Page 13 of Status Undefined
“I believe in divine things that are beyond description.”
“Like?”
“The sense of awe you get when you see the pyramids in Mexico, or the Himalayas. The sense of serenity you get when you look at animals, waves, a sunrise or the flames of a fire in the dark. And most of all love, which I think is proof that there’s something divine in all of us.”
I looked at him; he wasn’t such a shallow person after all.
“What made you stop being religious?”
I hesitated but then decided that he had a right to hear my story.
“ My family was like every other happy family when I was little. Not big – just me, my father and mother – but I never felt like I was missing a brother or sister. Everything was fine.” I took a breath.
“When I was twelve, everything changed. One night a terrorist managed to get into the settlement, despite the security fence with its cameras and sensors. It wasn’t the first time, and my father had a gun for protection. But that night he was in the kitchen, without his gun, when the intruder climbed over our gate and jimmied the lock on our door. Our house just happened to be the closest to the point where he got through the fence. My father heard him and grabbed a kitchen knife. He didn’t want to wake my mom and me. Just as the terrorist came at my father, our neighbor burst in and shot him. The neighbor had been outside, saw a suspicious figure in our yard, and went to get his gun. The gunshots woke me up, but I didn’t realize what had made the noise. From my bed I heard something going on in the living room. Then my mother came in and told me to go back to sleep. That everything was alright. The next day when I woke up there was no sign of what happened during the night, but there was no escaping the news and the gossip. I learned everything I’ve told you from other people. My father never spoke about it with me. And he was never the same after that night.”
“But he wasn’t hurt, right?”
“Not physically. And he never admitted how traumatized he was, so it took us a long time to realize it. There’s not enough awareness of the effects of trauma, especially if the victims don’t admit it to themselves. Sometimes a news story will mention people suffering from shock as if it’s lucky no one was really injured. Nobody sees. Nobody knows. Until it’s too late. He just… withdrew into himself. It didn’t happen right away, it wasimperceptible, but I think he never got over that night. He had nightmares. He couldn’t allow himself to be happy, move on. Sometimes he’d just sit and stare into space. I tried to be the perfect child, perfect behavior, best grades, not to bother him with my little problems.
But it got worse. When I was 16 my dad started drinking heavily and getting into fits of rage. He’d yell and threaten, sometimes waving his gun around. My mother and I would hide. Sometimes I’d hear her crying at night, but I never said anything to her. I never tried to comfort her. I knew she didn’t want me to worry. I suspect my father was beating her when I wasn’t around.”
Daniel took my hand.
“You don’t have to go on if you don’t want to.”
“I do want to. I want you to know.”
“At 17 I decided to come out to my mom. I couldn’t keep it secret anymore. She was accepting, embraced me, but asked me not to tell my father. She didn’t think he’d take it well. She was right. She knew him better than anyone. And eventually, she escaped. She disappeared. Without me.” This was the most painful part.
“What happened?”
“I don’t really know. I went into the army when I was 18. One weekend I came home and my father told me she had disappeared. He asked if I knew where she was, suspecting I was keeping information from him. But I knew nothing. She didn’t answer the phone. I didn’t hear a word from her. I think she waited until I was old enough so that she could run. I think she was terrified of him.”
“So why didn’t she tell you where she was?”
“I guess she was afraid my father would drag it out of me and come after her. He might have.”
“Do you have any idea?”
“I assume she is in the U.S. She’s a citizen and she has an aunt there. I never met her myself, but I know they kept in touch.”
“Wait, you have American citizenship? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t usually think about it. It means no more to me than a freckle on your back that you forget is there.”
It was Daniel’s turn to roll his eyes.
“And how did you get to Thailand?”
“Well, they used to send soldiers who were about to finish their service to a sort of conference. Afterwards, I invited a friend to sleep over before we went back to base because he lived far away. When my father saw a guy come out of my room in the morning, he started in with the homophobic jokes and I couldn’t stand it anymore.
I was 21, not a 16-year-old boy in a religious community. I blamed him for my mother leaving us and my anger broke through my fear of coming out. My army friends all knew, but the poor guy who stayed over had to witness the most awful coming out scene.”
“Your father took it badly?”
“To put it mildly. But I don’t want to talk about that. It makes me furious with him and I don’t want to be. I know he would have been different if he hadn’t been traumatized. Still, I realized that as much as I loved my parents, I had to take responsibility for my own happiness, because no one else would.”
Daniel held my hand tighter.
