As we entered a door of the administration building we did not head to the elevator to take us up the eight floors to the main administration floor. Fred headed to a stair well. I turned and looked at my escort and he just shrugged his shoulders and said "Fred likes to take the stairs for exercise." I was tired from lack of sleep and hungry from lack of food. The last thing I wanted to do was watch Fred Franz have a nice long conversation with his shoes as we walked up eight flights of stairs. But, Mine was not to question why, mine was to do and die as I grasped for air as we reached the last step on the eight floor. I thought to myself, this old guy may be nuttier than a bag of filberts but he's in damn good shape.
I was taken to Dean Songer's office and introduced around the room to some nice smiles and a few hand shakes. I was told that first off I was to give the people in the illustration department a short workshop on airbrush illustration. Then I was to assist on a few Awake covers and then do a photo shoot with the head of the photography department. Last but not least I was to give what information I had on helping the graphics department do a better job miniaturizing negatives so that the books they print very small and smuggle into communist countries can be half way readable.
Easy enough I thought, it wasn't graphic brain surgery. I don't know why someone there didn't know how to do this stuff already but, what the hell, I was there and I was making my mom happy.
I then went down to the art department with the elder who was in charge of it. He was a nice old guy and treated me like I was someone special. He gathered all the people in the art department together and introduced me to them all. They all had big smiles on their faces so I thought this would be some fun. A couple of them told they enjoy the articles I write in the art magazines and they were really happy to meet me. For the first time, I started to feel a bit comfortable. Then I noticed one older sister who didn't smile or look like she was the least bit interested in me being there. I told everyone what I was going to teach them and proceeded into a room where I set up to teach the class. When it came time to bring everyone in, that one older sister walked in, looked around and said, I don't need this, I'm leaving.
I looked at her and smiled and said "I flew back five thousand miles to teach you guys some things about art and you don't want to learn it, colleges pay big bucks for me to teach this stuff and you guys are getting it for free". She gave me a dirty look and just said again, "I don't need this, I have better things to do," and she walked out. Everyone in the room looked to the ground out of embarrassment. I was a little shocked but since I had taught works shops all over the country for the past few years I knew there was always one in the group that ended up being a pain in my butt. I just didn't expect this kind of attitude from a loving sister from Bethel.
I looked around the room and asked, "What's up with her?" nobody said a word. As people were taking their seats and unwrapping the free airbrushes I gave them at $150.00 bucks a pop one younger shy looking brother asked me to step out side with him. He than said something that not only was a surprise to me, but started out with words that I would hear several times while on my visit there at Bethel. He leaned over an in a whispered voice said, You can't tell anyone I said this, but, she is a real problem. She is married to someone high up in the organization so she can pretty much do as she pleases. For the first time there I was shocked. I never in my wildest dreams thought that there was some kind of cast system at Bethel and that some were more privileged than others. I soon found out that this lady had a license to be a bitch because of the man she was married to. I also found out that she just found out she and her husband were going to Europe with several other higher up's in the organization and they were all going "first class."
I thought about the last hundred dollars I slipped into the contribution box back at my kingdom hall. I though that some of that money was going to help pay for this pompous bitch to fly her sorry butt to Europe on a three thousand dollar first class airline ticket and she was too damn important to listen to a thing I had to say. For the first time in my short visit to Bethel I wasn't confused, I wasn't shocked, I was just pissed off.
We went back into the room and I started to teach. The first thing they wanted to learn was how to better retouch photos. As part of a demonstration I took a photo of one of the Bethel models who was dressed up like Abraham. He was standing and had his hand stretched out with his palm down. To show how to match photo grain, and add shadows, I Airbrushed a basket ball under the hand of Abraham and it had the shadow of his hand right on top of it to give it a realistic look. As I pulled the plastic airbrush mask off the photo and showed it to the group I got a blank stair back. I could tell a couple of people wanted to laugh but I could tell, that laughing would have been the wrong thing to do. I couldn't see anything wrong with it but my new art department buddy leaned over again and said. We would get in trouble for doing something like that even as a practice piece.
I looked back at him and said "you're kidding right?" He looked me straight in the eye and in another whispered voice he said "no, they wouldn't think that was funny." I set the retouch photo of Kareem Abdul Abraham on a chair next to me and continued on with the class. It became lunch time and the lemmings were headed toward the cliff and I asked my new art buddy if he could walk me out of the building.
I had to wait for my escort to show up so I could head to lunch. After the experience at breakfast I told him I just wanted to go to my room because I didn't get any sleep and I wanted to rest a little bit. He walked me to my building, unlocked the door and let me in. As I walked up to my door the cleaning lady/sister was just leaving. She told me that she hung my suit up and wanted to know if I wanted it pressed. I told her thank you, but no. She asked me about the designer of the suit and I was surprised but felt like she at one time knew more than how to scrub a floor. We had a brief conversation and in that short time I realized here was a bright, educated and very together lady. Then as she left, I thought to myself. What the hell is she doing cleaning rooms. She should be running this place instead of Freddie Brown Shoes. It was the closest to a real intelligent conversation I had so far and she just finished polishing off another layer of chrome on my sink faucet.
I lied down for a while and then just as I nodded off my escort was at my door saying it was time to go. As we walked back to the administration building I asked him how I could find a person from my old congregation that was here at Bethel. He told me to give him his name and he would get the information to me. I went back to teaching my class and saw the old lady who blew me off working on something at her desk. I walked by and saw that it was a new song book. The book we had at that time was that dull pink thing and the one they were working on was a regular book size. As she held up the mock up of the book, it hit me like a tun of bricks. That is a hymn book just like they have in all the other churches. Her holding it up made me realize that second that this was just another religion. I started to feel like I was an escaped convict and that I was going found out and caught any second. In that instant I could no longer feel good about where I was I needed a break from the place and I needed a drink.
Toward the end of the day I asked my new art department buddy if he wanted me to take him out to dinner. I was starving and I didn't know how to get around in Brooklyn. He jumped at the chance and said yes!
I took him to a nice Chinese restaurant because he said he hadn't had any good Chinese since he'd been at Bethel. As they brought out the first course his eyes lit up like a 13 year old boy who just saw his first Playboy. I thought the smell of the food alone was going to set him off into orgasm. When I ordered a shrimp dish I though the guy was going to jump across the table and kiss me. As we ate he started to tell me about his life at Bethel. At least fifteen times as he spoke in a low quiet voice he said "don't tell anyone I said this but,". He began to tell me about the problems between the different departments and how they couldn't get any cooperation because of certain elders having control over things they knew nothing about. He told me no matter how upset you got, you had to keep your mouth shut. He told me you learn quickly what you can and can not say and who and who not you can say it to.
He particularly complained about the elder who ran the photography department and how he had to do things exactly as he wanted and not as the illustrators asked to do it. At Bethel, just like in other studios, they have photos shot of people so they can have an accurate example of how lighting and folds in clothing and things like that look as they do their illustrations. The elder in charge of the photography department had to do everything like he thought it should look and disregarded anything the illustrator asked for. In the real world, a photographer blowing off an art director would end up pushing brooms in no time. I think this brain squid took photos of babies at Sears before he came to Bethel.
He also told me about the old lady who blew me off and how she treated other members of the art department like dirt and got away with it. I then told him that I would do what I could to take care of it. He looked at me in shock and asked me what I could do? I told him part of my duties were to watch how things were done and report back anything I saw that was unprofessional or caused problems. He started to sweat and stopped eating. He asked me to please not say anything about what he said. I told him I wouldn't, but I would report things that I observed myself. He seemed very scared like he had just given me the secrets to building the H bomb. After that all he talked about was a sister in the Canadian Bethel that he met and fell in love with. He told me how hard it was because he couldn't see her. I asked him why but I don't remember exactly what he said. I could tell this really bothered him so I dropped it and we went back to our own buildings.
He was a good guy and I really liked him, but, Iv never seen someone so scared of his own shadow in my life. I felt really bad for this guy, he didn't deserve to have what little real personalty he had squashed by the powers that be.
The next day was the day I was going to work art directing a photo shoot for an up coming Awake magazine. I was going to work with the elder from hell who ran the photography department. Again I had a hard night sleeping, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this guy. Later that next day I got the biggest shock of my whole trip. A visit to govenrning body member Leo Greenlees apartment
End of part 2
