Splinters Redux (2)
Gazing downward to nowhere Nobody here my thoughts to share Unbroken silence cloaks my dreams Leaving me my evil schemes. No one gets out, no one gets in, No one shall dare to judge my sin Fate's mistake at last undone I am alone, and I have won. My wonderful (as men go) husband is a highly supportive individual (except when he is not, as Dr. “S” says). His nature is highly controlling but to his extreme credit, he works hard to sublimate that side of his personality. He is intuitive enough to recognize the negative effects it has on me and equally upon him. When a man relinquishes control and makes himself vulnerable, he raises his level of stress in great measure. I have witnessed him in a state of pure panic given a situation over which he is powerless. I pity that overwhelming fear, which puts him in constant battle with himself. He cannot control my spaced out tendencies, my quirks, absurdities, and infamous childlike qualities. He harbors expectations of me that are far beyond my emotional ability. He would like to see me more in control but that is something I abhor and relinquish all too readily. That ability is something he at once envies and despises in me. Nevertheless, he allows me enough rope to stay a child without meting out enough for me to hang us both. We are intellectual snobs and have nearly no friends remaining in our highly select group. Our nearest and dearest “brother” Ken died suddenly and cruelly almost 5 years ago. Still stunned by that devastating loss, grief and emptiness, we find ourselves rhetorically asking “why” the best and brightest suffer death while multitudes of the average plod on to ripe old ages. That dichotomy is a huge source of resentment for me. Once I had a brother who expired at six months of age, ten years before my birth. I got a second chance but death ripped him from my life as well. I often wonder how my childhood might have been different with an older brother on the scene. Would he have been a protector? Could he have rescued me emotionally from the clutches of Ruth and Zelig? Perhaps he would have run away leaving his baby sister behind to her own devices and nothing would have been different. Given to telling myself stories, I see him as a knight in shining armor who would have had powers to save me. My recurring childhood nightmares were fraught with terrors from which “magic” saved me just at the end. These dreams were mostly of water (tidal waves, rapids, and waterfalls), and of flying. Ken was the epitome of control and adulthood yet was capable of forgiving my insanity. He used to say, “We are instinctive survivors because we have had so much to overcome in our lives”. Thus, our derangement is pardonable. Ken believed our instinct was strong enough to repress our conscious wills. The instinct has a life of its own and we have little or no control over it. Ken named it the Monster. “If we perceive a threat”, he would say, “our automatic response is that of frightened abused children who have learned by necessity to be cunning and shrewd”. Ken saw the survival scenario so clearly, “We withdraw, reconnoiter, and attack if deemed necessary”, he theorized, “even with those we love”. He would add woefully, “We just can not help protecting ourselves at any cost”. We relied so heavily on his wisdom and great heart and we miss him dearly. I still have most of my physical health (if not all of my teeth) and possess above average intelligence. I resent this so-called superior intellect as it comes with responsibilities and expectations, which I feel unwilling or disinclined to live up to. I do not want to exert the effort to prove other’s opinions of me. An honor student I hated school strictly because I resented having to go. Although I loved most of my studies, I do not deal well with discipline. Please do not bore me with platitudes about the American dream and education being an opportunity and privilege. Why then was there a fascist-like presence, the Truant Officer, at the ready to arrest me for not taking advantage? I resented any sort of authority and that has never changed. I still see the police as fascist pigs lying in wait for me on highways or hoping to catch me smoking up. Are they not the public servants? Is it not their job to protect rather than to jump one with a loud “gotcha” for some insignificant transgression? Yes, yes, I know we must have laws. I just have a problem with the enforcers being a bit too gestapoesque for my liking. “There is no justice, only the law!” An adult may purchase (legally) any amount of proven killer substances, yet marijuana remains illegal. I do not get it and I resent it – what a surprise, eh. My political philosophy: immediate abolition of all taxes in favor of one Federal, all encompassing levy. Every working citizen pays 50%, irrespective of income or other status. In return, every American receives from the government “certain unalienable rights”, i.e., Free Housing, Free Education, Basic Sustenance, and Gainful Employment. Am I waxing Marxist? So sorry! I am truly angry (and resentful) that the sixties did not work. What happened to all those causes we so strongly believed in? Have all the Baby Boomers forgotten Kent State? Where are all those flowers? Pressed between the pages of long forgotten Dylan Thomas volumes? Was Camelot just a dream we all passed through which abruptly ended with gun shots from a book repository and (maybe) a grassy knoll? Suddenly and mysteriously and entire generation evolved into its parents. We turned in our hash pipes for PCs. Is greed not an oversimplification and pat answer? I am fully aware that Socialism should not work because of our innately competitive natures getting in the way. That is bullshit! I do not mind the PCs but can’t we still write provocative ideas for change, not just vie for job security. I resented (and loathed) my parents who were abnormal creatures by anyone’s definition. They were not who my daughter would call “Betty Crockers”. Who were those people who had copulated briefly and probably not even enjoyed it, to make rules and attempt to dictate how I should shape my life? Look how fucked up they were! I often journey back through the labyrinths of my memory, which is very long, to the place where my head was at during my early days of recorded lunacy. Depression presents as a progressive illness in that the deeper one sinks, the better it feels. I was fully aware that things were terribly wrong with me and in my house. I knew that other kids were not like me and that their families were not demented. Once or twice, I tried to confide to a friend that I hated my mother. She was aghast! She recoiled and retorted, “You must be crazy, no one can hate their own mother”. I was terrified and felt incredibly alone. It was at that moment I copped the attitude of “I don’t care”! Nothing or nobody can get me because I have my wall and ultimately, I just do not care! What does anything actually matter? Pain produces pleasure if you allow it. Depression viewed in the mirror looks and feels especially good when you take pride in having self-created it. Today when I conjure up my head of old fully aware of the warning signals and danger signs, I tend to fall into that mode all over again. Still desperately seeking my childhood, I am only able to create pain and adversity for myself. I note at this point, (not without resentment) that resentment itself is non-productive as it changes nothing. Nonetheless, I resent that the past is unalterable. My child-self wants to stamp her feet and shout “It’s not fair”, a retort I would never accept from my children. So, I know it to be childish (but I need to be a child), although I only know how to be a self destructive one. Chapter 4 SELF DESTRUCTION Zelig moved ghostlike through my growing up. One half of the Saturday morning “scenes” often choreographed and directed by me. A clever manipulator I learned early how to get my parents set up against one another so I could sit back as audience. Rendering silent applause, the better part of me understood that it was solely due to their shortcomings that I could engineer these moments of power. How destructive that power actually became because of its negative nature. It is a volatile brand of power, readily turned inward. Lacking a degree in Psychology, I will not venture a clinical definition of self-destruction nor any long-winded Freudian analysis. I shall leave that to Dr. S. Suffice to say that I have been incredibly self-destructive at many crossroads in my adult life. I still pay the price for some of these and sadly, so do my children. I will not take refuge in calling them errors in judgement; I was wide-awake at all times and well aware of my actions or lack thereof. The pain and guilt associated with these errors and self inflicted mental consequences are like shards of broken glass. It is almost tempting to simply list the incidents I define as self destructive, but that would only be in keeping with my self proclaimed reputation for taking the easy way out. Conversely, I never seem to take the easy way in. A revelation! If that makes me sound suicidal, infer as you wish. Ode to Dr. Sam My life keeps getting in the way of my plans to die. I wonder who or what is running my show. I thought it was I, now it’s confusing. I hate raining on parades, but there is no end of them in sight. There is no good time to check out for everyone else, so where do I fit in this equation? Then you … another fly in the ointment! I know I am only another patient, I also know it will destroy you. You will take it personally, Forget your own rules. People have their own agendas. Everyone will feel that way! Why is the onus on me for the responses of others? My brother, as he lay dying said, “You cannot prepare yourself for your reaction to my death”. “It will be devastating, and I will not be there for you”. Each of us dwells within a private hell. Qualifications: give up all responsibility for yourself and allow others to care for you. I recently read a marvelous novel in which the author writes of “Adults fighting to be children”. A splendid statement! Some of us are fighting to have ever been children or at least to have felt that way. Therein lies the cornerstone and number one predicator of my resentment – just once I want to know what it is really to feel like a child. Although I present superficially as a functioning, responsible, mature adult, beneath dwells an angry and confused child longing to feel safe. Wanting to be equal partner and share life’s responsibilities with my husband, be his lover and best friend, I also need nurturing. Resentful of being “told what to do” paradoxically I abhor the pressure of making decisions. I am impossible to please and my husband cannot win in that scenario. Treat me as a child and I will stamp my feet, fighting tooth and nail. Put upon me to behave as an adult and I will resent it. This presents some interesting if disturbing questions. Having determined that I cannot be pleased, am I predisposed to depression and resentment? What am I doing here anyway? Will I ever stop questioning and just grow up? With all these insights, one would think there would be an end to the questions. Nay, daily (hourly) I ponder the why and wherefore of my existence and the nature of the unalterable universe. Perhaps I will find my answers in the great beyond although as a Jew I do not believe in that. Chapter 5 THE BRONX & BEYOND Zelig was a Hebrew teacher in one of the affluent “five towns” on Long Island. His students over the years numbered in the hundreds, but excluded me. The single thing he ever attempted to teach me was scorn for my mother. He attempted to make me aware of her insanity; a fool’s errand since it was markedly evidenced daily. He once prepared a written list for me to study and memorize the familial priorities: first comes Aunt Diana, then Aunt Sadie and so on, ending with “your mother”. Notably he excluded himself from the hit parade. I had total contempt for Ruth whose neuroses and paranoia were nauseating to me. Her wailing and tears that Zelig used to refer to as her “crocodile tears”, were equally lost on me. Her weakness and vulnerability were a source of disgust and embarrassment particularly when they manifested in public. Ruth, in my perception, was nothing but a fat slob. Her once beautiful copper hair was always a disheveled wiry mess. She took no pains with her appearance, wore no makeup, and dressed like a house frau. When she went to work, she must have worn appropriate clothes but oddly, I have no recollection of them. I do recall her struggling into a girdle, laughing and crying simultaneously. Sometimes she would physically strike herself on the belly and utter aloud, “Go away”, as though she could talk the fat off. She would also hit herself on the mouth as self- punishment for eating too much. She tortured me by laughing maniacally and saying, “You look exactly like me”, which I do not! As a child, I was painfully thin and the only resemblance was our green eyes, alike in color but not shape. Ruth looked Germanic, broad nose and thin lips, very round face. She had altered dramatically in appearance from her childhood. She was once a pretty girl with smaller more delicate features. Years of crying, grimacing, untold unhappiness, and insanity must have changed her looks for there was no evidence of a relationship between the photos of her childhood and the woman I knew. One of her greatest phobias was about her breath. No power on earth would convince her that she did not have an odor in the mouth. She begged me physically to insert my nose into her mouth to check and recheck before she would venture from the house. Then if someone even across a room went near their nose, the weeping would commence as she was convinced they could smell her from a distance. Having discovered a “game” she used to play, I found I could get her to conjure up other personae, some of who would join me in berating her. Others would try to explain her problems to me and win me over to her side but in vain. I had no interest in knowing what made her tick – I only wished her dead every day of my life. There was “Woolfie”, a large friendly brown bear. He spoke in a baritone register and was her advocate. Woolfie was in the business of trying to make me understand and forgive her. He would say, “Your mother loves you”, and “Be nice to your mother”, and things like that. There was “The Jolly Dwarf” who sang and was always overly happy (today I know to say “her manic side”). His little ditties were meaningless nonsense: “I am the Jolly Dwarf, and I’m Happy As Can be, I Laugh and Play, The Livelong Day and Nothing Worries Me, Ho Ho Ho”. Ruth was a very short person, and fat. She was far from jolly so this little creature was most likely her alter ego. Maybe he was a representation of whom she would have liked to be. Then, there was “The Monster”. This thing also sang, “Beware, and Take Care, for the Green Eyed Monster is A-waiting for you” (shades of Stephen King). I recall that when I was in the bathroom, I could actually feel those green eyes staring me down from behind. I think I may even have created him by calling her a monster once too often. He would come out when I was disrespectful or naughty. He made ugly faces and was tall, towering over me. The monster would growl and show clenched teeth and clawed hands. Although I did not consciously fear it for I knew it to be her in reality, it must have made some impression because I had those visions in the bathroom for years. I believe there were others, Jelly Belly, and more I have forgotten (thankfully). Suffice to say she was a very sick person and sorely in need of help. Her doctor had her on “reducing pills” to help her weight problem. No doubt these were “speed” and exacerbated her condition. I harbored the same death wish for Zelig but he was never around enough to make waves. He kept bizarre hours, never ate a meal that she had prepared, was only around on Saturday mornings during which time the house was inside out and upside down. In my life, I never ate a single meal with my father and mother both present at table. When I reached sixteen or so, I realized it was somehow beneath my dignity to take advantage of Ruth any further. On top of that, she was now able to manipulate me to an extent. My level of hate for her had become so great that I think she was acutely aware of it. In her lunacy, she would deliberately incite and incense me. On one occasion, she raised me beyond all control and I (to my shame) flew at her and tried to choke her to death. Suddenly aware of what my hands were doing, fear and panic gripped me. I knew what I had to do. Early the following day I was gone. I left the Bronx, never to return. Zelig had made his departure two years prior ending their disastrous relationship in Mexico. The mammoth question became “where was he living”. Certainly, he was not in Brooklyn with his sisters. If pressed, he proffered vague answers like “I stay at the Y” or “Sometimes I stay with friends”. We all knew he was a lying sack of shit. If anyone got too pushy, he would instantly feign illness. I got the special retort, “Louise, why are you so belligerent?” Wanting to know where one’s father lives is not a belligerent thing by any sane definition. To this day, the remaining family members revere and worship Zelig’s memory. Zelig attended NYU Law School and graduated circa 1936. He never sat for the Bar Exam, however. The tell is that his level of grief over the death of his eldest sister, Sarah, at 39 years of age was so great that he was too devastated to concentrate. Parenthetically, he wrote in a letter to my daughter (forty years later) that he had “Chosen not to become a lawyer because in those days, lawyers were a dime a dozen and I could get better recognition as a teacher”. He contented himself with life as a part-time, pro bono law clerk for two friends in a Manhattan firm and taught Hebrew part time. Somehow, this does not seem plausible. It is understandable to mourn a sibling’s passing but not to the extent of ruining one’s career. Certainly not to the extent of wasting time, effort, and money. His surviving sisters sweated for years in the shops to earn enough for his education. Nonetheless, they revered him! With all his idiosyncrasies and secretive ways, he continued over the course of his lifetime to hold his entire family in awe (except me). Some of them despise me to this day for having seen through to the evil innards of the man. It was in 1936 that he met and married Ruth. She was also a student at NYU. An (then) attractive, copper headed German Jewess, fluent in three languages, whose insanity he failed to recognize until it was too late. It was a year after the passing of her mother when they married, but my grandmother was still alive when they met. It would be interesting at the least to know what my Grandmother had really thought of Zelig. German Jews, especially in those days, looked down upon their Eastern European counterparts who were typically uneducated and unsophisticated. The Germans came from urban centers like Hamburg and Berlin while the Ashkenazies were Shtetl folk from tiny towns scattered across Eastern Europe. My Grandmother was a talented musician, educated in Hamburg, married to her own nephew. Thereby hangs a tale! Louise, my Grandmother for whom I am named, was the youngest of four sisters. Helen, the eldest, was so far her senior as to have a son only two years older. Even educated people are capable of complete stupidity: it is fair to assume however that they did not know as much about gene problems in those days as we do now. In any event, the offspring of Louise and her nephew Berthold were Ruth and her sister Barbara. I have already waxed prolific on the mental illness of Ruth and poor Barbara was an errant soul as well. She, evidently, had a child out of wedlock and the child, Anne Marie, was “Ill”. I do not know what that means exactly, but I recall Ruth saying something about what was referred to in the 50s as VD. The tell was, according to Ruth, that Barbara was last seen at my parents apartment in the Bronx, not the one where I was born, begging them to take on the child. Naturally, they refused and Barbara with her daughter boarded a train and vanished into the void. Twice in my lifetime, I tried to elicit Zelig’s help (after all he was my father, so to speak). Both times, he failed me miserably. When I was committed to Bellevue following my botched suicide attempt and in the throws of a nervous breakdown, he visited me in the hospital with my uncle and aunt. My uncle (who actually only tolerated me because I was Zelig’s child) was moved to tears of horror. My aunt instantly took charge, trying to extricate me and have me moved over to NYU Medical. As for him, he stood silently by, tongue thrust into the side of his cheek, nodding his head knowingly. Though unspoken, his thoughts were as audible to me as uttered words. “It figures” echoed like thundered in my ears straight from his twisted brain. He had been expecting this! He was not shocked or dismayed! He anticipated nothing less from Ruth’s child! Why he never attempted to forestall or prevent it remains a mystery he has taken to his grave. Zelig’s second major failure came on the occasion of Ruth’s demise. Having been out of contact with her for years, I turned to him for guidance as to her burial arrangements. According to Ruth, and certain documentation in my possession, I knew I had once had a brother. This baby boy, Norman, had expired at age six months. Ruth had kept some old diaries that I used to read as a child. They contained sweet commentaries on the progress of her baby up to his tragic death. It seemed appropriate to me to bury Ruth with the son she had loved and lost so I asked Zelig for the location of the grave. The events that followed were unimaginable! My first husband, an abusive beast of a man got on the telephone with Zelig. Zelig told him that I was harboring a childhood fantasy. He said, in fact, there had been no such sibling. He told Joe that he had tried many times over the years to convince me that Norman was a figment of my imagination but that I refused to accept the truth. Be assured that no such conversation(s) ever took place. Zelig and I never discussed Norman until that moment. Zelig was fully aware of the nature of my marriage and did not bother to consider the possible ramifications for me of placing such ammunition in Joe’s hands. It was only by good fortune that by Birth Certificate revealed the truth. It contains a notation regarding a child born of the marriage before me, but not alive. Faced with that evidence, Zelig continued to duck and cover. He recanted and went on with yet another tale whereby Ruth’s sister Barbara had checked into the hospital “as” Ruth, had the baby (Norman) and vanished. Of course, we need to assume that a doctor in his right mind would participate in such a deception, risking his license. Besides, I know that Barbara’s child was Ann Marie and not a boy named Norman. Ruth kept letters from her aunt in Germany that referenced Barbara and Ann Marie, and separately the premature birth of Ruth’s son Norman. The issue might have been closed and my insanity proven barring the notation on my Birth Certificate, and the letters from Aunt Berthe. Parenthetically, not one member of Zelig’s family has ever heard of Norman, Barbara, or Ann Marie. Chapter 6 CONEY ISLAND Before the advent of zip codes in the late 1950s, it was still safe to ride the subways. I used to take the “D” Train by myself from Bedford Park Boulevard in the Bronx to Stillwell Avenue in Coney Island. First stop to last (alpha – omega) any significance there? I would board the Mermaid Avenue bus to 29th Street; from there walking the two blocks to my cousins’ house. I sought temporary refuge from Ruth’s inappropriate overtures of affection and the overall oppressive feelings of loneliness in the Bronx. Ruth’s physical touch was something from which I automatically recoiled. Often I went to school looking askew because I would not permit her to touch me, even to brush my hair. She dubbed me her Changeling. It was years before I understood the meaning of that phrase. She professed to have adored, nay, worshipped her own mother and I could not come close to ever showing her any affection whatsoever. Once in Coney Island, I would almost immediately regret having made the journey. The poor relation, pitiable cousin from the Bronx, child of the psychotic Ruth! One cousin offered to have me call her “mommy” while I was there but I did not feel comfortable with that. Firstly, she was not my mommy. Secondly, didn’t she think her own two daughters might take umbrage? I was not truly safe there either and, beside, there was plenty of malfunctioning going on there too. I was too young to be consciously cognizant of it but there was an underlying awareness that all was not quite Kosher, even in Coney Island. The house was a three family affair: one set of cousins lived in the upstairs apartment, another on the main level, and “Grandpa” dwelled in the finished basement. He was not my Grandpa (rather my Uncle in Law), but I was encouraged to address him as such. He was not even a blood relation, married to Zelig’s deceased sister Sarah. I was actually first cousin to all the older generation, as Ruth and Zelig were both forty when I was born. My two real aunts, now deceased, lived on 27th Street. I would often wander over there to visit. Their presence was overwhelming. Ruth referred to them as the Ape and the Snake. They were “little” women with extraordinarily powerful personalities. They dominated decision making throughout the family. Second only to Zelig, their opinions and manifestos were followed to the letter though they were completely ignorant and uneducated. It is questionable as to whether they were able to read English. They did provide a certain sense of satisfaction for me. They readily waxed prolific on the evils of Ruth. They bemoaned the fate of their poor brother who was “stuck” with her. I often asked them why he did not just take me away from her since she was such a bad person. They would instantly exchange meaningful glances and issue platitudes such as, “he does the best he can”. Those poor ignorant women! Perhaps they actually believed that, or perhaps they knew more than they let on. It would have been interesting to see their reaction to the letter Zelig wrote to Amanda wherein he admitted his real reasons for not becoming an attorney. Would they have mustered up any level of anger or resentment over the wasted years behind the machines? I certainly was angry and resentful when I read it. He never earned more than a meager wage as a part-time teacher, and we lived in near poverty during my childhood. Upon his death, his legacy for me was precisely what I expected, nothing! Chapter 7 THERAPY & OTHER DELIGHTS
Copyright © 1999 Louise Friedman |