PAUL
My older brother, the first born of 5 kids, was nearly 6 years older than me. Myself and my other brothers and sister were all within 2 years of each other.. My mother had been hoping for a girl and although I arrived instead she was probably happy to learn that she could still bare children at all. I was a bright and good looking child and my mother enjoyed showing me off to her friends kinda like a trophy. But that’s another story for some other time.
One night my parents were going out with friends and at the time they judged that at twelve years of age Paul was old and responsible enough to babysit the 4 of us. He resented this mightily and expressed it many times in many different ways during my growing up years. Understandably he wanted to be hanging with his friends instead of being saddled with us. I was 6 at the time and we 1st graders were just learning how to tell time. I caught on quickly. I was in the den his night watching television when he walked in and asked, “Harvey. What time is it?” I was actually excited to display my new found skill and after looking at the clock in the kitchen, returned to the den and proudly told him, “It’s 43 minutes after 6”. “Wrong, he answered, Look again.” I began to get scared because his town of voice changed and sounded threatening. Worriedly I went back into the kitchen and studied the clock carefully. Was I inaccurate the first time? Yes, I thought. I must have been off by a minute. It would be just like Paul to find the smallest error in order to justify punishing me. I returned to the den with what I thought was the right answer. “It’s 44 minutes after 6 I proudly announced. “No it’s NOT he insisted, his face red and angrier. “Go and find out what time it is”, he yelled.
By now, I felt entrapped and racked my brain to think of an answer that would be acceptable to him. Then it came to me and excitedly I returned to the den exclaiming, “It’s 15 minutes before 7!” “That’s it” he bellowed, grabbing me by the back of my shirt and dragging me through the living room. He pulled me up the stairs and threw me onto my bed. “It’s 7:45!” Now you stay here and don’t come out until I say you can. If you do come out you’ll be sorry,” I was always scared of him so I had to obey. I never knew if and when he was going to explode on me or slice me up with the knives he said he’d hidden in the basement. I knew he was really sneaking out to be with his friends and would return before mom and dad got home. If I didn’t talk they would never know.
This sort of unprovoked abuse continued for many years. One Saturday when my mother wanted us out of the house she gave Paul money to take me to the movies. Usually we took a bus to the closest local theater. He argued with the ticket seller that he was only 11 which was the cut off age for a discounted child ticket. He did this every time although he usually lost and had to pay full fare. This was back when there were always several cartoons followed by a double feature. The movies always seemed to be horror movies and the truth was, I was too young to handle it. They scared the heck out of me! I would cover my eyes whenever the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” or some other slimy, repulsive creature showed up on screen. There were deformed humans with hair growing out of their bodies in wrong places or men mutating into horrible man-eating globs of oozing slime. Although I tried not to look, not to see them, once home and trying to get to sleep at night I wasn’t able to stop picturing them in my mind. Paul would add to my terror by changing his voice into a whispering scary tone and tell me that the monsters were coming for me. I tried to keep the closet light on but he always turned it off. The only way I could stay safe I imagined, was to stay under my blankets and keep all parts of my body from poking out. I told myself that they couldn’t take or hurt me unless some part of me slipped out beyond the boundaries of the bed.
One night following an exceptionally terrifying film he wouldn’t let up. Although he always told me that if I ever tattled on him he would beat me up or worse but this night I didn’t care. I was that frightened.
I raced into my parents bedroom crying and complained, “Paul keeps scaring me and saying there are monsters in the room that are coming to take me away.” “Oh monsters aren’t real Harvey; it’s all in your head. Now go back to bed, my parents would respond. Under my covers once again I lay perfectly still and quiet. I heard Paul again, “Pleasant dre hee hee hee heems,.” He’d say, drawing it out the
exact same way that the announcer on a program called “Inner Sanctum” would conclude each show. After several minutes I got up the nerve to get out of bed and silently crawl back to my parents room where I quietly crept past their door and laid under their bed, feeling safe beneath their sleeping bodies. I awoke the next morning before them luckily and snuck back into my bedroom which was now lit with sunlight and safe.
One weekend we took the subway downtown to a theater. I’d never before been on the subway and the howling, screeching sounds the train made had my heart beating fast and furiously.
We sat facing backwards in a seat closest to the car’s exit door and I watched the lights and advertisements on the tunnel walls stream quickly by. At one point Paul stood up, opened the exit door and stepped out onto…onto what!? There were handholds just outside the window that he grabbed onto and it appeared to me that he was holding himself up off the tracks. But why was he smiling from ear to ear?
Suddenly he threw both his hands up in the air and dropped out of sight. “Oh my God,” I cried out in my mind. My brother was dead and I was going downtown to a place I’d never been before. All I did know was that I didn’t know where to get off and that somewhere at the end of the line on the south side of Chicago where all the negroes lived, I would be stranded lost and all alone. “Oh God,” I silently prayed as I sat quivering in my seat, bent over holding my head down with both hands. Several minutes went by and then suddenly Phil’s face returned to the window. He was laughing hysterically as he re-entered the car and took his seat. He was thirteen and I was 7. It wasn’t funny at all.
This sort of torturing went on until I was about 11. One day after school
Paul had me trapped in a corner of the room. What he liked to do was hold both my hands behind my back and slap my face until until I cried. That frustrating sense of powerlessness raged within me while he grinned and kept slapping me. Finally…I exploded!
With both my hands I shoved him away from me fueled by years and years of suppressed hatred for him. It was more than physical, it was a pent up psychic energy that propelled him all the way across the room against the far wall. I stood my ground, amazed and shaking from adrenaline. Neither of us spoke. He never laid a hand on me again.
