Today is different. The farmyard has five full-grown guava trees, and we wait impatiently all year for them to ripen. The guavas are small, the size of a child’s fist, soft and sweet. Some are white inside, but the strawberry guavas are pink. In the summer, we eat our fill of the soft, sweet fruit—whole guavas, guava shakes, guava ice cream—often giving ourselves diarrhea from overindulging. Once the guavas start dropping from the trees, overripe, our moment has come.
I collect the fallen fruit and load them into my shirtfront. When I can’t fit any more, I crouch behind a big blue barrel and give Patrick the signal. “Guava fight!” the cry goes up. The attack begins, all-out warfare, no sides. It’s every man for himself, kill or be killed.
The missiles are flying. Josh jumps up to throw a guava at Patrick, so I leap up and let fly. Darn, just missed him. I crouch again as Josh retaliates. My position is compromised. I dash behind the corner of the barn wall. Nehi sneaks up behind me, and splat. The fruit squishes between my shoulder blades, sticky and wet. With nothing left to lose, I run into the fray, sacrificing myself to the cause. I see my target and hit Josh square in the neck. Revenge is sweet. That just leaves Nehi. As the fight reaches a frantic pitch, we are popping out from behind barricades and throwing without even looking first. Auntie Crystal decides at this moment to go wandering into the farmyard. Splat. An errant guava smacks her upside the head.
“Boys!”
We freeze. Fear pulses through my veins like fizzy water.
Auntie Crystal is skinny and short, American and high-strung. She arrived at the Farm a year ago, and within months her and Uncle Michael were married and moved into a trailer next to the house. I’m puzzled why she doesn’t dress like the other adult women in flowy hippie skirts. She bounces around the Farm dressed like a teen girl in tube tops, ruffled short skirts like a tutu, and bobby socks. With her frizzy, light brown hair in two pigtails on the sides of her head and a huge pretend smile on her thin lined face, she fairly buzzes with energy. Unless you get her mad. Then she strikes like a snake—with a hard slap across your face.
But Uncle Michael likes her, so we try to stay out of her way and not make her mad. I feel a little sorry for her. She told me that before she joined the Family, she had lost custody of her kids for being a drug addict. Good thing Jesus saved her. Most of the adults in the Family have an interesting story about how God saved them from drugs or suicide. How they were searching desperately for the Truth, for love, for somewhere to belong outside the corrupt world that spawned the horrors of the Vietnam War. Whenever a new adult puts us to bed, we beg to hear their testimony—the story of how they joined the Family. The System is a scary place. “You kids should be so grateful you don’t have to suffer what we did without Jesus and the Family.” We are so glad to be born into God’s kingdom.
Well, right now I’m scared.
Maybe if I keep my head down and stay hidden, I will be overlooked. “Come here! Come here right now! All of you!” Auntie Crystal shrieks. “Boy are you going to be in trouble when I tell Uncle Ho about this. Now, you just march on up to the house,” she says, grabbing Josh’s ear.
I emerge from hiding to join the five other convicts (of course Mary is not present), and Patrick melts away. I view the battlefield. Guava flesh covers the farmyard, white stains of sticky seeds splattered on the walls and ground, their fleshy bodies split open, stepped on, the pink insides spilling out, casualties of war.
We’re frog-marched up to the house, where our father is summoned.
He lines us up, and we stare at the floor, awaiting our judgment. Under other circumstances, he might have taken little notice of a fruit fight—he’s started a few himself—but not with Auntie Crystal yelling about hooligans throwing guavas at her. The rules are clear. You can never raise your hand to an adult.
My father’s face stretches into the grimace that he gets when he is mad. “Who hit Auntie Crystal?” he growls. I can always hear it in his voice when we are going to get it, low, intense, and angry. Our eyes fleetingly glance around, but we remain silent. We don’t know whose ill-aimed missile hit her.
“Well,” Auntie Crystal huffs. “I think they’re all to blame.”
Father barks, “Nehi, bring me the Rod of God.”
A shiver ripples across the wall. I’ve been hit with many things—hairbrushes, bent coat hangers, long shoehorns, belts, flyswatters—but never this. I have seen this used on Mary and Josh, but I have never done something bad enough to be included in the punishment.
When Nehi returns, my father tests the weight of the weapon in his hand. Then he goes down the line, making each boy turn, pull down his pants, and place his hands against the wall. I can feel the rush of air as the paddle swings by, three times each. Thwack, thwack, thwack. The boys hold back tears as they rub their red, hot bottoms and gingerly pull up their pants.
Finally, it’s my turn. I look at my father, hoping he’ll relent. There’s no point trying to justify myself; talking back just leads to a slap in the face or a quotation from a Bible verse.
I stand there, unable to say a thing. A tear trickles down my face. Crying is mortifying, but usually the adults take it as repentance and back off. But not this time. He tells me to lift my skirt and turn to the wall. As my fingers meet the cool, unmoving wall, I think of my brothers standing next to me. They didn’t cry out, I won’t cry out, crying is sissy.
Thwack. The force is so strong that I don’t feel anything, just the sensation of being lifted off the floor and thrown against the brick. I plant my hands more firmly to regain my balance as I wait for the next two blows. Shock. Impact. Burning turns to an ache. I never get over the shock of being hit; the fear of it is often worse than the pain itself.
In a roar like rolling thunder, our father tells us the same things he’s told us hundreds of times: “You kids are a disgrace. When I was your age, I was already a leader. I was preaching the gospel in churches across the United States. I was starting the Family with Grandpa. We were traveling around the country in our motor home and gathering disciples for Jesus. I committed myself to witnessing, preaching, teaching, and saving souls every day. We had no time for such foolishness!”
We all know this to be true. We’ve been raised on life stories about Father David, the Prophet Mo, Grandpa, and how the Revolution was started in the Kidz True Komics we read daily.
When he finishes his speech, I hurry out after the boys, swiping at my eyes and nose. I’m shaking all over, and my breath is high in my chest. It will hurt to sit down for a few days. But along with the throbbing pain, I feel a quiet triumph. I survived the Rod of God. Although I was terrified of it, not being spanked with it separated me from my brothers. Now they can’t jeer at me for getting off light because I am small or a girl. Whether it’s snakes, biting donkeys, or spankings, I’m as tough as they are!