by Ger Duany
COACH McKINNEY: Hey! Young man! You’ve got to eat. You’ve got to build some muscle.
I eat to survive, I said to myself. I wondered if any American could understand that.
AMERICANS DIDN‘T GET ME. I didn’t get them. I became a complete recluse, never talking unless I had to. I retreated and only observed, taking in whatever I needed to. And the only person that could see through the facade was Kueth. No one understood me better than my cousin, so I confided in him.
KUETH: Do you still speak Nuer or Arabic?
ME: Yes, Arabic is the common language that unites the northern and southern Sudanese. But our real language is Thok Naath.
KUETH: I used to speak Arabic because we were born in Juba. We have all forgotten Arabic and Nuer.
ME: I can teach you how to speak Nuer very well.
KUETH: Do you know how to write Thok Naath?
ME: Yes, I’m actually a good teacher in Thok Naath. And swimming is my thing too. I can teach you how.
KUETH: Tell me something about the Nile.
ME: When I was in Sudan, my friends and I went to play in the Nile. We were jumping from fifteen feet above the river because the river was deep during that season. One afternoon, a good friend named Jimmy dove in, not knowing some evil people had stuck their spears, straight up, deep under the surface. Jimmy was impaled to death.
It was an example of what I’d witnessed in my everyday life. Just one trauma among countless others.
We spoke late into the night about my childhood back in Sudan, the wars, the famine, and the long treks. Those were the nights when I couldn’t sleep and tossed and turned like soiled clothes in the washer, haunted and drained by memories of things at once so distant in the past in Sudan yet also lurking, stealthily in my mind, ready to ambush my spirit at any time.
Throughout high school, basketball was the only thing that helped me escape the tortured thoughts and festering anger that soldiering and other childhood traumas had drilled deep into my psyche.
I studied English during the day, and spent the bulk of my free time practicing my dribble and jump shots. I remembered a blue-eyed lawyer in Ifo, with his starched white shirt and pressed khaki trousers, who told me how I would be good at basketball. His prediction was right. My lanky frame served me well, as I had speed and agility.
I had ended my partying and gang posturing—I no longer stayed up late watching violent movies or wore gang-affiliated clothing. And instead, for the first time, I excelled at school and basketball. The game brought me praise, the team made me feel like a member of a supportive community, and following Coach McKinney’s instructions taught me to focus. For some reason, I was better able to follow the rules of my basketball coach than those of any other adult I’d met thus far in America. I’d found a way to communicate, to release my pent-up aggression, and to follow a leader I respected, who seemed to actually care about my well-being.
However, whenever I tried talking about my life in Africa, people thought I was joking or even lying. They couldn’t comprehend the world I described, partly because I had trouble putting my experiences into words. This was especially true of my new family, my cousins in particular, who barely remembered Sudan. If I’d been in their shoes, I’m sure I too would have found the events I described not only inhumane but also far-fetched. My delivery was an issue as well, because I didn’t seem horrified or even sad when I disappeared inside my head to draw out these memories—those everyday realities of normal life in Sudan. Other times, I thought recounting these things would scare my cousins, so I made a conscious decision to keep most of my past bottled up. I was an expressive person by nature, which made this emotionally difficult, and I forced myself to turn inward. Instead of dealing with my sadness, frustrations, and fear, I chose to study hard so that one day I’d have the tools to tell my story without any inhibitions, and the opportunity to rescue and recover my whole self once again.
During my senior year, in 1998, my team, the Cougars, played our rival, Martinsville. Our opponents, a white team made up essentially of people from the Indiana Klan, had a reputation for being racist, and our coach prepared us for this. The funny thing was, having been where I’d been, and seen what I’d seen, and done what I’d done, the last thing anyone could use to hurt me now was words. There was no verbal insult that could damage my confidence. The wind just blew it away.
COACH McKINNEY: Do not let Martinsville get under your skin. They’re notorious for acting up and shouting racist things to throw you off your game. Don’t take the bait. Just win. That’ll hurt them most.
When the game began, a Martinsville player aggressively targeted Kueth. It got to the point where he punched Kueth in the groin.
MARTINSVILLE PLAYER: You fucking nigger.
The referee brushed off the incident.
KUETH: Ref! He punched me! He’s a racist too!
REF: Double technical foul on the Cougars.
COACH McKINNEY: Kueth! Keep your cool or you’ll lose the game for us! I don’t care if it’s fair or not!
And as so often happens when no one stands on principle, another Martinsville player later felt emboldened enough to hit Kueth in the stomach, which caused him to vomit on the floor.
Aunt Julia screamed from the crowd in Nuer as I dashed to Kueth’s side, and the entire gym erupted, with opposing crowds shouting at each other. The chaos and rage transported me back to the front lines of war, and I felt the urge to kill rise up inside me. Before I could do anything I would regret, the officials called off the game. Police escorted our enraged team onto the buses. ESPN covered the incident the following day. In a strange way, this horrible episode helped me come closer to understanding that there were memories and emotions deep within me—like land mines strewn about my brain—that could easily be triggered.
I woke up in the middle of the night, seized with terror, dreaming that I was back on the hot battlefield, my gun jamming. I felt alone in my anguished mind and didn’t think there was anyone who’d understand my horror.
I GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL in 1998 at the age of twenty and felt that I could achieve anything I set my mind to—as long as I kept my warrior’s temper under control. I accepted a basketball scholarship to Lake Land College, a community college in Mattoon, Illinois. Despite the odds stacked against me, I was well on my way toward fulfilling that abstract dream Oder had once had for me—getting educated. I wonder if he’d even conceived of me getting a higher education. I surely hadn’t.
My uncle and cousin Kueth dropped me off at school.
UNCLE WAL: Ger, this is a new beginning where you can redefine yourself. Know that athletic scholarships have no meaning without world-class performance. Keep working hard in school so that you can get into a four-year college.
KUETH: Hey, G-man. Please go bust their guys so that you can get a full scholarship to Division I!
UNCLE WAL: Here’s twenty dollars to buy yourself lunch.
ME: Thank you, Dad. I will be in touch!
Kueth would be off to Syracuse University the following day.
Within the first week, I met a woman named Carla, a white lady from Mattoon, who became my tutor, mentor, and friend all rolled into one. Everyone else on the basketball team seemed to have a grip on their grades, but since I hadn’t had a solid academic foundation, Carla became the person who filled that gap for me. I’d say she was at least forty years old, but we bonded on a deeper level because I had lived a life well beyond my young years. As she helped me with my studies, Carla and I became close, to a point where I started confiding in her about my past. I felt comfortable and safe. I felt heard and not judged. I felt believed. Carla was a good listener, never one to draw premature conclusions. She seemed to really care about me and what I had to tell her, which gave me the confidence to open up to her more. One day she asked me a simple, straightforward question.
CARLA: Where is yo
ur family, Ger?
She didn’t press the issue. She allowed me to tell her more, bit by bit, and say only what I felt comfortable expressing at any given time.
ME: Maybe in Sudan.
That one question of hers compelled me to open the floodgates. I surprised myself with how much I was saying. I felt that weights were being lifted from my chest and heart, that I could breathe easier each day and night, and that speaking about the ghosts of my past released them into the ether, such that they would no longer haunt me and I would not have to carry them with me anymore.
As much as Carla’s kindness helped me heal, a lot of that positivity was undone by the Lake Land College coach, Coach Dudley. I had sometimes had trouble getting access to my Pell Grant money, and wondered if he had my best interests at heart. Luckily, that summer I was selected as part of a group of up-and-coming college basketball players to participate in the junior college games at Indiana State University, where coaches from across the country came to scout for young talent. At the championships, I got spotted by Coach Mack of Los Angeles Southwest College, who was impressed by my speed and shooting skills. He approached me when I was gathering my belongings from the bleachers after my game.
COACH MACK: Yo! What’s happening?
ME: I was trying to put the clamp on ’em boys!
COACH MACK: Where you from?
ME: Bloomington, Indiana.
COACH MACK: No. Originally?
ME: I am from Sudan.
COACH MACK: Oh, snap! You know Duany Duany?
ME: Yes, he is my blood brother. We are both from Sudan by way of Bloomington.
COACH MACK: You got a nice fadeaway like Duany Duany, and I like that you can hops outta too. Bro, we gotta get you in a weight room because you are light in the ass! But you can shoot the rock like Lamar Odom, and are quick on your feet like KB. Here’s my number. I want you to come to Southern California to make a name for yourself.
ME: Word?
COACH MACK: Yes, I have a few players from Chi-Town, because Chicago’s my hometown. LA is a beautiful place. You can play ball all year round.
We bonded over being Midwesterners, and he invited me to Los Angeles with a promise of a full scholarship.
COACH MACK: You never know who you’ll meet in Los Angeles. It’s the one place your life can take a huge turn for the better at any point in time.
His offer appealed to me, but the distance from Indiana to Los Angeles made me hesitant. I’d been moving my whole life. I wanted to stick somewhere, fit in, plant roots, nourish myself, sprout and flourish.
At the end of that summer, I went back to my uncle’s in Bloomington, where I shared the scholarship news. My aunt seemed very displeased with what appeared to be my recklessness in considering a move to Los Angeles.
AUNTIE JULIA: Ger, what are you doing?
ME: I think it would be good for me. I can play basketball, get a great education, and save even more with this scholarship.
AUNTIE JULIA: Your stepbrother Ruot went to Los Angeles in 1989. Do you know what happened to him?
ME: Yes…
AUNTIE JULIA: He was drugged and robbed. Do you want the same thing to happen to you?
Ruot was my stepmother Elizabeth’s son, whom my uncle had brought to America in the 1980s. That ugly incident was the go-to story one told whenever Los Angeles came up. But since I longed to escape Coach Dudley’s sphere of influence, I made the decision to go to Los Angeles, despite resistance from the family. Meanwhile, some of my Sudanese friends from the refugee camps were now living in Michigan. So I hopped on a Greyhound bus to check on them before continuing on to the City of Angels. I located my childhood friend Lual Nyang, the proper English speaker who had owned the soccer ball and given his only pair of jeans to me when I came to America. Lual had managed to emigrate from the refugee camp in Kenya a little after me. He was in his third year at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, studying nursing.
The day I arrived, Lual and I stayed up through the night talking about our journeys. He looked very fit and healthy, so the nickname Scrawny Boy no longer fit him. In the days that followed, we’d spend our free time working out, and marveling at how as kids we ate to survive, yet now we ate to stay healthy. I also couldn’t thank him enough for those jeans—how, even though they were a gift for America, because he’d given them to me, they reminded me of home.
Eventually, he admitted there was something he needed to get off his chest.
LUAL: I’m not sure how to say this, Ger. But…you and I, we are cousins. And I’m sorry I kept that from you.
ME: Are you joking? How could we be related?
LUAL: I never wanted you to find out about this because I didn’t want you to think of me as your enemy.
ME: You are not my enemy. We are great friends. Forever.
LUAL: The marriage that binds us was controversial. It united two enemy Nuer ethnic groups. Your side fought for the SPLA, and mine for Anya Anya II. I kept this secret our whole lives.
ME: This is big news, Lual. And, yes, I am surprised. But nothing could ever come between us.
First, Oder revealed he was my half brother; now Lual was telling me he and I were actually related. This revelation gave me one of my own: the people I love are my family, whether we’re related or not.
* * *
—
One day, I received a call from Paul, my former benefactor.
PAUL: Ger, I am flying back to Sudan to visit my parents. I will be in Akobo. Your mother might still be there….
I wrote a letter for him to give to her and tucked my high school graduation photo, a photo of me playing basketball, and two hundred dollars inside the envelope. I felt immense relief at the notion that, finally, I could reassure my mother that I was alive. I addressed her using her Christian name.
Dear Mary Nyathak,
I hope this letter reaches you in peace and in the name of our almighty God. I’ve reached America, Mother. I am a bigger boy. I also graduated from high school last year. My only trouble in this strange land is that I miss you, and in all these years I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, Nyakuar, Both, and Gok. I sometime wonder if you are still in good health, because I heard there’s been killing between the Lou Nuer and Jikany Nuer over water and livestock.
If you get this letter, I would love to simply hear all your voices and speak with you over the telephone during the dry season.
I am hoping that you’ll keep this $200 for your transportation to the Gambella region. If you can buy food, it would be good for my brothers and sister Nyakuar. And please pass my greetings on to Uncle Reat Muon, and tell him that I didn’t forget to come back home.
Sincerely,
Gabriel Ger Thabach Duany
THE BUS RIDE TO LOS ANGELES was long and tiresome. African American passengers on the bus started singing at some point, trying to make the journey less boring. Almost everyone was on their way to a new life in a new city. I arrived midmorning and headed for a pay phone to call Coach Mack, which had been my instructions. I tried him a couple of times, but no one was picking up. In time, all the other passengers found their rides and departed, leaving me stranded and alone in a foreign place. Had I not already been through war, famine, and everything in between, I might have been scared. Instead, I just waited for an hour or two and tried again. This time he picked up and made his way to the bus station.
COACH MACK: Hey, Ger, welcome to the City of Angels!
He drove me to a house owned by a lady named Tracie, an extremely beautiful and hospitable mother of three, who was housing other basketball players brought in by Coach Mack, who was an assistant to the head coach, Reggie Morris. Not long after, I got recruited to join Los Angeles Southwest College, an offer that came with a full scholarship. Even though Coach Mack had gotten me out here, nothing was a give
n. I had to earn my place on the team—and then keep it. I became the token African guy who plays hard on the basketball court, and all of a sudden everyone in the neighborhood wanted a piece of me.
TYPICAL NEIGHBOR: So how was it growing up in Africa?
They didn’t care—not really. But I’d engage in small talk, never divulging enough about my experience to let them in, but not putting them off by acting indifferent either.
One evening, I was scrimmaging with a few teammates. I was training hard and trying to focus more on my physical fitness so I could blow away the competition when it was game time.
My opponent on offense was charging upcourt with the ball, and I used some smooth moves to shut him down. I cut him off, forcing him to give up the ball, which clearly rankled him. He threw his body weight at me such that I fell and bent my thumb back. I was rushed to the university health services to have it looked at, and then braced in a splint.
My heart broke when I got the news: I’d torn a ligament in my thumb, which meant staying off the court for a good chunk of the remainder of the season and most likely not getting my scholarship renewed. I’d be unable to afford to return next semester.
As I ran out the clock on my college career, one afternoon I sat down behind the theater building on campus, passing time before my computer information systems class. Out of nowhere, an African American gentleman with a square forehead and teeth like a goat’s approached me.
GENTLEMAN: Hey, how are you? Do you come from Africa?