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 Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Whether fear makes one tremble?Objection 1: It would seem that trembling is not an effect of fear. Because trembling is occasioned by cold; thus we observe that a cold person trembles. Now fear does not seem to make one cold, but rather to cause a parching heat: a sign whereof is that those who fear are thirsty, especially if their fear be very great, as in the case of those who are being led to execution. Therefore fear does not cause trembling. Objection 2: Further, faecal evacuation is occasioned by heat; hence laxative medicines are generally warm. But these evacuations are often caused by fear. Therefore fear apparently causes heat; and consequently does not cause trembling. Objection 3: Further, in fear, the heat is withdrawn from the outer to the inner parts of the body. If, therefore, man trembles in his outward parts, through the heat being withdrawn thus; it seems that fear should cause this trembling in all the external members. But such is not the case. Therefore trembling of the body is not caused by fear. On the contrary, Cicero says (De Quaest. Tusc. iv, 8) that “fear is followed by trembling, pallor and chattering of the teeth.” I answer that, As stated above [1401](A[1]), in fear there takes place a certain contraction from the outward to the inner parts of the body, the result being that the outer parts become cold; and for this reason trembling is occasioned in these parts, being caused by a lack of power in controlling the members: which lack of power is due to the want of heat, which is the instrument whereby the soul moves those members, as stated in De Anima ii, 4. Reply to Objection 1: When the heat withdraws from the outer to the inner parts, the inward heat increases, especially in the inferior or nutritive parts. Consequently the humid element being spent, thirst ensues; sometimes indeed the result is a loosening of the bowels, and urinary or even seminal evacuation. Or else such like evacuations are due to contraction of the abdomen and testicles, as the Philosopher says (De Problem. xxii, 11). This suffices for the Reply to the Second Objection. Reply to Objection 3: In fear, heat abandons the heart, with a downward movement: hence in those who are afraid the heart especially trembles, as also those members which are connected with the breast where the heart resides. Hence those who fear tremble especially in their speech, on account of the tracheal artery being near the heart. The lower lip, too, and the lower jaw tremble, through their connection with the heart; which explains the chattering of the teeth. For the same reason the arms and hands tremble. Or else because the aforesaid members are more mobile. For which reason the knees tremble in those who are afraid, according to Is. 35:3: “Strengthen ye the feeble hands, and confirm the trembling [Vulg.: ‘weak’] knees.”

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

  CHRYSOSTOM. He had not enjoined them to punish the false prophets, and therefore shews them the terrors of that punishment that is of God, saying, Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down, and cast into the fire. In these words He seems to aim also at the Jews, and thus calls to mind the word of John the Baptist, denouncing punishment against them in the very same words. For he had thus spoken to the Jews, warning them of the axe impending, the tree that should be cut down, and the fire that could not be extinguished. But if one will examine somewhat closely, here are two punishments, to be cut down, and to be burned; and he that is burned is also altogether cut out of the kingdom; which is the harder punishment. Many indeed fear no more than hell; but I say that the fall of that glory is a far more bitter punishment, than the pains of hell itself. For what evil great or small would not a father undergo, that he might see and enjoy a most dear son? Let us then think the same of that glory; for there is no son so dear to his father as is the rest of the good, to be deceased and to be with Christ. The pain of hell is indeed intolerable, yet are ten thousand hells nothing to falling from that blessed glory, and being held in hate by Christ. GLOSS. (non occ.) From the foregoing similitude He draws the conclusion to what He had said before, as being now manifest, saying, Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them. 7:21–2321. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. JEROME. As He had said above that those who have the robe of a good life are yet not to be received because of the impiety of their doctrines; so now on the other hand, He forbids us to participate the faith with those who while they are strong in sound doctrine, destroy it with evil works. For it behoves the servants of God that both their work should be approved by their teaching and their teaching by their works. And therefore He says, Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, enters into the kingdom of heaven. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xxiv.) Wherein He seems to touch the Jews chiefly who placed every thing in dogmas; as Paul accuses them, If thou art called a Jew, and restest in the Law. (Rom. 2:17.)

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I was still me on the inside, trapped in there with all my wounds and fears. But I was no longer me on the outside. I remember the morning I left work at the macaroni plant just before dawn. I was walking up Elmwood toward my bike. A woman on the sidewalk ahead of me looked over her shoulder nervously. I slowed my pace as she crossed the street and hurried away. She was afraid of me. That’s when I began to understand that passing changed almost everything. Two things didn’t change: I still had to work for a living, and I still lived in fear, only now it was the constant terror of discovery. I never realized what a small town Buffalo could be. 186 = Leslie Feinberg “Where'd you go to high schoolP” Eddie asked me after we finished unloading cartons from a truck. Should I lie or tell the truth? “Bennett,” I answered honestly. “No kidding? When did you graduate?” I fumbled for an answer. I had lied on my job application for this truck delivery position. I said Pd graduated from high school. “Uh, I transferred in my junior year.” “Yeah? When?” “Oh, I don’t know. Around 765, I guess.” “No kidding? My brother-in-law went to Bennett around the same time. His name’s Bobby—played football. You know hime” Bobby the rapist. My fists clenched and I ground my teeth. “Naw, I don’t think so.” Eddie nodded. “No loss. He could really be an asshole, if you ask me. You alright?” “Yeah, just a little sick, that’s all.” “Well, sit down a minute,” Eddie said. “Listen Eddie, ’m gonna run to the store for something.” And then I walked away. I just kept walking, faster and faster. I was running from my own past. I guess I could have left the city, but it felt as though I'd fall off the edge of the earth. So I stayed. But I always had to be looking over my shoulder in public, afraid ’d run into someone who knew me as a woman. Sometimes I didn’t see them until they saw me, like the time Gloria and the kids were shopping downtown. I was an aisle away in the men’s department. Gloria recognized me just a moment before I saw her. Her jaw dropped. She grabbed Kim and Scotty by their hands and tried to drag them away. Scotty got scared and cried. Kim called my name. “Jess! It’s Jess!” I came up to Gloria and put my hand on her shoulder. She pulled away in horror and wrapped her arms around Scotty and Kim as though she was protecting them from Count Dracula. “Gloria, for Christsakes, I’m just trying to survive, you know? It’s not such a big deal.” “Get away from me. What have you done?” she asked me in a strange, low voice. “What are you doing?” “Trying to live, Gloria. Give me a break, will yar”

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

  34The History of Christianity II õIn the summer of 1535, two traitors let the bishop’s forces into the town, and they conquered quickly. They captured John and two of his lieutenants. Executioners bound each man to a pole with a spiked collar, heated iron pinchers until they were red-hot, and used these to rip their bodies apart for an hour. They used the tongs to pull out each man’s tongue, then finally—if they weren’t dead already—drove a burning-hot knife through his heart. The point of this sadism was to send a clear message about what would happen if anyone defied the bishop’s authority again. õThe bishop and Lutheran princes thought this social experiment in Münster was dangerous because it showed that radical new theology might lead to a radical challenge to existing political authority. THE ANABAPTISTS õThe radicals of Münster were Anabaptists. The word means “re- baptizer”; they believed that if you were baptized as an infant, it didn’t count, and you must be baptized again as an adult who makes the decision to join the true church. Their questioning of Catholic and Protestant views on community organization, political power, and ultimate salvation made them a protest movement that spread throughout Europe. õThe Münster radicals were not the first Anabaptists. They originally spawned from a dispute between the Swiss Protestant reformer Huldrych Zwingli and some of his followers about a decade earlier. One follower in particular, Conrad Grebel, thought Zwingli was way too patient and diplomatic with the Zurich city council. õParticular points of contention were baptism and Zwingli’s decision to let the people of Zurich continue to celebrate Mass in the Catholic way until they were ready for reform. Grebel came to the conclusion that Zwingli obeyed man rather than God. 35Lecture 4—The Anabaptist Radicals õIn the winter of 1524–1525, Grebel and some other Anabaptists challenged Zwingli to a debate. When the city council took Zwingli’s side and ordered the radicals to get in line, they met in secret and decided to form a new church that would follow the Bible and break away from the powers of the sinful world. õIn 1527, some Anabaptists got together to write a statement of faith called the Schleitheim Confession. Grebel wasn’t there—he died in 1526. He would have approved, though. The Schleitheim Confession insisted that Anabaptists would not serve in the military, swear any political oath, or even file a lawsuit in a secular court. They wanted complete “separation from Abomination,” as they put it. And they knew they would suffer for these decisions. To them, suffering was part of following Christ’s example. 36The History of Christianity II THE MENNONITES õPerhaps the most well known branch of the Anabaptist movement is the Mennonites, named for their founder, the Dutch priest Menno Simons. Originally a Catholic, he pored over the Bible and came to the same conclusion that Conrad Grebel had: No one in the Bible baptizes babies, so Christians shouldn’t do it either.

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

  “Hey! Why are you hanging out with the blacks?” “Because I am black.” “No, you’re not. You’re colored.” “Ah, yes. I know it looks that way, friend, but let me explain. It’s a funny story, actually. My father is white and my mother is black and race is a social construct, so…” That wasn’t going to work. Not here. All of this was happening in my head in an instant, on the fly. I was doing crazy calculations, looking at people, scanning the room, assessing the variables. If I go here, then this. If I go there, then that. My whole life was flashing before me—the playground at school, the spaza shops in Soweto, the streets of Eden Park—every time and every place I ever had to be a chameleon, navigate between groups, explain who I was. It was like the high school cafeteria, only it was the high school cafeteria from hell because if I picked the wrong table I might get beaten or stabbed or raped. I’d never been more scared in my life. But I still had to pick. Because racism exists, and you have to pick a side. You can say that you don’t pick sides, but eventually life will force you to pick a side. That day I picked white. They just didn’t look like they could hurt me. It was a handful of average, middle-aged white dudes. I walked over to them. We hung out for a while, chatted a bit. They were mostly in for white-collar crimes, money schemes, fraud and racketeering. They’d be useless if anyone came over looking to start trouble; they’d get their asses kicked as well. But they weren’t going to do anything to me. I was safe. Luckily the time went by fairly quickly. I was in there for only an hour before I was called up to court, where a judge would either let me go or send me to prison to await trial. As I was leaving, one of the white guys reached over to me. “Make sure you don’t come back down here,” he said. “Cry in front of the judge; do whatever you have to do. If you go up and get sent back down here, your life will never be the same.” Up in the courtroom, I found my lawyer waiting. My cousin Mlungisi was there, too, in the gallery, ready to post my bail if things went my way. The bailiff read out my case number, and the judge looked up at me. “How are you?” he said. I broke down. I’d been putting on this tough-guy facade for nearly a week, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. “I-I’m not fine, Your Honor. I’m not fine.” He looked confused. “What?!” I said, “I’m not fine, sir. I’m really suffering.” “Why are you telling me this?” “Because you asked how I was.” “Who asked you?” “You did. You just asked me.”

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

  This cop pulled me aside and said, “Listen, you don’t want to go to your bail hearing. They’ll give you a state attorney who won’t know what’s going on. He’ll have no time for you. He’ll ask the judge for a postponement, and then maybe you’ll go free or maybe you won’t. Trust me, you don’t want to do that. You have the right to stay here for as long as you like. You want to meet with a lawyer and set yourself up before you go anywhere near a court or a judge.” He wasn’t giving me this advice out of the goodness of his heart. He had a deal with a defense attorney, sending him clients in exchange for a kickback. He handed me the attorney’s business card, I called him, and he agreed to take my case. He told me to stay put while he handled everything. Now I needed money, because lawyers, as nice as they are, don’t do anything for free. I called a friend and asked him if he could ask his dad to borrow some money. He said he’d handle it. He talked to his dad, and the lawyer got his retainer the next day. With the lawyer taken care of, I felt like I had things under control. I was feeling pretty slick. I’d handled the situation, and, most important, Mom and Abel were none the wiser. When the time came for lights-out a cop came and took my stuff. My belt, my wallet, my shoelaces. “Why do you need my shoelaces?” “So you don’t hang yourself.” “Right.” Even when he said that, the gravity of my situation still wasn’t sinking in. Walking to the station’s holding cell, looking around at the other six guys in there, I was thinking, This is no big deal. Everything’s gonna be cool. I’m gonna get out of this. I thought that right up until the moment the cell door clanged shut behind me and the guard yelled, “Lights out!” That’s when I thought, Oh, shit. This is real. — The guards had given me a mat and a scratchy blanket. I rolled them out on the concrete floor and tried to get comfortable. Every bad prison movie I’d ever seen was racing through my head. I was thinking, I’m gonna get raped. I’m gonna get raped. I’m gonna get raped. But of course I didn’t get raped, because this wasn’t prison. It was jail, and there’s a big difference, as I would soon come to understand. I woke up the next morning with that fleeting sensation where you think something has all been a dream. Then I looked around and remembered that it wasn’t. Breakfast came, and I settled in to wait.

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

  The strange thing was that when Fufi got kicked she never yelped or cried. When the vet diagnosed her as deaf, he also found out she had some condition where she didn’t have a fully developed sense of touch. She didn’t feel pain. Which was why she would always start over with Abel like it was a new day. He’d kick her, she’d hide, then she’d be right back the next morning, wagging her tail. “Hey. I’m here. I’ll give you another chance.” And he always got the second chance. The Abel who was likable and charming never went away. He had a drinking problem, but he was a nice guy. We had a family. Growing up in a home of abuse, you struggle with the notion that you can love a person you hate, or hate a person you love. It’s a strange feeling. You want to live in a world where someone is good or bad, where you either hate them or love them, but that’s not how people are. There was an undercurrent of terror that ran through the house, but the actual beatings themselves were not that frequent. I think if they had been, the situation would have ended sooner. Ironically, the good times in between were what allowed it to drag out and escalate as far as it did. He hit my mom once, then the next time was three years later, and it was just a little bit worse. Then it was two years later, and it was just a little bit worse. Then it was a year later, and it was just a little bit worse. It was sporadic enough to where you’d think it wouldn’t happen again, but it was frequent enough that you never forgot it was possible. There was a rhythm to it. I remember one time, after one terrible incident, nobody spoke to him for over a month. No words, no eye contact, no conversations, nothing. We moved through the house as strangers, at different times. Complete silent treatment. Then one morning you’re in the kitchen and there’s a nod. “Hey.” “Hey.” Then a week later it’s “Did you see the thing on the news?” “Yeah.” Then the next week there’s a joke and a laugh. Slowly, slowly, life goes back to how it was. Six months, a year later, you do it all again. — One afternoon I came home from Sandringham and my mom was very upset and worked up. “This man is unbelievable,” she said. “What happened?” “He bought a gun.” “What? A gun? What do you mean, ‘He bought a gun’?” A gun was such a ridiculous thing in my world. In my mind, only cops and criminals had guns. Abel had gone out and bought a 9mm Parabellum Smith & Wesson. Sleek and black, menacing. It didn’t look cool like guns in movies. It looked like it killed things. “Why did he buy a gun?” I asked. “I don’t know.”

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

  They’re sterile, institutional, with fluorescent lights and cheap floor tile, like a hospital. My cop walked me in and sat me down at the front booking desk. I was charged and fingerprinted. In the meantime, they’d been checking out the car, which wasn’t going well for me, either. Whenever I borrowed cars from Abel’s workshop, I tried to take the junkers rather than a real client’s car; I thought I’d get in less trouble that way. That was a mistake. The Mazda, being one of Abel’s junkers, didn’t have a clear title of ownership. If it had had an owner, the cops would have called the owner, the owner would have explained that the car had been dropped off for repairs, and the whole thing would have been sorted out. Since the car didn’t have an owner, I couldn’t prove I hadn’t stolen it. Carjackings were common in South Africa at the time, too. So common you weren’t even surprised when they happened. You’d have a friend coming over for a dinner party and you’d get a call. “Sorry. Got carjacked. Gonna be late.” “Ah, that sucks. Hey, guys! Dave got carjacked.” “Sorry, Dave!” And the party would continue. And that’s if the person survived the carjacking. Often they didn’t. People were getting shot for their cars all the time. Not only could I not prove I hadn’t stolen the car, I couldn’t prove I hadn’t murdered someone for it, either. The cops were grilling me. “You kill anyone to get that car, boy? Eh? You a killer?” I was in deep, deep trouble. I had only one lifeline: my parents. One call would have fixed everything. “This is my stepfather. He’s a mechanic. I borrowed his car when I shouldn’t have.” Done. At worst I’d get a slap on the wrist for driving a car that wasn’t registered. But what would I be getting at home? I sat there in the police station—arrested for suspicion of grand theft auto, a plausible suspect for carjacking or murder—and debated whether I should call my parents or go to jail. With my stepfather I was thinking, He might actually kill me. In my mind that was an entirely realistic scenario. With my mother I was thinking, She’s going to make this worse. She’s not the character witness I want right now. She won’t help me. Because she’d told me she wouldn’t. “If you ever get arrested, don’t call me.” I needed someone sympathetic to my plight, and I didn’t believe she was that person. So I didn’t call my parents. I decided I didn’t need them. I was a man. I could go it alone.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Nothing happened when I stopped taking hormones. For months I got up every morning and raced to the mirror, breathless with anticipation. Nothing changed. It was sort of anticlimactic. It took many hours of electrolysis before I began to feel the softness of my cheeks again. One morning I got up and found menstrual blood on my BVDs. I threw them out rather than risk anyone at the laundry seeing the apparent contradiction. But the real motion was taking place inside of me. I had to be honest with myself, it was as urgent as breathing. When I sat alone and asked what it was I really wanted, the answer was change. I didn’t regret the decision to take hormones. I wouldn’t have survived much longer without passing, And the surgery was a gift to myself, a coming home to my body. But I wanted more than to just barely exist, a stranger always trying not to get involved. I wanted to find out who I was, to define myself. Whoever I was, I wanted to deal with it, I wanted to live it again. I wanted to be able to explain my life, how the world looked from behind my eyes. Yet I was so afraid to come out and face the world again. I wondered why I had to choose the opening years of the Reagan administration and the rise of the Moral Majority to demand the right to be myself. Would they arm villagers with torches and stakes and stalk me through the countryside? Would I stand alone, handcuffed in a precinct cell, with no one to turn to if I survived the nightmare? But then I acknowledged that no matter who had been in the White House, it had always been hard to be me. Stone Butch Blues 243 Between a rock and a hard place—something told me this lifetime wasn’t going to get any easier. I'd already been through a lot though, and it didn’t seem to me it could get much worse. Once again I couldn’t see the road ahead. I was still steering my own course through uncharted waters, relying on constellations that were not fixed. I wished there was someone, somewhere I could ask: What should I do? But no such person existed in my world. I was the only expert on living my own life, the only person I could turn to for answers. I knew I was changing when people began to gawk at me again. It had taken a year. My hips strained the seams of men’s pants. My beard grew wispy and fine from electrolysis. My face looked softer. Once my voice was hormone-lowered, however, it stayed there. And my chest was still flat. My body was blending gender characteristics, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

• 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 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.

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

  A secondhand car was also the reason my mom got married. If it hadn’t been for the Volkswagen that didn’t work, we never would have looked for the mechanic who became the husband who became the stepfather who became the man who tortured us for years and put a bullet in the back of my mother’s head—I’ll take the new car with the warranty every time. As much as I loved church, the idea of a nine-hour slog, from mixed church to white church to black church then doubling back to white church again, was just too much to contemplate. It was bad enough in a car, but taking public transport would be twice as long and twice as hard. When the Volkswagen refused to start, inside my head I was praying, Please say we’ll just stay home. Please say we’ll just stay home. Then I glanced over to see the determined look on my mother’s face, her jaw set, and I knew I had a long day ahead of me. “Come,” she said. “We’re going to catch minibuses.” — My mother is as stubborn as she is religious. Once her mind’s made up, that’s it. Indeed, obstacles that would normally lead a person to change their plans, like a car breaking down, only made her more determined to forge ahead. “It’s the Devil,” she said about the stalled car. “The Devil doesn’t want us to go to church. That’s why we’ve got to catch minibuses.” Whenever I found myself up against my mother’s faith-based obstinacy, I would try, as respectfully as possible, to counter with an opposing point of view. “Or,” I said, “the Lord knows that today we shouldn’t go to church, which is why he made sure the car wouldn’t start, so that we stay at home as a family and take a day of rest, because even the Lord rested.” “Ah, that’s the Devil talking, Trevor.” “No, because Jesus is in control, and if Jesus is in control and we pray to Jesus, he would let the car start, but he hasn’t, therefore—” “No, Trevor! Sometimes Jesus puts obstacles in your way to see if you overcome them. Like Job. This could be a test.” “Ah! Yes, Mom. But the test could be to see if we’re willing to accept what has happened and stay at home and praise Jesus for his wisdom.” “No. That’s the Devil talking. Now go change your clothes.” “But, Mom!” “Trevor! Sun’qhela!” Sun’qhela is a phrase with many shades of meaning. It says “don’t undermine me,” “don’t underestimate me,” and “just try me.” It’s a command and a threat, all at once. It’s a common thing for Xhosa parents to say to their kids. Any time I heard it I knew it meant the conversation was over, and if I uttered another word I was in for a hiding—what we call a spanking.

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

  He thought he was in the bathroom. That’s how drunk he would get—he wouldn’t know which room in the house he was in. There were so many nights he would stumble into my room thinking it was his and kick me out of bed and pass out. I’d yell at him, but it was like talking to a zombie. I’d go sleep on the couch. He’d get wasted with his crew in the backyard every evening after work, and many nights he’d end up fighting with one of them. Someone would say something Abel didn’t like, and he’d beat the shit out of him. The guy wouldn’t show up for work Tuesday or Wednesday, but then by Thursday he’d be back because he needed the job. Every few weeks it was the same story, like clockwork. Abel kicked the dogs, too. Fufi, mostly. Panther was smart enough to stay away, but dumb, lovable Fufi was forever trying to be Abel’s friend. She’d cross his path or be in his way when he’d had a few, and he’d give her the boot. After that she’d go and hide somewhere for a while. Fufi getting kicked was always the warning sign that shit was about to go down. The dogs and the workers in the yard often got the first taste of his anger, and that would let the rest of us know to lie low. I’d usually go find Fufi wherever she was hiding and be with her. The strange thing was that when Fufi got kicked she never yelped or cried. When the vet diagnosed her as deaf, he also found out she had some condition where she didn’t have a fully developed sense of touch. She didn’t feel pain. Which was why she would always start over with Abel like it was a new day. He’d kick her, she’d hide, then she’d be right back the next morning, wagging her tail. “Hey. I’m here. I’ll give you another chance.” And he always got the second chance. The Abel who was likable and charming never went away. He had a drinking problem, but he was a nice guy. We had a family. Growing up in a home of abuse, you struggle with the notion that you can love a person you hate, or hate a person you love. It’s a strange feeling. You want to live in a world where someone is good or bad, where you either hate them or love them, but that’s not how people are. There was an undercurrent of terror that ran through the house, but the actual beatings themselves were not that frequent.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “You want more truth, Ruth? There’s a place somewhere inside of me where I’ve never been touched before. I’m afraid you'll touch me there. And I’m afraid you won't. My femme lovers knew me well, but they never crossed those boundaries inside of me. They tried to coax me across the borders into their arms, but they never came after me. You’re right there with me. There’s no place for me to hide. It scares me.” Ruth smiled sadly. “Isn’t it funny? That’s exactly why I would like to make love with you.” We lay quietly. I kissed her hair. “Oh, Ruth, I haven’t had to navigate sex in a long time, with anyone. I don’t even know who I am as a lover anymore. But ’m scared you'll leave me now. Can’t we figure it out as we go along? Please stay in my life. I need you so much.” Ruth got up on one elbow and kissed my lips. “T need you, too.” I held one of her hands, marveling at how small mine looked in hers. She dropped her eyes while I kissed each one of her knuckles. “T’ve been thinking a lot about my life since my jaw got broken,” I told her. “I once read about warriors who resolve before they go into battle that 999 “Today is a good day to die. Stone Butch Blues 295 Ruth smiled. “It’s a brave thought, but I don’t want to die.” I nodded. “At first I thought it meant resigning myself to death. But now I think it means facing my own life at the moment I’m facing my enemy. Maybe that’s the key to fighting fearlessly, to surviving. I’ve left a lot of things unfinished in my life. It makes me more afraid to die. It holds me back in a fight.” Ruth frowned. “Like what?” “T always wanted to leave something important behind. Remember the history book you gave me for Christmas?” Ruth nodded. “Pve been going to the library, looking up our history. There’s a ton of it in anthropology books, a ton of it, Ruth. We haven’t always been hated. Why didn’t we grow up knowing that?” Ruth propped herself up on her elbow and watched my face as I spoke. “It’s changed the way I think. I grew up believing the way things are now is the way they’ve always been, so why even bother trying to change the world? But just finding out that it was ever different, even if it was long ago, made me feel things could change again. Whether or not I live to see it. “At work, when everyone else is at lunch, Pve been typesetting all the history I’ve found, trying to 296 = Leslie Feinberg