After I graduated college and got fired from my first job – ‘cause I’m excellent – I had to move back home. My parents were always clear that I could always come home because they weren’t going to support me if I couldn’t support myself if I wasn't at home. I mean, within bounds of reason.
My second job at the time of me being fired paid about $40 a month, which, was not a good deal. So, I had to move home while I looked for ways to support myself.
Anyhow, I was working at the Body Shop part-time in the mall and I was working with this girl. I actually forget her name – she was pretty, though, with short blond hair. I’ll call her Suzanne because that’s the first female name that came up on the TV while I was writing this.
She was fun, actually. A little quiet, but, fun. The store was high-volume but very small so working with someone you got along with was key to having a good day.
We had a good day working and we were closing up.
When closing the store you had to do some register stuff, then count all the cash. The ticket from the register tells you how much you should have, then you take out everything but $100 and put it in the safe. We close one register about a half an hour before the mall closes, then the other. Tacks on about 30 minutes to how long you are going to be there.
I still remember that because it’s like the same everywhere and I worked a couple retail jobs after this one.
So, I close the doors and lock up and she is standing at the second register – and like, shaking. She’s got the money in her hand and you can tell she isn’t counting. She’s trying to count or rather, going through the motions of counting and just shaking.
Then she is scampering between the office and the register as if she isn’t sure how to do the cash thing. There is a chaos to her as if she is a child and some parent is screaming at her and she is trying to…I don’t know…fix the broken vase she just knocked over.
I wanted to get out on time. And I've dealt with crazy. So, I moved in and helped her count the coins. She is getting more upset because division of labor is part of the whole retail thing – you got to carry you half and I closed the other register so she is either going to close this thing now or she is hopeless.
I don’t think that, but, the unwritten laws of retail are harsh.
Suzanne: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.
Maddie: No big deal. Look, we’re done.
Suzanne: I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…
Maddie: Nothing to be sorry about.
And then in the midst of all this...
Suzanne:…A year ago today I was sexual assaulted and it’s dark out and…
I have no idea what else she said. I also didn’t really didn’t know what “sexual assult” was. This was back in the day when women were either proven to be raped or “nothing happened.” Unless a penis goes into the vagina – I guess it didn’t really count no matter how little you wanted to be touched – anywhere. I think this is important because we hide behind these terms to make something that is violent and and crime more ok to other people.
Maddie: Do you want me to call security?
Suzanne: I call them so much, I can’t do it again. They always come but…
It’s a guy. Security is always a guy. She would be alone with some guy while reliving what some other guy did to her.
Suzanne then tells me what happened – I don’t think I asked because it wasn’t important to me to know it, it was only important to support her. She tells me she was active on her campus for women’s safety. Making sure women know they can call someone if they need to be walked home from the library to their dorm at night and stuff or even making sure security is around and going through buildings and stuff.
She tells me she was part of this committee that worked hard to get the school to put in “blue boxes” – those phones when you pick them up they automatically ring at the security place and you can get help.
One memeber was this guy who was her friend. And one night, after they had a rally or meeting type thing on campus, he walked her home saying he wanted to make sure she got to her dorm ok since her roommate had gone home for the weekend. They got to her dorm and he wouldn’t leave. At first, it was like when a friend stops by, you maybe invite them in, watch a TV show. Whatever.
But, she said he wouldn’t leave and then he…sexually assaulted her. And she can't be out at night in the dark because it happened at night and she doesn't like to work night and she had to today and it's too dark now....
As an older adult now, I think there was more than just someone grabbing her boob or something. She was alone, she was trapped, no one was coming into her dorm room. He hunted, targeted, trapped and did whatever he wanted with her. It was rape.
A year to the day after it, she is a living wreck, pouring the story out with all these little details. Not about the event – just everything.
I do what I know how to do – I just tell her it’s ok. I mean, her situation wasn’t ok, but there was no danger around her right now, it's not happening right now, it was only inside her. I can’t fix what is insider of her. Then I did the only think I knew I could do – protect the f**king hell out of her.
Maddie: I am here! You hold my hand. You stay with me. I’m going to take you to your car, I will follow you home, I am going to do anything you need, you got it?
She is crying – not like sobbing or like crying in gratitude – it’s the type of cry where you don't know you are doing it. You vision just blurs. I, at least, know that type of cry.
She gets her things and I march out of that store with her. The mall is dead closed - all the gates are down. It sort of peaceful when you work there but I could see every shadow she saw. I made sure to march down those halls and look around corners for her even though I knew no one was there.
I took her the fast way out through the loading docks, which are actually super creepy and smells like pee. She was ok with that. We took the elevator to the top of the parking...thing and I remember having her stand back while I walked into the box, checked it top to bottom and then had her come in. She didn’t want to take the stairs because it would be easier to be attacked there. I kept her behind me while we rode to the second level. Then I walked out first and told her it was ok to come out.
Suzzane: I don’t think I parked here…oh no!
Maddie: Ok, come with me.
I took her to my car and we drove to her car. I mean, I wasn’t going to walk around all over the mostly empty parking garage. And she was a mess.
Suzanne: I'm so sorry. You must think I am crazy. I’m so sorry.
Maddie: YOU HAVE NO REASON TO BE SORRY, SUZANNE! NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS YOUR FAULT! YOU ARE NOT WRONG YOU ARE STRONG AND AMAZING AND YOU DO WHAT YOU GOT TO DO BECAUSE I AM HERE!
(no, I didn't yell that, it was just what I was thinking so hard at the time)
I got her to her car. I followed her out of the mall parking lot to the stream of normal evening traffic. I never saw her again.
That's dramatic. It's not because she died but when you work part-time you generally don't see a lot of people again and again.
I just remember her story about what predators really are. I wondered which of my guy friends would rape me for a moment. In present day, maybe it's a thought a lot of people don't want to have or a thing that happened that people don't want to express.
I remember she kept apologizing for her fear. She kept saying how sorry she was. Like my care of her was somehow an inconvenience to me. Like I cared about...having to care...and she needed to be sorry.
She should not apologize, ever, and we all should care. And because we care - because someone cares - it makes what happened wrong and that guy a bad guy and a criminal and not someone who belongs mingling in society like nothing ever happened. He needs to be sorry, she does not.
Later I learned about PTSD. That’s PTSD. She was suffering with PTSD. She couldn’t function as soon as the sun went down. She couldn’t even call for help. She just lived in this state of fear and being sorry for someone else's crime that hurt her.
Once it was named, I don’t know, it felt less approachable than Suzanne's story was. If someone had PTSD it was because they went to war and the media said you just avoided them because you don’t know what will trigger them or what will happen.
I also had this feeling....belief.... when I learned about PTSD, that it was something I couldn’t do anything about. I’m not trained. I’m not good at it. I was powerless against it and so was everyone but people went to school to study it.
And that's not right, either.
I think if one person can wreck another person like that – we all have to step up. I learned from her I didn’t have to experience what she was going through to step up. I didn’t have to dismiss it or process it at any level other than she needed help. I had to walk into that war-room of her fear and do something to protect her. To take some small piece of stress from her.
I don’t know what happened to her. I would like to think the worst of the nightmare is over for her. I would like to think that she is using her story to touch other lives and walk into the war-room of other people’s fears.
I'll never know for sure, so, I'll believe that.
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