Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing(34)

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   I think I was twelve the first time Gabe decided to name the problem: I had a homosexual spirit. I wasn’t yet possessed by a demon, thank God. But possession could happen anytime if I wasn’t careful.

It wasn’t anything I’d done. It’s not like I had a secret stash of Indigo Girls tapes or got caught watching Desert Hearts. I was in the Family. I watched the same shitty movie everyone else watched on movie night and listened to the same Family tapes we all listened to. I simply wasn’t sufficiently feminine. My preferred look was homeschooled boy, which is to say polo shirts buttoned to the top and tucked neatly into my shorts or pants. The only thing I ever did with my hair was scrape it into a ponytail. And for a while, I got away with it.

Then we moved to this massive commune up in the mountains north of Osaka. I was grouped with the preteens, the Junior End Time Teens—JETTS, because the Family loved acronyms—and surrounded by appropriately feminine girls with appropriate interests, mannerisms, and style. I stood out as “that tall girl—you know, the tomboy.” And I tried. I really fucking did.

   The girls tried to help. Come dance night, and there was always a fucking dance night, they’d lend me shawls and tie ribbons into my hair and choose my skirt. All so I could look like a godly woman. But then we’d sit in chairs around the dining room, tables shoved against one wall, scarves draped on lamps to create mood lighting, the live band (a few teen boys with their hair slicked back) playing Family songs, and the girls sitting with posture like trained dancers, their ankles perfectly crossed, knees together, and me slouched back and legs spread like that asshole taking two seats during rush hour.

The girls would practice walking with the encyclopedias we weren’t allowed to read balanced on their heads. I’d sit in a corner reading the encyclopedias we weren’t allowed to read, grateful they’d convinced someone to let us use the books. Gabe called me “moose” because of my awkward, loping, legs-grew-too-fast-for-my-brain gait. I couldn’t walk right. I couldn’t even run right. I liked winning races too much to worry about whether my arms looked dainty.

What I’m saying is whether or not I actively did anything wrong that time or any other time doesn’t fucking matter. Once the shepherds and Gabe agreed I was a problem, I was a problem. They skirted around the issue at first. Reading assignments on how a godly woman should look and act, increasingly harsh warnings to stop acting like a bull in a china shop, a moose, a tomboy, a man. Be ladylike. This masculine spirit, this homosexual spirit, this evil, you have to fight it. We’ll help you, of course, with public shaming, isolation, and occasionally by beating the shit out of you.

   Gabe was especially invested in my spiritual health because he had aspirations. His lesbian daughter reflected poorly on his leadership skills, not to mention his entire manhood. I mean, if you can’t control one little girl…The only part I understood at the time was he was ashamed of me. So I got better. Wore skirts. Let my friends do my hair. Sometimes sat with my knees together, if I remembered. Then we moved to Switzerland.

Part of the problem was an item written in bold print on the list of why any of this act-like-a-lady shit mattered: I was supposed to make myself attractive to boys. This was what you might call a cornerstone of Family doctrine, and entire volumes of our literature were dedicated to pounding that fact home.

They weren’t wrong to be worried about me. Ignore the apocalyptic shit, and some of the sex shit, and the cult wasn’t all that radical in its doctrine, especially on the role of women. Those who write the rules will always give themselves an advantage over those who are “other.” Difference was, our patriarch said the quiet parts out loud—that women were created to serve men, that a woman’s value was determined by men, that women should submit to men, that a woman’s ultimate purpose was to grow babies, that rape wouldn’t exist if women weren’t selfish. You can’t have a lesbian, even if she is just a girl, running around acting like she doesn’t give a rat’s ass what men think of her. That’d be fucking chaos.

They’d ask me why I wanted to be a man and I’d tell them I didn’t. Because I didn’t. Just, the boys had all the power. The boys got to build things with wood while the girls had to sew curtains and bedsheets. They’d ask me why I was acting like a man and I’d tell them I wasn’t. Because I wasn’t. I just didn’t think they should get to decide how a girl should act. I just wanted some fucking control. They’d tell me to read The Look of Love, about how God wanted me to flirt with men, and I’d have to write an essay on what I learned about flirting. I wouldn’t flirt because all those coy glances and half smiles the other girls performed naturally felt ridiculous on my face. And they’d warn me no man would want me.

   Part of the problem was the possibility no man would want me was fucking fine with me. There was a time in Japan, may have been the conclusive symptom in my homosexual spirit syndrome diagnosis, when I stopped showering altogether to make myself less attractive to boys, or specifically men. We only showered once or twice a week anyway and were only allowed three minutes with a bucket, a stool, and a cup. It took a while for anyone to notice. I mean it took a couple months. I’d sit in class half listening to our shepherd explain why God made it possible for girls to have babies at twelve, and I’d scrape the film off my forearm to reveal the angry pink skin underneath. I wondered if I’d eventually molt like a snake, but I never found out. Someone would make me shower. I’d have to start all over with my project of being the dirtiest girl in the room, the girl the men didn’t want to rub against in the dish line, the girl our shepherd didn’t want to fondle at night.