Authors: Tomas Mournian
My eyes are drawn to a small, neatly wrapped present.
Ahmed
is written in Arabic on a tiny envelope. I slide the card out. It’s a reproduction of a famous painting. I turn it over. “Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird.” I open the card and read.
Dear Ben,
The Hummingbird is used here as a “love” amulet because this bird is considered to have special powers to attract matters of the heart.
At least that’s what I read somewhere. In fact, some Mexicans will wear amulets of hummingbird dust as a love potion … or so my sources say!
Where I’m living now, I have a hummingbird feeder hanging from a hook outside the kitchen window.
There are three customers.
Lolita, my cat, “bird” watches them like she’s hypnotized. She makes weird noises and whisker twitches as the hummingbirds pass by for a drink.
I hope you have a Merry Christmas! When I saw this card, I couldn’t think of a better one. Love—
“Luis?”
I look up. “J.D. is back?”
“Thank God,” Marci says, “I thought I’d lost it. Go ahead. Open it.”
I unwrap the gift. Inside, there’s a silver-framed picture of J.D. Er, “James Dean” (or, “Luis”). I stare at the photo. His face sits in the palm of my hand. All that’s missing is … him.
Stunned, I slump back. Memories flood my brain. Kissing
those lips, seeing his warm, bright smile and resting my cheek on his shoulder. All of it so, so long ago. I stare at the picture. J.D.’s face. My life turned into a dream. A dream that evaporates with time, itself an illusion. He’s here, he’s not. Halloween night. We step onto the dance floor … led out of a foggy forest by fluttering fireflies … and slide down, into warm water.
The images pass in front of my mind’s eye. Like film run too many times through a projector, the images are scratched and faded.
“Is he okay?”
“What did the card say?”
“He’s good.”
“Tomorrow, meet me up on the roof.”
I nod. I stand. The frame weighs heavy in my hand. I stagger back to bed. I decide I’ll leave the bed empty until J.D. returns. I lie on the floor. My cheek rests against the silver frame, the hummingbird card pressed to my heart.
I
wait until everyone’s asleep. Then, I slip out of the bedroom, pull on a coat and walk down the hallway. The new safe house is the second floor sandwiched between three railroad flats. I step out the kitchen’s back door and walk up the stairs. Marci waits on the roof. She stands next to a hibachi barbecue. A full moon rises on the horizon.
“Here.” She hands me a fistful of name tags. “Burn these.”
I feed the tiny slips of paper into the hibachi. The paper lands on the coals, curls and catches fire. Ahmed, Nancy, Edward, and Kai. Our real identities burn out, ash swept away by the breeze.
I hold up the silver-framed picture of J.D.
“Did he give this to you?”
She parks the cigarette between her lips and warms her hands over the hibachi’s heat.
“Why do you ask?”
“‘Cause that note,” I say. “It’s your handwriting.”
She takes a drag, pauses, exhales.
“You
know
where he is?” I press.
“Sort of.”
“Where?”
“You can’t help him.”
“I can’t fucking believe you! You know where and you—”
“Serenity Ridge.”
“Come again?”
“Serenity Ridge. Ben, there’s nothing you can do—”
“My name’s not Ben!” I scream, loud enough to wake the city. “It’s Ahmed!
Ahmed!
”
“He
let
them catch him so
you
could escape. You need to …”
She talks, but I don’t hear. Her voice is an echo. I stand, run across the roof and down the stairs. I don’t care who hears. They
betrayed
me. They took him away. The only boy I loved. I
ever
loved.
“
Remember
.” Sugar’s voice guides me to the front door and down the steps. “
You can leave anytime
.”
I stand on the sidewalk. I face the street, away from the safe house. I’ve left. I’m outside. I look back. Marci’s shadow hovers in the window.
My eyes move up. Beyond her. Beyond the safe house. Beyond the roof to the sky.
A star streak across sky.
I close my eyes—
Make my wish—
Find J.D.—
Find my mom—
Live.
Please turn the page for a very special Q&A with Tomas Mournian.
Q: Is there any new information in
hidden
that’s never been disclosed or that very few people know about?
A: Underground railroads. When I was researching “Hiding Out,” a non-fiction piece about safe houses, I came to see that an underground railroad is a vital American tradition: for slaves before Emancipation, of course, but also for women escaping domestic violence, and for draft dodgers, as well as for others. I would say
hidden
tells the story of a little known yet latest version of this underground railroad.
Q: How does
hidden
(the novel) relate to the article “Hiding Out”?
A: “Hiding Out” was a news article I wrote for the
San Francisco Bay Guardian
. The piece served as the origin for
hidden
. I dropped a lot of the informational graphs that were in the article. For both the article and the novel, I took certain elements from different safe houses and combined them into one: the San Francisco setting from one; the one-room safe house from another; and the fire escape to the roof from a third. However, the fire escape in the novel is actually taken from my building. When Ahmed stands on the roof and looks at San Francisco, the view he sees is really … L.A.!
Q: Are the characters in
hidden
based on real people?
A: The characters in
hidden
are inspired by real people, but they’re not exact portraits. Over the years I’ve heard hundreds of stories of young people—gay, straight. When I wrote
hidden,
I drew upon their stories for inspiration. I was careful to shed the particulars and express the underlying struggle.
Q: What elements of the article “Hiding Out” did you choose to keep in the novel
hidden
?
A: “Hiding Out” told the story of one safe house but drew upon a larger pool of people.
hidden
is my imaginative reinvention of
those people and places. I’m always curious to see how patterns emerge among people who have split off from mainstream culture. I fully expect accusations of “You based that character on me / my friend!”
Q: Would you describe
hidden
as a gay or queer novel?
A: I was intent on making sure
hidden
could be read by the queer reader, but by any other reader, too. There were language choices I made that open up the narrative to everyone.
Q: Readers tend to identify the main character with the author. Are you Ahmed?
A: There’s a big part of me in Ahmed. Like him, I spent years running away, and hiding. My experience was a central reason why I needed to write
hidden
. I hope young people who need to read
hidden
will take what’s useful and make good decisions.
Q: The romantic element of
hidden
was a very minor part of the original news article “Hiding Out.” Why did you chose to enlarge the love story between Ahmed and J.D.?
A: I made the choice to tell a love story because Ahmed needed to fulfill the reason
why
he’d gone to such lengths to escape and hide. Ahmed’s struggle came at a price but also a payoff. Compared to ten, five years ago, mostly because of the AIDS epidemic, there are so many more gay / queer people on television and in movies. I feel like it’s time authors tell gay or queer stories that are read equal to other stories.
Q: Why does Anita Fixx, a trans person, play such a central role in
hidden
?
A: Trans people, Anita Fixx in particular, are important to
hidden
because I believe trans people are equal in life and are becoming ever more visible. Anita reflects the emergence of people’s desire to determine their gender. What I think trans’-
ness really points to is (a) how arbitrary or fluid gender is, and (b) that it’s a social construct. Like race, gender serves power. Trans people, by virtue of their choice(s), confuse this modern attempt to classify everyone. Trans’ness is a definitive statement and an exercise of several rights guaranteed by the Constitution: the right to happiness, the right to self-definition, the notion of reinvention, and sovereignty over one’s body.
Q: Are you trans?
A: No.
Q: Then how did you write about trans’ness?
A:
Orlando,
by Virginia Woolf, asks the same question. In essence, how does one write about what one
doesn’t
know? I came of age around trans people. I’ve known people who’ve transitioned. I’ve seen their struggles as difficult and equal yet different from my own.
Q: Yes, but where did the idea for Anita Fixx come from? Or, to you?
A: Anita Fixx came in a brief, thirty-second moment, when I held hands with a black trans woman. It was quite amazing. I don’t know if it was a spiritual experience or a matter of instant perception, but I felt her story in that moment, and she expressed herself through me.
Q: Anita reminds me of an Almodóvar character.
A: Exactly! I love Pedro Almodóvar’s films. I grew up watching Almodóvar’s movies, and they’re filled with trans people who always play a central role in the narrative. And though they’re fabulous, Almodóvar’s trans people are exceptionally human: generous, lovers, and tragic figures. Yet their stories are equal to those of the other characters.
Q: What about Hammer?
A: (Laughs) Right? Because I’m not tall, blond, or anything like that. But a friend of mine, David, who I knew when he was a teenager, looks like Hammer. David’s a huge fan of Grace Jones, and before everyone else was mopping her, he was clued in to her singularity of appearance, her embrace of the extreme. In David, I saw a young person struggling with being this sort of queer ideal. And it’s been interesting to see him grow up and play with that stereotype, to fuck with it, as it were.
Q: Are you still in touch with teenagers from “Hiding Out”?
A: No.
Q: Talk about the process of being contacted and hired by George Michael to make a short film based on “Hiding Out.”
A: Two years after “Hiding Out” was published, the piece had been syndicated (reprinted) in several magazines, one being the UK-based
Attitude
. One morning, my phone rang and a British voice on the other end said, “Hello, this is George Michael.” I laughed and said, “Yeah, right,” and hung up. My best friend, Andrew, lives in London, and I thought he was playing a prank. Later that day, I got a message from Andy Stevens, George Michael’s manager, explaining that the call was, in fact, real—and that George was performing a four-song set at Equality Rocks … two weeks from the date. He wanted to produce and show a video during his set and would I put them in touch with people so they could produce it? That was impossible, but I offered to produce the video myself, contacted John Keitel, an L.A. filmmaker, drove to San Francisco and, over four days, taped interviews with kids from that safe house. We returned to L.A. and edited the material in five days. The morning of the concert, John flew to D.C. and delivered the tape.
Q: What happened to the
Hiding Out
documentary after that?
A: The documentary
Hiding Out
was subsequently shown at film festivals, and MTV contacted us about making a reality TV show based on the safe houses. But that proved impractical and didn’t happen.
Q: What made you decide to adapt a news story about underground safe houses to writing a novel about the same topic?
A: Certainly the documentary was a central motivation: I saw, in a larger way, how the story of kids escaping from these boot camps and living underground resonated with people. It was eerie seeing an audience watch the documentary at film festivals. I was surprised by the emotions it brought up for the audience. The MTV thing happened and then it didn’t. For a while, John and I planned to make a film about the safe house; I wrote and rewrote dozens of screenplays, each one further from the original intent.
Q: Why did you choose to include sex work (prostitution) in
hidden
?
A: That’s a reality that a lot of teens—gay or straight—who run away experience. Cam whoring, for example (which the character Hammer does in the safe house’s closet), is real, but it’s not widely known about. Or, it hasn’t been written about in any way other than the most sensational way. People don’t generally know this, but the word
gay
comes from the demimond of courtesans in nineteenth-century Paris. So, there’s an epistemological relationship between gay and sex work. It’s literally written into the culture. I consciously included sex work in
hidden
because it’s dismaying to see how far right the LGBTQ community is trending. Toward this sort of conservative modality. And I see that tightening up as diminishing one vibrant element of the community, forcing it underground and flattening the culture at large. I wanted to show what I knew and have seen and know continues to exist.
Q: Likewise, why is
hidden
filled with drugs and drinking?
A: Where I live, in Los Angeles, or have traveled and lived (San Francisco, New York City, London), drugs have always been present. And most people, I think, in the gay community partake, to whatever extent. Again, back to history, drugs have not always been about addiction—and death. In the sixties, LSD was a central part of the human potential movement. Prior to the eighties and Reagan’s “War on Drugs,” “Just Say No,” and extremely punitive sentencing laws, drugs were seen as gateways to other states of consciousness. Certainly I was conscious of presenting both sides: the addictive side of drug use and the liberating, wonderful side.
Q: Is there a “dirty”—i.e., sexy—part of the book that people should look for?
A: Yes!
Q: Why did you choose to show teenage boys in romantic relationships that also feature sex?
A: I don’t know about you, but in my life and in novels as some expression of life, sex and love are the pulse. Sex is a central way people connect.
Q: But why sex and romance between teenagers?
A: Most people—straight people—don’t tend to think about this, but most gay/queer teens don’t have the same opportunity to date. So until they’ve graduated from high school, queer people tend to start dating five or six years later than their counterparts. As a gay teen, I was in that boat and, as a gay adult, I wanted to write a story for gay teens that was both romantic and sexual.
Q: A role model?
A: No, I’m not a sociologist or a policy maker. And I don’t buy
into that whole idea—“gay writers save lives.” If anything “saves” a life, it’s a person knowing oneself. All humans are hardwired for stories, but without those stories to inspire, teens—especially gay teens—are forced to forever reinvent their stories. I hope
hidden
can become a story or template that all teens, gay or straight, can take from.
Q: It’s difficult to imagine a suburban teen relating to
hidden
’s cloistered environment.
A:
hidden
’s closed, safe-house setting removes the teen from the typical high school setting. Popular culture is filled with examples of teens in teen-only spaces.
hidden
reinvents everything from
Clueless
to
Degrassi
to
The Breakfast Club,
all peer-centric universes.
Q: How do you imagine a gay / queer teen will benefit from reading
hidden
?
A: I think the question is, what pleasure will any reader take from reading
hidden
?
Q: Do you plan to write a sequel to
hidden
?
A:
hidden
is published as a stand-alone book. That said, if the book’s a success and people want to follow Ahmed’s story, I have thought about what might happen to him.
Q: Why did you chose to write what is, essentially, a “dystopia”?
A: Recent LGBTQ literature has been so universally utopian. I decided to write
hidden
because I saw an opportunity to write something more urban and dark.
Q: Yes,
hidden
isn’t set in the suburbs. Why is that?
A: For the dystopic element of
hidden
to work, I knew I needed to set the narrative in “the city.” As a place, the city occupies a
large place in the queer imagination. The city’s a destination that holds the promise of freedom and self-expression.
Q: Right. You put together a teenager running away from home and the city.
A: Exactly, but
hidden
isn’t indulging the characters’ general dissatisfaction with life. They all have real and urgent reasons to run away. They all need a place to hide … and what better place than the city, a place where one can get lost. So, “the city” was a logical place for Ahmed to go. But this city isn’t perfect. It’s also rife with danger, even death.
Q: What was the idea behind separating the book into four sections?
A: I decided to divide
hidden
into four sections to create a sense of time passing. Until the last rewrite, I struggled with how to tell a story that covers a period of time that’s both active and static. And I happened to read an interview with an actor (Robert Downey, Jr., in
Rolling Stone
) who referred to four words—escape, hidden, invisible, and gone—that worked perfectly to divide the sections.