Fear

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 223 of 529 · 20 per page

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ἐπικίνδυνος, ov, in danger, insecure, precarious, Hdt.6.86; ἐπ. ἣν μὴ λαμφθείη Id. 7. 239; πρόσοδοι Dem. 948. 2; ἐν ἐπικινδύνῳ, opp. to ἐν τῷ ἀσφαλεῖ, Thuc. 1. 137 :—Comp. --ότερος Xen. An. I. 3, 19. 2. dangerous, στρατεία Plat. Rep. 467 Ὁ ; δεινὴ καὶ ἐπ. ἔρις Plat. Legg. 736 Ὁ, οἴ. Xen. Mem. 4. 6, το; τινι to one, Hipp. Aph.1249, Thuc. 3. 54:-ἐπικίνδυνόν [ἐστι] there is danger, Arist. H. A. 7. 12, 2. 3. Ady. —vws, in a precarious or critical state, Hipp. Aph. 1255; ἐπ. κεῖσθαι Soph. Ph. 502; ἐπ. ἔχειν Eur. Fr. 683: at one’s risk, Thuc. 3. 37. emikiwdivodys, es, (εἶδοΞ) =foreg., Schol. Soph. El. 222. ἐπικϊνέομαι, Pass. to gesticulate at a thing, v. 1. Epict. Enchir. 33. 10: to be moved, zealous, ἐπί τινι LXX (3 Esdr. 8. 74). ἐπικίνυμαι, =foreg., Q. Sm. 12. 145. ἐπικίρνημι, Ion. for ἐπικεράννυμαι, Heracl. All. Hom. p. 117 :—Pass., ἐπικίρναται [ὃ xpnrnp| Hdt. 1. 51, cf. Plut. 2. 270 A. ἐπικιχλίδες, ai, a poem ascribed to Homer, so called because he was rewarded by a present of κίχλαι, fieldfares, cf. Ath. 65 A, 639 A, Bentl. Ep. Mill. p. 63. ἐπικίχρημι, aor. ἐπέχρησα, to lend, τινί τι πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον Plut. Pomp. 52; ἑαυτὸν εἰς ἀπαλλοτρίωσιν ἐπιχρήσας C. 1. 3281. ἐπικλάζω, fut. --κλάγξω, to sound to, θαλάσσῃ Opp. H. 5. 295 ; ἐπί οἱ ἔκλαγξε βροντάν let thunder sound in answer to him, Pind. P. 4. 41. ἐπικλαίω, Att. -KAdw: fut. -cAavoopat:—to weep in answer or still more, Ar. Thesm. 1063 ; τινί at a thing, Nonn, D. 30. 114. émixAdpos, -κλᾶρόω, Dor. for ἐπικληρ--. ἐπίκλαυτος, ον, tearful, νόμος Ar. Ran. 684. ἐπικλάω, fut. dow [ἃ]. to bend to or besides :—Pass. to bend double, ἡ δεξιὰ περὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν ἐπὶ τὸ ἄνω ἐπικεκλασμένη Luc. D. Deor. 11. 2; ἐπικεκλ. τὸν αὐχένα Id, Rhet. Praec. 11; ὕδωρ ἐπικλώμενον broken water, Id. Tox. 20. II. metaph. to bow down, break the spirits of, Twa Plut. Pericl. 37, Oth. 15; ἐπ. τινα εἰς οἶκτον Ael. N. A. το. 36: —Pass., ἐπικλασθῆναι τῇ γνώμῃ to be broken in spirit, lose courage, Lat. frangi animo, Thuc. 4. 37; but also, to be bent or turned to pity, Id. 3.59; or without τῇ γνώμῃ, Id. 3.67; τὸ ἐπικεκλασμένον τῶν μελῶν effeminate, unmanly music, Luc. Demon, 12. ἐπι-κλάω, Att. for --κλαίω. emuchens, ἔς, (xA€os) famed, famous, Ap. Rh. 4. 1472, Ὁ, 1.2613. OF. named, called after, τινι Opp. H. 2. 130, in shortd. Ep, acc. ἐπικλέᾶ. ἐπικλείω, Ep. -KAnio, Att. κλω :---ἴο shut to, close, as a door, Ar. Pax 101; θύραν ἐπεκλήϊσε Tryph. 200:—Med., Luc. Tox. 50:—Pass. to be shut to, opp. to ἀναπτύσσομαι, Xen. Eq. 12, 6.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ἐπιπέλομαι, Dep. (πέλωλ) to come to or upon, οὐδέ τις ἄλλη νοῦσος ἐπὶ στυγερὴ πέλεται .. βροτοῖσι Od. 13. 60., 15. 408 :—elsewhere only in Ep. syncop. part. aor. ἐπιπλόμενος, coming on, approaching, ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ ὄγδοόν μοι ἐπιπλόμενον ἔτος ἦλθεν when the eighth coming year was nigh, Od. 7. 261., 14. 287; ἐπιπλομένων ἐνιαυτῶν Hes. Sc. 87, cf. Th. 493 (v. sub ἐνιαυτός) ; ἐπιπλ. νυκτί, ἐπιπλ. ἠοῦς Ap. Rh. 2.1231, etc. ; of persons, Id. 3. 25,127; in hostile sense, attacking, assaulting, just like ἐπερχύμενος, Id. 1. 465., 3.127; so of a storm, like Lat. ingruens, νέφος ον ἐπιπλ., ἄφατον Soph. O. T. 1314. ἐπίπεμπτος, oy, =1+4, of loans bearing interest at the rate of ἃ of the principal, or 20 per cent., ναυτικὸν ἐπ. Xen. Vect. 3, g, cf. Bockh P. E. 1. 164-186, and y. sub ἐπίτριτος. 11, -- πέμπτος, Eupol., al., ap. Harp.; τοὐπίπεμπτον one-fifth of the votes in a trial, Ar. Fr. 17. ἐπίπεμπω, to send after or again, ἀγγελίας, ἀγγέλους ér., c. inf., Hdt. 1, 160., 4. 83. 2. of the gods, to send upon or to, ὄψιν Id. 7.15; χάριν Pind. Fr. 45; ἔρωτά τινι Plat. Phaedr. 245 B: but esp. by way of punishment, ¢o send upon or against, let loose upon, Lat. immittere, τὰν .."Atbas Καδμείοις ἐπ. Eur. Phoen. 811; κινδύνους τινί Lys. 105.9; δεσμοὺς καὶ θανάτους Plat. Crito 46 C; ἀνάγκην τινά Id. Phaedo 620 : to send against, τινί App. Pun. 49. ΤΙ. to send besides, ἄλλην oTpa- τιάν Thuc. 7.15; πρὸς τὸ στράτευμα ἄλλην ὠφέλειαν 14. 6. 73. 2. to send by way of supply, Ar. Eccl. 235, cf. Polyb. 6. 15, 4. ἐπίπεμψις, ews, 9, a sending to a place, διὰ τὴν .. ἐπὶ πολλὰ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν ἐπ. Thue. 2. 39, cf. Luc. Phal. Pr. 3, Diog. L. 10. 100. ἐπι-πένθ-εκτος, ον, = ἐπιπενταμερής, Nicom. Introd. Arithm. 1. 21. ἐπι-πεντα-μερής, és, =1+ 5, Id.: cf. ἐπιμόριος. ἐπι-πεντ-ένατος, ov, =1 +2, Id. ἐπιπεραίνω, = ἐπιπείρω, dub. in Artemid. ἐπίπερθεν, Adv. = ἐφύπερθεν, v. 1. for ἐπίπεδα, Pind. Fr. 226. ἐπιπεριελίσσω, to wrap round a second time, τι περί τι Hipp. Art. 803. ἐπιπεριτρέπω, to convert to a purpose, M. Anton. 8. 35. ἐπιπερκάζω, to turn dark, of grapes ripening ; ἐπιπερκάζειν τριχί to begin to get a dark beard, Anth. P. 11. 36. ἐπίπερκνος, ov, somewhat dark, of grapes Tipening : hence of the colour of certain hares, Xen. Cyn. 5, 22 (inferior Mss. ἐπίπερκος), Poll. 5. 67. ἐπιπετάννῦμι, fut. -πετάσω, to spread over, τι ἐπί τι Xen. Cyn. 5, 10: —Pass., τέφρη ἐπιπέπτατο, Q. Sm. 14. 25.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  καταπλήσσω, Att. -ττω, fut. éw, properly, to strike down, but mostly metaph. ¢o strike with amazement, astound, terrify, κατέπλησσεν ἐπὶ τὸ φοβεῖσθαι Thuc. 2.65; ὁ φόβος κ. τὰς ψυχάς Xen. Cyr. 3.1, 253 κατα- πλήξειν ᾧετο τὸν δῆμον Dem. 577.11; κ. τοὺς ἀκροατάς, of orators, Arist. Rhet. 3.7, 5.1: so in Med., Polyb. 3. 80, 1, εἴς. :—Pass. to be panic- stricken, amazed, astounded, κατεπλήγη φίλον ἦτορ 1]. 3.31; καταπλήτ- τομαι Eupol. Κόλακ. 1. το; but in this sense the Att. mostly used the aor. 2 and pf., καταπλαγῆναι τῷ πολέμῳ Thuc. 1. 81, cf. 4. το; μὴ καταπέπληχθε Id. 7. 77 ; also c.acc., πάνυ τοῦτ᾽ ἐπαινῶ καὶ καταπλήτ- Towa Eupol. KoA. 1. 10; τὴν ἀπειρίαν τὴν αὑτοῦ καταπεπλῆχθαι Isocr. 415 Ε, εἴο. ; μηδὲν καταπλαγέντες τὸν Φίλιππον Dem. 290. 10; so also, καταπεπλῆχθαι τὸν βίον Id. 970. 5 :—the part. pf. καταπέπληγα is also used intr. by late writers, as App. Mithr. 18, Paus. 10. 22, 8; esp. in part., Dion. H. 6. 25, etc.; τὸ καταπεπληγός abject condition, Plut. Comp. Pel. c. Marc. 1. καταπλίσσομαι, Pass. to be tripped up, ἡμῶν ἴσως ov καταπλῖγήσει (fut. 2) τῷ χόρῳ will be tripped up, beaten by our chorus (as emended by Dind.), Ar. in Meineke Com. Gr. 2. p. 1035, ubi v. Bgk. καταπλοκή, 7, an entwining, interlacing, τοῦ νεύρου Plat. Tim. 76 D: complication, τῶν χρημάτων Artemid. 2. 5. II. in Music, the connexion of notes descending in regular succession, opp. to ἀναπλοκή, Ptol. Harm, 2.12. κατάπλοος, contr.—hous, 6, a sailing down to land, a putting ashore, ! g Ud KaTaTAavaw — καταπόρεω. | from Sicily, Dem, 1285. 21; ἐκ κατάπλου immediately after landing, ε Polyb. 15. 23, 3. II. a sailing back, return, 6 οἴκαδε κ. Xen. ἘΠΕῚ] Sire 45, Dis καταπλουτέω, to be very rich in, Tt Jo. Damasc. sq., Theophyl. Sim. 46 C. καταπλουτίζω, fut. ἐῶ, ἐο enrich greatly, τινά Hdt.6.132, Xen. Oec. 4,7. καταπλουτομἄχέω, to conquer by money, Diod. 5. 38. κατάπλῦμα, τό, -- κατάπλυσις, Synes. Med. de Febr. p. 234. καταπλυντηρίζω, to drench with foul abuse, Com. Anon. 170; cf. πλύνω II, πλυνός II. καταπλύνω [Ὁ], fo wash by pouring over, to drench, Ar. Fr. 546; ὕδατι τὴν κεφαλήν Xen. Eq. 5, 6. ΤΙ. to wash out, remove by washing, τὸ ὑγρόν Arist. Meteor. 2, 3, 13:—Pass., καταπλὔθείσης τῆς ἅλμης Theophr. C. P. 3. 24, 3; metaph., τὸ πρᾶγμα καταπέπλὕῦται the affair is washed out, i.e. forgotten, Aeschin. 79.19, cf. Poll. 7. 38. κατάπλῦσις, 7, a bathing in water, τῶν σκελῶν Xen. Eq. 5, 9. καταπλώω, Ion. for καταπλέω, Hdt.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ὀττεύομαι, Att. for ὀσσεύομαι (which does not occur), to divine from an ominous voice or sound (daca), ὀττευομένη δὲ κάθηται she sits look- ing for omens, of a lover, Ar. Lys. 597; ὁττ. ταῖς τούτων κληδόσι by the cries of children, Plut. 2. 356 E; ὀττ. πρὸς [ὀρνίθων] βοήν Ael. N. A. 1. 48:—generally, to have forebodings of a thing, τὸ μέλλον Polyb. 27.14, 5; περὶ τῶν ὅλων Id. 1. 11, 5:—c. acc. et inf. to augur that .., Porph. Antr. Nymph. 33, cf. Luc. Lexiph. 19. 11. to regard as ominous, τὴν τύχην, TO ἔργον Dion. H. 1. 23, 55 :—hence, to deprecate as ill-omened, Lat. abominari, πάντα τῦφον Id. 2. 19.—The Act. érrevovow in Ael. N. A. 3. 9.—#Andovigopar was the equiv. Hel- lenic form, acc. to Moeris. ὅττϊ, Ep. for ὅτι (the Conjunction), Hom., and Hes. 6 ττι, Ep. for 6 τι, neut. of ὅστις, Hom. ὄττις, 7, = ὄψις, Hesych.; ὄττιες ἀχλυώδεες Aretae. Caus. M. Diut. 2.13. ὀττοτοῖ, f.1. for ὀτοτοῖ. ὅτῳ, Att. dat. of ὅστις. ov, as a Diphthong, is regularly long, except in Aeol. where it is not seldom short, v. Priscian. 1. 6, Schol. Dion. Thrax. in A. B. 779, Buttm, Lexil. 5. ν. βούλομαι 7-9. Later Poets make it short when it represents the Lat. ἃ in pr. names, as in Πόστουμος ( = Postiimus), ‘Podrovados, Jac. Anth. P. p. 631, 926. οὐ (cf. Zd. ava, Lat. haud) is the negative of fact, statement, as μή of the will and thought; οὐ denies, μή rejects; ov is absolute, μή relative ; ov objective, μή subjective. The same differences hold for all compds. of οὐ and μή. Note especially that, in contradistinction to μή, οὐ readily adheres to single words with which it forms a quasi-compd. As to the Form, v. infr. 6. A. UsacE. The uses of οὐ will be considered, T. as the negative of single words, IT. as the negative of the sentence.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  &, exclamation used to express various emotions, like Lat. and Engl, ah! in Hom. always ἃ δειλέ, ἃ δειλώ, ἃ δειλοί, 1]. 11. 441, 452., 17. 443, Od. 20. 355, al.; also in Trag., Aesch. Ag. 1087, etc.; ὦ, μηδαμῶς... Soph. Ph. 1300, cf. O. T. 1147; ἃ μάκαρ C. 1. 401 ; sometimes doubled, ἃ ἃ Aesch. Pr. 114, 566, etc.; rare in Prose, Plat. Hipp. Ma. 295 A. ἃ ἅ or ἃ G, to express laughter, like our ha ha, Eur. Cycl. 157, Ar., etc.; ἃ ἃ δασυνθὲν γέλωτα δηλοῖ Hesych. and Phot.; cf. Meineke Plat. Com. Γρυπ. 2. ἃ, Dor. for Artic. 77. Dor. for 7, dat. of ὅς. ἀάατος, ov, (daw) in Il. with penult. long, zot to be injured or violated, inviolable, viv μοι ὄμοσσον ἀάᾶτον Στυγὸς ὕδωρ, because the gods swore their most binding oaths thereby, 14. 271. II. in Od. with penult. short, μνηστήρεσσιν ἄεθλον ἀάδτον 21. 91; ἄεθλος ἀάᾶτος ἐκτε- τέλεσται 22.5, where it is commonly rendered by hurtful, dangerous ; but here also Buttm., Lexil., attempts to retain a kindred sense, zot fo be hurt, not to be treated lightly or slighted. TIT. in Ap. Rh. 2.77, κάρτος dadrov invincible strength. (Originally ἀάξατος, which is implied in the Lacon. form ἀάβακτος cited by Hesych.; cf. daw, ἄτη.) ἀᾶγής, és, wnbroken, not to be broken, hard, strong, Od. 11. 575, Theocr. 24. 121, etc. (Originally ἀξαγής ; cf. ἄγνυμι.) [The first a short in Od. and Theocr., but long in Ap. Rh. 3. 1251, Q. Sm. 6. 596.] ἀάζω, f. cw, to breathe through the mouth, breathe out, Arist. Probl. 34. 7. (For the Root, v. sub ap.) ἄανθα, ἡ, a kind of earring, Aleman 113, Ar. Fr. 567, Hesych. ἀάπλετος, ov, lengthd. Ep. for ἄπλετος, Q. Sm. 1. 675. ἄ-απτος, ov, (dmropat) not to be touched, resistless, invincible, χεῖρες ἄαπτοι Hom. (mostly in IL, as 1. 567), Hes. Op. 147; κῆτος ἄαπτον Opp. H. 5, 629. das, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, genit. of ἄα, -- ἠώς, as Zenod. read for ἠοῦς in Il. 8. 470 (v. Schol. Ven.) ; used in Boeot. as Ady., Hesych, ἀασιφροσύνη, ἀασίφρων, in Gramm. for deaupp-. ἀασμός, 6, (ἀάζω) a breathing out, Arist. Probl. 34. 7. ἀάσπετος, ἀάσχετος, v. sub ἄσπετος, ἄσχετος. ἄαται, Ep. for ἄεται, from ἄω, satio, Hes. Sc. 1ol. ἄ-ἅτος, contr. Gros, ov, (dw, doar) insatiate, c. gen., datos πολέμοιο Hes. Th. 714; “Apns dros πολέμοιο Il. 5. 388; μάχης τόν περ ἐόντα 22. 218: cf. Buttm. Lexil. s. v.:—absol., datos ὕβρις Ap. Rh. 1. 459. [The first syll. in datos is short in Hes., but long in Ap. Rh.] Gatos, ov, in Q. Sm. I. 217, -- ἄητος, q. Vv.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  On ambush, or other night missions, they carried peculiar little odds and ends. Kiowa always took along his New Testament and a pair of moccasins for silence. Dave Jensen carried night-sight vitamins high in carotene. Lee Strunk carried his slingshot; ammo, he claimed, would never be a problem. Rat Kiley carried brandy and M&M's candy. Until he was shot, Ted Lavender carried the starlight scope, which weighed 6.3 pounds with its aluminum carrying case. Henry Dobbins carried his girlfriend's pantyhose wrapped around his neck as a comforter. They all carried ghosts. When dark came, they would move out single file across the meadows and paddies to their ambush coordinates, where they would quietly set up the Claymores and lie down and spend the night waiting. Other missions were more complicated and required special equipment. In mid-April, it was their mission to search out and destroy the elaborate tunnel complexes in the Than Khe area south of Chu Lai. To blow the tunnels, they carried one-pound blocks of pentrite high explosives, four blocks to a man, 68 pounds in all. They carried wiring, detonators, and battery-powered clackers. Dave Jensen carried earplugs. Most often, before blowing the tunnels, they were ordered by higher command to search them, which was considered bad news, but by and large they just shrugged and carried out orders. Because he was a big man, Henry Dobbins was excused from tunnel duty. The others would draw numbers. Before Lavender died there were 17 men in the platoon, and whoever drew the number 17 would strip off his gear and crawl in headfirst with a flashlight and Lieutenant Cross's .45-caliber pistol. The rest of them would fan out as security. They would sit down or kneel, not facing the hole, listening to the ground beneath them, imagining cobwebs and ghosts, whatever was down there—the tunnel walls squeezing in—how the flashlight seemed impossibly heavy in the hand and how it was tunnel vision in the very strictest sense, compression in all ways, even time, and how you had to wiggle in—ass and elbows—a swallowed-up feeling—and how you found yourself worrying about odd things: Will your flashlight go dead? Do rats carry rabies? If you screamed, how far would the sound carry? Would your buddies hear it? Would they have the courage to drag you out? In some respects, though not many, the waiting was worse than the tunnel itself. Imagination was a killer.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  In the evenings I'd sometimes borrow my father's car and drive aimlessly around town, feeling sorry for myself, thinking about the war and the pig factory and how my life seemed to be collapsing toward slaughter. I felt paralyzed. All around me the options seemed to be narrowing, as if I were hurtling down a huge black funnel, the whole world squeezing in tight. There was no happy way out. The government had ended most graduate school deferments; the waiting lists for the National Guard and Reserves were impossibly long; my health was solid; I didn't qualify for CO status—no religious grounds, no history as a pacifist. Moreover, I could not claim to be opposed to war as a matter of general principle. There were occasions, I believed, when a nation was justified in using military force to achieve its ends, to stop a Hitler or some comparable evil, and I told myself that in such circumstances I would've willingly marched off to the battle. The problem, though, was that a draft board did not let you choose your war. Beyond all this, or at the very center, was the raw fact of terror. I did not want to die. Not ever. But certainly not then, not there, not in a wrong war. Driving up Main Street, past the courthouse and the Ben Franklin store, I sometimes felt the fear spreading inside me like weeds. I imagined myself dead. I imagined myself doing things I could not do—charging an enemy position, taking aim at another human being. At some point in mid-July I began thinking seriously about Canada. The border lay a few hundred miles north, an eight-hour drive. Both my conscience and my instincts were telling me to make a break for it, just take off and run like hell and never stop. In the beginning the idea seemed purely abstract, the word Canada printing itself out in my head; but after a time I could see particular shapes and images, the sorry details of my own future —a hotel room in Winnipeg, a battered old suitcase, my father's eyes as I tried to explain myself over the telephone. I could almost hear his voice, and my mother's. Run, I'd think. Then I'd think, Impossible. Then a second later I'd think, Run.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  8Temporary HelpCome January, as part of clawing my way into the white-collar classes I mock, I sit behind the receptionist’s desk of a telecommunications firm that helped build and maintain the internet. In this age, faxes are big news. Operators still plug callers in and out of switchboards. Crawling with horn-rimmed MIT geniuses, this place is, and they’re marketing (unsuccessfully if you can believe it) the very first e-mail program. They’re almost growing too fast not to hire me, so soon I move up from receptionist ($12K) to a secretarial job I suck at ($13K). Since I need the overtime, I take up nighttime data entry for accounting. It’s staring into one of those green screens, doing corporate budgets, that I notice how high salaries rise in marketing. Also, they spend hundreds of thousands on trade shows each year, and my product-manager girlfriend informs me that nobody pays attention to the budgets. So in the company library, I read a bunch of trade magazines and essentially retype what they said needs to happen into a proposal for managing that budget. Poof, I’m a marketeer. Riding the six-thirty bus to the company in my cheap suit with my briefcase on my lap, I can pass for a normal citizen—except for scribbling poetry in a black notebook. I never thought of myself as competent in commerce, particularly, and striding through the doors lends me a new bearing. I join a corporate women’s track team, lured by the sweet prospect of fitting in as we lope around the pond at lunch hour. Me, belonging somewhere. Sliding the company credit card across a hotel desk, I radiate bourgeois integrity. For a girl bred to yank peanuts out of the ground, any desk job gives off an urban sheen. And this is the go-go eighties in a company where they slap up new cubicles every week. Meanwhile, Warren’s volunteer library job has morphed into a full-time assistant curator’s position, so we’ve moved to a tree-lined suburb where the noise quotient disturbs his work and sleep less. Financially, I’m not exactly out of the woods, but with the first health insurance I’ve ever had, I track down a therapist. Night terrors still wake me screaming twice a week, and if I have a few drinks, an image of Daddy warping into fossil form can set me on a crying jag. Every month we scrape together enough to eat out at a cheap fish house—mussels in garlic and white wine. Once, at the next table, a similarly steaming bowl is lowered in front of a Polish Nobel laureate in poetry whose public lectures we’ve been religiously going to, all goggle-eyed. We marvel at his high forehead, like that bust of Beethoven you always see. Don’t stare, Warren says. But I can’t stop looking at this laureate’s gray and diabolical eyebrows, projecting above his light eyes like a ram’s horns. He practically speeds up my heart.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  Fitful, this rest is. At one point I dream I’m picking up a child’s stuffed animal—a Beanie Baby of the type Dev collected as a kid. In my dream hand, I look down, and the stuffed toy has morphed into a pit viper. With its triangular head, it lunges at my face. I scream myself awake and sit up and see—with eyes wide, a night terror—snakes lunging from the bed’s tufted headboard. Sweaty, heart rattling against my ribs, I look at the digital clock—just after three in the morning I’d gone to bed about two. I pull on running shorts, then tie on a pair of sneakers, thinking that a few miles of road will bang the ugly out of me. Instead, I lie facedown on the carpet, repeating the prayer about God taking my will. Speaking it, I feel the words sucked from my mouth into a vacuum where God is not. My head’s a hurricane, and to pray at all is like screaming into a gale. Lying there, I remember the Scriptures I’ve forgotten for days. Margaret specifically gave me two passages, saying, While I was praying this week, these pieces came to me. I’m very strongly guided to give them to you. How touched I’d been when she handed them over, but I hadn’t picked them up. I find in Mother’s still-boxed books a Bible, floppy and old, its binding cracked and peeling like a batwing. Opening it, I see Mother’s name carefully inscribed: For Charlie Marie Moore, from her loving Mother Mary, Christmas 1927. I flip through the onionskin pages to my first assignment, verses seven through twelve of Psalm fifty-one. What I see makes the skin of my scalp prickle, for the lines are marked in pale blue chalk. A child’s hand has drawn a wavy line in the margin—not across the whole psalm, only alongside the lines I’ve been steered to—verses seven to twelve, which very deliberately traverse two sections of verse from the middle of one to the other. Kneeling, I sit back on my feet and feel the flesh on my scalp creep. I read the words. (Later, I’ll learn this is the hanging psalm read to English prisoners as they approached the gallows.) 7 True I was born guilty, a sinner even as my mother conceived me. 8 Still, you insist on sincerity of heart; in my inmost being teach me wisdom. 9 Cleanse me with hyssop, that I may be pure; wash me, make me whiter than snow. 10 Let me hear sounds of joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. II 11 Turn away your face from my sins; blot out all my guilt. 12 A clean heart create for me, God; renew in me a steadfast spirit. How odd, I think, for I never thought of Mother as particularly devout in childhood—she wasn’t. But it seems vaguely significant still.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  I felt my right hand on the floppy door handle. Sam had been on a tarmac bagging bodies unloaded from a helicopter fresh from the carnage of the Tet Offensive. He’d peeled back one tarp and looked down into his own face. Which was his brother’s, of course. Mary, he said, pray the Lord you never see a face like that. One half was like the inside of a roast you left outside. Just blown slap off. His ear had stayed perfect, though. I wanted something of my brother’s power. And I’d had a vision before I got shipped in-country. In a big cathedral, he was, wearing his dress blues. He was praying over my casket. That’s what was supposed to of happened. Instead, he got his face shot off. The wind eked in the window seals, and the car shook. What scared me most was the crying part of Sam had been cauterized already. He was a living scar. All my life I’d met people bearing wounds far deeper than my own. I’d thought California would change me, heal me, free me from attracting all that. And now I’d flagged it down and climbed in a car with it. We rounded the curve into Dana Point. The car lunged up to a light. It shuddered and died. I jammed my skinny arm through the window slot, slick as a length of licorice, and yanked the door open. I didn’t so much jump from the car as eject myself out on the roadside slope. The effort launched me downward, sliding. Over gravel and scrub oak, rocks scraping my shins. I could hear Sam crank the dead VW back up to a stunted idle, its ragged engine coughing. I scrambled up the gravel incline, losing a flip-flop in the process, hollering as if somebody at the light might take notice. I raised my head and bawled for some driver to see me, hear me. He was calling my name, looking like a guy ditched by his prom date—sweaty and short and like his feelings were hurt. The light changed. Horns. I sprinted across the yellow line before oncoming traffic to the other side of the road. Sam hollered over, Hey, you forgot your pocketbook. I was sprinting so shards of rock got embedded in one foot. Even then I was doubting my instincts. Maybe he was harmless. By the time the shakes hit, I was speed-walking with a single flip-flop along the road’s shoulder, a kind of inner earthquake starting in my middle—a shaking that spread outward and nearly buckled me. At a fish joint famous for not letting the beach-weary use its facilities, I rushed past counter traffic to the bathroom. Soon as I locked the door, I hunched over the sink, washing my unstable limbs with brown paper towels and pink soap as if they belonged to some patient I was paid to tend. The

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ἀθροίζω or ἁθροίζω (Elmsl. Heracl. 122): fut. ow: aor. ἤθροισα Eur., etc.:—Pass., aor. ἠθροίσθην : pf. ἤθροισμαι: plqpf. ἤθροιστο Aesch. Pers. 414:—the quadrisyll. form ἀθροΐζω is used by Archil. 104, Anth. Plan. 308: restored by Dind. in Pseudo-Eur. I. A. 267, Ar. Av. 253: (ἀθρόος or GO pcos). To gather together, collect, esp. to muster forces, ἀθρ. λαόν, στράτευμα, δύναμιν, etc., Soph. O.T.144, Xen. An. 1. 2, 1, etc.; Τροίαν ἀθρ. to gather the Trojans together, Eur. Hec. 1139 ; πνεῦμα ἄθροισον collect breath, Id. Phoen. 851, cf. Arist. G. A. 2. 4, 53 περιπλοκὰς λόγων ἀθροίσας having strung together, Eur. Phoen. 495 :— absol. ¢o collect or hoard treasure, Arist. Pol. 5. 11, 20:—Med. to gather for oneself, collect round one, Eur. Heracl. l.c., Xen. Cyr. 3. 1, 19 :— Pass. to be gathered or crowded together, εὖτε πρὸς ἄεθλα δῆμος ἠθροΐ- ζετο Archil. 1. ο., cf. 60; és τὴν ἀγορὴν ἀθρ. Hdt. 5. 101; ἀθροισθέντες having rallied, Thuc. 1. 50; τὸ δὲ... ξύμπαν ἠθροίσθη δισχίλιοι but the whole amounted collectively to.., Id. 5.6; ἐνταῦθα ἠθροίζοντο they mustered in force there, Id. 6. 44, etc.: to form a society, Plat. Prot. 322 B; ἀθροισθέντες having formed a party, Arist. Pol. 5. 5, 33—of things, περὶ πολλῶν ἀθροισθέντων taken in the aggregate (cf. ἄθροι- σμα 2), Plat. Theaet. 157 B. 2. in Pass. also of the mind, ἀθροίζεσθαι εἰς ἑαυτόν to collect oneself, Plat. Phaedo 83 A, οἵ. 67 C; φόβος ἤθροι- ora fear has gathered strength, arisen, Xen. Cyr. 5. 2, 34. ἀθροίσιμος ἡμέρα, a day of assembling, Eccl. ἄθροισις, €ws, ἡ, a gathering, collecting, mustering, στρατοῦ Eur. Hec. 314; χρημάτων Thue. 6. 26; αἱ τῶν vepay a. Arist. Meteor. I. 3, τό. ἄθροισμα, τό, that which is gathered, a gathering, λαοῦ Eur. Or. 874. 2. a process of aggregation, Plat. Theaet. 157 B. Af in Epicur. philos., the concourse of atams, Diog. L. 8. 66. ἀθροισμός, ὁ, --ἄθροισις, Theophr. C. P. 1. 10,7: condensation, Ib. 5.2, 1. ἀθροιστέον, verb. Adj. one must collect, Xen. Lac. 7. 4. ἀθροιστύριον, τό, a muster-place, Eust. (Ὁ) ἀθροιστικός, 7, dv, of or for collecting, like ἀθροίσιμος, Eccl. in Gramm. collective, ὀνόματα : copulative, σύνδεσμοι. ἀθρόος, a, ov, rarely os, ον (Heraclid. Tar. ap. Ath. 120 D), or better ἁθρόος as Aristarch. wrote it (Schol. Ven. Il. 14. 38), Att. ἅθρους, ουν, poét. dat. pl. ἁθροῖσιν Epigr. Gr. 1034. 26:—but in later writers the spir. lenis prevailed: (a copulat., @pdos). In crowds, heaps or masses, 11.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  There it is, they'd say. Over and over—there it 1s, my friend, there it is —as if the repetition itself were an act of poise, a balance between crazy and almost crazy, knowing without going, there it is, which meant be cool, let it ride, because Oh yeah, man, you can't change what can't be changed, there it is, there it absolutely and positively and fucking well is. They were tough. They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing—these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment. They crawled into tunnels and walked point and advanced under fire. Each morning, despite the unknowns, they made their legs move. They endured. They kept humping. They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper that would roar and dip its nose and carry you off to the world. A mere matter of falling, yet no one ever fell. It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were too frightened to be cowards. By and large they carried these things inside, maintaining the masks of composure. They sneered at sick call. They spoke bitterly about guys who had found release by shooting off their own toes or fingers. Pussies, they'd say. Candy-asses. It was fierce, mocking talk, with only a trace of envy or awe, but even so the image played itself out behind their eyes. They imagined the muzzle against flesh. So easy: squeeze the trigger and blow away a toe. They imagined it. They imagined the quick, sweet pain, then the evacuation to Japan, then a hospital with warm beds and cute geisha nurses. And they dreamed of freedom birds.

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  While Alice groomed me to become the lady she hoped I’d be, I also spent long days at a Compton preschool. The bright and cheerful colors of the artwork hanging on the walls, the toys at our disposal, and the chirping voices of Sesame Street characters blasting from the TV were only superficial deviations from the dysfunctional home lives that many of the children came from, and the teachers’ methods of dealing with us were unorthodox at best. When a little girl bit my ear so hard as to draw blood, I ran crying to one of my teachers and to show her the assault. “Bite her back,” the teacher said. I didn’t want to, and when I turned squeamish over the matter, the teacher grabbed my attacker, pinned her arms to her sides and demanded I bite her ear. When I sank my teeth into the squishy flesh of her lobe, the girl’s screams of pain terrified me. “Now, you see. She won’t be doin’ it agin,” the teacher told me, satisfaction rounding out her words. A drop of blood sprang to the girl’s skin where I’d left the imprint of my teeth. “You betta stop that cryin’ before I give you sometin’ to cry about,” the teacher warned the screaming child. “And you can take your little black butt and go sit down on one a dem chairs inside.” During naptime, the boys often used the girls who drifted off to sleep for masturbation. Creeping from their mats, the boys dry humped their classmates. I never closed my eyes and never did a teacher halt this regular, repugnant routine. An innocent game of cops and robbers in the schoolyard turned into a brutal reenactment of gang rape. Two of the boys wrestled my friend to the ground and yanked her legs open while a third mounted her, pumping away. I can still see the whites of her eyes as her head thrashed from side to side while the little rapist tried to kiss her. I pounded the boy’s head and back with my fists, trying to pull him off of her until he turned around and punched me in the face. No teacher came to our rescue. On one of my last days at the preschool, a girl was whisked away in an ambulance, her eye punctured by a needle driven in by another girl who sat sulkily on a blue plastic chair, swinging her legs and waiting for her parents to pick her up. Alice’s nephews were affiliated with the Crips gang. Ranging in age from twelve to sixteen, they sported enormous afros and carried giant hair picks in their back pockets. The boys liked to roughhouse with me and their little sister, Danielle, throwing us about in the front room of their home.

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  “Do you know how to polish your shoes?” When I shook my head, she uncapped the little bottle and showed me how to dab at the shoe with the attached sponge and work the polish into the creases with a rag. When she’d finished, she recapped the polish and put it away. “Time for inspection!” someone called out. Girls ran up and down the hallway, darting into their bedrooms. Sophie shoved me in the direction of my bed and stood in front of hers. Her small, chubby body went rigid as she held her arms ramrod straight at her sides and stretched her neck as if to appear taller while staring straight ahead at nothing. I took the same stance and heard girls moving about the neighboring rooms before a hush descended upon the dorm. Some minutes later, Demonstrator Linda entered our room. She was all business as her gaze fell on me. “Stand up straight.” I pulled my frame a little straighter, trying to stretch my neck as I’d seen Sophie do. “Open your mouth,” Linda said. I did, keeping my gaze fixed straight ahead. Linda’s face came close to mine while she squatted to peer for what felt like a long time at the inside of my mouth. “Smile,” she said. “What?” I whispered. Linda stood up. “Sophie, come over here.” Sophie walked over to us and stood facing me. “Show Celena.” Sophie’s cheeks bunched up into the obligatory smile. Linda nodded and told me to do the same. I grimaced while she squatted to examine my teeth. “Good. Turn around.” I did. “Good.” She looked at my bed. “Nice and tight. Good job, Sophie, for helping your buddy.” Sophie beamed. “You are excused. You may go to breakfast now,” Linda said. “Come on,” Sophie said, making a grab for my hand. I pulled it away, but followed her outside into the cold winter morning. Other children emerged from the buildings cloistered next to ours. All of us wore overalls and white t-shirts as well as an overshirt or jacket. Due to the uniformity of our clothing and haircuts, I still wasn’t sure which children were girls and which were boys. Sophie and I joined the merging group on the road and walked a quarter-mile to the Commons, the building where we had our meals. Only children, supervised by demonstrators, ate in the Commons. The tables were long and U-shaped, each with little pushed-in plastic chairs. We were allowed to sit wherever we wanted. A woman circulated through the room, handing out colorful, hard-plastic cups of milk. “No, thank you,” I told her. “There is no breakfast until you drink your milk,” she said. I swallowed and took the cup. I hated milk. Some of the children were already chugging theirs. As each finished, he or she was rewarded with a plate of scrambled eggs and piece of toast. I took a sip; it tasted sweet and watery, even worse than the milk I’d had in the past.

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  We woke at five on a Saturday morning and had a quick breakfast before we went to the tack room next to the horse stalls and collected a saddle, bit and straps. This equipment was for me. Spike rode bareback. Into the hills we hiked with the gear and a small bucket of oats. “They sometimes hang around this area,” Spike said after we’d walked for close to an hour. “This area” was a vast stretch of land that appeared similar in every direction. Another hour would pass before we saw a band of horses off in the distance. As we arrived, the creatures stood watching us, and I felt more and more uncomfortable with the prospect of Spike and me trying to persuade eight giant, muscular animals to return to the corral. Spike gave a low whistle, and one of the horses snorted, shaking its head and backing up. “That’s the leader,” she said. “Come on, boy. I’ve got some oats for you.” The horse pulled its lips back from its thick, wide teeth and answered her with a high whinny. Spike stepped forward. The horse stepped back. Spike set down the oats and grinned at me. “He wants them, but he knows it means he’s going to the corral.” I wanted to go back to the property and forget the whole project. Spike picked up the bucket. “We’ll walk away a little and they’ll follow.” Follow, they did. It was unnerving to have a herd of horses walking behind me and to have one of them nudging at my back. Spike stopped and held out the bucket. When the lead horse stretched his neck and nibbled at the air, my friend reached out her hand and grazed his nose with her fingers. His head shot back and he snorted, showering my face with a fine spray of snot. Spike laughed, unfazed by the fact that the whole lot of them could trample us to death if they didn’t feel like coming back to the corral. “They know there’s a lot more of these oats down below; they just don’t want to be locked up to get them,” she said. Overcome by the temptation of the sweet-smelling oats, the lead horse took a few steps forward and dipped its head into the bucket, the force of its movement pushing Spike’s small frame back. She petted his head while she attempted to remain standing. “Here,” she said to me. “You hold the bucket and I’ll saddle him.” Before I could say no, she pushed the oat bucket into my hands. Now I had to try to remain standing while the horse roughly satisfied his hunger. Spike saddled him while a few other horses vied for the grain in my hand. Without fear, she pushed the other horses away, wrestled the grain bucket away from the lead, then coaxed him into accepting a bit and helped hoist me onto his back.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  B. ©. DAT., 1. of Place, on both sides of, ἀμφ᾽ ὀχέεσσι Il. 5. 723; ἀμφὶ κεφαλῇ, wows, στήθεσσι about the head, etc., Hom.; ἀμφί οἱ around him, Il. 12. 396; μοι ἀμφ᾽ αὐτῷ around me, Il. 9. 470; like- wise, ἀμφὶ περὶ στήθεσσι Od. 11. 609 :—then, just like περί, all round, κρέα ἀμφὶ ὀβελοῖς ἔπειραν they fixed the meat round, i.e. upon, the spits, Od. 12. 395; πεπαρμένη ἀμφ᾽ ὀνύχεσσι Hes. Op. 203 (cf. περί B.1). 2. in a more general relation of Place, at, by, near, with, like ἐπί, ἀμφὶ πύλῃσι μάχεσθαι at the gates, Il. 12. 175; ἀμφὶ padrw on the helmet, 3. 362; ἀμφὶ πυρί on, over, or by the fire, 18. 344; ἀμφ᾽ ἐμοί by my side, Od. 11. 4233 esp. of hanging or lying over one, 1]. 4. 493, Soph. Aj. 562; ἀμφὶ γούνασι πίπτειν Eur. Alc. 947. II. of Time, ἁλίῳ ἀμφὶ ἑνί in the compass of one day, Pind. O. 13. 51. III. generally, of Connexion or Association, without any distinct notion of Place, freq. in Pind., ἀμφ᾽ ἀέθλοις in, for them, N. 2. 26; ἀμφὶ σοφίᾳ P. τ. 22; σοῦ ἀμφὶ τρόπῳ N. τ. 42; ἐπ᾽ ἔργοισιν ἀμφί τε βουλαῖς Ῥ. 5.160; so, ἔρις ἀμφὶ μουσικῇ Hdt. 6. 129, and later, e. g. Luc. D. Deor. 20. 14. IV. Causal, about, for, for the sake of, ἀμφ᾽ Ἑλένῃ μάχεσθαι 1]. 3.70; ἀμφὶ γυναικὶ ἄλγεα πάσχειν Ib. 157: about, of, regarding, concerning, 7. 408, Οἀ. τ. 48; εἰπὼν ἀμφ᾽ ᾿Οδυσῆϊ Od. 14. 364; ἀμφ᾽ ἐμοί for me, Soph. O. C.1614; ἀμφί σοι Aesch. Ag. 890; ἀμφὶ τῷ θανάτῳ αὐτῆς λόγος λέγεται about her death it is reported, 83 Hadt. 3. 32, cf. Soph. Aj. 303. 2. like περί, Lat. prae, of impulses, ἀμφὶ τάρβει, ἀμφὶ φόβῳ, prae pavore, for very fear, Aesch. Cho. 547, Eur. Or. 825 ; ἀμφὶ θυμῷ Soph. Fr. 147 :—and of the means, ἀμφ᾽ dpera δέχεσθαι for, through it, Pind. P. 1. 155; ἐμᾷ ἀμφὶ paxava by my skill, Id. P. 8. 47, cf. O. 8. 55.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  We called the enemy ghosts. "Bad night," we'd say, "the ghosts are out." To get spooked, in the lingo, meant not only to get scared but to get killed. "Don't get spooked," we'd say. "Stay cool, stay alive." Or we'd say: "Careful, man, don't give up the ghost." The countryside itself seemed spooky—shadows and tunnels and incense burning in the dark. The land was haunted. We were fighting forces that did not obey the laws of twentieth-century science. Late at night, on guard, it seemed that all of Vietnam was alive and shimmering—odd shapes swaying in the paddies, boogiemen in sandals, spirits dancing in old pagodas. It was ghost country, and Charlie Cong was the main ghost. The way he came out at night. How you never really saw him, just thought you did. Almost magical— appearing, disappearing. He could blend with the land, changing form, becoming trees and grass. He could levitate. He could fly. He could pass through barbed wire and melt away like ice and creep up on you without sound or footsteps. He was scary. In the daylight, maybe, you didn't believe in this stuff. You laughed it off. You made jokes. But at night you turned into a believer: no skeptics in foxholes. Azar was wound up tight. All afternoon, while we made the preparations, he kept chanting, "Halloween, Halloween." That, plus the finger snapping, almost made me cancel the whole operation. I went hot and cold. Mitchell Sanders wouldn't speak to me, which tended to cool it off, but then I'd start remembering things. The result was a kind of numbness. No ice, no heat. I just went through the motions, rigidly, by the numbers, without any heart or real emotion. I rigged up my special effects, checked out the terrain, measured distances, collected the ordnance and equipment we'd need. I was professional enough about it, I didn't make mistakes, but somehow it felt as if I were gearing up to fight somebody else's war. I didn't have that patriotic zeal. If there had been a dignified way out, I might've taken it. During evening chow, in fact, I kept staring across the mess hall at Bobby Jorgenson, and when he finally looked up at me, almost nodding, I came very close to calling it quits. Maybe I was fishing for something. One last apology—something public. But Jorgenson only gazed back at me. It was a strange gaze, too, straight on and unafraid, as if apologies were no longer required. He was sitting there with Dave Jensen and Mitchell Sanders and a few others, and he seemed to fit in very nicely, all chumminess and group rapport. That's probably what cinched it. I went back to my hootch, showered, shaved, threw my helmet against the wall, lay down for a while, got up, prowled around, talked to myself, applied some fresh ointment, then headed off to find Azar.

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  The soft sounds of sniffling seemed to come from the bathroom. The door stood open a crack, and I poked my head in. One of the girls who lived in my dorm, Carol, stood glaring at her reflection in the mirror. Her bloodshot eyes were slits in the puffy wet skin that surrounded them. The tips of her ears were flaming red. In the dim lighting, her recently shaved scalp gleamed pale. Her face, swollen from crying, had lost any male or female characteristics. She appeared inhuman. The movement of my image in the glass pulled her from her trance. She spun around, lunging for the door as I tried to close it. I wasn’t fast enough. Her hands grabbed at my face, her nails slicing long rakes in my cheeks while she shrieked her fury. Then, just like that, she was back in the bathroom, slamming the door after herself. My face felt like it was on fire. I covered my cheeks with my hands just as two girls came down the hallway and darted past me into one of the bedrooms. “Get in the closet,” one of them hissed. A demonstrator soon followed. When she spotted me, she caught hold of my shoulder, marching me in front of her and out of the bunkhouse to the deserted courtyard. Minutes before there had been groups of kids everywhere, but they’d dispersed like roaches exposed to the sudden glare of light. I heard whispering and saw a face or two pressed against a window as I was marched toward the playroom. I didn’t try to fight or run away. The head-shaving was going to happen. It was better to not make a fuss. In the playroom several chairs were lined up, each with a demonstrator standing behind it. In their hands were electric clippers. I sat quietly, though my stomach felt like a cage of fluttering winged insects. The ceremony was interrupted by high-pitched screams and sounds of struggling. Donna and Carlene had been caught. They were both part of the popular crowd, with their stylish Wrangler jeans and halter-tops they’d bought with their allowance. In their record collections, they had the cool albums like Saturday Night Fever and Abba’s Dancing Queen . They even smelled cool, like Hubba Bubba bubble gum and Dr. Pepper-flavored Lip Smackers. Carlene’s blond hair had grown into soft curls around her ears, giving her a more feminine look compared with the spikes she sported when her straight hair was only a few inches long. Donna’s thick beaver pelt had grown into a pageboy look, which she was able to feather in the front. They flung back their lithe bodies, digging in their heels. Waiting demonstrators ran to help their colleagues, wrestling the girls toward the chairs. Carlene’s small body buckled into the seat, the chair almost flying backward from her spasmodic motions. Donna was going for the face as Carol had. With her fingers curled like claws, she charged one of the demonstrators.

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  “Is this a game?” Buddy called out to us. “No!” we yelled in unison. “Give me twenty!” She rose to all fours, shaking, and managed to get into the pushup position, her middle sagging. “Pull yourself up.” She did, her spaghetti arms trembling harder now as she attempted to make her first pushup. Creaking down, she collapsed, her body convulsing in sobs. Buddy stood, his hands on his hips, eyes hooded. “Up!” With an act of supreme will, she pushed herself back up. “Down! That’s two!” Again she collapsed. My neck felt stiff. My eyes strained from looking straight ahead. Giving up on the girl, Buddy began to pace among our ranks. “This is Synanon. You are Synanon kids, and I’m going to whip your asses into shape. You hear me?” “Yes, Buddy!” “After our exercises, we will be running. There is no stopping. I catch someone walking, all of you will start again! Understand?” “Yes, Buddy!” I heard the hollow smacking sound of something like a watermelon hitting the ground hard. It wasn’t a watermelon, but Tim’s skull. In a fit of epilepsy, he had fallen straight back from his military stance. We broke ranks and ran over to him. He was out cold, his body stiff. We stood, watching him. No one, including Buddy, seemed to know what to do. After some moments, Tim’s eyes fluttered. His face scrunched up as he came to and registered the pain. “Uh, ungh,” he cried. Tim’s epilepsy was one reason we kids were required to divide up our time with him. He needed to always have someone watching him. Yet no one had trained us on what to do when he had an epileptic episode. This major detail escaped the demonstrators in charge of his welfare. Tim opened his eyes. “You all right?” Buddy asked, a nervous smile flitting across his face. Tim said nothing. Buddy reached down to the boy, who stared silently up at all of us, tears sliding down his face. Buddy pulled him to his feet, guiding him to a shady place to sit. The rest of us set off on our run. From that day forward Tim did not participate in physical education. Then one day he vanished just as suddenly as he had arrived. It may have been weeks before we kids even noticed he was gone. In the spring of 1980 Buddy Jones put together our first basketball team to play against schools outside Synanon. I signed up immediately, excited to learn the sport and get the chance to skip some of the game-playing that usually took place after physical education and before dinner. I was one of two girls who registered for the team, and after a week, the second girl dropped out. Almost from the beginning I became obsessed with the sport, practicing whenever I had spare time.

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  She seemed to sense his repulsion in the curt way he spoke to her and the flare of his nostrils. My father had a temper; several of his brothers did, too, and Terry had been on the receiving side of it more than once. What was I to tell him when he waited for me to speak? Would he take me home with him that day and never bring me back to Aunt Terry’s? I couldn’t afford the risk that he might later change his mind and decide Aunt Terry’s wasn’t that bad after all. “Celena,” he urged. I thought of the beatings she’d given me, the sharp edges of the plastic racetracks that belonged to her son slicing across my skin, and the alcohol she poured on to the cuts afterward that burned like cold fire. She’d laugh gaily at my screams. Should I tell my father of the spiders she forced me to kill? Or the eggs she cooked, scrambling the dead insects into the goopy mess, and forcing me to eat them? The games she liked to play in which she pretended to desert me at Taco Bell or McDonald’s? “Go and get some napkins,” she’d order me, smiling, her children grinning next to her in the family car. When I wouldn’t budge, her teasing smile would evaporate, a chilly hatred settling in her cold eyes. “I said, ‘Go get some napkins.’” Hoping she’d change her mind, I’d open the car door and do as she’d asked. When I returned to the parking lot, the car was always gone. At five years old, I didn’t know where I was, what my phone number was or when she might be back. Too afraid to ask for help, I’d stand and wait, a stack of napkins clutched in my hand. The asphalt of the parking lot seemed wide and vast, yawning out to the chunky sidewalks, the busy street and surrounding buildings an urban forest that I could not navigate. I could only hope she’d come back. She always did, after a few long minutes, pulling the car up next to me, my cousins and her laughing at my terror-stricken expression. One of them would open the door. “Girl, we’re just playing with you.” I stared into my father’s insistent gaze. I wanted to go home with him, but I had only one chance to get it right. If he didn’t take me with him, Aunt Terry would have her revenge. So I lied. “I like it here,” I told him. I looked at my aunt as her shoulders sagged with relief, a great puff of smoke floating from her mouth. She smiled. “I told you, Jim. Everythin’s fine. We love havin’ Celena.” The drawl of each word was as silky as ribbons. My father watched me, the deep crease of a V between his brows. He didn’t believe us. He rose to his feet as if he were being pulled against his will by an invisible string.