Justice: 12. Behind the Scenes

My position in the group deteriorated to “the old heifer out in the lower 40.” Put out to pasture basically. The icon from the past. That really didn’t have a lot of mojo left in him. That’s how I was. Because I didn’t want to play the game and help him spread his message in his convoluted ways anymore, I was just this guy that scrubbed the toilets and did the house stuff and if people wanted to call and talk I was there for them for the most part. And I’d advocate for people if they were having a hard time with Angelo. With parent issues or relationship issues of if Angelo was pulling something really bullshitty… I’d go in there and pull for them. It wasn’t much but it was what I could do. I was really dying slowly there.

Behind the scenes it was still a very meditative life. Luckily. One thing I’ve had to work on now is learning how to communicate again.. because it was so nonverbal there. We’d serve dinner, eat, clean up and never speak a word. We’d go on hikes and no word was spoken. We were a well-oiled machine really – we operated really well together in some ways. And then there were the blowups. So many of them. Like Fratelo would be late to everything. He’d be off doing whatever he was doing and he would always be late. And Angelo hated it. So the whole time that we were waiting for Fratelo, the silence was broken with the ranting and raving. “Where is he? Why didn’t you call him? How could you let this happen?” On and on. In the meantime, his ranting and screaming gets the parrot squawking. Then it’s both of them. Finally Fratelo gets there and we’re trying to get everything together but we have to hear it all again while he’s letting Fratelo have it… the screaming and the squawking… while Fratelo is getting his stuff together and finally we’re off. And this happened over and over again. The same story. I tried to explain to Fratelo how hard he made things when he was late but for whatever reason, he couldn’t change. Maybe he couldn’t deal without feeling like he had at least that kind of freedom. I don’t know. But that was it… Silence and then Squawking. (ugh… so many things)

You guys really were so lucky. You guys that lived two hills over. So lucky. You were really being protected from him. And in a weird way… I got to find a little peace in seeing your guys’ eyes. The ones that were able to just be so surrendered without the drama. So enjoying the diggs without the behind-the-scenes. Because for most of the people in the group… they didn’t have this intense guidance and drama. And the dramas… it was always just a handful that were a problem… but behind the scenes he obsessed on it. And drew in so many characters it was a nightmare. But for the most part, everyone was just living their peaceful lovely life and it was just beautiful. You didn’t want to see him unleash on anybody. And he wouldn’t. Only in rare instances did he allow himself to do that. That’s why over the years I got more and more surprised he would call so many people in because they did get to see glimpses of his lunacy. Simply because he was more transparent at the house and dance class. He’d come out to the yard after getting his makeup on. People had to wait around forever. Rain or shine. They had to drop their minds a lot. But they just took it as, “Look what we’re doing to surrender to the Master.” But anybody that had the misfortune of being mixed up in a drama with Angelo got to see what he was made of. All those situations where people were in trouble, and then Angelo got involved and made things so much worse. He had all this cast of characters willing to help him because on his own, he couldn’t do it. It was such a mess.