Fear

The fact that I found myself being so frightened the other night when I thought there was someone in my basement, got me to thinking about being afraid. I mentioned that I've always tended to be afraid when alone in a house (as opposed to an apartment). Now why is that? Actually, there are two questions there: why frightened in a house but not an apartment, and why frightened at all?

Well, I think I answered the first question in my last note: in an apartment there are people all around, people who would hear should you start screaming, should furniture start getting thrown around as you try to fight off your attacker. In a house there's all that space between you and your neighbors. You're essentially trapped in your own little box with whatever the danger is.

But as to the fear itself, what, exactly, am I afraid of? Being murdered in my bed? While I'm not afraid of death, I suppose I am afraid of violence. I'm afraid of being physically hurt. Quite literally I am afraid of a crazed "ax murderer," or someone with a knife. Getting hacked or stabbed, whether or not it's to the death, has got to hurt! And one doesn't, somehow, think of home invaders as just coming in and shooting people, quick, clean.

I've never in my life watched one of those Friday the 13th movies, in which teenagers or lone females are first terrorized, then slashed to death by some manically cackling fiend. But I've seen the occasional brief clip, and I've assimilated, the way we do all kinds of cultural knowledge, what they're about, the gist of them. These are way unlikely scenarios that, nonetheless, suggest unpleasant possibilities. Once the mind has had a possibility suggested to it, particularly a possibility that would negatively impact the Self, it's extremely difficult to wipe that possibility from the mind (and why is that? I suppose because self-protection is such a high priority for the organism. My psychologist friends will have to tell me...)

Like every other woman, I'm afraid of being raped, although it's not the sexual congress I'm afraid of, it's the violence that would inevitably accompany it. Rape is certainly a much more likely scenario for a woman living alone than being hacked to death. I am not physically strong, could not successfully fight off an adrenalin-charged male, not unless I could get a good grip on his balls. So I'm afraid of suddenly finding myself at some creep's mercy. Some creep with a knife.

But even when I was quite young, and had no inkling of slashers or rapists, I would be afraid when, for example, my parents would go out for the evening, and leave me in charge of my younger brothers and sisters (the youngest I ever was when this took place was 14; that's what I mean by "very young"). The least unfamiliar sound would spook me. And there what I think I was fearing was the unknown. What – or who – is making that sound? If I don't know I can't prepare myself, can't know if I'm equipped to deal with it. I don't want to be unpleasantly surprised! I usually supposed it was either a burglar or a peeping Tom, and felt ill-equipped to deal with either one.

This fear of the unknown of course accounts for the very common fear of death. We don't know what lies beyond death. Will we be equipped to deal with it? Do unpleasant surprises await us? Those of us who are very religious may, indeed, be convinced that we do know, and that "knowledge" may give us courage in the face of death. But for the rest of us – and I suspect even for the faithful, in fleeting, unguarded moments – there is this sense of an abyss that we would be stepping into. The fires of hell, with eternal pain and suffering? That's what I was brought up to believe awaited non-believers, and once an unpleasant possibility has been suggested to the mind...

Or simply non-being? And if the latter...what's so bad about non-being? Nothing to deal with there. No coping necessary.

No, it's not death that's the scary part. It's the getting there.

Home invasion

Two nights ago, in the middle of the night, I had to call the police. I honestly thought there was someone walking around in my basement. My basement is on a level with my backyard – down a considerable slope from my very small front yard – and there is a door to the outside. Naturally I keep that door locked, but locks never deterred a determined burglar (or ax murderer). After a couple of minutes of listening, sure that what I was hearing was not the usual creaking of my little wooden house, or anything produced by the fairly brisk wind outside, I leapt from my bed and made for the telephone.

Yay 9-1-1. An instant person who doesn't waste time: "What is your emergency?" I told him my address and said, "I think there's someone down in my basement." I felt a little bit as though I were in a movie, although in a movie I would have had my back to some dark doorway – while the audience was yelling Get out of there, run! – and all of a sudden an arm would have wrapped around my throat from behind, and garroted me. Now I told the officer that "I think I'm going to go outside." I didn't feel up to dealing with some maniac who might come crashing through the door to the basement – breaking the two locks on it to do so – at any moment. That door was all of two feet from where I stood. Actually, I knew this was an unlikely scenario, but I was surprised at how frightened I felt, and being someplace where I could run seemed like a good idea. So I pulled on my robe, that I always leave thrown across the end of my sofa when I go to bed, in case somebody rings my doorbell in the middle of the night, and went out onto my tiny front stoop. And in maybe a minute two police cars pulled up. I was amazed and impressed with the speed of the response, but then I don't guess there's a whole lot of high crime taking place in Gardiner, Maine at 2:30 in the morning.

One fellow went around back; the other went inside with me, down my basement stairs that are so narrow you have to turn sideways to get down them. He tried the door, walked all around, poking into dark corners with his flashlight. Door was locked, no one was lurking behind the furnace. The fellow outside caught no one skulking in the bushes. So they went away, assuring me that it was probably the wind (but I knew the wind did not wear shoes).

And within three minutes I was on the phone again. This time what I had been hearing sounded like a body thumping up against the side of the house, right outside my window. "I really am not crazy," I said. "It may be an animal, but it's something." The fellow on the phone sounded a little less eager to protect and serve, but he said they'd send somebody back out. And in the meantime I put back on my fake-leopard robe, got a hammer out of the utility drawer, and the flashlight from where I keep it beside my bed – this is in case I wake up in the middle of the night and the power's gone out, so the night light I keep burning in the kitchen is out, and either I have to make my way to the bathroom, or I hear noises. This girl keeps herself prepared for all contingencies – and I went out to investigate myself.

Mind you, I have a gun. This dates from when Micheal and I were living out in the country in southern Louisiana, and he would be working offshore for three weeks at a time. I've always been a scaredy-cat when alone in a house at night (not in an apartment, which is what I lived in for most of my adult life, since then you have people all around you); and both Micheal and I had felt it would simply level the playing field if one of those times I heard a noise that frightened me, it actually proved to be a human being with dishonorable intentions.

But I haven't fired the gun in years; haven't even cleaned it in years. Couldn't remember if it was loaded. So decided I'd be better off with the hammer. So there I was, clutching the hammer and swinging my little flashlight around at the side of my house when the police arrived the second time. The young officer (who I think was amused by the hammer) sent me back inside while he walked all around the house. And then he came inside and informed me that I did indeed have an animal. Seems there's a nice big hole up under the eaves by the chimney, an open invitation to any homeless animal who can climb.

After the police left, while I was still standing in the living room, I heard my home invaders, yes, quite clearly over my head, rather than under my feet. I grabbed the broom and pounded on the woodwork that runs around the ceiling (couldn't really pound on the ceiling because it's a dropped ceiling, one of those cardboard things). Kept it up until whoever was up there got quiet. "I have to sleep!" I yelled at the interlopers. Then I went to bed. And today I informed my landlord that he needed to board up the hole.

So there you have the big excitement of my week. Definitely one of those times I could have used a man around the house. He could have gone outside with the hammer and the flashlight.