In 1987, we flew to Osaka, where they changed my name again, and again. Another country, another name. It didn’t matter anymore. One day blurred into another. Changing diapers. Begging. Going door-to-door selling posters and videotapes, Family music, and low-budget music videos meant to spread their message—Jesus loves you, the Antichrist is coming, don’t kill your baby. We memorized the Bible. We memorized the zodiac. (Berg—Grandpa, the old pervert, whatever you want to call him—thought the whole zodiac thing was witchcraft. But he should’ve thought of that before he started a hippie cult.)

They’d sworn off some of the sex shit by then—fear of AIDS, problems with local authorities.

The Family was focused on the End Time, Revelation, the coming Apocalypse. They were training us, the second generation, to fight the Antichrist. Could’ve been worse. We could’ve ended up like Waco. But our lunatic cult leader chose to tell us we’d use our superpowers instead of actual weapons. Maybe Berg was a visionary. Maybe we were just lucky he’d hated his time in the Army. Anyway, who needs assault rifles when you can shoot laser beams from your fingers. (The Family comic books could be entertaining, but we were supposed to take them as gospel, training manuals for the End Time. And they were not kidding about the lasers, or the flying.)

Since we didn’t have our superpowers yet, they concentrated on training us for the very real possibility that we’d be questioned by the police and the media about our beliefs and practices. The training stuck. When homes were eventually raided and the kids questioned, the authorities never found evidence of abuse. That fear of police they drilled into us stuck too. So did the other interrogations, the times we weren’t practicing, the times they were trying to get me to confess to breaking the rules, the countless times I was accused of being too loud, too quiet, too stubborn, too masculine. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another.

* * *

—

   Long story, right? And you still have questions. Maybe it’s easier to see why I might just tell you I’m from Texas and leave it at that. Considering my history, maybe it’s not hard to imagine why I might be reticent to discuss my past, might even reflexively lie to hide it, and why being questioned by the OSI felt a little too fucking familiar.

When the OSI let me go, I walked across the street to the base legal office and sat down to wait for a lawyer. A lawyer could make them stop asking me questions I couldn’t answer.

The lawyer said to stop talking to the investigators, but that he couldn’t represent me. He’d just transferred from the prosecuting side, where he’d been involved in my investigation. If there was to be a court-martial, they’d have to send a defense attorney from another base. I hadn’t considered there would be a court-martial, at least not with me as the defendant. Up until that conversation, I assumed they’d either figure out who did it or drop the investigation, because I hadn’t done anything.

I had always slept with a knife by my bed—too many nights when some drunk airman tried my doorknob. But given the recent developments, I replaced the knife with a little snub-nosed .38 I bought at one of the ten pawnshops between the base and Sumter, the nearest town.

   When I bought it, I drove into the country and practiced a few shots on a row of beer bottles. The bottles remained intact. I’d barely qualified with a rifle back in basic training. I wouldn’t have qualified with a 9 mm, if the good ol’ boy major beside me at the range hadn’t pitied my piss-poor shooting, said, “Aw shit,” and blown a few more holes in my target. His grouping was so tight, his shots had made a single hole dead center of his own target. He could spare the rounds to help me out. I hoped I wouldn’t need the gun. I’d end up killing my television or someone across the hall.

The next week, they told me I couldn’t work in my office anymore. My security clearance was suspended because of the investigation. They moved me to the gym, where I traded IDs for towels, where no one looked me in the eye.

* * *

—

One morning in August, I was told to report to the commander’s office. I called base legal. They said they’d assign me a lawyer now that I was going to be court-martialed. Don’t say a word. You’ll have to sign the charge sheet. Call us back.

Even in a small unit like mine, a command unit where officers outnumbered airmen, I’d only met my commanding officer once—one of those walk-throughs, like when you get a new regional manager and he comes by your office to shake everyone’s hand. His secretary gave me a sympathetic look and told me, “He’ll want you to do your reporting statement, hon.”

   I hadn’t done that sort of thing in years. But it’s not something you forget after the way they drill it into you in basic training and tech school. It’s not meant as a kindness. But it is easier, when your face feels hot and your hands are shaking, to revert to the stone-faced airman they trained you to be—march in, square off, stand at attention, salute, “Sir, Airman Hough reports as ordered.”

One of the strange things about the military justice system is that a commanding officer is the final authority on whether or not someone is charged with a crime. They’ll usually go along with the recommendation from the judge advocate. But as a lot of men accused of rape or spousal abuse can tell you, a commanding officer makes the final decision. Colonel Young either hadn’t yet come to terms with the idea he’d never get his general’s star and was being careful, or he didn’t want to save me.