DAVID AND HIS GOLIATH

 

In 1989, Charcot's student, Pierre Janet, wrote the first book on what we now call PTSD, L'automatisme Psychologique. In this book he argued that trauma is held in procedural memory, in automatic actions and reactions, sensations and attitudes, and that trauma is replayed and reenacted as visceral sensations (anxiety and panic), body movements, or visual images (nightmares and flashbacks.)

 

—Bessel van der Kolk. Foreword in Peter A Levine’s book, Trauma and Memory.

 

 

New York, 1962

 

United Airlines was a great place to work. Travel was free and the monthly salary ($369) provided enough to pay for an apartment in Greenwich Village, ($60 a month) and one voice lesson ($10)a week.)

My first job was in the ticket service center, next to the reservation department, where attractive and interesting men worked booking reservations. One was a tall, self-assured man I will call David, who looked like a movie star. I flirted with him and one day he asked to stop by my apartment for a visit.    

I expected him at eight, but by ten-thirty he had not arrived. Disappointed, I got ready for bed. No sooner had I removed my make-up, put rollers in my hair, and removed my clothes, he arrived at my door.  

“I’ve gone to bed,” I said.

“That’s all right. I don’t mind,” he said.

When I expressed my reluctance to let him in, his protests reverberated down the hall. Not wanting to disturb my neighbors, I opened the door. He charged in and settled on my couch. It didn’t occur to me to tell him to buzz off. I was flattered he wanted to spend time with me.

We settled down to get acquainted, curlers and all. Although I did not drink, I had purchased a six pack of beer to offer him.

He seemed a nice, interesting and charismatic guy. He had traveled a great deal and experienced many unusual adventures. He left home at sixteen and went on to become a parachute jumper, a deep-sea diver, an atheist, and was acquainted with Tennessee Williams. He’d enrolled at Columbia University, having realized he needed a diploma.

I showed him my scrapbook and talked about my dreams of becoming an opera singer. The conversation was stimulating, but when two a.m. rolled around, he had not indicated he had plans to leave.

“I’ll stay here tonight,” he said. “It is too late to go home.”

I got up the courage to tell him “No.” He was not discouraged.

“I don’t have enough money to take the subway and will have to jump the turnstile,” he confessed.

Not thinking to offer him the money, I relented when he promised to ‘be good.’

Tipsy after consuming the entire six pack of beer, David continued to talk.

“Have you ever slept with a man?’ he nonchalantly asked.

"No."

“I thought you might be curious.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Reluctantly, David moved to the bed, took off his trousers and handed them to me. I, being a good hostess, folded his pants and hung them neatly on a hanger in the closet, and set the alarm for 6:30 a.m.

David climbed into his bed. I turned out the lights, put on my cotton nighty and settled into my bed. For protection, I left my underwear on.  

“Aaaalice,” said David, musically raising and lowering his voice in a seductive tone.

“What?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to sleep with me?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Aaaaaaaalice, you’ll like it.”

“Look, you promised you would be good. So, if you want to lose a friend, you better not come over!” I said, self-righteously.

“Alice.”

I decided to play dead.

Footsteps.

David was out of bed heading across the room. He swatted me on my behind. “I thought you might like to lose a friend and gain a lover!”

Immediately realizing I was in a precarious position, I turned over, prepared to give him a piece of my mind. But, there, standing in front of me was David, his pride and joy sticking straight at my face.

I screamed, jumped out of bed, and headed for the corner of the room, where I hid my face in my hands.

In a split second, David’s protrusion slumped. Without a word he crawled into his bed and soon slept, breathing heavily.

When the alarm went off, I woke David, made him breakfast, and sent him off to work with money for the subway.

Alone with my thoughts, I replayed the evening in my mind. I kept seeing his penis coming at me. I felt dirty and anxious. I wanted to cry. What had I done? Was it my fault? Why had I let him in? Why had I put myself in that position? My mind was in chaos.

At work I saw David across the room. We did not speak. Three months passed. I moved through the world as in a daze, worried, feeling depressed and guilty. Then one day, I got up courage and approached David.

“I’m sorry about what happened. Was it my fault?” I asked.

Surprised, David laughed. “Alice, it was not your fault. You’re a nice girl, and I’m a jerk!”

 My world changed. I wasn’t a bad girl. My guilt melted, my smile returned, and I slept well for the first time in months. Life was good again.

 When my memory returned at age 50, I realized why this incident was so traumatic. It threatened my dissociation and denial of the past. I was not ready to remember. And, although I didn’t know it at the time, I harbored a great deal of guilt over my kidnapping and what it did to my family. 

 

Picture of me in the Piazza del Duomo, feeding a pigeon, July 1970. 

My skirt was too short, and the guard would not let me enter the cathedral.

 

Onward and upward.