Disturbed in Their Nests

by Alephonsion Deng

  Cotton? It filled my nose with something sweeter than honey. “No, thank you,” I said. I turned to Benson. “That’s white people food. I don’t want to touch that one.” Benson didn’t want to touch it either, after I said this.

  I’d never seen Cliff so excited as he was that day. We asked each other all day, “What is this place? It’s so different. So fascinating.” It was like the stadium or the zoo but more grander.

  Americans organized things. They built amazing places. It made my brain feel small in my body. I felt so tiny.

  At the end of the day, I’d had a great experience to see such a different world, but I wasn’t sure if I would ever go to Disneyland again.

  AM I HOT?

  Alepho

  Except for my stomach pains and headaches, my life progressed in my new environment. Everyone was so complex and educated. When they spoke English, my ears had to dance on my head in order to capture every word and understand what people meant. When I spoke, people responded with “What? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Say that again.” I didn’t speak the good English they spoke. I couldn’t wait to capture their accent and sound just like the white people speaking English. I was like the character in The Gods Must Be Crazy movie.

  I took computer classes. Went on rides at Disneyland. Rode in cars on boulevards, streets, avenues, and freeways. I’d only known roads in Africa. I’d gone from a small village in South Sudan, to a refugee camp in Kenya, and now to this far side of the world, where I was getting acquainted with buses and trolleys in the metropolitan city of my destiny. San Diego was a saint city, as the named implied. What a privilege for me.

  I liked my work at Ralphs. I’d learned to tell Tide from Froot Loops. Don’t bag those together! I didn’t want to miss a day at work. I’d never called in sick.

  The customers no longer made me nervous, until one day a pretty girl with long, silky dark hair came to the register. “Paper or plastic?” I asked.

  She looked at my tag and tried to say my name but she could not. “How do you pronounce your name?”

  “Alephonsion.”

  “Is it French?”

  “No, it is not French, that is just my name.”

  “Can I call you Al?”

  Her questions made me nervous. “Yes, you can call me anything.”

  “So where do you come from, Al?”

  “Africa.”

  “I know,” she said. “Where in Africa?”

  “Sudan.”

  “Is it hot over there?”

  “Sometimes.” I had been told to make eye contact with customers, but in my country you only do that to make a point. It is aggressive. I bagged her groceries and tried to smile but I couldn’t make the eye contact.

  She picked up her bags and said, “Al, I think you are hot.”

  Hot? Heat flashed through my body. After she left the store, I lifted my arm and smelled my armpit. I smelled the other one. Neither one smelled hot.

  I asked the cashier, “Am I hot?”

  She said, “Uh-­huh.”

  I excused myself and ran to the restroom. I’d showered that morning. I used deodorant like they showed us at IRC. I washed again.

  The rest of the day I was so uncomfortable. Why were people rude in America?

  I went home and showered twice to make sure that I wasn’t hot. I dreaded going to work again.

  The next day I wore two shirts under my Ralphs shirt. I became nervous when anyone came close to me. I did not want to be around people. I couldn’t wait until my shift was over.

  I asked Mr. Sullivan to transfer me to the midnight shift when the customers did not come.

  GRAVEYARD

  Judy

  December was slipping by quickly and uneventfully. My hope for them to fulfill the American dream hadn’t changed, but I’d been naive about the challenges newcomers faced. Day-­to-­day life struggles kept them from working on their future.

  Sadly, everybody was scheduled to work on Christmas Day or evening. The next morning Cliff and Paul were busy, so I went down to the guys’ apartment and we had a small celebration with some turkey, the traditional accompaniments, and a few gifts. A guitar for Benson and cameras for the others. They found my yams with marshmallows too sweet. I knew they would, but it was such an American tradition, I couldn’t resist.

  “Please greet Mr. Cliff and thank Dr. Paul,” they said. They were always polite and gracious and seemed to understand that Paul was the one who made my time with them possible. I was thankful, too. I couldn’t do any of this without his support.

  Birth anniversaries weren’t recognized in the Dinka culture. When the Lost Boys came to America, they were assigned a birth date by the immigration service. For most of them that meant the best guess at the year they were born and the first of January as the day and month. On New Year’s Day, I took a cake to their house. We placed it on a chair, gathered around, and lit the candles. They sang “Happy Birthday” for the first time, made a wish, and blew out the flames. Of course we took photos. I cut the cake into slices and added a scoop of ice cream. After the first bite—which it looked like they wanted to spit out—they hardly touched it. Too sweet and too cold, a clear consensus.

  January was busy, but I tried to stay home at least one or two days a week. I was no longer writing my historical novel about a slave in the early 1500s. Now, living boys who had made an amazing journey were giving me inspiration and that writing felt more vital. I decided to collect their stories together and to organize mine as well. The other days, after I dropped Cliff at school, I headed down to their house. Something always needed to be done. Medical appointments, dental appointments, banking, financial assistance, signing up with the union, and, more and more rarely, doing something just for fun.

  • • •

  Bob Sullivan called me. In the nearly two months the guys had worked at Ralphs, he’d never called me before. Was someone sick or hurt?

  “Alepho asked for graveyard. He doesn’t seem like himself lately. I don’t know what’s going on. He was so excited and enthusiastic about the job and doing very well. Except for a few impatient people, the customers really liked him. He’s smart. You know a guy like that could end up running the store. Now he’s ripping cardboard.”

  The graveyard shift, oh no. That he’d no longer be with customers saddened me. That he’d have to make that mile walk down his street at night to the bus stop worried me. He’d seemed withdrawn recently. Sometimes when I gave him a ride to or from work, he’d have on sunglasses, earphones plugged into a cassette tape player, and his sweatshirt hood pulled down, like he was hiding. When I tried to make conversation, he’d politely take out the earphones and answer that question. I kept things light, hoping he’d engage. When he didn’t, I hoped that was just his mood that day.

  But graveyard? Damn. A real step backward.

  • • •

  One Saturday morning in early February I received an email from Alepho.

  I have stomach paining. I don’t know what happen last night. I wake up in back of store. Nobody know I lying there for some time. Me, Awer

  Passing out was serious. His chronic discomfort and that of other Lost Boys had me worried. At a holiday party, I’d spoken to Stony, a friend and gastroenterologist. He’d said that their intestines would have to make a big adjustment from the high-fiber camp diet of hand-­ground, dried corn to our high-fat and low-­fiber refined carbohydrates. It could take time. But I wondered, how much time?

  Fainting from pain or something worse was another story. Appendicitis? Who knew what other acute abdominal problem?

  I called the apartment. No one answered.

  I called Ralphs to see if they knew anything. “He left a while ago when his shift was over,” Bob said. “He said he didn’t feel well, and he didn’t look good. What’s wrong with Alepho?”

  There was real caring in
his voice, and it sounded like Alepho hadn’t even told Bob about passing out. I didn’t want to mention it if Alepho hadn’t.

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m trying to reach him. He emailed me, so I know he got home.”

  I called again at the house and still no one answered. I had plans to go horseback riding with Susan, a friend, and then out to lunch. How could I? I canceled on her and hoped she’d understand.

  When I arrived at Alepho’s apartment, the screen door was shut but the door behind it was ajar a few inches. Weird. I’d warned them about the neighborhood and they’d always been good about keeping the front door locked.

  I rapped on the screen door frame to generate a loud clatter. No one came. I walked down the balcony and banged on the window to the bedroom. No answer.

  Silly at this point. He could have passed out again, but I felt uncomfortable just walking into their house.

  I called from my cell phone. The living room phone rang. No one picked up.

  I turned the screen-­door knob and went inside. No one was in the living room or kitchen. The lights were off, the hallway dark. The door to Alepho’s bedroom was open. The two beds against the walls on the left and right were empty and made up.

  Under a single lightweight cover, in his bed that was crosswise between the other two, was someone. No head stuck out, and the body was so slight they were barely visible. How could it be him under there? “Alepho?”

  No answer.

  “Alepho.”

  Nothing.

  Not knowing whether it would reveal a head or foot, I reached down and pulled back the blanket. Alepho faced me, asleep. He didn’t look sick.

  “Alepho,” I said louder. Having a son, I knew how soundly young men could sleep. Even when Alepho had dozed in my car, it’d taken quite a bit of rousing sometimes to wake him up. Not yet time to panic.

  “Alepho.”

  I shook his shoulder. He groaned. Whew. I shook harder. A hand popped out and flung itself over the edge of the bed.

  Oh good, he was waking up.

  James walked in from the next room looking groggy.

  “Alepho was sick last night,” I told him. “Did you see him this morning? Was he okay?”

  “I didn’t see him.”

  I put my hand on Alepho’s forehead. He felt cool. I grasped the hand sticking out. It wasn’t sweaty or too warm. “I don’t know what to do.” I shook his shoulder more forcefully.

  “Alepho, wake up. Are you okay?”

  He grumbled, “I am fine.”

  “I think we should take you to the doctor.” I didn’t want to say emergency room, but that’s where I’d head.

  “No. I am fine.”

  I’d heard that before, whether or not something was wrong. What should I do? It didn’t feel right leaving. Not after what had happened the night before. I asked James, “Will you be around today?”

  “Yes, I will be here,” he answered sleepily and headed back into the other bedroom.

  “Please check on him,” I said after him. “Let me know if he doesn’t feel well.”

  I couldn’t leave right away. He looked okay and could probably use the sleep, but it felt wrong. I sat on the living room couch until that began to feel absurd. Should I wake him up fully and drive him to emergency? Or call 911 and be done with it?

  He’d said no. I had to respect his wishes. He was a grown man, even if I didn’t respect his judgment calls when it came to going to the doctor. Poking and prodding and doing tests in an ER might be stressful. If his intestines were adjusting, like Stony had said, maybe the extreme discomfort had passed.

  I wrote a note on a piece of computer paper in case Alepho didn’t remember that I’d come by, Please call me. Judy, and tucked it under his arm before leaving.

  VALLEY VIEW

  Judy

  Alepho didn’t call. I called the apartment over the weekend. His roommates answered and said he was sleeping. They also said he was fine. Of course. Their bar was low. You had to be dying not to be fine. I told each of them to contact me if he didn’t get better. I emailed him but received no reply.

  I finally reached him on Monday. “My stomach paining but I will go to work at midnight.” He’d do anything not to miss work.

  I’d do anything to figure out what was wrong. “I really think you should see a doctor again.”

  “It is getting better.”

  Tuesday morning, he called me as soon as he got home from work. “My stomach paining very much.”

  His voice was quiet and strained. I heard the suffering in it.

  “Did you work all night?”

  “I work but it was difficult.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there in an hour.”

  I called Joseph. “Where do I take him?”

  “Emergency room at Valley View Hospital. They take Medi-­Cal.”

  Where the hell was Valley View Hospital? I thought I knew all the hospitals in San Diego.

  Alepho was on the couch when I arrived. He moved slowly into his bedroom to get a sweatshirt. In the car he was quiet—so stoic that if it weren’t for his knitted brow, I would not have known he was hurting.

  At the top of a steep driveway, Valley View Hospital was a cluster of one-­story barrack-style buildings. Alepho’s walk was tenuous and stiff as we headed toward the door that read emergency. We filled out forms at the front desk and they put us in a tiny waiting room. Alepho leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

  Any wait was too long, but I couldn’t complain. In less than half an hour, they escorted us to a row of three beds divided by short flimsy curtains covered in prints I’d seen on men’s boxers.

  Alepho changed into a gown and climbed up onto his assigned bed with a hint of relief in his eyes that he was finally getting treatment.

  A man in bright tropical-print surgical scrubs with a stethoscope around his neck came in. Was he a nurse or the doctor?

  He introduced himself to Alepho. The doctor. He asked Alepho a series of questions in a mild African accent I couldn’t identify. Alepho’s answers were brief. He downplayed the severity of his symptoms, making it sound as though he’d come in with a mild case of heartburn.

  I wanted him to do this on his own. I understood the tradition of bravery when you came from a place with no available help. But here in the ER? Complain. How could the doctor make a diagnosis if he didn’t know the symptoms?

  We weren’t going home with Tums if I had anything to do with it. “Look,” I said, “he collapsed at work five days ago. The pain hasn’t gotten any better. It’s constant and severe.”

  The doctor raised his eyebrows and commenced a thorough examination of Alepho’s belly. “I’m sending him to X-­ray.”

  Alepho returned after a while and dozed on the ER bed.

  A bit later, the doctor appeared through the curtain. “The X-­ray didn’t show anything. I’ll give him a shot of Demerol for the pain.”

  Demerol? I didn’t have formal medical training, but I’d learned a lot from Paul at the dinner table and from overhearing middle-­of-­the-­night emergency calls. Masking abdominal distress with painkillers was dangerous. Besides, didn’t they slow the digestive system, which would exacerbate a bowel blockage if that was the problem? What were we doing here? I should have taken him to the university hospital.

  “Really?” I asked, not wanting to be rude or insulting but anxious about such a quick remedy. “Do you have any idea what is causing so much pain? Like the appendix?”

  “Appendix looked normal. It’s hard to tell, but you’d be surprised how many cases clear up with a shot of Demerol.”

  Good news that Alepho’s suffering would be relieved, but I couldn’t stop picturing an exploding appendix spewing deadly bacteria into his peritoneum.

  Alepho got the shot and fell asleep. I wasn’t leaving him alo
ne. I sat in the chair for an hour until he woke up. He was groggy but said his stomach hurt less. “I want to go home.”

  I took him to the apartment and made sure someone would be there. He went to bed. When I called later that evening he said the pain was better.

  “I want to work tomorrow night.”

  “There’s no rush. You need to get better. I called Bob and told him you were in the emergency room today. Please, wait and see how you feel tomorrow.”

  I called the next afternoon. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Better.”

  His voice was a little stronger, but not normal. “Is the pain all gone?”

  “It is not gone, but it is less. I will work tonight.”

  “You should rest one more day.”

  “No, I will go to work.”

  He was adamant. I had to pick my fights. “If you don’t feel up to it later, just call Bob. He’ll understand.”

  “No, I must go to work. I can’t get fired.”

  “You won’t get fired for being sick.”

  “James and Lino got fired today.”

  “Fired?” They both worked at a factory up north. Poor Lino. How demoralizing. His first job and he was fired. “Why?”

  “The IRC van broke down. They were stuck on freeway for seven hours. The workplace say they miss too many days.”

  Too many days? Were they sick too, or just car trouble? Oh God, seven hours on the freeway up in the suburbs of North County. I couldn’t imagine the cars whizzing by—no doubt a few highway patrol as well—as eight or nine African men waited it out on the side of the road. Then they were fired on top of it. Lino was still eligible for food stamps, but James wasn’t. The first of January, many of the boys had turned twenty-­one and wouldn’t be eligible for anything, not even Medi-­Cal. Some days felt like quicksand. The struggling just sucked them down farther.

  “Alepho, you won’t get fired,” I reassured him. “I’ll talk with Bob. He cares about you. He knows you’re really sick. Don’t go if you don’t feel well.”