Unhappy Childhood

I was talking about this on TV last week. I escape always into a rich fantasy life, that comes from an unhappy childhood. I come from a poor family. My father worked at Coney Island. He had a consession on the boardwalk, where you knock over milk bottles with baseballs, which I could never do for my entire childhood. There was a tidal wave at Coney Island, when I was a child, ripped up the boardwalk and did about a million dollars worth of damage, houses and everything. The only thing left standing was those little milk bottles, y'know.

I was, I would say, overdiciplined which is really humiliating. I had to be home nine thirty, prom night. I made a reservation at the Copa Cabana for five o'clock. I took my date and we wathced them set up. I was, as a matter of fact, when I think of it, terrorised as an adolescent. I was not that young when it happened, I was...eh...I guess about thirteen or so at the time, and was on my way to an amateur music contest. And, my family is musical, you should know that, my father used to play the tuba as a young man, he tried to play the tuba, he tried to play "Flight of the Bumblebee", and blew his liver out through the horn.

Now I'm on the subway with my clarinet [jewish?] jazz musician style, unwrapped and everything, and these twelve guys come running through the subway. Really hairy-knuckled types, y'know, raced through there. Apparently they just come from a settlement house, y'know' as they were dribbling a social worker as they went through the car. They stop right over me, y'know, because I was conspicous, 'cause I had just eaten a sea-food lunch, I had forgotten to remove the lobster bib, y'know, so I looked like a farmer with a fat tie, y'know, with Neptune on it. They stand over me, they start cursing and smoking and tearing up seats, y'know. I don't say anything, y'know, I just sit there, look down, continue reading 'Heidi'. All of a sudden the leader puts his finger under my neck, like this, and goes feeww. I got up. He snapped his knee up, quickly, and I refused to give him the satisfaction of doubling over, but I did one of the greatest imitations of Lily Ponds, you've ever heard. I hit an M over high C and I'm being [????]. Showed up an hour late for the music contest. Came in second anyhow. I won two weeks at Interfaith Camp, where I was sadistically beaten by boys of all races and creeds.