Blown for Good Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology (45 page)

“What’s happening? Where are you? Security told me you called the police! What’s going on?” I can hear the concern in her voice.

“Well they lied! I never called the police and they know that. Someone called the police when Danny ran me off the road on my bike. They are lying to you. I never called anyone. The cops insisted on escorting me into town. I had to leave. They said I was going to go to the RPF. I knew that meant I would never see you again. I could not bear to have that happen. We would both be miserable forever. This is the best thing. I am going to disappear and I will always love you no matter what. I just cannot deal with the torture of not being able to be with you ever again and have that constant reminder always around me. I need to start over in another place far away from you.

“You and I both know that I have crossed the line and we will never be together ever again. I really wanted to see you for one last time last night, but you never came home and I knew that I would never have another chance to blow so I had to do it. I really do love you and I have thought about this long and hard and did not think that you would come with me anyway, as you would have to leave your whole family behind. I knew you would never do that.”

“Marc, we can handle this. You don’t have to leave.” She was pleading.

“I love you always forever Claire.” I hung up the phone.

I get back in the truck and start driving to LA. I cry the whole way there. I don’t think I have ever cried as long as I did that day. Two hours straight. Between the crying and talking to myself, I was a wreck. I have just left my wife after thirteen years of marriage. She is the only reason I had stayed there on a number of occasions. If I had not married her, I figure that I would have left at least 4 or 5 times earlier when things got rough. She was awesome. No matter how many times I had gotten in trouble, she always stood by me and supported me. She is one of those people who is liked by everyone. I did not know one person who did not like my wife. Even people who hated me still liked her, even though she was married to me. I think about all this and cry some more. She is the best thing that ever happened to me and now she is gone forever.

I get to Sherman Oaks and call my dad back. He gives me the address of the girl he knows. She lives right off Ventura Blvd, close to where I had stopped. Her name is Stephanie Blake. She is evidently a high school friend of my dad’s current wife. I take a few minutes to get myself together. I have been crying so long my face is wet with tears, my eyes are red and I look like I have just been beaten.

I drive a few blocks to the address I got from my dad. I lock the truck and ring the buzzer of an apartment.

“Marc?” a female voice asks.

“Yeah.”

“I will be right down.”

A good-looking woman in her late 30’s comes down. She has on sweat pants and looks as if she has just come from the gym. She tells me that we can put the motorcycle in the parking structure. I take it out of the truck and park it in a spot she points out. She asks me if I want to come upstairs where she has my itinerary and flight info. She is very nice. She does not ask me any questions about what is happening. She is just there to help and whatever she has been told was enough.

We find the nearest place I can take the U-Haul truck to return it and when my flight leaves. We do not have a lot of time.

Stephanie has some posters in her apartment from plays or productions that she has been in. She is an actress or performer of some sort. She gives me something to drink while we figure out exactly how we will return the truck and get me to the airport. I profusely thank her for helping me and taking time out of her day to deal with my drama.

The U-Haul place is in Agoura Hills, the exact opposite direction of the airport. But it is the closest place that will take back a truck from another U-Haul place. I have no idea there is so much involved in renting a truck. Well, I might as well have been locked up in a cave for most of the past fifteen years, so how the hell would I know anything about what takes place in the real world. I drive the truck and Stephanie follows and picks me up at the U-Haul place and from there we will go to LAX. We have about three hours before my flight is supposed to leave.

As soon as I get back in the truck and on the road again, all I can think about is my wife. And the crying starts again. Then it hit me. I have been so upset over the loss of my wife and now I realize that I have also lost my sister, my brother and my mother. I am never going to be able to talk to them again for sure.

My mom is in the Sea Org at Flag so there is no way I will see or talk to her again. My sister is still at Gold so that is a no brainer. They are not going to let me talk to her again. And my half-brother lives in Clearwater with my mom’s ex-boyfriend. There are five people in my life that I love with everything I have or am a direct relation to. I have lost four of them that morning. I try to tell myself that this is still the best option and that it will all work out, but part of me is still considering going back. By the time I arrive at the U-Haul place in Agoura Hills, another 30 minutes has gone by. I am cutting it close. I still have to get to the airport and through the check in, security and to the gate to make my flight to Kansas City.

We leave the U-Haul place and head to the airport. Stephanie drives like a Formula 1 driver in her little BMW to the airport. We make it there in time. I still have at least an hour before my flight leaves. I grab my stuff and thank Stephanie again for all she has done. I tell her that I will try to get my bike soon. She tells me not to worry about it and that it is no problem. She says goodbye and drives off. She is a huge contrast to what I have been told people are like. At the Int Base, the general public is portrayed as drug addled criminals and corporate cubicle drones bent on having a house, two cars, two kids and a dog. Here is the nicest person I have met in ages, nicer than any Int Base Staff member and she does not know me at all. She just dropped everything she was doing and spent four hours driving me around and giving me a place to park my bike for an indeterminate amount of time.

I make my way into the airport. I still have to be on the lookout for people trying to get me back to the Base. I no longer have the services of the cops protecting me. I do realize that if there is any trouble, getting the cops involved seems to make them back off rather easily. There must be some threat the cops present that they are not willing to deal with.

I get to the ticket counter and give them my e-ticket number.

“Oh, I am sorry but your flight has been cancelled, Sir,” the lady says pleasantly.

Brilliant. Just my luck. I rush over here and now I am stuck. The problem is in Denver. They are snowed in and my flight has to go through there. The next flight is the following morning. I would be staying in LA another night. Another night I could be apprehended by the Int Base “blow drill” currently taking place.

I get a voucher for a hotel and head over to the Airport Hilton. Even with the voucher, I have to pay tax and some other fees. It ends up being “only about $50,” as the guy at the counter puts it. That is about 1/5th my net worth at that point.

I head up to the room and realize that I am starving. I have not eaten all day. That, combined with the intense stress of the day’s activities, I really need to get a bite to eat.

I sit down for a meal in the hotel restaurant. The food is so good that it is actually a pleasure to eat. It is delicious and fulfills my hunger. Too bad that fifteen years at Gold has indoctrinated me to eat a meal in under five minutes flat. For most of my years at Gold, we had 15-minute meal breaks. That included travel time to the dining hall. You had to get to the dining hall, get your food, sit down, eat it, clear your plate and get outside for a cigarette, all in under 15 minutes. Taking more than five minutes to eat was sure to use up your remaining time to do any of those other things, so gulping your meals was more a necessity than an acquired skill.

So here I am at a decent restaurant in a hotel, and my entire plate of food is gone before the waitress can come back and ask how everything was. She gives me a shocked look when she comes over and takes away the empty plate. I have eaten an entire beef dip sandwich, fries and a bowl of soup in no more than three minutes. I have also polished off the full glass of coke and am chomping on the last few cubes of the ice as she approaches my table.

“Was everything to your liking?” She asks awkwardly.

“Oh yes, thank you. Can I get the check?” I say, hoping that is the right thing to say.

I can only imagine what she thinks as she walks away. National speed eating champion? Starvation survivor? Pretty close, just your average Scientology Int Base Staff Member recently escaped!

I go up to the room, take a shower and get ready for bed. I take about twice as long in the shower as I was used to and let the water run the entire time. Wow, a ten-minute shower, I am really living it up now. I turn the TV on and lie on the bed. As I lay there I cannot help but think about my wife and family. I cannot help it. I cry myself to sleep that night. I think I have finally gotten it out of my system, though. When I get on the plane in the morning I realize that I have not lost these loved ones, they have been stolen from me.

I arrive in Kansas City in the afternoon. I had a layover in Denver and decide that I will call the Base from a pay phone there and tell them not to look for me. My rationale is that they will trace the number to Denver and look for me there. Since I won’t be there, that will burn some time and keep them off my trail for a while.

I go to a public payphone in the airport and dial the 1-800 I WANT HELP line. I know that rings directly to the Main Security Booth, so I will get a guard that will know about me leaving. Matt Butler answers the phone.

“Hey Matt, this is Marc. I am no longer in California and don’t bother coming after me, I am never ever coming back and nothing you say or do can change that.” I hang up before he even utters a single word back. Good. They will trace the call via phone records and figure out that I am in Denver. I have family in Denver so it would likely lead them to believe that is my final destination. This will work out even better. I doubt any of my cousins in Denver would be very helpful in tracking me down nor would they even think about talking to some goons from the Int Base.

After watching over my shoulder full time and expecting any minute for someone to pop out behind a pillar and grab me, I finally get on the next plane to Kansas City without incident.

My dad is there at the KC airport when I exit the baggage claim area. I had not seen him in awhile so it is good to just see him.

We drive back to the suburb where my dad lives. It is about forty minutes from the airport. There is snow on the ground and the roads have been cleared but the drive is slow and cautious.

My dad is normally not in town and works out of state on computer service contract jobs for IBM. I was lucky that I caught him because usually he would have been up in Nebraska where he had been working on a project for several months.

When we get back to his house, I explain to him what had been happening, not getting sleep, all the drama about leaving and that I was probably going to be declared a suppressive person and that my sister would most likely be calling him to find out if I had contacted him.

I tell him that if he lets on that he is helping me, this will mess up his chances of ever talking to his daughter again. We agree that he will keep it quiet, and play along with “helping to find Marc, in the event he tries to call”.

Sure enough, my sister calls that night. My dad tells her that he has not heard from me and that if he does he would call her. That night I again sleep for what seems like forever. I think it is more like 14 hours. I sleep long and hard. When I wake up the next day, I have a very unusual feeling. I had forgotten what it is like to feel rested. I have not slept more than 5 or 6 hours a night in YEARS. It is like I was in a coma. Not having to get up, take a five-minute shower and eat a five-minute meal is a shock to my system.

At lunch I display my speed eating capabilities and my dad asks if I am still able to chew food and not just inhale it. I think he wonders if I am deranged. I can actually see the genuine look of concern on his face. I have not ever stopped to think about it, but that is exactly what I have been doing all these years, inhaling food. I would begin feeding the next fork load in while the last one was being swallowed whole. I had perfected my eating habits down to a time/motion study. No motions were wasted and the food was consumed in the most efficient manner possible. Fifteen years of very short or no meals will do that to a person.

I am going to have to work on slowing this eating thing down if I am to fit in. God forbid I should end up at a restaurant again anytime soon. I am still a bit embarrassed from my incident at the hotel.

After lunch I am ready to work. What will I do? My dad is a technician for IBM but also has a side job where he fixes computers locally for people that he knows and makes a few extra bucks on the side. He has some of these computers at the house, and I offer to fix them. He takes a few minutes to show me the basic things to check for and what to do.

By the end of that night, I have fixed the computers I could, and watched two movies. Yes, I said
movies
. I have missed 15 years of movies. I can’t believe how many movies have been released in 15 years that do not have Tom Cruise or John Travolta in them. I do not count them all, but there are a lot. I have missed them all and it will take me months to catch up. Lucky for me, my dad has quite the DVD collection and I will be able to knock out a hundred or so without even leaving the house.

That is my new life, fixing computers and watching movies. Slowly but surely I begin getting more computer jobs. I charge around $50/hour and am doing a computer or two a day and usually working a couple of hours on each computer. I am making more in one hour than I was making in a week at Gold!