Brave. Rose McGowan

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СКАЧАТЬ There was also a big lake of lukewarm water underneath the spaghetti blob. I just started crying because I knew my life was never going to be the same again. I had landed in a world of Tater Tots and Cheez Whiz, and there was no going back. Fuck.

      Everything was different. Not just the food, but the land, the trees, the sounds. It rained all the time in this new place. The cars were so big and so loud. The people were so big and so loud. I had never even seen wooden houses. In Italy all the houses had been made of stone. I had never been around Americans. I had never heard music piped in through loudspeakers. My brother and I huddled together when announcements blared out in the supermarket. We’d never seen fluorescent lights. We’d never seen orange cheese.

Dear America, why is your cheese orange? Who decided: “Let’s make this an unnatural shade of orange”? It’s completely arbitrary. My brother and I thought it was hilarious. We’d point our fingers and snicker. But the joke was on us. We were stuck there.

      My first day in my American school I was made to stand in front of the class and lead them in the Pledge of Allegiance. I didn’t know what the Pledge of Allegiance was. I could understand English—I just refused to speak it. I heard the teacher say, “This’ll get the Communist out of her.” I turned to the teacher and uttered just one word: “Fascistas.” Fascists. That’s what the Italians were during the war, you dummy, not Communists.

      Indeed, it seemed the welcome message was unmistakable: You’re different. We must crush the difference out of you.

      There’s a tenacious myth that America glorifies individualism, but trust me, if you are a true individual, you will be persecuted. Schools force-feed you the propaganda version of the world and of history. The bullshit version. So that by the time you graduate you’re chanting along with everyone else: “America, hell yes, white men are number one!” Why? Why do you say America is number one? Because if you actually look at the statistics, around the world America is not in fact number one at anything anymore, except maybe obesity, firearm deaths, the death penalty, and incarceration rates. Oh, and of course, military might and our other big export: American film and television.

This is when reactionaries start yelling about how other countries are worse, so why don’t I go live there, et cetera, et cetera. My view is why not just be better? Why should we continue to feel superior just because other places are worse? That sounds like bad logic to me. We can just be better by thinking differently. Thinking whatever is different about you must be stripped from you is the WRONG way to approach things. Thinking you must be homogenized for everybody else’s comfort level, because God forbid discomfort, is the WRONG way, too. Fuck those ways of thinking. Do not bend yourself to make others feel taller.

      When I arrived at school, they said to me, “Stop reading what you’re reading. This is what you’re allowed to read because you’re X.” “Stop doing what you’re doing, girls can’t do that.” The adults I met were dedicated in their pursuit of beige, not all, but most. Our neighbors had no interest in being intrigued or expanded by an alternative lifestyle or viewpoint. They didn’t want to know what else might exist out there in the world. They just wanted to kill it because it was different. I longed for my dad and his strangeness. I needed an antidote, fast.

After a few months, my brother and I were flown to a state called Colorado to reunite with my father. Colorado is one of the most beautiful places on earth. We lived in a little wooden house at the base of a majestic mountain in a mostly hippie community, a town called Evergreen. I loved Colorado, even if I still was not a fan of American food. Soon after, my new stepmother arrived, and life in Colorado was mostly good. I adjusted to my new life better in this freer environment than I had living by the naval base. I had come to love Colorado even if I didn’t understand a lot of the social cues of my school peers. At least I was treated well by the teachers, so that was a nice change.

      Around this time, I found a book on astral projection. Astral projection is the practice of essentially leaving your body behind and traveling by spirit. I would lie in bed and practice my hardest to get out of my body. I wanted to travel and find my mother.

      My mother was still in Italy, and unbeknownst to me was making her way back to America to a state called Oregon. Later I would find out that my dad essentially left her behind to get out of Children of God on her own. Her only living relatives were her sister and her grandmother Vera. Grandma Vera sent her the money to get home and helped my mom restart her life in traditional society.

      One day I was told I’d be going to Oregon that night to join my mother. I was excited at first, before I understood that Oregon was not going to be a happy place for me.

Looking back, I have to say, I am incredibly impressed with my mom; she made it back from Italy, raised six kids on no money, occasionally surviving on food stamps, while my dad was living with his new wife. My mom had six kids not because she had really wanted to, but because the cult had encouraged her to. To me it seemed she was embarrassed about her life. Even now, I know she dislikes it when I talk about the cult, but to me it’s not her shame, it’s just an alternative adventure she went on. There is no shame that should be hers, plus I’m certain it was my father’s idea.

      When my mother landed back in America, her grandmother helped her get government housing. These houses were pretty basic compared to the prettier home I lived in with my father, but I was ecstatic to be reunited with my mother and other siblings.

      Unfortunately, as the oldest girl I got the shaaaaaft. I had to be Mom Jr. I was ten. Taking care of a gang of wild children is not easy when you’re a kid. I didn’t want to be a substitute mom. I was not suited for it because I like to think too much and get agitated when I can’t. I need quiet. I didn’t want to be the enforcer, I wanted to go and stare at the clouds. My style of child rearing was not with the best bedside manner, to put it mildly. I was getting angrier and angrier at the circumstances of my life. My powerlessness. I knew I had to help my mom, and I did, but I was not cheerful about it.

      Oregon was where I learned to understand the value of a dollar. I discovered what it’s like to struggle and be embarrassed when you leave the free food line at church with your block of bright orange cheese. The sadistic school receptionist called our names out over the loudspeaker so everyone in the school could laugh at the poor kids who had to claim free lunch tickets. I’ll never forget the sneer on the receptionist’s smarmy face when I had to pick up my tickets. Complete classism. I resented those lunch tickets, not to mention the disgusting food. I scalped the tickets on the side to make a little profit. I’ve always been very entrepreneurial.

Things were going somewhat okay in Oregon, which was to say, hard. Then I met a guy named Lawrence. He lived down the street from us. He had caught me sneaking under his fence to feed his dog bread and give it water. The dog was tied up, chained to a tree. His collar was so deeply embedded in his throat that it had maggots all around it. This was a severely abused animal, which should have given some indication of Lawrence’s character. He caught me feeding his dog and threw me out of his yard by the strap on my overalls. I landed on my ass. I hated him instantly. Two weeks later, I got home and who should be sitting in a chair in our living room but Lawrence, with his fat belly, making everybody wait on him hand and foot like he was king of the castle. I walked in the door and he looked at me with a sadistic smile. I froze. He said, “Hi, Rose. Call me Dad.” I remember just screaming, “NO!,” and running into the field that was behind our house, hiding there. Soon after, he moved in with his two daughters, Autumn and Mary, and his son, Larry (Junior). Lawrence Sr. was charming at first. But I wasn’t falling for it. I knew what his dog looked like. I knew the hell this man could bring. He was truly evil, and he had my mom snowed. I kept desperately trying to tell her, but she wouldn’t or couldn’t listen to me. Despite the fact that she’d escaped Children of God and its patriarchal structure, the societal programming that a man was going to save her was so deeply embedded, she couldn’t see the truth. She was probably also lonely. My mom didn’t have any girlfriends because she was so busy with so СКАЧАТЬ