Boy From the North Country

It was here in the cafeteria where I first encountered Dylan. Dylan was “native” (for good or for ill, a term still used in the North Country today to describe folks who are part of the local Mohawk Nation). He was also short, blond-haired, and not exactly what you would call athletic. I was “white” (in this case meaning “not native”), skinny, and also definitely not athletic. In many ways, we were cut from the same cloth. Neither fit the bill of a typical, hyper-masculine North Country bloke, neither of us much to look at in terms of size. If I were looking to bully in order to advance my social standing, I might have picked me too. I was insecure, nerdy, and from all outward appearances, a queer. I was too fashionable, sang in the choir, and was far more preoccupied with the girl’s gossip than I was with who had won the Stanley Cup that year. That Dylan’s older brother would later come out as gay wouldn’t be known for at least a decade but somehow, it feels very much a part of the dynamic that was playing out between us and may have unconsciously been driving much of the intensity of the otherwise inexplicable acrimony he had toward me. Leaving the cafeteria in my middle school was always a bit of a shit-show. All 500 or so kids would either be changing classes or leaving the classroom simultaneously. The small lobby outside of the lunchroom would be crisscrossed with hormonal adolescents rushing from one hallway to the next, grabbing pee breaks (and smoke breaks) in the large bathrooms just outside the giant food hall. Kids would flirt and girls would walk arm and arm while the boys would push and shove their way through the crowd. At the time, it seemed that everyone was unconsciously demonstrating the various hierarchies spread amongst the cliques and groups that defined middle school life. One afternoon in late fall, while exiting the lunch room, I felt a shove from behind and found myself stumbling into the bathroom. Off went the lights. I remember hitting one of the urinals with my shoulder and then using it to steady myself. Then, I remember hitting the bathroom floor after getting pushed from behind a second time. It was happening fast. My thirteen-year-old heart was racing, my equally youthful mind was frozen in terror. I didn’t know what was happening. I was being attacked but I couldn’t see who it was or even make out how many people were in the room with me. Suddenly, I heard, “It’s Faveroux, we gotta get out of here” from the other side of the bathroom. Faveroux was the name of our despised junior high principal. Then I heard the same voice from the phone say, “Stay away from Dawn.” It was Dylan Maples. Suddenly, the lights came on, I was laying on the bathroom floor and some older kids who I really didn’t know were standing over me, asking what I was doing on the floor. I didn’t even know what I was doing in the bathroom let alone what I was doing on the floor. I got up, ran out of the room just in time to hear the bell ringing and that would now mark me as late for getting back to class. It is commonly said that mammals have two major responses to fear. Fight is the most favored and we associate it with bravery. We imagine ourselves (or a cornered animal) lashing into a larger predator and making a last ditch effort to save his own life. We imagine fear being replaced by blind rage. Seeing red is another way we describe it. We all hope that should we find ourselves the victim of an attack, that this will be the approach we take. We all imagine that we have a hidden mongoose deep inside ourselves that will chew our own arm off (or that of our attacker) in the event that we find ourselves falling prey to someone or something who would have us for dinner or have our wallet full of cash. The other commonly known reaction to severe fear is flight. In our imagination, we picture the sleek gazelle leaping a dozen yards at a time at unfathomable speeds in order to escape the rapidly approaching cheetah. David Attenborough has (in all his British-accented glory) dramatically walked us through invigorating scenes of jungle after jungle, savannah watering hole after savannah watering hole, and frozen tundra after tundra filled with animals being chased to within an inch of their lives only to escape the clutches of a big cat, a lock-jawed gator or a fluffy but menacing polar bear. Yes, we love “the flight” too! Here, we fantasize that a brood of angry attackers (or even the cops) could be out run with lightning speed, death-defying agility, and daring leaps across building tops. Yes, we imagine that we are all harboring an unknown yet powerful ability to flee from danger at a moment’s notice. At least that’s what we pray might happen. While it is commonly known that these two major reactions to fear are present across a variety of species, including humans, what is less commonly known is that in addition to these evolutionarily honed skills lies a third instinct. While less-known it is no less powerful and no less effective; circumstances notwithstanding. These two well-known sympathetic nervous system-driven strategies deliver vital blood to the muscle groups and stop other functions such as digestion in an effort to turn the animal machine into a force to be reckoned with. The body has one goal: survive. And while these two tactics work for some, they are not for everyone. At least not for everyone in every circumstance. Peter Levine, a leading expert on trauma and its responses says, “In response to threat and injury, animals execute biologically based, nonconscious action patterns that prepare them to meet the threat and defend themselves. The very structure of trauma, including activation, dissociation and freezing are based on the evolution of survival behaviors. When threatened or injured, all animals draw from a "library of possible responses.” Which response we choose may be dependent on our individual characteristics, the nature of the trauma, the nature of our abuser, or a combination of all three. In any case, as mammals we have a limited array of choices in the hurried conditions of a traumatic event. The alternative? Freeze! For one reason or another most of us forget about the third and arguably most prevalent human choice. Perhaps it is counter-intuitive from an evolutionary perspective. After all, it isn't exactly the first thing one imagines when one thinks a gazelle would do when the cheetah is running after them. We don’t imagine that the impala’s first instinct in the face of a darting big cat is to stop dead in their tracks and wait for the event to pass. Our imaginations are often wrong, though, and that is precisely what happens to some prey animals on the savannah, the tundra, or even in a suburban tract house. Filip Bromberg, another expert on trauma, writes about the instinct to freeze in his book Taming the Tiger Within when he states that a certain percentage of the time, a big cat will not have the opportunity to devour a fresh kill immediately upon completing the encounter. Sometimes the animal is too stressed out to eat after a long chase, other times competing predators are around and the cat will need to hide the carcass until nightfall when it can return and eat in peace. At other times, a mother with cubs will have her young hidden away and will need to store the animal for safekeeping while she goes to fetch her young. Each of these (and possibly other) brief lapses between kill and dinner offer the sly prey animal another opportunity for escape.