Born Under a Bad Sign © Roy Den Hollander 2019 Paint It Back In 1947, breech births were dangerous to newborns, so many mothers chose caesarian sections. The problem was it left a scare, so vain mothers avoided it, as did mine. Even so, my luck did not hold out—I survived. A person’s earliest memory allegedly portends his future—perhaps. Let’s see. My earliest was around four or maybe younger. It was before my imprisonment in nursery school. I’m standing behind my mother who’s cooking on the stove. What she’s cooking is beyond me, since I’m so short, I can’t see the top. My view is looking upward at her rear end, which wasn’t bad. In her early 40s, she was still in shape and a good-looking babe. “What’s for dinner? I ask more than once not getting an answer. She spins around in a flash with that screwed up face of unrepentant anger and yells, “Don’t bother me. I wish I had listened to your father and never had you!” For about the next decade, that was her favorite incantation of meanness. Guess she was hoping like all witches that I would disappear. It didn’t work, unfortunately. But by the age of 1 14, I was bigger than her and my brain had matured enough to verbally fight back. So on one occasion of her now-well-passed-her prime rage when she barked, “I wish I had listened to your father and never had you!” I coolly replied, “I wish you had too.” She never pulled that rant again. After she finally kicked off, I asked my older brother, the one my parents didn’t kill, “What did you think about mother?” Without a beat, he replied, “Mean and nasty.” “What about me when we were kids?” “You didn’t like being pushed around.” Sounds like a theme. Infanticide So what about the brother that the parents eliminated? Roger was born and disappeared before my entrance into the family that never should have been. It took me decades to find out the whole story and not until both parents were dead. Little bits and drabs would come out but never the full story. Before I started kindergarten, once when sitting on her bed watching her get dress to go shopping, not an unpleasant sight, she mentioned the brother I never met. “Roger was a sickly child and died before he was even your age.” My older brother remembered Roger. “Roger was still a baby. One day I went to school and when I came home, he was gone.” Years later while visiting an aunt in Holland, she said Roger was born with Down Syndrome. When the parents finally died, a buddy of mine at my request got a copy of Roger’s death certificate. He died in the middle of summer of pneumonia and malnutrition. That seemed suspicious. Pneumonia in the summer? Then I realized why there had been a large air conditioner stored in the basement when I was very young. Except for that one air conditioner, 2 which also disappeared, never in my entire life did they buy an air conditioner no matter how hot it got in New Jersey. But they had one when Roger died of pneumonia. Also, since when does a child in an upper-middle class family die of starvation? The logical conclusion is that to avoid the burdening costs of taking care of Roger—the parents were amazingly cheap given the money that a chemical engineer was making—and for princess mother to be spared the work of caring for Roger and the public embarrassment of producing an idiot, Roger disappeared. I actually visited his grave once. The parents were too cheap to even put a marker. All I had was the location in a cemetery and some of mother’s ashes from her cremation. “Looks like you were the lucky one Roger.” I said looking down at a small patch of grass. “You escaped their lunacy. Here are some of the remains of the mother who threw you away.” I poured the ashes on his grave. “Maybe in some strange way that will show you that you came out better than we did. Adios.” Puppy Love Third grade gave my fellow classmates and me one hot blue-eyed, blonde teacher in her early 20s. She seated us alphabetically going up and down the rows of desks. This was one time lady luck smiled on me. My desk was near the front and depending on how she sat on the desk while teaching; I had a partial view up her dress. The dresses back then were long, so no panty sightings, but for an eight year old, glimpses of a little thigh were heaven. She was also nice and considerate—unlike the mother I went home to after school. Girls always turned me on, but in the beginning my understanding of them was limited. My earliest memory was seeing Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at five years old. Mother took me. In the movie Marilyn Monroe sings “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” When she sang “These 3 rocks won’t lose their shape,” her hands were under the diamond necklace. By rocks, I thought she meant her boobs, and said to myself those are going to lose their shape, just give them some time. So I was confused. Confused because it wouldn’t be until later in life that I realized the most important thing to girls is money, material wealth. They would sell out anybody for enough money. In addition to our teacher, there were two student dolls in third grade—one a blonde and the other a brunette. As Mother Nature requires of boys, I hit on both of them trying to seal our imagined friendships with a kiss. They complained to our teacher. “Roy, you can’t go around trying to kiss girls unless they want you to.” “Well, how do you know if they want you to?” I asked. “You just know or if unsure ask them.” “Okay then, can I kiss you?” She laughed, but I was serious. This newly learned guessing game resulted in my hanging out after school with another hot blue-eyed, blonde girl in our class. We’d usually go over to her house because both her parents worked, so no one was home other than her older sister. We’d play around on her parents’ bed, which was her idea. Guess there is a little Mary Shelley in even young girls. We liked each other, but then I made a mistake. One day after school, we went over to my house. Unfortunately, mother was not on the golf course as usual, so she found out who my girl friend was. A few days later, my girl friend and I were playing around on her parents’ bed when her older sister comes in and says I have a telephone call. It was mother. She had tracked me down, which wasn’t particularly hard in a town of 8000 people. “Where have you been?” She yelled through the phone ignoring that modern day technology didn’t require the volume of her voice. “We have a political diner tonight. You 4 should have been home hours ago.” Actually one hour ago, but I chose to keep quiet. “We better not be late because of you!” “Okay, I’ll hope on my bike and hurry home.” “No, we’ll pick you up.” “Okay, let me get you the address.” Being a kid, I knew how to get to places but never bothered with addresses. Still nasty, she said, “Don’t bother. I know where you are.” How did she know where I was? She had gotten my girl friend’s last name when we had gone to my house. The parents arrived in their four-door Dodge, I put my bicycle in the back and got in. Mother turned around yelling, and I mean yelling. “I don’t want you to ever see that tart again. She’s nothing but a whore. Her family is no good, what would the neighbors say if they knew you played with her? I wouldn’t have it!” I knew what whores were, but this was a third grade girl friend. I also knew my mistake; I had taken my girl friend home and introduced her to my mother. Mother ruined that romance, but she’d never do it again. Throughout the remainder of her existence, never ever did I bring a girl friend home or introduce one to either of my parents. My third grade teacher also made sure I could read. Mother was remiss in helping me learn because she rather spend her time playing golf. My teacher told mother that unless my reading improved to third grade standards, she would have to hold back a grade the son of the President of the Board of Education. That’s right, father was the Board President—boy he would have gone nuts. But rather than tutoring me herself—the golf course was too important— she hired one of the high school football players. He was great. He made me want to learn. My 5 reading improved enough to meet third grade standards, but just when I was on a roll, Mother ended the tutoring. Why? To save money. Father gave her an amount to run the household, so whenever she could cut an expense, it would go into her bank account. More on that later. Third grade for a boy—not a queer or androgyny or a girl—meant moving from Farm League baseball into Little League baseball.