RAPE THWARTED MIRACULOUSLY:
She was a college freshman, full of promise and purpose, prepared – as she’d ever be – to give an oral presentation in front of her acting class that day.
Making her usual trek through Central Park to Hunter College, she began to realize that she was quite alone in a rather secluded area of the park, when SUDDENLY, out of nowhere, a man appeared and wrapped his arm around her waist. Panic set in along with one single thought, “God…”
She sized up the situation in a millisecond, took a deep breath and began to BABBLE (meaningless confusion of words) like a lunatic! “You didn’t have to startle me,” she babbled in feigned admonishment; and he responded by tightening his grip on her waist … as they continued walking together.
“If you had wanted to walk with me, you could have just asked me without startling me” she cooed with amazing self-composure. When she became cognizant of her own lack of fear in the face of an ever-increasingly dangerous threat on her life, she had but one thought in mind as they rounded the corner near the lake: “KEEP BABBLING!” – “Where are the ducks? There were always ducks here, you remember? This is the duck pond and I remember I used to always feed the ducks” … she continued babbling incoherently: “I didn’t even know if it was allowed but I fed them ‘cuz they were so cute, … so where are they?”
Around the corner she noticed a steep staircase leading up and out of the park. She knew he had noticed it too by the tightening of his grip on her waist, which prompted her to BABBLE MORE: “Ducks …are… strange… animals … well … I … don’t … know … if … they … qualify … as … animals….”
His grip finally relaxed a bit. IN A FLASH, she darted up the stairs, taking two at a time, until she heard the sweetest sound emanating from below (his screaming an obscenity at her): “YOU B.I.I.I.I.I.I.T…!!
She had reached a safe distance from her would-be attacker. (I can vouch for the veracity of this account as I was the “She” in question.)
Some years later, as I was coaching a Japanese student of mine, the famous actress, Eri Ishida, on how to prepare her lines for an upcoming movie performance, as English practice, I told her this story in broken Japanese and she translated it back to English. Then, rather dismissively I confessed that I had been taking a college course in acting at the time and it wasn’t really myself who was so calm, cool and collected in the face of an inevitable rape and very possible murder. Eri very forcefully countered this argument by asserting, “THAT WAS THE REAL YOU, TOO” and added that this part of my be-ing was under the surface, but very present. “As a matter of fact it’s the ‘you’ that surfaces whenever there’s an emergency.” my loving student advised her teacher!
SEQUEL to “Rape Thwarted Miraculously”:
Many of my students and friends said “Oh, I could never do what you did. Where did you get the courage?”
I explained that I had been keenly aware that my very life was in danger and instantaneously turned to God – where I got the directive to ‘BABBLE’. For another person, it might have been to run or swim or I don’t know what; but God chose to instill in me the gift of ‘babble’ to distract and quell an otherwise horrific threat.
