My Rise to Relative Obscurity

8 FINGER EDDIE

1924 - 1972

"Where do you think you're going?" Myrlene asks, as I head for the door.

"Home."

"Are you crazy? You can't go out there tonight. Haven't you been hearing what the radio's been reporting? This is the coldest night ever recorded in New England. You'll be turned into an ice statue before you reach your house."

"I live only three doors away; I'll make it all right."

"No, you never will. You'll just have to sleep here tonight."

"Look, I'm a Boy Scout, an honor student in school and I go to church every Sunday, and I'm going home. Good night."

I open the door – WHOOSH! - and shut it immediately, my hand almost frozen to the doorknob. There's a blinding blizzard out there.

"You see, smarty, just like I told you: no human being can possibly go out tonight. Come upstairs, and I'll show you where you're going to sleep."

I follow Myrlene upstairs and into a room.

"This is your bed for tonight." Myrlene indicates the double bed in the room.

I go in, sit on the bed and wait for Myrlene to leave, but, smiling down at me, she remains standing at the door. Moments pass before I dare ask, "And where are you going to sleep?"

"On this bed; it's large enough for two."

"Impossible! I'm a Boy Scout, an honor student in school and I go to church every Sunday. I can never allow myself to sleep in the same bed with you.”

"But, Eddie, there's nowhere else in this house where you can sleep. My mother is sleeping in the only other bed."

"Why don't you sleep with her?"

"Her bed is too small."

"Then why can't I sleep on the couch downstairs?"

"On a night as cold as this, my mother and I have to share every available blanket. What's wrong with you, Eddie? You're not shy, are you?"

I'm unable to raise my eyes to her.

"Oh, you are shy. In that case, I'll undress in the bathroom, behind that door, while you undress here. As soon as you're snug in bed, you call me."

Myrlene leaves, and I quickly undress and slip into bed. But I don't call her, hoping she'll forget about me, or that the morning will arrive to save me. The door opens and Myrlene stomps into the room.

"Are you so shy you can’t to call me?" she says angrily, pulling back the bedcovers.

"Wait!" I warn, holding up my hand to stop her. “I'm a Boy Scout, an honor student in school and I go to church every Sunday, so I think it's best that you sleep on that side of the bed and I on this."

"Well, all right, if that's what you want.”

After lying for a few moments, Myrlene asks," Eddie, are you awake?"

"Uh-huh.”

"I'm freezing, aren't you?"

"Ye-yeah?"

"Eddie, I have an idea: if we both move a bit closer to the center of the bed, we'll be warmer."

"No! I'm a Boy Scout, an honor student in school and I go to church every Sunday."

"But we must do something, Eddie, or we won't be able to sleep a wink. Please be sensible.”

We move closer to the center of the bed. We don’t lie there long before Myrlene again speaks out.

"Eddie, I'm still cold. I have another idea: if we both move smack into the center of the bed so that our bodies touch . . ."

"Never! I've told you already that I'm a Boy Scout, an honor . . ."

"Oh, Eddie, you've never been a Boy Scout - you can't even tie your shoelaces properly - and you've never been an honor student and you’ve never even been in a church. Look, my last suggestion was good, wasn't it? We were warmer when we moved closer to the center of the bed, weren't we? So why not do as I say now?"

We move to the center of the bed and allow our bodies to touch. Myrlene snuggles closer to me and lips approach my ear.

"Um, Eddie," she sighs. "And now I want you to put your hand where I pee."

In the morning, I find half my right hand frozen in the toilet bowl.

1924 - 1930

All is darkness. Gradually small spots of light appear in the darkness. The spots of light, becoming enlarged, increase in number. An indistinct white mass gradually emerges from the darkness and moves about, becoming brighter and more clearly defined. Black spots flutter upon the white form. A sound issues from it, a familiar sound, a sound associated with sucking - and with Mama. The white form moving about is Mama!

{I must have seen prior to this, but this was the first time I realized that I was seeing. My mind later pieced together that I’d been sitting on the floor and watching my mother in a white dress as she walked about in an adjoining room. The fluttering dark spots upon her dress were occasioned by the shadows of the leaves interrupting the flow of sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window.}

I’m in Papa’s arms as he and Mama stand with a group of people around a mat on the floor. A barebacked man pushes his way through the crowd and stands on the mat. Another barebacked man joins him on the mat. The people standing make a sound that makes me cry. Papa wants me to stop crying, but I can’t stop, and he hands me to Mama. She carries me home and leaves me with the nurse who watches over baby George.

{I know how old I was at the time because my brother George was born a year and eleven months after me. My mind later pieced together that my parents were about to watch my mother’s brother wrestle when some vibration in the atmosphere of the arena made me cry. I have no memory of Uncle George because he died just this time, but I do remember playing with the cups and belts he had won.}

Mama and Papa withdraw from the room, leaving me alone. I walk up and down the room contentedly. Suddenly, I see a dark form moving on the wall, and I scream. Mama and Papa rush in. Mama, behind me, inspects my diaper. She tells Papa happily that, yes, there is caca in my diaper.

{The sight of my shadow on the wall had literally scared the shit out of me.}

Mama puts a toy soldier in my hand while I’m in a surly mood, then leaves the room. I squeeze the soldier until it hurts my hand. Furious, I throw the soldier against the wall, smashing it, the pieces raining down upon the floor. Good, let Mama come and hit me now. I’m ready to be punished and not give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

Mama returns to the room and, kneeling, humbly scoops up the remains of the toy soldier. “What a bad temper my boy has today,” she says and leaves.

What have I done? Mama has placed her love in my hand and I’ve cast it from me. I don’t deserve to ever be given another gift. If anything should ever be given me, I will cherish it with all my being.

I awaken from a pleasant afternoon dream. In the dream, I once again had the lost book of trains I’d been so fond of. I like to look at locomotives more than I do airplanes or boats.

Mama comes home from shopping. She hands me a packet. I reach in and pull out the train book I had been dreaming of. I am very happy to have it once again.

But how had Mama known that I wanted that book? I don’t remember saying anything to her about that. And how was it that she had bought the book at the very time that I had been dreaming of having it again? Does Mama know my dreams? Or do my dreams see what Mama is doing? Do Mama and I have an unusual way of knowing each other?

From the back seat of the car, I look fondly at the back of Papa’s head as he drives. He has bought a gift for Mama. I look forward to seeing the happiness on Mama’s face when she gets Papa’s gift. I want so much to lean forward and put my arms around Papa’s head and hug it, but I don’t dare.

Why doesn’t Papa buy gifts for Mama more often? When I am big I will buy presents for her every day.

I stare at the nothingness between baby Isabel’s legs as she lies on her back in her bed. What has happened to her thing? Where has it gone? Has it fallen off? How will she do peepee without it?

Mama sits on the floor to teach George and me how to draw. She lifts one knee from the floor, and I see that she, like baby Isabel, also has nothing between her legs, except that her nothing is covered with dark hair.

I walk into the bathroom and surprise Papa with his pants down. I’m happy to see that he has something between his legs. But his something is big and dark and covered with veins, unlike my nice little pink one.

It seems that the ones with something between their legs wear pants, while those with nothing wear dresses.

Papa drives slowly along the road behind the beach. A man is pulling off his shirt beside a parked car, and to see his body covered with hair startles me. Why has such ugliness happened to him? I look at my smooth hairless arms and vow that I will never allow hair to appear on them.

I look down at George contemptuously, wondering how he can permit such a shameful thing to be done to him. I want to kick and punch him out of his docility. But I know that if I make so much as a menacing move toward him, he’ll cry out as though I’ve hit him, and Mama will come running to hit me.

Mama is so proud of George’s lovely curls, praising them day and night and even putting ribbons on his head. That is bad enough but when she puts a girl’s dress on him so that what he wears matches the ribbons on his head that is criminal. And naive George hasn’t made the slightest protest. That’s why I want to wake him up by kicking him. If Mama should ever put a dress on me, I’d tear it off, drop it on dogshit and stamp on it.

Papa walks by me with a boy I don’t know, and I return to my drawing. Mama screams, frightening me. I go to the kitchen to see what is happening. Mama is crying and cursing Papa and pointing at the boy’s head. Now, I see that the boy is George without his curls. Papa must have taken him to a barber. Mama continues to shout at Papa, using words I’ve not heard before. I wish Papa would tell her to be quiet, but all he does is mutter something under his breath and leave the house to go for a drive. I’m sure that for days and days Mama’s going to cry and curse every time she sees George’s head.

I’m awakened from my afternoon nap by Mama’s shouting at a lady visitor. How can Mama do this? Doesn’t she care that her words hurt the woman’s feelings? Doesn’t she see how difficult she is making it for the woman to like her? Why can’t she be like Papa who always talks pleasantly to people? It makes me feel so good when I hear Papa exchanging Merry Christmases and Happy New Years with his friends.

Papa doesn’t shout, but he is often unjust to me. This evening, Mama gathered up all the drawings George and I have made and handed them to him. He looked through one pile, then the other and asked, “Whose are these?” ‘‘Those are George’s,” Mama told him.

I waited to hear Papa praise my work, but he handed the drawings back to Mama and said, “I like George’s drawings best.”

I couldn’t believe what I heard. Was Papa blind? How could he not see how superior my drawings were to George’s mere scribbles? How could George, two years younger than me, possibly draw better than me? Papa was being deliberately unfair. Or was he teaching me how to bear injustice?

“Let’s not look to the older one to amount to much,” Papa once told Mama while I was sitting beside him in the car. “Let’s place all our hopes on George.”

I vowed then to surpass George in everything we should ever do. Let Papa build his sandcastles on the seashore; I would be the angry wave that crashes down to demolishes all that he builds.

Perhaps Papa dislikes me because I always tell him when he’s made a wrong turn when we’re driving somewhere.

“Listen to Eddie; he never forgets the way,” Mama will say from the back seat.

In the back seat of the car with George beside me, I wait to see Papa disappear from view. As soon as he’s gone, I strike out at George and knock off his eyeglasses. He cries even before I’ve really hit him hard. Now, I begin to punch and kick him, and wrestle him to the floor of the car.

Why doesn’t he fight back? Why doesn’t he try to use all his strength to resist me? Why doesn’t he make an effort to see instead of relying on those glasses he wears?

I beat George until I see Papa coming. Quickly, I wipe away his tears, put his glasses back on and speak nicely to him, hoping to make him forget what I’ve done to him. But he’s also seen Papa coming, and he’s not going to stop crying. As soon as Papa enters the car, George blurts out all I’ve done to him, while I cower in the back seat, waiting to be struck by Papa’s hand. But, luckily, Papa seems too preoccupied to hear what George is trying to tell him.

1930 - 1937

Our first day in school, George and I sit next to each other in the front row. Mama has kept me at home until George is old enough to go to school with me because she doesn’t want us to become lonely away from home.

The teacher, standing before the class, says something which George and I don't understand. The only English we know are phrases such as “Good morning," "Good night" or "Merry Christmas". We’ve never played with any children other than our younger brothers and sister. Whenever we’ve gone from the house it has been in Papa’s car. We speak only Armenian, some Turkish and understand a little Greek.

Looking over my shoulder, I see that some of the children have raised their hands. I nudge George and signal to him that he should raise his hand as I am doing.

The teacher is going from desk to desk and looking at what is on each of them. Now she looks at George's desk and frowns. She frowns, too, when she looks at mine. Pursing her lips and nodding her head, she opens our boxes and empties them onto our desks. She picks up two irregular shaped pieces and shows us how they fit together. George and I have never seen such a game.

"What shall we sing, children?" the first grade teacher asks the class sitting around her in a semi-circle. “Does anyone wish to make a request? Yes, Angelo."

The children snicker, knowing what he's going to say.

" 'Silent Night'.” Angelo calls for his favorite song, and the children laugh to be singing “Silent Night” in the month of June.

As I sing, I feel a sudden sharp pain on my arm. Too shy to look at Patricia who sits beside me, I continue to sing. There's another sharp pain, this time on my side. Why is Patricia pinching me? I've never done anything to her, hardly even looked at her. Another pinch almost sends my voice up to a much higher note. Still afraid to look at her, I pretend to be singing. Again she pinches me. It seems she's not going to stop tormenting me. She pinches me so hard that it forces me look at her. My eyes beg her for mercy. Continuing to stare menacingly into my eyes and screwing up her face, Patricia pinches my arm.

Seeing all the books along the walls of the public library, I am encouraged to go to the woman sitting behind the counter.

"Yes, dear, may I help you?"

"Is it true I can take books home with me?"

"Yes, you may take any two books for two weeks. If you'll tell me your name, I'll prepare a borrower's card for you."

I can't believe my luck. What a wonderful discovery! Now I'll have something to do during my summer vacation when I'm not running to department stores to return things that Mama has bought or to pay the monthly bills. "Your mother trusts a little boy like you with all this money!" the cashiers often say.

"You not fool-it me!" Mama shouts at the young girl waiting on her in the large department store. "Dis not silk!"

"The label says it is."

"Label-bable, I don' believe-it label. I not pay-it dis price. How much you take-it?" Mama thinks she's bargaining in Istanbul.

"The price is marked on the item, madam."

"Shut up. I tol-it you I not pay-it dis price.”

I feel sorry for the girl. Even I know that she’s only a worker here. With my eyes alone, I try to convey to the girl that I’m sympathizing with her.

"So, wat is-it best price?"

"I'll call the manger."

"Yes, call-it manager."

The girl doesn't have to call the manager because he has already arrived.