Fear

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  He was standing between me and the door, but I didn’t think anything of it. It didn’t occur to me to be scared. Abel had never tried to discipline me before. He’d never even given me a lecture. It was always “Mbuyi, your son did this,” and then my mother would handle it. And this was the middle of the afternoon. He was completely sober, which made what happened next all the more terrifying. “Why did you forge your mother’s signature?” he said. I started making up some excuse. “Oh, I, uh, forgot to bring the form home—” “Don’t lie to me. Why did you forge your mom’s signature?” I started stammering out more bullshit, oblivious to what was coming, and then out of nowhere it came. The first blow hit me in the ribs. My mind flashed: It’s a trap! I’d never been in a fight before, had never learned how to fight, but I had this instinct that told me to get in close. I had seen what those long arms could do. I’d seen him take down my mom, but more important, I’d seen him take down grown men. Abel never hit people with a punch; I never saw him punch another person with a closed fist. But he had this ability to hit a grown man across his face with an open hand and they’d crumple. He was that strong. I looked at his arms and I knew, Don’t be on the other end of those things. I ducked in close and he kept hitting and hitting, but I was in too tight for him to land any solid blows. Then he caught on and he stopped hitting and started trying to grapple and wrestle me. He did this thing where he grabbed the skin on my arms and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and twisted hard. Jesus, that hurt. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I had never been that scared before, ever. Because there was no purpose to it—that’s what made it so terrifying. It wasn’t discipline. Nothing about it was coming from a place of love. It didn’t feel like something that would end with me learning a lesson about forging my mom’s signature. It felt like something that would end when he wanted it to end, when his rage was spent. It felt like there was something inside him that wanted to destroy me.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  The stereotypes of Zulu and Xhosa women were as ingrained as those of the men. Zulu women were well-behaved and dutiful. Xhosa women were promiscuous and unfaithful. And here was my mother, his tribal enemy, a Xhosa woman alone with two small children—one of them a mixed child, no less. Not just a whore but a whore who sleeps with white men. “Oh, you’re a Xhosa,” he said. “That explains it. Climbing into strange men’s cars. Disgusting woman.” My mom kept telling him off and he kept calling her names, yelling at her from the front seat, wagging his finger in the rearview mirror and growing more and more menacing until finally he said, “That’s the problem with you Xhosa women. You’re all sluts—and tonight you’re going to learn your lesson.” He sped off. He was driving fast, and he wasn’t stopping, only slowing down to check for traffic at the intersections before speeding through. Death was never far away from anybody back then. At that point my mother could be raped. We could be killed. These were all viable options. I didn’t fully comprehend the danger we were in at the moment; I was so tired that I just wanted to sleep. Plus my mom stayed very calm. She didn’t panic, so I didn’t know to panic. She just kept trying to reason with him. “I’m sorry if we’ve upset you, bhuti. You can just let us out here—” “No.” “Really, it’s fine. We can just walk—” “No.” He raced along Oxford Road, the lanes empty, no other cars out. I was sitting closest to the minibus’s sliding door. My mother sat next to me, holding baby Andrew. She looked out the window at the passing road and then leaned over to me and whispered, “Trevor, when he slows down at the next intersection, I’m going to open the door and we’re going to jump.” I didn’t hear a word of what she was saying, because by that point I’d completely nodded off. When we came to the next traffic light, the driver eased off the gas a bit to look around and check the road. My mother reached over, pulled the sliding door open, grabbed me, and threw me out as far as she could. Then she took Andrew, curled herself in a ball around him, and leaped out behind me. It felt like a dream until the pain hit. Bam! I smacked hard on the pavement. My mother landed right beside me and we tumbled and tumbled and rolled and rolled. I was wide awake now. I went from half asleep to What the hell?! Eventually I came to a stop and pulled myself up, completely disoriented. I looked around and saw my mother, already on her feet. She turned and looked at me and screamed. “Run!” So I ran, and she ran, and nobody ran like me and my mom. It’s weird to explain, but I just knew what to do.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  How does he carry on loving both sides? Both sides of himself? Isaac was only four years old. He didn’t fully comprehend what was happening, and as Andrew stepped aside, Isaac started crying. “Daddy, what are you doing? Daddy, what are you doing?” “Isaac, go to your brother,” Abel said. Isaac ran over to Andrew, and Andrew held him. Then Abel raised his gun and he started shooting. My mother jumped in front of the gun to protect everyone, and that’s when she took the first bullet, not in her leg but in her butt cheek. She collapsed, and as she fell to the ground she screamed. “Run!” Abel kept shooting and everyone ran. They scattered. My mom was struggling to get back to her feet when Abel walked up and stood over her. He pointed the gun at her head point-blank, execution-style. Then he pulled the trigger. Nothing. The gun misfired. Click! He pulled the trigger again, same thing. Then again and again. Click! Click! Click! Click! Four times he pulled the trigger, and four times the gun misfired. Bullets were popping out of the ejection port, falling out of the gun, falling down on my mom and clattering to the ground. Abel stopped to see what was wrong with the gun. My mother jumped up in a panic. She shoved him aside, ran for the car, jumped into the driver’s seat. Andrew ran behind and jumped into the passenger seat next to her. Just as she turned the ignition, Andrew heard one last gunshot, and the windshield went red. Abel had fired from behind the car. The bullet went into the back of her head and exited through the front of her face, and blood sprayed everywhere. Her body slumped over the steering wheel. Andrew, reacting without thinking, pulled my mom to the passenger side, flipped over her, jumped into the driver’s seat, slammed the car into gear, and raced to the hospital in Linksfield. I asked Andrew what happened to Abel. He didn’t know. I was filled with rage, but there was nothing I could do. I felt completely impotent, but I still felt I had to do something. So I took out my phone and I called him—I called the man who’d just shot my mom, and he actually picked up. “Trevor.” “You killed my mom.” “Yes, I did.” “You killed my mom!” “Yes. And if I could find you, I would kill you as well.” Then he hung up. It was the most chilling moment. It was terrifying. Whatever nerve I’d worked up to call him I immediately lost. To this day I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know what I expected to happen. I was just enraged. I kept asking Andrew questions, trying to get more details.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  Dave howled a deep laugh that nearly shook Sarah’s eardrums loose. Amidst laughs he said. “Well, I’m pretty strong.” “Y’all ain’t that strong.” She conjured a convincing drawl. “Of course I’d save my kids.” “I knew it!” “Don’t be so smug.” Dave looked into the side mirror. “Goddamn. I hate that. Pardon my cursing.” “I heard worse. What’s wrong?” “Guy’s drafting.” “Drafting?” “Yeah, they get up real close and the draft from the trailer pulls them along. Makes me nervous as hell.” Sarah looked away. “Don’t tell me you do that.” She shrugged. “You know what happens if I gotta stop quick? I saw it happen to another trucker on the road to Stockton. Bigger car than yours, and it wasn’t just the driver of the car. She had her...” Dave bit his lip hard. “There was a kid.” He looked away and wiped each cheek with his thumb. “I—I’m sorry.” She patted his shoulder. “Just don’t draft, Sarah.” Sarah curled her legs toward him while he studied the mirror. “Okay.” He reached toward the shifter, and his fingers grazed Sarah’s bare knee. His hand jerked back. “Pardon.” “For what?” “Your leg. I mean, it’s a fine…it’s, uh, real smooth and all. But I didn’t mean to…aw hell.” That wonderful color lit up his full cheeks. He turned back to the mirror and upshifted until the car appeared from the void behind the truck and passed him. “It’s okay.” Sarah edged a little closer to him. Her knee pressed his hip. Dave squeezed the gearshift tightly. After a long silence, Sarah resumed, “I think we’re spending too much time worrying about other people’s gardens. Not tending to our own.” Dave sighed. “Yeah, I can see you draftin’ out there on the highway.” “Bet you think women should be seen, not heard.” “No, I just don’t see things the same.” “Really?” A hint of sarcasm. Dave studied the road closely. “You ask a man who’s been in hell if he’s happy to be in a garden with a few weeds, he’s libel to say a big ‘yes.’” “What hell have you been in, Dave?” “It’s just an observation. More repartee.” “It’s more than that.” Sarah rested her hand on the top of the seat just behind Dave’s shoulder. “You have a nice face.” Dave blushed deeply and looked away. Sarah grinned. “And you gave me a hard time for covering my smile. You’re a traditional man.” “You ’spose?” “Can’t you give a straight answer?” “You didn’t ask a question.” “No, I guess I didn’t.”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 2: To everyone that is in pain, whether man or animal, it is natural to use all possible means of repelling the harmful thing that causes pain but its presence: thus we observe that animals, when in pain, attack with their jaws or with their horns. Now the greatest help for all purposes, in animals, is heat and vital spirits: wherefore when they are in pain, their nature stores up the heat and vital spirits within them, in order to make use thereof in repelling the harmful object. Hence the Philosopher says (De Problem. xxvii, 9) when the vital spirits and heat are concentrated together within, they require to find a vent in the voice: for which reason those who are in pain can scarcely refrain from crying aloud. On the other hand, in those who are afraid, the internal heat and vital spirits move from the heart downwards, as stated above (ad 1): wherefore fear hinders speech which ensues from the emission of the vital spirits in an upward direction through the mouth: the result being that fear makes its subject speechless. For this reason, too, fear “makes its subject tremble,” as the Philosopher says (De Problem. xxvii, 1,6,7). Reply to Objection 3: Mortal perils are contrary not only to the appetite of the soul, but also to nature. Consequently in such like fear, there is contraction not only in the appetite, but also in the corporeal nature: for when an animal is moved by the imagination of death, it experiences a contraction of heat towards the inner parts of the body, as though it were threatened by a natural death. Hence it is that “those who are in fear of death turn pale” (Ethic. iv, 9). But the evil that shame fears, is contrary, not to nature, but only to the appetite of the soul. Consequently there results a contraction in this appetite, but not in the corporeal nature; in fact, the soul, as though contracted in itself, is free to set the vital spirits and heat in movement, so that they spread to the outward parts of the body: the result being that those who are ashamed blush. Whether fear makes one suitable for counsel?Objection 1: It would seem that fear does not make one suitable for counsel. For the same thing cannot be conducive to counsel, and a hindrance thereto. But fear hinders counsel: because every passion disturbs repose, which is requisite for the good use of reason. Therefore fear does not make a man suitable for counsel. Objection 2: Further, counsel is an act of reason, in thinking and deliberating about the future. But a certain fear “drives away all thought, and dislocates the mind,” as Cicero observes (De Quaest. Tusc. iv, 8). Therefore fear does not conduce to counsel, but hinders it.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (De Civ. Dei, ix. 21.) God was so far known to them as it was His pleasure to be known; and He pleased to be known so far as it was needful. He was known to them therefore not as He is Life eternal, and the Light which enlightens the good, but by certain temporal effects of His excellence, and signs of His hidden presence, which are visible to angelic spirits though evil, rather than to the infirmity of human nature. JEROME. But both the Devil and the dæmons may be said to have rather suspected, than known, Jesus to be the Son of God. PSEUDO-AUGUSTINE. (Hil. Quæst. V. et N. T. 9, 66.) When the dæmons cry out, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? (1 Cor. 2:8.) we must suppose them to have spoken from suspicion rather than knowledge. For had they known him, they never would have suffered the Lord of glory to be crucified. REMIGIUS. But as often as they were tortured by His excellent power, and saw Him working signs and miracles, they supposed Him to be the Son of God; when they saw Him hungry and thirsty, and suffering such things, they doubted, and thought Him mere man. It should be considered that even the unbelieving Jews when they said that Christ cast out dæmons in Beelzebub, and the Arians who said that He was a creature, deserve condemnation not only on God’s sentence, but on the confession of the dæmons, who declare Christ to be the Son of God. Rightly do they say, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? that is, our malice and Thy grace have nothing in common, according to that the Apostle speaks, There is no fellowship of light with darkness. (2 Cor. 6:14.) CHRYSOSTOM. That this should not be thought to be flattery, they cry out what they were experiencing, Art thou come to torment us before the time? AUGUSTINE. (De Civ. Dei, viii. 23.) Either because that came upon them unexpectedly, which they looked for indeed, but supposed more distant; or because they thought their perdition consisted in this, that when known they would be despised; or because this was before the day of judgment, when they should be punished with eternal damnation. JEROME. For the presence of the Saviour is the torment of dæmons. CHRYSOSTOM. They could not say they had not sinned, because Christ had found them doing evil, and marring the workmanship of God; whence they supposed that for their more abundant wickedness the time of the last punishment which shall be at the day of judgment should not be tarried for to punish them.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  I was supposed to go under cover of dark and sell the bloody encyclopedia to some poor devils who wanted to improve themselves. If I had been dropped off at Helsingfors I couldn’t have felt more ill at ease than walking the streets of Bayonne. It wasn’t an American city to me. It wasn’t a city at all, but a huge octopus wriggling in the dark. The first door I came to looked so forbidding I didn’t even bother to knock; I went like that to several addresses before I could summon the courage to knock. The first face I took a look at frightened the shit out of me. I don’t mean timidity or embarrassment—I mean fear. It was the face of a hod carrier, an ignorant mick who would as lief fell you with an ax as spit in your eye. I pretended I had the wrong name and hurried on to the next address. Each time the door opened I saw another monster. And then I came at last to a poor simp who really wanted to improve himself and that broke me down. I felt truly ashamed of myself, of my country, my race, my epoch. I had a devil of a time persuading him not to buy the damned encyclopedia. He asked me innocently what then had brought me to his home—and without a minute’s hesitation I told him an astounding lie, a lie which was later to prove a great truth. I told him I was only pretending to sell the encyclopedia in order to meet people and write about them. That interested him enormously, even more than the encyclopedia. He wanted to know what I would write about him, if I could say. It’s taken me twenty years to answer that question, but here it is. If you would still like to know, John Doe of the City of Bayonne, this is it. . . . I owe you a great deal because after that lie I told you I left your house and I tore up the prospectus furnished me by the Encyclopaedia Britannica and I threw it in the gutter. I said to myself I will never again go to people under false pretenses even if it is to give them the Holy Bible. I will never again sell anything, even if I have to starve. I am going home now and I will sit down and really write about people. And if anybody knocks at my door to sell me something I will invite him in and say “why are you doing this?”

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  It was animal instinct, learned in a world where violence was always lurking and waiting to erupt. In the townships, when the police came swooping in with their riot gear and armored cars and helicopters, I knew: Run for cover. Run and hide. I knew that as a five-year-old. Had I lived a different life, getting thrown out of a speeding minibus might have fazed me. I’d have stood there like an idiot, going, “What’s happening, Mom? Why are my legs so sore?” But there was none of that. Mom said “run,” and I ran. Like the gazelle runs from the lion, I ran. The men stopped the minibus and got out and tried to chase us, but they didn’t stand a chance. We smoked them. I think they were in shock. I still remember glancing back and seeing them give up with a look of utter bewilderment on their faces. What just happened? Who’d have thought a woman with two small children could run so fast? They didn’t know they were dealing with the reigning champs of the Maryvale College sports day. We kept going and going until we made it to a twenty-four-hour petrol station and called the police. By then the men were long gone. I still didn’t know why any of this had happened; I’d been running on pure adrenaline. Once we stopped running I realized how much pain I was in. I looked down, and the skin on my arms was scraped and torn. I was cut up and bleeding all over. Mom was, too. My baby brother was fine, though, incredibly. My mom had wrapped herself around him, and he’d come through without a scratch. I turned to her in shock. “What was that?! Why are we running?!” “What do you mean, ‘Why are we running?’ Those men were trying to kill us.” “You never told me that! You just threw me out of the car!” “I did tell you. Why didn’t you jump?” “Jump?! I was asleep!” “So I should have left you there for them to kill you?” “At least they would have woken me up before they killed me.” Back and forth we went. I was too confused and too angry about getting thrown out of the car to realize what had happened. My mother had saved my life. As we caught our breath and waited for the police to come and drive us home, she said, “Well, at least we’re safe, thank God.” But I was nine years old and I knew better. I wasn’t going to keep quiet this time. “No, Mom! This was not thanks to God! You should have listened to God when he told us to stay at home when the car wouldn’t start, because clearly the Devil tricked us into coming out tonight.” “No, Trevor!

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  I don’t do that here.” “Okay.” Bongani dragged me to a second salon. I sat down in the chair, and the woman took my hair and started painting this creamy white stuff in it. She was wearing rubber gloves to keep this chemical relaxer off her own skin, which should have been my first clue that maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. Once my hair was full of the relaxer, she told me, “You have to try to keep it in for as long as possible. It’s going to start burning. When it starts burning, tell me and we’ll rinse it out. But the longer you can handle it, the straighter your hair will become.” I wanted to do it right, so I sat in the chair and waited and waited for as long as I could. I waited too long. She’d told me to tell her when it started burning. She should have told me to tell her when it started tingling, because by the time it was actually burning it had already taken off several layers of my scalp. I was well past tingling when I started to freak out. “It’s burning! It’s burning!” She rushed me over to the sink and started to rinse the relaxer out. What I didn’t know is that the chemical doesn’t really start to burn until it’s being rinsed out. I felt like someone was pouring liquid fire onto my head. When she was done I had patches of acid burns all over my scalp. I was the only man in the salon; it was all women. It was a window into what women experience to look good on a regular basis. Why would they ever do this?, I thought. This is horrible. But it worked. My hair was completely straight. The woman combed it back, and I looked like a pimp, a pimp named Slickback. Bongani then dragged me back to the first salon, and the woman agreed to cornrow my hair. She worked slowly. It took six hours. Finally she said, “Okay, you can look in the mirror.” She turned me around in the chair and I looked in the mirror and...I had never seen myself like that before. It was like the makeover scenes in my American movies, where they take the dorky guy or girl, fix the hair and change the clothes, and the ugly duckling becomes the swan. I’d been so convinced I’d never get a date that I never tried to look nice for a girl, so I didn’t know that I could. The hair was good. My skin wasn’t perfect, but it was getting better; the pustules had receded into regular pimples. I looked...not bad. I went home, and my mom squealed when I walked in the door. “Ooooooh! They turned my baby boy into a pretty little girl! I’ve got a little girl! You’re so pretty!” “Mom! C’mon.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  Just because you divorce someone legally doesn’t mean they are no longer your spouse. Once Abel’s debts and his terrible business decisions started impacting my mother’s credit and her ability to support her sons, she wanted out. “I don’t have debts,” she said. “I don’t have bad credit. I’m not doing these things with you.” We were still a family and they were still traditionally married, but she divorced him in order to separate their financial affairs. She also took her name back. Because Abel had started running an unlicensed business in a residential area, one of the neighbors filed a petition to get rid of us. My mom applied for a license to be able to operate a business on the property. The workshop stayed, but Abel kept running it into the ground, drinking his money. At the same time, my mother started moving up at the real-estate company she worked for, taking on more responsibilities and earning a better salary. His workshop became like a side hobby almost. He was supposed to pay for Andrew’s school fees and groceries, but he started falling behind even on that, and soon my mom was paying for everything. She paid the electricity. She paid the mortgage. He literally contributed nothing. That was the turning point. When my mother started making more money and getting her independence back—that’s when we saw the dragon emerge. The drinking got worse. He grew more and more violent. It wasn’t long after coming for me in the pantry that Abel hit my mom for the second time. I can’t recall the details of it, because now it’s muddled with all the other times that came after it. I do remember that the police were called. They came out to the house this time, but again it was like a boys’ club. “Hey, guys. These women, you know how they are.” No report was made. No charges were filed. Whenever he’d hit her or come after me, my mom would find me crying afterward and take me aside. She’d give me the same talk every time. “Pray for Abel,” she’d say. “Because he doesn’t hate us. He hates himself.” To a kid this makes no sense. “Well, if he hates himself,” I’d say, “why doesn’t he kick himself?” Abel was one of those drinkers where once he was gone you’d look into his eyes and you didn’t even see the same person. I remember one night he came home fuckdrunk, stumbling through the house. He stumbled into my room, muttering to himself, and I woke up to see him whip out his dick and start pissing on the floor.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  It does not, however, have to be a life sentence. It is possible to learn from mythology, from clinical observations, from neuroscience, from embracing the “living” experiential body, and from the behavior of animals; and then, rather than brace against our instincts, embrace them. With guidance and support, we are capable of emulating animals in learning (like Nancy and I did) to shake and tremble our way back to life. In being able to harness these primordial and intelligent instinctual energies, we can move through trauma and transform it. In Chapter 4 we begin with a study of our instinctual roots as revealed in the animal experience. * This descriptive term was probably borrowed from the Swiss in the mid-1600s, where it was also called nostalgia (Heimweh)—and yes, the armies of the “neutral” Swiss cantons were at each other’s throats for centuries! † In the opposite direction we see that a declining number of office-based psychiatrists in the United States are providing psychotherapy. According the results from a national ten-year survey from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS), the percentage of office visits to psychiatrists that involved psychotherapy dropped from 44% in 1996–1997 to 29% in 2004–2005. ‡ In the analytic psychology of Jung, the image of the one-eyed giant holding a golden sword conveys the archetype of the “deep” (non-egoic) self. A CHAPTER 4 Immobilized by Fear Lessons Learned from Animals It is life’s only true opponent, only fear can defeat life. —Yann Martel, Life of Pi The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. —Franklin Delano Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, 1933 ll higher animals exhibit fear reactions. By understanding the biological nature of fear, we are able to grasp the very taproot of trauma. This knowledge also illuminates our innate capacity to rebound from the contracted states of fear and terror. In many primate groups, predator and cohort attacks are unpredictable, frequent and unremitting. * These primates see members of their tribe torn to pieces by hyenas, panthers and other large cats. Terror is likely their frequent companion; but, ultimately, survival requires that such strong emotional reactions be essentially transitory. We share with our proximal ancestors, the monkeys and apes, a heritability of predation anxiety. This destiny prompted one author to call primate existence, “one continual nightmare of anxiety.” 12 Prehistoric peoples must have spent long hours each day huddled together in dark, cold caves with the certain knowledge that they could be picked off at any moment and torn to shreds. Though most of us no longer dwell in caves, we retain an intense expectation of lurking danger, be it from others of our own species or from predators. In calming a frightened nation against panic, Franklin D.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  13Lecture 2—Luther and the Dawn of Protestantism BUILDUP õBefore the Reformation, different kinds of reformers, ranging from bishops to renegade monks, had been working within the Catholic Church for a long time. But the push for change heated up around the turn of the 16 th century because of major social, intellectual, and political changes across Europe: The hierarchical economy of feudalism was evolving into a more chaotic capitalism. Cities and universities were growing and becoming centers of theological debate. And a group of religious leaders came forward who took the criticism of Catholic doctrine and practice much further than their predecessors. õThe reformers who broke from the Catholic Church—the Protestants— said that the Catholic Church had gone wrong in four ways. These were the four major problems that pushed them over the edge: 1. The reformers feared that the Church had started to lead people to believe they could be saved just by going to church, giving money to charity, and doing good deeds. This practice was called works righteousness, and reformers found it contrary to the Bible, believing faith to be a gift of God. 2. Reformers worried that the Catholic Church had placed human authorities, like the pope and church tradition, above scripture and Christ. They were also concerned that Catholics had turned worship into idolatry by adding stuff that isn’t in the Bible, like icons, incense, and elaborate rituals. 3. Reformers believed Church officials engaged in corruption. They got involved with politics, they sold church offices to the highest bidder, and generally they ended up caring about earthly wealth instead of riches in heaven. 4. Reformers believed that the church denied the people direct access to God’s word. Catholic practice forced Christians to go through a priest speaking Latin—which almost no laypeople understood—

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  Finally the principal, Mr. Friedman, walked out. “Trevor, come in.” Waiting inside his office was the head of mall security, two uniformed police officers, and my and Teddy’s homeroom teacher, Mrs. Vorster. A roomful of silent, stone-faced white authority figures stood over me, the guilty young black man. My heart was pounding. I took a seat. “Trevor, I don’t know if you know this,” Mr. Friedman said, “but Teddy was arrested the other day.” “What?” I played the whole thing again. “Teddy? Oh, no. What for?” “For shoplifting. He’s been expelled, and he won’t be coming back to school. We know there was another boy involved, and these officers are going around to the schools in the area to investigate. We called you here because Mrs. Vorster tells us you’re Teddy’s best friend, and we want to know: Do you know anything about this?” I shook my head. “No, I don’t know anything.” “Do you know who Teddy was with?” “No.” “Okay.” He stood up and walked over to a television in the corner of the room. “Trevor, the police have video footage of the whole thing. We’d like you to take a look at it.” Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. My heart was pounding in my chest. Well, life, it’s been fun, I thought. I’m going to get expelled. I’m going to go to jail. This is it. Mr. Friedman pressed Play on the VCR. The tape started. It was grainy, black-and-white security-camera footage, but you could see what was happening plain as day. They even had it from multiple angles: Me and Teddy reaching through the gate. Me and Teddy racing for the door. They had the whole thing. After a few seconds, Mr. Friedman reached up and paused it with me, from a few meters out, freeze-framed in the middle of the screen. In my mind, this was when he was going to turn to me and say, “Now would you like to confess?” He didn’t. “Trevor,” he said, “do you know of any white kids that Teddy hangs out with?” I nearly shat myself. “What?!”

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  There was only one problem: It was illegal for black people to live there. The ultimate goal of apartheid was to make South Africa a white country, with every black person stripped of his or her citizenship and relocated to live in the homelands, the Bantustans, semi-sovereign black territories that were in reality puppet states of the government in Pretoria. But this so-called white country could not function without black labor to produce its wealth, which meant black people had to be allowed to live near white areas in the townships, government-planned ghettos built to house black workers, like Soweto. The township was where you lived, but your status as a laborer was the only thing that permitted you to stay there. If your papers were revoked for any reason, you could be deported back to the homelands. To leave the township for work in the city, or for any other reason, you had to carry a pass with your ID number; otherwise you could be arrested. There was also a curfew: After a certain hour, blacks had to be back home in the township or risk arrest. My mother didn’t care. She was determined to never go home again. So she stayed in town, hiding and sleeping in public restrooms until she learned the rules of navigating the city from the other black women who had contrived to live there: prostitutes. Many of the prostitutes in town were Xhosa. They spoke my mother’s language and showed her how to survive. They taught her how to dress up in a pair of maid’s overalls to move around the city without being questioned. They also introduced her to white men who were willing to rent out flats in town. A lot of these men were foreigners, Germans and Portuguese who didn’t care about the law and were happy to sign a lease giving a prostitute a place to live and work in exchange for a steady piece on the side. My mom wasn’t interested in any such arrangement, but thanks to her job she did have money to pay rent. She met a German fellow through one of her prostitute friends, and he agreed to let her a flat in his name. She moved in and bought a bunch of maid’s overalls to wear. She was caught and arrested many times, for not having her ID on the way home from work, for being in a white area after hours. The penalty for violating the pass laws was thirty days in jail or a fine of fifty rand, nearly half her monthly salary. She would scrape together the money, pay the fine, and go right back about her business. — My mom’s secret flat was in a neighborhood called Hillbrow. She lived in number 203. Down the corridor was a tall, brown-haired, brown- eyed Swiss/German expat named Robert. He lived in 206.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  I’ll show you I’m still a man! Let’s go!” I couldn’t hit him because I wasn’t about to hit my elder. Plus I’d never been in a fight and I wasn’t going to have my first one be with an eighty-year-old man. I ran to my mom, and she got him to stop. The day after his pugilistic rage, he sat in his chair and didn’t move or say a word all day. Temperance lived with his second family in the Meadowlands, and we visited them sparingly because my mom was always afraid of being poisoned. Which was a thing that would happen. The first family were the heirs, so there was always the chance they might get poisoned by the second family. It was like Game of Thrones with poor people. We’d go into that house and my mom would warn me. “Trevor, don’t eat the food.” “But I’m starving.” “No. They might poison us.” “Okay, then why don’t I just pray to Jesus and Jesus will take the poison out of the food?” “Trevor! Sun’qhela!” So I only saw my grandfather now and then, and when he was gone the house was in the hands of women. In addition to my mom there was my aunt Sibongile; she and her first husband, Dinky, had two kids, my cousins Mlungisi and Bulelwa. Sibongile was a powerhouse, a strong woman in every sense, big-chested, the mother hen. Dinky, as his name implies, was dinky. He was a small man. He was abusive, but not really. It was more like he tried to be abusive, but he wasn’t very good at it. He was trying to live up to this image of what he thought a husband should be, dominant, controlling. I remember being told as a child, “If you don’t hit your woman, you don’t love her.” That was the talk you’d hear from men in bars and in the streets. Dinky was trying to masquerade as this patriarch that he wasn’t. He’d slap my aunt and hit her and she’d take it and take it, and then eventually she’d snap and smack him down and put him back in his place. Dinky would always walk around like, “I control my woman.” And you’d want to say, “Dinky, first of all, you don’t. Second of all, you don’t need to. Because she loves you.” I can remember one day my aunt had really had enough. I was in the yard and Dinky came running out of the house screaming bloody murder. Sibongile was right behind him with a pot of boiling water, cursing at him and threatening to douse him with it. In Soweto you were always hearing about men getting doused with pots of boiling water—often a woman’s only recourse. And men were lucky if it was water. Some women used hot cooking oil. Water was if the woman wanted to teach her man a lesson.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Roosevelt described fear’s destructive nature as “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” It is such paralyzing fearfulness that has outlasted its survival utility in humans. Such intractable fear prevents a person from returning to balance and normal life. The ability to transition readily between intense emotional states is popularly referred to as “flow,” as “being present” or “in the moment” as opposed to being stuck in one’s past history. How mammals rebound from extreme fear and other intense emotional states such as rage and loss is instructive for our own recovery from trauma. It is also a key to our very sanity and capacity to live fully and spontaneously. The Posture of Danger As surely as we hear the blood in our ears, the echoes of a million midnight shrieks of monkeys, whose last sight of the world was the eyes of a panther, have their traces in our nervous systems. —Paul Shepherd (in The Others) On the Serengeti We are troop animals and have a close kinship with other pack mammals. We live in family groups and tribes, join clubs, rely on neighbors and friends, form political parties and identify with our national (and even international) community. Recognizing our mammalian status provides us with important information on the nature of trauma and recovery, as well as on how we interact with our clients, and with other humans. A herd of gazelle grazes peacefully in a lush wadi. The snap of a twig, the rustling of some bushes, a fleeting shadow or a few molecules of a particular scent alert one member of the herd. It arrests its movement and stiffens in readiness. This abrupt cessation of movement makes the animal less likely to be detected by the predator. It also lets the gazelle “pause,” giving it the opportunity to organize an optimal escape route. In addition, the other animals of the herd instantly attune to its postural shift by arresting their activity as well. They all scan together (many more ears, noses and eyes), better to localize and identify the source of threat. There is a similar response to potential threat from an army squad on patrol in enemy territory. Imagine strolling leisurely in an open meadow. A shadow suddenly moves into the periphery of your vision. How do you respond? Instinctively, your previous motions stop. You may crouch slightly in a flexed posture, and your heart rate will change as your autonomic nervous system is engaged. After this momentary “arrest” response, your eyes open wide. Without willing it, your head turns in the direction of the shadow (or sound) in an attempt to locate and identify it.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Whether the testimony of the Father’s voice, saying, “This is My beloved Son,” was fittingly added?Objection 1: It would seem that the testimony of the Father’s voice, saying, “This is My beloved Son,” was not fittingly added; for, as it is written (Job 33:14), “God speaketh once, and repeateth not the selfsame thing the second time.” But the Father’s voice had testified to this at the time of (Christ’s) baptism. Therefore it was not fitting that He should bear witness to it a second time. Objection 2: Further, at the baptism the Holy Ghost appeared under the form of a dove at the same time as the Father’s voice was heard. But this did not happen at the transfiguration. Therefore it seems that the testimony of the Father was made in an unfitting manner. Objection 3: Further, Christ began to teach after His baptism. Nevertheless, the Father’s voice did not then command men to hear him. Therefore neither should it have so commanded at the transfiguration. Objection 4: Further, things should not be said to those who cannot bear them, according to Jn. 16:12: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” But the disciples could not bear the Father’s voice; for it is written (Mat. 17:6) that “the disciples hearing, fell upon their face, and were very much afraid.” Therefore the Father’s voice should not have been addressed to them. On the contrary is the authority of the Gospel. I answer that, The adoption of the sons of God is through a certain conformity of image to the natural Son of God. Now this takes place in two ways: first, by the grace of the wayfarer, which is imperfect conformity; secondly, by glory, which is perfect conformity, according to 1 Jn. 3:2: “We are now the sons of God, and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be: we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him, because we shall see Him as He is.” Since, therefore, it is in baptism that we acquire grace, while the clarity of the glory to come was foreshadowed in the transfiguration, therefore both in His baptism and in His transfiguration the natural sonship of Christ was fittingly made known by the testimony of the Father: because He alone with the Son and Holy Ghost is perfectly conscious of that perfect generation. Reply to Objection 1: The words quoted are to be understood of God’s eternal speaking, by which God the Father uttered the only-begotten and co-eternal Word. Nevertheless, it can be said that God uttered the same thing twice in a bodily voice, yet not for the same purpose, but in order to show the divers modes in which men can be partakers of the likeness of the eternal Sonship.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  We approached the door. Ed knocked hard. An eye appeared at the peephole. As the door opened, waves of loud music flowed over us. The joint was packed wall-to-wall. A lot of butches immediately came over to welcome Ed and shook her hand or hugged her shoulders. She gestured toward me and shouted something in their ears, but it was too loud to hear much. Several women beckoned us to share their table and each shook my hand as I sat down. Ed ordered us beers and sat down next to me. “Daisy’s already got her eye on you,” Ed yelled in my ear. “The woman sitting directly across the dance floor from us, in the blue dress. She’s checking you out.” I smiled at Daisy. She dropped her eyes and then boldly met mine. After a few minutes she whispered something to her girlfriend and stood up. She was wearing blue spike heels that matched her dress. With a steady step, she made her way directly to our table. “Lord have mercy on your soul, girl,’ Ed shouted at me as I rose to meet Daisy. Daisy put out her hand and tugged me toward the dance floor. Edwin grabbed my other hand and pulled me down near her ear. “Are you still uptight?” she yelled. “T’m adjusting,” I shouted back over my shoulder. “T don’t believe you back there,” Ed said to me hours later as we left the club. “I adjusting,’ she mimicked me with a laugh and punched my shoulder. “Girl, you're just lucky that Daisy’s ex wasn’t there. She would have kicked your mutherfuckin’ white ass.” She was interrupted by a hand on her shoulder that spun her around. I was pushed hard from behind. When I turned I caught a glimpse of a cop car with both doors open. Two cops were pushing us with their nightsticks. “Up against the wall, girls.” They pushed us into an alley. Ed put her hand on the back of my shoulder as reassurance. Stone Butch Blues 937 “Keep your hands to yourself, bulldagger,’ one cop yelled as he slammed her against the wall. Even as I was shoved against the brick wall I could still feel the comfort of her hand as it had briefly touched my shoulder. “Spread your legs, girls. Wider.’ One of the cops grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my head backward as he kicked my legs apart with his boot. He took my wallet out of my back pocket and opened it. I looked over at Ed. The cop was patting her down and running his hands up her thighs. He pulled her wallet out of her pocket, took out the money, and stuffed it in his own pocket. “Eyes straight ahead,” the cop behind me had his mouth close to my eat.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I wanted to spend the day there. Each room off the huge center hall was devoted to a different branch of science. One was named the Hall of Man—it turned out to include women, too. There were tooms that revealed the secrets of atoms, of universes. I wished I could stay and devour all that knowledge. I hoped somehow it would make sense of the world to me. But I could feel my bladder begin to ache, and the two bathrooms were in plain sight of the woman behind the souvenir counter. I just couldn’t deal with it. I left the secrets of the universe behind, got back in the car, and drove to Gloria’s house to use the bathroom in privacy. Grant and I sat in the car outside the doctor’s office. “T’m scared,’ she admitted. “Me too. When I was a kid,’ I told her, “I felt like there was no place in the world for me to fit. That’s how I feel now.” Grant nodded and exhaled cigarette smoke through her teeth. “T tell you, kid, I don’t know what’s worse. Never knowing what it’s like to be accepted or having what little bit you had taken away, you know?” I sure did. “C’mon, let’s go,” I urged her. The doctor’s name was stenciled on the translucent glass door. It looked dark inside. “Maybe he’s not here,” Grant said. I grabbed her arm. “I’m not pushing you,” I told her, “but P’ve run out of options.” Grant sucked in her breath. I tried the door—it was open. The doctor was in. Dr. Monroe led us to his inner office and gestured for us to sit down. I declined. I looked around his office walls. “Where are all your diplomas?” Grant glared at me. She addressed Dr. Monroe. “You remember I called you.” He looked me up and down. God, he hates us, I thought to myself. He licked his lips. “I believe it was concerning a hormone imbalance you both share.” What did this guy think, that we had tape recorders wired to out bodies? “Did you bring the money?” he asked. As we pulled out our wallets, Monroe pulled out his prescription pad. “I assume you’ve given this a great deal of thought,” he said, like he was really concerned. We both nodded. He showed us how to draw one cc of male hormones into a syringe and stick it into the thigh muscle. “You give yourself one shot every two weeks. Any questions?” “T’ve got some questions,” I said. Grant and the doctor both looked startled. “Like how long befote it works and are there any side effects?” “Well,” the doctor rolled a pencil between his index finger and his thumb, “that’s hard to say.” “Why is that?” I wanted to know. “Because this is rather,” he hesitated, “experimental. You may experience side effects: hair loss, weight gain, acne.” Great, I thought, just great.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  My mom hated the hood. She didn’t like my friends there. If I brought them back to the house, she didn’t even want them coming inside. “I don’t like those boys,” she’d say. She didn’t hate them personally; she hated what they represented. “You and those boys get into so much shit,” she’d say. “You must be careful who you surround yourself with because where you are can determine who you are.” She said the thing she hated most about the hood was that it didn’t pressure me to become better. She wanted me to hang out with my cousin at his university. “What’s the difference if I’m at university or I’m in the hood?” I’d say. “It’s not like I’m going to university.” “Yes, but the pressure of the university is going to get you. I know you. You won’t sit by and watch these guys become better than you. If you’re in an environment that is positive and progressive, you too will become that. I keep telling you to change your life, and you don’t. One day you’re going to get arrested, and when you do, don’t call me. I’ll tell the police to lock you up just to teach you a lesson.” Because there were some black parents who’d actually do that, not pay their kid’s bail, not hire their kid a lawyer—the ultimate tough love. But it doesn’t always work, because you’re giving the kid tough love when maybe he just needs love. You’re trying to teach him a lesson, and now that lesson is the rest of his life. — One morning I saw an ad in the paper. Some shop was having a clearance sale on mobile phones, and they were selling them at such a ridiculous price I knew Bongani and I could flip them in the hood for a profit. This shop was out in the suburbs, too far to walk and too out-of-the-way to take a minibus. Fortunately my stepfather’s workshop and a bunch of old cars were in our backyard. I’d been stealing Abel’s junkers to get around since I was fourteen. I would say I was test driving them to make sure they’d been repaired correctly. Abel didn’t think that was funny. I’d been caught many times, caught and subjected to my mother’s wrath. But that had never stopped me from doing anything. Most of these junkers weren’t street legal. They didn’t have proper registrations or proper number plates. Luckily, Abel also had a stack of old number plates in the back of the garage. I quickly learned I could just put one on an old car and hit the road. I was nineteen, maybe twenty, not thinking about any of the ramifications of this. I stopped by Abel’s garage when no one was around, picked up one of the cars, the red Mazda I’d taken to the matric dance, slapped some old plates on it, and set off in search of discounted cell phones.