Blown for Good - Marc Morgan Headley [116]
Just when I thought that I would never truly believe what they were doing I would get to experience it firsthand. And, of course, I had my “good buddy,” Marc Yager, to thank for it.
I was driven out to the pond by Security. Danny Dunagin, naturally, who else. I was teamed up with a girl from Int who was supposed to watch me and make sure I did not try to take off.
I arrived at the aeration pond. It was at least as big as a football field, maybe even bigger. It was at least twelve feet deep and the bottom two feet was the solid waste that needed to be removed. There were a hundred or so crew working there. All were in T-shirts and shorts or jeans. A few here and there had small white painter’s masks on, but for the most part, people were unmasked and breathing the dust clouds that filled the air. Most crew were in the middle of the dry ponds picking up solid waste and filling small five gallon paint buckets that would then be passed out in a long line and dumped in piles outside the pond. The handling of the solid waste was what created the huge dust clouds. As you picked up the waste, it would crumble in your hands and make dust. Multiply that times a hundred people walking, handling and moving all that waste and that made a pretty big cloud. A giant cloud of dust made up of excrement was what I was breathing in. I tried to wear a mask, but with the temperatures being in the high 90s, the sweat just mixed with the dust and made mud around the mask. It seemed worse than just breathing the dust.
By dinner time, I had absolutely no appetite whatsoever. I spent the entire time allotted to grab a quick bite to blowing out my nose and coughing up crud that had made its way into my mouth over the past several hours. We went back into the pond and worked into the night. By the end of the night I had been completely covered with sweat and crap dirt. Every pore had been penetrated or covered and in between dry heaving and coughing full time, I was exhausted. At midnight we all made our way over to the garage where we were supposed to take showers. I hosed myself down while waiting in the line for a shower. There were only two or three showers and at least 40-50 guys and by the time I got into a shower, the water was freezing cold. We were allowed to sleep until 6:00 a.m., at which point we were awakened, given some trays of cold soggy eggs and sent back out to the ponds. This went on for two days. I was the only crew member from Gold there, everyone else was from CMO Int.
I guess CO CMO Int thought that I had learned my lesson and suffered enough. On my third day out at the ponds, I was brought back to the garage and ordered to get cleaned up. After an hour, I was brought back over to the CO Gold’s Office and asked if I had had a change of heart. I don’t even remember what I said. But the entire time I was talking, I thought of how I would one day escape this place and write about this experience.
That night when I got to wash up, I took a two-hour shower to try to get the stench off me. It did not work. I think it took a week for all of the crap to work its way out of my pores, nose, throat, and ears. Even my eyes would tear crap mud. It was the most disgusting, humiliating experience of my entire life. Yeah, I had suffered well enough.
Chapter Twenty-Three – Dangerous
By this time — it was now 2004 — there were at least four or five senior executives in Int who had been declared SPs. There were goldenrod issues posted up on the Int notice board saying, “Ray Mithoff is hereby declared a Suppressive Person.”
Sue Koon, Marc Yager, Mark Ingber, Ray Mithoff and Guillaume