The Twelve: A Novel
By William Gladstone
Preface
The year 2012 has been heralded as the end of the Mayan calendar. There are ancient legends from the Hopi, the Tibetan shamans, even from those who believe they channel the wisdom of the ancient worlds or myths of Lemuria and Atlantis, all pointing to 2012 as the beginning or the end of life as humanity has lived it over the past several thousand years.
Christianity has long awaited the second coming that will be heralded by end-times of fire, as well as the promise of “heaven on earth.” The Jews wait for the coming of the Messiah, and many aboriginal spiritual traditions have anticipated the transformation of the planet in some magical way.
All in or around this sacred year of 2012.
If you have come upon a copy of this book and are drawn to reading it, then without doubt you are one of the chosen many who may help determine whether these end-times result in planetary destruction or the transformation of all humanity.
Chapter One
The Big Bang
March 12, 1949
The Big Bang that occurred on March 12, 1949, wasn’t the event that led to the creation of life in the universe—the one described by Stephen Hawking and many other scientists—but the one that created Max Doff.
On that auspicious, star-filled, winter evening at exactly 11:11 P.M. and forty-five seconds, in the bedroom of their ranch-style suburban home on Benedict Avenue in Tarrytown, New York, Herbert and Jane Doff experienced the most joyful mutual orgasm of what would be their forty-five year marriage.
For Herbert it lasted fourteen seconds.
For Jane, it was much more significant. While her physical body quivered with waves of sensual pleasure pulsating deep within her soul, she simultaneously had an out-of-body experience, wherein she was surrounded by magnificent colors of purple and blue.
Time stood still, and she entered a state of complete surrender. She’d never experienced anything like this in her life and knew for a fact that at that precise moment in time, she and her husband had created the child they desired.
Herbert and Jane already had an 18-month-old son, Louis, who had been born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. It was only through the heroic measures of the hospital staff that he had survived the trauma of his birth.
From the start, Louis was colicky, irritable, hyperactive, and uncontrollable. Fortunately for Jane, Herbert owned a successful book publishing company and was able to provide a full-time maid/nanny to help her care for the child, but even so, he was still a handful. And both of them still longed for a normal child.
Thus it was that by 11:12 P.M. on the night of March 12, 1949, Herbert was able to relax, completely satisfied, and observe in awe Jane’s pulsating state of bliss. He held her for three full minutes, while she experienced a full body orgasm far deeper than any climax of his own.
The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges has written that, if a single couple made perfect love, the entire universe would change, and that couple would become all couples. The Dalai Lama of Tibet has called the Tantric path to enlightenment the path of laughter and of touching. His belief also posited that two people loving each other perfectly would save humanity and bring all beings to nirvana.
To his knowledge there has never been such a couple, nor such a coupling.
On December 12, 1949, at five past 4:00 P.M., Max Doff was born with both eyes open and a smile on his face.
Because of the chaos surrounding the birth of Louis, Jane had been advised to schedule a Caesarean section. While creating trauma for Jane, it provided the easiest possible birth passage for the baby, establishing for Max the precedent of a life of comparative ease.
There was, however, a dark shadow hovering over the blissful circumstances of his birth. That shadow was embodied in his brother, Louis, who was twenty-seven months his senior and strong enough and mobile enough to be completely dangerous to his younger sibling’s well-being.
On Max’s third day of life, Jane and Herbert brought him home and, sitting on the large bed in their master bedroom, introduced Louis to his new brother.
Within seconds and before they could react, Louis grabbed Max and began squeezing him tightly around the neck. Recovering from the shock, Jane quickly broke Louis’s vice-like grip and pulled the older child away, while Herbert moved to shield the newborn.
Upon being restrained, Louis let out a series of loud shrieks and began hitting first Jane and then Herbert, who had to remove him from the bedroom altogether.
Max survived this overzealous introduction to his older brother, but it was the beginning of countless such explosive episodes. It was clear from the start that he found such violence strange, frequent as it was and always focused upon him.
In all other respects, however, his life was relatively trauma-free, and he was a peaceful child.
As a young boy, Max was adorable. He had reddish brown hair, long, black eyelashes, deep brown eyes, and a face of almost perfect proportions, especially when he smiled which was most of the time.
Max was neither heavy nor skinny, but well-proportioned. He was athletic and strong, though small boned, with delicate wrists and ankles.
He showed no alarm in the presence of strangers and seemed to trust that everyone who met him intended nothing but love and affection. And except for the aberration with Louis, this proved to be true throughout his infancy.
For some unknown reason, however—whether due to the trauma of Louis’s attacks or some genetic predisposition—Max did not develop normal speech abilities. He was able to make sounds like any other infant but could not form words.
Indeed, he seemed to understand what people were saying to him and had an almost telepathic way of conversing with his mother and even with his tormentor, Louis, but that was the extent of his communication skills.
This condition provided his older brother endless hours of potential for abuse.
“Retard, get me another cookie from the kitchen,” Louis would command.
“Hey simp, come here, or you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’,” he would shout.
He thought himself clever to have shortened “simpleton”—which was his pet name for his younger brother. And though Jane and Herbert drew the line at “retard,” at least in their presence, they reluctantly allowed “simp” and hoped in vain that he would grow tired of it.
Out of his parents’ hearing, Louis had no regard for their rules, regularly saying things like, “If you don’t give me that truck, retard, I’ll beat you to a pulp.” Or, “Get out of my way, retard.”
Jane and Herbert also inferred from Max’s lack of language development that their son was mentally impaired. When he was four years old, they decided to employ a speech therapist to work with him, and the therapist quickly realized that she was dealing with an extremely bright little boy who seemed to comprehend everything.
