Justice: 7. My Parents Catch On

But after getting back to LA, I got to see other people again. And I didn’t have to live with him (it wasn’t until we left LA in 1990, on the run from Kendrick that I started living with him.) But I was becoming more isolated. Angelo didn’t want me contacting anyone unless it was an emergency or the only way to keep them at bay. Like when my mom came to LA.

My parents caught on that something wasn’t right because I was missing all these family things. I missed my sister’s wedding (the only girl out of six kids)… Then I missed my grandmother’s death… I missed a million family things. I told them the basics of what we were doing, but we always tried to keep it as vague as possible. My mom had been in San Diego visiting my brother who, unbeknownst to me, had suggested that she get a cult de-programmer. But they couldn’t afford it. They knew I was involved in something…they just didn’t have the means to do anything about it. But my mom wanted to come to LA to make sure I was OK and do whatever she could do.

When it was clear there was no avoiding it, I wanted to go pick her up but Angelo said, “No, let her take the train… make her get here on her own.” I thought that was unbelievable. And from somewhere, in that moment, I got the balls to say, “If this were YOUR sister, you’d have 10 people driving her.” Which of course got smacked down with the “How dare you!” response. But that was that. She took the train.

So, I met my mom at the train station, worried about what she’s going to think and not knowing how to act with this whole thing. I was still so confused. This was early on. But she arrives and says how much she enjoyed taking the train and I thought, well maybe Angelo does know what he’s doing. But pretty much she was just being polite to me so I wouldn’t feel bad for not picking her up.

While she was there, she stayed with Ryker’s parents. Little did I know that they talked to her about me going to Hawaii with the teacher… and all this other stuff she wasn’t supposed to find out. My mom literally cried her whole visit. We went out to dinner and she told me that she was afraid I was living in a bubble and that something didn’t seem right… and I looked at her and told her I was doing what I wanted to do and that I was happier than I’d ever been. Angelo had coached me on some things to say, but some things were sincerely coming from me. I felt like, “I’m on target. I’m focussed. I just have to hang in there. This is what I need to do. This is where my energy needs to be. There’s nothing else I want to do. This is my life.” And I didn’t feel like she could understand or know where I was at. She didn’t know I was gay. She didn’t know I was running from the world or anything. All she knew was that I was in this thing. But she could see something in my eyes. I had already started becoming a much better actor. I was very convincing. Before it was like I could not act because I had nothing to pull from, but I was starting to have life experience… to be vulnerable and to feel. Legitimately FEEL all these things I had no access to before. So that was it. I sent her back home. My dad didn’t come. Later he told me he was afraid he would have just made it worse.. and he would have. He’s can’t hold back. He’s an opinionated guy… a legacy he passed down to me (thanks Dad). So that was it and then I was sneaking back in the cult again.

I remember being so self-righteous at that time. And my family didn’t matter. I was doing this for the greater good. “Let the dead bury the dead” and all those things Angelo would say, I really took to heart. I was not just playing around you know. I really believed this stuff. I felt I was on a journey… like one of the twelve disciples… groundbreaking stuff… helping this guy to spread his word. There was nothing my family could have done to get me out of it by that time.