The Incredible True Story of Blondy Baruti

by Blondy Baruti

  GOLDING, AT THAT TIME, was a school with a mediocre basketball program and more than a few international students. While the campus was not unattractive, I felt an immediate sense of displacement and unease. For one thing, it was so cold! I had grown up in the Congo and been living in Arizona. By comparison, the Northeast in February felt like Antarctica. But that wasn’t the real problem. I simply did not want to be there. I wanted to be home, sleeping in my own bed, having dinner with my mom and dad (which is the way I thought of Terry and Laurie). I wanted to be walking the halls of Mesa High School, attending class with teachers I knew and liked, and making my friends laugh in the cafeteria.

  Simply put, I was profoundly and instantly homesick; in some ways, the homesickness was even worse than when I first arrived in America. At least then I had moved by choice. I wanted to leave the Congo behind. But now? I had been uprooted because of circumstances beyond my control, and the anxiety this produced was so severe that I couldn’t even think straight, let alone concentrate on basketball.

  I arrived on campus around 9 p.m., and went straight to the gym, where the basketball team was having practice. Everyone stared at me when I walked into the building. A lot of people introduced themselves to me, including my new teammates, three of whom were from Africa (two from Nigeria and one from Cameroon). They seemed happy to see me, and one of them even spoke French, so we conversed right away in a more fluid manner than I had been able to converse with almost anyone at Mesa. And yet, still I felt out of place.

  My body was in the Northeast, but my mind was back in Arizona.

  Because there were no remaining spots in the dorm, and because I had not yet registered for classes, I moved in with the basketball coach, thinking he had my best interests at heart, but in fact he treated me in a strange and almost abusive manner from the very beginning. I had never met Coach Moreland prior to my arrival on campus; we had never even spoken with each other by phone, so I had no idea what to expect from him. I had played for a number of different coaches in my career, and I knew that some were more demanding than others, so it wasn’t like I was unaccustomed to discipline. But this was like nothing I had ever experienced. The coach behaved as though I was an unwanted guest that had been foisted upon him. And I suppose, by this point, that’s exactly what I was.

  Coach Moreland’s house had three bedrooms, but I was instructed to sleep in the living room—on the floor, no less, not even on the sofa. I did not complain because, frankly, I reasoned that sleeping on the floor was preferable to being sent back to Africa. I had slept under worse conditions, and I tried to remind myself that in the grand scheme of things, I was still fortunate to have been given a chance for a new life in America—even if it wasn’t as comfortable as the life I had been leading in Arizona.

  But then things got worse and my ability to put a positive spin on my circumstances faltered. Less than one week after I arrived, during an AAU tournament in Chicago (the school season was over by this point, and since it was an AAU tournament, I was allowed to play even though I hadn’t yet enrolled in classes at Golding), I sprained my ankle and was only able to play a few short minutes. I limped to the sideline and sat down on the bench, with a bag of ice on my ankle, fighting back tears. It seemed like nothing was going right.

  Because I continued to live at Coach Moreland’s house and was not officially enrolled in school, I did not feel like a true member of the campus community; indeed, after about three weeks, I began to wonder when I would start taking classes. This made me anxious, as I wanted to finish my junior year and graduate the following year. I had trouble communicating my concerns to Coach Moreland, but eventually I asked him when I would start school.

  “You’ll go to class when the time comes,” he said gruffly. I could not figure out why he always seemed to be so annoyed with me. I believe now he simply resented my presence because of my history with the school (he viewed me as untrustworthy), and made no effort to hide his feelings. He would berate me constantly, usually with the threat that I could be sent back to Africa. He would wake me at five o’clock on a winter morning and order me to go to the gym to work out. There was often no food. A couple guys on the team used to sneak food out of the cafeteria for me. I don’t know why it went on this way; my guess is that because I had not yet enrolled in classes, I was not technically a student, so I couldn’t live in the dorms or eat in the dining hall.

  A month and a half went by, and still I had not enrolled in classes. This stemmed largely, I believe, from the team’s desire to have me enroll as a sophomore, so that I would still have two years of basketball eligibility. I found this inexplicable and inappropriate. I was eighteen years old! How could I be a tenth grader? Looking back on it, I understand their point of view. I was supposed to have been a student athlete at Golding for two years; thanks to my cousin’s behavior, I had lost a year of eligibility. By reclassifying as a sophomore, I would still be able to play two years of basketball, and make progress from an academic and language standpoint. Of course, this meant I would have been twenty years old by the time I graduated from high school, which, while not unheard of in the world of prep school athletics, seemed crazy to me.

  The truth is, I was so miserable that I could not look at any of this clearly. I was homesick and unhappy, and I wanted my time in prep school to end as quickly as possible. I couldn’t understand why the coach would want me on his team for two years when he seemed to be angry with me all the time.

  I tried explaining what was happening to Terry and Laurie Blitz. They felt sorry for me, but told me to be patient and strong. As time went on, however, and I still hadn’t enrolled in classes (all I did was hang out at the house or go to the gym and play basketball), Terry and Laurie became concerned. I later found out they had several heated conversations with Coach Moreland, during which he explained that the school was trying to make the appropriate adjustments to my visa after my time in Arizona, after which I would start school. But he also told the Blitzes that my attitude was poor and that I was being difficult, and that if I didn’t start behaving differently, there would be consequences.

  Serious consequences.

  Terry did not tell me this until much later, but the coach used words like “deportation” and “illegal.” Terry considered me to be like a son, so he viewed this as a threat against his family. Their conversations became more frequent and more acrimonious. Not one to be bullied, Terry at one point told the coach that he believed the basketball program should be investigated for the way it was handling my situation. Again, I did not know about this until much later, but I am proud of Terry for sticking up for me. Unfortunately, I don’t imagine that it helped endear me to the coach.

  Eventually Coach Moreland let me sleep in one of the bedrooms, but still I did not have enough food or water. I got sick and he took me to the doctor but berated me the entire time because he would have to pay the bill.

  During this time, I felt helpless and alone, but not abandoned, because I knew that God was by my side. I would lock myself in a room, fall to my knees, and cry for hours on end, clutching the Bible that Uncle Joseph had given me to my heart. All the while proclaiming my trust and faith in the Lord.

  I know you have a plan for me. I know you will not leave me.

  After a month and a half of feeling like a prisoner, I broke, and everything came to a head. The argument began around ten o’clock at night, when I asked the coach for my phone. He would routinely confiscate my cell phone for the slightest infraction. Sometimes he would take it away just because he was mad at me. On this night, I was particularly sad and lonely and wanted to call my friends and family back in Arizona.

  “You want your phone back?” he said.

  “Yes, it is my phone. You do not pay for it, and you have no right to keep it. I don’t care what you do. Send me back to Africa. I don’t care.”

  Coach Moreland walked over to a drawer and withdrew my phone. He had an angry look on his face.

  “Here, take it,” he said. And wit
h that, he threw the phone at me. It bounced off my chest and landed on the floor with a thud. I was stunned, but I was also worried that my phone had been broken, which would have cut off all communication with the outside world. I went to one knee and scooped it up. And as I did so, the anger rose in my throat. I could feel my skin becoming hot. It was just like the time I confronted Patrick in the park, and in the Mesa High School office.

  I had reached the breaking point.

  I stood up and began screaming at the coach. I cursed at him and threatened him. And finally, I picked up the flat-screen television in his living room and threw it to the ground, smashing the screen in the process.

  I was completely out of control.

  As soon as the TV hit the floor, I knew that I had crossed a line. Coach’s face went blank. He was beyond angry. He was resolute.

  “Take your phone and everything else, and get the fuck out of my house,” he said. He didn’t really yell. He just stated it as an order, which only underscored the seriousness of things. I was accustomed to hearing him yell and shout. I was not accustomed to stoicism.

  Suddenly I regretted what I had done. I was shocked. I hated Coach Moreland, but I had nowhere else to go. I knew I had screwed up, and I was ashamed of my behavior.

  “It’s cold outside,” I pleaded. “What will I do?”

  “I don’t care,” he said. “You don’t listen to me, you don’t do what you’re told, so you’re not going to live in my house.”

  He took a couple steps toward me, until we were separated by only inches, and shoved me in the chest so hard that I lost my balance and fell down. I was much bigger and stronger than the coach, but I did not even consider fighting back. We had pushed each other to the brink, but he was an adult. He was my coach.

  “Get out,” he said again, this time with even greater animosity. “Now!”

  The coach stood in the bedroom doorway as I cried while packing my meager belongings. He opened the front door and stood stoically as I walked past him, out into the chill of a Northeastern night. It had snowed the previous day, so the ground was still covered with white, even though it was almost April. And it was so cold—below freezing, for sure. Normal for that time of year, but I was still accustomed to the desert Southwest.

  I did not say anything to Coach Moreland as I walked away, but I could hear him shout at me from behind.

  “Leave the campus,” he said. “If you try to stay with any other student, I will report you.”

  I believed him. This man seemed to me then to exhibit the same sort of cruel demeanor I had witnessed in the rebel soldiers in my homeland. I wanted to get as far away from him as I could. There was just one problem: I had no money and no resources. I could have called Terry and Laurie, but I was ashamed of myself, and I worried that my failure would have disappointed them.

  I didn’t know what to do, so I wandered around for several hours, until my toes went numb and I could barely walk. I kept pulling clothes out of my bag and adding layer upon layer. I had no hat or gloves, so I used socks to keep my hands warm. I felt completely lost and hopeless. Eventually the cold became too much to bear, and the discomfort outweighed my pride. I still couldn’t bring myself to call Terry or Laurie, so instead I texted Thomas, one of my African friends on the Golding basketball team. I told him I had been kicked out of the coach’s house and that I had been wandering around outside for hours.

  “I think I am going to freeze to death,” I told him.

  “Come to my room,” he replied. “You will be safe.”

  I told Thomas that the coach had warned me against trying to stay in the dorms, but Thomas did not care. He, too, disliked the coach’s tyrannical ways, and obviously he felt a connection based on our African roots.

  Speaking in our common language of French, I said to Thomas, “I appreciate this, brother, but I don’t want you to get in trouble. As soon as I get warm, I will leave.”

  Thomas waved a hand dismissively. “Fuck that,” he said. “And fuck the coach. You can stay with me as long as you like. I won’t tell anyone.”

  This was a warm and courageous gesture on Thomas’s part, but it was impractical to say the least. One cannot hide for long in a prep school dorm without being discovered. But we gave it our best shot. I stayed with Thomas for a couple days. He brought me food, talked with me like a good friend, and offered to do whatever he could to help. I worried that if my presence was revealed, Thomas would lose his scholarship and be thrown out of school, so I decided it was best to leave.

  “Where will you go?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I just have to get away.”

  Then I did something that brought me a good deal of shame. I asked Thomas if he had any money that I could borrow, because I was broke. My plan was to buy a bus ticket out of town. And that was the extent of it. I had no destination in mind.

  “Of course,” Thomas said, peeling off a few bills and pressing them into my palm.

  “I will pay you back someday,” I promised.

  Thomas shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, my friend. Just be safe.”

  Because he was much more fluent in English than I was, Thomas called a taxi on my behalf. Before getting in the car, I walked down the street to the coach’s house, which was only a few doors from Thomas’s dorm. I don’t know why, but for some reason I felt compelled to say goodbye to him before I left. Even though I despised him, and he had been mean to me, I sought his respect and approval. He answered the door and stared at me blankly.

  “What do you want?”

  “I am leaving, Coach. I wanted to say thank you for giving me a chance.”

  His demeanor was oddly calm. He did not seem the slightest bit surprised to see me. I realized then that the coach must have known I was staying in Thomas’s room, but did nothing to stop me from squatting. “I am sorry about everything that happened,” I said, apologizing for something I did not even understand. “But I can’t say here.”

  The coach shrugged. “I don’t care if you leave. Goodbye.”

  He turned and went back into the house as I walked away and got into the waiting cab. But then a funny thing happened: as the cab pulled away, I saw Coach Moreland walk out of his house again and take a few quick steps toward the cab. He raised a hand as if to flag the vehicle down, but the driver did not see him and sped away.

  By the time I got to the bus station, Coach had called me several times. I did not answer any of the calls, but in his messages, he said repeatedly that he wanted me to return to school, and that we could work things out. Instead of calling, I responded with a text.

  “I will come back if you are nice to me. That’s all I want.”

  “Okay,” he responded. “I will be nice to you.”

  I do not know if the coach was lying but I do know that I was lying. I had no intention of returning to campus. I was just stalling for time, because I reasoned that Coach’s sudden attempt to negotiate would invariably lead to someone—a school representative, the police, agents from the Department of Homeland Security—trying to track me down. I trusted no one. I was frightened and lonely, and more than a little paranoid. Shortly after I finished texting with Coach Moreland, I got a text from Terry. It was obvious the coach had called him. As usual, Terry was calm and supportive. I told him I was at the bus station, and that I was safe. He urged me to return to school, and explained that the best way to preserve my visa and my legal status was to continue at Golding until everything was straightened out.

  “Then you can transfer,” he said.

  I lied to Terry, as well. I told him I would do as he asked and return to school. Instead, I walked up to the ticket window at the Greyhound station and placed my money on the counter.

  “Where to, son?” the agent asked.

  I scanned the board. Some cities I recognized, others I did not. There was a map nearby, so I looked at that as well, and then tried to pair up the name of a city on the board with one on the map that appeared to be the furthest from where I was
. That city was Jackson, Mississippi. I had no friends or family there; what I did have was the name of a contact, someone I knew from basketball circles—a coach from Jackson who had recruited and coached several international players, including some from Africa. As the situation at Golding had deteriorated to the point of intolerability, I reached out to the coach.

  “If I come to Mississippi, will you help me?” I had asked.

  This was an unfair question, one that put the coach in a compromising position. Technically, a coach from one private school is not supposed to discuss transfer options with a student who is currently enrolled in another school. Then again, I wasn’t really enrolled. I was in some sort of athletic and academic limbo. And I couldn’t take it any longer.

  “I will do what I can,” the coach said.

  So I called him before boarding a bus for Jackson, Mississippi; I gave him my ticket information and he said he would meet me at the station. I was putting a lot of faith in someone I did not even know, but I figured that at the very worst, Jackson would be warmer than the Northeast. I also knew that by the time I got there, I would have a big head start on all the people who were trying to track me down and send me back to the Congo.

  In short, I had no idea what I was doing.

  If I have one major regret about the way I handled this entire affair, it is in the pain and hardship that I caused the Blitz family. Not only were they worried about my safety, but they also had to endure threats against their own reputation and good standing. As soon as I left, Terry received calls from school representatives that the issues surrounding my visa remained unresolved, and that by leaving the school I was in violation. I was, in their estimation, an illegal immigrant. Moreover, since I had been living with the Blitzes, it was supposedly their responsibility to report me to Homeland Security. Failure to do so could have legal ramifications for Terry and Laurie.

  When I think about this now, years later, it still makes me cringe with shame. Terry was sixty-three years old and preparing to settle into peaceful retirement. Then I came into his home, along with my cousin, and brought chaos to his life. It wasn’t my fault, but I certainly didn’t make things easier for him or Laurie by running away from the prep school, and I would not have blamed Terry for calling Homeland Security and turning me in. But he didn’t. He later explained to me that he wasn’t really worried about being arrested; he was far more concerned about what might happen to me if it was determined that I was an illegal immigrant. Terry and Laurie were in a very difficult position—trying to protect me and help me when I was a panic-stricken and painfully homesick teen.