LOSS OF INNOCENCE

What is the age at which someone should lose their innocence? How old were you when you lost yours? Were you able to deal with it as a young adult, or was it thrust upon you way before you were ready or knew what to do with this incredible and traumatic loss? Psychological experts have stated that a person develops approximately eighty percent of their personality by the age of six. I do not doubt that these early years shaped my worldview. 

I felt that at a young age, possibly as young as 2 or 3 years old, my soul was chased away into some far-off, frozen place where I could neither feel it nor touch it and perhaps never even see it again. It would often want to be found but would only let me or anyone else have a peek at it as if it were a volcano that erupted in molten anger, spewing forth streams of hurt. The worst part of the overflow of this emotion was that, like the volcano, no one could see below the very top of the cone, nor could they understand the spewing of my feelings. They could not see into the depths of my hurt but only the visible results of it, while at the same time preferring not to accept any responsibility for it.

At around 3-4 years of age, my earliest recollection of self-expression was my cave-like child’s art written on the walls of our home and my father’s mahogany dresser. If only someone could have read my cries for help within the hieroglyphics on the walls rather than punishing me for writing them, things might have turned out differently. I am sure there was a message there if only they could read it. However, even if they could, did they want to hear my truth? I do not think so. 

The truth was that I was afraid and angry: Afraid for myself and my mother, a protector from the rage of my father, who did not want me any more than he wanted his entire life’s scenario. Life had dealt him a miserable blow, and he was determined to take his family down with him into his hell.

My father married my mother to gain access to Lena Derman’s (my mother’s mother and my grandmother’s) fur business.  Derman Furs on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn appeared very prosperous to my father’s eyes, who viewed himself as a victim of the Great Depression, as well as his father and the early death of his mother. 

Thanks to the conspiracy between him and Grandma Derman, he married my mother, and two years later, I was born. On bringing me home from the hospital (as told to me by my cousin Joan), my father announced to my mother that he was getting his daughter from an earlier marriage, whom he had abandoned, into our household. That was, I guess, the beginning of the great schism in our household. My mother, feeling abandoned by him at the time of the birth of her son, clung even more so to her newborn with my father, thus giving all his attention to his newly returned daughter and none to me.

My first attempt at education was in kindergarten. I was like the “wolf-child” raised in the forest of scorn, who did not know quite why I was there, could not find my mommy, nor knew what to do in my scary new surroundings.  My only memory of this attempt at socialization was my teacher calling me by my complete name: “Ira — Henry — Blacker,” enunciating it with as much derision as she could muster. I felt humiliated by this usage of my name, which resulted in my later abandonment of any usage of my middle name as an adult. Even though my draft card was void of the word “Henry,” the government did affix a unique moniker to serve as a replacement: NMN (No Middle Name). When I was asked how to pronounce my middle name on the draft card, when carded at a bar, it was always a time for a laugh, as I would do all sorts of pronunciations for folks at the time, even though NMN stood for “no middle name.” So, as far as the government was concerned, I was Ira Blacker and did not possess a middle name.

First grade was not much different in attitude, although I did get to cover a much broader terrain. There were endless lineups for drills and classes. The teachers could never let us move anywhere unless we marched like little automatons to and from wherever we went. One thing that struck me then and down during my stay at this turn-of-the-century public school was how badly many of the children smelled. Later in life, I would refer to it as that “public school smell” if someone had a body odor. 

Second grade was a bit wilder, as I seemed to be getting more noticed for my disruptive behavior. I tried to fit in, even stealing a fifty-cent piece from my parents and buying king-sized Baby Ruth candy bars, which I handed out in the schoolyard in an early attempt to connect with my peers. I do not recall making any friends in the 1st or 2nd grade, so I guess the candy bars did not accomplish anything. 

My second-grade exit sits in my memory like a bad vaudeville show exit. The teacher would put me in the closet with all the children’s winter coats to remove me from the classroom environment. I found it amusing and far less challenging than learning anything the teacher was boring me. It was my first attempt at stand-up comedy, as there were no chairs in the closet, and I would make strange sounds, tell children’s jokes, etc. I think I made more of a ruckus in the closet than in class, which led to my removal from the “early studies” program. This, in turn, accelerated my progress to my next stop: Kings County.  

Some of my earliest lessons were instilled in me by my father with beatings. Once, when he played with me when I was about four, which was an exceedingly rare occasion, his glasses fell from his head and broke. It was not my doing, just his accident, but he started beating me until he emptied his rage in full on my little frame.  

The worst of his beatings took place at a dumpy resort on a rare family vacation in a wooded area in upstate New York.  The grounds had two sets of showers: one for the men and another for the women. My mother entered the women’s, and I was stuck with my father in the men’s. I suppose it was my fear that caused me to be dragged toward the showers, and my father could smell my fear as it probably reminded him of his own as a child, and he did not like that. So, it was perhaps the worst beating he ever gave me. 

Take it from me: there is nothing worse than being smacked by an adult as hard as he can when you are naked and soaking wet. It gave a new meaning to the word pain in my young life and further helped underscore the word degradation in my vocabulary. Most of all, it was the feeling of being utterly trapped, without exit, my mother screaming at the door outside for him to stop, and the downward arc of his wet hand on my small, damp frame.

These were some of the things that robbed me of innocence as a child. It was too early for me, or anyone, to become so fearful of life and what it could do to you. Eventually, life’s lessons wore on me, and my behavior became more and more disruptive as I cried for anyone’s attention, as well as developed anxious tics, the first of which was the incessant licking of my lips until they festered and scabbed. I was a five-year-old mess. 

A further lesson to be learned was the one about injustice. My parents could not be to blame for my behavior, which even led to my dropping a few bricks from the top of our apartment house to the ground below, narrowly missing a baby carriage when I was about 3-4 years old. Therefore, it was decided that I should be sent away when I reached the ripe old age of 6. The first stop on the misery train was Kings County Hospital, Mental Ward, where I later learned that the rocket scientist doctors had diagnosed me as autistic. They were incorrect, of course, but I was still there in the bug factory. It was not a place for a child to live and gain life experiences.

When I was a child, we moved several times. The first was moving out of my grandmother’s house into the back of a candy store in Jackson Heights, Queens, N.Y., and then into a basement apartment with little sunlight. That apartment was like living on a submarine, with only a few high windows that let in little sunlight. All that was missing was my father yelling, “Up periscope,” right along with his yelling at me and my mother. 

From “Das Boot,” my home was in Kings County, and then Hawthorn, where I was pulled from the submarine house without a life jacket. Once back home, several years later, I moved to Mid Flatbush, where I lived for a short time until we found more suitable accommodations. On this occasion, it was two blocks from the next candy store my father bought, and it was a five-flight walk-up. Our unit was so high up and without an elevator, it seems the only one who thought this was nuts was my dog Blackie.