Refugee Song
I spent third grade running away from Ryan Harlan. The one who called me “stinking faggot” on the bus and poured hot tea on my back. I punched him and ran through the streets, backyards, ripped my shirt on a metal fence. Every day since, right at the bell, I ran home from school. A kitchen knife in my backpack I knew I wouldn’t use. Ryan Harlan changed schools the following year, yet I was still a stink bug. Strangely, my odor was a magnet for predators, instead of warding them off. Now look at me. I’m shaking and crying on a cruise ship – almost climbed the hull and jumped in the water! A tall werewolf of a man pulls me back by my shirt, comforts me, his hand on my shoulder, soft tenor words I can’t hear. There are murmurs and shouts from the open deck below, but I take the prize: my screaming breaks my voice. My finger pointing at the rowboat. A rowboat! A piece of wood surrounded by miles of undrinkable water. Full of ant-sized people, someone waving a white flag. “It’s ok, it’s going to be fine, they’re picking them up,” the Werewolf says. The furrow of his brow, a concern emanating from his marrow, takes the wind out of me. A familiarity, an old song. “You’re here, you’re safe.” Thirty-two minutes pass before heart, breath and sweat believe him.
https://www.advocate.com/news/gay-cruise-refugee-sea-rescue‘Vacaya chief executive Randle Roper, who witnessed the rescue from the liner, took to Facebook to share clips of the moment.
“In my 22 years in the industry, I’ve never had such an emotional day,” he wrote. “I’m so happy we were able to bring them on board safely and provide medical care, dry clothes, food and, most importantly, water. It’s sad that some people have to put themselves through such trauma in hopes of finding a better life.”’
