say yes, that it would go easier for me, but I kept taking the punishment instead. I was, as my name foretold, quite thorny, whereas my sister was a little golden-haired, sweet child. I would stare at her and wonder how she got that way and how she couldn’t see what was going on. It was a strange sensation growing up behind these walls and being told I did not belong to the outside world, but I also knew I didn’t belong to the world within.
When that woman or another woman or another man, all strangers, returned the next night and the night after, I always had the same response: “No, no, I have not let God into my heart.”
Slap.
One night I could hear the woman’s German whispers and her feet doing a quiet kind of stomp on the floor. I knew I was going to get hurt again.
“No.”
Slap.
When she was gone, I saw that she left her Bible on my sleep mat—all the kids slept on flimsy orange or blue plastic mats. I hid her Bible behind a cabinet. Each day I’d tear out a new page, put a small piece in my mouth, work it around, add more, and spit it out, turning it into little mush blobs. Then I would take the Bible blobs and form them into tiny animals. I hid them behind the cabinet and would visit them now and then when I could steal a moment. They were my toys, one part saliva, one part Jesus.
I figured if I literally ingested their God, maybe I could answer, Yes, I have let him in. Maybe they’d stop punishing me.
The smacks, the pushes, enforced the message that you were not allowed to be imperfect. When I was about four, I had a wart on my thumb. I was toddling down this long hallway when one of the doors opened. I remember the shaft of light and all the dust motes dancing. A man with shaggy blond hair picked me up, looked at my hand, and said, “Perfection in all things.” He held up a razor blade and sliced my hand with one swipe, winking at me as he sat me back down. “Perfection in all things,” he said again before shutting the door and leaving me in the hallway. I didn’t cry, I was too stunned. Blood ran over my hand and I made a dripping mess of the hallway. The blood coursed over my fingers, the red strangely pretty. Like my hand, I was numb. I knew not to react because, one, that was something they wanted from me, and, two, I thought maybe there was something to this perfection thing. I walked on.
The hallway assault is what started a narrative that fucked with my head for years, that of perfection as self-protection. I told myself if I were just perfect enough, I’d be okay. If I were just perfect enough, I’d be left alone and no one would want to hurt me.
From then on, I willed myself to be as perfect as possible because I didn’t know what would happen to me if I wasn’t. I was terrified of having an aberration in any way. I was sure that having any kind of flaw would spell doom. But first I had to figure out what all my flaws were. And so began a habit of being extremely hard on myself, seeing myself from the outside in. I started to look at my hands and feet daily to make sure I didn’t have any bumps growing. There were no mirrors that I can remember in the cult. When I would later arrive in a culture that was so externally focused—America, and then Hollywood—this caused a tear in the fabric of my being.
The funny thing was that in almost direct opposition to the message the cult sent us about perfection, my father was preaching to me and my siblings that we were not, under any circumstances, to develop an ego. Our focus was to be on our internal development, the development of our souls and our intellects. I suppose we were supposed to be perfect physically, but remain humble in the face of our perfection? I was never really sure. All I knew was that I was not supposed to think good thoughts about myself. That God would punish me for thinking that I was awesome.
Never once growing up was I told that I was intelligent, smart, or beautiful. I don’t know what that feels like. I was never told I could do anything I wanted if I set my mind to it. I was told I was worth nothing in the eyes of God. I was told I was going to be a whore. I was told I was dirty. And the thing is, I knew they were wrong, but the words still stung.
From an early age, I remember being furious that nobody would listen to me just because I was a child. It was so unfair. I hated being little and powerless. I would look at the people in Children of God and think, But all these things you’re all talking about, I could solve them in two easy steps if you adults would just
My only friends during my time in Children of God were my older brother, Nat; my pet lamb, Agnello; and an old gray-haired farmer named Stinky Fernando. Stinky Fernando was deeply suspicious of bathing. You could almost chew his smell, it was so thick. I had to breathe through my mouth whenever he was around. One day I heard Stinky Fernando screaming. My father and some of the other members took him by his arms and ankles and threw him in a river. Much to Stinky Fernando’s surprise, his skin did not melt off.
Stinky Fernando took Nat and me into an old barn and showed us faded Playboy magazines while feeding us stale Kit Kats. A real treat. I wondered about the women in the magazines. They didn’t have hairy legs. It was confusing. I loved the rancid Kit Kats, though. I loved candy way more than I loved their God.
I bottle-fed my friend, the little lamb Agnello, and helped take care of her. My first pet. One night at the long dinner table I took a bite of food, and a thin woman with a mean face and center-parted hair started to laugh. Others joined in, and soon everyone was laughing. I didn’t understand what was funny until they told me it was Agnello being served. And so I realized my pet was being fed to me for dinner. I sat stunned while everyone at the long table laughed. I pushed my tears down and felt a coldness wall off my heart toward these people, something crystallizing into a stone of pure hatred as I looked at their monster faces. They had a particularly cruel streak, and they liked to destabilize the younger members. These were lovers of Christ, right? To this day, I’ve never eaten lamb again.
I started to become angry. Angry at the injustices that were adding up. Angry at the rules that seemed, and were, so arbitrary. I decided the best course of action was to light it up. And so, one day my older brother decided to light a stable on fire. He was mad, too. I for sure wanted to be there for that, so I ran after him to help. We were in the barn when my brother pulled out a book of matches. He started lighting them and flicking them at the hay on the stone floor. Whoosh. The fire leaped up the side of the walls and onto the ceiling. The roof was thatched hay and started popping above us. I tried stamping out the flaming pieces with my feet, but I was too little and it was too late. I stamped and stamped, but I couldn’t put them out. If I had known how to say fuck, I am sure I would have. The roof crackled more and it was getting very hot. I knew we were in big, big trouble if we went outside and were caught by the adults. But everything was on fire.
We chose to run.
This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you some hideous story of punishment for lighting it up, but I really can’t remember. I do remember the terror of being found out. It made me feel like my skin was about to fall off with fear. The movie scene of this would be:
A sturdy blond boy and an elfin girl are hiding from their father. Suddenly four hands grab them by the shirt collars, dragging them off. Turning down a path in a maze, the children are paraded past a gauntlet of leering cult members. The members drag the children to the Judge of All. The Judge of All is on a throne made of soft wood. There are young nude women, heavy breasted and round bottomed, on their knees, gazing up adoringly and reverentially at the dynamically dangerous leader. The leader tilts his head back, eyes shut. He’s being worshipped. He’s in heaven on earth. The women work oils and lotions into the leader’s skin, their hands using a feathering touch as they go, chanting with intention. The leader, the Judge of All, opens his eyes and points at the boy and girl. The shaming begins.
Sounds like a Hollywood film, right? Maybe it’s not too far off. In fact,