Mortal Danger

Florida, and he would sometimes brag that he flew around in Governor Lawton Childs’s private plane when he was active in the Young Democrats organization.
    Somewhere during that period, he met Bill Thaw. By then, Thaw and Werner Erhard had long since parted ways. John explained their breakup to Kate by saying that Bill Thaw felt that Erhard had become “too Hollywood,” having grown far more interested in the commercial side of est than in changing people’s lives.
    Given the rise and fall of Minitronics, it seems unlikely that Thaw was actually turned off by any enterprise that made big money, but he might have learned to be cautious about franchises and moneymaking schemes that ballooned too quickly.
    If John Branden would later dislike having his picture taken, Bill Thaw was adamant about not letting anyone take a photograph of him. Today, it is impossible to find a picture of William Michael Thaw. Something happened to John Branden as he followed his “god,” and he undoubtedly learned from Thaw. As John became more savvy, he became more secretive. His jobs and organizational attachments seemed to be conveniently vague—quite possibly as he intended.
    The Brandens had their two young daughters and seemed to be an average family of the seventies and eighties, at least to the casual observer. John told Kate that he had a thriving nutritional practice in a woman chiropractor’s office in Naples. The way he spoke of his years in Florida, they seemed to be happy and productive.
    And yet, they packed hurriedly and left Florida in 1986. John described their exit to Kate in a mysterious way, saying, “We left under cover of night—there was a contract out on me….”
    Was there? Kate had already seen that John had a need for drama, but she didn’t know if he was testing her or just enjoying telling flamboyant stories.
    “Once,” Kate recalled, “when I first knew John in San Diego, he told me he had to go up to the northern part of the county to meet two guys who worked for the CIA, and he wanted me to go with him. It was all very hush-hush. And then it turned out it was only two guys who were getting him a hardtop for his Suzuki.”
    But Kate would always wonder about his tale of fleeing Florida in the dead of night. When she learned that Bill Thaw committed suicide by gunshot in Palm Beach a yearafter that, Kate began to believe that John had escaped from some ominous threat in Florida.
    Thaw’s body disappeared, according to John, but Kate sometimes worried that he wasn’t really dead at all, only hiding from something that might involve John. “Maybe he’s in South America,” she commented, half seriously. John didn’t reply.
    John revealed that he had used different surnames from time to time—including his ex-wife’s maiden name. He was most voluble when he’d been drinking, but even then Kate noticed that he was censoring what he told her. Still, in their early years together, Kate and John were happy, and she was totally committed to him. She never dreamed that he would hurt her—or leave her. John just loved mystery and keeping part of himself hidden.
    It really didn’t bother her, and only rarely did she press him for fine points and specifics of his past. Kate would sometimes ask him about his midnight flight from Florida, but he would never tell her why he’d had to leave so surreptitiously. Sometimes she wondered if it was for some illegal activity like gunrunning, and then she castigated herself for being so suspicious. John was a respected professional. He had his PhD from the University of New Mexico in nutritional studies. She assumed that he had attended the New Mexico college on a part-time basis during the time he lived in Florida.
    The Brandens left Florida in 1986 and moved in with his older sister, Marilyn, and her husband, Alan*, until they could establish themselves in California. Two years later, John had a booming practice as a PhD in clinical nutrition in San Diego.
    (He did not yet have his naturopathic doctor degree from Clayton. There is a legal difference between a naturopathic doctor and a naturopathic physician. John was never a naturopathic physician. The latter has more medical training and is allowed to write prescriptions. Clayton trained “doctors” who were nutrition and lifestyle counselors. Kate was taught to honor the difference.)
    After his mother died, John really had no family except his daughters and Kate. Kate never met his sister Marilyn, and