TheBanyanTree: End of the sewage explosion

[Tobie Shapiro]

Sunday, April 30, 2000000006




Dear Confidants,

	This morning they came to reclaim the heat blowers and air 
scrubbers.  It seems so quiet now in the basement!  Feyna is off at 
her Basic Riders' Course learning how to be a responsible motor 
scooter driver, and Meyshe has just finished with his chess lesson. 
His teacher is a writer as well as a chess teacher.   He handed me a 
binder of short stories about two months ago, and I have yet to 
finish it.  This is unlike me.  I am so prompt, especially when it 
comes to reading someone else's writing.

	His stories have recurring issues in them.  And sometimes 
they seem like variations on a theme, overlapping in time and 
sequence, the characters all involved with the characters from 
another story.  It gives an arresting effect.  He does this on 
purpose.  It reminds me of the visual artists I've known who work on 
a series of art works.  They attach themselves to a theme, a 
question, a wondering, a shape, a material or a set of colours, and 
they explore that technique for years.  Then suddenly they move on, 
and are into a new series considering a new theme, question, 
wondering, shape, material, set of colours.  In this way, Ben's 
stories are inventive and alluring.  Who could ask for more?  Yet, I 
find myself going through with a red pencil in my mind, marking 
grammatical errors, misspellings (me of all people correcting 
anyone's spelling!) and syntax.  I got good and annoyed at myself for 
that, and put the binder down about a month ago, promised not to pick 
it up until I had something wondrous to say about his stories.  And 
then, little pieces of shit hit tiny wee fans, and there were 
distractions and distractions from the distractions, and I'm reading 
books while his short stories sit there by my bed, waiting.

	Waiting.  Earlier today I got a call from my distant cousin. 
How distant?  If I have this memorized correctly, and I'm not sure I 
do, her father's father's wife (or mother?) was one of my father's 
father's sisters.  There were six sisters, and they had names to 
remember.

Achsa
Frahdl
Mirchick
Bobka
Sadie
Annie

	The last two were the youngest, and took on their new 
American names.   But the rest are out of birth order.   I think 
Bobka was the connection between me and my cousin, Laurie Feder.  A 
very long time ago, we are talking about a span of years that 
surprises us being able to fold them into our adult lives, when I was 
first married to number one husband, the sweet engineer, Laurie was 
in high school in New Jersey and having a terrible time: terrible 
with the school, terrible with the location (New Jersey), terrible 
with her parents (they didn't care), terrible with that period in her 
life, the one in which we are all supposed to blossom into 
independent adults.  I laugh a bit, because I know from my perch here 
how very long it takes to be anywhere near grown up.

	Laurie wanted to go to Berkeley High School.  She'd heard 
about it.  It used to be famous, not just for being in Berkeley 
either.  It was a good school.  Laurie's parents knew these relatives 
in Berkeley.  Maybe they'd agree to take her in.  They did.  I 
remember that my brother and I discussed the situation, and agreed 
that one of us had to call Laurie to warn her about my father, and 
the general craziness that would await her.  But the warnings fell on 
deaf ears.  She arrived as a senior in high school.  Then she went 
about trying all sorts of subjects on for size.  She didn't care if 
she got straight A's, like we had.  She just wanted to figure out 
what she was going to do with her life.  So she'd drop out of classes 
she hated, and take up another class to see if it suited her.  This 
was anathema to my parents' way of existing in the academic world. 
They called Laurie's parents to report on the sorry state of affairs, 
and to my mother's dismay, the parents weren't surprised, nor did 
they particularly give a shit.  My mother had taken in a relative, 
taken in a teenager and treated her as if she were her own child, and 
had never expected that there would be a cultural impasse.

	While Laurie was living with my parents, I got very close to 
her.  We were in some ways made of the same silk, though I was not as 
much a renegade.  I was studious and conscientious and never cut a 
class.  Got my good grades.  (For what? I ask.)  Well, after 
graduation, Laurie went back to New Jersey and wound up going to 
Chiropractic school.  That is what she does for her life.  She lives 
outside Boston, and practices her craft.  She does quite well.

	I think I haven't heard from Laurie in nearly eighteen years. 
My twins were little toddlers when she last came through here.  So 
much has happened, I found myself in our conversation skipping the 
sprained ankle and sewage explosion and going straight for the big 
stuff:  how life takes us by the throat and gives us a warm loving 
embrace, or violently shakes us clear of our bodies, and we never 
know which it might be.  We just keep existing, drinking it all in, 
whatever it is, however it tastes.  We talked for a good 40 minutes, 
and then we both ran out of steam and had to go do something else. 
Enough of the haunting and dancing memories, the catching up, the 
condolences and congratulations, the recognition of an old friend.

	Love,

	Tobie
-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net