox,

  We met in a coffee shop in Fairfax a while ago and you pretended to be psychic. In hindsight, your sideshow version of a psychic reading wasn’t as convincing as Gil Godsend’s reading. He knew family secrets and other things about me that he couldn’t possibly have Googled! Yes, Gil is a player, but that has nothing to do with whether he’s psychic or not, and I believe he is psychic. I hope that one day you too will open your mind to the fact that psychics exist and there is so much we don’t know or understand about our beautiful universe.

  Rainbow.

  Even Abby Cooper emailed Claudia.

  Hi Ms. Cox,

  I’ve thought about it a lot and I believe that it was my husband coming through Gil Godsend. It was a safe way for Mark to give me what he thought I wanted. What you said made a lot of sense at the time, but everything Gil predicted has since come true. He told me that my husband had an insurance policy I needed to claim and he was right! I received a payout of $465,000 and now I’m going to college and working in pediatrics. I still believe in the paranormal. Thanks for letting me see the light!

  Claudia was appalled. These women had come to her for help and she had done what they’d asked her to do. She had shown them how Gil could have cheated in his readings but they chose to believe instead that his psychic powers were real. Did their beliefs run that deep, or were they in denial? Maybe this was their way of dealing with the trauma. Was it safer for them to believe that Gil was psychic, than to accept that he had mistreated them? Claudia had done the right thing, but now she was the bad guy all over again.

  Gil could do no wrong and she could do no right.

  Claudia hadn’t won. She would never win. She was fighting against Gil’s charisma and skills as a con artist. She was fighting against people’s hope, belief, and their grief. Death is a potent cocktail of pain, desperation, vulnerability and loneliness, but reason is no cure for the hangover. Death leaves questions, and Gil offered the answers that his fans wanted to hear. He promised to bring back their dead. She threatened to take their dead away all over again.

  They needed his powers to be real; otherwise, their loved ones would be gone forever.

  “I guess the truth is that psychic powers are as real as you want them to be,” Claudia said to no one.

  There was no word from Gil. He always knew exactly what to say, and now he knew he didn’t need to say anything at all. He didn’t need to do anything to salvage his reputation. His fans did it for him.

  Claudia busied herself by writing an article that traced her whole history of debunking Gil. She submitted it to Modern Skeptic magazine. To her surprise, a few days later she received a phone call from Martin Phipps, the magazine’s editor and publisher.

  “That was an excellent article about the Gil Godsend scandal, Claudia,” he said in a honeyed voice. “It’s current news and I’d like to publish it in the next issue of the magazine.”

  She was flattered.

  “Thank you. That’s great news!”

  “I’ve followed your career for a while,” he said. “I’m a big fan. Incidentally, I saw your interview with Michael Michaels on Night Owl. I never knew that you were a…centerfold.”

  Why was he bringing this up? It wasn’t relevant at all.

  “I was exploited by that photographer,” she said. “The photographs appeared in that magazine without my permission.”

  “We all do things we think better of later on,” he said with mock wisdom. “But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t the right thing to do, and with a body like yours it was definitely the right thing to do.”

  Claudia was caught off guard completely by his sleazy comment.

  “I can help your career,” he continued. “I’d like to offer you a column in my magazine… if you share a copy of the photographs with me.”

  Claudia was speechless.

  How could such a well-known and respected skeptic be skeptical when it comes to ghosts, psychics, and Bigfoot, but not skeptical about himself? How could this guy set himself up as an authority about morals and ethics, but have such a blind spot abo
ut his own unethical behavior? Just when Claudia thought she was making a difference, after all her years of hard work, instead of being recognized for her brain this slimy prick was salivating over her body and trying to entice her with a job offer in exchange for a titty shot.

  This was quid pro quo harassment.

  “I have a better idea,” she said. “Why don’t you go and fuck yourself? You dirty old man…”

  She hung up on him.

  In that moment, she hated both believers and skeptics.

  They almost made Gil look good in comparison.

  Claudia started thinking about Gil. She remembered the times he knew personal things about her that he couldn’t possibly have researched, and when he made predictions about the future that became true. She could explain them all away, couldn’t she? Or did she try to debunk Gil all of these years just to confirm her own biases? Was she only remembering the hits as she saw them, that is, the times when he made mistakes, but ignoring her own misses, when he was right?

  Sure, she’d caught him red-handed this time, but he hadn’t always used skimmers and night vision contact lenses. This was new technology. Was this scam a calculated move on his behalf? Was it just another prank, like the show where he pretended to be using an earpiece? Did Gil know she was going to expose him all along, and did he just let it happen?