The next day was going to be tough. I had to do kind of a portfolio check session with the illustrators and work on some photo retouching for an up coming Italian Awake magazine and work with someone from the graphics department on the miniaturization issue.
As I walked around a little bit I noticed a large Hell scanner sitting in a room with a plastic tarp over it. This was back before desk top flat bed scanners and I had only seen this particular scanner at color houses. They cost over a million dollars each at the time and took a person with more than a half of brain to work it. I asked the brother who ran the illustration department about it and he didn't even know what it was. I have to say again, this guy was one of the nicest people I met on my trip. I felt bad he didn't really now what he was doing but I would find out the next day or so why.
I got to the art department and the young kid who I had drinks with the night before was waiting for me. He said we had to go up to the main administration floor to check out some old books they wanted to make some archival negatives of. I went up to that floor and we were met by a couple of brothers. One was a tall black brother who I think if I can remembered said he worked in the legal department. The other brother didn't say what he did. We went over to the back of the department and there was a locked door. The brother opened it and as I stepped in he told me something I had heard before but with a little different slant to it. He said that the room had a lot of the old Watchtower literature in it and I shouldn't be alarmed about anything I may see. He said that the faithful and discreet slave had a lot less light from Jehovah back then and that new light had replaced some of the things the early FDS didn't quite grasp. He said that the average brother may not understand all of this.
One thing that seemed to have escaped all these guys was the fact that I was an average brother. I spent my whole life just accepting what they said as the truth and like everyone else never really questioned it. After all, would my mommy lie to me?
I'll tell you, if I didn't know I was in a JW library, Id swear I was either in a catholic one or some ancient library of Egyptian occult history. Some of the old books had crosses and crowns and I saw a few pyramids. I also saw a few Egyptian icons on a few books that I recognized from a few old art books. The more I saw, the more I realized how different the teachings were now compared to what they were when the religion just started. You wouldn't even know it was the same religion. I could see how the early JW's were definitely influenced by the occult and how it's early teachings laid heavy on Egyptology. I remembered reading somewhere about the stair steps in the great pyramid adding up to the year 1914. I was really starting to question everything as each minute went by. For the first time I started to feel a bit nervous. I felt if I could spend a few hours in that library I could find things would shock the rank and file JW right out of their jammies. I was almost afraid to look around too much. I felt like there were things in there I shouldn't see.
Imagine now if Alan F. was given a key to that library and was told to have some fun. Talk about skeletons in your closet, this room had a whole damn grave yard. When I met Alan around 1995 I told him about the library and he didn't even know it existed. I had never known anyone before or since that knew more about the watchtower skeletons than Alan. For them to keep this room a secret to the average JW for so long is amazing. It makes you wonder how many other secrets they have kept from everyone.
I wanted to go back and put a little sign on the door of the secret library that said "When leaving please turn the light off, a new light will be installed on each visit."
I don't know if the two brothers read the expression on my face or if they just got a little nervous but they told us it was time to go and we left.
As I headed back to the art department it started to bother me that they had a locked library in the first place. What else were they trying to hide? I think that locked library should be open to every JW tour group visiting Bethel. I think the average JW should see where the religion really came from and let their own judgment and logic kick in. The graphics alone on the book and magazine covers screamed the word "cult." All I can say about it now, is the Watchtower has developed one hell of a marketing program. They can promise anything and not deliver. They can say anything and change it at any time without any repercussions. They can whisper secrets all the time but still not listen to what they themselves are saying. It's down right spooky as well as effective.
By this time my mind and body were just floating. I didn't care about why I was there any more nor did I care about helping anyone out. I just wanted to go home. I spent the next few hours looking at all the illustrators work. I met the guy who did all the nice illustrations for the yearly calendars and told him how much I liked his work. Both he and his wife worked in the art department and were very nice people. They were one of the few people who thanked me for the new airbrush I gave everyone and asked if they could buy another one from me once I got back to my office. Since they offered to buy it, I sent it to them free when I got back.
I also met another brother who did some great oil work. He was a short, stocky New York Italian looking guy and if I can remember I think his name was Joe. I could tell that he was definitely the bad boy of the department. He was very talented and had a good sense of humor. I noticed on a lot of his work that he had a lot of short New York Italian looking guys with beards wondering around in several places in each illustration. I mentioned it to him and he just laughed and smiled. He held up his finger to his lips and gave me that "shoosh" sound. I liked this guy. Instead of asking me about pointers or getting deeper into a critique, he kept asking if his work was good enough to make money in the real world as an illustrator. I told him if he could change his style just a little bit he would be a great illustrator. He asked about how much money could he make if he was a professional illustrator? I told him I knew several illustrators with similar styles like his and they did book illustration and made well over a hundred thousand dollars a year. I could see the exit signs light up in his eyes. He is one guy who I felt would not be sticking around Bethel for very long, even though little images of him with a beard would hang on the walls of the art department for years.
Before I headed out for my next assignment I stopped off in the office of the elder who ran the illustration department. He told me about some brothers who had come back to consult in the newly developed computer department. He told me that even though they had a wife and kids a special arrangement was made for them to come back to Bethel for a year or so to work. He told me that they were set up in their own VIP apartments and their wives stayed in the apartment with the kids why the brothers worked. (I saw this coming like a hook to my upper lip) He then asked m if I would ever consider doing something like that. My mind flashed back to my wife's closet full of clothes and shoes and I thought there wasn't one apartment that I saw while being there (except for Leo Greenlees up the butt palace) that would even come close to holding her stuff. I also thought of my two boys being locked up in a cramped apartment for days on end. I couldn't be that cruel to either my kids or my wife's wardrobe. I said the only thing a loyal JW man with rapidly developing doubts could say. I told him Id think about it.
Later that night I was asked to do some photo retouch on a photo that was going to appear on the cover of an Italian Awake magazine. It was a photo of a brother in Italy behind prison bars. I was asked if I could make the bars more pronounced and the room a bit gloomier. Now I had been to some of the art departments of some of the largest news papers in the country. I have seen them do retouch work on all kinds of photos in the advertising section but never have seen a photo touched up for a news story, That is a journalistic sin, that is except for tabloids like the National Inquirer, The Star, and the Awake. At this time, I just wasn't into doing this. I had a tough few days and the last thing I wanted to do was sit in a dark room leaning over a drafting table doing some airbrush retouch work for free. I fumbled through it and gave it back to the guy in the art department for proofing. It wasn't exactly what he was looking for I guess because he asked me to do it again but not to make the prison bars look so clean. I messed with it a little while longer until the Italian guy looked like he was not happy being behind bars for Jehovah. The art department guy was happy and we headed off to his apartment for a drink.
When we got there, there were several people having what was soon starting to look like their nightly "thank god the days over night cap". I was starting to feel that the minuscule amount of money they got as an allowance to buy personal items like deodorant and soap was being use to buy Jim Beam and Jack Denials. If the society ever got new light from the FDS that drinking was a sin, all of Bethel would shut down overnight.
In this little meeting of the "don't tell anyone what I am about to say" club I got an earful about the Bethel male migration to the new Bethel sisters crotch scenario. It reminded me of a billion sperm jumping over each other to get to a single egg. As I saw it, a single Bethel sister was doomed the second her Bobby socked little feet from Inocentvill Kansas hit the hard pavement at Kennedy Airport. In this little group everyone there was married. They talked about getting "Bethel sickness" Which was the wife getting pregnant and them having to move out of Mecca. That kind of bother me. The JW's talk about how kids are a gift from god but it was obvious that children were not tolerated nor appreciated at the word head quarters of Jehovah's Witnesses. That's understandable considering I never knew a person out side of Bethel who could have children, raise a family and hold down a job at the same time. It all made sense to me.
I also learned that night about the secret little jobs brothers do on the side for other brothers in near by kingdom halls after Bethel work hours. They got paid two or three times as much to do those jobs as they did doing their Bethel job. I didn't have a problem with that. After all Booze is expensive.
The next few days were fairly uneventful. I did what I was asked to do and when I was done, I turned into Dear Abby for my fellow brothers. I also learned the trick of cutting meetings and hiding out in my room. Saturday morning I asked the first brother I had met from the purchasing department if he and his wife would like for me to take them out to dinner. He, like everyone else jumped at it. This was to cover up the fact that there was no way in hell I was going to go out in service with anyone and I found asking any Bethelite out to dinner is an instant subject changer. I was learning how to survive at Bethel. I told them to pick any restaurant in New York and I would take them out to the dinner of their lives. They took that literal. His wife jumped on the phone and made reservations at the Windows of the World Restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center tower. I was a bit shocked, I didn't think we could get in there on a Saturday night with little notice.
I absolutely hate pretentious snooty restaurants and in my business travels Iv been to the snootiest of them. This one was very typical. I had to tip three people before we could actually get a table that was near a window. The head wine Stewart looked like he had just walked out of an Agatha Christie novel and came up with his silver tasting cup around his neck. I have always wanted to rip those things off their necks and shove them up their noses. That was one hell of a coke spoon. It was a typical pretentious dinner. Half cooked vegetables with a string wrapped around them, tiny portions of the main course that got lost in the shadow of the oversized garnish and a desert that is only served in the finest New York restaurants and old folks nursing homes around the country. Why the hell do they give a fancy name like Sorbet to a tiny scoop of frozen Kool Aid? Jesus, I hate New York!
I only heard one "don't tell anyone" that night. It was that there are parts of the South Bronx that no one goes to out in service.
I guess that is one of the places the rocks are going to have to cry out the good news of Jehovah's Kingdom. It was the first logical thing I had heard about the religion all week. The JW's make it sound like they are in every nook and cranny in the world but a few miles away from the world headquarters has already been marked by the angels as a place the good news aint going. I though the angels were a bunch of sward carrying bad asses with wings that would protect gods true people from harm. I guess when god starts outfitting the angels with Mac 10's the preaching work will start up again in the South Bronx. I do have to admit that the baby chick Cornish game hen I had three bites of was tasty. $400 later and a 1% tip for the pertinacious snobby waiters and wine Stewart we headed out. I did slip the wine bottle carrying kid a twenty and told him not to share it with his boss. I swore Id never go back to that restaurant. I don't think a couple of Muslim fundamentalist liked the service there either.
The weekend went slow and I did some walking around Brooklyn. Parts of it are nice and parts of it should be blown off the face of the earth. Monday came and went and Tuesday I was asked to give a progression report to my buddy Dean Songer.
I came into his office and we had a little chat. He asked me what I thought about the whole operation. I told him that if the three departments I spent time with were in a real company, heads would roll. I told him about little Napoleon in the photography department and I told him I thought the communication between each department was unbelievable. I told him that the people in the illustration department didn't like or get along with the people in the graphics department and that graphics department dint get along with the people in the illustration department and that both those departments couldn't stand the guy running the photography department. Everyone was afraid to complain or talk about any real issues. I told him that the heads of the departments even though some of them were very nice, didn't really have a clue about the job they were doing. I told him if he wanted any productive changes he would have to find people that not only knew how to communicate with each other but also knew what they were communicating about.
Dean stood up and started walking around his office. He told me that the first priority of anyone that headed up a department was their spirituality. He told me this is the way it was, always has been, and always will be. I then asked him about the million dollar Hell scanner sitting with a tarp over it. He said they had not found a brother with the spiritual and technical expertise to run it. I then asked him why they bough it. He didn't answer. I didn't go into any of the "don't tell" issues I heard about because I liked most of the people who confided in me and I didn't want them to get in trouble. I didn't tell him about what I heard in Leo Greenlees apartment or the old lady bitch who blew me off in the art department. I just sat there and listened to his reasons for how things were. He thanked me for my help and it was mutually decided that I would leave the next day (I don't think Dean liked my report). My two week trip was being cut short. I thought that would be the end of my "don't tell anyone" secrets of Bethel but it wasn't over yet.
The next morning I was picked up by a mechanic from the motor pool in a brand new Chrysler station wagon. As we got to talking I asked him if the car was his or was it owned by the society. He told me that it was owned by the society and that they had several of them. He told me that there are several brothers who own car lots across the country and they donate the cars to the society. He also said that there are a lot of old brothers and sisters who donate cars, homes and money to the society in their wills. He mentioned that there were thousands of older couples who never had kids and everything they had goes to the society when they die. I got to thinking about the twenties and thirties where the society told people that we were so close to the time of the end they were strongly encouraged not to have children. So people who never had the pleasure of having a family ended up giving their life savings and all worldly possessions go to the good old Watchtower society. That has to add up to a lot because kids are expensive to raise. Just look at all the money you can pack away in a savings account by not having to pay for any pesky kids. It's a shame that Armageddon didn't come back then so those childless couples could go into the new system and have children when they are a couple hundred years old like they were promised.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the society intended to have those people die childless and leave all their money to the watchtower society. I think they just screwed up on their predictions for the end of the world and the money just happened to end up in their bank accounts because the people who were told not to have any kids didn't have anyone else to give it to. It's not their fault, really, anyone can screw up predicting the end of the world, they have been doing it over and over again for centuries.
As I sat on my five hour flight home I couldn't stop tinking about the many nice people I met at Bethel. I also thought about the controlling assholes and how scared of their own shadow everyone seemed to look. I thought about the militaristic structure of simply going in to have a happy meal with the Big Brother faces on the monitors. I thought about how every one had to sneak their sanity saving booze into their rooms in brown paper bags that absolutely hid the fact that they were all taking booze into their rooms. I thought about how before this trip I felt it would make me a better JW and help save my marriage and knock me up to the next rung of being a minstrel servant. I also thought about that poor shaking brother from my old congregation that knew he was sleeping in a room where the last guy got young brothers drunk and had sex with them in their butts.
I never sleep on planes no matter how tired I am. My head was swimming and I felt like a huge wall was in front of me and I had to decide to stay behind it, or clime it and look at the other side. I thought was I just imagining what I saw and heard because I must be spiritually weak or was I not looking at the whole experience in the light of people simply being imperfect? Did I simply stumble into a situation that showed me more than I could handle or did I see some real truth about the truth?
I knew I couldn't tell anyone about what I saw, heard, or felt. I knew talking about it would lead to me being disfellowshipped for apostasy even though I would only be telling the truth about what I saw and heard. I had done nothing wrong but do what was asked of me and listen to people with an open mind and understanding heart. Unwillingly I had already begun to commit the unforgivable sin, I began to be honest with myself and think for myself. I knew being disfellowshipped for talking would kill my mom and I also knew it would end my unhappy marriage. I thought about my kids and how what I knew would eventually effect them. I thought about my mom again and how I finally fulfilled her dream of having me work in the art department at Bethel. I also thought about whether I should act on what I saw or just keep my mouth shut. I thought so much all I wanted to do was stop thinking. I didn't think I knew anything for sure anymore. I started to think I wished I didn't know what I knew. But, I had to admit, I now knew one thing for sure, my life would never be the same.
End of part 4
Part 5 (the decision that changed my life) to come in few days