Not Over It #1: Hitting Replay on My First Memory

Janice Levine can't stop revisiting an incident that took place 70 years ago.

This is the first piece in a new Oldster Magazine series called “Not Over It.” This series will feature personal essays about the incidents from long, long ago that still nag at us, still confound us, still hurt—no matter how much perspective we’ve gained, or distance we’ve gotten from them.

“We can’t return, we can only look behind from where we came” –Joni Mitchell, “The Circle Game”

I can’t remember what I did last week, but somehow my first memory remains poignant: April 1953, a toddler lost in a crowd of adults babbling in a language that I did not understand. Where are Mom and Daddy? I wondered. I hadn’t seen them in a week; I had been staying at my aunt’s house and just returned home.

The narrow living room of the Queens Village post-war, mid-century tract house with emerald-green carpeting was crowded with people who wanted to see the baby. My new brother was about to have his foreskin removed at his bris.  

I tried to get close to the baby, but kept getting pushed away, alone in the crowd. I glimpsed Mom sitting on the couch holding this new thing. For what seemed like an eternity, I inched my way over to Mom, trying to get a look, a touch, to feel included. It felt like being in the ocean with the tide pushing, opposing—one inch forward, three inches back. 

Familiar faces towered above me, looking down, like a scene from a Fellini film. No, no, no. Germs will harm the baby. Keep him safe and keep the dirty sister away. In our House of Horrors, shoving, pushing. Mazel tov, Sheina kindala, a Seina medela, beautiful child(ren).

It seemed as if every member of my parents’ huge family was there. Seven of the nine of my parents' siblings and their spouses; cousins; my four grandparents, still alive in 1953. 

Finally, I was next to Mom who was holding the baby, swaddled and guarded. Mommy!!! I wanted to be hugged, cuddled, kissed, and told how much she’d missed me while I’d been at my aunt’s. But she pushed me away with not even a glimpse. I was the carrier of unknown diseases that could jump out and put precious baby in harm’s way. Who was this little creature, the star of the show, turning me into a has been? 

I can’t remember what I did last week, but somehow my first memory remains poignant: April 1953, a toddler lost in a crowd of adults babbling in a language that I did not understand.

A mass of relatives crowded around the small table in our dinette, where the scent of smoked fish and percolating coffee filled the air. A strange, stooped, bearded man appeared with a top hat on his head and scissors in his hand. The baby was placed on my grandfather’s lap, as he sat on shiny, green plastic upholstery with the stuffing peeping through the buttons. The bearded man reached down to the baby’s tiny penis and snipped the foreskin away. The baby screamed, and the breathless crowd let out a collective sigh of relief, clapping, chanting, singing Mazel Tov! until it reached a feverish pitch, the men locking arms and dancing through the crowd in this tiny space.

The baby was named Shlomo Eliezer, Steven in English, after his great grandpa, as were all of the first-born male sons of the family. There were many tears. The bris was complete, as bagels and lox replaced the gauze and surgical tools on the table.  

The crowd left, night fell, and it was time to go to sleep. There was now a crib in my room sitting opposite my bed. In the middle of the night, my toddler eyes opened and adjusted to the darkness. I was finally alone with my new brother.

The house was quiet. At long last, I could see him, hold him, and touch him. In the pitch-black room, discerning shadows, my arms reached out and touched familiar objects until I came to the crib. It was higher than expected. In the darkness, I groped around to find a chair to prop myself up on, then reached down into the crib. I tried to pick up my baby brother, thinking he would be like one of my toy dolls. Oh no!! I thought. He’s heavy! I pulled and fell back, baby in my arms. 

WHACK!  Steven started to scream. I was terrified as my skull hit the steel frame of the high riser, his soft head resting on my toddler chest. My banged-up head stung as my heart pounded. I waited in the dark room, stabbing pain traveling through my body, gripped with fear. What had I done? 

Mom and Daddy rushed into the room, screaming at me. What did you do? You tried to hurt the baby!! They grabbed Steven and fussed to see if he was all right. Fortunately he’d had a soft landing. My own landing, on the steel frame, was more jarring, but no one said anything, or even noticed. 

The family version goes like this: Janice tried to hurt Steven on the day he came home from the hospital. She dropped him on his head, and that explains all his missteps as he grew. 

In the darkness, I groped around to find a chair to prop myself up on, then reached down into the crib. I tried to pick up my baby brother, thinking he would be like one of my toy dolls. Oh no!! I thought. He’s heavy! I pulled and fell back, baby in my arms. WHACK!  Steven started to scream.

As a child, Steven became a stutterer and was often in fights with classmates because of their relentless teasing. The administration of his school demanded: 

We cannot control him anymore. If you want him to continue in this Jewish Day School, he must go to a psychiatrist. He needs to be medicated.

Mom brought me along when he visited the psychiatrist. When Dr. Sole, (who I believed to be omniscient), came out to greet us, I was introduced. 

Oh, so YOU are the sister! Aha. 

A medicine dropper found a permanent home on the boomerang Mid-Century Modern counter of the pink and gray kitchen. Next to the dropper sat the vial of phenobarbital which was administered to Steven every day. Steven slowed down once the meds hit his nervous system. His speech was more relaxed, the fight in him diminished. When the stuttering stopped, so did the prescription. 

Steven then developed a seizure disorder that required a Ritalin prescription, and a lifetime of meds. Foam erupted from his mouth, eyes rolled back as he lay shaking on the floor.

In his early teens, Steven had moved down to our wood paneled finished basement with the orange, plastic covered couch, and claimed that as his bedroom. Mom ran upstairs, unable to do the laundry whenever his cat, who she passionately feared, appeared on a break from its hiding place under the bed.

When he was a little bit older, he crashed his motorcycle. Limping home afterward, face bloodied, somehow Steven made it to our front porch. Mom opened the door and started to scream.

I grew up feeling like a demon child. I have spent so much of my life with my finger on the rewind/replay button, struggling to break free of these early feelings.

Then came the drugs. Muscle relaxers, downers, uppers. Ill-gotten pills were forever present. The scent of marijuana seeped out of his lair. In high school, the police called to say that Steven was arrested for dealing pot. Mom went to support meetings for parents of drug-involved children. What is this marazana stuff? she asked. I want to try it.  Down in the dark basement, Mom got high with us. Then she ran upstairs, ravenous, hit hard with the munchies.

As time went on, there were frequent violent and angry wrestling matches between Steven and Daddy.

Somehow, I did this; Steven’s struggles were my fault.

My version of the story? The toddler stumbling in the dark, wanting to hold her new brother, felt unheard. I grew up feeling like a demon child. I have spent so much of my life with my finger on the rewind/replay button, struggling to break free of these early feelings.