Life in the Cave

how: part 2

Last time we left off in 1996 as my family made our way from Indiana to Texas– a road trip that witnessed the quiet death of truth.

Fast-forward to the summer of 2000, 4 years later. A lot more had changed for us than the millennia.

We moved in with my newly married aunt and uncle in rural Texas. Me, my three siblings, my mom, her sister, her brother and his wife in a double wide trailer on a piece of land that we would make into something of a compound, largely shut off from the rest of the world where the darkness would gradually fester, corrupt, and eventually engulf. But that was anything but clear in the beginning. Life was still pretty good. Full of adventure. Warm summer nights with my brother Clayton teaching me karate moves in the sandy front yard. Sitting at the foot of his chair while he read to me at night. Chasing cars on bikes to read their license plates. Walking to a hill before sunrise to watch the sun come up.

Within a year or two, of the 8 of us, everyone was drawn into a bona fide cult except my oldest brother, Clayton who was and remained a Christian. With the truth dead, and an indomitable imposter functioning in its place, goodness and beauty fell without resistance. I will spare many details, but I will attempt to give a glimpse of what I mean by that.

Me on a tire swing in our yard which was always a mess; always ugly.

Over the course of 4 years, we sank into an ironic mix of moral depravity and self righteousness. Strange bedfellows, but not uncommon either. As an aside I think a partial explanation for this is that they have the same source— they are different flavors of the same dish: evil.

This sinking was accompanied with and fueled by a bizarre set of beliefs centered around a Messiah-complex. One day we would all be changed and given supernatural powers that we would use to travel the world, fighting injustice and rescuing people from evil.

We also came to have a special hatred for those simpleton hypocrites known as Christians. When I was around 10 or 11 years old I found a Bible and started tearing its pages out. Needless to say, I wasn't a fan.

I mentioned moral depravity, but allow me to be a little more specific. Let’s just say we didn’t leave many boxes unchecked; hardly a commandment was left unbroken. Pride, lust, greed, theft, covetousness, physical and emotional abuse, malicious deception (like when we convinced my oldest brother that my mom had been diagnosed with a terminal illness which was completely fabricated), unfettered profanity, hatred (of people), drawing pleasure from the pain of others. These became our way of life. My oldest brother Clayton, who I had once loved so much, I began to hate without cause.

Sadly, the darkest chapter was yet to be written.

As time went on one thing persisted. Constant revisions to the cult teachings and predictions. The supposed source of these teachings, “god”, evidently had a sense of humor and loved nothing more than saying one thing and doing another. Promising something then updating the terms of agreement when you least expected it. When I was 10 my older brother Clint almost died after falling from a tree and rupturing his spleen. This, he was told, was punishment for not being fully submitted to the teachings. For having a nascent rebellion. Others were regularly “docked” for some supposed disobedience or resistance. This resulted in them being humiliated and punished like when my aunt was forced to eat cat food and be shot repeatedly with a BB gun.

When I was 11 and my oldest brother was 19, my mom revealed that he was going to die. This would be punishment for his outright rebellion of not accepting or believing, and at the same time would serve as a catalyst to bring about the fulfillment of all the broken promises of the past. And he too would be brought back to life as one of us.

The expectation was that he would die naturally, in a car accident maybe. But after that didn’t happen, once again ‘god’ changed his mind. Since he had not died, it was announced, he would have to be killed.

Up Next: Death in the Cave