how i was spiritually raped and left for dead (part 10)

part 1 is here
part 9 is here

ain't no sunshine when she's gone,
only darkness everyday
ain't no sunshine when she's gone
and this house just ain't no home
anytime she goes away ~bill withers

a horizontal shadow closed, like a curtain, down the wall and across the concrete floor, in sync with the motor of the garage door. as the garage darkened, i took a deep breath and opened the door leading into my house.

inside, my daughter was playing on the floor. my wife came through the opening leading to the kitchen and approached me as i entered the living room. we were both nervous, self-conscious. we hugged and shared a brief kiss.

i didn't know what they had been telling her during my week away. did they tell her that i had left because i was angry at her? did they give her instructions on how to behave when i returned? was i talking to her...or to bob and his wife? in retrospect, i realize that she was every bit as confused as i. that was their game; keep everyone walking on eggshells.

bob had instructed me to see him on my way home, so i had stopped at his house for a brief “pep-talk” about an hour earlier. he had given me 20 bucks and said, “take her out to dinner.” i was pretty sure my wife would be there when i got home; after all, he had told me to take her to dinner. if they would have sent her away, he wouldn't have given me the money. he wouldn't have instructed me to take her to dinner...right?

on the other hand, there was always the possibility that bob was stashing her and my daughter somewhere and that he intended to act as though he had nothing to do with her absence. he could have arranged for her to “show up” at george's house. “i don't know what happened,” he would say. “she freaked out. she's scared. she wants to have a little time to get her head straight” then, he would get me to focus on the upcoming licensing inspections, promising to “straighten her out” for me. of course if this were the case, i'd probably never see my wife again.

i had seen him do this to another couple before. it was another staff purpose night. linda was at our house for some reason. she was on the phone with a young married woman named dana, making arrangements to meet with her before purpose. linda hung up the phone and left. something didn't feel right.

about a year earlier, dana and her husband, jack, were expecting their first child. things were chaotic. bob and his wife hadn't given their blessing and i caught a glimpse of some of the hush-hush efforts to deal with the “problem.”

dana was young, 19 or 20. her husband wasn't much older. i had been a groomsmen in their wedding. these two seemed as though they were meant to be together, as though the world would have remained forever out of balance if they hadn't found each other.

they were also, critical to the program. jack was a phenomenal counselor. he was making more referrals into the fee-based programs than any other staff member. dana was tender and loving. she ran group therapy. she had a way of making everyone feel comfortable. parents and kids alike trusted her.

on the whole, the program was in a tentative spot. it hadn't been too long since bob had split with jim and al and had drawn us all in. we were short on experienced staff, most were green kids who had no real skill. we had gotten outpatient up and running. the hospital was now beginning to run smoothly. also, another couple had recently had a child, unsanctioned. it had cost the program a staff member (the mother), because bob didn't allow pregnant women or mothers to work as counselors at that time.

“we can't handle another baby,” i'd overheard someone say.

bob and his wife had driven from san diego to phoenix and had arranged to meet with dana and jack at a local hotel. the 'buzz' was that they weren't ready to have a baby—that this baby was a mistake. bob and his wife weren't about to let their “fvcked-up bullshit fvck it up for everyone else.” if they insisted on having the baby, they were gone.

dana and jack spent hours in the hotel room with bob and his wife. i don't know exactly what they were told, but i know what i was told. it came down to this. dana and jack had fvcked up by getting pregnant. since it was their fvck-up, it was wrong to force this soul [the baby] into the world when it wasn't the right time. therefore, the pregnancy had to be aborted to save the baby's soul from taking on dana and jack's fvcked-up karma.

after the meeting with bob and his wife, dana had an abortion. it wasn't talked about much. everyone knew what happened. everyone got the message—get pregnant without bob's blessing and run the risk of losing the child.

in bob's program, we all had the same political and spiritual beliefs. one of those beliefs was that abortion was murder. the fact that this couple had been instructed to have an abortion underlined the seriousness of the situation. we were also taught that we chose our parents prior to birth and that we made that choice based on what we knew that we needed to learn during this lifetime.

the only way that we could reconcile this situation was by buying into the idea that dana and jack had been self-centered by becoming pregnant. we were told that they had attempted to bring a soul into this world against its will to satisfy their own selfish desires and that those desires included sabotaging their own spiritual growth. fortunately, they had bob and his wife to stop the birth of the child and rescue them from their self-sabotaging behavior.

within the confines of the cult, their marriage had survived this trauma, but now their marriage would end.

i arrived at the purpose meeting to find the usual anxious climate in the room. dana spent the entire meeting in another room with some of bob's girls. george seemed preoccupied throughout the meeting. jack was terrified.

after the meeting, jack grabbed me in the parking lot. his wife had already left with bob's girls. frantic, he told me, “dude, i'm freaked-out; i think my wife's gonna divorce me.” what he was trying to say was, “dude, i think they are taking my wife away from me.”

i'm sorry to say that i wasn't much of a friend to him that night. it was more than i could handle. and i knew he was right.

jack was part native american. he had a strong chin and high cheek-bones. his skin was dark and clear, and he sported long, silky, dark-brown hair which hung halfway down his back. he was built like a rock. no one messed with jack.

one afternoon, we had stopped at a convenience store to get some coffee. i had filled my styrofoam cup, capped it and made my way to the cashier's counter.

i was not in the best shape at the time. i had had little time for physical activity and had put on about 20 extra pounds. i waited at the counter as a huge, burly, unshaven biker, dressed in leather chaps and a leather biker jacket, leaned on the counter and carried on a casual conversation with the cashier.

after waiting a few moments, i said to the biker, “hey buddy, you wanna move aside so i can make my purchase?”

the biker turned around, stepped uncomfortably close to me, looked down at me and said, “you wanna take it out side...fat boy?” just then, jack stepped in front of me and calmly replied, “i'd love to...and if you talk to my friend that way again, i'm gonna step outside, after i throw you through the window.” the biker stepped aside, held his hand out, ushering me to the counter, and left quietly.

i wish i'd been a better friend that night in the parking lot. i've replayed it in my head over and over, year after year. what if i'd told him, “you're right, they've got your wife, let's go find her?” instead, i told him everything would be okay. i justified it, thinking there was nothing he could do, thinking he needed encouragement when he needed truth.

no one had told me that they were going to end his marriage, but i, just like jack, had seen it coming. in the previous weeks, i had noticed george becoming increasingly more friendly with dana. he would flirt with her and act as her protector. at the same time, he was talking sh1t about jack. he had referred to jack as a “stupid injun” at times and as a “lazy fvckin' mexican” at other times. he had also commented that he wasn't about to let that beautiful girl [meaning dana] have any “little brown babies.” “i ain't lettin' my kids play with any little brown babies...that's for fvckin' sure,” he'd said.

jack went home alone. later that night, he received a phone call informing him that his wife was not coming home—that she was going to spend the night at george and muffy's house.

the next day, jack received a phone call from brian. he was instructed to go over to george's house. probably thinking that this would be his chance to talk to his wife, he headed to george's house. when he got there, his wife was gone. instead brian and george sat him down for a talk.

things happened fast. george, who looked nervous and was probably terrified of jack's physical prowess, did the talking. brian, who was there to provide the muscle in case jack went ballistic, seemed to come across as though he felt bad, that he didn't agree with what was happening.

“dana needs a break,” george said. “we've arranged for you to go to atlanta and get your sh1t straight. if you do, she'll be here for you when you return.” jack said he wanted to talk to her, to hear it from her directly. “she doesn't want to talk to you right now,” he said. “well, i at least want to say goodbye,” jack told george. “she has nothing to say to you right now,” george replied.

jack was in agony. his people had hidden away his wife and built a barrier around her, preventing him from communicating with her. george was a small man. he was nothing. but he used his position as bob's son-in-law to destroy anyone who possessed personal power. he was threatened by anyone who was more capable than him. jack had two things working against him. first, he asked questions, challenged the inconsistencies he observed. second, he was twice the man george would ever be.

jack determined that the best course of action was to do as he was told. he went home and with the help of another staffer he packed his truck. during that time, he would break down and weep. he would call brian and beg him to let him talk to his wife. he couldn't help but think if he could just talk to her, she would agree to leave the program with him. he was tormented. he wanted to be with his wife, to save his marriage.

when he arrived in atlanta, he immediately knew that things were even more screwed up than he'd thought. he was being “handled.” no one would “get real” with him.

a short time later, a new director arrived in atlanta, someone who had been his friend. jack noticed that the new director was being cold toward him. jack also realized that this guy was spending a good deal of time on the phone, talking long distance...to his [jack's] wife.

jack finally figured out that he would not be getting back together with his wife when he was served with divorce papers. there was no discussion, no explanation. he called george on the phone. “dude, what's the deal. i thought if i got my sh1t together i had a chance at getting back together with my wife,” he said. george responded by simply saying, “well, are you gonna sign the papers?”

perhaps some part of him continued to hold out hope even after he was served.

any hope he still had was shattered when, within two weeks of getting the divorce papers, he received a traffic ticket in the mail. dana's car was still in jack's name after they split. when jack opened the envelope he found a photo-ticket. enclosed was a picture of the license plate on dana's car. there was also a picture of his wife sitting next to the the new atlanta director (who had been in arizona) driving the car. he'd been betrayed, not by his wife, but by the people who'd promised to be his friends, his family. the people he'd turned to for years, seeking guidance, the same ones who'd let him believe that, by toeing the program line, he could have his wife back had set him up and given his wife to another man.*

that night jack went to his room where he cleaned and loaded his .44 magnum handgun. he sat in his room. everyone else in his apartment was sleeping. he sat alone until he was able to accept the fact that he would most likely spend the rest of his life in prison. then he went to his truck to head over to kill the man who'd been seeing his wife.

jack sat in his truck, replaying the events in his head. how did i let them do this to me? how did i let them walk in and take my wife?

as he played things out in his mind, he was hit with a realization. if i kill this man and go to prison, it will justify their actions and beliefs. if i do this they win. they get to go on looking like they “rescued” my wife from me and i get to look like a psychopath.

jack went inside, put away his gun and called his family. though he'd been disconnected from them, they were happy to hear from him. his sister wired him money. it was time to go home.

jack was smart. he didn't say a word to anyone. he simply packed up his stuff and disappeared.

to this day, dana is still his one and only true love. but she is gone.

ain't no sunshine when she's gone
and this house just ain't no home
anytime she goes away ~bill withers

dude, i love you man.

***************

beneath the city two hearts beat
soul engines running through a night so tender
in a bedroom locked
in whispers of soft refusal
and then surrender

in the tunnels uptown
the rat's own dream guns him down
as shots echo down them hallways in the night
…
outside the street's on fire
in a real death waltz
between what's flesh and what's fantasy
and the poets down here
don't write nothing at all
they just stand back and let it all be

and in the quick of the night
they reach for their moment
and try to make an honest stand
but they wind up wounded
not even dead
tonight in jungleland ~bruce springsteen


the living room and kitchen were surrealistically bright from the arizona sun that passed through the windows. and although an air of nervousness also filled the rooms of our house, my wife and daughter were there. i had an opportunity that jack never had. i could talk to my wife, look her in the eyes, touch her. i could try to convince her to leave this place of wrath. i could share a vision of a free life, one that wouldn't be permeated with fear and anxiety. we could escape the drama, the constant life and death. this group, this lifestyle had torn us apart, i would tell her. we had lost ourselves. we had been stripped of any personal desire, passion, individuality. we had been beaten down like whores and turned out, devoid of humanity, constantly struggling, performing, in the hope that our actions would make us worthy recipients of a kind word, a smile, a gentle touch from our captors.

i, unlike jack, would tell my wife the truth i had discovered on a mountainside just a few nights ago...but not yet.




later that night, after we'd put roxanne to bed, we sat out back, facing the south, toward the distant santan mountains. they were there, but invisible to us, except in our collective imagination. behind us was the sliding glass door that led to our bedroom and our beautifully dressed king-sized bed. as we talked, i couldn't help but wonder whether we would end the night there, together. it would depend upon whether or not they had given her the green light.

the stars were overhead, exposing the inviting vastness of the universe, but they were were partially washed-out by a streetlight which hung overhead, in the distance, like an all-seeing eye or a spotlight, exposing us, making us vulnerable.

we talked about my first night out, when i was lost in the high desert...the coyotes. she told me how she'd lain awake in the bed behind us, our bed, knowing that i was lost, afraid i would never make it back.

she looked at me, silent, head slightly tilted, exposing her neck, as i told her of my experience. there was so much i couldn't say. i had thought about laying it all out, telling her that i had made a decision to leave, that we should pack up and leave together, tonight. but i also realized that she had been through too much already. i could tell that while i had been away she had been filled with fears and lies. she was obviously relieved that i'd come back. i feared that if i told her the truth, it would be too much for her, that it would push her over the edge.

so i stuck to lesser truths, or greater ones. i talked of my personal transformation. i told her about the courage i'd gained, about connecting with myself. i explained how i'd felt her presence. i talked about the value of being alone. there were parts i couldn't explain and there were those things that, when i put them into words, began to lose meaning. so i became silent.

she moved closer to me and placed her long, tan leg across my thigh. i put my arm around her and she placed her head on my shoulder. the light caused her profile to become a silhouette. i could make out the shape of her red lips, slightly parted as my hand drifted up and down her arm.

she looked up at me, into my eyes. i squeezed her more tightly. she held my eyes with hers. i moved my lips toward hers, then paused. i moved closer, within an inch or two. she closed her eyes. i paused again, intoxicated by her essence. i kissed her.

her skin was smooth and dark against the creme-colored sheets on our bed. we became wholly connected, body and spirit, weightless, as if we were floating through the night sky. we were enmeshed and enraptured, immersed in this moment, oblivious to all things past, unrelenting in a timeless embrace.

exhausted and energized, i gently stroked her hair as her rested head on my heart. we drifted off to sleep.

****************

my heart was beating furiously. i couldn't breath. i stopped and bent forward, trying to catch my breath. there were formless, clouds of blackness all around me and as i ran through them i was blinded by the darkness. shadowed figures loomed in the darkness, stepping into the gaps of grayish light between the dark clouds, reaching for me, then stepping back as if they were mysteriously forbidden from fully exposing themselves to the light.

i continued to run, trying to avoid the dark clouds and shadowed figures, running though the gaps of grayish light, an endless maze.

overhead, a football-shaped, metallic object floated, chasing me. in the middle of the football there was a round lens. the football-shaped metallic object would float through the tops of the dark clouds as it followed me, moving in and out of the clouds, disappearing and reappearing as it moved in and out of the light.

i had to get to the hispanic woman at the little grocery store. she was standing behind the counter, smiling, in a trance, eyes glazed over. i had left my gun on the shelf underneath the counter. i had to get my gun. i had to shoot the lens.

to avoid the lens, i dropped my right shoulder and plowed through the darkness, intent on leveling any shadowed figure i happened to encounter. meeting no resistance, i barreled through and out the other side of the dark cloud and losing my balance, i fell forward.

i awoke with a start. shadows on the ceiling. my beautiful wife lies beside me, her head still on my heart. she is on her side and the light is peeking through the blinds, illuminating the curve of her waist and hip. her leg is stretched across tops of my thighs and bent into a 'v' shape at knee, so that the tops of her red, painted toes rest against the outside of my upper calf.

she is resting peacefully, oblivious. i am awake.

i want to awaken her...to tell her everything. i want to allow her to continue sleeping. i want to cherish this moment. tomorrow, they will ask her about this night. they will want every detail. they will analyze and interpret everything that took place. she will tell them everything, because she believes it's the right thing to do. she will assign the victory to them. they will tell her their plan worked—that i had gone to the desert and found myself. they will not suspect that i have become an interloper.

it kills me to allow her to go back to them, to allow her to be subjected to their lies. they will continue to draw her in, while i, in turn, will wait for my opportunity to rescue her...rescue us. they will build her up, encourage her to continue the spiritual path that they dictate. this “victory” will galvanize her commitment to their doctrine. although it draws us closer tonight, it will ultimately be used to draw her further into their fold, to give them even more control.

they will claim to have saved our family. in time, they will use that power to tear us apart, again. they will say that they had worked miracles to bring us together and that i, being toxic, destroyed everything. they will point to all of the suffering my wife had endured, my absence while in the santan mountains, her fear that i would never return. they will claim that she had welcomed me home and into our bed, creating the perfect environment for me to “change.” they will tell her to be angry, unforgiving, claiming that she had done everything, sacrificed herself, her body, her spirit out of love for me...and that i had selfishly insulted her by returning to my spiritually destructive ways.

even as i lie awake, with my wife beside me, i know this will be their course of action. i don't know when it will happen, but i know that it will. it is their nature, their way.

i have to beat them at their game. i will be the perfect follower, giving testimony to the spiritual wisdom of bob and his wife. i will sit at their feet. i'll work even harder to add to their wealth. i'll jump through every hoop. still, i know it won't be enough. at some point, they will knock me down again. they will find some action, interpret some statement of mine, analyze my body language and determine that i have brought bad karma into the fold. most likely, they will experience a setback and blame it on me.

i know it will come; i just don't know when. but i will be vigilant. i will watch them, their mannerisms, their statements and body language. when i see it coming, i will flank them. i'll endure whatever i have to endure to rescue my family. i'll take whatever abuse they throw at me. rope-a-dope. i am no sociopath, but i will become one...at least for now. i have one advantage; without my family, i have nothing to lose.

but, there is one part that is nearly intolerable. after they fully draw in my wife, after they grant her reprieve, provide her with sweet sanctuary, they will try to take me down. when they fail, they will bludgeon her. they will strip her of everything they have given her. they will shove her overboard and ostracize her, watching her desperately struggle to stay afloat. she will be wounded, but not dead. and here's the rub: once they have beaten her down, when she is consumed with shame and fear, that's when i will finally be able to tell her the truth.

after they beat her within an inch of her life, rape her (but before they can demonize me and build her back up) i will intervene. that is the time when a cult victim is reachable. that is when i will talk to her about cults, how they operate, how this group meets every criteria of a dangerous and destructive cult. i will remind her of our years together. i will remind her of this night. i will tell her about the secret that i could not share with her even as i held her in my arms.

still, how could they do this to this loving, vulnerable young woman? how can i let it happen? it is only because i know that she they will continue to destroy her, over and over, as long as she stays. is there any way to spare her?

i look at the woman i love, head on my heart. i gently touch the angel's cheek. i can feel her breath on my chest. i am enchanted, anguished, liberated, imprisoned. holding her in my arms, i lie.

to be continued



* i think it's important to note that the atlanta director was an innocent. he was a victim just like jack and dana. his communication with jack was limited and censored by the powers in the program. he also believed that dana had ended the relationship without any prompting and without any hint of coercion, as did dana. he was certain that jack and dana's relationship was over for good, because that's what he'd been told. he was also encouraged to get involved with dana by the people who had “saved him from addiction” and guided him spiritually since his teenage years. there are other factors that absolve both dana and the atlanta director which i will not disclose in order to preserve their dignity.

how i was spiritually raped and left for dead (part 6)

part 1 is here
part 2 is here
part 3 is here
part 4 is here
part 5 is here


home

when i hold her in my arms.
i can feel her heart
beating.
the faint sound of a distant drum.
calling me
to a faraway place,
she calls
home. ~seekingintongues (1997)
 
it was just past 3 am. i was lying in bed, my wife fast asleep beside me. her tan leg was peaking out from beneath the sheets. i was staring at the ceiling. shadowed bars crossed our bedroom ceiling and wall as the moonlight slipped through the vertical blinds. i couldn’t sleep.

earlier that evening, my wife had told me that bob and his wife wanted to see me the next morning. nothing good could come from this.

i got out of bed and walked to my 5 year old daughter’s room. from the doorway, i could see her, a blond-haired, blue-eyed, wonder seeking angel. her tiny hands and arms were wrapped around kimberly, a fluffy stuffed dog nearly as big as she.

i knew this might be the last time i would ever watch her sleep. i knew it could be the last time i ever shared a bed with my wife.

i should have killed bob when i’d had the chance.

in a few hours i would have to face him. i had gotten my head straight several months ago, when he had sent me to spend a week in isolation at the santan mountains—when he had sent me to find my “true sociopathic male self.” for the first time ever, i would confront him. i had talked to my wife earlier. she said she would back me, but i had my doubts as to whether she could hold up in the face of bob and his wife's head-spinning, confrontational rhetoric. if she folded, they would probably pull her and my daughter out of our house and send them away. this could be the end of my family. it was a risky move.

several months earlier i had created a pretty solid plan to kill bob and his wife. it happened just a couple days into my trip to the santan mountains.

after leaving the little grocery store with my block of cheese, my bananas, and my water, i drove my t-bird to my base at the foot of the santan mountains. i immediately went to work, digging.

since fear was my problem, i had to deal with the source of my fear. like any true believer, i knew my fear was primal. bob had taught us that fear starts at birth. we are torn from the warmth and safety of the womb and launched into a world of bright lights and harsh sounds. this causes us to carry free-floating, primal fear…fear of once again being torn from the womb.

this explanation was consistent with my experiences in recent years. i was carrying a moderate degree of constant fear. when things started to get comfortable, when i felt confident, i feared being “torn from the womb,” so to speak. it had not yet occurred to me that these fears were the direct result of real experiences that had taken place in bob's cult. i didn’t yet realize that my fears were a natural and healthy reaction to the environment in which i had spent most of my adult life.

although from the outside it may seem almost negligent on my part to have been blind to the real source of my fear, i had, for years, existed in an environment where bob’s claims were universally accepted as truth. doubting these “principles” would have been equivalent to doubting the existence of gravity. primal fear was truth.

why had i been unable to conquer my fear, when bob, george and others were able? i had learned the answer to that question as a result of the 1995 purpose/confrontation. it was because of my parents. they were evil. they had abused me as a child. my father was a controlling, corporate big-shot, who like all other corporate big-shots, cheated on my mom and worked long hours rather than take care of his children. my parents didn’t love me.

and although the bob and my peers on staff had loved me unconditionally, standing by me through the destruction, difficulty, and harm i’d brought to them and the program, i still had not let go of my parents. i obviously had been hanging on to some kind of sick and twisted hope that they (my parents)would someday love and accept me. i was a pvssy who still needed his parents’ love.

so, when i say i immediately got to work, i mean i immediately began digging a grave in which i would metaphorically bury my parents, laying to rest, once and for all, the twisted hope of having any kind of loving relationship with them.

i did a lot of digging. i also began to build a zen garden. i began to carve the parts to make a rake for the zen garden as well.

while i was digging and building the zen garden, my thoughts kept returning to the woman from the little grocery store. how could she possibly be happy? how could she be at peace? why wasn’t she consumed with fear? she wasn’t in bob’s program. she hadn’t, at least as far as i knew, cut ties with her family.

as the sun began to set, i decided to hike into the mountains and find some rocks for the zen garden. i walked for several hours. i needed 3 rocks, each about the size of a football. i decided to trust the universe to lead me to the perfect rocks.

deep in the high desert, i found my first rock. when i saw the rock, i had decided that i would know it was the right one if i found a scorpion underneath it. i lifted the rock and there it was, a tiny scorpion poised to strike.

all of this may sound strange, zen gardens, the universal guide, scorpions to mark the “perfect” rocks, but i had been living in an environment where medicine cards and tarot cards were routinely used to make decisions, where past-life regression was the norm, where we believed that we had traveled throughout lifetimes in packs, and where we had chosen our parents prior to birth so we could learn whatever lessons were essential to this lifetime. the scorpion as an indicator for finding the perfect rock was not a stretch.

i didn’t have a light, but i was far from the city and the moon was bright. i could see close objects. looking into the distance however, all i could see was darkness. i had removed my wedding ring and watch as soon as i had arrived at my base. i wanted to be completely unattached to anything or anyone, including time. so i didn’t know what time it was or how long i’d been in the high desert.

shortly after i found my second rock, i realized 2 things. first, the desert floor was covered with scorpions. they were hard to see, but if i took a knee and stared at the ground, i could see their movement, almost as if the desert floor was an ever shifting mosaic. second, i realized i was lost. in my quest for the perfect rocks, two of which i was carrying, i had completely lost touch with what direction i’d been traveling. i guessed it was somewhere between 1 and 3 am. i could probably have tried to figure north by the stars, but that wasn’t a very helpful because the terrain was filled with deep ravines, sharp drops, and sinkholes. there was no way to travel in a single direction, because the terrain demanded that i find passable routes.

also, i had been out for a long time. it had been hot. i didn’t have water. all i had was a pocket knife, a couple of smokes, some matches, and two football sized rocks which had been given to me by the universe.

i sat down, put down my rocks and lit a smoke. what next?

i thought about the woman at the grocery store. i imagined she was sleeping beside her husband. i imagined she had several children asleep in their rooms.

i had had almost no experience in the desert, but i clearly recognized the sound that snapped me out of my thoughts of the grocery store woman. coyotes.

it was hard to tell how far away the coyotes were, but they were close enough to see me. it started with one yap and howl. within a minute there were several howling. i couldn’t see them in the darkness, but i was certain they could see, me. i sat there thinking of what to do next.

would they come after me or was i too big? how do you fight a coyote? should i try to hide? if i run, will it trigger their instinct to hunt…will they chase me? i thought about the discovery channel, a program i’d seen on what to do if you encounter a bear. bob watched the discovery channel. i remember thinking for the first time, “i wonder how much of the stuff that he preaches about evolutionary biology and primal fear is stuff he got from watching the discovery channel. this thought came out of nowhere.

i was in the desert which was crawling with scorpions. i knew that some of these scorpions could deliver a life-threatening sting. i also knew there were black widows holed-up in the rocks and crevices. i assumed there were rattlesnakes on the prowl as well. i was listening to what sounded like a dozen coyotes howling. i had no food or water, no light, and i was lost. but i hadn’t been afraid until i had the thought of bob watching the discovery channel. now i was overcome with anxiety. nearly frozen with fear. i made a mental note, put it out of my mind, and got back to the business of dealing with my current situation…coyotes.

while i was lost in the desert my wife was at home in bed. she was wide awake. we were looking at the same moonlight. when she looked out the sliding glass door in our bedroom, we saw the same stars. we were miles apart, and though i had mentally broken all ties with people and places, we were connected...maybe for the first time in years. she knew i was in trouble. i knew she knew.

somewhere in the night, i had this thought: our love for each other transcends all of this--the “mission,” bob meehan, the “spiritual journey,” my “true sociopathic male self,” meehan’s big stick…fear. before all of these things there was our love. woven throughout the confrontations, the endless hours of work, my jobs at the hospital, bob's residential center, the outpatient program, the counselor training institute, and clean edge productions (coffee shop), was my love for my wife.

bob and his wife called it obsession. they saw it as a threat. they had tried to get me to “report” on her numerous times. they had attempted to convince me to talk about her in a negative light. i never went along. i had seen what they had done to her spirit in the past—how they’d broken her. i had been determined, right or wrong, to protect her from them.

years earlier, before bob, i had stood with her beside a vast beautiful lake in rural michigan, holding hands, staring at the same night sky. i knew then that i would to spend the rest of my life with this woman…that i would always love her.

the coyotes were howling. there were no trees to climb. there was no brush to build a fire. there were only rocks, two of them were my prize possessions, my zen rocks given to me by the universe. there was no way i was giving up those rocks.

i couldn’t hide from the coyotes and couldn’t hope to outrun them. i had a pocket knife, but assumed they would attack en mass, if they attacked at all. i was unafraid.

fifty feet away there was a large rock about the size of a compact car. i figured that if i climbed on top of that rock i could defend myself from the coyotes. i assumed that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for them to get to the top of the rock. if nothing else, it would force them to come at me one or two at a time. i could brace myself and push them off the rock.

i made my way over to the big rock, moving slowly in order to avoid triggering the coyotes’ instinct to chase. as i made my way to the top of the rock, holding my zen rocks, i realized that i was holding two football sized weapons. i climbed back down, set my zen rocks at the base of my perch, and began collecting smaller softball sized rocks to use as weapons. there were scorpions under nearly every one of them. i briefly made the connection, discounting my idea of being led by the universe to my zen rocks. i pushed it aside. the thought made me afraid. if the universe hadn’t led me to my zen rocks, then… it was too much to consider in my brainwashed state. am i on the wrong path? am i spiritually hopeless?


the fear overwhelmed me, but just for a few seconds. i snapped out of it, reclaimed my status as an individual with no attachments to anyone or anything, and spent the next few minutes carrying softball sized rocks to the top of my perch.
the coyotes, who’d stopped howling while i was moving rocks to the top of my perch, began howling again. i waited.
 
us, and them
and after all we're only ordinary men
me, and you
god only knows it's not what we would choose to do
forward he cried from the rear
and the front rank died
and the general sat and the lines on the map
moved from side to side ~ roger waters

the program, they say, is simple, but not easy. killing bob and his wife would be both simple and easy. though i had never considered killing anyone before, this seemed to be the only logical option. if i was to save my family, i would have to eliminate the threat. bob and his wife were the threat. without them, my wife would be free of their manipulative coercion and lies.

i had no fear of george. without the bob's protection, i would b!tch slap him up and down the block. with all of his talk of spiritual superiority, living without fear, inviting only “good” into his life, he was nothing—and i knew he was nothing. any power he had was on loan, borrowed from bob and bob's wife.

i decided that i would need to make it look like an accident. i began thinking about ways in which i might cause a gas leak. i knew that bob never locked his house. he claimed that he didn’t need to lock his house because he didn’t invite bad things into his life. he was under the protection of his “higher-self,” his idea of god.

the idea was that if i could cause his house to fill with gas during the night, he would awaken in the morning, light a smoke…boom! no more bob.

it was late at night, early morning to be more specific. i hadn’t slept the previous night, as i’d been perched atop the compact-car sized rock waiting for the coyotes. i hadn’t eaten since the day before i'd arrived in the santan mountains. i had decided to fast.

i was sitting halfway up the northern slope of an arizona mountain looking down at the lights of phoenix, mesa, tempe, and gilbert. there were millions of lights. i was slipping in and out of the cult mindset.

i was thinking about the woman at the little grocery store. there were millions of people in the city below. were they all lost? how could i accept the idea that, since they weren’t with bob, their lives were meaningless? i also began to think about all of bob’s former followers—d.j., larry, dave, liz, jodi, craid, jill, paul, jim, al, pdap, f-way, adap, ihn, the st. louis hospital, b-way. where were these people and programs? if bob was the spiritual fountainhead of the universe, why did his followers always leave? why did they all hate him? people who he had once held up as spiritual giants, were now viewed as pariahs. they were losers whose “hearts couldn’t take it.”

the entire world consisted of us and them. this idea was clear. bob had made it clear that we were justified in deceiving “them.” we had to be honest and loving toward “us.”

or did we? bob had lied to me. he had lied to others in the program. i had seen him mistreat scores of his followers. he lied without hesitation. i had lied on behalf of the program as well. i had hurt a lot of “us.”

awhile back, i had gone with 2 other bob followers to tell an icecap director that we didn’t want him around anymore. he had a wife and 3 kids to support. under bob’s direction, we sat him down, fired him from his job, without warning or severance pay, and told him not to come around anymore. why? because he had been trying to rent a house in bob’s neighborhood. he wanted to move his family closer to the spiritual epicenter, where a select few were allowed to live in the same neighborhood as bob and his wife. he wasn’t welcome. bob was offended by the idea that this man would be so bold as to believe he deserved to live near him.

“i don’t want to go for a walk and have to worry about running into that broke-d!ck and his fvcked-up idiot kids, heckle and jeckle” he’d said. the god of the spiritual lifeboat decided to toss this man and his family overboard. if he really was the spiritual fountainhead, then he’d sent them to hell on a whim, at his own pleasure. if he wasn’t the spiritual fountainhead…he wasn’t. none of this was real. he was simply a conman.

and who are “us”? did it include the kids and parents in the program? was it just the staff? senior staff? where did the layers of deceit end? how many fronts did bob have? how deep did one have to go before the “truth” was revealed?

if bob wasn’t the spiritual fountainhead of the universe, what the hell was i doing sitting on a mountainside in the middle of the desert?

facing the fact that bob was a fraud was terrifying. it was also liberating. in regard to the former it was terrifying to face the fact that i had wasted well over a decade of my life—that i had no direction, that my efforts to help others were meaningless. with the latter, i was free from having to exist in an environment where every move i made was prescribed, or at least examined under a microscope.
fear. it came to me. “many are called, but few are chosen.” bob was right. i was overwhelmed with fear. leaving the program meant choosing to reenter the womb, rather than choosing to face and overcome primal fear.

there were no coyotes, no physical, “real” threat. just my thoughts, and they were terrifying. i was “in my head,” “complicating things,” “too intellectual,” as bob had often told me. “your intellect is your worst enemy,” he had told me. “your mind is a dangerous place; don't go there alone.” “trust,” he'd said. “have faith. stop thinking.”

i hadn’t slept or eaten. i had spent the previous night, in the “here and now,” focused on fending off the coyotes. now i had too much time to think. i needed to pull it together. i needed to get a grip.
as i stared at the smoke spinning and twisting off the burning tip of my cigarette, i thought about the previous night.

the coyotes.

they had continued to howl as i sat perched atop my compact-car sized rock. i had a pile of rocks in front of me with which to defend myself. i lit my last cigarette and dropped my open pocket knife, point first, into a patch of dirt that had settled in divot on the rock. the dirt was too shallow and after repeated attempts, i had been unable to make the knife penetrate deeply enough to stick.

i thought about my wife and daughter. i would return to them a new man, my true sociopathic male self.

i don’t know how long i sat upon that rock before the howling stopped. at some point, i realized i hadn’t heard the coyotes for at least an hour. i figured they were gone. i’m not sure if it’s true, but i was later told that while the coyotes were howling, i was safe. when they were silent, that’s when i should have been worried.

in reality, i was never afraid of the coyotes. they would either come or they wouldn’t. they might injure me, but they would never kill me. why would they risk injury with prey that was fighting back so viciously? as i would later begin to realize, the only times i was afraid, were those when i was thinking about bob and the program.

thirsty and jonesing for a smoke, i climbed down from the big rock, picked up my zen rocks and started walking. i came to a ravine which i estimated ran east and west along at the base of the southern slope of a rock mountain. the ravine was about 20 feet deep. i found a spot with a suitable slope, sat on my butt, and with my arms crossed, rocks held to my chest, i slid to the bottom of the ravine. it was still dark and though i wasn’t completely sure what i would encounter on my way down, i reached the bottom unharmed.

i traveled east until the ravine opened up. then, i made my way around the base of the mountain.

traveling north (or at least what i believed to be north), i came to a dirt road. rocks in tow, i followed the dirt road. i wanted water and smokes, but other than that i was feeling good. for some reason, i was comforted by thoughts of the woman at the little grocery store. i began to entertain the thought that there was life outside the program.

the sky was starting to get lighter as i emerged from the rock and dirt and i found myself entering an area covered with sagebrush. i saw a house (really more of a shack). there was an old pickup truck with no windows and no wheels. then there were other weathered, sun bleached, houses and shanties. i realized i’d made my way onto what appeared to be an indian reservation. though the sky was getting lighter, it was still dark. it was quiet.

i’d heard that a reservation may not be the safest place for a white guy to wander around alone in the dark. on the other hand, if i came across someone, i might get some water and a cigarette. i might even get a ride back to my car, which i’d abandoned the previous day in a dirt turnaround at the northern base of the santan mountains.

i made my way through the reservation. i was startled once by a dog who began barking as i approached a tall wooden fence that surrounded the back yard of one of the shanties. i hit the paved road which ran along the northern base of the mountains and correctly determined that i was a couple miles east of my car. in my car, i had water and cigarettes. in the center console, i had left my watch and wedding ring. i was determined that i would not open my center console until the end of my week-long search for my true sociopathic male self.

i walked 2 or 3 miles to my car while sun rose behind me. i leaned on the hood while i drank some water and smoked the best cigarette i’d ever tasted. i crushed out my cigarette and put the butt in my pocket.

i looked at the mountains to the south and the orchards, horse property, and civilization to the north. one represented freedom the other imprisonment. at that point, i wasn’t quite sure which was which.
 
and so she woke up
woke up from where she was
lying still
said I gotta do something about where we're going
step on a steam train
step out of the driving rain, maybe
run from the darkness in the night
…
you got to cry without weeping
talk without speaking
scream without raising your voice
you know I took the poison from the poison stream
then I floated out of here ~ bono


sitting in the dark desert night, on the north slope, i noticed that my cigarette had burned all the way to the filter, leaving a long, slightly curved ash. i blew the ash and pocketed the butt. i looked again at the city lights. i looked at the stars. i thought about the vastness of the universe as compared to the insignificance of bob's tribe.

my thoughts drifted again to all that had happened in the last 48 hours.

i had completed the policy and procedure manual, been chastised and hit with a stick, begun digging a grave in which i had planned to metaphorically bury my parents, started building a zen garden, gotten lost in the high desert, waited out the coyotes, and walked for miles.
after returning from my coyote watch, having felt rejuvenated from the water. i had spent the day picking pebbles and other impurities out of my zen garden and digging my parents’ grave. i had also walked.

things had changed over the last 2 days. i was now considering the idea of killing bob. i determined that tampering with the gas lines was too risky. first, they were likely to smell the gas, in which case they would simply leave the house and call the gas company. second, it was too easy to get caught. there were fingerprints, fibers, and cutting tools that could provide forensic evidence. i had been in their house many times, but if evidence was found near a break in the gas line, i would be found out.

fire seemed to be the best way to go. guns and bullets could be traced. anything that could possibly cause a struggle would leave forensic evidence. i had been caught up in the idea that it had to look like an accident. but why?

bob had more enemies than anyone i’d ever known. it was this thought that lead me back to the question, “where were all his former followers?”

as a teenager, i had seen the 60 minutes and 20/20 exposés in which he had been accused of being a cult leader. when his california program went down in flames, he was accused of being a cult leader. his current organization was constantly being criticized as “cult-like.”

as i sat on the mountainside looking down at the city lights, it hit me. i’m in a cult! bob is a cult leader. we’re all being duped. it’s not my parents that are standing in the way of overcoming my fear. in fact, the fear is natural and normal given that my boss, my mentor, is a dangerous, deceptive cult leader who likes to play god with peoples’ lives.

sitting there i realized that bob was the source of all my fear. i also realized i wasn’t alone; virtually everyone in the program was living in fear…fear of bob and his wife.

these people had to be stopped. i refused to let them take my family from me. since my wife was enthralled by them, killing bob and his wife was my only option. i needed a better plan. a simple plan.

i had spent over a decade imprisoned in bob’s cult. my marriage had been torn to shreds. i had lived in a constant state of fear and dependency, fighting for his approval, vigilantly searching for my miracle, the miracle that would insure that i never had to go through another confrontation, that i would be inoculated against banishment, that my family would not leave me, that i would not die.

now i would be free. i could get in my car right now and drive off, turning my back on the cult forever. free from coercion. free from bob’s wrath. free from the endless hours of work with little or no pay. free from the threat of spiritual extinction. free from fear.

forget killing anyone. why bother? i would simply drive away. i had a half tank of gas, no money, and no credit cards, but so what… i was resourceful, creative, and smart. later, after i got myself settled, i would return for my family. i would threaten bob, telling him i would expose him if he didn’t release his hold on my wife. i walked down to my car, sat in the driver’s seat and reached to open the console.

stop. i had, on my own accord, committed to avoid opening the console before the week was up. no attachments to anyone or anything.

i got out of the car and closed the door.

for the past few hours i had vacillated between the belief that bob was a scam artist and the belief that he was the messiah—that he was right, that i was being overcome with every fear imaginable.

was he right? if i took off, his could easily hook my wife up with some guy and quickly marry her off. she had done this with other women in the past. maybe they were doing it right now. was this the fear…overtaking me? jesus christ! minutes ago i had been planning to commit a double homicide.
i needed to get a grip.

i thought about the woman at the little grocery store. i jumped on the hood of my red t-bird climbed to the roof and sat cross-legged looking across the valley

i can drive away right now. disappear. my thoughts drifted.

i lit a smoke.

the woods are lovely dark and deep
but i have promises to keep
and miles to go before i sleep
and miles to go before i sleep ~ robert frost

to be continued

a love poem

i decided to lighten things up with a poem i wrote for my wife. don't laugh at me.

dream girl
by seeking

i remember the girl of my dreams
found my soul
and she placed my heart back
in my "missing-heart hole"
and my child like passion and wonder
and pride
returned, and i started to glow
from inside

she's the girl of my dreams
she's the one that i love
she's the girl of my dreams
angel girl from above

and her heart's always gentle
and her heart's always pure
and her spirit is strong
and her mind, always sure

and we fly through the stars
in my dreams
while i sleep
exploring the universe
vast, dark and deep

will you fly through the stars
with me, dream girl
tonight?
will you rest in my arms
till the morning light,

shines and reminds

through the sun's golden beams
that love does
conquer all
if we follow our dreams