Beyond Belief (40 page)

I didn’t think there was anything to fear, but it seemed like it was a real possibility to Mr. Rathbun. As annoying as it was, I figured it would be just a few weeks. Plus, Mr. Rathbun was being so nice, and I was anxious to try to make everything easy for him.

Despite the kink in the plan because of Uncle Larry, I liked daydreaming about what my big day might be like, although I probably would never be able to afford the things I was dreaming about. I didn’t have a father who could pay for my wedding, but that didn’t stop me from occasionally looking through bridal magazines and picking out dresses I liked, selecting the music for the wedding, and naming my bridesmaids. I even entertained the idea of asking my grandmother to lend me the money, and that I would pay her back, although that would be virtually impossible on my meager pay. I hadn’t been in touch with her since I left Florida, although she did send me presents and a card for Christmas, saying how much she missed me. Looking back, she would have never made me pay her back anyway.

Not long after my conversation with Mr. Rathbun, though, Dallas started getting pulled off his job to be given metered ethics interviews. They focused on ensuring that he and I had not gone out 2D. Once, Dallas was given a “Roll Back,” an auditing session used to trace the sources for “enemy lines.” In Scientology, an enemy line was any criticism of the Church or its units. Dallas was asked questions in an attempt to uncover and expose his motive for marrying me. “Where did you get the idea to marry Jenna?” the auditor asked him.

It was a gross misapplication of the Roll Back, which was certainly not intended to decide if marrying me was an enemy line, or if Dallas’s intentions were sincere. But, since the Church was paranoid, the Roll Back was trying to see if Dallas had been told by someone to marry me to get information about my family or something along those lines. He would never have been put through this had my name not been Miscavige.

I had a Roll Back, too. The Church seemed to be looking for a reason to get us into trouble. Any time people were dating there was a suspicion of an out 2D, but this was much worse. I wasn’t sure why or who was behind trying to stifle the wedding plans, but who else could it have been but Uncle Dave or Aunt Shelly? The most infuriating part about it was that they were mostly interrogating Dallas, likely because he was the weaker target, not having been as experienced at security checking as I was.

Months went by, and despite my asking when we could get married, we were still given no answer and no hope. Dallas was as frustrated as I was, but it seemed there was little we could do to expedite things. Finally, I received a letter from Aunt Shelly saying that she was happy that I was getting married, and warning me not to be stupid and go out 2D. She said Linda from the Office of Special Affairs would keep me updated on when Dallas and I should be able to get married. Frustrated, I spoke to Linda myself, who told me handling Dallas’s uncle was extremely slow and time-consuming, and there hadn’t been any progress and probably wouldn’t be for a long time.

I wasn’t the least bit sure what “handling Uncle Larry” entailed. There wasn’t much they could do about him. I didn’t even believe that the wedding was being delayed by somebody as peripheral as Dallas’s uncle. Dallas’s parents were held in high regard, being both money donors and disseminators of Scientology. That should have trumped the role of a possible wayward uncle. It would have been almost impossible to investigate anybody’s extended family and not find somebody in there who was skeptical about Scientology or had once looked at an anti-Scientology website. The whole thing was bizarre. My parents were the ones who were disaffected with Scientology, yet any objections to the wedding always circled back to the concept that there was danger in my parents meeting Larry at a wedding.

Dallas was getting very frustrated, because none of the executives would talk to him, only to me. He wanted me to ask my uncle Dave for help, but I didn’t want to, figuring he must already know and didn’t care. I worried that it might backfire and get me in more trouble for trying to use influence. Dallas didn’t understand, perhaps because the only person who could help us was truly Uncle Dave. If my uncle was really the only one standing in our way, no amount of persuasion on my part would have made a difference.

I tried to rationalize the objections to the wedding at face value, telling Linda many times that my parents didn’t need to be at my wedding and neither did Uncle Larry; problem solved. Linda didn’t care; she wasn’t the one calling the shots.

Finally, after months of nonsensical excuses about Uncle Larry, Dallas and I went out 2D and had sex out of wedlock. If anyone was aware of the consequences of an out 2D it was me, but I did it anyway. Dallas and I wanted to be together beyond any repercussions. If consequences arose, we would address them when the time came. In my mind, having sex with Dallas was not wrong, no matter what policy said. As far as I was concerned, no one was going to find out anyway. Only the two of us knew about the out 2D, and I assumed our secret was safe. We were young, in love, and committed to being married; it was the Church that was not allowing us to move forward with our relationship.

I knew that out 2D was bad if you were engaging in adultery or were promiscuous, but in our case, we were in a committed relationship and we’d been dating for months. We were the ones trying to follow the rules and get married, while they were simply coming up with excuses about why we couldn’t move forward. We’d wanted to do the right thing and they’d made that impossible—we were all too aware that following their rules put happiness out of reach, so we did what we wanted and what we felt was right for us—to hell with the consequences.

I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt and managed to withhold the incident for weeks. Dallas, however, eventually caved under questioning, as he now thought we
had
done something wrong. One day in early June, after intense pressuring, he confessed it all to Mr. H, who, of course, was shocked by the admission. She had been clever in the questioning, but she hadn’t thought it would ever uncover anything. She confronted me next, and she was already calm, to me indicating she had already processed her shock. I told her I didn’t feel bad about it, only that we had been caught.

Of course, I was extremely angry at Dallas for talking, but that conversation would be had later. For now, I told Mr. H. that the fault of the out 2D was squarely on whoever wouldn’t let us get married. Surprisingly, she didn’t disagree. She was just upset and anxious about what would happen next. No Sea Org members got away with an out 2D, and Dallas and I certainly weren’t going to be the first, although I might have been the first not to feel bad about it.

I was immediately placed under watch, where someone was supposed to follow me. Mr. H told me that I was going to be in big trouble. I could tell that she was even scared for me.

“Where is Dallas?” I asked Mr. H. I was fully aware that when out 2Ds occur the first thing that happens is that the offenders are separated and often sent to different continents, or at least different bases, to do the RPF and never see each other again.

Mr. H’s answer was very disturbing but unsurprising. She told me I didn’t need to know, that I shouldn’t even be thinking about him, given the amount of trouble I was in. All I could really focus on was that if I didn’t find Dallas, I would likely never see him again.

I was terrified and furious all at once. Sea Org rules and policies demanded that I sit there quietly and do whatever I was told at times this grave, but I simply couldn’t do it.

“Where the fuck is he?” I demanded of Mr. H.

She was shocked and said she didn’t know. “Bullshit!” I yelled, not sparing words. I stormed out of her office and started opening doors up and down the hall, trying to find him. I went downstairs and checked the bus, asking his friends along the way if they had seen him, but they hadn’t. I was being tailed by someone who kept calling at me to stop, but I went to every room in the entire HGB looking for him.

Next, I walked two miles to the Hollywood Inn, but he wasn’t there, either. I saw my life falling apart all over again. This time, I sure as hell wasn’t going to let it happen. Just then, the Hollywood Inn’s security guard told me I had a phone call in the office off the lobby, so I ran in, hoping it was Dallas, only to find Mr. Rathbun standing there in person, looking very serious. I was briefly ashamed that the second-most-important person in the Church had to come here to deal with me and my out 2D, but I was over trying to do right by RTC. They fucked up everything in my life. All I wanted was to be allowed to get married, and be assigned a post in the Sea Org for my value, not because of who my uncle was. I was exhausted from always having to be sec-checked because of my family name and the Church’s paranoia-driven PR. Other people in my situation would have either been in or out, cut off from their family or not. I was in a constant in-between, which was a complete mind-fuck. Mr. Rathbun tried to sit me down.

“Jenna, I know what’s been happening,” he said, trying to shame me into submission. “You just need to come clean right now.”

It was obvious to me that he was interpreting my behavior as “wild animal reaction,” the most well-known symptom of a missed withhold. Clearly, he thought he could calm me down by having me come clean to him. However, I was in no mood to come clean. I just wanted to know where Dallas was.

“He is being dealt with,” was all he would give me. I pushed out of the office, unwilling to deal with his mind games.

It was now dark, as I walked the two miles back to the HBG to continue my search for Dallas. While charging down the sidewalk, I heard the sound of a car engine slowing down behind me and the voice of Mr. Rathbun yelling for me to get in, saying we needed to talk. After some convincing I finally got in, thinking he’d tell me where Dallas was.

Mr. Rathbun was rambling on about not knowing how this whole thing had gotten so far out of control. Now, however, he said he had no choice but to report my actions to Aunt Shelly and Uncle Dave. I couldn’t believe that he thought I was so naive that I didn’t think they already knew everything. I didn’t challenge him, though. I just told him that I didn’t see what any of it had to do with them. Another Sea Org member wouldn’t have had to endure the scrutiny and level of security that I did.

Mr. Rathbun agreed, but he was clearly torn between feeling he was supposed to be yelling at me, and understanding my dilemma and feeling sympathetic, in a way very similar to Mr. H. He drove up to the top of Mulholland Drive, until he finally stopped the car at a scenic overlook so we could get some air. This was the first time I had ever been on this road. With all of Los Angeles lit up in front of us, Mr. Rathbun seemed to think that I would calm down, but when I didn’t suddenly melt into submission because of the gorgeous view, he became furious and began yelling at me that I was an SP. We started screaming at each other again, and he got so pissed-off that he got back in his car and drove off.

Now I was stranded in the middle of God knows where, having gotten no closer to finding Dallas. I didn’t even know I was on Mulholland Drive. Luckily, I spied a couple of lovers up the hill from me, who, from their appearance, had seen the entire argument. Trying to look as normal as I could in a Sea Org uniform with my eyes red and swollen, I approached them to see if I could please borrow a phone. The girl in the pair, obviously feeling bad for me, handed me hers. I thanked her, looked at it, then looked back at her, suddenly realizing that I had absolutely nobody to call.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-S
EVEN

THE EDGE

I
STARED OUT AT THE
S
AN
F
ERNANDO
V
ALLEY, TRYING TO FIGURE
out what to do next. I started walking down the road toward Los Angeles; I was about fifteen minutes along when Mr. Rathbun came back for me. This time, I got into the car without argument.

“Look,” Mr. Rathbun began, “if you do your program, you will see Dallas again.” I had no idea what my program was going to be, but I knew it would consist of countless sec-checks, at the very least.

“I’ll do it,” I replied, “but only because of how much I love Dallas.”

“I understand. I just want what’s best for you.”

We sat in silence for a bit before finally starting back toward the base.

Before he dropped me off, we stopped at the Celebrity Centre, where he had to drop off a hugely important auditing folder from a session he had with Tom Cruise.

“When I get out of this car, please don’t take off,” he said. “I will be right back.”

Tempting as it was, I was exhausted. Besides, there was no point in bolting. Where would I go?

By the next morning, I had calmed down enough to think rationally and decided I would cooperate, go in session, and try to get through whatever program was required of me. For the next five days, I went in session with Sylvia Pearl, from the Office of Special Affairs, which operated like a kind of secret police known for sec-checking people who were security risks. The video camera in her room was pointed right at me.

In the sec-check, she started with a question she already knew the answer to: Had I had sex with Dallas? She then proceeded to ask me about every single aspect of it—where, when, how, how many times, how long—in excruciating detail. Although the probing questions were expected, as this was a sec-check, I still found them disturbing and invasive. Not only were they intended to be demeaning; they were also designed to make me feel violated. The hallmark of a good security checker was his or her willingness to invade privacy, and Sylvia Pearl did it commendably. It felt wrong to cooperate with something that was clearly intended to be used against me and to control me.

As if having my most intimate moments exposed to Sylvia weren’t bad enough, I knew that there were unseen eyes in the room with me. Most likely, there was somebody watching through the camera in the room or someone who would watch the video later. Then, of course, somebody else would read my session worksheet. I felt nauseated just thinking about how many people would learn about my private life before the day was out. The exercise was supposedly for my own good, but this institutional voyeurism was too much for me.