Beyond Belief (30 page)

A short while later, news came that I would be doing MEST work with Mayra and several others who were also in trouble, but I refused. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I didn’t believe that forced labor was a punishment that I deserved. Lower conditions maybe, but not labor. I had written the petition to Aunt Shelly in an attempt to do the right thing. I had also told my auditor about my fraternizing with Martino, and she had assured me I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Yet, I was being harshly punished.

Mayra tried to convince me, telling me that she knew how I was feeling, but I was defiant. By now, it was evening. I was scared, and worried about what was going to happen to me, but not ready to comply. I wanted to call my dad. I knew that calling him was not the proper procedural way to handle my upset, but after hearing Martino say how important his mom had been in his life, I thought it was worth reaching out to my dad to see if he could help. It was not either of my parent’s post to take care of me. This was to be dealt with on Org lines. It could also be considered to be enturbulative for my parents at their jobs, which could cause me to get into more trouble. If I was upset, I was supposed to write a report, which they would then consider to be “nattery” or “complainy,” which would then mean I had withholds, which would mean I would get a security check, which was going to happen anyway. This was the cycle, the endless feedback loop of disobedience that, once it began, was hard to break.

At this point, though, I didn’t care about that cycle or the consequences. I knew I didn’t deserve MEST work, but my biggest fear was that Tom would have me shipped me off to RPF and that soon, contacting my parents wouldn’t be an option at all. My dad was the one person who I could think of who could advise me and might even be on my side.

There was an authorized phone in our apartment for her one of my roommates’ use only. It was there in case anyone tried to take off in the middle of the night and she needed to call security. I picked up the phone and dialed the receptionist at CMO Int. Shocked, but delighted that my call had gotten through at all, I was disappointed when I was told that my dad wasn’t there. However, the receptionist said I could talk to my mom, which
really
confused me. The last I had heard, she was on the RPF. The receptionist put me on hold, then came back saying that Mom wasn’t available at the moment, but that I could try her again in a little bit. Amid all my frantic dialing, I sat there stupefied for the briefest of moments: after everything we’d been through how could no one have told me that she was done with RPF?

I tried dialing out again a little while later, but this time, Mayra noticed. She quickly ran and got Olivia. I wasn’t surprised that she was ratting me out. Even though we were both being punished, we could redeem ourselves by reporting a bad behavior in the other one and proving your own loyalty. This is one of the ways that the Sea Org encourages snitching on fellow members, and keeps paranoia high.

“You cannot call your parents,” Olivia said as she entered the room.

“Go fuck yourself,” I shot back, not caring anymore what the consequences were. I picked up the phone again, but she held down the button. No matter how hard I tried to get her to stop, she wouldn’t.

“Fine, I’m going to the pay phones.” I started out the door, but Olivia blocked me. I tried pushing to get through, but Mayra joined in and wouldn’t let me leave.

“Sorry, Jenna, I just can’t let you do this,” Mayra apologized, but I easily broke free of the two of them.

A girl, from next door joined in trying to stop me as well, yelling how unethical I was. Each of them had a hold on one of my limbs. I was struggling and fighting, trying to break free, but they wouldn’t let go. When I finally escaped, my old friend Melinda Bleecker raced in and jumped on me, too. I spit in her face, which made her let go for a second. I might have managed to bolt out the door but for the security guard who had arrived on a bike after being summoned. He told me I was not going anywhere, and he meant it.

By now, I was flailing my arms and legs, just trying to get away. All I wanted was for them to let go of me, but they were pulling me in four different directions. Even when I got away from one or more of the girls, though, I couldn’t get past the security guard. I knew the back door was bolted shut from Mayra’s attempted escape a few nights before, so that was not an option. Apparently, capturing me was Mayra’s chance to redeem herself, because she was relentless.

Several times, I almost got away. Then I saw Tom standing outside the door, obviously alerted by Olivia. He was going to use the firm, rational approach to get me under control. I was so angry that I refused to speak with him, but I quickly realized that he was my only way out.

“If you calm down, Jenna,” he said, “I will talk to you upstairs to my berthing and see if we can work this out.” Tired of fighting, now apathetic because I couldn’t get away, I reluctantly agreed.

When we got up to his room, we each took a seat. “I hadn’t intended for things to go this far, but I don’t understand what’s happening with you. It’s like you’ve become a different person. What’s going on?” he asked.

Stupidly, I tried to be honest. I told him the full story about Martino, how I felt about CMO, and why I had written the petition to Aunt Shelly. As I finished, he paused for a moment as though still taking it all in.

“I understand, Jenna. I’ll try to get things back to normal tomorrow.”

The next morning, I went to course, where I saw Martino and told him everything that had happened. He was disturbed and worried for me—to him the whole situation sounded crazy. An hour or so later, Tom showed up at the course room and said that Martino and I had to go with him. I begged Tom to leave Martino out of it, and he did, at least for the time being.

After driving for a while, I could see that we were going to the Hacienda. He told me I was going to do MEST work at the Hacienda and get through my program. Apparently, my words had no impact, other than trying to spare Martino. Now I was just supposed to be contrite and accept my punishment? I refused to accept a punishment that was beyond what I deserved.

My anger arose all over again, and once more I refused to do the MEST work. Mayra tried various ways to convince me, yelling at me, talking to me, begging me, but I didn’t budge. Even though I was scared, I didn’t want to be in CMO anymore, and I told Mayra as much. I even said I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be in the Sea Org. As any good Sea Org member would do, she reported all this back to the top.

That night, Tom came to my room. “Your parents are on the phone demanding to speak with you.” Tom sat right next to me as I spoke to them. They said that they heard I was in trouble, but reminded me of my merits, and how I was strong, and I could get through this. To comfort and inspire me, they added that Mom had succeeded in her program and that Tom had promised he would make sure I was all right. Tom had been my guardian the whole time I was in Florida and, for the most part, had always been very nice to me, but with this last incident, everything was different.

“Be sure to call us and keep us updated,” they said.

“I’ll call you tomorrow if I can.”

I was still determined not to cooperate. I simply dug in my heels further. This wasn’t about being afraid of hard labor; it was about principle. I’d done my share of MEST work at the Ranch and could do it with ease again if I had to. But I wasn’t going to accept an unjustified punishment.

Eventually, someone was sent out to the Hacienda to begin security-checking me. In the past, I had always been obliging with my security checks, but now I had had enough. I deliberately challenged the sec-checker by trying to leave the room. I knew I would be denied, but I did it anyway. I just didn’t care. Sure enough, my auditor/sec-checker was bigger and stronger, and she prevailed, keeping me in the room for hours.

Finally, I agreed to give some withholds and pretended to be happy, so that my needle would float and she could end the session. Auditors were under tremendous pressure to make sure they didn’t miss withholds and could not end a session without getting what they were supposed to get. A lot of times, I cooperated solely out of my empathy for the auditor.

The next day, Mr. Anne Rathbun came to see me. I thought there might have been a slim chance that she would come to my defense, but that was not to be. She told me that I was so far off track and out ethics that saying she was disappointed in me was an understatement. She said I really needed to get my act together and frightened me with her emphatic delivery. At my next auditing session, I tried cooperating with my auditor to see if that helped anything, but I didn’t feel better. I just felt I had agreed to something against my will.

When I awoke in the morning, I was told that I had to go to the base immediately, as someone urgently needed to speak to me. It was an emergency, just throw on whatever clothes I had and get to the base. I was terrified.

The driver, a guy I knew from CMO who was driving like a maniac, brought me to the WB. Upstairs, Mr. Rathbun met me and curtly told me to write my overts and withholds, while I waited in the auditing room. I was already writing when a few minutes later, in walked Uncle Dave, looking very unhappy.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Writing my overts and withholds, as I was instructed by Mr. Rathbun,” I told him.

“Hmm, I see,” he said very distantly. “Are you in ethics trouble?”

“Yes, sir” I said, almost bursting into tears.

“What for?” he demanded.

“I was trying to call my parents and I got into a fight and—”

He cut me off with a low-pitched, “Unbelievable, just unbelievable.” Then he raised his voice significantly, saying, “There will be no more special treatment for you.” With that, he left the room. He hadn’t even heard my whole story, not that any of it would have made him less angry.

Seconds later, Aunt Shelly came into the room, accompanied by the CO, Olivia, and Mr. Anne Rathbun. They all stood at the side of the room, crossed their arms, and looked at me. Aunt Shelly was especially furious.

“Jenna, I have been like a guardian . . . no, a guardian angel to you,” she began. She continued describing her generosity. “I have given you my time, looked after you, and all you have done is take advantage of it.” Next, she started with her opinion of me. “You have been completely outrageous. What do you do? You find some loser and start acting like
him
?” Apparently, she was referring to Martino.

She went on and on, telling me how the only person on the planet allowed to call the Int base was Uncle Dave. She cited my long history of running to my parents whenever I felt like it, violation one—distracting them from their jobs and violation two—being so needy and entitled.

I tried to say that I had only seen them both once in the last three years so how could this be true, but she cut me off.

“Don’t you dare backflash me!” she commanded.

She continued with her grievances, using my petition and anything else she’d heard about my behavior. I was grossly out ethics for flirting on course, just one step down from having sex in an auditing session. I had always been unethical and uncooperative with my auditors; and now I was even getting into physical fights with them, punching Olivia and spitting at Melinda. Throughout her rant, she had been looking at me with fury, and I finally began to cry.

“Yes, acting like a baby,” she said angrily. “Just another one of your tactics. So stop it, now.”

I sucked it up with all of my might, but she wasn’t done.

“Everywhere you go gets ruined. The Ranch was created because of you, and now it is because of you that it is a giant mess that I have to handle.”

At this point, she could have been saying anything, her claims were so ridiculous. No matter what, though, her next threat was even worse. “If you continue this way, you are going to get your name changed to something else, as it is completely out PR.” She was referring to the fact that I was a Miscavige, so as a representative of my family, my conduct had to be exemplary. “You are going to get through a program and you better cooperate. You’d better be good, and you’d better do it.”

Her words were grave. “Yes, sir,” I said, growing anxious as she turned to leave.

“Will
you
still talk to me?” I pleaded, trying not to cry again.

“I don’t know, Jenna,” she said with a twinge of heart and just enough manipulation underlying her words. “Maybe if you get through your program.” With that, the whole group filed out of the room.

I couldn’t believe how I had come to this, how unethical I had been. I had risked losing everything I had worked for and dreamed about my whole life for some guy I just met a few months ago. I knew that I had to make up for this, that I had a long road ahead of me, but I vowed to myself I would. As I was finishing my thought, Anne Rathbun returned to the room, closed the door, glared at me, and told me to pick up the cans.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

PUNISHED

M
R.
A
NNE
R
ATHBUN GAVE ME A METERED ETHICS INTERVIEW,
essentially a one-session security check, then immediately demoted me to the CMO EPF. With everything that had gone down, and the fact that my uncle and aunt had gotten involved, I was just happy the punishment wasn’t worse. I could not believe that I was back there. I had been demoted, and had to wear a different uniform to show it. Because of the crackdown on flirting, Mayra, Julia, and another girl were all with me.

While not nearly as strict or isolating as the RPF, it was nevertheless demeaning, as it was intended to be. We were all put on rice and beans for every meal. I was subjected to security checks and assigned the laundry and cleaning duty. We still lived in our berthing at the Hacienda. At first, I’d go to sleep every night beating myself up about my flaws, thinking I was the most worthless person in the entire Sea Org. I didn’t regret meeting Martino, but I was disappointed in myself for being unethical. I didn’t know how I could have betrayed my family in this way, or why I had put up so much resistance. I knew I had a long way to go to be the nice, respectful, and conforming person that I expected to be.