20 Roosevelt Boulevard

In upper Connecticut, bordering Massachusetts, directly following the Korean War, the bulldozers of developer Ledger Starr arrived to knock down all trees and level the ground. Afterwards, with wooden stakes and plum-bob lines, cellars were dug and houses were built, each one on a half acre lot. It was an instant neighborhood of barrack-like houses that varied not in size and shape but only in color. Through a low interest loan via the GI Bill my father and mother bought one of those houses. It was painted brown and would be our home for the first fifteen years of my life.

My earliest memory: It was night time and my mother and I were holding hands. We were in a well tended to field and it was crowded with people, most of them it seemed taller than me, and fireworks were exploding overheard. Suddenly my mother and I were no longer holding hands. I plunged into fear. Years later a therapist would urge me to think hard. Did your mother let go of your hand? Or did you let go of hers? The answer I inferred by my therapist's insistence was central to understanding the core of my being. But that night in that field I knew only that I was utterly lost.

A year or two later I was a first grader when the news was announced through the classroom speaker overhead. We were dismissed hours early from school and I ran home as hard as I could. I had to tell my mother. When I got home she was vacuuming the living room. I was almost too breathless speak. She urged me to calm down and when I finally did and told her the news she said, "Oh my God," and hurried to wake up my father. Together the three of us gathered in front of the television. It just couldn't be. But it was true. The date was November, 22, 1963. And President Kennedy who was Irish and Catholic just like us had been assassinated. The following days unfolded in black and white as Walter Cronkite ushered us through our grief. Some images of that time remain indelible: A horse drawn cart with a flag draped coffin, and a riderless horse with one empty boot in a stirrup.

Somewhere around that time I had my mouth washed out with soap for saying something improper. Forty seven years later I could still taste that bar of soap.

I liked fire and played with matches. In the woods behind our house I lit small fires and snuffed them out. But one day one of the fires got away from me. Suddenly there were walls of flames on three sides of me. I was mesmerized. I almost let myself get completely surrounded by flames before I ran. I was later caught and grounded to my bedroom and the backyard for several months. Years after in therapy I would learn that playing with fire was closely associated with early sexual abuse. During that time I was in therapy my mother would offhandedly remark that one of my earliest babysitters was later led away in a straightjacket. The news flushed through me like icy water. It suddenly all made sense, all those feelings I had of being smothered that seemed to have been born before I had words. I knew intuitively that I had been sexually abused. My mother as if reading my mind told me that nothing ever happened, that she would have known if that woman ever did anything to me. But I thought, what about all these other things that happened under your very own roof without you being aware? How could you tell me you know what happened?

Our backyard was mostly sand and patches of grass with a hill that had a couple trees atop it. One afternoon I hog tied my brother and hoisted him up by the feet into one of those trees. As he dangled upside down from a limb I called my parents. My mother cried from the kitchen window, "Let him down." I swiped at the rope with a serrated knife severing it. My brother plunged head first into the ground. But the gods were with us. The fall didn't break his neck.

Jerry Wiggins lived next door in the house to the right of ours. He was my younger brother's age and he kept a photo of his penis in his wallet. When he was sixteen he crashed his motorcycle just up the street at gentle bend in the road. When he did so he plowed through a wooden fence and into a tree destroying his motorcycle. He was laid up in bed in traction for a number of months with many broken bones. A year later almost to the day after he was healed and had bought a new motorcycle he smashed once again through that very same fence and into that tree. This time the crash killed him. His father who tinkered with short-wave radios filed for divorce. He left the house to his wife and daughter. The ex wife drew the shades closed and never opened them again.

In 1969, following the Manson Family murders, there was a rumor that a naked madman was running through the woods behind our house. For at least one night I stared out my bedroom window with vigilance. The following September I was thirteen and would be taking a bus to school for the first time. On the initial day of classes I made it half way to the bus stop where other kids were waiting before I turned around and went back home. I entered my backdoor in tears. My mother had to sooth me. "There, there," she said. "It's ok to be scared." Two years later I would be dropping acid. And a year after that we would move and leave 20 Roosevelt Boulevard behind.