I met Lynn Jean Ritts in 1974 at the University of Delaware. I lived in Russell E (Men), Lynn lived in D (Women). At that time, E & D shared a common lounge area. There was an experimental coed dorm (gasp!), Russell C, but E & D might just as well have been coed since those two buildings were interconnected through the lounge. There was also a Russell A & B but no one ever went over there.
I first noticed Lynn when she threw a stream of obscenities at me, closely followed by a chair. She was 5’4” and weighed maybe 100lbs., but apparently, physics is a mystical science. The guy in the wheelchair over which the chair had to fly to get to me invoked the names of several deities, being a classics major, beginning with the goddess Lynn. Not exactly a formal introduction, but at least now I knew her name. Tom, the guy in the wheelchair — this was well before the ADA — was single-handedly responsible for getting ramps and accessibility measures installed all over campus. He had a really fast motorized wheelchair and a heavy drinking habit, leaving him occasionally caught in endless, tight circles when he would pass out on the mall, leaving dizzy, stymied security in his wake. But you want to hear about the fateful flight of the chair.
Lynn and her roommate, along with 6 or 7 others, were watching “Upstairs, Downstairs” in the lounge on the tiny black and white TV. I was sitting against the back wall trying to work out the chords to the James Taylor version of “So Far Away.” (When I wasn’t in class, my acoustic was either in my hands or on my back.) I suspect everyone reading can see it coming, unlike me at the time, who was clueless. To paraphrase, Lynn implored me to shut the something up and punctuated her plea with the chair, which crashed against the wall 3 feet to my right. (I found out later she had been a catcher in high school, not a pitcher, so literally just my dumb luck.) Well, I was in college, right? I figured out quickly that I should leave the lounge. Me and Steve, the guy in the wheelchair’s roommate, moved to a far corner of the lounge and (quietly) played Risk.
That was our first encounter; I can’t really say I actually met Lynn at that point. It took weeks before our conversations became less one-sided. Lynn remembered the first time we actually met and spoke; I have only the vaguest memory of the scene. Her memory, and my lack of memory, remained a constant our whole lives.
Grammar is important. Lynn had a tee-shirt that read, “I like cooking my family and my pets. Commas save lives!”. One of her favorite jokes was about the panda who walked into a bar, sat down, and ordered a sandwich. When he finished, he got up, shot the bartender, and walked out. The bar owner ran out, stopped him, and asked him why he shot his bartender. Without a word, the panda took out his cheap pocket dictionary, turned to a page, handed it to the owner, and walked away. The owner read, “Panda: large black-and-white bear-like mammal native to China. Eats shoots and leaves.”
Punctuation is a serious business. Take flying chairs. Lynn meant it as an exclamation point. As time went on, the flying chair became more significant to me.
Our “meeting” in the lounge marked the end of the semester. I went back to the insulated suburbs, as oblivious to Lynn’s reality in Wilmington as I was to the rest of the world. It was when we returned to campus that we really met. This is the way Lynn remembered it:
She was with a bunch of people in a friend’s room in Russell D around 11:00 one night, sitting on a bed, petting Russell D Dog. Most everyone kept their doors open in the dorms, so there was a constant tide of people drifting in and out of the tiny rooms. Apparently, I washed up on the doorstep, looked in and laughed, and then drifted away. Lynn shrugged and wondered what that was all about (we never did figure out why I laughed. I have no memory of it). Apparently, I returned later and did the same thing—except this time, I stayed. She says we talked about dogs and Harlan Ellison and Star Trek, and that I asked her if she wanted to have breakfast with me in the morning. That part I do remember because I thought, What am I saying? I never eat breakfast, and she said she has an eight o’clock. I’m not sure there even is an eight o’clock. She also remembered exactly what I was wearing. Now understand, this was 1974, which I mention ‘cause I guess I want to try to use that as an excuse: long hair, full bushy beard, white turtleneck shirt, tan corduroy jacket (yes, of course — patches on the elbows), button-fly, flared, large-plaid bell-bottoms (much later, after seeing Star Wars, Lynn would say with a sigh, “Many Volkswagen seat covers died to make those pants.” Star Wars fans will understand) and (of course) heeled Hush Puppies. I’m shocked that she would remember such a mundane ensemble.
I only remember Lynn from that night, not the scene. She was scary skinny, with very long, straight hair. I think I remember talking about Star Trek and “The City On the Edge of Forever.” I do remember the question mark in her eyes. The exclamation point from last semester was telling me to wake up. Wake. Up!
I don’t remember too many specific details about sitting in that dorm room with Lynn. I remember how crowded the tiny dorm room was, with familiar faces coming and going and Russell D Dog sleeping on the bed. I remember eventually getting pulled away to play a song for someone. But through all the haze in looking back, I remember a presence floating in the center of the chaos, something different and profound, good yet undefined. And now, when I close my eyes and think back to that time, I understand that presence was Lynn. I don’t mean to suggest some mystical quality about her, but if empaths exist, I believe she was one.
That’s what I sensed when we had breakfast that morning. Lynn instantly connected with everything I was, everything I would be. I only had a vague sense of this at the time, but it was a constant between us. Over the years, I noticed how she instantly “saw” people and situations, a quality that was both a gift and a curse. You can’t hide from an empath, and people rarely believe you.
Anyway, we got to know each other better at breakfast. Actually, Lynn got to know me since I seemed to be doing all the talking. We had the same sense of humor, but hers was far quicker and so subtle. There was something very different in the way her mind worked that drew me in. She came at things sideways, quietly, and made obscure, unexpected connections. It’s hard to explain. I quickly discovered she was really, really smart. She was also shy, insecure, and private, but she did tell me she had just “made-up” with her mom, something about coming back to live at home. Before that could fully sink in, she veered off into a story about Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt and Hugh Swynford and Kettlethorpe. I realize now that the fact that she read upwards of a dozen books a week, not including her school books, was an attempt to escape her secret, troubled life through books. At least, that was part of the reason. Lynn started reading at three. She was reading the day before she died, as if the words could somehow replace her labored breathing. But outwardly, that day at breakfast, she kept her demons hidden and was engaging, funny, and fascinating.
She said that she was going home next weekend to go to a friend’s wedding. I asked if I could go with her, but she got very uncomfortable and reserved.
“I have to take the bus, but you can come along if you really want to,” she said.
“The bus? Why don’t we just take my car?” I said.
She explained her mom had invited her for dinner, and her stepfather, Howard, would be there.
"So?” I asked.
So.
We went, but we never had dinner.
The drive to Lynn’s friend’s wedding from Newark to Wilmington took 20 minutes. I had a ‘68 Pontiac LeMans then, with a bench seat, before seat belt laws. Lynn hunkered against the passenger side door, turned slightly towards me. She seemed uneasy, maybe even scared. At first, I thought it was me and my suit, but then we started to talk.
She had called her mom—we were just going to drop in for a minute after the wedding and not have dinner. I said something brilliant like “Oh,” and waited for her to explain. She began to tell me about fishing along the Eastern shore. Her great-grandfather was an oyster shucker, and he and her great-grandmother lived in a tiny shack on the docks. They were very poor. (Lynn still had his iron oyster knife, which would follow us to the shore for the next forty years to be put to good use.) I finally asked if something was wrong.
She tried to tell me about her stepfather. He worked at the DuPont Experimental Station as a safety engineer. Lynn explained it was basically a janitor’s job, shift work. She laughed and added, “And he loves guns. He’s crazy.” People say that all the time, a shrugged, “Oh, he’s crazy!” and that’s the way I took it. Years later, Howard, who was crazy, was committed to the State mental hospital. Anyway, she said he was on 4 to 12, which he hated. He’d be grumpy and wouldn’t want dinner, and so it’s better if we just say hi and head back. I got the feeling something was going on with her family, but I let it go.
At the wedding, I found out Lynn was an Only. She was excited by the fact I had three sisters and said she was jealous. We didn’t stay at the reception long. On the way to her mom’s, she sat next to me. This was more than uneasy—she was scared, and because she was now sitting next to me, I knew it wasn’t my suit. Before we got out of the car to go in, she repeated I didn’t have to talk to Howard or anything; we’d just say hi and talk to her mom. I said, that’s fine. I didn’t even feel like her boyfriend then. Lynn and I were just friends from school, dropping in to see her folks on the way back. But when I took her hand to help her out of the car, she didn’t let go. She squeezed really hard.
They lived in a small 1930’s duplex house on 33rd Street in Wilmington. Her mom and Lynn’s dog Charlie met us at the door: so polite and cheerful. Actually, come to think of it, so was her mom. Okay, maybe Charlie was more than cheerful — her mom wasn’t doing laps around the dining room table and jumping all over Lynn. Her mom said how nice we both looked. I had on my suit, and Lynn was wearing a very short it-was-the-70’s-creamy-dreamy dress with a print of tiny flowers.
Where was I...Oh, Lynn was telling her mom about the wedding. Everything seemed so normal. As we were chatting and petting the dog, Howard came out of the kitchen.
Isn’t it funny how we always strive to be polite to strangers and act in what we believe are socially acceptable ways? It’s the way we’re brought up, and in my family, how we appeared in public was critical—overly important, I think. In my family, no matter what, everything was always fine; don’t complain or make waves. The implication was if you made a fuss, something must be wrong, and what will people think, not only about you but about your whole family?
Lynn’s stepfather came towards me like a cliché. He was an image I’d seen in movies and TV, something that before now only existed in fiction for me. At the time, I thought he was taller than me, although now I’m not really sure. Maybe it was the cliché or the seeds planted in my imagination by Lynn’s unspoken fear that made him seem taller. He was unshaven. He wore a white v-neck tee shirt, white boxer shorts, and black socks. I was sitting on the sofa with Lynn and her mom. As I got up to shake his hand (see upbringing above), he came close enough that I almost had to sit back down to avoid bumping into him. Lynn introduced us, and as we shook hands, he said, “Who died?” Lynn’s mom said, “Oh, Howard! You know they just came from the wedding.”
He turned and sat in his chair, saying with his short, cackling laugh, “Same thing.” His boxers gapped in front as he settled into the chair.
I’m finding it hard to separate my feelings from then and now. It’s foggy back there, and the darkness of that day is now illuminated by years of revelations from Lynn. I was young and naive, overwhelmed by strangeness, and simply battling to uphold the “family tradition.”
I remember he asked me what I was studying in school, but somehow the conversation steered towards guns. That’s when Lynn and her mom went out to the kitchen. (I didn’t make any connection at the time nor understood what the kitchen represented.) Earlier, I’d noticed a stack of “Guns and Ammo” magazines on the table beside his chair. At some point, I said I didn’t know much about guns. (The deadly streets of Woodbury, NJ, only required that one be proficient with a garden hose to defend life and limb from the occasional killer rabbit.) He opened the drawer of his end table and took out a pistol. He handed it to me and told me he had one in every room, and they were all chambered, ready to go. “None of that safety bullshit. You’re not one of those faggots against handguns, are you?”
Dear God, forgive me, but if I’d only pulled the trigger...
Lynn and her mom came out of the kitchen and saved me from answering his no-and-yes question. Her mom told Howard that Lynn would show Tom her room, and then they’d head back to the University. I can close my eyes now and clearly see her little room with Charlie in the middle of the four-poster bed, Lynn’s anguished face and tearful eyes that whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Her mom had left Lynn’s biological father when Lynn was 18 months old. Walter, an Air Force captain who occasionally came home on short leave, enjoyed trying to throw his baby daughter across the room into her crib from ever-increasing distances. Lynn was unconscious this time though, after bouncing off the wall, and her mom had called her dad in tears, never expecting he would drive to rural western Pennsylvania where they lived to bring her and Lynn back to Wilmington. (As an adult, Lynn’s neurologist suggested that this incident may have caused mild episodic ataxia, causing her to be clumsy as a child, resulting in many falls and concussions of various degrees throughout her life.) After the divorce, Lynn spent a short, happy childhood as an Only, lovingly spoiled by her grandparents while her mom worked as a legal secretary. (Her mom could type faster than people could speak. She’d once won a typing competition when she was a legal secretary for a local Federal judge.) Everything changed when her mom met and married Howard when Lynn was 13.
Looking back, I know now that as we talked that night after getting back from her friend’s wedding, she was gathering together the good moments of her life, walling off the embarrassment of the day and the trauma of her teenage years that coiled and seethed just beneath the surface. Lynn was telling me happy moments and funny incidences: throwing a nun’s clothes into the reservoir when she was in high school (the only Protestant in a Catholic girls school) took some time to explain; the look on Howard’s face when he met the black chef at a local restaurant he enjoyed going to after loudly declaring he’d never eat food made by a nigger; getting into every college she’d applied to, and how she would’ve gone to Smith had the scholarship they offered included more living expenses; how she got her dog, Charlie Brown as a puppy; Christmases where she was the only child in the house receiving every toy imaginable from doting grandparents. In the quiet of the empty lounge far from home, the only anger I sensed was in me after having caught a glimpse of her troubled home life. Lynn was apologetic that I had to see that, caring more about me, trying to cheer me up. This defines her and our life together.
The pain she struggled most to hide, the puzzle that would remain forever unsolved, was her relationship with her mom. While her mom could retreat to the kitchen, there was nowhere to which Lynn could escape. If Lynn tried to tell her she wasn’t safe when alone with Howard while her mom was at work, her mom would walk away to the kitchen with just a tearful, “You need to work it out with him!” Lynn grew up knowing it was somehow all her fault because otherwise, her mom would be protecting her, caring for her, loving her. I only got the vaguest sense of all this that night. Instead, it was overshadowed by a feeling (which I’m only now beginning to understand) that, in spite of everything, she loved her mom.
We sat in Russell lounge and talked through the night. But as I held her, comforted her, it seemed more like she was comforting me.
That’s when, with her snuggled against my shoulder, I met Lynn.
Email: Tom Loper