1940s
MARY, CHARLIE AND THEIR TWO KIDS— Jack and Julie— lived in a three room, cold-water flat with a community toilet from 1931— right after Julie was born— to the beginning of World War II, when overtime helped them move to a five room cottage with hot water. When war broke out, Charlie had been working at a lipstick factory that seamlessly converted lipstick cases into brass cannon shells. Scrawled on the mirror in the women’s toilet in Max Factor Red was “make war, not love,” but for these warriors— “essential to the war effort”— the monotonous hum and occasional clang on the factory floor were the only war sounds they would ever hear.
When the war started, the company Mary worked for converted bedsprings into barbed wire. She felt she did important work during the national emergency, and though it was not necessarily recognized by others, it was important to her. Six days a week, precisely two minutes after the 6 a.m. whistle, she would flick a switch to send electricity into the controls of an extrusion device and pull a lever transferring molten steel into a die that formed filaments. After waiting thirty seconds she would press her foot on a pedal to engage a five fingered, claw-like device that pulled, coiled and cut the steel into a long thin wire. The barbs were added later. If the machine jammed, she would gingerly push on one part or another to dislodge it from its fellow rotating members and concentrate on not entangling her fingers—certain amputation. By the time the war ended, she had aged two years for every one — but she, at least, had all her fingers.
After the first few years of marriage most people learn the mechanics of a fair swing: occasionally striking out, occasionally getting on base. But Mary and Charlie would never see the ball coming or see it too late and swing to exhaustion. In place of managing life’s changing pitches, they became neurotics waiting for a catastrophe— the next inevitable, life-altering event. In anticipating the next bad thing, they sensed the slightest curve and overplayed it, flailing until the no-win, no-way-out inning passed. And these eccentricities, as if caused by genetic defect, would eventually afflict Jack and Julie.
Charlie had a gloom and doom about himself. He felt powerless and drank too much on payday, which probably conditioned his paranoia and extreme jealously. He was also quick with the rod, especially when it came to Jack. Sometimes several nights in succession, for infractions major and minor, Charlie would charge into Jack’s room, strap in hand. Jack would clasp his hands around the back of his head and tuck his knees into his chest. Crack across the skull! A right arm moved forward. He would shut his eyes. Head slammed to the right. He’d open his eyes. Crack! A fist would come from the left and he would close his eyes, sometimes traveling to a different world, one where the pounding was only a distant thunder. A hail of assaults would rain down until Charlie no longer felt powerless and Jack again heard the sound of his own voice mumbling numbers— adding, dividing, multiplying, and questioning the odd results.
Jack did not intellectualize how he survived in an asylum that periodically went haywire. Years later, a VA-appointed psychiatrist told him that he stored the aftereffects of Charlie’s brutality in damaged dendrites and synapses— crippling his psyche by leaving him unable to speak his mind and by ingratiating himself to overcompensate for feelings of worthlessness. Well into adulthood, when the world sometimes caved in on Jack, he would curl himself in a fetal position, take quick, short breaths, blink rapidly and count backward—replaying that stroboscopic view of reality that got him through those long moments of suffering.