Blown for Good Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology (16 page)

3. Tape shedding – The cassette tape would shed particles as it passed across the recording heads of the slave machines and this created a loss in sound reproduction.

4. Temperature – The slave machines would have a variance in frequency response based on the temperature of the room. Even a 5-degree change could drastically change the quality of the recordings being duplicated.

5. Quality Control – The Quality Control was done by objective decision and was not computerized.

Dave Miscavige had visited us in the tapes area at least 50 times over the course of all of these discoveries. He had told us that once we fixed everything, we had to be able to produce 50,000 cassettes per week in order to catch up the backlog of cassettes that were needed by public Scientologists.

With the production line now working we had to document everything and take pictures of all of the electronic components and every single piece of equipment. This was so that if anything went wrong, the original documentation could be referred to. If anyone changed any procedure, modified any piece of equipment or changed anything on the production line whatsoever, they would be instantly declared a Suppressive Person. The charge would be a “high crime” and suppressive act — Unmocking a Working Installation.

As we documented everything and got the machines running smoothly, more and more people were starting to show up from LA. Even my sister finally showed up. We were supposed to have enough people for both the day and night shifts and run the line 24 hours per day. We had:

1. Rosi Kamman

2. Clarisse Brousseau (Barnett)

3. Tony Cifarelli

4. Agnese Bertolina Johnson

5. Lynnea Baker

6. Marc Headley

7. Bob Ferris

8. Stephanie Headley

9. Dan Crocini

10. Jessica Thompson

11. Caroline Buri

12. Carlo Russo

My job was to check the pancakes of tapes after they came off the copy line. My official post title was Pancake Quality Control Officer. My boss was a girl named Lynnea Baker. She essentially did the exact same thing I did but also had to spot check stuff from the final packaging area as well. We were running the line 24 hours per day and we were not producing 25,000 cassettes per week. Jason Bennick was the General Manager and he was the one who would report up to COB on how many cassettes we were producing. Even though there were over 10 people working in the area, it was decided that it would only take three people to run the night shift. It ended up being Clarisse, Tony and me.

We would come in on the bus around 4:45
 p.m.
and leave at 8:00
 a.m.
to go home. Our full schedule was as follows:

4:45 - 5:00 TRAVEL TO BASE

5:00 - 5:30 DINNER AND MUSTER

5:30 - 6:30 PRODUCTION

6:30 - 9:00 STUDY

9:00 - 11:30 PRODUCTION

11:30 - 12:00 MIDNIGHT RATIONS (MID RATS)

12:00 - 7:30 PRODUCTION

7:30 - 8:00 BREAKFAST

8:00 - 8:15 TRAVEL TO BERTHING

Based on this schedule, if you went straight to sleep after getting home and taking a shower and got up and got dressed quickly, you could somehow get in seven hours of sleep. We were working over one hundred hours per week. On paper it looked okay and comparable to the day shift schedule. But there were a few things not factored in.

Daylight – When we went home to go to sleep, it was daylight. I had blankets over my windows in my room to try and black out as much light as possible. Still, the light would leak through a few spots and that alone could light up a room without effort. Also, Hemet, California, in the summer is completely immune to clouds. It is bright during the day.

Temperature - When we went onto the nightshift it was anywhere from 100-120 degrees in Hemet during a summer day. No matter what kind of air conditioner you had, it was not meant to successfully counteract temperatures that hot. I can remember sleeping on top of my sheets with the A/C set to 70 degrees and still breaking a sweat.

Daytime Activity – The area where we had our housing in town was being developed all around. An entire community was being built across the street from where I lived and during the week, there were hammers, pneumatic nail guns, cement trucks backing up, or kids screaming and playing outside during the hours I was supposed to be sleeping.

After I had been on the night shift for some time, I had perfected how to keep out of trouble and fly below the radar. I was even getting a serious tan! Since I was on the night shift, I would go home each day and sleep out on a lawn chair by the pool at the apartment building where we lived. There was no one from the base to see me and, as long as I turned over every once in awhile, I would get a good amount of sun each day. I thought I was doing fine. Yeah, I had to work long hours, but it was better than not being able to talk to my family and I was not on the Rehabilitation Project Force. That was the only way you could avoid going crazy at the Int Base. Instead of thinking how bad you had it, you had to think of how much worse it would be if you decided to go against the grain and try to escape.

There was always a bunch of people every so often who would lose it and either blow or say they wanted to leave. The few that got away we would never see again. We would hear rumors about how they were in jail or living on the street. The ones who were caught would be made dishwashers or assigned to a job that no one would ever want to do or get assigned to the Rehabilitation Project Force.

I had not done many services as a public Scientologist and had not completed any major levels. I had done the Purification Rundown and some other introductory services before becoming an employee and that was about it. One day, I was told that I might be able to get some auditing. I was not that excited about doing it and was much more interested in doing car school. I thought that driving would be much more fun than auditing. I was pressured to do the auditing first and was told that this was a “once in a lifetime opportunity.” I was given a short interview on what I was doing and how work was going; I was instructed to go up to the Villas. The Villas is where Religious Technology Center was located at the time. I was told to go see the Inspector General Ethics, Marty Rathbun! When I went up there, I was met by a staff member who led me in to see Marty. I sat down in front of his desk. He started off by saying that I was one of only two people on the entire base who was qualified to receive this auditing. He told me that I was not allowed to tell anybody about my auditing. I was not to tell my co-workers, I was not to tell my family members, nobody. I would be going in session every day and under no circumstances was I to be un-sessionable on any given day. I would be doing this for weeks and I would have to do whatever was needed so that I could go in session at the same time each day. He told me that all of my seniors were briefed that I would be on “study” on a special program and that Religious Technology Center would be directly overseeing my progress. 

This was a lot to swallow in one go. I was a bit shocked by it all, but nevertheless, I was game. Oh, yeah, one other thing, my auditor was going to be Tom Cruise. The penny dropped. Staff had been working day and night for weeks to get the houses (G Units) ready where Tom Cruise would be staying. It explained all the flowers being planted down by the G Units. He was supposedly coming to stay at the base for several weeks or months and was bringing Nicole Kidman with him. It was all starting to make sense now. Tom Cruise was coming to do his Academy Levels. He was going to do his auditor training and he needed someone to audit and this person had to be very low on the bridge. That was me.

I went back to post and worked all night like I always did. The next day was the big day. I came in for dinner like I always did. I ate and then after dinner muster instead of going up to the course room like everyone else, I headed over to Studio One.

As I walked up to the conference room, Tom was standing outside in the hallway.

“Hello, I am Tom,” he said. He grabbed my hand with one hand and grabbed my arm with the other. Double handshake. Okay.

I thought to myself, sure, like I’m going to say, “What’s your name?” Of course you are Tom Cruise! Everyone knows who you are.

“I’m Marc,” I said.

“Hey, Marc, nice to meet you. Come on in.” Tom led me into the conference room. My eyes scanned the room to see who was here. The conference room was converted into a course room and an auditing room. On one side of the room at the large table studying were Kirstie Alley and Nicole Kidman. Bruce Hines from the Senior Case Supervisor office was supervising. Another girl from the same office, Heidi Stahli, this sort of hot European girl with a large set of headlights and long blonde hair was supervising as well. Nicole and Kirstie were reading when I showed up. No one else was there.

I followed Tom over to the other side of the room where another smaller table was set up with an E-Meter. The last time I had been on the E-Meter was when I was getting my clearances. I had not even been on study that much since first coming to the base.

Tom had me sit down. He asked me if the room was okay and if it was too cold or too hot. He gave me the metal cans that were hooked up to the E-Meter. He had me give the cans a squeeze a few times. This is done so the E-Meter can be set to the individual you are auditing. Then he asked me to take in a deep breath and let it out. This shows if you have had enough to eat and sleep. It is called a metabolism test. If the needle on the E-Meter dial does not fall a certain amount, then you can’t go in session.

Tom gave me a puzzled look. “Let’s try that one more time,” he said.

I took in a deep breath and let it out.

“Hmmm. We are not getting a metab,” Tom said.

“Did you get enough sleep?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded.

“Did you get enough to eat?” Tom asked.

“Yeah.”

“Did you take your vitamins?”

Is this guy kidding, I think to myself? I never take vitamins.

“No,” I shake my head.

“No? Oh, well, that might be the problem,” Tom said in surprise as he got up from his chair and made his way around the table.

“I never take vitamins,” I said as we headed over to the kitchen area next to the conference room.

“Well, we have some stuff in here that might help,” he said as we walked into the kitchen.

There was more food in the kitchen than I had seen all year. Sandwiches, snacks, drinks, three different types of entrées, rice, vegetables, fruit. You name it, they had it in this room. And this was the “just in case someone got hungry food.”

Who knows what they were feeding these guys for dinner? I stealthily chomped down a cream cheese danish while Tom was digging through some vitamin boxes.

He pulled out a small plastic pack that had about five or six vitamins in it. “This should help.”

“Cool,” I took it and went to grab a drink.

“Do you take a lot of bee pollen?” asks Tom while I carefully picked which drink I should choose to wash down my delicious danish and bitter vitamins.

“Like from a bee? Never.” I answered right before taking a swig of Snapple.

“Never had bee pollen?” he said, almost excited. “Oh, that will do the trick for sure.”

Wow, this is the guy from Top Gun and bee pollen is what gets him excited.

“Where can we get some bee pollen?” he called to Heidi from the kitchen.

“I think they have some in the Canteen,” she said. “I think we can have someone get some.”

“Oh that’s okay, we can go get it,” Tom said and motioned me to follow him outside.

His blue and black Yamaha TW200 Motorcycle was parked right outside the studio door. He got on and started it.

“Get on. We can just zip down there and get some bee pollen and be back in a few minutes,” Tom said without a worry in the world.

I got on. So much for the super confidential part of me being audited by Tom Cruise. People were going to see me riding on the back of the bike with him on the way to and from the canteen. In fact, it was dinner time and they would all be down around the canteen. Well, if this becomes some sort of flap, I am throwing Tom under the bus for this one.

We headed to the canteen. Every time we passed someone, I thought about how this was going to flap and I would hear about it.

We pulled up to the canteen. Everyone was staring at us. Tom walked into the canteen and asked the person at the counter if they had bee pollen bars.

“Yeah,” the person said, stunned, “they’re over there. “

“Thanks.” Tom said as he grabbed the bar, handed it to me and headed back out.

He didn’t even think about paying for it. I wondered if I was supposed to pay. I just walked back out looking at this thing they call a bee pollen bar. He started the bike, people stared at us, I got on and we drove off. At least fifty people had now seen me riding around with Tom Cruise. The entire base would know by the end of the night with the way people talked.

We got back to the conference room. I ate the bar. It tasted like shit. Now I know why I had never had one. I would eat a Snickers bar any day of the week over one of these. I washed the bee pollen down with the rest of the Snapple.

We chit chatted for a few minutes to let the bee pollen take effect. He asked me about what I do and where I work. Then the conversation took a turn.

“Do you know Greg Wilhere?” Tom asked me.

“Yeah,” I said, having no idea where this is leading.

Greg Wilhere was the father of a kid that I used to go to school with, Darius. Darius was in Gold now and I lived a few apartments away from him at berthing.

“Ya know, when we were making
Days Of Thunder,
you know, he was with us when we were shooting and we named this one doctor in the movie after him.” Tom laughed. All I could think was that Greg Wilhere was out palling around with Tom Cruise on movie sets. Nice.

Well, you wanna try again?” Tom asked.

“Sure,” I said as we headed over to the auditing setup.

I picked up the cans. We redid the can squeeze and I gave the breath check another go. I took in a huge breath and let it out.