“My girlfriend’s a teacher,” I said. “She absolutely hates lesson plans. She’s never quite sure what to do with them.”
She didn’t want to be bothered, but even people in her state acknowledge some social conventions. She looked up, the troubled eyes a deep brown. “They can be a chore. Our school board insists.”
Clumsy, but at least it broke the ice and we had a bit of a conversation.
“I’m Martin Kobel.”
“Annabelle Young.”
“Where do you teach?”
It was in Wetherby, a good-size town in central North Carolina about an hour from Raleigh. She was here for an education conference.
“Pam, my girlfriend, teaches grade school. You?”
“Middle school.”
The most volatile years, I reflected.
“That’s the age she’s thinking of moving over to. She’s tired of six-year-olds…You put a lot into that,” I said, nodding at the plan.
“I try.”
I hesitated a moment. “Listen, kind of fortuitous I ran into you. If I gave you our phone number and you’ve got a few minutes-I mean, if it’s no imposition-would you think about giving Pam a call? She could really use some advice. Five minutes or so. Give her some thoughts on middle school.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve only been a teacher for three years.”
“Just think about it. You seem like you know what you’re doing.” I took out a business card.
Martin J. Kobel, MS, MSW
Behavioral Therapy
Specialties: Anger Management and Addiction
I wrote “Pam Robbins” on the top along with the home phone number.
“I’ll see what I can do.” She slipped the card in her pocket and turned back to her coffee and the lesson plan.
I knew I’d gone as far as I could. Anything more would have seemed inappropriate and pushed her away.
After fifteen minutes, she glanced at her watch. Apparently whatever conference she was attending was about to resume. She gave a chill smile my way. “Nice talking to you.”
“The same,” I said.
Annabelle gathered the lesson plan and notes and stuffed them back into her gym bag. As she rose, a teenage boy eased past and jostled her inadvertently with his bulky backpack. I saw her eyes ripple with that look I know so well. “Jesus,” she whispered to him. “Learn some manners.”
“Hey, lady, I’m sorry-”
She waved a dismissing hand at the poor kid. Annabelle walked to the counter to add more milk to her coffee. She wiped her mouth and tossed out the napkin. Without a look back at me or anyone she pointed her cold visage toward the door and pushed outside.
I gave it thirty seconds then also stopped at the milk station. Glancing into the hole for trash, I spotted, as I’d half expected, my card, sitting next to her crumpled napkin. I’d have to take a different approach. I certainly wasn’t going to give up on her. The stakes for her own well-being and of those close to her were too high.
But it would require some finesse. I’ve found that you can’t just bluntly tell potential patients that their problems are the result not of a troubled childhood or a bad relationship, but simply because an invisible entity had latched onto their psyches like a virus and was exerting its influence.
In a different era, or in a different locale, someone might have said that the teacher was possessed by a demonic spirit or the like. Now we’re much more scientific about it, but it’s still wise to ease into the subject slowly.
ANNABELLE YOUNG HAD COME under the influence of a neme.
The term was first coined by a doctor in Washington, D.C. James Pheder was a well-known biologist and researcher. He came up with the word by combining “negative” and “meme,” the latter describing a cultural phenomenon that spreads and replicates in societies.
I think a reference to meme-“m” version-is a bit misleading, since it suggests something rather more abstract than what a neme really is. In my lengthy book on the subject, published a few years ago, I define a neme as “a discrete body of intangible energy that evokes extreme emotional responses in humans, resulting in behavior that is most often detrimental to the host or to the society in which he or she lives.”
But “neme” is a convenient shorthand and every therapist or researcher familiar with the concept uses it.
The word is also beneficial in that it neutrally describes a scientific, proven construct and avoids the historical terms that have muddied the truth for thousands of years. Words like ghosts, spirits, Rudolf Otto’s numinous presences, revenants, Buddhism’s hungry ghosts, rural countrysides’ white ladies, Japanese yurei, demons. Dozens of others.
Those fictional legends and superstitions were largely the result of the inability to explain nemes scientifically in the past. As often happens, until a phenomenon is rationally explained and quantified, folklore fills the gaps. The old belief, for instance, in spontaneous generation-that life could arise from inanimate objects-was accepted for thousands of years, supported by apparently scientific observations, for instance, that maggots and other infestations appeared in rotting food or standing water. It was only when Louis Pasteur proved via controlled, repeatable experiments that living material, like eggs or bacteria, had to be present for life to generate that the old view fell by the wayside.
Same thing with nemes. Framing the concept in terms of ghosts and possessing spirits was a convenient and simple fiction. Now we know better.
Growing up, I’d never heard of these things that would later be labeled nemes. It was only after a particular incident that I became aware: the deaths of my parents and brother.
You could say that my family was killed by one.
When I was sixteen we went to one of Alex’s basketball games at our school. At some point my father and I hit the hot dog stand. The father of a player on the opposing team was standing nearby, sipping a Coke and watching the game. Suddenly-I can still remember it perfectly-the man underwent a transformation, instantly shifting from relaxed and benign to tense, distracted, on guard. And the eyes…there was no doubt that they changed. The very color seemed to alter; they grew dark, malevolent. I knew something had happened, something had possessed him, I thought at the time. I felt chilled, and I stepped away from him.
Then the man suddenly grew angry. Furious. Something on the court set him off. A foul maybe, a bad call. He screamed at Alex’s team, he screamed at our coach, at the ref. In his rage, he bumped against my father and dropped his soda, spilling it on his shoes. It was his fault but he seemed to blame my father for the mishap. The men got into an argument, though my father soon realized that the man was out of control, consumed by this odd rage, and ushered us back to the bleachers.
After the game I was still troubled but assumed the matter was over. Not so. The man followed us out into the parking lot and, screaming, bizarrely challenged my father to a fight. The man’s wife was crying, pulling him back and apologizing. “He’s never behaved like this, really!”
“Shut up, bitch,” he raged and slapped her.
Shaken, we climbed into the car and drove off. Ten minutes later, driving down I-40, we were sitting in troubled silence when a car veered over three lanes. The man from the game swerved right toward us, driving us off the road.
I remember seeing his face, twisted with anger, over the steering wheel.
In court he tearfully explained that he didn’t know what happened. It was like he was possessed. That defense didn’t get him very far. He was found guilty of three counts of first-degree manslaughter.