Chapter 14: Bullies and Blowjobs

Several weeks after my parents were divorced, I ended up living in Brookline, Massachusetts with my family and Richard Douglas, my new stepfather. My brother, Wilfred, had left home when he turned eighteen and he was living on his own as a freelance photographer.

Brookline was a transition from my old life with my father to something different. It was also my introduction into the world of sexual predators.

Billy Pushkin and I lived in the same brick and brownstone apartment complex on Vernon Street, in Brookline, Massachusetts. We often traveled to school together, as much for mutual protection as out of friendship. He was the spitting image of his pet hamster and both of them shared the same personality. His chubby fur-covered rodent hid in its cage beneath a pile of wood shavings and shivered in fear whenever a stranger was nearby.

We were both obsessed with pleasing a parent. I tried to make my mother proud without success, and Billy struggled in Hebrew class to earn his father’s praise. His dad was a distant man still grieving for his brother, father, and mother who’d vanished in the holocaust. We were in the seventh grade at Pierce School, located about a half-mile from home.

Neither Billy nor I were members of any gangs or cliques; we knew we were fair game for school bullies. We were two shy and scared kids and to survive, we did what we must. We always tried to travel in convoy fashion. When we spotted a group of kids going our way, we tagged along and tried to make ourselves invisible.

One day after staying late at school, we decided avoid the streets and take a shortcut through a wooded section of the Pierce Playground. Instead of a safe passage, we walked into a trap.

Several school bullies set upon us as we entered the tree line. The next twenty minutes is a mish-mash of random memories as the bullies abused and molested us for their amusement.

Most memories of events in our lives are short clips rather than full-length movies. My clip of events has more missing pieces then a flea market jigsaw puzzle. Swiss cheese flashes of memory have haunted my childhood and beyond.

My master file says I should have about twenty minutes worth of remembrance. A self-inventory of what I recall seems to account for about five minutes. Apparently, my master file is wrong or a quarter of an hour’s worth of memories has gone missing.

This much I do recall: one of the bullies was a kid named Jimmy Winter. He was the leader and about a year older than I was, and he was bigger and stronger. I remember Jimmy standing in front of me...

One of his friends has knocked me to the ground. I pull myself to my knees and as I attempt to rise, Jimmy moves closer to me and orders me to remain in a kneeling position.

“If you try to get up, I’ll beat the shit out of you.”

Jimmy advances until he is nearly on top of me. He unzips his fly, pulls his penis out of his pants, and starts to play with himself. I try to back away and he slaps me on the head.