Beyond Belief (47 page)

As we headed toward the airline office to get my bags, Dallas’s cell started to ring. It was Linda, demanding to know where we were. Dallas excitedly told her how he’d convinced me to stay, and we were just going to retrieve my bags.

“She can’t stay!” I heard Linda shout.

Dallas was completely blown away. “I thought that we wanted her to stay!” he said.

“She can’t stay!” Linda repeated.

Dallas was in disbelief. The contradictions of the Church were on full display; perhaps more clearly than ever before, he was able to see how the Church said one thing and meant another. The fact that I’d agreed to stay should have been a good thing; it meant that I had seen the error of my thinking and was back on board. Wasn’t that the goal? Yet Linda was adamant that I was not allowed back.

The next thing I knew, Dallas was whisking me outside. He pulled me around a corner to where Linda couldn’t hear us.

“I need to tell you something,” he said. “I have been meeting with Linda and Mr. Rinder the last couple of days. They have been telling me all kinds of horrible things about you and your family. They even told me that if I left with you, I would never see my family again. The only reason they didn’t separate us earlier was because I promised not to tell you I was talking to them.”

My mouth dropped. I knew it. My father had warned me, and I knew myself what the Church was capable of, but somehow, I didn’t understand how they thought they could get away with it. I guess I was just naive. I tried to contain my fury when Dallas told me that they had made him submit to a sec-check and prevented him from coming to see me during lunch, and had made him come home late almost every night. They had also locked him up in a boardroom, where Mike Rinder had told him I hadn’t been cooperating, I was no good, my parents were evil, and that he should leave me.

Dallas looked back at me, waiting for me to say something. It was a scary moment. I was shocked, angry, and relieved all at once, shocked that the Church would go to such lengths to break up a marriage, angry that Dallas had not told me, but ultimately relieved that he was back on my side. He had taken a big risk by even telling me, and I understood and appreciated that. I hoped that I had made the right choice to stay. Linda kept calling us on the cell phone, constantly, demanding to know where we were. I was so sick of her harassing us and was so angry at what she had tried to do that I stupidly broke the cell phone when I flipped it all the way back to pick it up. At last, Scientology had finally claimed the cell phone that they’d so desperately wanted.

She found us a few minutes later, when we were gathering my bags. I was already on edge because of everything I had heard, and now even more so because I had agreed to stay. I suspected that Dallas knew I just wanted time to get him to leave, the hard part was going to be convincing everybody else I wanted to stay and serve the greater good. I wasn’t sure how I was going to tolerate being back there, but I’d figure something out. Hopefully this wouldn’t take too long.

L
INDA WAS RELENTLESS IN TRYING TO SEPARATE US AS WE EXITED
the airport on the way to Dallas’s car. She wanted Dallas alone with her so that she could talk to him. I told her to leave us alone or that we were going to call the police. This really freaked her out. She walked away, saying that I was creating another scene.

Finally, we made it to the parking lot, and drove back to the base in Dallas’s car. Dallas and I were exhausted and just wanted to go back to our room, but Linda said that was forbidden. “It’s not a God-given right to be a Sea Org member,” she told us. Instead, she said, we had to go to the Blue Building. There, a security officer, took us to a room and gave us a list of conditions that would allow me to remain in the Sea Org. Linda stood watch over the whole discussion, frustrated that I had won. As usual, we were told that we each had to do a manual labor program and that we would be separated. By now, Dallas and I were fully cognizant that, by separating us, the Church was in a much better position to control us.

“You’ve tried separating us,” Dallas told the officer. “It just doesn’t work! We will do the labor, but we are not separating. You guys are just crazy. We are doing everything you are asking of us, but we are not doing this.”

I was really happy to have Dallas back on my side. For the first time ever, he was standing up to them, and, in his voice, I could hear someone who was approaching his breaking point. The room was getting tense. Someone said that Dallas needed to go into the next room to talk to someone, but that he had to go alone. Dallas refused, until he realized it was easier to hear what they had to say. He told me he’d be right back, and this time I believed him. It was a complete turnaround from just an hour before.

When he returned a few minutes later, he told me that they had tried to get him into a car. They wanted to take him to meet with Linda and Mr. Rinder, but he’d resisted. From his tone and the look on his face, I could tell that Dallas’s desire to stay was slowly dissolving.

As it became clear to them that we were not going to accept their terms and were a united front, they gave an ultimatum: either separate or leave the Sea Org. Dallas told them it was because of them that we were going to be leaving. With that, we said we were going back to our room to get our stuff, but they told us we were no longer allowed on the base.

“Well, if you leave, you’re blowing,” the security officer said. “You’d be leaving without authorization.”

With this, Dallas flipped a lid. “How can we be blowing?” he said in disbelief. “If you’re telling us we can’t stay here, how can we be blowing!”

I had to try to calm him down, which was kind of weird, since he was always the one trying to calm me down. I told him not to waste his energy on these people. We tried to head to the room, but the security guards blocked us.

Frustrated, we went back to Dallas’s car. Neither one of us had any money, so we used my dad’s credit card, taking him up on his offer to use it if I ever needed to get out. We spent the night at a Travelodge not far from the base, trying to figure out our next move; the following day we went back to the base, only to accomplish nothing. We were both scared and traumatized, and not sure if we were doing the right thing. When I made this decision for myself, in a certain way it was easier. Now that I was responsible for Dallas’s leaving, too, it was much riskier. I could tell that Dallas was frightened. I hoped to God he wouldn’t switch sides again.

The next morning, there was a knock on our door. I couldn’t imagine who it was, since nobody knew we were staying there. It was the security officer, dressed in a business suit, not his uniform. He handed us an envelope and pointed to a U-Haul in the parking lot. Inside the envelope were pictures of all of our belongings, with corresponding numbers to indicate which box they were in. All the boxes had been methodically packed in the U-Haul. There was a corresponding list of everything we owned, down to the number of pennies and Q-tips we had.

The officer walked us to the parking lot, while another security guard circled us on a bicycle. “Just so you know where you stand, you guys are blowing and that is suppressive,” he told us. Pointing his finger in Dallas’s face, he warned, “I am going to do everything in my power to make sure you never talk to your family again.”

I didn’t know what the Church planned to do to make good on its threat, but hearing this made me very uneasy and infuriated Dallas.

That morning, we set off for Dallas’s parents’ house in San Diego. He had called them already, and they were expecting us. Each mile that we put between us and the base made us feel safer, as though we could feel the ropes that had bound us there breaking one by one. No longer would we have to wear uniforms. We could determine our own wake-up times, or decide to go see a movie. We could earn our own way in the world, and make our own rules. It would truly be the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics, only now, for the first time in our lives, the math worked in our favor.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-T
WO

THE REAL WORLD

D
ALLAS’S PARENTS GREETED US WARMLY WHEN WE ARRIVED.
They were glad to have Dallas home with them, but had mixed feelings about his leaving the Sea Org. They were worried about what it would mean for their future in Scientology, as well as the ramifications for his siblings and their families. I was grateful that they took us in, but it was going to be a minefield negotiating it all. Everybody had his own vested interest in how they wanted us to behave when it came to the Church. While I wanted to keep them happy, my main concern was being in a marriage with Dallas in which only the two of us made the decisions.

Dallas’s parents said we could stay with them, and that they would give us jobs at the jewelry store, which was Scientology-friendly. All new employees were required to do an introductory course in Scientology, whether they were Scientologists or not. Despite hiring many Public Scientologists, Dallas’s dad had told himself that he’d never hire ex–Sea Org members again, because it usually meant trouble, but that he’d make an exception for us.

When we reported for work our first day, I was terrified. I was given a job in the human resources department. Even though I was shy, I found the people to be extremely welcoming. They were friendly, honest, caring, and supportive, more so than anyone I had ever encountered in the Church. The one uncomfortable thing about the job was applying Scientology to problems that came up. I was trying to distance myself from Scientology; I still believed in it, but I needed a break from it and didn’t like subjecting non-Scientologists to the techniques.

Adjusting to life outside the Church was a lot more of a process for me than it was for Dallas. I didn’t have a driver’s license, and was not used to talking to Wogs. I also had nightmares every night. I was either being chased by people in the Church trying to get me to come back, or they were trying to convince Dallas to return and that I had to save him.

We’d been in San Diego only a few days when Linda began calling Dallas’s father, asking him to find out where we stood with the Church and what our plans were. This created a lot of tension between Dallas’s parents and us. They were trying to get us to sort things out with the Church, and since we lived and worked with them, we couldn’t catch a break or have any privacy. At one point, they even traveled to Los Angeles to meet with Linda, and she showed them our negative reports. I didn’t like the underhanded way the Church was using Dallas’s parents. First, they wanted to be sure that we weren’t going to make trouble for them now that we were out of the Sea Org. Second, which was even worse, they were using an audience with his parents as a way to point out what a bad influence I had been on their son. They were sharing records about when his behavior had started to turn and highlighted how it coincided with his befriending me.

In spite of all this, Dallas and I enjoyed our freedom outside the Church. Once we started making some money, we were able to get our own place, a condo in central San Diego. We even got two dogs. We were able to visit my parents in Virginia, where we also saw Justin and Sterling, who was now also out of the Sea Org. At my job, I often talked to people who were curious about the Church. They would ask me questions about growing up there and would be utterly horrified by my responses. They would tell me that these things weren’t normal, and even offered their support. Through their eyes, I slowly learned how weird my upbringing had been.

We’d been out of the Church less than a year when Dallas and I received a summons for a Committee of Evidence to establish our standing in the Church. In a CommEv your actions are put on trial, and four people sit in judgment, deciding if you are guilty of the crimes against the Church that are listed. I wanted to return the summons to them with my dogs’ poop in the envelope, but Dallas’s dad convinced Dallas to go sort things out. His parents wanted the security of knowing that he was in good standing with the Church, and that neither he nor I would be declared SPs.

It took a lot of convincing, but in the end I agreed to do the committee of evidence to appease them, knowing it was going to be excruciatingly hard and humiliating.

The Church was charging me with five Crimes and four High Crimes, citing various incidents that had occurred in August, 2005, and some as far back as October, 2003. My High Crimes included failing to apply the Scientology technologies I had been taught to difficulties I encountered in my life; threatening to call police in the weeks prior to my leaving the Sea Org: refusing to follow standard procedure for routing out of the Sea Org; and telling Dallas that I intended to leave, which was considered a “suppressive act.” I had also damaged the auditing room and cans when I tried to leave my auditing session, engaged in an altercation with Linda at the airport, and disagreed with and yelled at my superiors at various times while on post, all considered Crimes against the Church.

Dallas was also facing a number of Crimes and High Crimes, but the majority of them had to do with his failure to “handle” me, when I violated the standards for Leaving Staff by refusing to do my auditing, and when I threatened to call police. He was also being cited for his failure to handle me when I “blew up at others” upon our return to the base from the airport after I had changed my mind about leaving the Sea Org.

After finally being out, the last thing I wanted to do was hear a bunch of nonsensical evidence against me, or worse, for the Church to feel like it had the power to summon me at will. It was an extremely hard pill for me to swallow, but I decided to do it for Dallas, because it could clear up our standing in the Church. He was still holding out hope that he could have a relationship with the Church, which would make life a lot easier for his entire family.

We all drove up to the PAC Base in L.A. one morning. I knew the entire proceeding was going to be recorded, so I told them that I was also going to be recording it as well, and put my tape player on the table.