TheBanyanTree: Another letter to India

[Tobie Shapiro]

November 29, 2000000005


Dear shivering masses (and sweltering masses in the southern hemisphere),

	I just mailed another letter to Phiroze 
in India.  It's about turning on the heater.  I 
guess I'll have to tell Phiroze that he's sharing 
his letters with about 200 people on an internet 
list.  But I can tell him later.

 
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November 29, 20000000000005


Dear Phiroze,

	This summer was not very hot.  Usually, 
there are at least five days during the summer 
that are hot enough to send me into my bedroom, 
the only room in the house with an air 
conditioner.  If I don't hide in my bedroom, then 
I hide in the basement, close to the concrete. 
Heat gets to me.  Heat throttles me.  Heat could 
actually kill me.  But this last summer was mild. 
There was one heat wave, and it didn't get too 
hot.  It didn't last more than a couple of days, 
either.  I won't tell you how very hot it got. 
It would be laughable to talk about heat with 
you, you resident of Bombay.  Heat is one of the 
reasons that I'll probably never be able to see 
India, unless I choose a mountain in Tibet and 
gaze over at India from the cool peaks.

	A long time ago, my brother and I drove 
up to Ashland, Oregon, to see the Shakespeare 
festival.  I remember what I was wearing:  a 
diaphanous Indian blouse with embroidery on the 
front, and a long wraparound skirt, black with 
roses all over it, stockings with photographs of 
Yosemite's waterfall on them, and my Chinese 
black mary-janes with the embroidery at the toes. 
Lots of rings.  In this get-up, I greeted 
Shakespeare like an old friend.

	My brother and I get along very well.  We 
laugh together and talk seriously together.  We 
gurn together.   (You may look that up, or I can 
tell you if you beg.)  So the drive up to Ashland 
was dense with conversation, the stay in the 
motel was what is known as, "a hoot", and the 
trip back was going to be an intense laugh riot 
interspersed with the sharing of deep 
contemplations.  BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT IT TURNED 
OUT TO BE.

	This is because there was a heat wave in 
California.  We headed down the central highway 
that runs right through the middle of the state, 
passing some of the hottest spots in the country. 
Needles, Weed, Red Bluff, Redding.  They always 
report in with temperatures ten degrees above the 
average dot on the map.  And they're all dots. 
Little tiny towns with a few commercial 
buildings, low to the ground, lining the main 
drag which lasts a few blocks before it exits the 
town and enters the freeway again.  Some are more 
like rest stops on the freeway.  Redding is a bit 
larger.  People actually live there.  The other 
places are woe is to me:  one gas station, one 
greasy spoon, maybe a dry goods store.  You 
wonder about the people who are working at the 
gas station.  Where do they live?  Is this what 
life is for them, hanging out to dry in some dwik 
pluk hamlet that's two thirds dust and one third 
despair?

	Daniel was driving, and this was in the 
days of his little sports car convertible.  I 
can't remember the model or year, but it was 
small.  The temperature was 105º Fahrenheit.  The 
top was down in the car, and the wind was blowing 
me around, my hair whipping my face.  All I 
remember is that it was so hot, so hot.  The wind 
helped camouflage the heat, but that was 
dangerous.  We passed an exit sign that said, 
"Red Bluff," and as we went by, it must have 
registered in my brain twice, because I do recall 
passing that sign and then passing it again. 
This confused me.  I think I started babbling 
about it.

	"Did you see that sign?"
	"Yeah"
	"We passed it."
	"Yeah."
	"No, I mean we passed it before and we 
just passed it again.  We're going in a great big 
circle in the middle of California. I DON'T WANT 
TO DIE IN RED BLUFF!"

	Daniel is seven years my junior and 
played his baby brother role well.  But on this 
occasion, he had to take over, and got the hell 
off the freeway immediately.  We landed in a tiny 
hamlet that probably isn't even on the map.  It 
had one road.  A gas station.  A Chinese 
restaurant across the street.  I had passed out 
and come to and was woozy and disoriented.  He 
pulled into the gas station, and I stumbled out 
into the Ladies' room where I promptly threw up 
and collapsed on the floor.  I realized that I 
was on the floor of a gas station restroom and 
that only vaguely disturbed me, not enough to get 
me to struggle up.  It was just as hideous as you 
might imagine it would be: degrading, filthy, 
flies, grease stains, wet toilet paper with shoe 
prints in it trailing off under the wall of the 
stall.  The whole thing still gives me a kind of 
thrill when I think about it, even to this day.

	And the adventure wasn't over.  My 
brother finally got me out of the bathroom and 
carried me across the street into the Chinese 
restaurant.  It was 4:30 on a Sunday afternoon. 
The restaurant was the only place within sight 
that had air conditioning.  The heat was 
oppressive, and I was not thriving.  When he 
pushed the door open, he did what had to be done. 
He stretched me out on the first table he could 
find.   Right inside the entrance.  The staff of 
the restaurant gathered around to look at the 
sick lady and find out the straight scoop, 
probably the most exciting thing to happen in 
that town for years, if you don't count the 
spring rolls.  The cool did revive me somewhat, 
but I was too dizzy to stand up, and just lay 
there on the table as a scattering of customers 
dragged in for their Sunday afternoon meal.  Now, 
here's where heat stroke did not get the better 
of me.  For some reason, in the healing 
atmosphere of the restaurant, my sense of humour 
sprang up, and I opened my mouth and announced, 
"Don't order number three from column B."

	We called a local hospital and we called 
my mother, our family medicine woman.  Both told 
us the same thing:  it's heat stroke.  Keep her 
cool.  Have her sip water.  Keep her prone. 
Don't leave the restaurant until the sun is down 
and the temperature is bearable.

	So heat is out for me.  Doesn't that wipe 
out travel to a hemisphere worth of places on 
earth!  I do better in the cold, though I'm thin 
enough that the cold really gets to my bones.  As 
I sit here at the computer, my hands are 
freezing.  It slows down my typing, probably 
slows down my thinking, too.  Winter has only 
just arrived really.  As mild as the summer was, 
the winter has been temperate.  It just got below 
50º F yesterday.  And the first rain of the 
season arrived with it.  Still I didn't turn on 
the heat, being afraid of the five hundred dollar 
PG&E bill.  Recently, finances had gotten so 
desperate that I was borrowing money from my 
mother every month just to get by.  The bills 
surpass the dweedling income.  My income: 
Disability from the U.S. government, spousal and 
child support from the erstwhile.  Not enough to 
make it.  Every month I'd have to announce to my 
mother that I wasn't going to make it, and I 
needed to borrow a couple thousand dollars again. 
It was an experience I will never forget.  If it 
had not been for the bequest from my great Uncle 
Kuo, I would still be scuttling around on the 
ground trying to evade consciousness and duck 
reality.  But now things are financially bearable 
for the time being.  Still, I couldn't bring 
myself to turn on the heat.  I thought that as 
long as we three had sweaters and enough 
blankets, we should be able to get by without it. 
But since the weather took a turn it changed. 
Then it seemed that we three would have to have 
sweaters, hats, ear muffs and goose down jackets 
to get by.  And Feyna's cries were so pitiful.  I 
couldn't bear it.  So this morning, I turned on 
the heat.  We stood over the vent letting the hot 
air fill our shirts.  Looking like open umbrellas 
with thick stalks, we bunched together and 
sighed.  Why is it that such heat can fell me so 
swiftly in the summer, and provide a pacifying 
comfort in the winter?  So the heat will stay on 
when we're in the house, go off at night and when 
we leave home.  My children will not cry out from 
the cold.  And when the bill comes in, before I 
open it, I'll take a tranquilizer.  I can afford 
them thanks to Uncle Kuo.

	What is a winter like in India?  You may 
tell me also about the summers, but you'll have 
to wrap it in ice.

	Love,

	Tobie
-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net