What Were You Thinking?

By Sharon Levine

Written in her perspective, the child chronicles her life from toddler to teenager, then young adult. When her two alcoholic parents were so inattentive to their toddler that a pedophile uncle found his way into her life, while the adults partied in the next room... When her parents put him into her child’s bed when he was home from a tour at sea in the merchant marine... When they left her alone for weeks with total strangers...When they sent their teen-aged daughter to stay alone with an adult music teacher, then arranged the young girl’s marriage to him and didn’t even attend the ceremony... At every turn, their child could have asked them, What Were You Thinking? Singer, artist, writer, survivor, Sharon relates her life in a colorful, humorous story of growing up as the little person between two adults who were so obsessed with themselves and each other, there was little or no room for her. What were you thinking the last time you received an unwelcome embrace, the last time you felt powerless, the last time you survived? If you find yourself in these pages, take comfort in your triumph.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharon Levine
• Release date: Jun 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301592456

Sharon Levine

It took 20 years for my “Little Voice” to nag me into writing the two-book memoir. I had to retire to the Montana mountains to make it happen. In addition to writing for the web site loving1withmentalillness, I illustrate the site with scenes made of silk, suede, batiks. Once retired, there was finally time to create and not watch the clock or the calendar. At age 76 and-a-half, I’m finally free.

Book preview

Prologue

At a very young age, I discovered a strange little voice in my head. It told me things occasionally. It doesn’t chatter, is not pushy or demanding, or selfish. It has none of my qualities.

It is infinitely patient, and speaks with supreme simplicity. And it has saved my life more than once.

I have learned it is never wrong. Never. When I obey, the outcome is good. When I am stubborn and rebellious I am always wrong. It took me too long to learn that lesson.

Twenty years ago, the Voice told me to write my story. Give it credit for tenacity.

This book is the result of the hardest command it has ever given me. Once I started writing, I could feel it jumping up and down and giggling, which is most uncharacteristic behavior. I believe this is the ultimate test of my obedience.

I can see clearly now, the rain has gone.¹

There is also a tape in my head, with the human programming entered before I could really talk. When a man looks at me in a certain way, it’s like an invisible hand pushing a button, and the tape rolls: Just be kind to the nice man. He will finish soon, and it will all be over.

Until the next time.

As with a post-hypnotic suggestion, I could no more stop the tape running, or my reaction, or any part of the predictable script than I could spit clear to the moon.

Writing as a child who is guilt free and blameless was not hard. No guilty conscience there. I dived into it and despite some squeamish moments, it didn’t feel painful. And my daughters, if they read it, will feel only compassion. I am granted a free ticket to their understanding, despite my multiple failures as a parent. What a deal!

I wonder what I will see in their eyes when they read in the books following this one the confessions of an adult…their mother. This is why parents keep their secrets: To preserve that look in their children’s eyes.

At some point, we must give up telling ourselves that we were done wrong by our parents, and it isn’t our fault. At some point it damned well becomes our fault. We and we alone are responsible for our actions. That magic grown-up moment of enlightenment kind of slipped right past me.

I learned too early that getting a man’s attention was easy. Like netting guppies in an aquarium. Any age, size, race. It didn’t matter. They didn’t have a chance. It’s not about being beautiful, or having a voluptuous figure. It’s about body language and the messages in the eyes. They responded and they never fought it.

As a toddler I learned to be a predatory, dangerously seductive female. As an adult, always on the prowl, I found married men particularly susceptible. They were bored, and nature tells them to impregnate any breathing female. Hormonal pressure pushes them into a bed, onto the grass, into the back seat of a car. After damaging a couple of half-way decent marriages, I succumbed to some twisted sense of morality that told me that if I married them, it made it OK. So I married four times.

By today’s standards, even with the AIDS specter, I was not nearly as sexually active as the 20- and 30-somethings. I more than made up for lack of quantity with the quality of damage I left in my trail. For my generation, I was a menace. The weddings were just smearing pretty frosting over a moldy cake. I looked into the mirror and wondered why the Portrait of Dorian Gray wasn’t staring back at me, since I must be rotting slowly from within. I inherited young genes, and my face stayed the same until my mid-sixties. It made for a longer hunting season.

If we believe in and follow Christ, we are forgiven, right? Fornicators abound in the Old Testament. Even King David, with all his adultery, all his wives, murders, and scheming was forgiven. Was it because David was a man, or because he wrote beautiful psalms? If a queen behaved in such a disgraceful manner, she would have been stoned to death, probably in an arena before cheering men, as they still do in some parts of the world.

Perhaps it’s true, that Jesus forgives me for running rampant through people’s lives, causing pain and irreparable damage. Just as He forgave my part in getting Him murdered on the cross, He forgives my mayhem as an adult, right? No matter, I still cannot forgive myself. Compared to me, He’s a pushover.

I get no credit for stopping the seduction games as I am blessedly free of raging hormones now and without a sex drive. It’s as if someone cleaned my glasses for me.

I hope this story is of some help to those of you who shared the same kind of childhood. Or perhaps you love someone who can relate to the following events. Because of you, I have to tell it all. I’m telling you right now, it isn’t going to be fun. The Voice has told me that I can’t hide, can’t make it pretty, can’t lie to preserve my hard-won self esteem. Link by link, plate by plate, the layers of protective armor applied over 70 years are coming off.

You will see what kind of adult grew from a little girl lost in the grownup river of denial.

At any time you may stop reading, shake your head, and say to every single character,

"What were you thinking?"

¹ Benny Nash, 1972

THE LITTLE BEDROOM

I saw you last night and got that old feeling.

—Brown/Fain

The bedspread is very rough, and heavy. My uncle Jack says it’s really a red, white, and blue naval signal flag, so big it covers the grownup bed in the little bedroom. I take naps there in my aunt’s house. I don’t know what the flag is supposed to signal, maybe it’s STOP! If that’s what it means, my uncle doesn’t pay any attention. Once he starts in, he won’t quit until he is finished.

He says we are going to watch cartoons. He says he brought them for me. Mickey Mouse cartoons. I think Mickey looks more like a rat than a mouse. Uncle Jack always pulls up the big white screen, turns out the light, starts the cartoon machine up, lights a cigarette, and then ZIP goes his zipper. He never waits to even see what Mickey does. And he wants me to pay attention to him, not Mickey. When my Mummy asks me later what was Mickey Mouse about, I tell her, I don’t know.

I can hear the grownups in the living room, just on the other side of the door. My Mummy, Daddy, and Aunt Joyce are playing Mahjong; and the bidding, One west wind, and the sounds of the ivory tiles clicking on the parquet card table. If I can’t watch Mickey, why can’t I be out there playing with the tiles? The set is in a carved wood box with people in funny clothes all over it, like a bald old man like my granddaddy, but the man has on a long dress. There is a little drawer in the box that has sticks with tiny white dots on the ends. My Mummy says they are made of bone and are for betting. I love the Mahjong set more than my dolls.

He tells me to stop daydreaming and pay attention.

He always sits at the head of the bed, leaning back against the wall, with his pants unzipped. I knew what was inside. He’s been showing it to me since I was a baby in the bathtub, when he would reach down under the water and feel me on my bottom. Sometimes it hurt a lot. He quit when I cried.

Sometimes I pretend I’m the Little Mermaid (Hans Christian Anderson’s version) and I’m in the ocean and there is no uncle at all. I have a beautiful greeny tail that is smooth, shiny like stick gum wrappers. My blonde hair falls in waves down my back, and I can hold my breath a long, long time. On the white sandy bottom I find shells, some twisty, some pointy and some round like doll house dishes. I swim with the other little girl mermaids. They don’t have long blonde hair. When we get hungry, we grow legs and sneak into big houses that have Cream of Wheat in the kitchen. It hurts when mermaids walk on legs. On nice days we sit on rocks and sing You are my sunshine, and there are no uncles.

I used to have to just touch it. Now he’s telling me to kiss it. It’s pink. I don’t like pink stuff.

Uncle Jack smells icky…like my aunt’s lavender soap mixed with an old egg salad sandwich.

He wants me to open my mouth. I decide to watch Mickey. Uncle Jack’s large hands cover my ears and turn my head toward him.

Taste the candy, he whispers, and it sounds like he has a cold.

I know that candy tastes like a Hershey bar, not icky, salty-sour.

He must think I’m really dumb.

His hands tighten on my head as he pulls my head down.

Open. Louder, still rough.

I pull my lips inside my mouth and bite down to keep them shut. He pushes down harder with his hands.. I can feel his fingernails hurting my head under my hair. I’m biting my mouth shut really tight until it tastes salty.

Then I hear a little voice in my head. It’s not my uncle’s voice.

It says very quietly, You can say no.

I get punished if I say no to a grown up so I don’t believe the little voice. I shake my head no to the voice and to my uncle. His wee wee wipes across my closed mouth, and it’s slippery.

He pushes my head down with his hands, and he whispers, C’mon, little one, open just a little.

The little voice says again You can say no.

I don’t believe it, but I’m starting to go potty in my pants, and I’m scared. So I whisper, No, really softly, and close my mouth again really fast.

I’m holding my breath and waiting to get in big trouble for saying No to a grownup. But it worked! I couldn’t believe it, it worked! The little voice was right.

He’s finishes like he always does. He cleans up the mess with a handkerchief, then the pants go zip, and he packs up the big screen and the machine.

As usual, he says, Don’t tell anyone. This is our secret.

I know, I tell him. He says the lessons have to happen all the time when he is home. I hope he goes back to war soon.

I don’t understand. I have to do what grownups tell me to do. How did the little voice get me out of that mess, and I didn’t get punished?

Once Uncle Jack told me to put my toys in the toy box and I said, I don’t want to, I have a tummy ache.

I had to stay in my room all day by myself. How come this is different? I ask the little voice why, but it isn’t talking any more.

I look out between the curtains to see if it is outside, but there’s no one out there but some lady walking a black and white spotted dog.

Where are you? I ask it.

No answer then, either.

Thank you, I whisper.

I’m supposed to stay in the little bedroom and go to sleep until my parents take me home. Sometimes they just leave me if I’m sleeping.

My panties are wet and my Mummy is going to be mad. I’ll pretend I’m asleep so she won’t find out.

My uncle is in something called merchant marine on a big boat and there is a war on. He has a uniform he puts on when he’s leaving, and it has stripes on the sleeves. It’s tan color, and he has a hat that’s tan too, with gold on it. The hat squishes his hair and he doesn’t like that. He has light brown wavy hair and light blue eyes. When he wears his glasses, they make his eyes look very big. I don’t like looking at his eyes. He wears Old Spice perfume. The bottle has a ship on it. I guess it’s for sailors.

My Mummy thinks he’s wonderful, she says so all the time. She tilts her head and smiles goofy when she talks to Uncle Jack. But he doesn’t pay any attention to her. He doesn’t pay much attention to my aunt, either. My Aunt Joyce is Mummy’s sister. She’s not as pretty as my Mummy but she’s thinner, and she has green eyes and curly hair. He must know she’s the nicest lady of anybody and that’s why he married her, so why isn’t he nicer to her?

He’s nice to my Daddy, because they go to Sam’s together. When they come back, they talk loud, bump into things, and smell like ashtrays.

I’m the only one Uncle Jack smiles at. I don’t like it when he smiles at me. It’s always a wet smile because he licks his lips a lot, and his eyelids come down halfway over his blue eyes, droopy like he just woke up. It’s creepy. Mummy thinks I’m lucky he pays attention to me.

When he’s gone on his boat, I have the little bedroom all by myself, and naptime on the flag is not scary. My aunt takes care of me a lot when my Mummy is gone. I listen to the water washing up on the beach under the floor, and sometimes it sounds like songs mermaids are singing to me, and it puts me to sleep. It’s not a sand beach. It’s a tiny rocks beach. They make a rattling sound when the water washes back and forth.

My aunt teaches me things when I’m not in nursery school. She loves me a lot. I get to do cross stitch, and she got me small needles for knitting. She’s trying to teach me numbers, but I don’t like them. She reads to me, too. She’s the nicest person in the whole world, and I love her more than anybody.

When I say my bedtime prayers, I always say, God bless my aunt, first.

My Daddy got mad at that once, but my Mummy told him, Prayers should not be edited.

I don’t know what that means.

There are ladders that let down from the front decks of the houses into the water, and people go down the steps and swim. Sometimes they climb up on the boats that are tied to a rope in the water. The boats have their sails down I can swim pretty well, but not as far as the boats. Sometimes there are pretty jellyfish floating in the water. I wanted to pet one, but they made me come inside. You can see through them, like when it’s foggy and you can see the boats through it. It’s not jelly like what’s in peanut butter sandwiches. I don’t know if it tastes good. I might want to be a jelly fish when I grow up. Nobody bothers jelly fish. You can’t even tell where their bottom is.

My aunt’s cat, Rochester, knows how to catch fish off the ladder. Rochester is named after a funny man on the Jack Benny show. His voice is sort of scratchy, like he has a cold. Rochester, the cat, not the funny man, goes fishing in the morning, and brings fish and stuff in the house and drops them at my aunt’s feet in the bathroom when she sits on the toilet. One time he actually dragged a real Cormorant bird into the bathroom, and the big bird was scared and flopped all around the tiny bathroom squawking while my aunt sat there screaming. They were both scared. My aunt ran out of the room and slammed the door. She got a neighbor man to come and shoo the bird out the door so it could fly away. Before it went back outside, it went potty all over the floor.

Rochester-the-cat, not Rochester-the-funny-man is black, and he has his own dog, a big gold boxer named Kate. Kate is not as smart as Rochester, that’s why he’s the boss. Kate drinks the ocean water with all that salt in it. She throws up. She never learns not to do it. Rochester never drinks the ocean; he’s too smart. I have seen some other dogs near our house. They are smart, but not Kate. She’s really dumb. But she likes me. And she plays with me on the rock beach under the house.

If anyone strange comes by, she barks and barks, until someone yells out the window, Shut up, Kate!

My aunt has another dog, he’s a Pekinese named Pung. He has very pretty gold and brown fur, but he eats his poop and then wants to lick my hand. I don’t play with him.

When my parents come to get me after work, my aunt always says, It’s time to feed Kate. She goes out and feeds Rochester and the dogs, Kate first so she doesn’t eat Rochester’s kitty food. Kate will eat anything.

Time to feed Kate is when my parents mix highballs. That’s liquor and something fizzy. I can have the fizzy stuff, not the liquor. It’s OK, liquor tastes almost as bad as ocean water. They drink them until it is grownup bedtime.

We eat at my aunt’s house a lot. My aunt makes something with fish and rice called kejjeree. It makes me sick. It’s the most awfullest thing. But the grownups like it. Grownups like a lot of icky things.

Sometimes when he’s not at the war, my uncle plays the piano and my Daddy sings. He sings better than those people on the radio. Even when he sings by himself without anybody playing the piano. My mummy doesn’t stay in the room when he sings, she doesn’t like the music he used to sing when he was in the trio with his brother and sister. She knows real music, concert piano and symphonies.

Daddy wants me to sing with him. I like to sing, too. He teaches me to sing the second part. I don’t want to. I don’t like to sit on the piano bench next to Uncle Jack because my dress scoots up and he stares at my legs.

Mostly they play cards or mahjong, and sometimes they argue and yell a lot. Usually my Mummy goes home mad and leaves me and my Daddy there. My aunt tells him I can stay the night, since I’m already in there in bed. They think I’m asleep, but how can I sleep with all that noise out there? I keep my eyes shut when my Daddy opens the door to check on me. Pretending to be asleep is really a good thing to do for a lot of stuff.

I get to listen to kid stuff on the radio. I like Sky King and Jack Armstrong and Captain Midnight. I found a small blue card in my Rice Krispies that said I could send for a Secret Decoder Ring so Captain Midnight could send me secret messages. First I had to save a bunch of Rice Krispies box tops. I eat the Wheaties-the-breakfast-of-champions, too. Those box tops are for a Jack Armstrong toy, not for Captain Midnight.

When the Secret Decoder Ring came, my Daddy showed me how to do it. There’s something called a code. He explained the code to me.

A equals B, B equals C, and so on.

But Daddy, that’s silly.

She’s right, you know, my Mummy told him. Any horse’s ass will discern what Captain Midnight is plotting. They really ought not to assume so blatantly that the nation’s children are born and bred in the hay loft, the spawn of cretins.

Sometimes she confuses me.

I was hoping that the Secret Decoder Ring would tell me what the little voice was, but it only says dumb things I don’t understand. I had to eat a lot of Rice Krispies for that stupid ring. I like the snap, crackle and pop, but I lost the Decoder Ring. I’m going to start eating more Wheaties-the-breakfast-of-champions for Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy stuff.

On Saturday mornings I listen to fairy tales. The cereal is Cream of Wheat. I eat that a lot, too. We just heard The Little Mermaid, which is a story my aunt reads to me. I’m really going to be a mermaid when I grow up and swim around and find shells under water that aren’t broken yet.

When I’m pretending to be asleep in the little bedroom, sometimes they have the radio on, and I can hear grownup stuff. I like the Green Hornet with his noisy car. The best one is sort of scary, The Shadow Knows, and he has a mean laugh. He knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men. He finds bad people and punishes them. I wonder if he knows about my uncle.

We get lots of news on the radio about the war, and sometimes you can hear loud bangs and noises when the man is talking. There’s a man named Ed who is in a place called London. My Mummy says her aunt Petra lives near there, but I don’t think my Mummy likes her aunt. My Aunt Joyce says Petra is OK, she lives away from the Blitz.

I asked her, Who’s Blitz?

She said, Never mind, dear, it’s a grown up thing.

The radio men always talk about Germans and Japs and places with funny names, like Ewo Jeema and Suribachi and Pole land. I think that’s where they make poles, like the ones the house sits on. I don’t understand the news much so I usually fall asleep. Real sleep, not pretend sleep.

MUSEUM AND DREAMS

Somewhere over the rainbow…birds fly over the rainbow, why then oh why can’t I?

—Arlen/Harburg

Sometimes my parents take me to De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. They just leave me there by myself for a long time until my feet hurt. The floor is so hard and shiny, and there are so many pictures I can’t even count that high. I get to walk around and look at them. Sometimes in glass cases there is dirty old jewelry and glass bottles that are old and sort of shiny blue. They don’t look anything like the ones in our garbage.

There is a room that I imagine is all mine, but they won’t let anyone go in it. There are big chairs with shiny gold cushions, and a huge tall carved bed with red curtains, so you could get in there and pull the curtains closed, and no one could ever find you, not anyone. I know it would feel safe in there, and I would stay forever, if they would just let me in.

I sneaked under the gold rope once when no one was looking. I ran in and got onto the shiny red bedspread for a minute. It was slippery smooth and bright red, like cherry candy. It smelled dusty, not like clean laundry, but it felt safe in there for a minute. Then a nice old man in a dark blue uniform came and told me very politely that the bed was too old to be used and that’s why it was closed off. He had a gray beard and mustache. He looked like my granddaddy, sort of, and I liked him. He took my hand and walked me out of my special room. He even lifted the gold cord up so I could slide under it. And he didn’t get mad or ask me where my parents were. I see him all the time when they leave me there.

In another room, there is a big hard bench of pretty rock. I can slide around on it, but I don’t think I’m supposed to. My Mummy says to behave so they won’t make me leave. Since I don’t know where she went, I’m being good. Anyway, in this room, if you sit on the pretty rock bench, you can look up at a man in a long brown robe, kneeling and looking up into the sky. My Mummy says it’s an El Greco saint. There are rocks and hills around him, and he has bare feet, and a rope around his waist, and a cross hanging from the rope. He is sort of bald, like my granddaddy. I can’t stop watching his face. He looks like he can see something beautiful, and I can tell he can’t feel the stones under his knees in the dirt, or the cold, or the wind blowing the leaves around him. He is feeling a grownup thing. Maybe he is going to say something to Jesus. I wish I could see what he sees and feel what he feels. Sometimes I cry when I look at his face, I don’t know why.

A few weeks ago, my Mummy took me to see my granddaddy in Los Angeles, and we went to a different museum. It had a picture called Pinky, and another one called Blue Boy. I think the little girl, Pinky, looks gorgeous, but she’s a probably a spoiled brat. Blue Boy is the really nice one. He wears a blue satin suit, with tight pants. He even has long brown curls. Boys at nursery school are not that pretty. I bet Blue Boy wouldn’t pull my pigtails. When I get older, he’s going to be my boyfriend, and Pinky won’t be there.

I always meet my Mummy beside the fountain where the stone swans spit water. There are big orange and white fish swimming in the pond that the swans spit in. As soon as I see her, I push open the big doors and run outside, but today she’s not there yet. I want to lie down because my feet are really tired, but the red covered bed is the only place, and the nice man in the uniform is always there watching me. I’ll never get away with sneaking in there again. He remembers me from before.

Sometimes I would get tired of the paintings and look at the building. All the floors were a different marble than the slippery benches. If I got down on my knees and looked really closely, it was like a little picture from up high. There were spots like for trees or houses, only they were all kinds of browns. There were even brown rivers running through. I used my pointy finger to follow the rivers past the house and tree spots looking for people turned into stone like everything else. I never found any people stuck in there. The guard came by and asked me to please get up off the floor. He said someone might trip over me because I am so little. It was OK, he smiled at me. The stone benches had more green in them. Green rivers running all over, like the stream in the Japanese Tea Garden. Only frozen hard forever.

My Mummy is coming up the steps outside, and she’s waving at someone down in the street in a blue car. We are going home now in our car. She has a new necklace she didn’t have this morning. It’s green like her eyes