Never Again Mel Gibson.
HOLY shit. Freaking scary-ass experience.
I recently got a writing assignment on Holy Family Church, an exclusive and controversial sort-of Catholic church funded by Mel Gibson in Malibu. When I first got the email, I was ecstatic to get my first paid writing assignment. I let it marinate for a few days before looking at it again. I told myself I would make a visit to the church on that weekend, hoping they’d be open for Sunday worship. Come Sunday, I sleep in til noon and I’m too hung over and lazy to even think about dressing up and heading to church that day.
It’s not until I start researching the assignment in the afternoon that I realize that I might have to go if I wanted to get any substantial information. I take off around 5:45 pm doubting that the doors will even be open, that is, if I got past the alleged gate that surrounded the building.
I drive down Kanan into the canyon before Zuma beach, and I mean down. Coupled with my horrible sense of direction and a bad experience taking the wrong way up Mulholland with a bad case of car sickness (yes I was driving myself), I was almost ready to turn around when I saw Sierra Creek Road.
The church sat like a castle at the top of a hill. A sharp turn at the bottom lead you onto the long winding driveway up. At first I wasn’t sure if it was even the right entrance. It looked like a gated driveway at someone’s house. Next to the entrance was a modest small black mailbox. There were no signs, banners, or marquees indicating anything. The gates were wide open. So I go. It is a church after all right? I figure they must welcome newcomers.
I cautiously drive up the ramp, all the while expecting the gates to close on me, or an alarm to sound, but it doesn’t. 400m from the top, there’s a parking lot with what looks like a small community building next to it. There are several cars parked there and people in the building, having what looks like a meeting of some sort. I park, and consider going in. While I sit in my car, another car arrives. Please don’t park next to me I think. They slow behind me, and I realize that they are probably just looking at the building. Then, without parking, they leave.
I think, I’m here, I might as well do something. I see a bulletin board so I slowly walk up to it, staying on a path where the people in the building can’t see me. There’s are two announcements, 1 stating “Missals being sold for sixty dollars.” The next, a general sign, “Welcome to Holy Family Church. Announcements will stay on the board for one week before being taken down.” There were several decorated pieces of paper with biblical verses, 1 including the ten commandments. I take a few pictures of these and then some of the building.
Getting a little too comfortable I make the stupid mistake of standing a bit too far out where the people isndie can see me, I see heads turn. I start walking slowly back t omy car but I notice bodies moving inside the building and a man running out to stop me.
A huge part of me wants to jump in my car, back and drive away, but I stand outside my car and wait.
An elderly looking man in a blue button down shirt and gold spectacles stops me.
“What are you doing?”
“I-I was just looking for the chapel. Is it up there?”
“No,” He ignores my response, “what are you doing here?”
“I was jus working on a school project..”
“You can’t just come here on someone else’s property and take pictures. You can’t come here. “
“I’m really sorry, I’ll leave. “
I get back into my car, and turn left down the ramp and resist the urge to continue driving up the ramp towards the church.
As I’m driving away, all the while I’m contemplating what my next move should be. I drive past trout town, make a u-turn there and start heading back up the hill. I cautiously drive up the ramp a second time and all ic an think about is whether they have security cameras at the gate as I come in. My mood relaxes as i drive past the chapel building because the distance from the parking lot to the chapel would make it difficult for them to see me. Plus I’m sure they had better things to do on their Sunday afternoon.
As I near the top I take a deep breath, but the tiny parking lot is empty. There is one security car outside of a little cottage house. I circle around the lot where there’s a tiny sign posted on the doorway. I sit for a minute, think against taking pictures an decide to leave. As I’m leaving, what looks like a gardener in a truck drives up the ramp. For a second I get scared and think it’s the same guy I encountered earlier. So I pull over and let him come around. But then the stops at the ramp opening, opens the door and gets out. That’s when I realize it is the guy from earlier, and he’s walking up to my car looking murderous.
“What did I tell you about coming here.”
I’m working on a school project
“No your not.”
“Now your car will be confiscated because it’s on the private property.”
“No, I’ll leave. I promise I won’t come back.”
“No, I told you to leave once before, now your car is going to be confiscated.”
I try to drive around him, but the road is too narrow and there’s a huge rock on the side of the road. I slow and he dashes in front of my car.
His sunken eyes are huge now and he’s waving an arm in the air. “Turn your car off! I’m going to call the cops! “
At this point, I’m desperate, almost crying. Holy shit, what did I get myself into. For a fucking news article, omgomgomg.
“ Please1 plase just let me kleave, please don’t keep me here!” I’m begging him to let me by, and he just keeps yelling “no, no”
I had no idea what these people would do. Mel Gibson is crazy enough, I couldn’t even imagine how crazy his church fanatics would be either. Even if I did run him over, dent my parents’ car on the rocks, what if they closed the gates before I reached the bottom?
You can take my pictures. I’ll delete them! At this point I just wanted to get out of here.
“Give your chip to me.”
“I don’t have it, but here you can delete it yourself,” I hand my precious Galaxy to him, something I prize even more than my laptop.
He stands there flipping thorugh my pictures for awhile. After awhile he says, “ I’ll need to take this down under. Before I can say no, he hops back into his truck and reverses back down to the chapel building and walks back into the building with my phone.
At that point, I thought about just leaving my phone. Nevermind it was 165 bucks. Never mind that iwa s my life and I would never leave it anywhere. I sat there, with my engine running, foot on the brake in the driveway pondering my next move.
There was a guy with dark hair pacing outside the building, and I wondered what all the other members looked like. I wondered if they were all going to flood out of the building, surround my car. I pictured them all blockinhg my car as I screamed NO, NOooOooo. Death by melgibson/religious finatics. What a way to go.
Then I considered just gunning it down the hill. What if the gates had already closed? Then I would sit there in my car until they all had to leave and gun it out of there as well. Then
After what seems like an eternity he comes back out and gives my phone back to me.
“the pictures have been deleted.” ON the display is a picture of sautéing tomatoes I had taken for a food blog once. I’ve never been happier to see that picture.
“Now don’t come back here again….” The rest of his words are a blur. I numbly put my phone back down and roll up my window.
As I’m about to leave he looks he’s going to say something, so I roll my window back down.
“are you Filipino?” I reply no. or a second, the question baffles me, but then I remember that Filipionos are devoutly catholic. I could just picture his reply, if I had said yes, “You should know better than defacing God’s temple. God is going to damn your soul to Hell.” Or something like that.
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