The Girl in the Treehouse

by Jennifer Asbenson

  Of course, the ambulance ride was a blur. You see, when my mom spoke those words, my eyes altered. While open, they broke into a billion little pieces, and in these pieces, I could see the universe mixed with any beautiful memory I ever had. Then there was a shift.

  Distant experiences erupted from my soul and uncontrollably purged through my vision: the stoic policemen’s faces, the paramedic intently focused on spelling my name right, my mother.

  The child in me had been murdered. She no longer existed. No one cared about me like they had when I was a child. At the time I needed it most, everyone in the world turned on me. These people only cared about my physical injuries—the bloody bite mark on my neck and my torn-up wrists. No one asked or cared how I was. I felt lost inside my own body.

  The visions I had, when I ran for my life, were wrong. Not one person acted how they were supposed to act. No one hugged me, no one nurtured me, nobody cared. They all wore masks and performed only tasks required by law. Robots. The world was evil.

  The world was evil, and I was the pitiful “scapegoat” for all of the monsters on earth to victimize.

  MY LIGHT WAS GONE. I questioned if the light I thought I had was ever even real. I wondered if the light I saw in other people’s eyes was, in fact, ignited by me or was just an illusion. All eyes were now black because my soul had gone blind.

  The salaried angels spoke in code as they transcribed the severity of my physical trauma. My pulse and blood pressure readings were unexceptional, and my wounds were superficial.

  My heart and soul were never examined, though they suffered the most trauma. My heart was ruptured and bleeding heavily. My soul was lost inside my body, its only desire was to engage or escape. Without emotional connection, it shuddered aimlessly through my body, searching for an outlet in which to depart.

  At the hospital, my story was told for me as I listened. The many versions perked my interest and desensitized my mind. The accounts varied from “she claims some man hurt her” to “apparently she believes he wanted to kill her.” No one knew what I had experienced, and unfortunately, no one cared.

  Occasionally, I began to float adrift in my mind, only to be physically jolted back to reality. From the hospital bed, my attention could only be alerted with physical touch or the announcement of my name—not Jennifer, but “Ms. Asbenson.” In the span of a few hours, I heard my last name more times than I had ever heard it in high school PE classes. It was a name I did not respond to. Reactions came quick when I heard it, but only because I thought it was in reference to my mom. “Ms. Asbenson” was her name, not mine, and as soon as it exited a mouth, I would frantically look around the room for her. Eventually, I realized she was not coming. I would face this trauma alone.

  After my veins sucked up the IV fluid that I probably did not need and I received a rape kit test, I found myself in a small treatment room with five police officers. No treatments were offered. Agitated and now fearful of men, I did not make eye contact. I looked at the ground while I sat in a school-style plastic chair and witnessed the commotion.

  “How do you know he was going to kill you?” a badged-suited man asked.

  A badged-suited man is a typical man, until he dresses for work and leaves his home. He is a man who has left all of his emotions at home, a man in search of “details” and “statements.” In this case, he was a detective—a frustrated official in search of facts.

  “Did he tell you he was going to kill you? Did he say that, Ms. Asbenson?”

  I looked up. “Yes. He said he was going to murder me and chop me into a million pieces.”

  The room fell silent.

  I slowly uttered my next words: “That’s what he said.” I looked down toward the floor.

  In disbelief, the men jotted notes.

  Now, you and I both know that the deranged man never said those words. In an effort to convince the badged-suited men of the severity of the crime, I lied. When they questioned me, they did not take me seriously. In order to assure the madman’s capture and in an attempt to save future victims’ lives, I misled them.

  As they cross-examined me, I had to occasionally remind myself that my hands were not still secured behind my back. The men paced the room and looked at me with inquisitive eyes.

  “Do you find this funny, Ms. Asbenson?” one of them asked.

  He pointed to his briefcase. “I’ve got photos in there of a woman who was chopped into pieces and shoved into buckets.” He gritted his teeth. “A real victim.”

  When he said chopped, he sawed at the air, as if I needed help picturing the massacre. The images in my head disturbed me little, as the world had already transformed into hell.

  After a while, I grew tired of the questions, but they continued. The “nice cop” took his turn.

  “Ms. Asbenson, if this was your boyfriend, just tell us. Perhaps the two of you got into a disagreement?” he asked.

  The last question forced my eyes to focus on the ground more so that my mind could escape to somewhere better. Sixty minutes prior to being mind-fucked, I sat in a white treatment chair and gazed at the ceiling. The room smelled of rubbing alcohol. My bottom half was naked, and a blue paper dress, with the back open, rested on my top parts. My legs were spread wide open. I was gone from my thoughts. A long cotton swab scrapped the insides of my vagina. Humiliation was not felt; no emotions were present. My body had caused me so much pain that I began to despise it.

  The soft voice of a woman told me that all would be okay. A hand softly touched my hand, and I pulled away. The voice told me that she understood and that what happened to me was horrible. She was the only compassionate person I had encountered so far. She must have learned my story from the others, because I never told her. I had no idea what version she received, and I never asked.

  My glossed-over eyes recognized compassion in hers. Somehow, she was able to leave her mask at home. She was real, and she truly cared. Her kindness was not enough to help my heart, and my soul was too far gone, but I did take notice. I asked for her name.

  “My name is Alice,” she calmly replied.

  Alice? I thought. That’s kind of strange. I had never met another Alice before. My body felt dead as she performed the rape kit test on me. The name Alice repeated over and over in my head until the test concluded.

  ONE OF THE BADGED-SUITED MEN stepped toward me as I pondered the name Alice.

  “Well, Ms. Asbenson, this is my card.”

  It’s so ironic that that was her name, I thought.

  “Ms. Asbenson?”

  Maybe she loved me.

  “If you think of anything else, give us a call.”

  I ARRIVED HOME AT SUNDOWN. Exhausted, I stumbled into my apartment. Tyler was there with another one of my girlfriends. They had already heard the story, but I told them my version too. Because of how I had been treated, I figured my own friends wouldn’t believe me either. It was difficult for me to be in the apartment. The maniac initially picked me up at a liquor store about a block from my apartment, so he could probably find me with little effort, especially since I didn’t have a car.

  That night, I could not sleep. On top of NyQuil, I drank two beers. Because I was too afraid to lie down, I leaned against the wall and watched my friends sleep. The television kept me company. The thought that no one did enough to help me drove me crazy. My heart began to race as I imagined the crazy man about to bang down the front door and murder me once and for all.

  In a panic, I grabbed the landline telephone, dragged it into the bathroom, and locked myself in. The bathroom was tiny; it had one toilet, a sink, and a shower. I felt safe wrapped in a blanket in the shower, with the plastic curtain on one side and a wall with a small window, too small for the man to fit through, on the other.

  The phone sat on my lap as I thought about the new Alice. She had given me her card, but I had not yet looked at it. Rape Crisis Center, it read. My hand trembled as I tried to recall if I was actually raped. If I was not raped, could I still call? I wonde
red. I tried to think deeper. I don’t remember the feeling of something going inside me. I did push, though. I pushed out with my body and my breath because that was the only thing I could do to reject what was happening to me. It was like I was trying to blow him away with my body. I protected my mind at that point, so well that I don’t know if I was raped or not.

  Earlier in the day, a police officer had asked me if I was penetrated. I asked him what that meant; I didn’t know. Sex lingo was not a subject area I excelled in; I was not experienced. All I knew was that the killer became upset in his attempts, and his penis seemed to have a problem with firmness. It didn’t matter to me if I had been raped or not. I would have felt robbed either way.

  After rewinding my mind and examining my memory about the rape, I decided to call. It was two o’clock in the morning. A young girl answered. She sounded like I woke her up.

  “Rape Crisis Center.”

  At that point, no words would leave my mouth. She sighed as if no one who called her ever spoke right away. She waited for a response.

  I flipped the light switch off so that the kidnapper wouldn’t be able to see me through the small shower window. I didn’t want anyone to hear me either.

  “I was raped. I was kidnapped and raped,” I said.

  “Okay, so you were raped?” She was not very professional. It sounded like she was preoccupied with something in the background, so I freaked out on her.

  My hand shook. “Help me, please! He is a murderer! He is going to kill other girls!”

  “Okay, if you want me to help you, you need to calm down.”

  “Where is Alice?” I asked.

  “Alice is not here.”

  Confused, I started to cry. I pulled the phone closer to my ear when I heard a new noise. It was a dial tone. She had hung up on me.

  THE BATHROOM BECAME MY SAFEHOUSE for the next few days. I’d only leave when someone needed to use it. Sometimes, though, I would stay; it really depended on what they wanted to use the bathroom for.

  One night, I decided to try and act normal, so I watched TV with my roommate. Not long after a show started, I walked into the kitchen to get some water. As I lifted the glass to my mouth, it slipped and shattered all over the floor. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground. I lay on my back on top of the glass pieces and convulsed, like I was having a grand mal seizure. Slobber began to slip from my mouth as my eyes rolled into my head.

  Worried and with no idea what to do, my friend called 911. The paramedics arrived quickly and loaded me up for the hospital. I was unresponsive, but I could see and hear all that occurred.

  The hospital staff recognized me as the same girl who had come in a few days prior. The entire time, I shook with no control and hoped it meant I would die. Unable to communicate, I listened to the frantic banter of the nurses.

  “She claimed she was kidnapped.”

  “Is she having a seizure?”

  “No!”

  “Maybe she just likes attention.”

  “They never found the guy.”

  “Mental breakdown?”

  “Ma’am! Stay still!”

  “Don’t poke yourself, Sheila!”

  “We need restraints over here!”

  “That should do it!”

  “You get her?”

  “Looks like it.”

  Then complete and utter silence.

  The next day, I awoke to find myself strapped to a bed in a mental institution.

  Police photo, after I was kidnapped.

  The cuts on my wrists were all that reminded me of the truth.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  5150

  The treehouse has a new addition. The structure sits a foot below the entrance of my eight-by-eight-square-foot treehouse. A few weeks ago, I constructed a ten-by-ten deck by myself. It looked like a large wooden wall when I finished. The man in the house helped me put nine four-foot posts under the deck for support. Cement blocks secure the legs in place. At first, the completed project looked like a stage, but it served no purpose, so I covered the deck to create a room.

  The E-Z UP on top creates a roof. The skinny-legged canopy was drilled down so that it couldn’t take off in the wind. There were no walls, so I created those out of bamboo—bamboo fencing to be specific. When the day is hot, I water the tall hollow sticks with a hose, and when the wind blows, the air is cooled.

  In the middle of the deck is a queen-size airbed. Above the bed is a solar-paneled, black chandelier. Mental disorders on folded sticky notes dangle from the yarn I hung from it. The new invention resembles a mobile over a baby’s crib. The pastel-colored papers blow in the wind like tiny upside-down kites. They begin to tangle with one another, creating a bunch of “mental problems.” It’s mesmerizing. Sometimes I feel like I could gaze at it forever …

  As I lie on the magical bed in my humble treehouse, I travel back—back to when I thought my life was over, back to when I was companionless and confused. During that time in my life, when I closed my eyes, I was forced to visualize myself somewhere else, a place like where I am now—warm, even when cold. I would picture myself at a beautiful destination with hymns and Christmas lights or any other place I felt safe, where everyone believed me and loved me. And if they didn’t, it wouldn’t matter, because I believed and loved myself.

  You can only gaze at a ceiling for so long before you begin to feel crazy. Some would say I was already nuts, since the ceiling I stared at occupied the skies of a mental institution. There are few possibilities for entertainment in such a place. As long as you have a mind, you have choices. I chose to count the dots and pretend the rain spots were dark clouds; that seemed to keep my mind off the situation.

  When you cannot hear noise, you tend to use your other senses more. Touch was constrained, so I chose vision. My feet faced the west toward the door. Tears rolled down my cheeks and into my ears. It was an all-time low.

  My skin looked blue. Maybe I was dead. Most likely I was just cold since I had no blankets. My palms faced the floor. My hands laid outstretched, like little stars, and gently trembled as the eyes in my tilted head admired them. I was strapped to a bed. But the small white room—my room—felt secure.

  My new negative imagination told me I would die here … not in this room, but in this psychiatric ward with all its creeps and weirdos. These snake pits were evil places. Patients were shocked with electric volts, tortured, and given lobotomies. Every moment, I yearned for someone to bust through the door and save me, but unfortunately, that someone did not exist.

  Why didn’t the psychiatric hospital feel more like my treehouse? Warm and comfortable. Secure and sure. Why was it painted the same color everywhere? Stark white, with no decoration. Cold and lonely. No art. Not an ounce of visual stimuli. Nothing emotionally enticing. No intrigue. Just a lonely and perverted, highly-secured structure meant to confine the misunderstood and unloved rejects of the world. The worst part of all of this was accepting that I was, in fact, one of them.

  My new psychologist told me I was being held on a “5150.” It was a three-day hold. A doctor from the hospital recommended I be confined for seventy-two hours because I was a danger to myself.

  Apparently, I was suicidal. The slashes on my wrists and my erratic behavior told a “medically obvious” sad story. My freshly medicated mind assured me his words were the truth. My cuts were not from the imaginary twine; they were indeed self-inflicted, he said. Out of the blue, I had lost my mind and made up a story that someone tried to kill me. I then slit my wrists and hoped to die. My mind was boggled as I tried to debate the wild accusations, and then my voice disappeared.

  A few days prior, my voice began to trip up when I spoke. I assumed it was laryngitis, but my mind occasionally played tricks on me. I’d see sadistic images of a madman with his fingers tight around my neck, causing vocal cord damage.

  Schizophrenia can come on quickly, I was told. The psychologist assured me that I could no longer tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Med
ications existed that could fix this. More days within these confined walls would help, they said. So I was sentenced to a longer stay.

  How had this happened to me? Why would I suddenly have delusions of such an awful thing? Maybe I made it all up for attention because I felt unloved. I was a storyteller. I’d been in a fantasy world all of my life, but I knew the difference between real and pretend, didn’t I? It didn’t matter anyway because I was not prepared to tell the scary story anymore. The horrific events were not only painful to tell, but once told, the details only caused more agony.

  In the community room of the loony bin, cradled by a worn plastic chair, I studied the nut-jobs. I sat with my feet on the seat and my knees bent near my chin in a protective position. My arms were wrapped around my legs to shield my vulnerable heart.

  As the weirdos lined up for medication, I gaped. If I waited until the line cleared, I’d feel ordinary. To stand in a line at your own will and accept a cure-all that only made you crazier seemed insane.

  My first dinner in the asylum was bizarre. As one guy ate, he threw the contents of his meal tray. His food landed on an unhinged woman’s plate, and she screamed loudly and refused to eat. Another guy stood up, stepped away from the table, spread his legs, and peed himself as he laughed. His urine splashed on the ground, and he kicked at it. Some patients watched and continued to eat. One woman gawked and sang an awful song. During the entire meal, I tried not to gag.

  Shower time was after dinner. If I wanted to shave my armpits or legs, I was observed. A nurse stood a few feet away and made sure I didn’t kill myself with the plastic safety razor. Even if I wanted to kill myself, I’d find it difficult. Because of the high dose of medication, I could hardly stand. To avoid humiliation, I yet again escaped away in my mind. My shower escapes had been mastered by now.