“What, Bobby?” she asked, concerned now at the sudden change in him.
“I’m sorry I said…that I talked like this. Please, do me a favor. There are things about me…my past…that I don’t want you to know about. I can’t risk losing you and I know I would, if I told you. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I did and, now, I am asking you to forget that I did.”
“But, Bobby…”
“Please. I…You are the most important, most decent thing that has ever happened to me. I don’t want to lose you. Respect my wishes, this once.”
The look she gave him was peculiar and puzzled.
“Okay, Bobby. I won’t ask. I just wanted to help.”
“You do help. Just by being here. You are my fairy princess and I love you.”
He kissed her softly at first, then harder and his love swelled in him, out of control. This time there were no distractions.
TAPE # 2
DR. ARTHUR HOLLANDER: Well, Esther, do you feel comfortable about going ahead at this time?
ESTHER PEGALOSI: I do.
Q: All right. Good. Let’s just see how we do then. Do you want to just relax? That’s it. When you feel the hand moving toward your face, I want you to say “now.”
(PAUSE)
A: Now.
Q: All right. Let’s just keep that pleasant, comfortable feeling while we go back in time. We aren’t going to go back too far this time. Just to last week, a week ago today. You were in this office, you were lying on this chair very much as you are now. We had a very, very satisfying hour and after we finished you went out and met Roy, Mr. Shindler. And you went and got into his car.
Now, will you, as best you can, repeat that experience now. Don’t tell me about it. Review it in your mind’s eye. Exactly what happened until you arrived back at your apartment. Let me know when you’ve finished by saying “now.”
(PAUSE)
A: Now.
Q: Did that disturb you at all?
A: No.
Q: Would you be willing to repeat that experience for me?
A: Uh-huh.
Q: Okay. Tell me, if you wish to, as clearly as you can, as though it was happening right now, what happened. You leave through that door. You hear the screen door bounce back and bounce again.
A: We go out to the parking lot and Mr. Shindler tells me how good you said I did. How he is proud of me. I get in the front seat and we drive out of the parking lot.
Q: What street do you take, Esther?
A: Atlanta Boulevard. Then straight to Monroe. We talked about you. I said I thought that you were a nice man.
Q: Why thank you very much!
A: I said you sounded kind and you kind of understood things.
Then we went up Monroe ’til we got to the park and Mr. Shindler turned off there into the park. When we were driving, he asked me if anything looked familiar. First we looked at a place on a hill near one of the switchbacks where the road goes up. I said it looked familiar, because he took me there once before. To where he had found my glasses. But, otherwise, I said it didn’t.
We drove further on up and we went…we took a ride on a little kind of dirt road. And I had been watching the road to see if I could remember running down any of them and we went up this little dirt road then. But first, before we got to that road, we passed a place on the side of the road with a fireplace, kind of up on the top of the hill there. It was all grassy and I thought that picnic benches and things used to be there. And Roy said they had been and they moved them.
Then we went up past where some park benches used to be. We went up the dirt road to the right and it was kind of muddy and sloppy and we went up there and Roy was telling me that this was the road that the murder happened on. A little ahead. And I said that it seemed familiar, but I couldn’t remember for sure. But I did tell him that I know that there was this big, flat, real smooth place at the end of this road where it had been flattened out and all the weeds and everything were gone and he showed me the place and asked me if I could remember a ’55 red Mercury with red and yellow flames along the side parked near the trees at the far corner. But I didn’t remember.
Then we parked for a while and Roy asked me if I could remember being with Bobby and Billy that night and I could, but just early in the evening. And he asked if Bobby and Billy dragged on Monroe and I said sometimes.
After that we walked around the meadow and Mr. Shindler took me to the edge of the hill and showed me how, if a girl ran straight down it, she would be near where they found my glasses. But I didn’t remember any of it, so we got back in the car.
Q: Where are you going now?
A: We went back down and we didn’t go back toward town but to the left at the park entrance and we passed this house that was down a ways from the entrance. I noticed it when we passed it and Roy turned around and parked in front.
We got out and walked up the driveway a bit and Roy took me into the backyard and asked me, “Do you remember anything about dogs barking?” And I…
Q: Yes.
A: Well, I had never been here. I know it. But I got really scared. Like when you feel weak and faint. I thought then that I felt like something was going to come out.
Q: Can you feel that now? Would you be willing to re-create that feeling now?
A: I’d rather not.
Q: You said you had never been there before?
A: I can’t say for certain. But when I was there it was as if I had been. And when he said about the dogs barking I had this funny thought that he meant a kind of dog.
Q: What kind?
A: A German Shepherd.
Q: Why a German Shepherd?
A: I don’t know. Except we had one once. My stepfather killed it.
Q: He killed it?
A: It was after my mother divorced my real father. I was thirteen and she married this man. He was real strict and he had been in the psycho ward a couple of times after he got out of the Service. And he was an alcoholic.
He would drink, then he would beat us day and night. He stabbed my mother. I saw him. Then my mother took us away.
Q: You were going to tell me about the dog. The German Shepherd.
A: I was?
Q: Yes.
A: He killed it. It was my pet. We lived near these woods and I would walk with him. He was my only friend. Then he killed him to punish me when I disobeyed once. He shot my dog in the eye and made me watch.
(PAUSE)
Q: Do you want my handkerchief?
A: Thank you.
Q: Are you all right? Can you continue?
A: I’m okay.
Q: Why don’t you relax? Why don’t you lean back on the cool grass and let the breeze blow across your face? That’s it. Take a nice deep breath. When you can feel the breeze and see the cool, puff clouds tell me by saying “now.”
(Deep breathing then shallow breathing.)
Q: You’re okay.
A: Now.
Q: Okay. You’re relaxed and you are drifting back to last week and you are with Roy looking at that backyard and you have a strange feeling. Tell me about the feeling. You can re-create that feeling, because you are a strong and confident woman who is slowly becoming a person like you want yourself to be. A woman who controls her destiny. Do you feel relaxed and confident?
A: Yes.
Q: Then tell me what you feel. You see that dog as though it was happening right now, don’t you? Feel that feeling that you got when you saw that big, brown German Shepherd dog. Feel it. Then if there is something that you want to say, say it. But feel that feeling.
A: I know I’ve been there before.
Q: You know that you’ve been there before?
A: And I know that I was scared when I was there before.
Q: I want you to give me your best hunch what scared you. What scared you? First thought! First thought!
A: That we were going to get caught.
Q: Going to get caught? What would you be caught about?
A: Just being there.