But I wasn’t sure.

He didn’t use a condom. That’s what pissed me off more than anything. We were leaving the beach, a little campfire, a bunch of idiots passing around a bottle of vodka, telling jokes, daring one another to run into the icy surf, smoking clove cigarettes, “Don’t Speak” blasting on someone’s boom box and the sailor from Long Beach swearing he used to smoke weed with Gwen Stefani’s brother. I was having fun. I thought, because I’m the type of person who catalogues these sorts of things, that this was the sort of night I’d remember. Nineteen years old, sitting on a beach with my friends. Then I was too drunk. I didn’t want to pass out or puke, didn’t want to seem weak. I wanted to go to sleep.

   He said he was leaving too. And someone said, “Hey, you guys want a condom?” It was a big joke. Someone saw Markowitz buying condoms, like that dipshit would ever get laid. But this guy wasn’t a dork like Markowitz. He laughed and kept walking. He said, “God, they’re such children.” And it felt nice, like I wasn’t one of those dumb children.

He raped me in the woods just outside the gates. But it wasn’t a real gate and there were no guards to hear me, if I made any noise at all. I didn’t realize what was happening at first anyway. There was a moment when it seemed like he’d stop because I told him to stop. He didn’t stop and I thought, Oh, I’m being raped. Just like that.

Six weeks or so later, I was running out of Vietnamese class to puke. After the staff sergeant clued me in to what I didn’t want to believe, I stole a pregnancy test from Safeway. She drove me to the appointment on a Saturday and waited for me. I thought it was strange there was only one protester outside. And he was phoning it in, really. Just sitting in a lawn chair.

I was lucky I was stationed in California then. You get pregnant in a backwards state or country where people think a woman should raise her rapist’s kid, getting an abortion can be a hassle, if not impossible. I didn’t have to wait. I didn’t have to take extra leave and get permission to miss school or watch an ultrasound to make sure my nightmares had appropriate visuals. I just walked in at my correct appointment time and walked out a couple hours later knowing at least I wouldn’t have to suffer a life sentence because the asshole didn’t go back for a condom.

   The staff sergeant picked up McDonald’s on the way back to post. She let me hide in her room to recover so I wouldn’t have to deal with my roommate or anyone else who dropped by. Because she was a staff sergeant, she had a room up the hill in an NCO building with private bathrooms and no roommates.

I fell asleep watching Seven—maybe not the best movie choice for the occasion, but I doubt she knew the plot beforehand.

When I woke up, she was asleep beside me. And I finally cried. And I mean I was bawling. I wasn’t crying about the abortion. The only thing I felt about that was relief. I was crying because somewhere along the way, sometime after leaving the Family, I somehow started thinking, Okay. I’ll be safe now. I truly believed it. I thought once I was free of those fucking perverted old men copping a feel any chance they got, once I wasn’t destined to marry someone at twelve, fourteen, or whatever arbitrary age David Berg decided girls were ready that year, once I’d never see my name on a sharing schedule, to share free love with whomever the home shepherds designated my partner that week, I’d have some fucking control over who I fucked and when. I would get the one thing no cult baby is allowed: a fucking choice.

But like I said, the Family, once you get down to the nut of it, wasn’t all that radical. If it hadn’t been that guy, it would’ve been some asshole somewhere else.

   The staff sergeant woke up and held me until I stopped crying. She fell asleep holding me, and I cried again, but quieter this time. Because she was comfortable and I felt safe, if only that night.

You tell that story to a guy and all he’ll want to ask is, “So did you fuck or not?” But I wasn’t much interested in making friends with guys anymore, let alone telling them why.

* * *

—

For a long time after, I didn’t cry again. I didn’t feel much at all. I’d always heard people describe depression as deep sorrow, rock bottom, the blues. But there’s no bottom. There’s no sorrow. There’s just falling. Maybe that’s why I didn’t recognize it when it hit. I felt nothing at all and cared less.

I failed out of Vietnamese school and didn’t care. I stayed up all night polishing my boots and ironing another bottle of starch into my uniform until it stood on its own. I’d switched into the same survival mode I’d learned as a kid. Be good. Be perfect. But studying didn’t occur to me. Being a good airman became a compulsion. Volunteer for everything. Anything. Give up weekends to work guard duty. Be good. Be perfect and they won’t hurt you.

It kind of worked. They stuck me in Russian to give me another chance at a language. I couldn’t read in English at that point. I only lasted a few months. I still wasn’t studying. I’d borrow someone’s car—any airman will rent you theirs for a twenty—and drive the cliffs and bridges of the Central Coast trying to find the courage to gun it into the ocean. But I couldn’t do it. I was afraid I’d survive and I couldn’t live with that.

   The System had finally done what the Family never could. They made me compliant. Anyone who wanted to fuck, I was game. Sure. Why not. At least it was my choice. The Marine barracks were right next door to ours. Identical buildings, though our doors were painted blue and theirs crimson red. But mostly we fucked on the beach or in cars.