I feel sorry for those poor teenagers who are killing themselves with drugs and destroying their lives. Sometimes when we drive around Macau, I look out the car window and see System people going about their days, to work or school and home in an endless circle, and I wonder how they can bear the empty pointlessness of their lives. How terrible to live without the purpose and truth that we have in the Family.
My parents have become good friends with Macau’s chief of police, and he knows we don’t break any laws. But if he gets an anonymous tip about drugs, he is duty-bound to check it out. The anonymous tips are usually that we are growing illegal drugs on the property, which is utterly ridiculous. In the Family, taking drugs or even smoking a cigarette is a cardinal sin. I can’t imagine how horrible the consequences would be if one of us were caught with drugs or cigarettes.
When Lynne Watson’s articles came out and we were blacklisted in Hong Kong, we didn’t have the connections we do now. Over the last few years, we’ve built roots in the community by helping our neighbors, so when the newspapers in Hong Kong still occasionally publish negative articles about the Family, the police chief defends us. Sometimes he even gives us a heads-up call before the official white vans arrive for the occasional fake police raid. It’s done for show, as they know we don’t have drugs on our property.
These happen a few times a year now and typically involve my mother running into the dining room of the Main House, waving her arms to hurry us. “Police raid!” she’ll shout. “Gather up and hide the Mo Letters! Then go sit in your rooms. No one go outside!”
We’ll all rush around, grabbing any Mo Letters and Kidz True Komics we spot, especially the ones that have sexy pictures, and shove them into drawers and under our mattresses. Then we all go to sit on our beds. It’s hard for me to keep from giggling.
The policemen crawl around in the bushes outside our house, and after an hour or so, the police chief apologizes and the men load back into their vans and head out. Up goes the “all clear” call.
In other countries, the raids are no laughing matter. Government agencies launch extensive investigations into allegations of child sex abuse, raid disciples’ Homes, and take their kids away and house them with social services while the situations are being investigated. Some Family Homes just disappear in the night, the kids stuffing their belongings into suitcases and garbage bags.
In the Philippines, the VHS tapes we made to follow Grandpa’s instruction of “glorifying God in the dance” had been confiscated. But that was just a filthy interpretation of evil minds to think that the beautiful dances and pictures of naked women and kids were somehow evil or wrong, like our Asian Angels videos. An example of how the Devil wants to turn what is beautiful into something dirty, according to Grandpa.
After the raids, the adults are sharper with us than normal for the rest of the day, but soon the usual grins and “Praise the Lords” flow back into conversation. I’m relieved but frustrated. It’s like we get the downside of being part of the Royal Family without any of the advantages.
I’m always more afraid of reporters than I am of police. As we learned from Lynne Watson, reporters will twist whatever you tell them into something nasty and make everyone hate you for doing nothing wrong. Sometimes we see them wander up the road with their big cameras and microphones, and we all run inside and lock the doors until they give up and go away. Even our Chinese neighbors refuse to speak with reporters about us.
The reporters think that because my father is Grandpa’s oldest son, he is a big Family leader, the next in line, or at least that he knows where Grandpa is hiding. But even if he wanted to, there is nothing he could tell them. Grandpa’s location is completely Selah, even to my father.
“Why do they keep hounding us? I don’t even know what he looks like!” I complain to my mother after a recent reporter scare. I’m sitting next to her on her big bed, something I rarely do these days, as I’m always with the teens.
“I’ve got an idea.” She has that naughty glint in her eye that usually means something fun and not totally approved by my father or the Family is about to happen.
“Can you keep a secret? You can’t tell anyone what I’m going to show you.”
“Of course,” I reply, nearly indignant. I’ve been keeping secrets all my life. It’s my mother who can’t keep secrets.
She takes me into my father’s dimly lit office. It’s stuffy and too dark, with heavy drapes blocking the hope of sun, all decorated in black and red. In the far corner is a small metal safe. My mother makes sure we are alone, then works the combination to open it. Homes are supposed to keep sensitive material locked up, especially if it has to do with leadership. I have no idea what we keep in the safe other than our passports. She pulls out a couple of photographs.
“How would you like to see what Grandpa really looks like?” She is bursting to share her secret.
Boy, do I ever! Grandpa’s appearance is the best-kept secret in the Family other than his location. All images of Grandpa and Mama Maria are supposed to be destroyed. Doesn’t my father know this? Maybe, because he’s Grandpa’s son, he isn’t held to the same rules? Or maybe he’s breaking a big one by keeping these.
I stare eagerly at the two photos my mother holds out to me. One is Grandpa by himself, gazing into the camera. The other is him with a few women. Mother points to a plain-faced auntie sitting next to Grandpa. “That’s Mama Maria,” she whispers.
I stare for a minute, trying to memorize both of their faces, then she whisks them out of my hand and back into the safe, afraid someone will catch us. She hurries me out of my father’s room, reminding me to keep the secret. I nod solemnly.
I’m quiet with my disappointment. Grandpa doesn’t look nearly as magnificent as all the drawings I’ve seen of him in the Mo Letters. Instead of the full, imposing beard, his is thin and wiry as weeds. He has deep-set eyes like my father, but not the all-knowing power portrayed by the cartoons.
Mama Maria is an even greater disappointment. Grandpa has written letters about her sexiness and beauty as long as I can remember. But instead of the flowing locks and perfect symmetry illustrated in the Mo Letters, she has limp, mousy hair, buckteeth, and glasses. I feel lied to. I ball up my fists but then let the anger melt through my fingertips. Grandpa is a prophet. He speaks directly to Jesus. I guess the artists must change the way they look for security, I reason to myself.
As I walk through our village, I look at my friends, siblings, the other adults, and I know none of them have seen Grandpa’s or Mama Maria’s real faces. I feel special. I know something powerful, something dangerous.
My mother has trusted me with our first big secret.
11
It’s a Teen Revolution!