Confirmation
I can’t ask my brother Ernst whether many of my memories of our childhood are correct. If he were alive I would ask him “Wasn’t our phone number at home when we were little kids WA (wadsworth) 6-9027? There are so many other things I want to ask him about what I, or is it we, remember from our childhood. No doubt he would agree that we were always in trouble but unlike me he thinks it was I that got us to do things that got us punished.
Without a doubt, Ernst had trouble controlling what he did. It was impossible. Ernst wouldn’t agree about so many things he did that were outrageous and what he thought were simply spontaneous fun.
What possessed him to put his hand down the blouse of our kindergarten teacher? Why did he liberate the rabbits in the university biology building? Why couldn’t he stop himself from laughing at the faculty member in charge of the chess club in the 7th grade just because he had it in check after relatively few moves?
So many shared experiences I remember but would Ernst confirm what I know happened…or maybe not.
I remember clearly our joint venture into chemical warfare. Visitors never stopped my brother and I from creating havoc. He was an older man sitting at the kitchen table across from my mother drinking tea and eating butter cookies. Ernst and I were running around with a can of bug spray. What possessed Ernst when he sprayed the back of the old man’s neck. He screeched and our mother yelled at us”. Two weeks later he was dead. Ernst and I were sure we were the cause and only later did we realize we did not do him in.
Ernst was an empirical physicist of sorts. We could sometimes get free tickets to sit in the upper deck of Yankee Stadium. We brought with us sandwiches and shared a 2-gallon metal jug filled with iced tea. Each of us would lift the jug and guzzle from the spout. When Ernst picked up the jug it slipped from his hands and came hurtling down and hit the metal railing next to a fan. The crashing sound could be heard throughout the stadium. It could have killed the fan. Ernst had to go down and retrieve the jug of tea.
Pranks were irresistible. Ernst was the one who discovered that some mothers had idiot sons. No doubt Ernst would smile if I reminded him of his interaction with Walter, one of the kids on our block. Walter saw Ernst and I standing at the corner of 150th. He came over to us and happened to look at Ernst’s hand which contained a small rock and several nickels. Walter asked, “What is that rock?” and Ernst answered immediately, “It’s nickel ore. You rub the rock and you get nickels.” Walter was amazed and asked, “What could I trade for the nickel ore?” Ernst thought, “How about some of your mother’s jewelry.” Walter rushed to his apartment and came downstairs with a brown bag containing many of his mother’s jewels. Later that afternoon Walter’s mother called. She was hysterical shouting and cursing at us. We had no intention of keeping the jewels. We could not, however, erase the memory of the event and the discovery that perhaps her son was an idiot.
I might ask Ernst about just one of several discoverers that some people are just plain evil. Ernst was with me when a crowd formed halfway across Broadway. Standing on the sidewalk I could see a woman lying on the ground and several people were talking to her. It didn’t seem like she heard them because she didn’t move or look in their direction. Suddenly she seemed to wake up. She got onto her knees looked around and screamed “My purse. Where is my purse?” People around looked around. No purse. Turns out while she was having an epileptic seizure someone picked up her purse and walked away with it. I was horrified as well as surprised. So, this is what some people are like.
I was the one who convinced Ernst that there was no such thing as a public garden. On Riverside Drive, there was a fenced-in huge public garden of forsythia in bloom. Ernst and I jumped the fence and started collecting a huge bunch of flowering forsythia. When we couldn’t carry anymore we jumped back across the fence. No doubt our mother would be so pleased with all the flowers. People sitting on nearby benches seemed to be staring at us but we didn’t think much of it. Why were they looking at us?
I am sure I could have gotten Ernst to shudder all over in recalling how he taught a kid our age the art of hitting a baseball: It was an accident. A bunch of us were playing baseball. A kid about our age walked towards us from left field and asked if he could try to bat a ball. It was clear the kid didn’t know much about baseball so Ernst said, “I’ll show you how.” He did just that but the kid walked right into his swing. The top of his head spouted blood. We all screamed. I ran home to tell my mother that Ernst had killed a kid and so in her apron, she ran back to the playground with me just as the ambulance drove off. The kid turned out to be ok.
Ernst and I had learned to identify the sound of a body hitting cement. We lived in a neighborhood of refugees that had barely escaped Germany in 1939. Many of their relatives didn’t make it. After the war the reality of the full final toll of murdered relatives finally sunk in. For some, it was all too much. My brother and I didn’t fully understand the desperation that drove some of them to kill themselves but we did know a good deal about fear.
Ruth was young and beautiful. What is the experience of lust in an 11 year old? Sometimes she would visit us from Philadelphia and stay overnight. In the morning Ernst and I would jump into bed and snuggle next to her. It felt wonderful even though we only understood bits and pieces of what excited us. We could feel her breasts against us. We lay pressed against her and felt her warmth. Ernst and I were pretty sure she liked having us lie close to her. I don’t remember if either of us ever had an erection. We never forgot her.
If he were alive I would remind Ernst how we discovered Boyles law, how liquids and gasses behave under pressure. Our friends regularly joined us when we went to a nearby park to play or make trouble. Once we took along some hotdogs and several cans of baked beans along with a can opener, matches, and plastic plates. We collected wood built a fire and roasted our franks. We heated the cans of baked beans by putting them directly in the fire. Suddenly a there was a huge explosion and hot baked beans were scattered all over. We thought they might ignite a forest fire. We learned that it was important to open the cans of beans before heating them. We learned about the relationship between the temperature of liquids and pressure inside closed containers.
Ernst and I didn’t talk much about death but together we learned something about what it was and how it can become real. Ernst and I knew what it was like when someone you know died. Janet Gross’s mother died. Janet was our age and even though a girl would sometimes play baseball and other games with us. We knew how to say “I’m sorry that your mother died.” but then we didn’t know what to do, what to say to her. We stumbled and bungled. Janet knew we felt bad for her and wanted to help her but didn’t know how. We did continue to have her join us even when we were playing marbles or stickball. We sort of knew that took away some of her sadness at least for a short time.