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Claustrophobia

Drew Marshall

    I was in grade school when it happened. Roland and I were hanging around in front of the basement entrance to our apartment building. Mike, his older brother, wandered over to us. He was an out-and-out bully.

    My friends sibling started pushing and hitting me, before forcing my eleven-year-old body into an empty trash bin. The persecutor then slammed the lid shut, and proceeded to sit on top of the steel canister. My tormentor then proudly announced he was king of the world, while kicking the can. The last thing I remember, was the sound of my mother’s voice calling out my name. It was past dinner time.

    To this day, I cannot recall what happened next. I do know that after this incident I felt compelled when in a movie theater, to sit in the first seat in the aisle, towards the back of the theater, closest to the exit door. I cannot enjoy the show otherwise. I had developed a mild case of claustrophobia.

    By the time I graduated high school, Mike had become a disturbed, shut-in. He stayed in his room most of the time, seldom speaking to anyone. Everyone became acutely self-conscious, as if walking on eggshells in his presence. “Hare Krishna, hari hari.” was the most I ever heard him say. I did not bear any malice towards the former tyrant, and felt sorry for him.

    During a summer off from college, I took a job as a lift operator. It was a four-story loft located in downtown Manhattan. The only tenants were the owners, a family of three with an art framing business. Few if any people visited the building. I learned how to be alone in a confined place for extended periods of time. I had the claustrophobia issue under control.

    Until thirty years later, after taking a clerical position at the Creedmoor Campus, site of the former state mental institution. Now the site housed various private sector, mental health facilities. I was told this would be a low-pressure assignment, to help me make the transition back into the workplace, after my bout with “nervous exhaustion,” the previous year. Nobody bothered to tell me they served a felon population.

    I was instructed to always keep the door of my small office open. The clients were constantly barging in and overwhelming me with assorted issues that were not within the scope of my responsibilities, knowledge or capabilities. The irate “consumers” would become verbally and occasionally, physically abusive. Many times, they snuck up from behind me, ranting about one thing or another, pushing papers into my face, or demanding to use my phone. These people were employed by us as porters and landscapers.

    The luncheon area where they congregated, was right outside my office.
When I complained to the director of the program, a woman despised by all, she indifferently told me that I was bringing my personal problems to the job. The other staff members were safely hidden behind the locked doors of their private offices.

    By the time I left this cesspool from hell, the phobia was back with a vengeance. I found myself constantly looking over my shoulder and was fearful of entering small shops, if more than a few people were inside. This avoidance behavior carried on for several months. I forced myself to deal with the predicament, and the fear eventually subsided.

    Others may have had a similar reactions, if they had been employed at that place of horror, but I wonder if I was predisposed, due to my forced entry into that garbage can, decades earlier. I sometimes think about Mike, and imagine if he ever sought out treatment for his ailments, or remained dysfunctional and warehoused, at a residence, similar to those at the Creedmoor campus.

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