Beyond Belief (11 page)

Simply getting time off required an incredible level of accountability. If I ever wanted time off—if, for example, my mom was visiting Int—then I had to request it in a formatted proposal that required me to find replacements for each of my various responsibilities. We would only be granted permission if the requests were every other week, if our statistics were up, and if we were not in Lower Conditions. If all those things were in order, then my proposal would have to be approved by no fewer than four people.

The list of duties and procedures went on endlessly, and the result of all this process, paperwork, and regulation was that there were no children at the Ranch—only little adults. At special events, we were dressed up in cute outfits and paraded in front of our parents and Int crew to make it seem as though Scientology was creating a normal and joyful childhood, when in fact we were all being robbed of it. Any sense of normalcy that existed did so because we practically were each other’s parents, taking care of each other when we were sick, consoling each other when we couldn’t sleep, disciplining each other when we acted out, feeding each other meals when we were hungry, and helping each other with schoolwork when we were confused. Yes, we were responsible for our post work, deck work, academic work, Scientology course work, and cleaning—but, more than anything else, we were responsible for each other.

I spent most of my days just trying to keep my head above water, and nights were even worse. I was deathly afraid of the night. Often, after lights out, we’d hear coyotes howling outside, and although the doors were closed, I knew that the wilderness wasn’t far away. My huge imagination didn’t serve me well in the dark. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night so scared that I would crawl into bed with one of my friends for comfort. The better nights were when I would dream about having days off with my parents, but even then, I’d have the disappointment of waking up to realize that I was still at the Ranch.

Reassuring as it was to be closer to my parents, I still missed them terribly. While living with Justin gave me some support, he could also be a big brother in all the hardest ways. For my first several months on the Ranch, having him around had been crucial to how I adjusted to life there. By the time I became a Cadet, though, he was caught up with his friends and his own struggles on the Ranch, and he wasn’t always able to, or interested in, making me feel better. He wasn’t my parent, after all. Sometimes when I was upset, he would try to help, but other times he only succeeded in making me angrier.

I didn’t blame the Church or my parents for what was going on at the Ranch. Instead, I blamed the adults who I thought were treating me poorly. If I could just tell other people what was going on, I was certain that things would change. It was hard to know just how much my parents had been told about what it was like for me at the Ranch. Because of comments they’d made from time to time, I knew they had seen photos of me working, so, on some level, they were aware I was doing physical labor. My father had occasionally participated in the Saturday Renos with other adults and witnessed firsthand what the kids did. Even so, I assumed that neither of my parents knew the full scope of how difficult the conditions were for me, and I figured that once they had heard, they would immediately correct the situation. I mean, if they knew how bad it really was, how could they possibly allow me to stay there?

Still, something prevented me from telling them. As much as I wanted to tell them the truth, I was hesitant, not because I was afraid of getting in trouble, but because I was terrified that the problem wasn’t with the Ranch, but with me. All around me, other kids were completing their decks and clearing their words, and the fact that I, along with a few others, was struggling made me feel like there was something wrong with me. I had no one around me to reassure me, or to tell me that kids weren’t meant to do work like this. My fear was that if I went straight to my parents and told them what was happening I would only disappoint them. I didn’t want to let them down, so I did the only thing that made sense to me: I kept quiet and decided to run away.

B
Y THE TIME
I
’D BEEN AT THE
R
ANCH FOR A YEAR,
I
WAS DONE.
Luckily I wasn’t alone in my unhappiness. My friend Rebecca didn’t like it, either. She had arrived a short while after me. Her mother worked in the Religious Technology Center at an administrative job and lived at Int. About a year older than I, with straight dark hair and light eyes, Rebecca had a true love of animals, which made her perfectly suited for her post of taking care of all the various animals on the Ranch. She tended to the goats, the ducks, the hens, and the horses that lived in a corral on the property. Even though she had a post that she was well suited for, everything else about our routine—the decks, the course work—was intolerable to her as well.

One day in early May, Rebecca and I crafted a plan to escape. For at least a week, we strategized about what we needed and where we’d go. One thing we did know was that we couldn’t go to the base. If I made it the twenty miles to the Int Base, my parents most likely would have to turn me in, so I had to find a new place to settle down. The rough plan I had was to live in an underground cave/mansion that I was going to dig myself, and I was going to eat croissants, which I planned on stealing from an imaginary bakery, which were undoubtedly everywhere in the Wog world.

On Thursday night, May 1991, the time had come for Rebecca and me to make our move. I packed my clothes and the kangaroo sweater that had once belonged to my mother. Earlier that day, I had stolen some vegetables from one of the gardens we maintained and some eggs from the chicken coop. These eggs were hatched specifically for Uncle Dave. Chickens were brought to the Ranch and kept in a special coop with a caged outdoor area. The kids gave the hens feed and cleaned their cages. When the hens laid the eggs, we gathered them to be taken to Uncle Dave at the Int Base for his consumption only.

It was actually not my first time stealing Uncle Dave’s eggs. I had snatched some a few months back because I wanted to hatch the chickens in my drawer at the Ranch. I’d gotten into trouble when somebody caught me. Mr. Parker and Mr. Bell were furious when they found out. They made it clear that when my uncle found out, I was going to be in serious trouble. I was told to write him a letter to confess that I was the one who had taken his eggs, but to my surprise, and I think the surprise of Mr. Parker and Mr. Bell, he was very nice about it. He wrote me back and explained that my drawer was probably not warm enough for the eggs, and that I would need an incubator if I wanted to succeed in hatching them. Now I’d stolen eggs again. I knew I was taking a big risk, but I didn’t have many other options. We were going to need food.

Rebecca hated Mr. Parker in particular. The woman could be intimidating, but she didn’t seem to be as difficult with me as she was with other kids. Rebecca insisted that we write her a letter before we left, a sort of in-your-face note. We told her that we had had enough, and that we were going out into the Wog world and weren’t coming back. Rebecca added that we hated her and that she was really mean. We also told her to say goodbye to our parents, because we were on our own now.

My heart was pumping when we put the note on Mr. Parker’s desk in the Cottage. I could see the fear in Rebecca’s face as well. Despite all the confidence of our note, we were both so anxious about getting caught mid-escape that we hadn’t thought much about what we would do once we had gotten out of the Ranch. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure, but it was too late to stop. We ran to the bike parking lot and got on our bikes. Mine was a pink Huffy with a basket in the front, which my dad had bought for me. We had a backpack with our food, and I put it into my basket. We rode the quarter of a mile or so down the road to the front gate. We knew we had to be as quiet as possible going under the gate, because otherwise they would hear us through the intercom box.

I hadn’t thought of how hard getting my bike under the gate with a basket full of groceries was going to be. Of course, everything fell out. Rebecca scrambled to help me reload, and soon we were back up on our bikes, pedaling down a steep hill and going a little too fast for my comfort. When we started over the bridge that traversed the creek, we were both wobbling so much that we looked at each other in total fear. Rebecca encouraged me, telling me we could do it. When we finally got to the other side, we were so relieved.

The sun, which had been fading when we had slipped under the front gate, disappeared as we walked our bikes over the cattle grate. I had always heard that you could break your leg on it, so we were particularly careful. The cattle grate was where the Ranch property ended and the Indian reservation began.

After we had pedaled another mile or so down the road, we saw a vehicle with its headlights on approaching in the distance. We quickly put our bikes to the side of the road and ditched them before running behind a small hill to wait. We figured the car would just pass by, but instead, to our horror, we heard the sounds of shoes hitting the dirt, followed by slamming doors.

There was a crunch of footsteps on the brush. We looked at each other totally frozen, unable to move. I was sure it was an Indian coming to get us. There were always rumors floating around the Ranch that the Indians sometimes shot at people who drove by if they didn’t recognize them. We had also heard of people getting killed outside the nearby Indian casino, which was at the beginning of their property. We hadn’t quite gotten that far, but it could have been one of the gamblers on his way home.

However, the vehicle didn’t contain strangers. I looked over and saw Joe Conte, with Taryn and her friends Jessica and Heather riding in the back. Our escape was officially a bust.

“You’re such an idiot,” Taryn sniped. She grabbed my stuff and pulled us back to the truck. Heather and Jessica grabbed our bikes. “Now we’re gonna miss the beginning of the event because of you two twerps,” she scolded me.

I had forgotten that the night we picked for our escape was the anniversary of Dianetics, May 9. In celebration, the Church organized an annual international event that was telecast via satellite at all the Scientology bases, including the Ranch. Taryn, Jessica, and Heather had been rushing back to record it for everyone at the Ranch. Having to track us down made them miss the beginning, which was the best part, since it usually featured performances by dancers or singers. Now, not only would Rebecca and I be in trouble for trying to run away, but we would have to be accountable to everyone who had missed the opening performance.

Rebecca had tears running down her face, and I was feeling sick to my stomach as we rode back to the Ranch in the bed of the truck. We were freezing cold and surrounded by all the bigger girls, as the sharp turns of the winding road threw us from side to side. Someone opened our backpack and pulled out the carrots I had taken from the garden as well as the eggs stolen from the coop. All at once, they broke out laughing in unison and started shouting belittling questions, which they had no intention of letting us answer.

“Were you going to survive on carrots and raw eggs?” one of them asked.

“Where were you planning on going?” another one asked.

“Into the Wog world, away from all of you meanies!” I shouted. I didn’t understand why nobody was taking us seriously—I had fully intended to be in the Wog world by now. They simply looked at each other and doubled over in hysterics all over again.

When we finally stopped in front of the School House, Justin and Sterling were there, laughing at us and making jabs about how ridiculous we were. I would have been infuriated by the teasing, had I not been so terrified about what was in store for us from Mr. Parker.

She was inside the School House and I quickly learned that the staff had known we were escaping before we had even reached the front gate. Mr. Parker was angry and quite disappointed. She yelled at us for a bit and said we were both assigned Lower Conditions and would be starting with our amends first thing in the morning. The punishment was actually mild compared to what I expected, but I hated Lower Conditions. We were assigned Liability, which meant we had to make amends. With Liability, each group member had to sign a piece of paper that he or she had accepted you back into the group. If the majority didn’t agree, you would have to do more amends until there was a consensus.

“If you even attempt to run away again, your penalties will be doubled,” she threatened.

Rebecca’s punishment was harsher than mine. In addition to the lower conditions, she was demoted from the rank of Cadet to Child for several weeks. I knew that it was unfair that she had gotten a worse penalty than me, but I wasn’t about to question it. Taryn didn’t let it go, though, calling me a spoiled brat for getting off easier than Rebecca.

Rebecca and I went to bed too ashamed to talk to each other or anyone else. When I woke up in the morning, I was so anxious that I couldn’t stop projectile vomiting. With breakfast, it only became worse.

My friend Eva was worried, but Taryn wasn’t the least bit concerned. “Well, look what you pulled in,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Pulled in” was a Scientology concept whereby if you did something bad, you would “pull in” or have something bad happen to you. “Pulling in” was kind of like karma, the difference being that pulling in was guaranteed if you did something wrong. The idea was that you, the Thetan, caused something bad to happen to you in order to punish yourself for the wrong you had committed.

Mr. Parker echoed Taryn’s sentiment on that as well, telling me, “Don’t think because you are sick, you can get out of doing amends.” All I wanted was to be able to keep some food down. I had never had anything like this happen to me before.

Rebecca and I were assigned to work with Mr. Cathy Mauro, separated from the group. The assignment could definitely have been worse, but we were to weed the rock gardens at the Cottage. We preferred being with Mr. Mauro rather than Mr. Parker.