Thirteen-some-odd years later, I still didn’t have any college, a career, or vacations. But sometimes, Joey would make us dinner, or we’d head to Amy’s to play with her ferrets and drink and talk about books, or we’d end up sitting out back behind a shared town house, one of the Mikes’ or Kyles’, trying out cocktails we created from whatever booze was available, trading drugs from the club and feasting on food pilfered from the kitchens by the servers and cooks, talking well into the night, until the sun came up and the daylight chased us inside, talking about everything and nothing.

So I got some details wrong, but damn, if I wasn’t living in a city, drinking on a back patio, ingesting drugs, listening to friends talk. Slowly, I started to learn how to be accepted into something like a family that I didn’t have to join.

Speaking in Tongues

There was this day in Air Force basic training where they tried to make us feel like we were really in the military. The night before, they kept us up until the wee hours working in the kitchen. At dawn, we marched a few miles carrying our duffel bags, singing jodies to keep cadence.

We shot the M16 for a couple hours. Then sat in the dirt and picked through MREs for lunch. Airman Eudy, who watched all the right movies, told everyone else to avoid the Lucky Charms—they’re bad luck. And because we’d never eaten an MRE, we enjoyed the plastic food. Then they marched us back, into an auditorium.

We filed in without speaking. We’d been in basic training six weeks now; no one had to tell us not to speak. The lights went out, and there, on the stage, a single spotlight popped on to show a guy, one of the instructors, tied to a chair. The bad guy entered, stage right. We knew he was the bad guy because he was wearing a towel on his head. The bad guy slapped the good airman around a little. But the good airman wouldn’t give up the mission plan. Just name, rank, serial number—which is really your social security number. The bad guy pulled a gun. Shot the airman dead. And the lights went out again. Then, I shit you not, Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to Be an American” kicked on.

   At that point I looked around. Everyone was weeping, shouting the words. Some of the kids fell back on their evangelical upbringings and waved their hands in the air in the universal gesture of I, a spiritual person, am feeling this shit. I knew I was supposed to feel something. I did. I felt revulsion. Because I’d been through this before. All of it. The sleep deprivation, the fun outdoors preparing for war, the playacting interrogation by the bad guys, and the singing. Always the singing.

* * *

—

When I was in the Family, that whole scene was a weekly occurrence. The light version anyway. Sing a few songs we all knew. Here’s an old one we haven’t done in a while. Stand up and do the motions.

   I may never march in the infantry (Everyone stand and march)

Ride in the cavalry (Hands in front like you’re holding the reins; gallop, like that makes sense)

Shoot in the artillery (Gun hands)

(An old Salvation Army song they co-opted.)

Inevitably some kid would think they were too cool to do the motions. Then the guitar players at the front of the room, and there were always a couple at least, would rest their arms on their guitars while a shepherd stood to lead us all in prayer. Short prayer at first. If your shepherds weren’t dicks, they’d let the younger kids go off to bed after that. The shepherd would read something from the Bible, or Family literature. Or, surprise, someone would do a skit, sort of like that Air Force skit but passive-aggressive. Maybe they’d do one about kids who won’t do the hand motions during songs. Then the Antichrist soldiers raid the home and murder everybody. (This was an actual skit.) Cut to the non-motion kid sobbing over the dead bodies of his little sisters. Bet he fucking regrets not doing the hand motions now. He won’t make that mistake again for years.

   Then we’d pray, chanting “thankyoujesusthankyoulord” over and over again. Until, by some unspoken agreement, the chanting died down, and the shepherd would thank Jesus for a few things, then ask him for a few things. You have to butter Jesus up first. The chanting again. And off to bed we went after a few announcements.

These were maintenance doses for the real thing. And the real thing happened once a month, or every few months, depending on how things were going. If we were raking in money, local authorities weren’t paying attention to us, the kids weren’t committing any serious sins like being sad or wearing hair product, we might not need a dose between scheduled meetings. When we did need a dose, several homes would usually meet for these fellowships, which could last an afternoon or days. Usually, they’d make us fast first, anyone over the age the shepherds deemed the cutoff for making it a day without food.

   Fasting and sleep deprivation are useful if you want to brainwash someone. After a while, you stop feeling hungry and start getting high. Of course, during any fast, the commune black market kicked into full gear. You could get anything from a hard-boiled egg to a baggie of raw oats if you knew who to ask.

Once the meeting started, all you could chew was your cheek. We’d sing for hours, sometimes hundreds of us in a room. The air would curdle with the smell of our body odor and breath. The spiritual, or those who needed to appear spiritual because they’d recently been in trouble for not being spiritual, would lift their hands in the air and weep. A Family favorite, or, as I know it, the worst fucking song in the Family, was called “My Family, My Family.” It’s a love song about the Family. Anyway, during that song, the tradition was to drape your arms over the person next to you, and rock back and forth to the music. (I can sing it now as I type. It smells like armpits.)