Interview Transcript: 1998-228-6
Recorded on tape, 12/29/1998 at 4:12 PM CST
Interrogator: Agent Leslie Summers
Interrogated: Ms. Chelsea Lawson
[BEGIN LOG]
[Irrelevant sections omitted.]
Summers: "Thank you regardless. Now… (Summers flips to the next page of his file.) how has the campus responded to the situation?"
Lawson: "Well…"
[Ms. Lawson cuts herself off, blinking several times, before groaning. Her posture relaxes.]
Lawson: "… I can't answer that, man."
Summers: "Don't worry, Ms. Lawson, your testimony will be kept confi—"
Lawson: "No, it's not that. I literally can't answer that question."
Summers: "Hm?"
[Ms. Lawson sighs, leaning back in her chair to rest her feet on the table. Notably, Ms. Lawson's gaze briefly moves to the door, before turning back to Agent Summers.]
Lawson: "Five years of my life, man. I lost five years of my life cause birth-giver wants a clean kid. I… I don't smoke weed, but if I did it'd be because of what she put me through. There's sh—there's stuff you see. I saw someone kill a horse at my last place."
Summers: "I'm… sorry about that. But—"
Lawson: (Interrupting) "No, man, it's cool. I'm lucky. Before she sent me away, I read a lot. I knew all I had to do was live through everything, then I get to write a memoir. Gonna be killer, man."
[Ms. Lawson pauses.]
Lawson: "… no, I don't see what they do. My old ranch, you'd sneak behind the stable, gamble knick-knacks with the dice freaks. Security's… tighter, here. They don't want you somewhere, you… don't go there."
Summers: (Summers hums.) "I assume you're tightly regimented."
Lawson: "You could… say that."
[Ms. Lawson glances back to the door.]
Lawson: "… this place freaks me out. I know it's, it's better, here. Still scared to bits."
Summers: "How do you mean?"
Lawson: (Lawson glances back to the door.) "The staff, they're not just taking it out on us. When they beat you—"
Summers: "They beat you?"
Lawson: "—there's logic, to it. You… did something wrong. Sinned. Sometimes they know you did it just after you did it alone. Sometimes they lock you in the freezer."
[Both remain silent for several seconds.]
Summers: "That's… that's unacceptable. I'll—"
Lawson: "It's not gonna help, man."
Summers: "Pardon?"
[Ms. Lawson glances back to the door.]
Lawson: "My last two places, birth-giver pulled me out when she learned they… did things. That's not gonna happen, here. They don't touch you. Don't hit you if you've followed the… the 'rules'. Take the time to drill values into you. When Rockwell makes you clean the freezer, he does it cause you're…"
[Ms. Lawson shivers.]
Lawson: "I don't know what month it is. Every night I have to tell myself it's all bullshit. That I won't become a doll like they want me to. Every sermon, every rule I gotta follow, the more I learn about God's Red Right Hand, that's harder and harder. It… logically, it shouldn't be normal. But it's starting to feel that way."
Summers: "But it's not."
Lawson: "Yeah. But what do I know? What are we gonna do? It works. It's exactly what it says it does. It's why birth-giver picked it over another ranch. And Rockwell's too popular to stop."
[END LOG]