Standing Apart From #MeToo
The mission includes me, but the movement’s politics repel me.
Like Eloise, I was a city child, playing on the elevators. I lived in a large apartment building, it was nine stories high, with eight separate entrances, each one equipped with its own lift. In afternoons and on weekends my girlfriends and I would stand under each other’s windows and holler for each other. Then we’d ride the elevators up and down if we wanted to visit one another.
Sometimes we’d meet in the lobby and race each other up the stairs to a friend’s apartment. Sometime one of us would race and another take the elevator. Sometimes we’d ride part way and then rush to a meeting point.
Possibilities were endless. For instance, what if we press the stop button? what if we press it when we are between the floors? In certain elevators, we learned, the doors would open and we’d stare into the deep tunnel, in others the mechanical device has to be at level with the floor.
The building handyman didn’t like these games: no messing with his toys, please. Our parents weren’t too amused either. Horrific urban legends were circulating. For instance, these boys were playing chicken in the elevator shaft. One of them would get inside the elevator and ride it down until he heard his friends scream Stop! Several boys were smashed to death this way. They also found a way to pry the doors of the shaft open and get on top of the cabin and ride it up.
As you may have guessed, my mission here is not here to tell urban legends.
One muddy spring afternoon, when I was 12-years-old, I was coming home from school. I was waiting for the elevator on the bottom floor when a strange, tall young man in a brown jacket came in and stood between me and the exit. I knew immediately he was no good.
My back was to the wall. In front of me was the elevator door, to my left was a door to an apartment. If I tried to run past him to get out, he might catch me. If I rang the bell on the door to my left, nobody would answer — the people who lived there were out all day. I could scream, of course, but will anyone respond, and what will that creep do to me if I try to call attention?
I could hear the hum of the elevator coming down from a top floor. The strange man was leaning against the wall a few steps away from me, smirking already.
As soon as the elevator doors opened, I jumped in. I pressed my floor button as I was turning around. The man’s pants were down. He was showing his grotesque, slimy penis. This was the single most horrifying moment of my life. I think I screamed.
The doors closed shut right away — my elevator was quick. I saw the man smile, I saw him look at the number I pressed and rush to the staircase. My apartment was high, on the 8th floor, but I thought, what if he’s quick and gets there first? What if I make it there first, and I ring on the bell, but my grandmother doesn’t open the door right away? I wanted certainty.
I knew exactly what to do. I waited until the elevator was halfway between floors (I waited for the cabin to bump when passing a tier threshold) and quickly pressed the stop button. I heard someone’s footsteps on the staircase, and then, many minutes later, a person walking down the stairs, knocking on the elevator doors at each story. That person tried to pry the doors open, too. I knew my elevator: it’s doors stayed shut if it was stuck in this manner. I was safely suspended.
I stayed in the cabin for a long time. Other people went down knocking on the doors. After a while I felt safe — or safer. I pressed number eight again, and soon enough I was at my door. I leaned on the bell, and when my grandmother opened for me, she had wondered why I was late, why I was ringing the bell like crazy and why my hair was sticking out in all directions.
We didn’t call police — what was the point? And I stayed home the next day. When I felt ready to emerge from our apartment, my grandfather walked me to school and back.
I learned my lesson: from then on I’d always turn around and look to see if anyone was following me into the building entrance. Twice after that I was followed by creepy-looking individuals, but I knew to call home and get my dad to meet me out on the street.
That was a fairly common experience in the Soviet Union; a lot of girls encountered flashers growing up. It was usually said that if the flasher is young, he just wants to amuse himself and won’t touch the woman. It’s the older guys who are real trouble. I don’t know how the folk wisdom reached that conclusion, but it happened to be true in my case.
It’s also not a very interesting story. I always thought I’d blog about it one day when I run out of other things to write about. I thought that the larger point I’d make would be about free-range kids. Because I was free-ranged, I knew my environment better than my assailant, and was able to outsmart him. Coincidentally, he wasn’t serious. I can imagine facing a more determined assailant, and facing him in a situation where I didn’t know the environment, say at apartments I didn’t know. I don’t know what I would do then.
What I do know, is that although that encounter felt terrifying at the time, it had no long-term effect on me. I was never touched in a way I didn’t want to be touched. I was confronted with something I wasn’t ready to see, that’s all. If I wasn’t free-ranged, however, I’d be a totally different person.
I would probably never get around to this post if not for the #MeToo campaign in which I did not participate. I thought about it, but I didn’t. It felt too much like group therapy for women in entertainment. Also, because it was organized by leftist activist Alyssa Milano, I thought this would feed into a movement that’s mostly about abortion, and I have no interest in that.
I also have no interest in man-hating. Years ago, a very nice lesbian woman tried to chat me up. She successfully turned the conversation to men and violence and even got that flasher story out of me (I don’t usually feel the need to talk about it). After that she tried to convince me that men are all like that. Ummm, no.
I don’t think of myself as a victim. Looking back, I see a resourceful girl. I prevailed; I’m living a good life. Considering the male life expectancy in that part of the world, it’s safe to assume that the man who cornered me in a dark lobby is dead by now. It’s safe to say he’s long dead. It’s not exactly justice, but I’ll take it.
