Mystery Date!

In the spring of 1984 I was sound asleep in my dorm room in Millbrook, NY early one morning when I found myself being shaken violently and shouting at my deceased uncle to stop it. I awoke absolutely terrified from my dream but to my horror, the bed hadn't stopped shaking. It was shaking and hard, squeaking loudly.

Immediately thoughts of The Exorcist flew through my brain and I jumped out of bed and ran into the hall of my dorm where other sleepy and half-naked boys were standing in their doorways. Everything was shaking, not just the beds and it was hard to keep my legs under my feet. I shouted that the boiler must be exploding and so we all ran outside in our underwear as quickly as we could.

It wasn't the boiler at all. It was an earthquake.

Novel as an earthquake in these parts is, I couldn't get the thought of what had awakened me out of my head. I had been in complete terror, crying, and shouting for my uncle to stop, begging him to stop and it disturbed me enormously because he was so very highly regarded in my family and community. Not one but two parks in my town are named for him and while he died when I was still very young, everybody spoke of him in glowing and fond terms.

Why should I be so terrorized by him?

or, more to the point,

Why do I have no memory of him?

It's not like he was distant. We went to his house frequently for parties or to go swimming. My mom kept her horse there, my cousins congregated by the zillions. There was always something going on. His wife, my great aunt, was one of my favorite people.

I don't remember who molested me. When I try to picture a face it's always a gray blank. I don't know the room or the house. I do remember it was in a chair, on a man's lap and it was on a bed. Previous to this past month, if you or even my shrinks or best friends, had asked if I had been molested as a child I would have denied it because I have blocked out who did it. To my way of thinking, if I can't remember who it was, then I can't prove it happened.

Nor would I have admitted it because it would make me more defective than I already am. I become yet another "victim" people applaud "for their strength and valor!" on Oprah. I'm not strong and I'm not valorous. My anger with myself for failing to remember who did it is enormous because I really want to remember.

Was it my highly respected uncle? Why would I have feared him like that if he was so wonderful?

Maybe it was my other uncle? I remember him reading to me in bed and, after all, he was gay. Don't all gays want to molest little boys?

Could it be the dear family friend who used to take my sister and I out for ice cream and brought us treats at Easter and Christmas?

What about my grandfathers? Other uncles? The kid who did lawn work for my grandfather and taught me to ride a bike?

What if it was my own father? We bathed together and I slept in his bed sometimes. He did have a porno mag with a picture of a hairless young boy going down on a man who looked to be his "father" while the "mother" looked on.

That I even suspect these people sickens me because it means I doubt their love for me and surely they can't all have done it. Worse still, would I have been straight if I wasn't molested? Would I be normal? Would I be married with a wife and kids, never looking at a man? Am I looking to re-live my molestation in every man-on-man encounter I have?

Over the years I've taught myself not to dwell on what happened because when I do, I feel very small. I convince myself that there's nothing I can do so why does it matter? Why make myself feel like a rag doll? That is how I felt when it happened and it's how I feel any time I remember it, limp, lifeless, powerless, splayed, naked and numb. As I already have low self-esteem, then why relive it all over again? Isn't it better to forget even if I may never know who it was?

I've never read books on this subject, never delved into it because I've convinced myself ignorance is bliss in this case.

There's no resolution to this post because I don't have one.