A Common Pornography: A Memoir

Introduction

In August 2008, I had a panic attack that forced me out of my home naked. It was three thirty in the morning. I was startled awake with the feeling of something holding me down in bed. I was in my apartment alone. My fourteen-year-old son was staying at his mother’s house that night. I looked around my bedroom as my eyes adjusted to the dark. My closet door was open, and a heap of dirty laundry was spilling out of it. I felt like something was standing there, watching me, ready to hurt me. Maybe it was my father. I tried to yell or scream, but I couldn’t fill my throat with air and the sound came out hoarse and hollow like it does sometimes when I have bad dreams.

I kicked the blankets off and pushed myself out of bed. I turned on the lights and cautiously looked around my apartment, shaking and fearful. I paced around and thought about getting back in bed but I couldn’t go back into the bedroom. I thought about calling someone, but I didn’t want to wake anyone up. Plus, my phone was in the bedroom. I felt trapped and decided that I needed to leave my apartment. I grabbed the car keys and tried to go back into the bedroom to grab some clothes. I made myself speak, to see if anyone else was there and also to simply break the dull silence. “Hey,” I said. And then louder, “Hey!”

There was a short echo that brought more panic into my chest and I turned and ran out the door.

I got in my car and started it. I didn’t have my phone, my wallet, or any clothes. I drove around the quiet streets for a while. A few times I drove past early-morning commuters, driving slowly with their headlights on, sipping coffee from their travel mugs, half asleep and unaware that a scared, naked man debated whether or not to plow into them with his car like a missile.

I knew I needed help, but I didn’t want to go to a hospital. If you go to an emergency room naked, what do they do? I wondered. I decided to go to my friend Lynne’s house. She woke up, dazed and probably wondering if she was dreaming. She tried to calm me down, but I couldn’t stop shaking and whipping my head around, like someone was sneaking up on me. She started a bath for me and gave me an anxiety pill. She covered me with blankets as the tub filled and I was telling her, as if giving her instructions, “The books [this book and an anthology I was editing] are on my computer. My will is in one of my yearbooks.” I felt like I was cracking apart, drowning in an ocean, losing a long battle.

When I got into the tub my body started convulsing. Lynne was in her kitchen trying to find something and I felt deserted for a moment. I began wailing and crying uncontrollably. I felt possessed by a demon, both awful and sad. Maybe this, six months after the fact, was how I grieved for Dad. Maybe his ghost said, You haven’t grieved for me properly. He didn’t care that I didn’t want to grieve for him or that I felt like I didn’t have to. He was going to make me, even if it was against my will.