My Brother and Neighbors Possibly Attempted to Murder Me When I Was About 8

I have never posted anything online about this traumatic childhood experience—until now.

When I was approximately 8 years old, my brother and our neighborhood friends possibly attempted to murder me. We were on our bicycles at the top of a large, dirt-covered hill, where my neighborhood was developing new houses. My brother and my neighbors claimed they thought it would be fun if we all went down the dangerous slope on our bicycles at the same time.

There was one caveat: They all wanted me to go down first.

However, I didn't want to go down the hill with them, much less all by myself, because of the manifest danger. Nevertheless, my brother and neighbors started ganging up on me—as they often did—and kept demanding and manipulating me to go down the slope. They insisted profusely that they would be right behind me. Unfortunately, because I felt like I had no other option, I ended up caving in to their peer pressure.

With palpable trepidation, I started going down the ridge.

I accelerated quickly down the slope, but my brother and neighborhood friends lied and never joined me; instead, they stayed at the top of the ridge watching me like serial killers in training.

It did not end well for me. I ended up "flipping" over my handlebars—by my brother and neighbors' account, which they bragged about to me as if I deserved a medal—and hitting the rough terrain. Immediately thereafter, I started screaming and crying so loudly that one of the moms of these conduct-deprived children ended up running over to the scene of the crime, picking me up, and bringing me to my house. That mom and my mom never contacted the authorities or brought me to a hospital. Instead, my mom had me take a bath, which was painful because of all the blood-covered scrapes on my back and elsewhere on my body.

Interestingly, this possible murder plot is like how the character "Bunny" dies in "The Secret History," the first novel by Donna Tartt, which is perhaps my mom's favorite novel.

I think it's possible God (or the C.I.A.) was watching over me that day. Maybe even my uncle and godfather, Barry Scribner, who I believe had an office at the Pentagon at the time, was aware. But I don't know if I can ever forgive what my brother and my pretend neighborhood friends did to me that day. I do, however, know I have never attempted to murder anyone, though it's likely my brother, Marc Scribner, has attempted to murder me multiple times to a pathological degree.

Lastly, I hope the people involved in this potential murder plot never work for the federal government, such as the F.B.I., or in any other high-ranking position where individuals' lives are on the line.

Justus Rosenberg (01/23/1921–10/30/2021) would have been 102 today.

Article ID: 15