TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 106

[Tobie Shapiro]

December 31, 200006


Dear Wonders,

	It's the last day of the year.  What do I 
feel about that?  Nothing much, I'm afraid. 
Lordy, there is the curmudgeon in me, again.  I 
just can't work up the froth about new year's 
eve.  I mean it's not as if someone were making 
egg nog.  Waitaminute!  It's the lack of egg nog. 
I'm going out to the store today and buying egg 
nog.  Now I'm ready for new year's eve!



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Humpty Dumpty, 1979


	Warner Jepson was approached by two women 
from New York City who were writing the play and 
lyrics to what they hoped would be a big smash 
hit Broadway musical.  What was the story line? 
Well, it was based on Humpty Dumpty, and they 
were calling it, "Humpty D."  I kid you not. 
Warner was a marvellous composer and agreed to 
write the music.  They were all taking this very 
seriously.  The musical had all the blanks filled 
in: a love story between two serious contenders, 
a sub plot with the comic relief brought to you 
by another love struck couple.  It had tension 
and release, and scenes with big crowds of the 
chorus.  All this on an egg who sat on a wall.  I 
wish I could remember more details of the plot 
and characters, but this was in 1979, and I was 
doing cocaine and bulimia at the time, so I 
wasn't very good at details.

	Around about the time that Warner had 
finished writing most of the major tunes, the two 
women authors and Warner decided to take 
themselves to New York City to try to find 
backing for it.  I was invited to be the voice to 
sing to the prospective backers.  Warner would 
accompany me on the piano.  Naturally, I 
accepted.  I could take the rehearsal tapes of my 
group with me and see if I could gain entrance to 
the music business.  Yes, I had a group at the 
time, and they played the scores I was writing 
under Warner's tutelage:  stand up bass, 
percussion, bassoon, viola, oboe and myself on 
guitar and voice, sometimes cello when the music 
called for it.  I had no idea how I was going to 
pursue anyone in the music business but that's 
what I told the group before we left.  Warner 
took me aside before we embarked on this journey 
and he told me that we would be staying together 
in a borrowed apartment at Westbeth, near the 
village.  He said living in the same quarters 
could pose a problem, because it brings out 
things in people.  Close proximity could affect a 
relationship.  I was all for forging ahead.  My 
idea was that there was no closeness that 
couldn't be closer and benefit by it.  Being with 
Warner day and night sounded fine to me.  I was, 
as usual naive, living off somewhere in a land of 
illusion and some delusion.  I took no heed.

	I cannot remember the names of the women 
involved in the project, but I remember their 
partnership.  They were a very close and loving 
lesbian couple who had been together for quite a 
while, years and years, and the fact that they 
could share their professional life in addition 
to being a dedicated monogamous couple was 
impressive to me.  I don't know what I thought 
would happen to Warner Jepson and me.  I didn't 
think we were going to get married, but maybe I 
thought we'd be together forever and ever 
somehow, in some form.  This forever and ever 
theme was important for me, and came along with 
every love affair I ever had.  I needed to be 
convinced that this was an eternal love.  This 
does not imply that I was rational about it.  In 
fact, it implies the very opposite.  I expended a 
good deal of energy convincing myself that some 
pretty unlikely unions were big and important, 
and that the man was a genius of some sort.  I 
demanded that the man be a genius.  Now how 
rational is that?

	With Warner, part of the silliness in 
viewing us as anything permanent was the fact 
that Warner was predominantly gay.  It is true 
that he had been married and had two children, 
but  his yen was for the young men.  He dreampt 
of felatio, and every once in a while, he said he 
just had to go cruising bars for a man, even if 
that man would only be present in his life for 
however long it took to climax.  It doesn't take 
too long, has been my impression.  He was 
fundamentally promiscuous, and another thing I 
demanded in my relationships was monogamy.  But 
the homosexual exploits and ramblings somehow 
didn't count.  They came under a whole other 
category, that of hobbies, perhaps, or business 
trips.  I still don't know how I rationalized 
that one.  This was in the days before AIDS, 
thank God, or who knows what I could have 
contracted.  As it was, I contracted nothing, not 
even a decent lover.  Warner was pre-occupied. 
And here I was, still trying to rekindle the 
emotional and sexual impact of the first time he 
introduced me to cocaine.  "I hope you're feeling 
something, 'cause I sure am."

	When we came to New York together, I 
brought my stash of cocaine disguised neatly 
inside an empty toothpaste tube in my carry on. 
Not that I was afraid of getting caught.  I 
wasn't.  For some reason, the cocaine never 
filled me with the same paranoia that was 
emblematic of marijuana.  I felt perfectly in 
control.  No one would be able to tell I was 
under the influence.

	The women lived in Westbound, too, which 
was the old Bell Laboratories.  The huge building 
had been converted into live/work artists 
loftiness.  There was an empty apartment, vacated 
by a couple who had gone on an extended trip to 
Europe, and this would be our home for a few 
weeks, while Warner and the women worked on Humps 
D., and I learned the music for auditions.  It 
did seem that everyone living in Westbound was 
gay.  In the hallways were couples of men and 
couples of women, arm in arm, necking or just 
carrying on.  "Honey, I'm home." Warner and I 
stuck out like a sore thumb.  I imagined as we 
stood waiting for the elevator that everyone else 
waiting was eyeing us with great interest saying 
to themselves, "I wonder how they do it?"

	Mostly, during the day, I was left alone 
to my own devices while they laboured to put 
Humps D. Together.  And what I did with my time 
was amazing.  I was in New York City, one of the 
cultural and creative centers in the world. 
There were enough museums to have occupied my 
time every day without repeating a museum.  And 
certainly there was enough just to gawk at.  But 
I chose instead to stay within the confines of 
the loft, and my routine was ambitious.  In the 
morning, I would go off in search of food either 
in a restaurant or to cook and eat and throw up. 
In the afternoon, I would do cocaine.  By the 
time I was well on my way to a third dose of 
Coke, a dose lasting two hours, Warner and the 
women were done with their work and he could come 
back to find me busily creating something: a 
little artwork, a little writing, playing the 
guitar, futons about the loft looking less than 
important, but more than unoccupied.

	Warner was nervous during the trip, and 
crotchety, although there was relief from his 
moods if the work was going well.  He was showing 
me just exactly how badly prolonged proximity can 
damage a relationship.  He was short with me.  I 
was getting on his nerves.  And why shouldn't I 
have been?  It didn't appear that I was getting 
out and about, or rehearsing the music in 
earnest.  I was just creating brownian motion, 
rattling here and there and following him around. 
Of course, I didn't see it that way.  I felt 
fully engaged.  My hours were cram packed with my 
chosen addictions.  There wasn't a moment to 
spare.  If I hadn't shopped for food to cook, at 
about eleven o'clock I'd walk outside and venture 
into the village to eat lunch.  I'd order a huge 
salad and soup in one place, consume it and vomit 
it up, then find another restaurant, not too 
close by, and do pretty much the same thing.  I 
paid in travellers' cheques, or by credit card. 
Sometimes I could fit in three lunches before I 
had to be back to the loft to stoke up on cocaine 
and meet Warner after his day of efforts. 
Sometimes when I was guaranteed that Warner would 
be gone until a certain time, I would walk up the 
street to a strange wholesale food outlet I'd 
found, and I'd buy a few steaks, lots of noodles 
or potatoes, huge amounts of butter.  I'd hurry 
back to the loft and cook it all, have it all 
spread out before me on the kitchen island and 
I'd slam it all down until I couldn't hold any 
more.  Then I'd rush off to the toilet and throw 
it up.  Then I'd come back for more.  I had to be 
a good judge of quantity at the time of purchase, 
because I had to consume all the evidence before 
Warner came back to the loft in the late 
afternoon.  Looking back, I don't know how I 
mustered the confidence in my privacy to go 
through my bulimic rituals.  What if Warner had 
come back while I was gorging and purging?  What 
if he had come back with both the women, and just 
opened the door into the scene I had organized? 
But that never happened.  As far as the cocaine 
was concerned, I didn't care if he walked in on 
me.  Cocaine was normal.  After all, he'd 
introduced me to it; how could he judge?

	Warner and the ladies made appointments 
with possible backers, and on occasion we four 
would sally forth to do an official presentation. 
Most of the music was easy enough for me to 
handle, but there was one song that was scored 
too high for my range.  I told Warner, but he 
didn't listen.  It was in the key it was in, and 
there was nothing he was going to do to change 
it.  On one trip, I simply couldn't manage the 
notes.  And since they were so far out of my 
range, I couldn't reach the high ones.  What I 
wound up doing was wrecking the music, faltering 
on those notes I couldn't get to, then recovering 
when the melody dipped back down into a 
manageable range.  When we got back to Westbeth, 
Warner had me come over to him so he could, "show 
me something".  He played back a recording he'd 
made of what I'd butchered at the presentation 
and stood over me sternly, said, "I just thought 
you should hear this."  He frowned and shook his 
big head.  I was humiliated on top of my 
humiliation.  I begged him to stop the tape.  I 
knew how I'd sounded.  The song was too high for 
me.  I'd told him that.  Have mercy.  But he 
didn't.  He insisted on playing the entire tape.

	This was a man who was soft spoken and 
gentle, but other aspects of his character were 
becoming apparent, as I am sure aspects of my 
character were emerging.  All in all, it was not 
a happy time.  Sex had disappeared from our 
repertoire.  When we got into bed at night, 
Warner did everything to avoid me but sleep 
standing up in the corner.  He was way over on 
his side of the bed, and I was smack in the 
middle hoping for compromise.  It wasn't sex I 
needed.  I needed the warmth of a companion, 
someone to wade through this life with,  someone 
dedicated to uncovering the story line, 
celebrating the splendor of the world and 
mourning the ugliness, someone to meet me in the 
middle of the bed if not for an all night 
embrace, just to breathe together.  I had no one 
to breathe with, and with each day, Warner and I 
grew further and further apart.  There was less 
joking around, less talk, less eye contact, less 
to celebrate, more to grieve for.

	The time came for us to go back to 
California.  The work and presentations were 
wrapped up.  There was no angel so far who was 
going to sponsor the project.  Humpty D. would 
just have to find someone else to put him 
together, or he'd have to pull himself together. 
This didn't improve Warner's mood.  We had a 
reservation to return home together, but I came 
down with one hell of a cold, or a flu.  I was so 
clogged up that the doctor advised I not fly.  I 
would have to stay on after Warner left.  He 
left.  I remained, buried in fever and 
congestion, coughing, doing cocaine.  How do you 
do cocaine when you are all stuffed up?  How do 
you get the stuff into your nose?  Well, I was 
ingenious.  I got some rubber tubing, shoveled 
the powder into it and inserted it into a 
nostril.  Then, I put the other end in my mouth 
and blew hard, projecting the dust into my 
clogged nose.

	When I'd started to see the end of my 
illness around the corner, I made a reservation 
to leave.  I started packing.  While I was 
dragging myself around the loft, folding this and 
stuffing that, the women came to visit.  They sat 
down opposite me with two serious expressions on 
their faces.

	"You're not fooling anyone, you know," they began.  "Look at yourself."

	"What is there to look at," I answered. 
"I'm miserable.  I'm sick.  Can this wait?"

	It couldn't wait.  They lectured me on 
how I was destroying myself, slowly and 
efficiently.  They didn't call anything by name, 
but the impact was brutal all the same.  When 
they left, they wished me well, but had damned me 
badly.  They only wanted to help.  But I saw them 
as two enemies, out to put a dent in my denial. 
I didn't call it denial.  I guess I saw it as 
survival.  What I was doing was trying to survive 
a lunatic childhood and a catastrophic adulthood. 
I was a desperate character, and they thought 
that I could just remove the desperate acts 
without putting anything but clean living in 
their place.  I couldn't.  I just couldn't.

	When I arrived in San Francisco, Warner 
met me at the airport.  He was silent.  I was 
silent.  He loaded my bags into the trunk and 
drove me home to my parents' house.  Then he took 
my luggage out of the trunk and deposited it on 
the sidewalk.  He got back in the car wordlessly, 
and drove off.

	That was the end of my composition 
lessons.  What remained of Warner was a cocaine 
habit, and shame.  Lots of shame.  Glorious 
amounts of shame.


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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net