The Order of Nature

by Josh Scheinert

  “Of course. Sorry – I first wanted to make sure there was nothing pressing around your well-being.” She closed her notepad and looked back up at him. “You’re being detained for allegedly breaking the law prohibiting the commission of acts classified as unnatural offenses. Do you know what they mean by that?”

  He nodded with a mix of embarrassment and disbelief.

  “They are going to bring formal charges against you in the coming days. You’ll have what’s called an arraignment.”

  “A what?”

  “An arraignment. The prosecution will announce the charges before the court. You can then admit to them or deny them. In America it would be like pleading guilty or not guilty.”

  “Don’t I get a lawyer?” he asked her.

  “Yes.”

  Before she could continue responding he had another question. “And where’s Thomas?” he demanded.

  “He’s here, in one of the holding cells in this building. He was somewhere else until yesterday.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Another law enforcement group.”

  “Is he also being charged?”

  “Yes.”

  “The same charges?”

  “I believe so.”

  “You believe?”

  “Yes. Remember, Andrew, I don’t have the same access to information about Thomas as I do for you.”

  He nodded contemplatively. “Is he also being held by himself?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I can only guess it’s not normal protocol for a local citizen in detention.”

  Maya explained to Andrew he was being kept alone because the government did not want to risk something happening to an American citizen in their custody. For all the tough talk, it still wasn’t something they’d want to deal with.

  “Can I see him?”

  “At the arraignment. You’re being charged together.”

  “How come you only came today?” he asked, interrupting her. “What took so long?”

  “We were only made aware of your detention today.”

  “Who told you?”

  “A friend of yours came to report you as missing. Liv.”

  Of course Liv would’ve figured it out. It was good to be friends with someone who worries. Andrew thought of Liv and then Alex. What he would’ve done to be together in their living room right then.

  Maya’s face grew concerned and Andrew feared what she was about to tell him. “Andrew.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It might be difficult to make a deal with the government that would have you removed from the country quickly. We’re trying very hard, but it might take longer than you might want it to.”

  “But you think you’ll be able to?”

  “I want to remain optimistic.”

  The guards interrupted to say Maya’s time was up. She protested that she was entitled to more time with him, but they said they had orders. She turned and looked back at Andrew. He was scared. He didn’t want her to leave.

  “Two minutes,” she sternly told the guards, putting up her hand and holding out two fingers. Maya next asked Andrew for his parents’ phone number so they could be reached.

  “Can I speak with them?” Andrew asked.

  “I don’t think so,” she answered apologetically. “They don’t give prisoners the same rights here. I can try, but I’m afraid I can’t force them to let you do that.”

  He thought of the shock his parents were about to endure. “Tell them I’m sorry,” he asked Maya. He couldn’t believe how after so many years of painful and painstaking discretion and secrecy, this was how his parents were going to find out – a phone call from a U.S. embassy employee telling them he’d been arrested.

  “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about, Andrew. Don’t worry about things like that. It’s most important for you to focus on staying strong.”

  The guards grew agitated and stepped forward.

  “It hasn’t been two minutes,” she said sternly again, holding her whole hand up this time to stop them from coming closer.

  Andrew was beat as she turned back to face him. He felt his eyes grow watery.

  “Maya,” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you able to give Thomas a message?”

  “I’m not allowed to see him, Andrew.”

  He nodded. Of course.

  She had to go, she told him, because she had to phone his father and deal with a whole host of other procedural things she should have done already but didn’t because she wanted to see him first. She was planning to come back tomorrow after confirming he had a lawyer.

  “Will the lawyer be for Thomas too?” he asked her.

  “Perhaps. We can look into that. People normally have their own, but it’s been done here before.”

  She reached through the bars and put her hand on his face and kept it there for a few seconds before saying anything. “Hang in there, Andrew. We’re doing everything we can.” As she pulled her hand back and stepped away from him he felt helpless. He became panicky as her footsteps receded down the hallway.

  “Maya!” he yelled out after her. He heard her footsteps stop.

  “Yes, Andrew?”

  He went to open his mouth but couldn’t speak. If he did, he would have cried.

  She walked back to him, where she reached out to his hand, holding it tight. “You need to be strong,” she whispered. “I know it’s hard, but please, do your best to be strong and we’ll do our best to help you.”

  He nodded slowly. “Okay.”

  24

  After three days of being kept on his own, food left once a day on his floor, a morning and evening trip to a pitiful toilet, Thomas was placed in a jeep and driven to the police headquarters building. He was fingerprinted, given a new uniform, and placed into a larger holding cell with ten other men, each existing as miserably as the next. None of them said much to each other, most wore tattered clothing. They were allowed outside once a day to wander in a small dirt yard, though no one had much energy, and many spent the time sitting in the shade up against the building’s wall, weighed down by their experience and despondency. One morning, his fifth day in the holding cell, guards came for him.

  “It’s time to meet your lawyer,” one of them said.

  They brought him to a door and told him to go inside, wash, and change into a fresh set of pants that they handed to him. He obliged, and for the first time tried to gently clean away the crusted reminders of what befell him a week before.

  Two guards had come to Andrew’s cell and told him he had been given a lawyer that they were taking him to meet. His face signaled relief.

  “When?”

  “I don’t know,” a guard said. “They are bringing him. It shouldn’t be long.”

  Andrew was brought to the police station’s interview room to find Abdou pacing inside waiting for him. Once the guards closed the door and left them alone, Abdou extended out his hand to introduce himself. Andrew’s first thought was that he looked young. The whole country was against him, the entire machinery of the government and justice system was being mobilized for his prosecution, and his lawyer looked like he was only a few years older than he was. This is what I get, he thought to himself. The second thing Andrew noticed was his voice. Introducing himself as your lawyer, Abdou Bojang, should you choose my services, Andrew was struck by how deep and authoritative his voice was. Perhaps it might compensate for his age. Either way, it made him sound serious and commanding.

  The conversation followed the same pattern as the one with Maya. Abdou wanted to make sure Andrew wasn’t being abused and was relatively well looked after.

  “I will check up on the food,” he said when Andrew complained it was mostly inedible. “But I expect I’ll be told you’re being fed what everyone else is fed, and I’m afraid I’ve been told by past clients it’s not supposed to be very good, but you can exist off it.”

  “Have
you had many other clients?” asked Andrew, trying to gauge how experienced Abdou was.

  “I have. I have been practicing law now for three years.” Abdou had meant the answer to placate whatever unease Andrew may have had, but it didn’t.

  Three years? Shit.

  “All types of cases. Civil suits, family matters, and some criminal cases.”

  Some?

  “Maya Mitchell has visited with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. She and I spoke by phone this morning. They should have immediately informed the embassy of your arrest. I will be raising this matter with the court.”

  Andrew gave a sort of shrug, looking lost in the technical points of law. He was unfamiliar with the workings of any criminal justice system, let alone Gambia’s.

  “Thomas should be here shortly,” Abdou said, looking at the time on his phone.

  Andrew’s face lit up, instantly. “He’s coming?” he asked excitedly.

  “Yes,” Abdou responded as he leafed through some papers, not looking at Andrew.

  Andrew looked around the room as if it would make Thomas appear sooner. Realizing there was a third, empty chair around the small table, his heart began to race.

  Abdou said he wanted to wait for Thomas to arrive before they had a substantive discussion – it was very important for both of them to have the exact same information if he was going to represent them, which the court said it would allow. To fill the time, he told Andrew he was lucky on account of his nationality.

  “You’re being detained in better conditions than most people.”

  Andrew found it hard to believe that he was getting special treatment. His cell was filthy. The floor. He couldn’t imagine the last time it was washed. He tried never to touch it with his bare skin. Its walls stank of rot. If he needed to use the toilet between the two trips a day he was escorted on, there was a bucket in the corner of his cell and a smaller bucket of water. He was afraid of touching either. The thought of using them made him sick.

  “You have your own cell,” Abdou remarked. “This is very unusual. And during any of your conversations with the police, were you ever hit or threatened?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry to say,” Abdou told him, “I suspect Thomas’s experience has been different from yours.”

  Andrew asked Abdou if there was any way for Thomas to be held where Andrew was and to receive similar treatment. “Because of me and us being arrested together?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What if I were to go to where he was?” he asked, trying to sound undaunted. He knew it was a bad idea but wanted to believe it wasn’t.

  Abdou didn’t have to say anything. He just glanced at Andrew and shook his head.

  The sound of the door being unlocked jolted Andrew. It sounded broken. When it opened, a body stood shackled in the entranceway. The person’s top was stained and filthy. There were cuts across his face. His lip and one eye were swollen. He hunched forward, standing on unsteady legs, clearly needing to support himself on something, someone. Before Andrew could react, a guard walked in front and started to unshackle the man who looked nothing but helpless and hopeless, a body weak and defeated.

  When the guard had taken off the shackles and left the room, Thomas lifted his face up to meet Andrew’s eyes. He saw the blood drain from Andrew’s face as his mouth dropped but no words came out. Just as quickly as their eyes locked, Thomas turned away, casting his gaze downward. Standing, in awful pain, short of breath from walking and now standing, he struggled to look at the face that for the past several days had been the only thing in which he found peace.

  Thomas gulped in the air to help steady himself. Sensing how difficult it was for him to stand, Abdou jumped to his feet and led him by the arm to a chair like an elderly person. Thomas shuffled along the floor, moving a few inches with each step, his faced in a tightly-strained grimace. Desperate to not scare or worry Andrew, and embarrassed by his appearance, Thomas did his best to hide his pain, pretending to be brave.

  It didn’t work. When he finally sat down next to Andrew he looked up again, seeing Andrew’s stricken face. Andrew’s expression made it crystal clear to Thomas that his innocence – which Thomas loved – was gone. A young man who’d been unknowingly hanging on to boyhood had been forced to let go in the most horrible of ways. Thomas knew that even if he’d not been subjected to the same level of abuse, Andrew had been pulled down into the pit of his country’s depravity, and was now face to face with its cruelty. It was a realization that shattered Thomas’s heart into tiny pieces.

  Thomas reached his arms out to Andrew, holding his hands open. Andrew reached back, his eyes filling with tears as Thomas squeezed his hands in his.

  “What did they do to you,” he asked with urgency. Turning to Abdou, panicky and shaky, he asked again, this time louder, with even more urgency. “What did they do to him?!?!”

  Thomas squeezed Andrew’s hands again, pulling him gently to look back. “What they did to me is done.”

  Andrew, realizing how terrified he was, for Thomas and for himself, pulled back from Thomas and, standing up while stepping back, uncharacteristically screamed. “FUUUCKK! What the fuck happened?! Where the fuck are we?”

  Thomas watched Andrew lose it. This can’t be real; get us out of here. His eyes moved frantically about the room, only to see four concrete walls with no way out. He looked as if he was about to collapse. Mustering all his strength, Thomas pressed his hands on the table to lift himself up. He wrapped his arms around Andrew, loosening his grip because it hurt his ribs, and whispered softly, over and over, it’s okay, we’re going to be okay, while Andrew stood there, weeping, uncontrollably.

  It was only after Andrew calmed down that Abdou felt comfortable speaking.

  “The positive news is that usually once lawyers become involved in a case, the mistreatment stops. What happened to Thomas was clearly terrible, but at least it is over.”

  “And you are okay?” Thomas asked, leaning back slightly to look Andrew in the face.

  Andrew nodded. “Yes, I’m fine. They didn’t touch me.”

  “Good,” he answered, and pulled him close again. “It will stay that way. You are safe,” Thomas said, stroking his back. “You are safe.”

  Andrew pulled back, turning and facing Abdou. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t,” Abdou asserted. “You have nothing to apologize for. You have both been through much and are only now seeing one another for the first time. I expect this is difficult. But,” he paused, “I am afraid this is not the end, there is a lot of work we need to do if you are truly going to be safe.”

  They looked at him while Abdou took a step forward, extending his hand out to Thomas.

  “My name is Abdou Bojang, and if you agree to it, I’m your lawyer. I would like to start preparing a defense for both of you right away.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good, then let us begin. Please, we can sit down.”

  Much like Andrew, meeting Abdou did not immediately bring comfort to Thomas. All too aware – and significantly more so than Andrew – as to the gravity of their situation and how it would be presented to the rest of the country, he was immediately suspicious of any lawyer who would choose to represent them.

  Abdou had prepared an answer to this question. Keeping it vague, he told them the case was brought to his attention by people who knew he had a strong commitment to upholding the rule of law and the basic rights of all people. He knew many in the legal community might not want to take the risks associated with defending persons accused of homosexuality, but for him, that was an impetus to defend them.

  What he kept from them was the truth – that Abdou and Thomas shared a mutual friend who orchestrated the whole thing.

  Suleiman called Abdou as soon as he got off the phone with Maya. Their fathers worked together at the Finance Ministry and they’d come to know each other well in secondary school. They remained close as their respective
careers took off.

  “You have to take it. Who else will?”

  Abdou’s first reaction was reluctance. Reasons not to take the case were numerous. He was a young lawyer, with a wife and small children to worry about and care for.

  “This could jeopardize my whole career. You want I should lose everything?” he asked Suleiman.

  “They have lost everything,” retorted Suleiman.

  Suleiman was right, and Abdou knew it. But that didn’t make it any easier to take a losing case. For starters, what was Suleiman risking, or prepared to risk, to help his friend? Providing information to the U.S. Embassy and getting them a lawyer was one thing, but would he put himself on the line for his friend?

  “I know you know this is wrong.”

  “I know,” Abdou admitted.

  Abdou didn’t doubt he would take the case. He needed to first talk to Manima, but she would be supportive, even if reluctantly. The uncertainty of what would come was what unnerved him most.

  It stayed with him as he walked into the police station to meet Thomas and Andrew for the first time. There was a trepidation to his step, a hesitancy as he handed over his identification and signed into the visitor log.

  He had to be quick during their first meeting. After Andrew had calmed down, Abdou asked a few questions about each of their histories and how long they knew each other. He never did explicitly ask if they were in a relationship. “What exactly were you doing when the police arrested you?”

  “We were in the yard of my compound,” Andrew told him.

  “And were you engaged in any type of activity that might contravene the laws?”

  “No,” Thomas exclaimed emphatically. “Not then.”

  Abdou gazed up from his notebook still in thought. “Better to just say no.”

  That was enough to get him started, Abdou announced. Papers needed filing with the court, formalities to officially register him as their legal representative. He also had to go back to his office and re-arrange other cases he had, postponing some matters as he expected this case to be expedited.

  “Why?” Andrew inquired.

  “The government won’t want to waste any time. Moving quickly will let them take advantage of the publicity following the announcement of your arrest.”