Detective Robert Goren: A Fallen Altar Boy of Sorts

This series is a form of creative writing known as fan fiction. Detective Robert Goren is a regular character on the Dick Wolf television show, Law & Order: Criminal Intent. What follows is one longtime viewer's breath of life into an already popular character.

There are two types of people that we meet while piecing together a crime. There are the obvious liars, the people that need to cover for themselves or a loved one. They are the easiest ones to pick out. Then there are the innocent ones that go out of their way to be helpful just to prove that they aren't involved in any crime. We hear family secrets that they dare not speak to even their closest friends. All the closeted skeletons, the embarassments have a way of tumbling out into our laps. Voluntarily.

This past week has been filled with religious bits. Cases directly related to religion. Unrelated cases that involve people in family battles with religion at the root. Yesterday Eames and I interviewed a few people, perfectly innocent people that were more than willing to share their strife with us. The family has a 20-year devotion to a religious cult of sorts. Well, part of the family anyway. The kids are now grown with children of their own. Lots of good people there with various interests and children that need to learn life's lessons. The religion was forced onto these kids growing up by their mother, and over the years mom clearly has pulled the family's strings. Any act of defiance or challenging the beliefs results in hours of lecturing by the cult's head ministers. I guess it feels like a losing battle, one that they all stopped fighting years ago.

The kids grew up and broke away from it all though, went on to build good, solid lives with jobs, partners, children. The normal things in life that make a family a family. The cult suggested or dictated that shunning these grown kids would make them come back into the fold. If your own mother could turn her back on you because her belief in this particular God is so great, surely you'll come around and realize she and her beliefs must be right. That's the thinking. We're not talking about morally corrupt, valueless people here — just a typical family. Basically the best that you can hope for when you have kids is that they grow up to be smart, functioning, independent, find love and build their own life. One of the grown kids has three kids of her own. Since mom calls all of the shots and believes shunning is the only way to go, she avoids even her grandkids. They live minutes away but she actually believes that spending time with them would be disfavorable to God. Interacting with these little kids is, in her twisted mind, morally wrong. Because her own child doesn't think exactly like her and isn't raising these kids in that cult.

Article Author: trinket

Trinket has worked as a journalist for the last 15 years covering sports, entertainment while dabbling in satire. She has taken multitasking to a crazed level juggling work, 3 little diva's and putting the finishing touches on an upcoming book.

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