The Sullivanians:Through a Blue Window ((c) 2019 shelley feinerman's Podcast
CULT! This podcast chronicles the rise and fall of the Sullivanian Institute and its members. The psycho-sexual therapy] and institute existed on Manhattan's Upper West Side from the 1970s through the 1990s. Directed to abandon family and friends, as we all were, after five years my life was inextricably altered. The podcast begins with my childhood, then goes on to my time in the Sullivanians, and 20 years later, its self-destruction when it was characterized as a cult. It is entitled Through a Blue Window: The Sullivanians and is dedicated to mother, Ruth.
The Sullivanians:Through a Blue Window ((c) 2019 shelley feinerman's Podcast
The History Tapes: The 1960s
The History Tapes. The oral telling jumps to the early 1960s and with it more ammunition for the therapists to manipulate. A sixth-grade party goes horribly wrong taking with it my self-esteem as I enter Junior High School without friends.
Wanting a more grown-up look for junior high school, Anita and I decided to cut our hair into the layered look, the au currant style of the time leaving me with dandelion fuzz every time the barometer went above fifty percent. I wore scarves, like Audrey Hepburn, I fantasied, but wound up looking more like old Mrs. McCormick, our next-door neighbor who’d bang on the wall between our apartments when she was drunk, yelling, ‘You dirty kikes.’
With Anita gone and because of the Clifford incident, I didn’t have a single friend when I started Kingsley Junior High School, but I’d been placed in Honor Art and that’s where I met Suzanne, only to be abandoned by her two years later when her desire to be popular became more important than our friendship and I was left behind. Eventually, I found a good friend in Rachel. We shared our first sexual experiences, which for me brought back the memory of the rape scene from Peyton Place, the movie that my mother took me to see as a ten-year-old, the traumatic scene that profoundly shaped my ideas about sex and, bolstered by my mother's continued mixed messages about what "nice girls" do, just adding to my confusion and misconceptions.
You will find out about the sealed envelope handed to me by my guidance for my mother to sign but instead found its way to the bottom of the sewer, torn into tiny pieces.
The complete documentary Through a BlueWindow can be seen on my youtube channel shellfein1. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you
My sister and I were in close. In fact she scared me. It seemed that any use I had for her had stopped after my father disappeared and with nothing for me to protect her from. She just wasn't interested in her flat-chested younger sister. For a while we just viewed each other with quiet hostility. Then, sometime during cisgrade, sheila and I came to an understanding. I promised not to tell my mother she'd gotten a giant hickey on her neck, that dark, purplish mark. My mother warned us against her, though it was the first stage of syphilis or that I had seen her on the bed with Benny Logan hastily pushing down her skirt. In return, she convinced my mother that I needed a bra.
Speaker 1:The girls at school were teasing me because with my barely there breasts I still wore an undershirt. I knew the parochial looking white cotton training bra. Really, an abbreviated undershirt was the best that I could hope for, but it was still a bra with snaps in the right place and with Sheila in charge. I wouldn't have to go to Madame Adele's, the corseter, where my mother brought her braziers. I don't know why, but my mother had dragged me along to Madame Adele's whenever she needed a new bra. I remember watching her patiently submit to the pulling and prodding of the powdered ladies, all school corseteers as a queen might the fussing of the royal dresser. Oblivious to my discomfort, my mother promised when you get your first bra, honey, I will take you to Adele's, as though this was something I wanted. The reality, of course, was that it was one rite of passage. I was willing to put off for as long as I could. Sheila pleaded my case in an uncharacteristic act of kindness, also convinced her I needed something besides the dresses my father supplied and the crinolines from my Uncle Sally's factory. With her braces finally off, though she still had the remnants of an overbite, sheila had become a pretty girl, dark brown eyes that red is black and a figure as voluptuous as the movie stars of the 50s. I could have kissed her.
Speaker 1:We went to Young's, the all-in-one store on Austin Street where all the high school girls shopped. There one could find the latest in dresses, sweaters, shirts and hanging from the swinging racks by the register, bras, double A's, triple A's and training bras Inconspicuously boxed in pink and covered in cellophane. Not only did I have a bra for the night of the party, but a new nubby wool tight skirt with a kick-plete and matching sweater the color of an icy lake, just clingy enough to reveal my new undergarment. Believe me, sheila said as she stuffed balls of sterile cotton into the tips of my double A bra. Half the girls in your class need a little help. Then she twisted my ponytail into a bun, placing tiny white fake flowers, like she'd magically pulled from her top drawer all around like a diamond tiara. She pinched my cheeks, applied a finger smudge of pink lipstick to my lips and by the time I was ready to leave for the party, the face staring back at me in the mirror seemed prettier and more grown-up.
Speaker 1:The wood-paneled basement was decorated like a child's party, with balloons and colored streamers. Bowls of popcorn, pretzels and M&Ms had been placed atop the bar, which was covered with a happy birthday paper tablecloth, the pink words repeating endlessly around the edge. I quickly spotted Anita leaning against the wall on the far side of the room. Her mother had let her wear pink-frozen lipstick and her hair had been set in a page-boy fluff that moved against her shoulders like an ocean wave cresting in the moonlight. Standing next to her was my boyfriend, clifford Grossman, and the best-looking boy in the sixth grade. He was wearing a black sports jacket with the collar of his blue sports shirt turned up. His dark wavy hair was slicked back, with one curl hanging low over his forehead, looking like Elvis. A portable record player was stacked with 45s and at the hop was on the turntable. Most of the girls were dancing the Philadelphia Lindy with each other as they did on American Bandstand, while the boys with their well-scrubbed faces stood to the side in an oogling pack.
Speaker 1:The next song was ours, and Clifford and I met on the dance floor, moving nowhere to the music. Oh, what a lovely couple they made. I was concentrating on Clifford's hand inching slowly down my back when Lonnie Bass yelled Post Office, everybody deliver, de la, de, de sooner, de better. Like he was singing Calypso at Yankee Stadium. Lonnie was the kind of boy who didn't get girls. If you wore a dress and couldn't throw a good curveball, you were worthless, nothing personal.
Speaker 1:After Lonnie had delivered his kiss to Barbara inside the steamy water closet the designated Post Office. She declared with her face screwed up like she didn't eat in a moth. He tried to tongue kiss me and I don't want to play this game anymore and I think the next boy who tries that again should get his face slapped For real. I asked on the face Wouldn't it be simply to tell them we don't want to play the game anymore? Don't you think hitting them is dumb? I looked around for support from the other girls, back to Anita, but she shrugged her shoulders in silence. Had I missed something? I wanted to understand to fit in, but I just didn't get it. No, no, I don't think it's dumb. Barbara said, sniffing the air. They won't listen if we just tell them. And it's my party and maybe you like French kissing. Maybe you've done it a million times, but I think it's disgusting and I think the girl should agree to slap whoever does it next, no matter who it is.
Speaker 1:The next spin was Clifford's and when the bottle stopped spinning it was pointing at me. He smiled and took my hand. Special delivery Inside the water closet. There wasn't much room to maneuver without getting scalded. Clifford leaned in and mushed our lips together like we'd done many times before. But when his tongue tickled my mouth like warm custard, my hand flew up and he lunged backward, leaving both the door and me shaking on our hinges. Stupid, I was stupid. To this day I don't know why I did it, except that I desperately wanted all those things. I didn't say that. I said I didn't care about to be liked, to be popular, to be accepted. I tried to apologize but Clifford would have no part of my apology and close up I could see the outline of my hand on his cheek as though I traced my fingers in red crayon for a Thanksgiving turkey. He turned his back and shouted shut up and leave me alone, please. I wasn't thinking I begged. No shit, sherlock, he screamed.
Speaker 1:Monday morning the slap was the number one topic on the school's gossip hit parade by week's end. I was a pariah. I finished the school year with Anita as my only friend. I didn't make it to the accelerated class. I didn't go to the sixth grade prom and then in July Anita's father was promoted and her family moved to Ridgewood, new Jersey.
Speaker 1:That September, when I started Kingsley Junior High, I was called to Mr Mancino's office, the school guidance counselor, and handed a sealed envelope for my mother to sign. Before returning to class I hid in one of the bathroom stalls and ripped open the letter. It was addressed to my mother and it was from the school guidance counselor. Dear Mrs Finerman, I am forming a group of under retrieving students with high IQs. Her grades are failing and I think your daughter might benefit from such a group. If this idea is of interest to you, please call me as soon as possible. I sincerely, j Mancino. I tore the letter into tiny pieces and flushed it down the toilet, not knowing Anita would be moving away.
Speaker 1:We decided to cut our ponytails into the all-coron hairstyle of the 60s. I soon realized Anita's thick, smooth hair was better suited to the short-layered cut than mine. My hair became a parameter, frizzing out of control like a dandelion whenever the humidity went above 50%. I spent my time throughout junior high and high school doggedly trying to remove every king and girl from my impossible hair. Every six months I suffered through burning chemicals to straighten my hair, and every night I dipping my hair around scratchy wire rollers. I wore scarves to school when it rained. Like Audrey Hepburn, I fantasize but wound up looking more like old Mrs McCormick, our next-door neighbor, who'd bang on the wall between our apartments when she was drunk, yelling you dirty kikes. Humiliation led to invention and I fashioned a four-inch headband from a white bedsheet, hoping to push down the frizz. But there was always some smart-ass boy thinking himself clever, singing it's raining, it's pouring. She went to bed with a hole in her head by the time I was in high school. I just stopped going to school on rainy or humid days With Anita gone, and because of the Cliffid incident I didn't have a single friend when I started junior high school, but I had been placed in honor art and that's where I met Suzanne Rubenstein, who seemed cut from the pages of Seventeen magazine.
Speaker 1:She was petite, with rosy cheek, apple pie skin. I, on the other hand, was taller and rounder, with an olive complexion, that red, too exotic, and of course the hair. Suzanne was beautiful but she was painfully shy and with few friends. We were drawn to each other, forming a clique of two with our shared love of art, reading and music, and together we were able to withstand the snotty girls who ruled the cafeteria. I spent every weekend I could with Suzanne and her family and I was welcomed to their Sabbath dinner table.
Speaker 1:Twelve years old, I was collecting my mother's bottle of black label from the Loker liquor store, but there were no such bottles of Scotch in the Rubenstein household. I looked. Mrs Rubenstein worked at B Altman and Company and she was always seemed to have a compassionate word for her daughters, suzanne and her five-year-older sister, alice. Mr Rubenstein, a David Niven lookalike, didn't talk much, but he doted on Suzanne and Alice, who was as generous as Sheila was per sepanus, not only with her clothes and records but with herself. When Suzanne asked for guitar lessons, so did I, though my guitar was purchased with green-stamped coupons. My mother complained about the cost of the lessons, and without her encouragement I quit.
Speaker 1:July 1962 was the summer before ninth grade, and I especially wanted to go to camp with Suzanne, but my mother couldn't afford it. They were a two-income family, while my father, the shadow man, with his last visit six years before and whose monthly child support and alimony were based on his 1949 earnings, made it impossible. I went back to Camp Toledo. I got my first tiki, smoked my first cigarette and learned how to tongue kiss, but Suzanne's letters were filled with nothing but tears. She was ignored by the girls but, more importantly, by the boys. She was the only girl in her bunk without a boyfriend, and she was sure everyone was laughing at her behind her back. With only a week left to camp, I received one last letter from Suzanne, and she wrote my mom is the greatest, she let me come home early and doesn't care about the money. And guess what? I'm a blonde. The letter went on to say that, according to her mother, suzanne was spending way too much time with me and if she wanted to be popular in school she needed to make different friends and that soon Suzanne wouldn't be seeing me. She signed it. I love you and I know you'll understand.
Speaker 1:Suzanne wouldn't take my calls and I didn't see her until homeroom on the first day of school. I hardly recognized her, with her eyes rimmed in black and her dark hair, bleached blonde, dressed in a tight sweater and skirt. Suzanne avoided me, turning the corner as I approached, executing a sudden turn, heading off in the opposite direction. At lunchtime she was huddled deep in conversation with the girls who had barely recognized our existence in the years past. I could hear their voices as I edged closer. She must be thick-headed. I thought you said she was smart. How come she doesn't get it that you don't want to be her friend?
Speaker 1:Suzanne turned, fending a look of surprise. Oh, I didn't see you. Then she leaned in closer to me and dropped her voice to a whisper. I told you this is the way it has to be. I meant what I said. So you should go away now. We're all going to Benny's luncheonette for lunch. Then she left me standing alone in the hallway, unable to move, gagging on the noxious smells emanating from the school cafeteria, my stomach tied in a knot, catching my breath. I bolted to the girls' bathroom where I spent the rest of the lunch period in quiet panic, hiding in one of the stalls, silently praying to God, who I strongly didn't believe in, to help me. I needed someone to eat lunch with, someone to walk down the halls with, someone to talk with. I needed a friend.
Speaker 1:By the end of the day, I'd eliminated every girl I knew as too gorky or too fat or too ugly, and was halfway to promising my soul to the devil when Mrs Freed's baritone voice interrupted my deal-making Class. Before you go, I want to introduce a new girl in our class. Hello, girl, how would I miss her? My head swibbled round like Charlie McCarthy and there she was, sitting in the back of the room biting her nails. Cute but in need of fashion advice. A bond-raising beehive, pointed shoes and a full skirt wouldn't make it at Kingsley, but there was definite possibility. Rachel, please come to the front of the room and tell us about yourself, mrs Freed insisted. After a few awkward moments, she stood up, smoothed her crumpled skirt and walked to the front of the room. My name is Rachel Melnick. I live in Regal Park she began. My family moved here from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, over the summer. I have a younger brother named Mark. It was only after Donnie Schechter yelled out what's your bra size? And was sent from the room that Rachel was allowed to return to her seat.
Speaker 1:I approached her the following morning and at first we were only school friends, but then we began to speak on the telephone, at first for homework, but by the end of the ninth grade, to my surprise, we were real friends. Rachel's mother had been 16 and her father 17 when she was born, and they watched over her like nag and nag arena protecting the eggs. They were determined to not let history repeat itself, but for some reason they loosened the reins when we were together, and before long I had become a permanent appendage to the Melnick family. Not only did I go to her house every day after school, but on Friday nights we had sleepovers and I was included in every family vacation, from grossingers to Miami Beach and high paid for it all. When graduation arrived, it was only natural that when my mother had to go back to work after the ceremony I became part of the Melnick celebration. It was a bittersweet celebration because the next day I was reluctantly going to Silver Lake Teen Camp and Rachel was going to Draper's bungalow colony with her family. I was too mature for counselors and swim meets, but my mother insisted and I finally gave in when she chose a teen camp. Much to my mother's dismay.
Speaker 1:I spent my first night back from camp at the Melnick's 23rd floor apartment in Lethrak City. It was curiously bare no rugs, pictures or curtains, nothing to ease the soul, except the Manhattan skylight twinkling in the dark, miles away. Rachel was sitting cross-legged on her bed back against the wall. Her brown hair, longer now, fell in soft natural waves around her tan face, looking a lot like a young Anamanyani. You know my grandma. Many things were lesbians, she said out of the blue. My hair was set in the usual giant rollers and I was wearing baby doll pajamas. Did she tell you that herself? I asked Carefully, blowing cigarette smokes out the open window.
Speaker 1:It must have been three in the morning, my father told me during the ride home, just to see me squirm. Then he laughed his obnoxious laugh until my mother told him to shut up. A jet passed overhead and Rachel waited until it passed to continue. So are you going to tell me about this guy Kenny you mentioned 20 times at least. I laughed. You know, the camp was a teen camp and it was on the grounds of the Silver Lake Hotel and Resort, though not much of a resort, but they did have a swimming pool and a fancy dining room where the campers ate along with the guests. And Kenny was a waiter.
Speaker 1:He's so cute, in a more homespun way than the guys around here Converse high tops, no monogram, blue shirts, lots of freckles and beautiful reddish golden hair. His ears do stick out a little, but he's gentle and I believe him when he says I'm special. But you know, chances are I'll never see him again. The Bronx isn't that far away, you know, rachel, I let him touch me. When she didn't respond, a flutter of foreboding rippled through me, as though I passed too close to a haunted house. So you think I'm a whore now? Don't be stupid, you're not the only one.
Speaker 1:Things happened to this summer. She reached across to take a drag from my cigarette. You and Stu, I asked, rachel and Stu were summertime boyfriend and girlfriend. How did you get away from your parents? You have to remember Stu and I grew up at Drapers. His mother plays Mahjong with my mother while my father is losing money at the card table. Big time.
Speaker 1:We disappeared every night. Rachel said, laughing it's why going there isn't so bad. And I thought you were an innocent. Why didn't you tell me? Well, it's not exactly something, you just blurred out. Okay, so now I want details about you and Kenny. Well, he fingered me and then he showed me what to do for him. He came in my hand. It was kind of gross. If he hadn't come, he would have gotten blue balls. Rachel, how do you know these things From Stuart? Come on, finish telling me about Kenny.
Speaker 1:Well, the teen camps were allowed to do pretty much whatever they wanted at night. As long as we were back in the cabin on the hill by midnight, kenny and I would make out in the wheat fields behind the house. Then one night he slipped his hand down the front of my shorts and under the elastic of my panties. I didn't stop him and after a while he showed me how to rub his cock until, well, he came. You know, korra, all the girls do it with their boyfriends you in stew too. I asked. Rachel nodded and took another hit on the cigarette. How did you meet him?
Speaker 1:I was determined to have a boyfriend at camp this year, so I thought about what Suzanne would do. Ever since she bleached her hair, boys are falling all over her. Give me a break, suzanne doesn't get boys just because of her hair. You think she goes all the way. When we were friends she was such a prude. I know so. Janet Geller told me, and she's good friends with Suzanne. So what did you do to get noticed? I mean, your hair isn't blonde.
Speaker 1:After hours, the dining room is set up with a record player and there is the ping-pong table. It was pretty lame, but on the first night there was a getting to know you party. I wore my tight jeans and my Kelly Creen V-neck sweater, no shirt, just my black bra. I stood off to the side by myself and because Kenny was the first to approach me, he won Stu and I got stoned a couple of times, stoned like I'm pot. Rachel, you never cease to amaze me, the stuff that you can get away with.
Speaker 1:I saved a few joints you interested, god did, and she rolled off the bed, tiptoeing into the bathroom. She returned with a box of Tampex. Voila, she said, upturning the box, two very fat joints tumbled onto the bed. We stuck a couple of thick towels along the bottom of the door, then lit up. I couldn't keep the smoke down at first, but after a few tries a rainbow of 3D colors was popping against my eyelids.
Speaker 1:I fell against the pillows and after a while I said you know, rachel, when I was 10, my mother took me to see paint in place. Geez, where did that come from? You're not kidding, right? Not kidding. The sounds of a car radio blew up from the street and rippled through the room. Before I continued. Yeah, the three of us went Sheila, my mother and me. I don't know what my mother was thinking. I guess she thought I knew about that stuff, but I didn't. Or maybe she just didn't care. I guess I did have a general idea about sex.
Speaker 1:But there was this one scene the scene when the stepfather rapes Selena. You know Hope Lang, I never saw the movie, but rape isn't making love. The scene is when the stepfather comes home on leave from the Navy Anyway, he was really, really drunk and he'd been after Selena for most of the movie. And this is when he gets her he's a big man and he forces her down onto the bed, slobbering over her face with drunken kisses. She's desperately trying to fight him off, kicking and hitting, but when he climbs on top of her, you know she's doomed. I remember it vividly. The gigantic screen was filled with her contorted face. Her stepfather's callous hand was pressed against her open mouth and then her eyes filled with pain. You realize he's pushed inside of her. And then you see her arms moving wildly above her head, trying to grasp the iron bars of the cheap metal frame. But it's useless. He's pinned her down. Moments later, her hands slowly give away and the only sound is the old bed groaning louder and faster as it hits the wall.
Speaker 1:Jesus right, I was only 10 years old and I always thought sex was like that from that time on. Did it hurt when Kenny touched you? No, I liked it. I like him. I think your mother was trying to scare the hell out of you. She has some weird moralistic shit messing up her brain. Nice girls, don't get hickeys. Nice girls, wait for their wedding day. Wow, you sounded just like her. I hate it when she talks like that. What about all the nights she stayed out late, do you know? Last week she came home with a hicky on her neck Plain, as could be. I had to really control myself from saying something Creeps you out, doesn't it? Hey, you know what Rach I've got the munchies. Last one to the kitchen is a rotten egg.