THE BUS RIDE TO LOS ANGELES was long and tiresome. African American passengers on the bus started singing at some point, trying to make the journey less boring. Almost everyone was on their way to a new life in a new city. I arrived midmorning and headed for a pay phone to call Coach Mack, which had been my instructions. I tried him a couple of times, but no one was picking up. In time, all the other passengers found their rides and departed, leaving me stranded and alone in a foreign place. Had I not already been through war, famine, and everything in between, I might have been scared. Instead, I just waited for an hour or two and tried again. This time he picked up and made his way to the bus station.
COACH MACK: Hey, Ger, welcome to the City of Angels!
He drove me to a house owned by a lady named Tracie, an extremely beautiful and hospitable mother of three, who was housing other basketball players brought in by Coach Mack, who was an assistant to the head coach, Reggie Morris. Not long after, I got recruited to join Los Angeles Southwest College, an offer that came with a full scholarship. Even though Coach Mack had gotten me out here, nothing was a given. I had to earn my place on the team—and then keep it. I became the token African guy who plays hard on the basketball court, and all of a sudden everyone in the neighborhood wanted a piece of me.
TYPICAL NEIGHBOR: So how was it growing up in Africa?
They didn’t care—not really. But I’d engage in small talk, never divulging enough about my experience to let them in, but not putting them off by acting indifferent either.
One evening, I was scrimmaging with a few teammates. I was training hard and trying to focus more on my physical fitness so I could blow away the competition when it was game time.
My opponent on offense was charging upcourt with the ball, and I used some smooth moves to shut him down. I cut him off, forcing him to give up the ball, which clearly rankled him. He threw his body weight at me such that I fell and bent my thumb back. I was rushed to the university health services to have it looked at, and then braced in a splint.
My heart broke when I got the news: I’d torn a ligament in my thumb, which meant staying off the court for a good chunk of the remainder of the season and most likely not getting my scholarship renewed. I’d be unable to afford to return next semester.
As I ran out the clock on my college career, one afternoon I sat down behind the theater building on campus, passing time before my computer information systems class. Out of nowhere, an African American gentleman with a square forehead and teeth like a goat’s approached me.
GENTLEMAN: Hey, how are you? Do you come from Africa?
ME: Yes, I come from Sudan in Africa.
GENTLEMAN: I work in the theater arts department as the acting coach, and we’re producing an Africa-themed play. Why don’t you drop by the rehearsals and see if it’s something that would interest you?
ME: Sure. I wouldn’t mind checking it out.
The invitation to the rehearsal came as a timely, much-needed break. I was studying hard and spent a lot of time alone, sometimes passing by the gym to watch my former teammates train. I’d catch myself lost in thought about my predicament now that I was injured. If basketball didn’t work out, could I craft a professional career for myself, or would I spiral downward and become a loser?
I went to the rehearsal the following day just to see what it was like to act in the theater. I watched the actors discussing their characters and working on their African accents. The play was about kings, queens, and warriors, and how their strong cultures have sustained the continent. More specifically, it centered on Jaja of Opobo, king of a Nigerian city-state who, much like America’s Frederick Douglass, was known for his political acumen and stunning intellect and for having freed himself from slavery.
The director-playwright was a curvaceous African American lady with big brown eyes. She always dressed in black pants with a black shirt and seemed so sophisticated and erudite. She wore her hair in Afro puffs similar to those of the rapper the Lady of Rage.
After the play, she took me backstage.
DIRECTOR: Hey, guys, we have a new warrior, Ger.
ME: Hello, guys.
ACTORS: Welcome to our family.
DIRECTOR: We’ve finally got an actor who can fit the role of an African warrior. He’s from Sudan. Isn’t he handsome? How many languages do you speak?
ME: About four.
DIRECTOR: I’d like for you to say something in your language, if you are comfortable, but no pressure. Your presence alone with your spear in your hand will be great.
I found it a little hilarious, to be asked to stand bare-chested, holding a spear. It reminded me of home in Sudan. Easy enough, I figured.
What excited me most was the ability to be part of the cast, to watch in silence as people recited their lines onstage. We rehearsed three times a week, and my job was to stand there like a statue. There was always an audience watching the rehearsals, and they all got the sense that maybe I couldn’t speak proper English and thus had been given the role of a human prop, never to say a word. But when they’d hear me speak after rehearsals, they’d then wonder why I wasn’t being given a single line to recite. But I was the one holding me back, not anyone involved in the production. I still hadn’t figured out how best to express myself in America.
And then one day during rehearsals, I took a leap of faith.
At one point in the play, instead of standing in place, as instructed, I jumped down from the stage with no shirt on and the spear in my hand and roared.
ME: Hululululu!
I’d felt the moment in my bones. I knew that my action was honest—it’s what a man in that position, a man guarding his king, would have done. Everyone in the theater was shocked: my character had never done that before. The other actors went silent. The rehearsal audience clapped and roared.
AUDIENCE: Yeah!
Later on, as we debriefed backstage, the playwright singled me out. She was thrilled by the excitement my improvisation had generated.
PLAYWRIGHT: Ger, that was a powerful move you did out there!
ME: Thank you.
ACTING COACH: I think it’s high time we got you some lines. You’re not shy, you just needed to feel the truth of the moment in your gut. You needed to find your voice.
The play ran for a number of days, to a full house each time. Word had gone out that I’d joined the play’s cast, and everyone who knew me from the basketball court showed up just to see me in action. The acting coach, the gentleman who had first approached me to join the play, told me I should consider taking acting more seriously, pointing out that well-honed acting skills could land me in places and spaces I hadn’t imagined inhabiting, especially in Los Angeles.
ACTING COACH: The truth is, you can do more in LA with acting.
ME: You think so? I am just a basketball player. I don’t think I can last long in this business.
ACTING COACH: We will help you train, brother!
Although at that time it seemed like mere talk, I enrolled in some theater classes to gain credits toward graduation. I realized I enjoyed acting as an outlet for my own emotions. I could embody the life experiences of another person, channel their inner selves, express their joy, pain, anger, or suffering—and release my own in the process. It was a kind of catharsis—a better release than any of the others I’d tried so far (fighting, partying, retreating, hiding). And it was a way to bridge my past and the future.