In May, 1976 I assumed the post of Director of Processing at AOLA. I felt very much alone and kept my distance from everyone. Some people seemed to be in awe of me because of the fact I had spent so much time on Flag. No one knew about the trouble I had been in. I never got close to anyone at AOLA, the whole time I was there.
Like most Sea Org living quarters, the condition of the house I lived in was shabby, but I had my own small room. The house was in LA and we commuted by van to Hollywood every day, where the org was located. As Director of Processing, I was receiving bonuses in addition to my regular Sea Org pay, so I decided to take an apartment outside the staff house at my own expense. I shared a very nice two-bedroom apartment across the street from where I worked, with two men who worked for the Guardian's Office, but were not Sea Org members. I shared a room with one of the men, Gene, but our relationship was strictly platonic. We slept in separate beds.
Living outside of Sea Org housing was unusual for a Sea Org member, but I managed to get away with it, probably because I had come from Flag and no one dared to challenge me. Living in that apartment gave me more privacy than I'd had in years. I was becoming increasingly aware that I was not happy at all in the Sea Org. Gene was the only person I was at all close to and he wasn't in the Sea Org, even though he was in Scientology. I missed my friends on Flag (Florida) very much, especially Quentin. Quentin and I wrote to each other regularly.
During the time I was in LA, I increasingly spent more and more time alone. I would go to my apartment every chance I got, just to get a way from the org. Sometimes, during my half hour lunch break, I would go there and just think about my situation. I would sit there, dreading having to go back to work and began to feel like I was really in a trap.
There were things about my new job that I hated, such as having to make phone calls to people who had not paid for their next OT level. I was expected to use high pressure tactics to get them to return. I remember telling one person that if he did not come in for his next OT level, that he would die. I really disliked making these phone calls, but it was an expected part of my job. I really didn't want to be an administrator, even though the position was considered senior to that of an auditor. I would have preferred just to be an auditor and work with people one-on-one, but in the Sea Org what I wanted was never considered.
I began to think about leaving and week by week, put a little bit of money aside from the bonuses I was receiving. At this point, I wasn't ready to take action on my thoughts, but put the money away «just in case».
One day in early July, 1976, I received a frantic phone call from my mother. My father had been on vacation in Philadelphia and had a heart attack. She said that it was very bad and the doctors didn't know if he'd make it through the night. Years later, she told me that she had tried to call the org three times before she finally got through to me. Nobody gave me her messages the first two times. I immediately flew to Philadelphia, spending the entire five hours in the air, not knowing if my father would be alive or dead when I arrived. To my Scientology identity, death didn't mean anything. One simply dropped one's body and could pick up a new one and start a new life. However, there was still a part of me that was aware of the personal tragedy that my father's death would be and the pain I would feel if I were to arrive at the hospital and found out he had died. When I finally did arrive in Philadelphia, early the next morning, I was very relieved to learn that my father had pulled through and was going to be all right. He did, however, have a very serious heart condition that would have to be constantly monitored. He was given a pacemaker while he was in the hospital that he would be dependent on.
While I was in Philadelphia, I spent a great deal of time with my mother. I was in the «wog» world with no other Scientologists anywhere around me. We stayed at a hotel near the hospital and, when we weren't visiting my father, we had a lot of time to talk. I can remember one conversation we had about life in the Soviet Union. My mother was telling me how people in the Soviet Union had no choice about their careers. From a very young age, the government decided what that person would do based, not on personal desire, but on what was best for the Soviet Union. I thought about that for awhile and realized that my life in Scientology was much the same as that of a Soviet. I had wanted to live in Florida and be an auditor and here I was in LA, doing a job I didn't want to do and I had no choice in the matter. I confessed to my mother how I felt and she asked me if I would consider coming home with her and not returning to the Sea Org. She said that the door would always be open to me. I wasn't ready to make such a move at that time, but it helped me tremendously to know I had an option. After being in the «wog» world for three weeks, it didn't seem like such a terrible place.
When my father recovered enough to travel, we took him back to my parents' home in Michigan, where I stayed for about a week. I still felt I had to return to Scientology to try to work things out, so on August 1, 1976, I returned to LA. After having been away for three weeks, things in LA looked even worse. My senior, Tina and I, had never gotten along well. Soon after my return, we had a big fight and I walked off my post as Director of Processing, refusing to work with her. I cannot recall what the fight was about, but I think it had something to do with her not giving me my mother's messages for several hours. The Commanding Officer, Gary Epstein and the Ethics Officer tried to get me to go back on post, but I refused, saying that I would be willing to work at another job, but not with Tina. I volunteered to FES folders and they agreed, at least, temporarily. I don't think anyone in LA quite knew what to do with me. If I had done such a thing on Flag, I would have been immediately sent to the RPF, but in LA, people were in awe of me because I had been on Flag and besides, at the time, there was no RPF in LA.
I felt like I was in limbo. I would come in every day and FES folders all day long. I wasn't being punished, so I was still allowed the same time off I always was. One day, I had the afternoon off and I was going for a walk by myself on Hollywood Boulevard. Suddenly, a significant mental shift occurred and I thought to myself, «What am I doing here? This is not what I had expected when I first joined the Sea Org. I really am unhappy here and I can't go on like this. I've got to do something about my situation.»
Right then and there, I made the following decision: I would give the situation two weeks. If, in two weeks, things hadn't changed for the better, I would do one of two things: I would either go and talk to someone in the org, come clean and confess everything I had been thinking and feeling and get straight with the group, or I would leave the group, without telling anyone what I was going to do. The fact that I had allowed myself to have these thoughts was quite significant; it showed that because I had been away and spent so much time alone, I was beginning to free myself from the mind control I had been under for so many years. A person under mind control would never allow himself to have such critical thoughts about the group, without censoring them. I had been taught that critical thoughts meant undisclosed crimes, but somehow I realized that my thoughts were valid and I was innocent.