Tuesday, March 12, 2013

The Intruder

The first thing I remember is feeling the breeze against my skin. The second thing I remember is a pillow being placed over my face. And in those moments, the naivete of my family’s trust in small town safety was shattered forever.

I was fourteen, just a few weeks before entering high school. The year was 1983 and it was hot that summer. We had a massive window unit air conditioner, which could really only keep the main living areas cool, so at night my grandmother would turn it off, open all of the windows, and crank the attic fan on high. The fan was loud, really loud, but the breeze was worth the noise and all of us had become accustomed to sleeping through it years earlier. I was used to the breeze and loved to lie still while it ruffled the thin sheet I slept with, bringing in air to blow against my hot neck and for-head. The roar of that attic fan could muffle just about any noise in the house, but we lived in a town of 500; on the edge of town, surrounded on two sides by pasture land....and nothing bad ever happens in small town Americana. It wasn’t until college that Truman Capote would introduce me to the Clutters. I had gone to bed early that night because of volleyball practice the next morning. The heat in our school gym made it unbearable during the day. As a result, two weeks before school started our coach began holding practices very early in the morning. It was one of the most exciting times of my life. I was entering high school, playing volleyball with the upper classmen, and everything in my world was new and exciting.

You know those times in the middle of the night when you wake up just a little? Things are somewhat foggy, dreamlike, but you can hear the sounds? That’s what it was like. I remember hearing the attic fan and feeling that cool breeze as it blew over me. I opened my eyes briefly and saw the curtains billowing out from the window. As I dozed back to sleep, it felt as if the sheet was gently blown off of me. Not to the side, or in a scattered way, but straight down to my feet. In my half awake/half asleep state, I didn’t question this. In fact, it was still warm at 3:00 am and I didn’t mind the air on my skin at all.

Then I felt a pillow placed over my face. This certainly caused a rise from the depths of being half asleep, but my first instinct was to simply turn my head and ensure that I could breathe. Whoever had placed the pillow over my face was not applying pressure and for some, completely unknown reason, I simply wasn’t scared. It was only a matter of seconds before the next act occurred, but it felt like hours in my mind, while I waited breathlessly to see what was going on.

The next moment, I knew for certain something was amiss. I felt a hand grab the bottom of my t-shirt and begin to pull it up to my waist. Was this simply the breeze, pushing up the cotton garment? It couldn’t be; and there was no way the breeze could’ve lifted a pillow and dropped it on my face. The hand then grabbed the top of my underwear and began to slowly pull downward. At this moment, panic hit me like a brick wall and I sat up like a mummy finally released from the bondages of a tomb. In the darkness, I saw a shadow standing next to the bed but before my eyes could adjust the intruder lifted his arm and shoved a lit flashlight in front of my face. As I raised an arm to cover my eyes, this faceless entity slowly backed around the edge of my bed towards the door, never once dropping the blinding light.

My first thought, with certainty, was that it had to be a friend playing some stupid, sick, and ridiculous joke on me. Why else would anyone enter my home in the middle of the night, place a pillow on my face, and shine a flashlight into my eyes? I was already subconsciously forgetting the part where my clothes were being removed. Then I thought “get up, quick, before they leave so you can see who it is!”

So began a strange journey from my bedroom to the backyard, the intruder backing up, flashlight extended and blinding me, and me following, so close that I could’ve almost reached out and grabbed the flashlight myself. The strange invader backed down the hall, through the laundry room, and out onto the deck. As I stood in the door, the flashlight dropped just long enough for the interloper to jump down the deck stairs, turning quickly to hold the light up once again, beaming into my eyes. Then, as quietly as he had entered my bedroom, he disappeared without a sound around the side of the house into the darkness of the night.

It took me a moment to realize he was gone, and in the quiet of the night, I thought it might have been a dream. I shut and locked the back door and headed down the hallway back to my room. At that moment, my grandmother rounded the corner and asked me why I had gotten up. Normally, she would wake at the slightest noise, but with the roar of the attic fan and the stealth of my unwanted and uninvited visitor, she hadn’t heard a thing until I shut the back door. Still foggy, my response was impulsive, somewhat crass in light of what had really happened. I said “some freak was just in my bedroom”, and tried to get past her so I could go back to bed.

Imagine the next few hours, if you will. My grandmother was hysterical. The police were called. Every light in the house was turned on. The neighbors were notified. And my grandfather, in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, in the front yard with a hand gun I hadn’t realized he owned, waving it as if he could now change history if only he could catch the stranger who had threatened his youngest. I didn’t get it, didn’t understand the outrage. After all, nothing happened. I wasn’t hurt.

Over the next few years, my grandmother would go back to that night, asking me if I was REALLY okay. I would vehemently say “yes, I didn’t get hurt, don’t worry so much”. Her real fear was that some form of trauma would lie dormant until just the wrong time and that it would then show itself, hurting me more than if I would just simply deal with it now. I didn’t feel that I had anything to deal with and I wanted to move on with my friends, with school, with boys, with sports….all of the things that rule the world of almost any average fourteen year old girl.

My grandmother was right, though. A part of me knew that I had escaped any number of horrible fates, not the least of which could have been a rape or beating. Years later, when my professional career opened the door to a specialty caseload of sex offenders, I realized with horror why she had been so upset that night. During this time of my career, I also rented a small house: alone. It was the first and only time I have lived without a family member, friend, or spouse. It was also the time period when I was forced to come face to face with the fallout from that singular night in August of 1983. I had a panic attack, out of the blue, imagining a stranger breaking into my tiny home and brutally attacking me. I was paralyzed with fear and didn’t sleep that night. Nor the next; I didn’t sleep for a week. It was then that I enrolled in Model Mugging, a five week self defense course that involved hands-on interaction with a large man in a padded suit. During that class, I had an opportunity to play out that night in my bedroom with an ending I could live with. In that class, I kicked the living daylights out of the intruder and let him know, in every way possible, that I could protect myself. Thanks to Model Mugging, I learned to sleep again; alone in my own home.

It’s been seventeen years since I graduated from Model Mugging. It has been almost thirty years since the break-in. I think it about it every so often, particularly when Brian is travelling and I’m home alone with the kids. I remember that all it took was a long, sharp fingernail to slice open the screen door. We kept the rest of the doors unlocked until then. I’ll admit, I have a compulsive habit of checking the doors twice, sometimes three times. I make sure the shades are pulled and the windows are locked, at least on the main floors during the summer. I haven’t had any more panic attacks, though, and part of me knows that it’s because I learned to fight back. I also learned that there’s always an element of danger and we can never take our family’s safety for granted. Do I live in fear? Absolutely not, but I’m a pragmatist at heart and believe everything that happens in our lives can afford us an opportunity to learn.

That’s all I’ve got this week. I wish my readers safety and peace as I head to bed. After I double check the back door once more. Just in case.

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