When I found that first threatening message, my unit was on an exercise in Egypt, a welcome trip away from my duty station, Shaw Air Force Base, in South Carolina. An exercise is when you go somewhere else to play solitaire on your computer because you’re not allowed to read at your desk—that would look unprofessional. You spend your off-hours pranking each other—gluing sleeping bags shut, dropping raw eggs into someone’s boots, duct-taping people to cots with cardboard “Free Blow Job” signs.

   That first note, I wanted to believe someone just had a bad sense of humor. I rubbed the dust off the car, hoping no one had seen it. And I forgot about it because something else happened while I was in Egypt: I got orders to Araxos Air Base in Greece.

I’d been at Shaw two years, I was due for new orders, but considering the Air Force had already stuck me in South Carolina, I’d been half expecting to be sent to another shitty stateside base, South Dakota maybe.

All I had to do was go back to Shaw for a bit, keep my mouth shut about the stupid prank that read like a threat, and in two months, I’d move to Greece. I’d swim in the sea. I’d drink ouzo. I’d play more solitaire. I’d be more careful about who I told I was gay. I’d become someone else—something I’d been doing as long as I can remember. New country. New town. New story.

I returned to Shaw and hoped, nearly believed, I’d left that problem in Egypt. Maybe it wasn’t even someone from Shaw. Could’ve just as easily been a marine from Camp Lejeune or a soldier from Fort Bragg who’d come to the exercise. Then I woke up one morning to four flat tires. Flat tires aren’t a fucking prank. I should’ve called the cops then. Should’ve saved the next note, the one on paper, stuck under my windshield wiper, the one that said I’d burn, or the one after that said they were going to kill me.

* * *

—

The night my car burst into flames, I’d agreed to babysit for my supervisor, Sergeant Peters, because it meant spending a couple nights with HBO and without roommates arguing about who emptied the dishwasher last or what movie to watch. I liked Sergeant Peters. He was a big corn-fed-looking guy who had only hit on me once and only sulked about my rejection when he was drinking. I’d been in the Air Force long enough to know that’s about as much as you can hope for in a military guy. They took rejection easier if I told them I was gay. That’s likely why most of my small unit knew about me, or at least thought they did. I didn’t exactly make an announcement. But telling one person, if only to convince him he didn’t have a chance, was as good as telling twenty others. But other than some unfunny jokes, the rumors hadn’t been a problem. Anyway, I liked Peters well enough, his kid wasn’t too much of a pain, but mostly I liked his two German shepherds.

   That night, I’d sent his kid to bed, popped EDtv into the VCR—because I was lesbian and required to watch every Ellen movie—and I settled in on the couch in the family room at the back of the house. Then I heard the windows rattle in their frames. The dogs went nuts. I ran to the front window and saw my new, shiny black Acura Integra engulfed in flames.

The kid wandered into the hallway, half asleep in her pajamas. I think she was twelve at the time. I told her to go out back. I didn’t know if the house was on fire, but if it wasn’t, it would be soon—I hadn’t parked but two feet from the garage. I was trying to get ahold of the dogs when I saw her open the front door.

I got her turned around. I ushered the dogs and her out back and ran inside for the phone, and a blanket so she wouldn’t freeze. I called 9-1-1 and watched a fireball shoot into the air high enough I could see it over the roof.

   The firemen came, doused the flames, and called the sheriff. They told me the house was safe. I sent the kid to bed. I called Sergeant Peters, and he said not to let anyone inside. Peters liked his guns and maybe they weren’t all legal.

* * *

—

So there I was talking to a redneck sheriff in backwoods South Carolina, in 1999, where the Rebel flags outnumbered American flags, and I knew his smirk when he asked who would do this was an insinuation.

I took a drag off my cigarette to buy enough time to decide on an answer. I said someone thought I was gay. I didn’t say I was gay.

He asked me if I was gay.

I said, “Hey, don’t ask, don’t tell, right?” The punch line of the ’90s.

I’m not always this cool and collected, not even usually. This is what happens when I’m facing an authority figure. I can’t meet their eyes. But I wouldn’t show fear. I know better. I’d been through this before. Not with the cops, but I when I was growing up, interrogation was something I was used to. I knew the drill: Stay calm. See the question behind the question. Stick as close to the truth as possible. Don’t give too much away or they’ll think you’re hiding something—liars always explain too much.

Sheriff Horton didn’t laugh. He said he didn’t have a problem with gay people. He liked Ellen.

I told him, “I can’t answer that. You know I can’t answer that.”

He asked me if anything was wrong with the car.

   “Other than it’s smoldering in the driveway? No.” And I remembered what my brother, Mikey, said when I last saw him at our grandfather’s funeral that August. I hadn’t owned the Acura a month. I’d been circling the restaurant parking lot where my mom and the aunts said to meet for dinner, searching for a spot my doors might be safe from other car doors. “Seriously,” Mikey said, “I’m gonna get out and kick one of your doors in and you’ll thank me ’cause you won’t have to worry about it anymore.” I said, “The fuck you will.”