All that spring, Cody experienced quite a lot of emotional turmoil as his mind tried to deal with the horrible things that had been done to him. At first Cody suffered regular nightmares and traumatic flashes on a daily basis. Through the Whatever Foundation, Jason made sure that Cody received counseling sessions for his mental state. The incredible mental strength that Cody had exhibited during his captivity finally collapsed one day in a sea of self-doubt and pity. Cody came perilously close to a nervous breakdown, but patiently and with gentleness his counselor, Dr. Wilmington, began to make him see that what happened to him wasn’t his fault, but the act of depraved individuals. Cody just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. His counselor told him, “You survived an ordeal that most other people couldn’t even begin to cope with. You were brave beyond belief! You should be celebrating your survival and your inner strength. Sure horrible and demeaning things were done to you. But you survived and the people who tortured you are now in jail!” Eventually the nightmares went away.
Living with his grandparents turned out to be a very good thing for Cody, as they developed a close family relationship, something that Cody had been lacking for a long time. Cody began to take care of all their outside needs. He went shopping for them, helped with home maintenance and repairs, and was there in case of medical emergency. His grandfather was slowly recovering from a major stroke he suffered earlier in the year and still had trouble moving around or speaking. His grandmother took care of the cooking and cleaning, spent a couple hours a day with Cody tutoring him so that he could return to school in the fall, and made sure that he stayed out of trouble. He had spent a good portion of the $25,000 Jason gave him on a mini-SUV, a new surfboard, and personal things like new clothing and a computer that he had never had before.
Every spare moment that he wasn’t home with his grandparents was spent on the beach, the place he loved to be the most. By the end of May, his welts and bruises were replaced with a dark suntan and he was starting to get back his confident demeanor. Cody was a real beach person. All he would normally wear was a pair of swim trunks and his lucky orca ankle bracelet, unless he had to go into town or his grandmother made him put on a tee shirt around the house.
As Cody’s body began to heal, so did his mind. But there was one more very important step in the healing process. He had to tell someone besides his counselor all of the things he had been through, from the darkest days of torture to the exhilaration of his release, from his days of self-doubt to his new life free of the past. He had to tell somebody who would really understand what he had experienced. Cody felt that he owed his life to Jason and that he was the special person who he needed to confide in. He also wanted to return to the Silicon Valley from Malibu to thank Jason and Daniel for saving his life, this time on his terms and as a whole person again. It was the last major step in his healing process. Dr. Wilmington had secretly called Jason on the telephone to make sure that this would be okay with Jason and not be upsetting or an imposition on him. Jason’s reply was that he had a similar experience as a result of his kidnapping a year ago, so he knew exactly what Cody was going through, and what he needed to do.
Today was that day. Cody had gotten up early and driven up to the Silicon Valley. Jason had invited him to spend the weekend at his house. He figured they would need to have several serious talking sessions, but he wanted them to be broken up by fun activities over the weekend. Saturday evening there was going to be a huge party at Laura’s house with all of their friends and reuniting Cody and Timothy for the first time since their ordeal at the camp.
About three o’clock in the afternoon, Cody arrived. When Jason answered the front door he couldn’t believe the difference. Instead of the pale and bruised person he remembered from the rescue, a real surfer dude was at the door. Cody’s hair had grown back out, and had that bleached look. Cody had a fabulous suntan and was dressed in a tee shirt, shorts, a backwards baseball cap, and a pair of flip-flops. On his right foot he was wearing his orca ankle bracelet and on his left wrist he had a brown leather bracelet. The two shook hands, which then turned into a huge bear hug from Cody.
“Welcome, Cody!” Jason exclaimed. “I can’t believe how great you look! It is so good to see that you are getting back to normal!”
“My recovery is mostly because of you, Jason, and what you have done for me. That’s why I had to come and see you, to thank you in person! You literally saved my life, Jason. We were total strangers until you pulled me out of that prison camp. And what you have done for me since has been unbelievably helpful and generous. I just had to say that, and thank you one more time!”
“You are welcome, Cody. Just remember I am not some super hero. I’m a teenager like you who believes in righting wrongs. I am fortunate enough to have the resources to help other teens who are in trouble. It is such a great feeling inside when I can help someone like yourself who was really in need of it! Now how about your things? Let’s get your belongings and I’ll show you your room where you will be staying.”
The two boys went outside. Cody showed Jason his mini-SUV. “This is so perfect for me. I can fit my board in it or haul groceries and supplies for my grandparents. That’s another thank you, Jason. That check for $25,000 really has helped me to get reestablished!”
After they brought Cody’s suitcase into his room, and got a couple of cold drinks from the kitchen, they decided to sit out on Jason’s screened in porch at the front of the house. “This is cool, Jason! You don’t see porches like this very often.”
“This is one of the things that I like the most about this house. It’s a great place to just sit, talk, or brainstorm. Daniel and I often do that out here. I know that there is a lot you want to talk about this weekend. What I suggest is you just let it flow. Don’t worry about telling me things in any particular order. Eventually everything you want to say will get said. Why don’t you start by telling me about the last month and half? You know, what you have been doing since we drove you down to your grandparents’ house.”
For the next hour, Cody described the events of his recovery, the healing process he went through both mentally and physically, how he loved staying with his grandparents and how everyone seemed to benefit from the arrangement, and most importantly his reconnection with the beach life. “That’s where I belong, and that’s where I want to be for the rest of my life! I cannot imagine living any where else!”
Around 4:30 Edith Hunter pulled up in the driveway. She had gotten off work a little early so she would have more time to visit and also to prepare a nice dinner. Just like Jason, she was amazed at the transformation in Cody’s appearance. “You look absolutely terrific, Cody,” Edith said after giving him a hug. “It’s so nice to see you with a big smile on your face and all tanned and fit looking!”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hunter! You know that your family’s generosity is the main reason for it!”
“Bill and I are so proud of what Jason has been doing through his foundation. It’s even better when we can see living proof of it! Now how about a nice home cooked dinner? I hope you like seafood!”
Edith prepared an excellent dinner of fresh trout, rice pilaf, stir fried vegetables and a Waldorf salad. Cody got Bill and Edith caught up on his activities, and talked with them about how his grandparents were doing.
“I think that it is such a good fit for you to be living with them at their beach house,” Edith said. “It seems like you are so helpful to each other, and I am very pleased to hear that your grandmother is helping to tutor you on school work!”
That evening, Daniel came over to visit for a while. Like the Hunters, Daniel was astonished by how much better Cody looked. After Cody took some time to individually thank Daniel for helping him to escape from the camp prison, Daniel said, “This particular adventure for us was primarily Jason’s doing. He scoped everything out and then staked the entire resources of his foundation on the mission. When Jason gets that way, all pumped up and righteous about a cause, I feel obligated
to help him, not only because he is my best friend, but because his instincts are so right on! That was especially true in your case, Cody. It still makes me furious to think about what those camp people did to you!”
Cody asked how the operation got started, and Jason and Daniel spent some time explaining how through the fears and pleading of Timothy’s girl friend, Teresa Barnwell, they were persuaded to check out the camp. When they visited the camp, a couple of the cadets were brave enough to verify that the torture was going on. Cody was fascinated by the story of how Jason consulted with Joe Connor, put a team together, and planned the escape operation. “I’ll never forget that moment when I first saw you that night. I was really miserable from being left staked out all night, and then all of sudden, this teenaged avenging angel appeared, dressed in shorts and red high top sneakers telling me to have faith, I was about to be rescued from the hell I was in!”
By ten o’clock, Cody was ready to retire, tired from his trip up from the Los Angeles area, and all the conversation. The next morning, he was up early and soon Jason was up as well. After eating bowls of cereal in the kitchen, Cody said, “Let’s take a quick ride over to the coast. I would really like to see the Santa Cruz area. Don’t worry, I’ll drive, and we will be back in plenty of time for tonight’s party.”
The boys got in Cody’s mini-SUV and drove through the Santa Cruz Mountains to the beach by the lighthouse. It was still partially overcast in Santa Cruz, and the water and the cloud cover provided a liquid gray backdrop to the Pacific Ocean. The boys climbed onto to some rock formations overlooking the ocean. No one else was near, and they could look down at the beach or see in the distance parts of the Monterey peninsula. As they got there, Jason figured that this is where Cody wanted to tell him about the horrible experiences he went through and he was right.
“I needed to be here on the coast, reconnected to the ocean and beach, in order to be able to tell you about the prison,” Cody began. “My mind has explored what was done to me from so many different angles, but every time I do, I still get the urge to jump in the water to cleanse myself of what happened there. I actually cringe sometimes even thinking about it!”
“Tell me what happened, Cody,” Jason responded in a soft voice. “Unburden yourself of the horrors you experienced.”
“About a week after we had the meeting with Roland Thomason where he told Tim and I that we were being sent to anger management training, it was just about time for the Red Cadets to go over to the cafeteria building for breakfast. Walter Gaither and Alfredo, one of the other prison guards, came to the barracks and told Timothy and me to stay in the barracks. Since we were always being given extra discipline for some infraction or rule violation, no one even thought that this was unusual. Once everyone else was gone, Alfredo opened the chest by my bunk and asked if all my belonging were inside. When I said ‘yes’, he cleaned everything out and put it in a plastic bag. He did the same thing at Tim’s bunk bed. We were told to follow them. ‘Aren’t we going to get our breakfast?’ I asked. ‘Just shut up,’ Walter replied. ‘We’ll take care of that later.’
“We were brought to the recruitment office. Once inside the office, they grabbed our arms and our wrists were handcuffed behind our backs. Then they took off our bandanas and blindfolded us with them. Again I protested our treatment. ‘Why are we being treated like prisoners? What ever happened to our rights as human beings?’ The guards’ response was to slap me in the face and punch me in the gut. Then one of them stuffed a rag in my mouth and tied the gag off with another bandana. ‘Shut up, punk!’ Walter said in a real mean voice. ‘From now on every time you mouth off you will be gagged! Every time you resist an order you will be beaten! Until you learn to instantly comply with every command you are given, your life will be a living hell!’ Then to the guards he ordered, ‘Take these two cadets to our anger management training center.’
“We were led down some sort of stairway and then made to walk on a long pathway. Occasionally it seemed like we were going through doorways. Finally we arrived at the prison compound, although I didn’t know what it was at the time. All of our restraints were removed and we found ourselves in separate jail cells. The two guards, Darius and Alfredo, told us to strip off all of our clothing. ‘You will wear a different uniform in here,’ they told us which turned out to be a pair of elastic shorts and nothing else. The guards gathered up our old camp uniforms, left us the shorts, and locked us in our cells. ‘From now on this will be your home until you learn discipline and respect!’ Timothy and I were a little shell-shocked. In our wildest dreams we didn’t imagine that their so-called anger management training was going to be life in a prison!
“After about twenty minutes, the guards brought us our breakfast. It was a metal pie tin with some sort of cold mush in it, and a bottle of water. There was a plastic spoon in the tray. ‘Eat up, boys, this is all you get until lunchtime!’ Needless to say the mush was something nearly unrecognizable as food. It had the consistency of white paste with lumps in it. The guards gave us another half hour of freedom before they came to collect the trays. My guard also had some handcuffs and rags. ‘Johnson,’ he said, ‘for your defiant behavior earlier you are going to be hogtied for the rest of the morning!’ I tried to resist, but he just called over the other guard who held me while Darius beat me up. He then handcuffed my wrists behind my back, put cuffs on my ankles, attached the two sets of cuffs together with a short chain, and gagged me with the rags. He then pushed me onto the floor of the cell and kicked me. ‘Johnson, you will get that treatment every time you resist or act defiantly! How long will it take for you to learn to follow orders?’ As much pain as I was in, and uncomfortable from being hogtied and gagged, I still resolved not to give in. I just couldn’t allow those assholes to break me!
“After several hours, the guards came and released me. It was lunchtime, and this time our feast was a foul smelling bologna sandwich on stale bread and an apple. We had an hour of free time to enjoy the lunch. I could barely get any of it down, although I did manage to eat some of the apple, at the least the parts that were not starting to rot.
“After lunch, the routine was to have a kangaroo court. Our hands were handcuffed in front of us, and then we were brought over to the part of the room where there were chains hanging down from the ceiling. Our hands were attached to the chain, which was wound up so that our hands were above our heads. Next the guard, usually Alfredo, would ask us over and over again why we weren’t following orders, or why we were such bad people, or other questions meant to demean us or put us down. If they didn’t like our answers they would slap us or hit us. Sometimes they would throw water on us or pelt us with small objects. It didn’t really matter what we said or did. The plan was to beat us up anyway no matter what we said. At the end of each court session, they would tighten up the chains so that we were stretched out all the way, and then they would whip us on our backs, butts, or even our legs. They used a bullwhip that over time covered our backs with welts. It was so hard not to cry out, but we did our best to not show the throbbing pain we were in.
“The rest of the afternoon would be devoted to some really stupid activity. Some days they would make us clean our jail cells with a tiny rag and a small container of soapy water. Or they would put us in an isolation booth and play music they thought we wouldn’t like, or make us do yard work outside. Also in the afternoon, we would be allowed to use the real bathroom in the prison. All that was in each cell was a chamber pot and a bolted metal bench. I actually enjoyed doing the yard work. At least we were outside and could get some sun and fresh air. Unfortunately, that all ended on the fourth or fifth day of anger management training. Darius had brought Timothy outside. He was supposed to do yard work, but the tools had all been put away. Darius went to get the tools, which I guess were in the other building. He had left Timothy handcuffed to a light pole outside. Realizing that there was no one around, Tim started shouting ‘Help! Help!’ at the top of his lungs. Darius came running back furious
at Tim. He stuffed a black ball gag in his mouth and proceeded to beat him up. After that, we didn’t have any more outside sessions, and I hardly ever saw Timothy without that ball gag in his mouth.
“We would then have dinner in our cells and be left unrestrained for sometimes up to an hour and a half. But then we would be handcuffed in some way for the rest of the night, like extra security so we couldn’t somehow escape. That’s because the guards wanted their evenings off so they set up a system of regular check ins by one guard who would remain at the camp, but would stay in their recruitment office quarters. He would then periodically check on us and report in, either to Walter, or to an answering machine that could be accessed from the outside.
“This routine went on for the first week, and then Walter, I guess, realized that we weren’t cracking up like we were supposed to, so he ordered our routine changed. That’s when he started to bring me down into the cave room and had me staked out much of the time. That was bad enough, but sometimes he would use drip torture on me, or a feather, or put creepy crawling things on my body while I was blindfolded. I would still be brought up stairs for lunch and the kangaroo court sessions. They kept whipping me every day until I think I had welts on welts. My wrists and ankles became raw with rope burns. I still have a bad scar from that on my left leg. I’d stopped mouthing off to them; in fact I had stopped almost all communication. So I wasn’t gagged very often. They didn’t need to gag me. How could I even be heard from that basement cave? The only way I could fight them was to withdraw into myself. But I could sense I was getting weaker every day, from the lack of proper food and exercise, constant pain from my wounds, and no contact with people other than my guards or an occasional glimpse of Tim. I wasn’t worried about breaking down as much as I was worried that one day my body would just shut down, and I would die like a plant that had been thriving, then suddenly was cut off from water and sunlight. I even started having fantasies in my head about how my gravestone would look!”
When The Chips Are Down Page 29