When I was a wee little kid, I slept on a narrow daybed downstairs in my Mom’s sewing room. I’d pretend I was sleeping when my Mom’s lady friends came to be measured or to try on a semifinished dress. She made dresses and altered their other dresses. I’d see them in their bras and panties and long nylon stockings. If any lady complained about my being there while she disrobed…

…”Stashu is too young,” my Mom would say. “He may look at you, Mrs. Kaiser, but believe me, he’s an innocent baby. He doesn’t notice anything.”

Then not long afterwards, one day, my Mom noticed a gleam in my eyes, and I and my daybed were evicted from her sewing room.

I wanted to join my two older brothers in the bedroom they shared. Oh, no, no! I carried on, and I cried but, still, Oh no, no! I once slept with my two brothers when there was this terrific storm, flashes of lightning, flashes of death and all, so I knew there was room for the three of us in the one bed.

I pleaded with my brothers: “Hey, I’ll even bring my own bed to your bedroom!”

Oh, no, no! They rejected me and my daybed. Johnny helped my Dad carry my daybed up from my mother’s sewing room to my father’s bedroom. My Mom and Dad slept in separate bedrooms because my Dad was working different shifts in the steel mill at Bridgeport. And so, space was made in Daddy’s bedroom for me. I didn’t like this because now he kept tabs on me, especially when I should go to bed.

I used to watch TV until 4 a.m. until the station’s sign-off. Old movies, then I would go to my daybed in Mom’s sewing room. I peed in the kitchen sink because if I went upstairs to the bathroom to pee, my Dad or my Mom would catch me. “What are you doing up so late? Get to bed! Right! Now!”

With me and my Dad in his bedroom, all my freedom was gone. All my late, late night TV watching was gone, too. All because my brothers didn’t want me and because my daybed was moved to my Dad’s room where he had imposed a curfew, almost; I had to be in bed at a decent hour. No more station sign-offs at 4 a.m. for me.

Years passed and my brother Richie, who had kept the bedroom for himself, started applying to colleges even though my Dad was still paying on my oldest brother’s tuition loans, despite the fellowship money Johnny got for Carnegie Tech. Then Richard got the call; he was accepted at Notre Dame. No one was happier than me!

When I was alone in the house, I would look over my own soon-to-be bedroom. I’d go thru my brother’s things, would find nothing exciting except for an Indian loincloth he had made when he went to camp one summer. It fit but it was an indecent garb to wear. I put it back. I had never stolen anything from my brothers (they would kill me!) and I didn’t need to start now with that long Indian “scarf” to wrap over my loins.

Things were looking up. My brother started to bring home men’s fashion magazines, like Esquire magazine which had cartoons back then. Then my brother started to hit on my Dad for money for clothes to wear for college. Richie bought a fancy traveling trunk…and fancy, sporty clothes…pants, shirts, sport coats, suit, sweaters, hat, gloves, shoes, even a pair of two-tone shoes.

The big day came and off my brother went to Indiana, shipping his trunk there as well. I was so, so happy that I finally had a bedroom of my own.

The first thing I did was to clear one whole wall, brought up two long tables from the cellar. All for my chemistry laboratory. I started ordering stuff from Gilbert Labs and Fisher Scientific Labs. How did I pay for it, you ask? I could never get more than my allowance from my Dad which was then, I think, fifty cents.

When test tubes to bunsen burner to chemicals started to arrive C.O.D., my Mom would write out a check without any questions. I think once she winked at me after paying the freight for some of my lab stuff. My Dad never knew. My father and mother were from Poland, became citizens, but as for an education, Mom had all the education; she had studied up thru their high school in Poland and so she kept the household books. Wow, was I stealing now!

I had a great laboratory. Even my science teacher from school and a couple of other adults came to check it out, to admire my laboratory apparatus and stock of chemicals. They seemed mostly interested in the professional microscope I bought used from a commercial lab in Pittsburgh. One of the interchangeable end lens pieces had to be dipped in a special oil while using it at its high focus. A bottle of this special oil came with the microscope.

I did my homework in that room, read many magazines and books in that room, worked my chemistry set in that room, daydreamed in that room, started my writing in that room. My parents saw my room as off-limits. Which was good, because me and my friend Fuggie often made our own fireworks in that room.

One day, the doorbell rang, and I went downstairs to the front door. I had to sign for a delivery. It was Richie’s trunk come back! I wish I knew how to faint like Mary Ann, two doors down, in order to cushion the shock.

I could not give that room back. I could not give up the private life I had made for myself there. But wait! Richie called from Notre Dame that evening, saying all the guys wore different clothes at school. Not like his. He couldn’t wear the college clothes he had bought without the guys and priests and teachers laughing at him.

Saved! My Dad took the trunk up to the attic, cussing under his breath all the way up to the attic and cussing all the way back down from the attic. His favorite cuss word was “Sha creft.” I found out much later it wasn’t the horrible swear word I had imagined all during my childhood because these two Polish words really meant “pig’s blood” in English.

So now my brother was still staying at Notre Dame, and there’s the proof! — there was a God! And God knew every kid needs a bedroom of his own, period.

Two weeks later Richie was back home. It seems he was mooning a gal in her convertible parked behind one of the dorms when a priest snuck up on him and caught them. Needless to say, he was expelled.

I started to wonder, wondered just where was that old daybed now; I was going to need it. But I didn’t have to worry about anything — there still was a God for me because after Richie came home and had had his talk with my Dad, Richie was off again; this time he joined the U.S. Air Force. For four years! Wow, oh wow! Ain’t life grand!

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