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The Hidy Hole Lady
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The Hidy Hole Lady |
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broker6 Member
since 1999-11-07
Posts 132Bellevue, NE, Sarpy |
THE HIDY-HOLE LADY by Richard J. Budig The first time I saw her, I called her the Hidy-Hole Lady. She just materialized in my store one day. It was much like it is when you realize there's a mouse in the house. More specifically, a mouse in the same room with you. It starts with that sudden, almost scary movement in the corner of your eye. The first time you look up, you don't see anything. But inside, you know you saw something . . . like something scurrying for its hidy-hole. And then, like a mouse caught out of its hole, there she was. She was tiny and delicate, about five feet tall with rust-tinged hair. She had cool blue-gray eyes . . . eyes that begged to tell stories. She appeared to be in her forties, thin and whispy, bony, even. Yet, sinew rippled just below the skin. Frailty . . . and strength . . . both lived within, and both seemed to fight for control. She moved around the shop in such an odd manner , like a cat stepping over things. Even with her back to me, my internal antenna said she was scanning me, watching me. I tried waiting on her the first couple of times she came in. "Just looking," she breathed, smiling through perfectly shaped teeth. Her cool eyes looked at me, and past me, all at the same time. It was as though she were watching, waiting, sounding Her visits were not regular. In fact, they were so infrequent I almost forgot about her between visits. On one of her visits, I kept my distance, but I watched her. She obviously fancied something in one of my display cases. It held a lot of "junk." Maybe I should call it Junque . . . fritzy little stuff too good to throw away . . . pretty buttons, an old but cheap pocket knife . . . knick knacks . . . stuff women classify as fru-fru. Something in that case grabbed her. She had the most beautifully shaped hands, and both of them flew to her mouth stifling a sob or an exclamation. She stiffened. Tears welled in her eyes. After she left, I studied the case trying to decide what could have touched her so. Marbles . . . old fireman's collar insignia . . . handcuffs . . . Teddy Roosevelt campaign button . . . miniature Crescent wrench . . . what, could it have been? However, when it came right down to it, what did it matter? She was just one more . . . one more what? Customer? Yes . . . sort of. Still, I could not classify her and somehow and I couldn't get her out of my mind. As her random visits continued, I began talking to a psychologist friend of mine about her. "C'mon, Dick. What can I tell you? Psychology is hard enough, but psychology by proxy is impossible," he said. "She's looking for something . . . we all are. Give her a break." "You disappoint me," I said. "Why?" "Well, the least you could do is use some big psycho-babble words. I mean 'give her a break' doesn't sound professional," I grumped. "Then give me a break," he smiled, and left. This had the effect of telling a child you'll give him an ice cream cone if he doesn't think about it. It didn't work. I couldn't get her out of my mind. It took months, but she got to where she would talk to me briefly. And softly. And guardedly. It was peculiar. She would look at me while she talked to me. And yet, I could see she was somehow looking behind herself and me, simultaneously, as though watching for a sudden frontal assault, and at the same time, guarding her line of retreat. She was hard to keep up with because her interests varied from visit to visit. At one point, she expressed an interest in some emerald jewelry. On another occasion, when I mentioned it, she acted as though she did not know what I was talking about. Another time, she alluded to some "official" looking things in my Junque case, and later couldn't remember. I was perplexed. It was as though there was more than one of her. I was never quite sure to whom I was talking. Also, she often carried a folders full of papers. She clutched them tightly to her herself, as though guarding them from a lurking but unseen purse-snatcher. It took a long time, but eventually, she would lay them down while handling something from her favorite case. The moment the item went back in the case, she clutched her file to her chest again. I consulted my psychologist. "So, she's fussy about what's in her folders, Dick," said Psycho Sam. "No, no. You've got to see it to understand," I pleaded. "And she has this way of not remembering . . . ." "Gimme a break, Dick," the Doc said again, striding toward the door and freedom. I sighed. "See ya, Doc." Then, the very thing I never dreamed would happen, happened. One day, she walked out and left her folder behind. I felt like the blind squirrel who had just found his first nut. At that point, I wasn't even sure what was in the folders, but I had the feeling little boys get just before they peep through a keyhole. Not knowing what was in them, I was both surprised and not surprised when open them. It was full of poetry, some of the most exquisite, tender, gentle pieces I've ever read, side by side with some of the most disturbing things I've ever read. My background is journalism and one of my college majors was English. I've read tons of prose and poetry. That doesn't make me an expert. But I've dallied o'er more than a few lines from a bard or two whose lines have both pierced and stung my heart. During the next few days, I read, read, read. There were pieces that dealt with abuse of the ugliest kind, perpetrated by adults upon a little girl kept locked away in her room. Through it all, her work still sounded like literature. These pieces did not rant or rave. They roared. They soared. Her words cut, slashed, and laid waste to her abusers. At one and the same time, they were both her escape pod and her torture chamber. They were her magic carpet, and they were the beast who visited her on moonless nights. They transported her to worlds of hope and dreams, of light and love . . . and often, to sorrows that plumbed depths no human should visit. How, in God's name, I wondered, can she make literature from such utter despair. But, then, like an oasis in a parched desert, I'd come to a piece so full of hope and love, or longing for love and acceptance that it brought tears to my eyes. Somewhere in her life there was, or had been, a man she loved. She needed him, she wanted him, she longed for him. She would get close to him. So close. Then, like a tiny bird, dart away. Her work showed frustration on this point. I wondered how he must feel about it. Ah, well . . . mine is a tough business, and here I was, coming into the middle of someone's life again. Although her poetry gave broad answers, I was compelled to ask myself who would do this to another living human being? How did this person endure, survive, go on? Would I ever find out? I put it to my friend, the Doc. "Look, Dick . . . " I could tell, the way he said it. he was, first, doing me a big favor, and second, he was going to sum up several years of school in a couple of paragraphs. Abuse of this kind is devastating, he said. If it starts early enough, and goes on long enough, it leaves the survivor barely more than a statistic, sometimes able to function just enough to continue surviving, but not "living." This, too, would account for what you perceive as her ability to look at you, yet behind herself at the same time. Her trust, the trust of anyone so mistreated, is seriously impaired. At that young age, abuse is usually perceived as coming from their blind side, so they are always "checking their rear." "And, it's possible there is more than one of her," he said. He finally used a psychological term. "It's called dissociation, or splitting." When the abuse gets too bad, the child will dissociate, or split from itself in one of several ways. They just go away, mentally. Or they can become someone else, or something else, like a doorknob, a bedpost . . . anyone or anything but who they are. That way, when it becomes too awful, too ugly, too frightening, the real child goes away, and leaves someone else -- or something else -- in its place to take the abuse. "People from backgrounds like this are usually a bag full of juxtaposition . . . they're hot or cold on a subject, and sometimes they'll change back and forth several times in a few minutes," Doc said. "Their boundaries have been destroyed. They don't know how to say 'no,' or sometimes, they don't know what is good or bad for them. That, too, has been damaged or destroyed. "My advice? Hang onto that stuff for her. If she doesn't come in for it in awhile, see about getting it back to her." "She'll come back for it, won't she?" I asked. "Maybe . . . maybe not," he said, shaking his head. "One more thing, Doc." "Yeah?" "Why do I feel so . . . so close to her?" "Well . . . " he sighed, and the way he sighed, I knew he was trying to figure out how to summarize the rest of his education in one or two more paragraphs . . . "I call it resonance," he said. The theory, he said, is that each of us has some stuff in our backgrounds -- usually from childhood -- that could be better. And, every once in awhile, something or someone comes along whose background causes our strings -- our old memories -- to vibrate with theirs. "It's like putting two guitars close together, and plucking the strings of one of them. When you do, the strings on the other guitar will resonate . . . they will move in sympathy with the ones being plucked," he said. "What can I do about it?" I asked. "Well," he sighed, and I wondered if I was going to learn the last thing he knew. But he was smarter than that. "You can start checking your own past, Dick. Want me to start my clock?" It was a cute way to end the conversation. He'd given me a lot to chew on. I spent another day reading her poetry. I considered making copies for myself, but something Doc said about trust stopped me. She might never know. But, I would. I would have to answer honestly if she asked. And I wanted to be able to say, "No," in a way that my voice was rock solid. Even if she didn't believe me, I'd know. There were a couple of envelopes in her folders. One listed an address not far from my store. That evening, I drove over. I thought of Doc's guitar explanation as I stood waiting at her door. I had knocked a couple of times already, and although there was no sound or indication from inside, I knew she was peering out at me through the peephole. My strings were humming. Then, one by one, I heard three locks slip out of their keepers. Slowly the door opened a crack. "Yes?" she said, softly, peeping through the crack. "You left these at the store the other day . . . " I started to explain. The door opened a couple more inches. I could see both cool gray eyes peering out of the gloom. The door shifted another few inches. Her pretty little hand snaked out, reaching for the folders. I half heartedly extended them, and said, "I read some of your work. It's magnificent." Her hand stopped. It had reached the folders and closed on them, but stopped and slowly released as I spoke. "Come in," she said. I stepped into a tiny apartment. It was sparse and plain, yet so clean I could have performed surgery on the floor. Small, exquisite paintings covered her walls. "Are these yours?" I asked. "Yes." It was such a tiny voice. Had I done something like these, I'd have boomed out a loud "Yes." I told her again how much I liked her writing. She stood bent slightly at the waist, stiffly clasping her hands together in front of her. It was a strange moment, a strange experience for me. I felt out of place, like a shark in a fish bowl. I mean the medium was right, but the place was wrong. She seemed pleased but embarrassed, and awkward, too. Again, I was stricken with the sense that if I just grabbed her by the shoulders, gave her a little shake, and said, "Now see here, everything is going to be alright" and then pulled her to me and held her tight, everything would be okay for her. "Have you ever had any of your work published?" I asked shoving my hands into my pockets. "No," she whispered. I fought a compulsion to offer to have it done for her. "You ought to submit these somewhere. Someone should be interested." "I've thought about it . . . " she trailed off. It was such a strange and strained situation. And yet, I was becoming aware that it wasn't me. It's just the way it was in there. Everything was closed up. Curtains drawn. Doors shut. Bolts thrown. I was reminded of some of her writing that told of a tiny girl who had been locked away by big people who did bad things to her. It struck me how very like her childhood this place must be for her. She confined herself to her rooms, as if the world were too painful to face, while, at the same time, recreating the essence of the room in which she was locked as a child. She probably found a measure of comfort locking herself in, and also, great sorrow. I looked back at her place as I walked away. Doors shut. Curtains drawn. Windows dark. I knew in my heart that if I came back to this place in a thousand years, I would find her here -- this frightened little girl -- locked forever in her hidy-hole. 30-30 |
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PhaerieChild Senior Member
since 1999-08-30
Posts 1787Aloha, Oregon |
Broker, this is exquisite! It captures the essence of her so well and being a victim of child molestation I can relate. Disassociation is a very real phenomenon and is sometimes very hard to overcome. It has taken me well over 30 years of therapy to reach even a semblance if normalcy. This was a tough piece for me to read but it was well worth every tear. Thank you for posting it. Poetry~ Words falling on paper, painting a dream. Shawna R. Holder Boise, Idaho |
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Smaridge New Member
since 1999-12-22
Posts 3 |
I have to admit, when I got to the bottom I was disappointed that it was over. Gripping. I could see it all playing out in my head as I read... well 'painted'. Wayne |
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Dusk Treader
Moderator
Senior Member
since 1999-06-18
Posts 1187St. Paul, MN |
Broker, this was absolutely incredible.. so poignant, so sad, so beautifully written.. It was enthralling, thank you for writing. In flames I shall not be consumed, but reborn. |
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Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration |
Hey broker...Could you spare a bit of the time you have...I sure could use some! LOL |
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