My Story (23 page)

On some of the days that I was allowed out of the fire swamp, we would sit and watch the high school kids out on the sports fields. That should be me, I thought as I watched in misery.

But even though it was hard to watch the other kids, being in the world seemed to make me feel better. It reminded me that it was still there. And it rekindled the hope that one day I might actually be a part of it, not just someone who had to watch it from behind a veil.

Shortly after we arrived in California, Mitchell announced that our drinking days were over. Not a chance, I thought. And I was right. I don’t think he went more than a day without drinking. It turned out that what he really meant to announce was that
Barzee’s
drinking days were over. Every day he would go out and come back with a bottle of vodka, gin, or rum, but he always drank it by himself. Barzee felt this was ridiculously unfair. So she confronted him.

“You’re either going to give up alcohol like you said we were, or you bring home enough for all of us!” she demanded.

There was no more pretense. No more submissiveness or piety. She wanted to get drunk and she wanted to get drunk all the time. Which showed that things had changed. There wasn’t as much talk about being God’s holy servants. Not as much talk about descending below all things in order to rise above all the sins of the world. Not that either of them had given up on the religion thing—the only subjects we ever talked about were religion, the impending end of the world, Mitchell being the “Davidic king,” and Barzee’s guaranteed place in heaven—but I think both of them just felt there wasn’t as much need of pretending as there had been when we were living back in Utah.

A couple of nights later, Mitchell came home with a bag of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a twelve-pack of Steel Reserve sixteen-ounce beers.

I was about to find out that the beer in California was a lot stronger than the beer in Utah was.

We started passing around the chicken and the beer. Mitchell forced me to drink, making sure I swallowed every ounce of my beer. Then he passed me another can. I was already thinking that I was going to throw up. Meanwhile, he and Barzee were having a jolly time. Beer and KFC. The perfect night. I sipped, hating every swallow. Mitchell kept forcing me to swallow more.

By the end of the second can, I was in really bad shape. He handed me another beer. I knew there was no way I was going to get any of it down. I stumbled to the ground, and crawled off to a corner of the tarp. I laid there, listening to Mitchell and Barzee talking about how much more they liked California beer. They didn’t even seem to notice that I was lying on the ground. After a while, Mitchell finally looked at me. Seeing I was sick, he threw me a metal bowl. I held it to my face. The metal was cool against my skin. It felt good. I waited, fighting to hold my stomach down. Mitchell must have decided either that I wasn’t going to throw up or that he didn’t want to get the bowl dirty, because he came over and took the bowl away. Almost immediately, I started throwing up. I wretched so long and hard that I thought I was going to die. Then I passed out.

I woke up late the next morning, facedown in my own vomit. It was the most horrible and disgusting feeling I had ever felt.

As a young Mormon girl from Salt Lake City, a young girl who had promised herself that she would never even taste alcohol, I had never imagined that I would find myself in such a degrading situation. If Mitchell wanted me to descend below all things, then surely I had done that. I was sick and devastated. Words can’t explain how humiliated and disgusted I felt.

I used what little water we had to wash myself up. Mitchell laughed at me as he watched me trying to clean myself off. “You know, this is symbolic of where you are spiritually,” he mocked with glee. “My little Esther, facedown in her own vomit! That is where you are now.”

*

For the next couple of months, Mitchell would go into San Diego and “minister” almost every day. I don’t know what he did with the money, I just know he never brought any of it home. He must have spent all of it on cigarettes and alcohol, because when he came back he always stank of both.

I do know that he didn’t spend any of his money on food. The only thing we ate for months was the prickly pears, old bread from behind the church, and whatever food we pulled out of Dumpsters and garbage cans.

My mother always taught me that we needed to finish everything on our plates before we left the table. But I have to say that I am grateful for those people who threw away their food. Their scraps helped to sustain me for many months.

Time moved forward one painful day at a time. Late summer melted into fall. The weather in Lakeside was generally pleasant, and I could see the wisdom in having left the mountains of Utah, which I knew would already be draped in snow. But I always felt homesick in California. I hated being so far from my home. And everything about our camp had an eerie feeling about it. The dead trees. The dust and cacti. The brown things that were hanging from all the branches. And I thought it was odd that there we were, living just a few feet off the main road and only a short walk from a large high school and the center of the town, yet no one seemed to know we were there, or if they knew, they didn’t care.

As the days grew shorter, I realized that the change of seasons was under way. I thought back on the night I had been taken. June 4. It had been the beginning of the summer. I was young enough that three months of vacation felt like a
very
long time. I was looking forward to endless days of swimming with my cousins and jumping on the trampoline and summer parties with my family and celebrations on the Fourth of July.

All of it seemed so long ago. Another world. Another girl.

As Thanksgiving approached, I tried desperately not to think about my family. The only thing I thought about was that we might find a good meal.

*

Thanksgiving dawned gray but warm. Feeling magnanimous, Mitchell agreed to take us into the city. We got dressed in our robes and veils, then took the metro downtown. But we didn’t go all the way into the city. Instead, we stopped at a metro stop on the outskirts of town. Mitchell had already scouted out our Thanksgiving meal. The HomeTown Buffet was offering a free meal for the homeless and the down-and-out. It was a traditional holiday meal: turkey, potatoes, gravy, and dressing.

I have never enjoyed a meal as much as the one I ate on the vinyl seats stuffed between other homeless people at the HomeTown Buffet.

For dessert, we took the metro to Lemon Grove and walked a short distance to a grocery store named Dave’s. They sold a lot of health foods (images of the health-food store in Salt Lake City flashed through my mind) and were famous for their pies. Mitchell went in and bought a pumpkin pie for us to share. It was such a treat! Then we took the metro into San Diego and started wandering the streets. We didn’t have anywhere to go, so we weren’t in a hurry, and I was very glad to be out from underneath the blue tarp. We were walking along the boardwalk, the kind of place that families and tourists like to go, when I saw an old couple walking hand in hand. They smiled at each other and spoke in the short sentences that made it clear that they understood each other well. I couldn’t help but stare at them. They seemed so happy. So in love. So
normal
.

I wondered what their story was. How had they fallen in love? How many children did they have? Had they always been as happy as they seemed to be now?

A blanket of sadness hit me, settling deep into my soul. I’m never going to have such happiness, I thought. I’ll never have such a life. I’m nothing but a slave to these two people who are keeping me so close. By the time I can get away from them, it will be too late. No one will ever want me. I will be too old. And after all the things that have happened to me, no one will be willing to give me a chance. I’ll never have a real husband. I’ll never have any children of my own.

Depressed by such thoughts, I put my head down and followed Mitchell. We walked downtown. It seemed like we ran into a lot of homeless people. I don’t know why; maybe they were out for free meals or maybe Mitchell just had a way of attracting his kind of people.

“You know about the truck that’s going to bring Thanksgiving dinner?” a homeless man said to Mitchell.

We didn’t know. The old man told him. Mitchell was thrilled. More free food. He got the address and we started walking. Sure enough, not long after we got there, a large pickup truck with lots of silver containers in the bed showed up. But they weren’t organized, there were no policemen or security, and it quickly turned into pandemonium: screaming, shoving, arguments that escalated into fights, people scrambling over turkeys, tearing them apart with their bare hands while others grabbed entire containers of food and ran. By the time we worked our way through the mayhem to the truck, the only thing that remained was a bunch of empty trays. I could still smell the fragrance of cooked turkey in the air. I could see white lines of mashed potatoes that had been spilled on the ground, kernels of corn that had been scattered everywhere. I was crushed. I had been so hungry for so long and for so often, the thought of a wasted meal was something that was hard for me to take.

It was starting to get dark. With no food to eat, and with nothing else to do, Mitchell and Barzee shepherded me back to camp.

That night, I lay atop my makeshift bed and thought, It’s Thanksgiving. You’re supposed to count your blessings. But did I have anything to be thankful for? I wondered.

At first, I didn’t think so. Then I started to make a list.

I still believed in God. I knew He was the Savior of the world. And I knew that He was near, I felt His presence every day. He was the only reason I had been able to keep my sanity. He kept me strong and gave me hope. Nothing that Mitchell could ever do to me could take away my faith.

Yes, that was something to be thankful for.

I still had a family. I didn’t get to be with them, but someday I thought I would.

Another reason to be grateful.

I was hungry, but I was healthy. And though I didn’t get any dinner, I had been able to eat lunch at the HomeTown Buffet, which had turned out to be a really great meal. Millions of people around the world hadn’t eaten anything all day.

My list went on.…

One day I would be able to get away from my tormentors.

One day I would be free.

The gray tent kept the sun off.

The trees around our camp kept the wind at bay.

I kept adding to my list of blessings until I eventually fell asleep.

One day in late November, long after we had settled into a routine, Mitchell returned from ministering. He had that kind of evil look that I had come to know so well. Lustful. Entitled. Excited. “The time has come,” he announced. “The Lord has prepared us. We are ready. I must go forth and obtain another wife.”

My stomach dropped into my lap and I felt the blood begin to pound in my head.
Another wife. Another victim.
The thought made me want to scream.

Mitchell looked at me, waiting to see how I’d react. I stared at him in shock. What did he expect me to do? Smile and clap my hands? Agree with him? Encourage him? Did he think that I was like Barzee? Did he think that I was going to say it was okay! I couldn’t meet his eyes, I was so angry! And in that moment, he knew he couldn’t trust me. Which was perfectly fine with me. I hated this man. He was the devil. I didn’t want to be trusted by him.

All of us were silent for a moment. Clearly, this was news to Barzee. But she didn’t react. I thought it was incredible. It was as if Mitchell had come home and announced that he was going shopping.

Hey, I think it’s time I got a new robe.

Hey, I think it’s time I got a new wife.

It seemed to be about the same thing to her.

He watched me carefully, seeing the anger in my eyes, then went on. “She has to be a Mormon. And young and pure. I want her to be like you, Shearjashub.”

I cringed at the name. They had started calling me Shearjashub again shortly after we’d moved to California. They knew I hated it. But they thought it would help me forget my old life and my home.

“I’m going to visit all the Mormon churches in El Cajon until I find her,” Mitchell concluded. “Then I’ll have to find out where she lives. Meanwhile, we’ll prepare the same as we prepared for you, Shearjashub.”

You
might prepare!
I
won’t prepare a thing! I thought.

“Why do you have to go all the way to El Cajon to find a wife?” I asked.

Mitchell looked at me as if I was stupid. “First of all, it needs to be far enough away that none of the searchers will stumble into our camp. Second, there probably aren’t any LDS churches any closer than that. Like I said, she has got to be a Mormon. So that is where I will go.”

The next Sunday, he got ready to go hunting.

I remember watching him search through the fire swamp for normal clothes that he could wear. Apparently God could command him to move mountains, part the seas, or call down fire from heaven, but He couldn’t help to hide his identity when He sent his servant out to steal a new wife. That being the case, Mitchell knew he couldn’t be kidnapping girls in his white robes. He would be way too easy to remember. Way too easy to identify. And it wouldn’t do to show up in church dressed as an ancient prophet. Mormons weren’t going to go for such a thing.

So he searched through our meager belongings for something normal that he could wear.

Over the past couple months, as Mitchell had wandered here and there around the city, he had stumbled on several deserted homeless camps. Rummaging through the junk and clothes that had been left behind, he had salvaged a few moldy blankets to hang in the trees around our camp. (Most of the little wormy things had fallen off the trees and we weren’t hidden as well as Mitchell had wanted us to be.) Along with the blankets, Mitchell had scavenged some ragged khaki pants and an old purple shirt that was so faded it was the same color as the pants.