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 277 of 529 · 20 per page

• From Escape (2007)

  But no one intervened. Most of us in the community felt that Ruth could not have picked a better person to brutalize. When Dee managed to break free, he got into his truck and drove home. The rest of us felt that justice had been served. But Ruth continued on her downward spiral. Word reached Uncle Rulon that she was out of control, and he sent Merrilyn to help take care of her. But Merrilyn hated being in charge of her mother. One morning Tammy came down for breakfast and heard Ruth screaming like a child. She walked into Merril’s office and saw Merrilyn beating her mother. Ruth finally sank into the corner of the office, sobbing and hugging herself. Tammy was shocked. “Why are you slapping your mother like that?” Merrilyn shrugged. “That’s the way Father handled her ever since I was a little girl. When she gets out of control, he beats the hell out of her until she comes to her senses.” Ruth was finally hospitalized for two weeks. Patrick’s Abuse One of the moments I’d do over in my life if I could is this: Patrick, my four-year-old son, was trying to wake me up at ten-thirty one weekend night. Merril had called family prayers and we were all to assemble upstairs in the living room. One of his older children had tried to rouse me from sleep. When that failed, he sent Patrick. “Mother, Father wants you to come pray,” Patrick said. I rolled over and said that I was too tired. Merrilee was only a few weeks old and I still had not recovered from her birth. I was so depleted and wiped out that I’d fallen into bed after tucking in my children. But apparently Merril had called for prayers, and all my sleeping children were dragged from their beds. I was sick from exhaustion and told Patrick I could not get out of bed to pray. There had been a period of relative stability in our home after Merril’s heart attack. Barbara continued to cause problems for the five other wives, but we were making a determined effort not to engage with her in hopes of minimizing stress at home while Merril recuperated. After a few weeks this strategy seemed to set Barbara off. She thrived on tension and on reporting on our shortcomings to Merril. To stir up trouble, Barbara encouraged the children to act up to get us to respond abusively. One day I lost it with several of Merril’s daughters. They’d been making my life miserable by being argumentative and resistant. When I overheard them acting shocked about a girl who was being bullied and sent dog food as a symbol of her worth, I lit into them.

• From Escape (2007)

  The G-button would go directly into Harrison’s stomach, instead of the temporary nasogastric tube that went through his nose. A fundoplication prevents vomiting because the upper part of the stomach is wrapped around the esophagus and secured in such a way that it works like a valve to prevent the stomach contents from coming up through the esophagus. This was a huge help to Harrison because he stopped getting pneumonia from all the vomiting and he no longer needed to have the nasogastric tube inserted every day. The doctors at Phoenix Children’s had seen only one other patient like Harrison. That child was still having spasms after three years. Some kids with spinal neuroblastoma stopped having spasms immediately after the tumor was removed. For others, the spasms lasted for years until they finally subsided. I couldn’t bear the thought of that happening to him. I hated that he needed more surgery, but he had to have relief from the constant vomiting. He was always on the brink of starvation because he couldn’t get enough nutrition to grow. The emergency trips to St. George were becoming more frequent. Harrison had almost died several times and I couldn’t keep pressing our luck. He had to eat, he had to stop vomiting, and he had to be able to breathe. It was hard to imagine his condition getting any worse. Surgery was our only option. I began making arrangements for his surgery in the spring of 2001. Harrison was almost two and had been having spasms for nearly a year. When I started vomiting that April, I thought it might be the flu. But I didn’t have any other symptoms and after a few days I bought a pregnancy kit. I knew what the result would be. I’d missed my last Depo-Provera shot because I was so consumed with Harrison’s care. The test was positive. I was pregnant for the eighth time. If this became another life-threatening pregnancy, it could kill Harrison. No one in Merril’s family would help with Harrison’s care. We could all die: me, my unborn baby, and my sick son. Merril’s daughter Audrey had moved back to our FLDS community a year before. Dear, sweet Audrey, who had taken me on those long bike rides out to the reservoir when I first married Merril and tried to teach me about the family’s dynamics, now became a real ally. Audrey had worked in the ER at University Hospital in Salt Lake City. She was well trained in critical care and knew that Harrison’s condition was a medical problem, not a punishment for my sins. Audrey herself had fallen ill when she was living in Salt Lake City. As soon as she was diagnosed and treated, she stabilized. Audrey did well.

• From Escape (2007)

  But as I was so often forced to learn, happiness was not something I could hold on to. I had to leave the private high school with my friends after only a year. Uncle Roy started a small public high school for his followers, and I was forced to go. Once more I had to say goodbye to my friends and sever myself from what mattered to me most. My life felt like it was moving in the wrong direction, but I felt powerless to stop it. But my sister Linda’s life had become desperate. Linda’s Flight to Freedom Linda had a sense that someone was watching her. He was an old man in the community who was about three times older than she was at seventeen. My father would come home and start asking Linda questions. Why was she wearing a skirt that was too short? Why was she walking down the street in heels that were too high? Why had she combed her hair a certain way before? Dad told Linda who had seen her doing these things. Linda realized that this man was spying on her and reporting back to my father. When my mother got wind of this she was very upset and told my father that she didn’t trust this man. This was highly out of order, and my father ignored her. A woman had no right to speak out like this, even if the goal was protecting her daughter. Linda and I both could see that even when Mother wanted to protect us she had no power to do so. Mother’s fear was that he was angling to marry Linda. Linda feared the same thing. She knew he was a man of power and influence within the community who, if he went to the prophet, could have nearly any woman he wanted. Once he locked onto Linda, there would be no escape. Linda also knew that Mother would drop her concerns about the marriage if the prophet decreed that she should become this man’s fifth wife. These marriages were like live-animal traps. Linda knew her only hope was to flee before the trap snapped shut and there was no escape. She would be eighteen in the fall, which would give her a measure of legal protection. Linda had a childhood friend in the community who was also desperate to escape. Claudel was terrified that she was going to be forced to marry her stepfather. Claudel had been living with her mother in Salt Lake City for several years. Her mother, who was no longer married to Claudel’s biological father, treated her like an indentured servant, forcing her to do all the cooking, cleaning, and babysitting. Claudel feared that if she was forced to marry her stepfather, she would become her mother’s slave for life and resigned to a life of bitterness—a living death.

• From Escape (2007)

  The changes Warren Jeffs mandated were obeyed because it was believed he was the voice of the prophet, Uncle Rulon. People did not resist the more oppressive policies he advocated. Instead, it was widely believed that we were being called to a higher way of living the gospel. This wasn’t oppression, this was grace. God was giving us a new and better way of being more faithful to him via the prophet and his mouthpiece, Warren Jeffs. People who feared these changes and sensed danger, like me, kept quiet. It wasn’t safe anymore to talk about what you were feeling. Women now were not even supposed to go into town without the company of a man. Our husband was our lord and supreme master, holding exclusive power over our lives. It was seen as no longer acceptable for a woman to enter the same room as her husband without first saying a personal prayer asking God to put the same spirit on her as on her husband. I saw this as a real dilemma because most of the time when I entered the same room as Merril he was in a very bad mood. If I had the same spirit that he had, one of us might get hurt. This doctrine was one I decided to ignore. Charter School There was no aspect of our lives that Warren Jeffs left untouched. Education was one of the first areas where his imprint was punitive and spiteful. Warren’s father had put a stop to higher education after he became the prophet. The only exceptions were those of us who had been given permission to attend college by his predecessor, Uncle Roy, before he died. So a few of us were allowed to go on to college, but most could not. This created a population that was even more isolated by its lack of exposure to reading, critical thinking, and the arts. It also meant there was a real shortage of trained teachers. We couldn’t hire teachers from out of town because no one was willing to work for such low salaries. Teachers made, at most, twenty thousand dollars a year. Some families were home-schooling their children because they felt public schools were too contaminated with worldly influence. The education the home-schooled got was abysmal. But the number of kids being taught at home did not have any impact on the teacher shortage. Classrooms were overcrowded, teachers overwhelmed. Several of the second-grade teachers talked about this problem at our monthly meeting. We knew families were getting bigger, not smaller. Our brainstorming produced no answers. But the next week I heard about charter schools that were starting in Arizona. The state was accepting proposals for additional schools that would open in the following years. I started doing research to see what a charter school might mean for us, and it was breathtaking.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  And now they hear the loud speaker—either from squad cars or the hovering helicopter: “THIS IS THE POLICE DEPARTMENT. MOVE TO THE MAIN ROAD. PROCEED IMMEDIATELY TO THE MAIN ROAD!” The incredible reality assaults them. The cops are actually invading the park! “They can't bust everybody for just being here,” the youngman says. But the sounds of battle along the roads beyond are unequivocal. “We can't go back to the road now,” Jim says. “We could go around the hill and into the straight section—it's safe there for sure.” “What about our cars?” “Get them later.” “It's a long way around—…” They both know that to get to the straight side of the park without returning to the main road they will have to walk very far along clawing brush, down a steep slippery hill, around, then over another high hill, and down again and across the road. The helicopter whirs directly over them. They throw themselves on the matted leaves. Hooves— still distant. “They're using horses—…” the other starts. “I don't believe it,” Jim laughs, to obviate the fact that they are actually in danger for being in the gay section of the park. The mechanical rumble grows. 1:28 P.M. Griffith Park. The Invasion. “MOVE TO THE MAIN ROAD. PROCEED IMMEDIATELY TO THE MAIN ROAD!” “They've seen us,” the youngman blurts. “No,” Jim says. “The fuckers are just covering the whole park.” “Shit bastards!” the other says. He turns to face Jim lying beside him on the leaves. Jim faces him. “Fuck them,” Jim says. The youngman touches Jim's bare shoulder. Their bodies connect tightly. Listening to the distant clap of horses, they lie chest to chest. “They must be busting everybody,” the brown-haired youngman says. “Everybody they can find,” Jim says. Hands nestle in each other's groins. The dipping helicopter scatters the leaves. Bodies charged by the atmosphere of danger, they kiss. The amplified voice demands again: THIS IS THE POLICE! PROCEED TO THE MAIN ROAD! THIS IS-THE POLICE!” The brown-haired youngman is opening Jim's pants, Jim opens the other's. They're almost naked on the leaves. Jim's body mounts the other, mouths and cocks kissing. Whrmrhmrrrr! Whrrrrrrrrmrrrr! The sound recurs vengefully. This time they feel the blade-stirred breeze hot on their bare bodies. Quickly aroused, each takes the other's cock in his mouth. “EVERYONE PROCEED TO THE MAIN ROAD!” Hands sliding over beautiful flesh, tongues touching in moist tips, muscle-straining thighs pressed hard together, cocks aroused sliding up and down on sweat-moistened pubic hair … they come, their liquid cream smearing each other's stomach, cock, balls. “Oh, God!” And they continue pressing against each other as if to extend the orgasm. Now they lie quietly side by side in the cove, listening to the sounds of the invasion beyond.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  Now accord we our feet to such an invitation; strive we to ascend ere the night cometh, for then we could not until the day return.” 6 Thus spake my Leader, and I with him did turn our footsteps to a stairway; and soon as I was at the first step, near me I felt as ’twere the stroke of a wing, and my face fanned, and heard one say: “Beati pacifici who are without evil wrath.” 7 Now were the last rays whereafter night followeth so far risen above us that the stars were appearing on many sides. “O my virtue, wherefore dost thou pass away from me thus?” I said within me, for I felt the power of my legs put in truce. We stood where the stairway ascended no higher, and were fixed even as a ship which arrives on the shore: and I gave heed awhile if I might hear aught in the new circle; then did turn me to my Master and said: “Sweet my Father, tell, what offence is purged here in the circle where we are? If our feet are stayed, stay not thy discourse.” And he to me: “The love of good, scant of its duty, just here restores itself; here implied again the ill-slackened oar. But that thou mayest understand yet more plainly, turn thy mind to me, and thou shalt take some good fruit from our tarrying.” He began: 8 “Nor Creator, nor creature, my son, was ever without love, either natural or rational; and this thou knowest. The natural is always without error; but the other may err through an evil object, or through too little or too much vigour. While it is directed to the primal goods, and in the secondary, moderates itself, it cannot be the cause of sinful delight;

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  “What mountain?” Charles asked. The mountains of Tennessee. Math camp, yes, the sound of rain striking the tin of the outhouses. The perfect, succulent light of late summer in the cabins, riddled with dust motes. Running between the trees. Rain, so much rain. Their papers covered in scrawl, their handwriting silly, messy. The trim beards of the counselors. Their warm hands steering Lionel, age five, a scraped knee on the gravel path, down to the canoes, where they were forbidden to go. Ben Tovelson, nineteen, bearish, kind, green, winking eyes, showing Lionel how to write his name in the dust with piss. The damp wet of his mouth on Lionel, down there. No. Another way. Another memory. The vacations he had taken with his parents. The damp, chuffing sounds of their arguments trailing into throaty moans when they thought he was asleep. The soft rustle of the nylon sleeping bag. The cold enamel of the cups. The crack of the branches in the fire. Their car striking ruts in the road as they drove up the trail and then back out. The slow slope of the green hills, the vastness of the pine forest, the terrible distance, so far up, high above everything and everyone. That memory condensed, intensified—the rushing, clear air, the water, the call of animals, the emptiness of the perfect darkness that descends on a mountain where few people are living. “I don’t know,” he said. “Some mountain.” Charles reached for his hand. Lionel pivoted away. They passed again through the liberal arts building. Their steps echoed. Charles had parked near the campus. Lionel wished that he were as carefree as Sophie. He wished that he was the sort of person to run up the steep wall and wait to be drawn back down. He wished that he could manage some careless, easy gesture. But he was not. And Charles had noticed that he was avoiding contact. There was a distance between them. A quiet that grew bigger as they walked on. In the car, Lionel rolled down the window. Charles looked at him. “Are you nuts?” As they pulled out of the parking lot and into the street, Lionel closed his eyes. The cold air against his face seemed to open, leaving a cavity that was warm and hollow, deeper down in the flow of air. He pressed his face into it as if into a clear stream, and he could feel the cold rushing out and away, sliding past him. He opened his eyes, and the night was a gray smear of other lights, yellow and red and white, all of them blending until they were indistinct. He couldn’t breathe. He was drowning.

• From Escape (2007)

  Children were seen as property, and physical violence toward them was not only permissible but a way of life. It was preached at church that if you didn’t put the fear of God into children from the time of their birth, they would grow up and leave the work of God. Abuse was necessary to save a child’s soul. The problem with what the principal did, in the eyes of the community, was that he went too far. But not far enough to get fired. What usually happened when a student was beaten was that the parent assumed the child had done something wrong. The child was then forced to apologize for what he or she had allegedly done. The teacher or authority figure was always backed in his or her claims. My mother was outraged by the principal’s behavior and told us that if anyone ever tried to hurt us in school, we were to come home at once. She didn’t make a connection between her abusive behavior toward us and the beatings that happened at school. Mother managed to think that she was beating us only because she loved us and was trying to make us live godly lives. She didn’t know that our small bodies were unable to distinguish between the two. For the most part, I was able to learn what was necessary for my daily survival. I had my operating instructions. I knew that the consequences were high for disobeying my mother. No meant no, and there was never an exception. Asking or questioning would only lead to more trouble. Sometimes my sisters would tattle on me to get me in trouble, and there was nothing I could do about that but get mad. I learned in school to walk with my arms folded and never hop up and down in line unless I wanted a very hard smack on top of my head with a yardstick. In the singing group in class, I knew that if I didn’t look straight ahead with my chin slightly up I risked getting whacked on the head. I knew never to ride the school bus because I would see things that would upset me. I ate all the food on my plate, even if I didn’t like it. If I complained, I’d just be forced to eat more of the food I hated. I knew never to tease or hit my little brother, Arthur, when he annoyed me because he was my mother’s favorite. I also learned to listen to my big sister, Linda. She tried hard to keep me out of trouble. New Wife, New Mother

• From Escape (2007)

  I was terrified. Women I knew in the community who were assigned to marry other men after their husbands’ deaths always ended up in more drastic situations. I honestly did not know how I could survive in a family if I was treated any worse. Not all—but many—big polygamous families were similar to lions’ prides. When a new lion takes over, it kills off all the cubs from the previous lion. I had seen situations where the new husband chased off all his new wife’s sons and then married her daughters or married them to his sons. Girls can stay in the new family as a commodity, but the boys are often outcasts. If Merril died, I’d be forced to remarry. There was no way around it. I prayed hard for Merril to live. My children were so young, and I was pregnant with another; we would be completely vulnerable if we were moved into another family. Barbara became the spokesperson for the family. She stayed with Merril around the clock, but she was very secretive—at least with the other wives. She confided more in Merril’s daughters. His condition was not good. His heart had been permanently damaged from a massive attack. It was touch and go for several days. When he failed to improve, he was transferred to University Hospital in Salt Lake for bypass surgery. He went on a life flight. We made the five-hour trip the next day in a caravan of cars. Merril did not do well in surgery. There was concern that he would not make it through the night. What a strange scene we were. All six wives, Merril’s married children, and several of his friends sat outside the surgical ICU. Many were in tears. The head surgeon returned to the hospital at about 3 A.M. After spending several hours at his bedside, he told us Merril had stabilized and we could all go and get some sleep. The next week was a nightmare. Merril got a staph infection and became septic. His kidneys started shutting down and he was put on life support. I was sure he was going to die. I couldn’t stand being away from my children, but we had no choice. All of Merril’s wives were required to keep a vigil while he was hospitalized. When I went in to see him I was convinced he was dying. Machines were keeping him alive. People stared at us in the hospital; I felt like an alien when I went into the cafeteria. Rumors were circulating that a polygamist was in the ICU. I heard two janitors talking in the hallway saying, “Six wives—what does he do with them?”

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  The kindly escorts turned them toward me, and Virgil said to me: “My son, here may be torment but not death. Remember thee, remember thee, ... and if on Geryon 4 I guided thee safely, what shall I do now nearer to God? Of a surety believe, that if within the womb of these flames thou didst abide full a thousand years, they could not make thee bald of one hair; and if perchance thou thinkest that I beguile thee, get thee toward them, and get credence with thy hands on the hem of thy garments. Put away now, put away all fear; turn thee hither, and onward come securely.” And I, yet rooted, and with accusing conscience. When he saw me stand yet rooted and stubborn, troubled a little he said: “Now look, my son, ’twixt Beatrice and thee is this wall.” As at Thisbe’s name Pyramus opened his eyes at the point of death, and gazed at her, when the mulberry became red, 5 so, my stubbornness being softened, I turned me to my wise Leader on hearing the name which ever springs up in my mind. Whereupon he shook his head, and said: “What? do we desire to stay this side?” then smiled as one does to a child that is won by an apple. 6 Then he entered into the fire in front of me, praying Statius that he would come behind, who for a long way before had separated us. When I was within, I would have flung me into molten glass to cool me, so immeasurable there was the burning. My sweet Father, to encourage me, went on discoursing ever of Beatrice, saying: “Already I seem to behold her eyes.” A voice guided us, which was singing on the other side, and we, intent only on it, came forth, there where the ascent began. “Venite benedicti patris mei,” 7 rang forth from within a light which was there, so bright that it vanquished me, and look upon it I could not. “The sun is sinking,” it added, “and the evening cometh; stay ye not but mend your pace while the west grows not dark.” Straight the way mounted through the rock, toward such a quarter, that in front of me I stayed the rays of sun who already was low. And of few steps made we assay, when I and my sages perceived that the sun had set behind us, because of the shadow which had vanished. And ere the horizon in all its stupendous range had become of one hue, and night held all her dominion, each of us made a bed of a step; for the law of the mount took from us the power, rather than the desire, to ascend.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  He hovered near the window by the stairs and pressed his face into the bristling curtain, inhaled its dust, and closed his eyes. There had been a time when Hartjes hated the dark. No, it wasn’t hatred. It was fear—he was scared both of what he couldn’t see and what might see him. He touched his lips to the cold glass of the window and summoned the clearest image of his mother he could bear to hold in his mind, as though he were laying her within the glass itself, passing her off to the house like a benediction. The thing that he never told anyone at any of the parties in college or elsewhere, the thing he had told Simon on the third and final night they’d slept together, was that his mother had been furious at him because, two days before that afternoon at his aunt’s house, she had caught him on top of Francisco in the church bathroom. He’d had his hands around Francisco’s throat, and Francisco had been kicking silently under him. It had started because Francisco had let him into the bathroom, said, “Hey, come in, pee, it’s fine,” and it was the first brotherly thing Francisco had said to him since they’d been living together. It made Hartjes feel wanted. So, with them pissing into the toilet, hitting one another with their spray, Hartjes said to Francisco, Do you want to play Mercy Me? And Francisco, shaking off and tucking back into his slacks, had shaken his head, and Hartjes said, Me first. Then he wrapped his hands around Francisco’s neck, and Francisco squirmed and said, You didn’t wash your hands, and Hartjes said, Shut up. Mercy Me was a simple game, a stupid game, one they’d all played in the woods and in the sheds on the farm, putting their hands around each other’s throats and squeezing slowly at first: softly, then firm, digging into the soft fuzz at the nape of the neck, until the other boy beat your chest, until his face went red and he opened his mouth and gasped, Mercy, mercy me. Have mercy on me. In the bathroom, the spaces between his fingers still sticky with piss, he squeezed Francisco’s throat gently, the same way he first held Gristle, Marrow, and Bone when they were first born and he sensed that he could, very easily, destroy them. It was love to choose otherwise. In Simon’s bed, telling the story, he’d tried to be jokey—“You should have seen her face”—but there was nothing funny in it. She had flushed with anger, with fear, and she’d pushed Hartjes to the side. He’d clipped his head on the edge of the window. She pulled Francisco, coughing, wheezing, up from the floor and beat his back hard and fast.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  She pulled out her key and put it in the lock, and she felt his stomach against her back, and he pushed against her. The world was dim under his shadow. His hand was on her arm, its coarse heat. She stiffened, like some stupid, frightened animal. She turned to him and looked up, and he was coming in for a kiss. She turned her head and his lips landed on her cheek, and she knotted her hand into a fist. “Thanks for the evening,” she said. “I enjoyed myself.” Lenny looked faintly stunned by what she had said. She opened the door and went into the dark of her apartment, and for a moment, just before the door closed completely, she was afraid he would stop it with his hand. She was afraid he’d push his way inside. She was afraid of him. “Yeah, see you around,” he said. And she heard his footsteps go down the walkway, thudding. The next day, Lenny was at her cubicle again. He asked her to come back to his place for a couple of beers, knock a few back. He lived not too far from her, he said, it turned out. He was close enough that she could walk back if she felt like it. It wasn’t far at all. Or, hey, if she got too drunk, she could stay over. Marta said that it wasn’t a good day, maybe. Lenny just put his thick arm on the top of her cubicle, stood there with his legs crossed and a look of sad, aspirational confidence. “Didn’t we have a good time last night? Didn’t we? Let’s do it again. Come over.” She said she’d think about it. But Lenny kept coming back, and so she went over there. Just for a few minutes. She went over there, and she brought a six-pack and she sat on his couch, which was so worn out that it almost swallowed her up the moment she sat on it. They watched a taped recording of the Daytona. They talked about the plant, about the boys. And Marta felt like she was in college again. She had not realized how few friends she had until that very moment. Or maybe she had realized it, in small bits here or there, but, sitting on Lenny’s couch, talking to him about things they both knew about, about the common matter that made up their lives, she was suddenly aware of how lonely she’d felt after college. Lenny caught her looking at him in that moment. She could see his face change. It opened. His eyes widened. He stopped talking. His smile turned shy. He leaned in and kissed her, and she bolted up from the couch. “No, Lenny. No. We can’t,” she said. Lenny’s face turned bright red. He looked like he was going to cry. Marta sat back down. He shook his head hard. “Why is it always like this,” he said. “Why don’t anybody want me back.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  He assumed a slouched, grumpy first. He could hear his knee click. The cartilage felt hot, like a delicate, burning fiber trapped under the bone. But when Farnland’s eyes came in search of him, his body had already slipped into the stream of the combination and was, for a moment, beyond reproach. “Dismal, dismal,” he said. Charles shared his barre with Mats and Alek. Mats was light-skinned with blond and brown curls. He had a boyish face, but his body was all mean, tight lines. He could jump to Jupiter, yet his quads were humble. Alek was self-conscious about his chipped front tooth and tried to conceal it by talking as little as possible, which made him seem shy or nice. Alek was a ferocious, expressive dancer with the kind of timing that made his dancing look totally effortless. “Long night,” Mats said. “The longest,” Charles droned, drawing his body up. His knee popped as he slid his foot forward and then flexed. It didn’t hurt, exactly. It wasn’t pain in the true sense of the word. It just burned, like a low, simmering flame. And just on the one side. He could see through to the end of the pain, its temporary nature. And this was a comfort. It hurt only on certain movements. Certain configurations of tension. For example, reversing the position, sliding the leg back and flexing the other way, was totally without discomfort. He logged this information, storing it for when he would need to compensate. His body was a long tally of adjustments and allocations. He could feel, though, his feet coming to life. The muscles warming as they stretched. Charles had once seen an X-ray of his foot. He had let the back of an ax drop down carelessly, and his grandfather had needed to drive him to the emergency room. The doctor said that it wasn’t broken, just bruised very badly. She showed Charles the film of his foot and said that he was lucky. Because the foot was one of the most complicated structures in the human body. They’re never quite the same. All those little bones, you see. They don’t ever heal right. And he’d marveled at the ridiculous architecture of the foot, his foot. He had seen all the little bones, the way they fit together. He was already dancing by then, but it hadn’t occurred to him until that very moment, the doctor outlining the shape of his foot with her finger, that if he hurt himself, he’d never dance again. Until that moment, he’d been content to do as he always had. Working on the tree farm to pay for his lessons and studio time. Doing handstands to make the men laugh. Suspending himself from the monkey bars at school. Running barefoot in the locker room over slick floors. The world had not seemed dangerous to him until that moment. That was the blessing of certain childhoods. The illusion of your invincibility. Your safety.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  There was nothing to be done about it. The bathroom was perhaps the best room, with its deep tub and old tile. During the more intense part of the dance season, when Alek was doing three-a- day full run-throughs and two classes, one in the morning and one in the evening, he came home with huge bags of ice, which he poured into the tub and sank himself into. Or he made warm baths with Epsom salt. He didn’t have to make the trip across campus to use the rehab facility in the new rec center. He could make his own ice baths at home. He ran the tub full of water, just short of skin-stripping hot. He tried to wash off the smell of the doctor’s office, that bitter, burned hazelnut coffee smell. That smell like antiseptic. It was true, what he had told the doctor: He was not sick. He didn’t feel ill. It was just a persistent cough, something rattling but not painful. He coughed and coughed, through morning ballet, through his classes, through rehearsal, through dinner, through sleep. There was nothing that his cough didn’t infiltrate. He could feel the cough coming on even now in the bath, gathering at the base of his lungs like something caught there that he couldn’t expel, a kind of fibrous feeling spreading out along the edges of his ribs. His mother was going to lose her shit. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think of it, but there was the image of her face. Her bright blue eyes. The stern teacher’s eyebrows. He saw the play of every muscle in her face, the relaxation in her jaw that suggested grief, the fleeting alleviation of pressure in the left temple. The subtle slackening of her throat. The faucet dripped. He tried to see the space as it was cleaved by each drop, the surface rippling and then going still again. He tried to breathe. Since Alek had started dance, he had lived in perpetual fear of disappointing his mother and father. His brothers were good at science, like their parents. His mother taught earth science in high school. His father was a plumber at first, then an engineer. His brothers had attended the advanced science and math magnet school. Alek had attended the elementary school, and had very few prospects of following them into the science and math school, but he was put into an after-school arts program by chance, and the teacher, always on the lookout for boy dancers, scouted him. At first, his parents had only stared in disbelief. Clumsy Sasha? Hyperactive Sasha? Unfocused, lazy Sasha? No, impossible. Yes, the teacher said. He had excellent balance, a good ear for music, for timing, rhythm. He could be a good dancer one day. Good would never have been enough for his father. If you tried your best and all you were was good, then it was time to try something else.

• From Escape (2007)

  Merril’s motel was in financial trouble and he was afraid he’d lose it if he didn’t take drastic action. I wasn’t sure Jeremy would be willing to make the move to Caliente; this was more than he’d bargained for when he agreed to work on the Web site business. I told him exactly what Merril’s motivations were, and to my surprise Jeremy agreed to work with me there. I had an ulterior motive: if I ran the motel in Caliente, my children and I would be out of the house for substantial periods of time. I knew Merril and Barbara were thinking that if I went there it would get me away from my children. But I’d never agree to that. They thought I’d never take my children with me. But they were wrong. The first week that I went I packed up everything for my four youngest. Betty was refusing to come, but I knew no one would touch her if I left her at home because she was clearly her father’s favorite. Arthur was going to be working on a farm during that summer of 1998, so I knew he’d be safe. I drove out there with Patrick, Andrew, LuAnne, and Merrilee. I hadn’t been there for two hours when Merril called and scolded me for taking the children without checking with him. “Having your children there is unnecessary,” he said. “If you are interested in what your husband wants, you won’t do this.” I didn’t argue with him, nor did I agree. The conversation ended. Three weeks later, he came to see me and size up the progress we were making with the motel. He came with several other children and three of his wives. The next morning he announced that he was taking my children home with him. I told Merril I couldn’t send my nursing baby and that I needed LuAnne to help me watch her when I worked. Andrew was one of Merril’s favorites and would be safe. I worried about Patrick. I had to figure out how to outsmart Merril again. If he ordered the children to go with him, they’d be in rebellion if they stayed with me. I let the boys go. The moment Merril left, I began telling Jeremy that he had been working so hard he needed a break that weekend. Jeremy had left his family in Colorado City and was eager to comply. I told him he didn’t need to come back until Tuesday. I knew Merril would have left for Page by then. I asked Jeremy to bring Patrick and Andrew with him, which he did. Merril was furious when he found out, and called to scream at me. He came back to Caliente ten days later and said my children were going home. Again, I kept the baby, Merrilee. LuAnne was bored and wanted to go home. So I kept Patrick with me and let LuAnne and Andrew go back.

• From Escape (2007)

  We did not speak of my teaching again. Merril kept coming into my bedroom. I refused to have sex. He took me on a trip with him and made a big point of acting like a lovebird when we were in front of other couples. Merril knew I wouldn’t refuse his advances in public. But once we got back home, his tactics escalated. He became abusive toward my children. He would send them away from the dinner table and say they were not allowed to eat. There would be a pretext about some minor infraction that had occurred during the day. The rest of his wives began targeting my children. They told my kids that since I was in rebellion to their father they were not to obey anything I asked them to do or they’d be punished. Now I had to sneak food to my own children. I tried to keep them as close to me as I could, but there were times when I couldn’t protect them. Sometimes they’d play with Barbara’s children and she’d look for any excuse to do something hurtful to them. The cruelty was escalating and I had to find a way to make it stop. Sex. What else could I try? I decided that the next time Merril came into my bedroom I’d have sex with him and see if that would make the abuse stop. If not, I’d leave. The next time Merril came to my room I left Harrison in his crib. When he put his clammy hands on me I didn’t resist. I hated feeling his breath on my skin. I offered up my body in sacrifice to my children and it worked. Merril was almost giddy the next morning. A few minutes after he left my bedroom he called me from his office and invited me to come for coffee with his other wives. Tammy and Barbara were sitting in chairs next to Merril’s desk. They were cheerfully sipping coffee. Barbara handed me a cup. I felt like I was being locked into my prison cell again. Merril started making jokes and we all laughed. Ruthie, Ruth’s daughter, came into the office and said my son Patrick was not obeying her. She acted as though she’d be doing us a favor if she was abusive to him. Merril laughed nervously and made an excuse for little Patrick. I sat up in my chair and smiled at him. Without saying a word, Merril and I had an agreement. I’d give him sex in exchange for the protection of my children. At that point, even though I had given up on salvation, I still felt my children were better off growing up with their half siblings than leaving the community with me for a totally alien world. I felt we were better off in a world with known dangers than one in which everything would be strange, frightening, and new.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Milton’s gut drops. Tate leaps up, breathing hard. Abe watches him, perfectly still despite having been jarred suddenly into motion. Nolan hangs over him. He’s still holding the rock in his hands. It’s the size of an apple. His face is pale and smooth. Then Milton sees it all happen, as if at once: Tate rushing, Abe tumbling backward, Nolan reaching out to grab him, and that horrible, horrible burst of sound, a guttural roar, and then there is blood running along the edges of Abe’s face. It’s hard to tell where it’s coming from. His scalp? His nose? His eyes? His cheeks? Where, where is the source? It’s warm and slick, sticky as it oozes out of him, gathering into torrents that fill with dirt as he moans and writhes. Milton gets his sweater off and blots the blood the best he can. He tries to get Abe’s face clean. Abe’s eyes dart around quickly, in fear, in flight, in pain. He’s on the ground, laid out, twitching, convulsing, and the three of them are trying their best to get the bleeding under control, but they don’t know where it’s coming from. It’s hard to know, in the dark, with their clumsy hands, where to press to stop the insides from leaking out. Abe fights them, thrashes on the ground. Tate keeps muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” And Nolan’s straddling Abe to try to keep him still, saying, “Abe, please Abe, stop, chill, fuck, chill.” But it’s Milton with the sweater trying to find and plug the source of the blood. It’s Milton who eventually feels the loose plate of bone shifting under his scalp, and when he looks up, Nolan’s staring right at him, his pupils wide, as if he’s been suddenly thrust into the light from some vast, deep water. Abe’s hand lands on Milton’s arm again, his fingers stiff, his nails piercing Milton’s skin. Abe’s eyes widen, and his groans turn to something like the lowing of cattle. His eyes then roll to the back of his head, and he seizes one hard time, goes so still and rigid that for a moment, none of them dares to breathe, dares to do anything. They wait, holding on to Abe, as if that alone could bring him back to himself. He jerks again. Fills with motion, and they all exhale. Nolan turns to Tate and says, “Call a fucking ambulance.” Milton holds his sweater to Abe’s head, holds it as still as he can and tries, with his eyes squeezed shut, to imagine himself far away from all of this. From Abe and Tate, from Nolan, from his parents, from himself. Anywhere else. Anywhere else. • • •

• From Escape (2007)

  My father did the talking. I gave Warren the letter. He said he would read it and discuss it with his father and call me at my father’s home the next day. He didn’t want Merril’s family to know that he was talking to me. Warren asked me if I wanted a release from my marriage. I told him I did not because I knew I risked being placed in a worse situation. Warren went silent and cold, but I was not putting myself on his chessboard to be moved around from one marriage to another. My father asked if he could speak with Warren privately. Afterward, he told me that he’d said he knew me well and knew what I was capable of doing. He told him I had been pushed too hard and that if Warren didn’t pay attention to me, I could cause him a lot of trouble. Warren heard this as a threat, but my father wasn’t threatening him. He was telling him the truth. He knew if I was forced back into Merril’s abusive household I wouldn’t ask for help a second time. I would escape. Warren called me the next day and said he had read the letter. He told me that I had written only about Merril’s sins and confessed to none of my own. Because of this, Warren doubted that I had been truthful. He wanted me to come and meet with him and Merril. Warren wanted to give my seventeen-page letter to Merril. I knew if that happened he’d pass it around to all his wives and children. I asked Warren to keep the letter to himself. Warren agreed Merril could read the letter when we met. Merril met me at noon the next day. Neither one of us spoke in the car. Warren laid down ground rules when we got to his house. He said he would know which one of us was wrong by seeing who lost control. I knew I would have no trouble staying calm. But it would be a huge problem for Merril. Merril read the letter and practically stopped breathing. I think this was probably the first time in his entire life that someone had called him on his crap. He took several deep breaths after he read it and then laid the pages on the floor. Warren turned to me and said that I had confessed Merril’s sins and now it was time for me to confess my own. I wasn’t that stupid. I knew anything I confessed to could be held against me. I confessed to a few small crimes. “Well, sometimes I walk past something on the floor and don’t pick it up. There have been times after Sunday dinner when I didn’t wash the pans that I had used. Once I burned some rolls for Sunday dinner….” My list went on from one small offense to the other.

• From Escape (2007)

  When I told him Jason had been living at the motel he leaped to his feet and said, “Get him out!” Bob was shaking his finger at me. “That man has been involved in murder. He’s involved with a drug operation in Las Vegas. He’s done time in jail, but the police haven’t been able to convict him for the serious stuff he’s been involved with.” Annette looked shocked. “I can’t believe he’s still there,” she said. “When we left the police had a rap sheet on him and were going to take him down.” I told Bob that Jason was moving out; Merril was getting a no-trespassing order to keep him off the property and a restraining order to keep him away from me. Annette shook her head. Bob spoke first. “Carolyn, a restraining order isn’t going to protect you. This man has a sick mind. He belongs in an institution. The worst part is he’s hooked up with people who are very evil. He’s kind of a coward. I don’t know if he’d come after you himself, but he knows a lot of people who’d be happy to take you out for a few drugs.” I told them I wasn’t going back for two weeks—and that I didn’t think there was any way out of it. Annette couldn’t believe Merril was making me return to Caliente if it was so unsafe. “He insists that I’m paranoid and that my fears are out of control,” I told them. Bob was getting angrier by the moment. “I’ll tell that son-of-a-bitch husband of yours what you are involved with in Jason. I know the area and I know the people.” “It’s not going to change him just because you talk to him,” I said. “I know Merril.” “You’re going back there with a gun,” Annette said. “You can take mine. Bob and I will take you out to the gun range and teach you how to shoot it.” I didn’t argue with my sister. She came with me when I returned to Caliente the following week and made sure I knew how to use the gun. I kept it under my pillow. But Jason wasn’t the only trauma I was dealing with. I was having trouble with preterm labor. Each contraction frightened me because I was afraid the placenta might abrupt again. I was on medicine to stop the contractions. But it did nothing to diminish the stress, which was certainly not good either for me or my baby. I told Merril that I needed to be closer to a hospital because of the complications from my pregnancy. He growled at me, accusing me of using my pregnancy as an excuse for my laziness.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  When I silenced the alarm, fear overtook me. I’d go hungry! The boardinghouse room with the toilet down the hall, blood on the linoleum, Christ in a chromo, crepe-paper flowers—I dressed and packed my gym bag with the bottle of peroxide and two changes of clothes. Had my father gone to bed yet? Would the dog bark when I tried to slip past him? And would that man be on the corner? The boardinghouse room, yes, Negro music on the radio next door, the coquette’s shriek … As I walked down the drive I felt conspicuous under the blank windows of my father’s house and half expected him to open the never-used front door to call me back. I stood on the appointed corner. It began to drizzle but a water truck crept past anyway, spraying the street a darker, slicker gray. No birds were in sight but I could hear them testing the day. A dog without a collar or master trotted past. Two fat maids were climbing the hill, stopping every few steps to catch their breath. One, a shiny, blue-black fat woman wearing a flowered turban and holding a purple umbrella with a white plastic handle, was scowling and talking fast but obviously to humorous effect, for her companion couldn’t stop laughing. The bells of the Catholic school behind the dripping trees across the street marked the quarter hour, the half hour. More and more cars were passing me. I studied every driver—had my friend overslept? The milkman. The bread truck. Damn hillbilly. A bus went by, carrying just one passenger. A quarter to seven. He wasn’t coming. When I saw him the next evening on the square he waved at me and came over to talk. From his relaxed manner I instantaneously saw that he’d duped me and I was powerless. To whom could I report him? Like a heroin addict or a Communist, I was outside the law—outside it but with him, this man. We sat side by side on the same bench. A bad muffler exploded in a volley and the cooing starlings perched on the fountain figure’s arm flew up and away leaving behind only the metal dove. I took off my tie, rolled it up and slipped it inside my pocket. Because I didn’t complain about being betrayed, my friend said, “See those men yonder?” “Yes.” “I could git you one for eight bucks.” He let that sink in; yes, I thought, I could take someone to one of those little fleabag hotels. “Which one do you want?” he said. I handed him the money and said, “The blond.” THREE