Panic

Afterward

Image by JetalProduções via Pixabay

In early December 1969, while attending law school Downtown, all of my classes were in the evening

It was already dark when I arrived. I always parked my car in the lot directly across from the school.

I noticed a young guy in a white coat standing in the center of the lot. Immediately, the thought crossed my mind that he would try to stiff me for the parking lot fee.

But I was experienced enough to know that the lot closed at six thirty and there was no charge after that. I pulled into a vacant space facing the brick wall of the building next to the parking lot between two spaces with cars already in them.

I gathered up my books and papers and stepped out of my car. As I turned towards the rear of the car, I saw the young man in the white coat standing between me and the back of my car.

He asked if I had a light. Fear coursed through my veins.

The look on his face would have scared anyone, and he stood between me and the space I needed to run. I reached into my purse and pulled out a lighter. When I looked up to hand it to him, he had a knife in his hand.

“Get in the car,” he growled at me. I just stood there thinking about what my mother had always told me. “Don’t get in the car; better to be shot. You might make it. But you are for sure dead if you get in the car.”

“He only has a knife,“ I said to myself. I was scared, but not to the point of panic. “Think, don’t panic. Save yourself.”

I argued with him instead. “No, I won’t, not unless you step back to the end of the car.” I could hear other people in the parking lot, though I was too afraid to scream because he was now standing directly against me with the knife pushed against my stomach.

He heard them, too, and told me to hug him like we were lovers. I froze and could not. He put his arm around me and told me again to get in the car. I repeated that he must back up to the rear of the vehicle.

He acquiesced out of the fear of being caught, I suppose. He moved a few steps back, and I told him to go further back.

When he did, I jumped into the car, slammed it shut, and pushed down the lock while he headed for the other door, and I reached across the seat to the front passenger window and locked it just as he got to that door.

Boy, did he get mad. He started yelling at me that I was a rich girl who deserved what he wanted to do to me.

Then I got mad and began yelling at him about why I was attending classes here. I wanted to help people like him.

Apparently, he heard something, looked towards the back of the car, and started running.

Then I really got mad. He was going to get away. I started the car, gunned it out of the parking lot, and followed him a couple of blocks before losing him.

I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. I turned the car around and parked next to the curb in front of the school.

Several male students were talking near the front doors, so I ran up to them and told them what had just happened.

One of them called the police. It was before the days of 911.

One went upstairs to tell my professor I would be late for class. A cop came and questioned me.

From the start, he did not believe me and made it obvious. His questions were cursory, and when he started to leave, I had to ask him if he wanted a description of the guy.

Needless to say, he was never caught. Since I never heard anything again about the case, I presume it went no further than his shift report and a few laughs with his fellow police officers about that girl who wasn’t prepared for class and made up a whopper to get out of it.

I headed up the stairs to my class, but I only made it halfway before I turned around and left. I knew I was about ready to break down crying, and I couldn’t face the class that way. The professor counted me absent and took a whole letter grade off my final grade. He didn’t believe me either.

I was living at home at the time, and of course, my parents believed me and were scared and relieved at the same time. I remember telling my mom that she had saved my life.

There was no doubt in my mind that her teaching me not to panic saved me. I would have been too frightened not to get in the car when he told me to.

By the time I got home the next day from class, my mother, enamored with detective stories, had already solved the case.

She showed me stories from the newspaper about several women who had been killed after leaving work from the telephone company at night in the previous weeks.

They were raped and murdered and dumped outside town. Their cars were later found, but not at the parking lot in front of the telephone company.

The telephone company parking lot was one block away and visible from the parking lot where he accosted me.

They panicked and got into the car when he asked them to.

This never happened again at that location, to my knowledge. I figure he left town because I had seen him and no doubt continued his work elsewhere.

Moral of this story? Save your panic for afterward so you can save yourself.

If you know a young woman, make sure she reads this, or teach her yourself not to panic. Panicking makes you unable to think straight, and it is up to her to save herself.