Everybody Has a Story: Muddy footprints proved intruder was really there

Friday night was always special. Our high school held a weekly dance, and I always went. I was 14. My grandmother sewed a cute, yellow sack dress of wool jersey for me. The style was what the kids were wearing, and the brown belt at my waist made my small figure look just right. My “steady,” Ray, and I took the bus. It only took about 20 minutes, and then the fun began. Our auditorium was large and about 100 students attended. Most girls preferred the romantic, slow dances, but I loved the fast movement and intricate steps of the jitterbug.

Occasionally, when the bus was late, Ray would walk me home. On this particular night, the bus just wouldn’t come, so we took off to walk the two miles. The warm, spring night made walking pleasant. And as we walked, arms around each other, we talked about the myriad concerns that made up our daily lives. Ray was to graduate in June, and I would be just behind him the following January. I listened as Ray told me of his plans to start work and eventually own a restaurant. I looked forward to getting a job doing clerical work. We made plans to marry after I graduated. College, in those days, was not something that our families encouraged.

As we walked, I was aware of someone behind us but took little notice of it because students were all returning from the dance and a few walked.

We kissed good night and Ray left. I unlocked my front door and went to the bedroom I shared with my sisters. I turned on the light and dug my pajamas out of the bureau drawer. I was hungry. I went to the kitchen for a snack. Milk and cookies were my favorite. While I sat reading a comic book and eating, I heard a funny noise but didn’t pay attention to it. My grandmother and mother shared a double bed in the other bedroom, and I reasoned one of them was using the bathroom.

I finished up, turned off the kitchen light and went to our bedroom.

I was a bit surprised to find that I had turned off the bedroom light, thinking that I had left it on when going to the kitchen. Anyway, I walked over to my bed and took off my cute dress and underclothes. I put on my blue Hawaii pajamas, turned down my bed covers and reached to turn off the light.

As I turned to face the closet, I saw a man standing there. I was stunned, frozen where I stood. We stood and stared, and then he put his fingers to his lips. That gesture unfroze me, and I screamed as loud and long as I could while he ran toward me. I scrambled over my sisters bed, never waking them, and he shifted toward the window. I ran to my mother and grandmother’s bedroom, still screaming at both of them to wake up. Finally, my mother looked at me, confounded at my behavior. When I told both of them that there was a man in my bedroom, my mother tried to tell me that I had a bad dream and to go back to sleep. I kept howling no, there was a man in my bedroom. Since I wouldn’t keep quiet, my mother and grandmother got out of bed and came with me to my bedroom.

The man had left. My mother tried to convince me it was just a nightmare. My anguish at not being understood was devastating. I walked over to the open window and looked down. There were muddy shoe prints on the floor beneath the window. I told them to come and look, and finally they believed me. I was so terrified that I couldn’t stay in that room and ran to the front room sofa for comfort. In those days, people didn’t call 911 because it didn’t exist and the police weren’t called because it just wasn’t done. My mother reasoned there was not much a policeman could do, anyway.

I had always been used to trauma. My alcoholic stepfather was away in the Merchant Marine at the time, but when he was at home, there was always hollering, fighting and breaking furniture. But this experience far surpassed any of that kind of awfulness. It was something that I could not make go away. It was weeks before I could enter my bedroom. I traded bedrooms with my brother. Even in the daytime, I would try to go into my bedroom but ended up shaking and running for the front room. Nightmares of being chased by an unseen assailant would continue for years.

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