PAUL JANGJUOL, THE MINISTER WHO had ushered us out of Sudan and with whom I’d lived in Des Moines, finally returned to America, bringing along another set of refugees with him, and news that my mother was alive and well.

ME: Paul, welcome back! How’s my mum and the boys? And Nyakuar?

PAUL: She wept with joy when I gave her your letter.

I felt ecstatic, knowing my mother was aware I was still alive. But that was displaced by an immediate silence between us. Soon I was holding my breath as though I’d sunk beneath the waves of the Nile, waiting for Paul to say whatever it was he clearly didn’t want to.

PAUL: Ger. It’s your elder brother Chuol.

I knew it. It was as though good news could never travel without its older, wiser chaperone: bad.

PAUL: He tried to follow the same path as you to the States but somehow got waylaid in Addis Ababa. He ended up living on the streets there, alone and lonely and…

ME: He died?

PAUL: From either starvation or disease.

ME: Like so many other Lost Boys.

We are the Lost Boys of Sudan—lost because, in fleeing war, we scattered across the earth. Lost because, once we stopped running, we struggled to find a purpose. Lost because, wherever we settled, no one knew what to do with us. Lost because, no matter where we went, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves.

My brother was victim of a madness brought on by what I could now identify as post-traumatic stress disorder. Without ever being physically wounded, he was yet another casualty of war. Historians and politicians go on and on about those who died, who lost their lives in war—but not those who lived, whose lives were lost like mine. And Chuol’s. Survivors—but now ghosts of who we once were.

I was devastated, haunted by this news, but I simply couldn’t allow myself to think about it. If I did, sorrow and survivor’s guilt would have sent me plummeting into a heavy depression. Despite my decision to move forward, I caught myself crying quietly at night, reenacting Chuol’s predicament in my mind. I quietly mourned my brother and refused to share the news with anyone, pushing my pain deeper and deeper inside my organs. Locking it up tight.

I tried hard not to fall back into old self-destructive habits and got back to basketball and school. At some point, while visiting Kueth at Syracuse, I was taking a nap in his dorm room after a workout when the phone rang.

KUETH: Hello?…Ger! Telephone!

ME: Who would be calling me here?

KUETH: How should I know?

I picked up the receiver.

ME: Hello?

VOICE: Ger?

ME: Yes. That’s me.

VOICE: My name is Mary Vernieu. I’m one of the casting directors for the film I Heart Huckabees. We’d like to offer you a role in our upcoming movie at Universal Studios.

ME: Really? That’s very nice. Thank you.

I hung up the phone. Kueth knew exactly what had happened and went ballistic.

KUETH: Ger, my man, I told you! I told you they’d pick you, my man!

I didn’t understand the magnitude of the news. It could have been that Chuol’s death was eating me up silently, tamping down any emotion I might otherwise have felt. I was just…neutral—about everything—though my insides were tearing themselves apart. Manute and Shannon called shortly after.

MANUTE: Ger, man, you’ve got the role. Everyone here is ecstatic!

Not too long after, I received in the mail a yellow draft of the script. Every night, Kueth and I stayed up and went through it, trying to get me into the proper state of mind for playing the part. Kueth’s enthusiasm never subsided one bit.

KUETH: Ger, man, you’ll be the Will Smith of Sudan, man!

A few weeks later, I received an airline ticket to Los Angeles from Universal Studios. I was to spend three weeks shooting, playing a character named Stephen Nimieri.

For the first time in my life, I flew first class. And that’s when I began sensing something huge was happening. This was unlike my trip across the Atlantic.

I was seated next to well-dressed men and women, and the basketball player in me, wearing shorts and a white T-shirt, felt a lot out of place. The seats were made of leather and I had room to stretch out my long legs. I was offered champagne, but I wasn’t much of a drinker, so I buried myself in the script instead. I could hardly concentrate, though, my mind wandering to thoughts of how I got here and why me.

I landed in Los Angeles and was met by a chauffeur holding a placard with my name on it. He opened the back door of a black limousine for me and drove me to my hotel, the Marina del Rey, a side of the city I had never experienced. My bag was taken to my suite, and then we drove to the production office, where I was given five hundred dollars cash for pocket change!

Though I’d read the script, I didn’t understand much of it, and the director and producer spent a lot of time coaching me. Storytelling was such a valued tradition and skill back home, and the narrative process involved in filmmaking appealed to me—it was something I wanted to master. I had searched for a way to tell my story. I’d felt that no one who wasn’t a Lost Boy could possibly understand me. Yet I wanted so badly to be understood.

I put my heart and soul into the part. It wasn’t a big role, but it meant the world, because I was able to let a bit of me out onscreen. And because some kids out there who looked like me might see me—find me—and hope for more for themselves.