After in-country Vietnam, I was taking a weekend leave, strolling through Port Authority (NYC), looking for some culture. Thrilled to still be breathing, I wanted to experience life as fully as I could. I wanted to devour the Big Apple from stem to sepal. from Wall Street to Harlem. I wanted to see plays, visit museums, eat in fine restaurants, go dancing, meet beautiful women. I wanted to sink my teeth in the apple, stand naked on Fifth Avenue at midnight, let the juices flow down my throat. Such grand plans I had.
Except... I saw a display, complete with brain floating in a jar and a sign which said, "You are not your brain." Idiots. Nothing like a good fight. Might as well straighten out these nitwits. What the hell. I had a few minutes. Blah, blah, blah. "And you can have a free ticket to a lecture." Free? Hmmmm. What the hell. Budget and all. Somehow, the conversation had gotten around to beautiful women. "Sure to be some there. Lots of good looking women at the Org." Org? "You'll find out."
So, I went. Shabby hotel. Metal chairs. Black man lecturing. Stephen Boyd. Karen Black. John Brodie. Blah, blah, blah. With a nice looking girl watching the video along with a couple of other people. Black man says something about a communication course, and the girl seems interested. $25. Why not. Go see the reg. Pretty reg. Nice eyes. Kind eyes. Full of life. Not the eyes filled with scorn for those coming back.
Sitting in the metal chair across from the beautiful girl. So nice to look at. Could spend a long time there. The plays could wait. The museums would be there later. So would the culture. Bull baiting her. Making her laugh. Lots of fun. Putting Alice's words across the chasm. And the Chesire Cat's. And the Queen's: "Off with her head!" Such a beautiful girl. I was thinking, "off with her clothes."
"Do birds fly?" To touch that skin. To hold that face gently in my hands, kissing her in the middle of Fifth Avenue. At midnight. Having bitten deep into the apple. To be with a woman who wasn't a Vietnamese hooker or a bar-room slut; someone who could hold my hand in Central Park, someone who could hold a conversation looking at the stars. "I'll repeat the question, do birds fly?"
We ate, sitting shoulder to shoulder at some deli, just being together. Communication. Wow! Back to the reg. What a world I could have. So I called my parents and got a Western Union wire transfer that paid for the Academy levels, several intensives of auditing and all the levels up through OT3.
I began to devour Hubbard's books and started having out of body experiences without being on drugs. No drugs allowed on course. Lots of good times with those drugs. Bye bye.
On my first course I ran smack into the wall of star rate check outs. "Define 'of.'" "Of?" "Flunk! Go look up the word." Look up "of?" WTF. Who gives a flying fuck what "of" means. Kiss my white ass. It'll take me years to look up all these words. "Flunk. Go back and study the material." Flunk you, too. Want to step outside and see if you can make me restudy this crap?
But I did.
Then, the Navy, in its glorious wisdom, got tired of my nonsense in Groton and transferred me to San Diego. Well, not such a bad thing. Maybe I could get my money back from Scientology. I'd already paid cash for a new Karmann Ghia, British racing green. That money would provide much nicer living off base. Except... There was an org in LA. And a mission in La Jolla that was likely to become an org. So, I ended up in LA where some skinny old fart sat me down in another crummy room, cans in my hands, and he asked, "Are you here on your own self determinism?" Hmmmm. He looks up at me expectantly. Well, I often feel like I don't really want to do this; I feel like I'm sort of being forced by the supervisors and regs. To which he smiled and said, "Okay. We all feel that way sometimes." Still looking at the meter. "Your needle is floating." Which felt good knowing that this skinny old fart felt good that I wasn't a crew member of a Caspian submarine intent on torpedoing the only group that could possible save the world. Not to mention the attractive girl sitting on the shoddy couch in the other room. Hmmmmm.
So, back on course. Looking up words. Learning all about the mind. Confronting until my eyes bled. Thinking of the girl on the couch. Wanting to unbutton just one button. Or two. Or... To lean over and inhale the scent, the heat radiating from her graceful neck. Did LA have a Fifth Avenue? Maybe the front lawn where Bill Franks was playing touch football. What did he think he was, a Kennedy?
Course became routine. Safe. A habit. Defining words became easy. Star rate check outs a snap. And if I went on staff, I could be on course, save the world and not have to pay for the auditing or course which I'd already paid for. Hmmmmm. La Jolla became an org. Maybe I could get some of it back.
Over time, the cognitive dissonances of being on staff became cacophonies. Glaring, clanging, unsettling. I was buying groceries and saw my ED and GO's names listed amongst those trying to pass bad checks. Not so good. Green on white, the most practical of practicalities evaded application. When something went wrong, LRH would solemnly write that some unscrupulous shit had intervened and written something behind his back! Hmmmmm. Didn't he have time to read the stuff coming down the line? I was expected to absorb it.
I became a course supervisor, sometimes an auditor. I enjoyed both. But, miracle of miracles, an administrative snafu amongst endless administrative snafus allowed me to convert a five year contract into two and a half. So, with the contract behind me, I just tried to finish off my courses and move up the bridge which seemed impossible when you were on staff. After about six hundred hours of endless repair of repairs of repairs, I'd despaired of getting anywhere on the bridge. Maybe I was a suppressive.
So, Class 5 auditor and valued member of the team striving to save the world, I opted out and went to school on the GI bill as staff had drained my bank account. Lots of girls. Lots of fun. Man, college was easy compared to star rate check outs. I graduated with highest honors and set so many curves that the professors often threw my scores out as no one else would have gotten an "A." Modified curves. So, study tech did seem to work pretty well as I didn't consider myself all that bright in high school.
Then came the wall of work. The endless boredom of the work world. Talk about stultification. Still lots of girls. Lots of dancing. And songs. Songs looping through my mind. "Is that all there is my friend, then let's keep dancing." What purpose did I have? What meaning did I have in life? So, I started renting LRH tapes from the local mission. Just a habit. Went up to San Francisco to see what apples could be bitten. To see if the city had a Fifth Avenue, a Central Park. Stopped by the org. What the hell. Talked with a Sea Org recruiter. Utopia. Each staff member had his own room basically. The meals were fantastic. Lots of time for study and auditing, not to mention being near the beach. Lots of time to go to the beach. Idyllic. I could meet all the Scientology celebrities while I was studying to become supervisor of the FEBC. Not a bad gig. Why not? A Sea Org member wouldn't lie, would he? Wasn't the Sea Org all about integrity and duty, about truth and responsibility. KRC. Rah, rah, rah.
Twelve people to a room with one bathroom. Bed bugs. Antagonistic staff. The ink from that Green-on-white Utopia was flushing through gutters with old cigarette butts. So many staff smoking. So many staff depressed. OTs vibrating out of tune. Insanity! This was the mecca of Scientology? I wanted to cry. RPFs? $200 shirts being thrown onto the sidewalk because some exec decided I needed to find another room? Where was I supposed to sleep? Make it go right.
Long walks just to keep my sanity. All the panic attacks and depression kept at bay. The flashbacks dismissed. Eight months with no pay. What was happening with my fitness board? I had been racing through courses only to put on the brakes. Free loader debts? I just wanted to find a quiet job and wait it out someplace safe. I became a folder page. Carrying stacks of heavy folders. Good exercise. I found a store room where I could sit and listen to the radio while getting my work done. Got over thirty commendation slips. Stats were always up (manipulated like a Russian pole vaulter--actual accomplishments carefully adjusted to reap the greatest rewards) so I always got a day off. Getting a chance to meet all those high powered former execs acting like slaves in the RPF. David Ziff acting like an absolute bore. I didn't want any part of it. Just let me go home.
Except, they wouldn't. Why?
I finally snuck a look at my first fitness board, which had failed me because of my past as a squirrel and my military background. Oooops! So sad. When could I go? But, they needed staff. And how could I say I'd snuck into the files? So, I pushed for a new fitness board. Lots of foot dragging. Hmmmmm.
It was a Catch 22. If I wanted to leave, something was wrong with me and I'd get this huge free loader's bill. Hmmmmm. Why not make them want me to leave? So, I started practicing fancy martial arts where others could see. And I started giving DofP interviews: "I keep getting these urges to attack other staff. I can kill a person with a single punch. It scares me to death. I want to be here so much. Me oh my, pumpkin pie. Please let me stay. Please don't throw me in that briar patch. Not to mention, I've also been thinking of blowing up some of the buildings, fashioning some explosives and setting a timer. Hard to resist a good explosion. If you could just help me, maybe I could control these horrible urges. Please, please."
Smokin'! The fitness board convened, snip snap. This poor lad needs to go. He wasn't qualified in the first place. Falsely recruited so he has no free loaders bill. Get him through his sec checks pronto!
Since I had access to my folders, I could monitor the direction of the checks. Since I knew what the GO collected (every overt) I made the overts ridiculous, bouts of imagination, the products of someone who was delusional. Trying not to laugh in those sessions was the hardest part. So earnest. So, 1.1. Such a suppressive says I.
Then, when the sec checks ended, I gathered up my folders, a stack that reached near my chest, carted them down the sidewalk to the Post Office--just another earnest staff member working to free the planet. Look at the huge burden he's pushing! Good man. Fits right in. When I was in line at the Post Office one of the Class 12s was there, giving me a strange look. I smiled and nodded back. Comrades in arms, carrying on the good fight against a suppressive world. "Cash?" Yessir, I told the clerk while my boxed folders went over the counter to join the mail stream that would peacefully meander toward my home. Bye, bye.
Outside, I tried not to burst out in song. Seed pods. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Try to fit in. Try to look like all the others.
On the train to nowhere. Next stop: Wogtown, USA.
I got a good job. Married. Had kids. Read all the biographies about LRH. Became an enemy of Scientology. I had left when the staff was going through rollbacks and when gang bang sec checks were just beginning. I threw the subject into a pit of fahrenheit 451 and moved on with my life, seeking my own path of spiritual redemption.
Then one day, a computer geek friend who knew I'd been in Scientology (embarrassing, shhhhh!) brought in a pile of printouts. All the secrets of Scientology. All the OT levels. All the stuff I had wondered about. "You've got to be kidding!" I jumped on my computer with all its kilobytes of memory and started reading alt.religion.scientology and alt.clearing.technology. Incredible. I found my name on the SP list. Curious. Wondered why. Didn't care. All the horror stories. Good riddance. Glad to be gone. Left again.
Except the universe operates on conservation of energy. Burned pages turned to ashes. Ashes became charcoal. Charcoal applied to paper; images unfolded.
Smudged fingers sketched. Pages turned. New sheets pulled from the pad. New sketches. Fifth Avenue. Eating forbidden fruit. Naked in the street while irate cabbies honked their annoyance.
Another chapter. From ashes to charcoal.
I've was posting on Jeff and Marty's site as OnceUponaTime. But, for some reason, the acronym became OUAT rather than OUT.
So much for now. Need to head off to the gym with my wife. Excuse the errors and idiocy: I am just a poor boy...who has squandered his resistance on a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises. (forgive my ideological theft, also.)
but your writing of it is beautiful! 
