The Order of Nature

by Josh Scheinert

  Wondering what having a real connection was like caused many sleepless nights for Thomas. In his parents’ village, and in the capital, he would lie awake and try to imagine what it might feel like to see someone and smile at him. Would it be excitement? Happiness? Maybe it was a feeling of finally being at ease.

  He never took the step of imagining himself living out such a connection with someone else. He never saw himself in someone else’s arms. Lying there awake, wondering, he never closed his eyes to pretend. He was too aware of his reality to let himself be fooled and disappointed. Better to wonder instead of dream. Dreams provided escapes, but rarely possibilities. So what was the point?

  Now though, there was starting to be a point.

  It was getting dark and Andrew was still sitting on the sand. Lost in his own indecisiveness, he sat absent-minded staring into the distance, overpowered by lethargy. For weeks now, all he’d done was sort out rationally what he was feeling and experiencing. So now, he didn’t want to think about it anymore. His journal lay open in front of him. He paid no attention to its pages slowly being flipped over by the wind.

  Eventually, and without his consent, his mind wandered back to the coming out conversation he had with Lindsay. Besides saying how happy she was for him, and that she still loved him, she also told him she really hoped he’d find someone special.

  “Andrew, when you get home you deserve to find someone amaaazing.”

  When you get home.

  It wasn’t a warning against romance while he was away. It was meant to be completely innocuous. Lindsay wasn’t with him. She wouldn’t understand.

  He got up, shook off the sand, walked up towards the road, and got in a 7-7 heading south, away from his home.

  Andrew had been getting pretty good at making small talk in 7-7s. He enjoyed learning about fellow passengers. It offered a window into daily living and each person brought a different story or perspective, making each ride down the same road different. But this time Andrew got in and sat silently, pressed against the side of the car. He quickly nodded at the woman sitting in the middle, turned away, and with an expressionless face stared out of the open window. Lights blurred past him.

  He sat still, but inside his mind and heart were racing. Images from his past flashed before him. Boyfriends and girlfriends he watched walking into classes holding hands, couples in restaurants and movies – moments he never experienced. He saw the taunting looks he got from summer coworkers. His attempts to suppress a reaction when minding his own business only to overhear someone call someone else a fag. He started recounting all the lies he told to friends, to family, and to himself. Everything that made him question himself was rising back to the surface now, thrown in his face by the wind as he sat there more determined than ever for it to blow past.

  “You’re going to find someone great. I know it.” Lindsay promised him.

  What if I don’t? It was a question he asked himself for as long as he could remember. What if I can’t? A lump in his throat surfaced. He knew the feeling. It had been there before, many times.

  The 7-7 pushed ahead down the darkened road, clunking along as it found some potholes and missed others. Andrew noticed none of it and paid no attention when it stopped to drop off and pick up new passengers. He just kept sitting and staring out – a tall boy pressed into a small back corner.

  The car slowed as they neared the stretch of hotels. Up ahead was a police checkpoint. These weren’t unusual at night, especially around the hotels. It was an attempt to deter drunk drivers. Normally Andrew thought nothing of them. But tonight’s was enough to jolt him out of his trance. His heart shifted from a thump to a pound as he felt the palms of his hands turn clammy.

  With the wind gone, the warm stale air of the taxi enveloped him. The tacky lights on the car’s stereo system jumped out in different colors. The seat leather was torn and suddenly felt dirty, as did the shopping bags belonging to the woman next to him resting on his legs that he now noticed and pulled away from. Wires hung from under the steering wheel. The flashing lights from the stereo soon joined with those atop police cars. The driver had yet to lower the Afro-pop playing from the speakers and it was still too loud. The DJ’s voice talked over the song – they frequently did that and Andrew didn’t understand this desire to ruin the music. It was all becoming too much.

  The 7-7 inched forward, not letting in enough air to calm his now heavy breathing.

  He closed his eyes and exhaled.

  He was squeezed against the door of a barely functioning car in a far-flung part of the world next to people he did not know and who would never understand him. Maybe this brief reprieve was all he needed to confront life with the confidence that had always been missing. Approaching the checkpoint, he started to feel something he hadn’t felt since arriving, vulnerable. He sank deeper into his seat. Through the flashing lights he saw his family and missed them. The home he hadn’t lived in for years and hadn’t wanted to return to all of a sudden tugged at him. He thought about getting out of the car to head back to his house, hoping Alex and Liv would be there to give him the comfort of familiarity. But the driver, unaware of one of his passenger’s growing unease, kept creeping forward.

  When it was their turn at the checkpoint, the car approached cautiously. There were eight armed officers operating in teams of twos, on either side of the road. A pair approached and shined flashlights at the driver and all the passengers. Andrew grimaced in the brightness. They were all waved through. It took less than thirty seconds. The car picked up speed and a refreshing wind hit Andrew’s face as they raced forward. He exhaled one last time before his breathing returned to normal. His nerves had stayed at the checkpoint and the wind no longer carried troubled memories, it carried clarity.

  Fuck it.

  Thomas sat on a concrete ledge next to the bar, looking at the pool lights through the water, trying to keep his legs still. There was no one at the pool or restaurant so he had nothing to do but wait for Andrew, who on every other Friday would have come and gone by now. Thomas began to worry he might not be coming. He chided himself for letting himself be fooled into thinking he could fall in love in this place. But at that moment someone appeared in the hallway from the lobby and started walking towards the pool. Thomas thought the person was holding a knapsack, which Andrew carried from work. Andrew stopped in the doorway when he got close enough to make eye contact with Thomas, who stood up and was now positioned behind the bar. Andrew slowly walked over, took his knapsack off his shoulder, rested it on the floor, and sat down on a bar stool. His chest pushed out with his breath.

  “Hi.”

  “I was starting to think you weren’t coming.”

  “I’m here.”

  They smiled.

  “There’s no one left. I can close the bar now,” Thomas said. “Did you want to go for a walk?”

  “Sure,” Andrew answered, blushing. “I’d like that.”

  Part Two

  7

  Maya Mitchell was nearing the end of her posting in Gambia. After three years, the Consular Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy was ready for a change. The country was peripheral to U.S. interests and she felt out of the action. She spent most of her time helping Americans get medical treatment for malaria, or with small-scale aid programs that were largely symbolic. What bothered her most was being stymied with each and every project designed to effect positive change in the country. Maya joined the foreign service after 9/11 as an idealist. She believed in the promise of American power and the necessity for the United States to help solidify strong democracies and keep the world safer. She wasn’t necessarily a Bush-ite, but she believed in freedom, thought it was worth fighting for, and that with the privilege of growing up free came a responsibility to help others achieve the same.

  Gambia was her first posting, and after three years her idealism was starting to falter. There were limits to what the world’s biggest superpower could do, even in the smallest of places. She came in with so many ideas
– about how the U.S. government could work with students and journalists, lawyers and judges, to strengthen political freedoms and free expression curbed by the country’s strong-arm government. She wanted the U.S. government to react more angrily when elections proved to be little more than a fig leaf for electing the same person over and over again. She hoped her government, and its embassy, would provide a platform for those activists who lacked one in an attempt to foster a fairer democracy where the rule of law existed in more than name only.

  But none of that happened.

  Instead, Maya watched as her government stood by as an observer. When journalists were fired or arrested for writing articles critical of the government, her embassy and the State Department remained silent. The same was true when judges routinely decided cases in the government’s favor. The only time she could count on a statement being issued was on the country’s independence day, when Washington would release a carefully crafted message congratulating Gambians on the occasion. Her hopes that diplomacy might be a tool for peaceful and constructive intervention were dashed. Maybe, she thought, if the country mattered more.

  For the short time that remained, Maya planned to stay under the radar. Big change wasn’t coming now or in the foreseeable future. She would do her job, and do it well, but that was it. After work, she wanted to enjoy herself and a carefree tropical life. It wasn’t such a bad plan. That was until one afternoon when she was told a young British woman was waiting to see her.

  Alex had finished his placement and moved back to the U.S., and Liv, afraid of going to the police, didn’t know where else to turn.

  A marine stood guard outside the embassy entrance.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No. I’m here because I think a U.S. citizen has gone missing.”

  “Are you an American citizen, ma’am?”

  “No, I’m British, but the American man is my friend. I’ve tried looking everywhere for him.”

  She was told to wait while the marine went into a booth and picked up a telephone. He returned, gave her a form to fill out, took her cellphone and passport, and sent her to a side entrance reserved for non-citizens. The waiting room was typical government and could’ve been anywhere in the world. There was cheap gray linoleum floor tiling, sterile white walls, and rows of plastic chairs bolted to the floor. The air conditioner was on too high, so Liv wrapped her arms around herself as the smiling faces of Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton looked down on her. She took a seat amidst the Gambians processing or hoping to process visa applications. She thought of Thomas and the night not too long ago when she let it slip that she’d suggested Alex look into how he might get asylum in the U.S. Thomas gave her the look of a hopeless optimist. It was a look she’d seen too often from him and many times made her regret whatever comment elicited it, as it was often a stark reminder of how different their lives truly were.

  “I’ll manage here,” he said. “It’s okay.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Now, sitting in the embassy waiting room, Liv wondered if she could have been more insistent with Andrew, especially once Alex left and Andrew and Thomas had more time alone at the house. She looked at the Gambians sitting around her, blamed them for what she feared had happened to Thomas and Andrew, and grew angry at them. She sank further into the plastic chair, overcome by a feeling of helplessness. For the first time in her almost two years in the country, she wanted to go home.

  After some time, a young, smartly dressed black woman approached her. Her appearance, together with her deliberate mannerisms, gave her away as an American embassy staffer.

  “Ms. Holden?”

  “Hi, yes.”

  “My name’s Maya Mitchell. I’m the Consular Affairs Officer here at the embassy.”

  Maya led Liv into a windowless interview room with a desk and two chairs.

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  She took out a small notebook and pen as they sat down.

  “You say you know of a missing American citizen?”

  “Yes. Well, at least I think so. Andrew Turner.”

  “How long has he been in the country?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Almost a year?”

  “How do you know him?”

  “We’re good friends. My boyfriend, who has since left the country, was his roommate.”

  “Would you say you know him well?”

  “Relatively well. As well as any expat can come to know any other expat.”

  Maya smiled at Liv. Her answer displayed her maturity and thoughtfulness. It confirmed to Maya that she probably wasn’t one of the paranoid over-worriers who often claimed their friends and relatives were missing or dead if they didn’t show up to a restaurant at the designated time.

  “When did you last see or speak with him?”

  “It’s been around a week. He didn’t answer my calls or texts. And now his phone is off. I went to his work. They haven’t seen or heard from him either.”

  “Has he done something like this before?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any reason to think something might have happened to him?”

  “Maybe. He was in a relationship with a Gambian man.”

  Maya stopped writing and looked up at Liv. “He was?”

  “Yes, for several months now.”

  “Have you gone to the police to report him as missing?”

  “No.”

  “Was his relationship public knowledge?”

  “No. Not that I know of. No. I would’ve known if it was.”

  “How long has it been going on for?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Since sometime last fall.”

  Maya looked up again. “That long?”

  “Yes, that long.”

  Their meeting was brief and finished shortly thereafter. Maya asked Liv if she’d been in touch with Andrew’s family, which she had not.

  “No. I’ve never been in touch with them before. I didn’t want to worry them without being sure.”

  “Right, of course.”

  Maya asked Liv for a list of Andrew’s friends in the country, where he worked, and where he spent most of his time. The last thing she asked was for a physical description and if Liv had a picture of him, one to complement the sterile passport photo she was about to look up.

  Liv did her best to describe Andrew. “He’s tall, a mix of lanky and slightly muscular.” Laughing, she said, “He’s definitely more imposing from afar.” As for a picture, all she could provide was a photo from Andrew’s Facebook, but the Marine had taken her phone. Maya led Liv down the hall to a room with a computer, where she downloaded a picture of Andrew for her.

  “Thank you, Liv,” Maya said, before confirming they had each other’s contact information. “I’m going to start making some inquiries.”

  “Is it unusual for a foreign national to be arrested here without the authorities notifying the embassy?”

  “It would not be in keeping with diplomatic protocol.”

  “Has it happened before?”

  “A week would be a long time for an American citizen to be held here incommunicado.”

  And with that, they found themselves back at the entrance to the waiting room.

  Maya extended her hand. “Thank you for coming in. And just to let you know, privacy laws can limit the information we can share, so don’t be too concerned if you don’t hear back from us,” she spoke with the calm, reassuring voice of someone who’d had these conversations before. “If we need to be in touch with you, we will. Please call us though if you hear anything or get in touch with him.”

  “I will. Thank you,” Liv said, as she turned to walk briskly with her head down past the rows of Gambians.

  Maya had been in Gambia long enough to know it was unlikely that authorities would fail to inform the embassy if they arrested a U.S. citizen. But it was not unthinkable. Especially if the charges related to homosexuality. The country’s gover
nment made it very clear that homosexuality was one of the few areas where the usual rule did not apply. A small number of foreign diplomats had quietly left the country over the past few years after rumors began to circulate that authorities would disregard diplomatic immunities in cases of suspected homosexual conduct.

  Maya picked up the phone to call the directorate of the country’s police services. In almost all instances she had a good and pleasant relationship with her Gambian counterparts. But now, a part of her thought that if Andrew was in fact arrested for issues relating to homosexuality, she might not get confirmation.

  After exchanging the usual warm and enthusiastic greetings, Maya stated she was merely following up on a report that an American citizen may be missing, and whether the police had any information for the embassy. She deliberately did not insinuate that Andrew may have been arrested.

  “When did this person allegedly go missing?” she was asked.

  “It would have been within the past week.”

  There was a delay in his response. “I cannot confirm whether an American citizen has been taken into custody.”

  Maya seized on the deliberate ambiguity and pressed further. “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “I can only confirm individuals were arrested recently for committing unnatural offenses, which as you know is against the criminal code, and as you also know, is an offense for which the Government of The Gambia has zero tolerance, and which has been publicly stated to be an offense for which the government pledges to deal with harshly.”

  “And is one of those arrested an American citizen? A Mister Andrew Turner?”