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Twenty-one days with a Vulture |
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Book review by Beth Bruno
"Twenty-one days with a Vulture," by Evora Jordan, is based on a true
story about how Jordan's vacation of a lifetime transformed into a
terrifying and bizarre experience, so terrifying in fact that she was
grateful to make it back home alive.
Hannah, a retired child abuse counselor, was looking forward to
spending twenty-one days in France with Neb, her former state
supervisor, a trusted colleague and a gentleman. By the end of Day 1,
Hannah wondered whether she might be in trouble with this "gentleman."
This man accompanying her on vacation was certainly not the man she knew
from work. On Day 2, he urinated on a grocery cart in the parking lot of
a Food Mart and declared, "There, that will teach them not to charge so
much for food. I just pissed all over their grocery carts." Hannah
didn't wonder anymore; she knew for sure that she was in trouble!
Neb's vulgar, uncouth and irrational behavior soon escalated into
paranoid, obsessive episodes, which Hannah had to use all her counseling
skills to cope with. Even then, if it hadn't been for the people who
almost daily helped her, people she describes as her "guardian angels,"
she might not have survived.
By the night of Day 20, Neb's behavior had escalated beyond control.
Hannah erected a barricade inside the door of her hotel room. "I turned
the light off," she writes, " and sat down on the edge of the bunk,
fully dressed, with my high shoes still on, shoulder bag beside me ... I
pulled a second chair closer. It would hurt him enough when I slammed it
into him, giving me time to get out. I held my key tightly between my
thumb and forefinger, pointed and jutting out. If he got close enough, I
could put out one of his eyes with it. Thank God for my self-defense
training. I was sure I was going to need it before the night was over.
"I could hear him pacing around, banging into things, going to the
toilette, running the water, slurping his whiskey ... He stopped pacing
and started banging on the door. In a voice full of venom, he demanded,
"Open the door up, you bitch. I am freezing out here. You are an
obnoxious, detestable, nasty old bitch. Your are the most illiterate,
crude, ignoramus hag I have ever had the misfortune to associate with.
Open up this goddamn door. Right now!
"I heard the water running again, more slurping, pacing and burping ...
Then he gently tapped on the door and in a kind, gentle voice said,
"Hannah, I like the clothes you wore in Paris. You looked so chic, so
fashionable ... His whining turned to a quiet mumbling. then silence.
then the sounds of snoring."
After the ordeal ended, everyone, including Hannah, wondered why she
had stayed. The "Epilogue" provides some of the answers.
There are no easy answers to the questions, "Why did you stay in that
abusive situation? Why didn't you leave?"
"People stay in abusive situations for many reasons," Jordan says.
"They might be scared, lack confidence, have no money, deny the abuse,
care about the abuser, have no means of transportation (or feel trapped
in other ways), lack the knowledge or courage to leave and truly believe
an abuser's promises to stop."
Abusive people use a variety of tactics to maintain power and control
over others, such as:
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