Lauren Hough - Leaving Isnt the Hardest Thing: Essays

If you ask me where Im from, Ill lie to you. Ill tell you my parents were missionaries. Ill tell you Im from Boston. Ill tell you Im from Texas. Those lies, people believe. Im better at lying than I am at telling the truth because the lies dont make me nervous. Its the truth, the thought of telling it, that triggers my awkward laugh and my sweaty palms, makes me not want to look you in the eye. I know I wont like what Ill see.

When Sheriff Horton moseyed up to the front porch, past my car smoldering in the driveway, I figured I should stick as close to the truth as possible. Id been watching him talk to the firemen out on the lawn, but with the rain coming down in sheets, I couldnt make out but a few words.

I was sitting on the steps drying my hair with a towel. Didnt take much to dry it. Id chopped off most of my hair that summer when the South Carolina air hit 100 degrees with 100 percent humidity and walking outside was like opening a dishwasher mid-cycle and climbing in.

Horton took his hat off, beat it against his thigh to shake off the water. I stood and realized he was shorter than me. I stepped back. Im six feet tall, and guys dont like feeling short. I offered him my hand, which he crushed in his own meaty grip.

Looks like arson, he said and stared at me like I was supposed to respond with something more than No shit.

So I said, Yeah, I can smell the gas. I mimicked his accent.

Sometimes the mimicrys unintentional. The way someone talks is the fastest way to tell someone isnt like you. Come back from years overseas to a place like Amarillo, Texas, for example, and youll learn that accent real fast. South Carolina isnt much different. If you dont sound like them, people start asking you questions, like Where are you from? After a while, you mimic without even thinking about it. Its safer when people dont think youre different.

I lit a Marlboro, something to do with my hands because I knew better than to put them in my pockets. Southern rules follow military rules. You dont talk to an authority figure with your hands in your pockets.

I offered him a cigarette. He asked if I thought that was a good idea, nodded over to where my car sat, still steaming. The firemen were packing up their hoses, shouting and joking on the lawn. I said I doubted there was much risk of combusting. He asked if maybe we should go inside. I raised the cigarette like that was the reason we would not be going inside. He raised his eyebrows like that wasnt a good reason. I told him it wasnt my house, I couldnt give permission, because I thought that seemed reasonable. I dont know what he expected to find.

He asked me if I knew whod done it. I said it was probably the same person whod been leaving me death threats. He pulled out his notepad and asked for names. I told him I didnt have any. He asked with a smirk on his face why someone would threaten me, but he already knew.

I shouldve been more concerned when only a month before this night, someone fingered the words Die Dike into the dust on my rental car. I shouldve told someone.

I was a twenty-three-year-old senior airman, a combat rescue controller. Sounds like a cool job. Makes you picture me jumping out of a helicopter, returning enemy fire, and saving a pilot. What I really did was read, play a lot of solitaire, and, once a week, sit in the corner of the briefing room, clicking next on PowerPoint slides.

When I found that first threatening message, my unit was on an exercise in Egypt, a welcome trip away from my duty station, Shaw Air Force Base, in South Carolina. An exercise is when you go somewhere else to play solitaire on your computer because youre not allowed to read at your deskthat would look unprofessional. You spend your off-hours pranking each othergluing sleeping bags shut, dropping raw eggs into someones boots, duct-taping people to cots with cardboard Free Blow Job signs.

That first note, I wanted to believe someone just had a bad sense of humor. I rubbed the dust off the car, hoping no one had seen it. And I forgot about it because something else happened while I was in Egypt: I got orders to Araxos Air Base in Greece.