TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 52

[Tobie Shapiro]

November 7, 20000000006


Dear You Voters,

	Yesterday, my mother and I went over our 
ballots.  The California ballot is huge this 
year.  Propositions up the hoo ha.  We pored over 
them.  I say, "pored", because I got it wrong 
last time I pored over something.  I, "poured". 
That was incorrect.  Now it's correct, "pored". 
So my mother and I pored over our ballots and 
read all the initiatives and the statements from 
candidates, read the arguments for and rebuttals 
against "for", then read the arguments against 
and the rebuttals against "against".  We marked 
our sample ballots and, exhausted, geared up to 
do it all over again with my twins after dinner. 
And so we did.  To my kids' credit, they want to 
go over the measures and read the arguments, 
study the endorsers, not just listen to what my 
mother and I say is what we're doing and then 
parrot us.  So we were up late, discussing what 
to do about sneaky initiatives that say they are 
doing one thing, when in actuality, they are 
doing the opposite.  And we say, "There has to be 
a better way!"

	This morning, after Meyshe's taxi whisks 
him away to school, Feyna and I will trudge over 
to the voting place and cast our votes.  Later, 
when Meyshe returns from school, I'll take him to 
the voting booth and help him cast his ballot. 
He is very careful about voting.  He is quite 
concerned about each issue, and knows that he is 
easily taken in by propaganda.  So we help him 
sort it all out.  By tomorrow, we'll be reading 
about the results and there may be big changes in 
my country.  I hope so.  I want personally to 
apologize for the president of my country. (He's 
not going to apologize, so somebody has to.)  I'm 
sorry for the things he does and says, and I wish 
I could correct his pronunciation and grammar, 
maybe smart him up a bit, but that's impossible.

	Generally, I avoid watching the endless 
election returns on the television.  It all winds 
up the way it's going to, and there's no use 
getting the bile up, making myself nervous.  I 
know that many of the things I vote for will not 
win, and many of the candidates I vote for will 
lose.  That's the way it always is when you're 
out at the end of the bell curve.  But the 
important thing is to vote.  And that's what 
we'll do.


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1968 Hopkins Street

	When we moved back west from Maryland, we 
stayed with my grandparents at first.  This was 
maybe for a month, while my parents looked for 
temporary housing that we could inhabit while 
looking for a house to buy.  The house my parents 
found was at 1968 Hopkins Street in Berkeley.  We 
lived there for six months.  My sister and I 
would be going to Oxford Elementary School, just 
up the pathway across the street.  I was in the 
fourth grade, and my teacher was Mr. Whitenack. 
Mr. Whitenack was of very kindly disposition, and 
was gentle with us when he drilled the 
multiplication tables into our wee heads.  I 
liked the sevens.  "Seven times seven is 49", in 
particular.  Mr. Whitenack had deep scars all 
over his face from acne when he was young.  My 
mother took great pity for him, because she 
suffered from acne, too.  She says it altered her 
whole life.  She still thinks that's all people 
see when they look at her, acne scars, but of 
course it's not true in the slightest.  Back in 
her childhood, they treated acne with radiation, 
and she got a lot of radiation which didn't help 
the acne, but she does get little skin cancers on 
her face.  We should watch out what we let 
doctors do to us.  I shudder to think what will 
wind up being thought of as barbaric and harmful 
that we do now, routinely, to treat some 
conditions.

	The house at 1968 Hopkins had a small 
living room and three small bedrooms.  I must 
have shared a room with my sister, though I don't 
remember the precise configuration.  I was broken 
up about moving to the west coast.  I missed my 
friends in Maryland, my whole way of life, 
everything I got used to and expected.  Now, 
everything was new and I couldn't expect 
anything.  I announced one evening at five 
o'clock that I was going to walk back to 
Maryland, and I stepped out the back door and 
onto the sidewalk.  I imagine this must have 
given my mother a small laugh, because she packed 
me a sandwich and wished me well on my long 
journey.  Even I knew it was stupid, but it was 
the gesture that was important.  And I'd made the 
gesture.  I just had to figure out a re-entry 
strategy.  I walked half way up the street and 
found a stray cat who was very friendly. 
Extremely friendly to my sandwich, which I opened 
up and shared.  There was an affection that 
passed back and forth between the cat and me. 
She rubbed up against my knees, as I sat cross 
legged on the sidewalk with the open sandwich 
from which I removed little chunks and fed it to 
her.  Then when she was full, she lay down next 
to me and relaxed, stretching and cleaning 
herself.  The sun began to set.  So it was 
obvious that I wasn't going to get to Maryland 
before dark.  I turned around and went home.  My 
mother didn't say a word, not to ask me a single 
question.  I was grateful.

	The house on Hopkins had heating vents 
that sat in the floor and through which the 
central heating pumped.  They got very hot.  We 
knew not to go near them.  Once, Daniel left a 
plastic horse on one of the vents and it melted 
on one side, so that it looked like a demented 
convex waffle.  That was a warning.  But Daniel 
also stood on the vent in his bare little feet, 
and that burned the soles of his feet into a 
cross hatch pattern.  He had to go to the doctor. 
Nowadays, someone would be getting sued.  But 
then, we just gave him aspirin and salve and 
bundled up his feet, watched him more carefully, 
felt bad about it.

	My father's mother, Lena, had given Dana 
and me a gift of special bath towels.  What she 
did was to take a beach towel, fold it in half 
and on the crease make an incision where our 
heads could come through.  Then she sewed a hem 
around the hole.  We'd wear these towels after a 
bath.  They flopped around like ponchos.  My 
sister and I took baths together.  Bubble baths. 
She was braver than I was.  She'd apply the 
clouds of foamy bubbles to her face to make it 
look like she had a snowy white beard and 
moustache.  I didn't want the bubbles near my 
eyes, but I would smear the clouds over my arms 
and on top of my head.  When we got out of the 
tub, we put on Grama Lena's beach towel bathrobes 
and went running around the house until we were 
dry.  Then we'd change into our pajamas and go to 
bed.  One night, I was sitting on my bed in my 
beach towel bathrobe when my father came in and 
told me I had to practice the cello.  This was 
all right with me.  I wanted to change into my 
pajamas first, though.

	"No," he ordered, "You have to practice now."

	This was unreal.  I was never asked to 
practice, mostly because I would do it of my own 
accord.  But here he was commanding me to do 
something that I was perfectly willing to do.  I 
told him I wanted to get into my pajamas first, 
and then I'd be glad to practice.

	"No," he barked, angry at me, enraged, 
over something I was willing to do.  There was no 
problem here, and it confused me that he was so 
furious when I wasn't disobeying.  I thought of 
how exposed I was in the beach towel bathrobe.  I 
was naked underneath, and I did have an inkling 
of what modesty was.

	"Please let me put on my pajamas.  Then I'll practice."

	"You'll practice now!" he hollered, and 
then grabbed me by the shoulder and yanked me off 
of my bed.  He squeezed my shoulder and pulled me 
into the living room.  I resisted, shrinking from 
him and begging to be allowed to put some clothes 
on.  He had that weird expression on his face, 
the one he got when he was exacting a cruelty. 
He would grind his teeth and you could discern a 
grim smile.  His eyes glassed over.  His face 
turned red.  The veins in his neck stood out in 
all their blue glory.  He was enjoying this.  He 
threw me onto a chair, my beach towel flying in 
all directions, and he thrust my cello into my 
hands.

	"Practice!" he snarled, smiling.

	I didn't want to put the cello between my 
legs, because it left me exposed.  And I was 
stunned by his illogical aggression.

	"Practice now!" he growled at me.  "I'm 
going to sit here and watch you practice, and I 
won't leave until you're done!"

	I cried, and my tears fell onto the 
fingerboard.  I tried to put both my legs under 
the chair so I could hold the cello against my 
belly and the beach towel would drape itself over 
my groin.  But he objected to this immediately.

	"Hold the cello as it's supposed to be 
held!"  he screamed, and he handed me the neck of 
the cello to hold while he pulled my legs apart 
and replaced the cello between them.

	"Now practice!"

	I had no music in front of me, and I was 
crying so hard I could barely make it through a C 
major scale.  He sat in front of me but off to 
the side somewhat so that my nakedness was fully 
exposed to him.

	"Practice!" he yelled, a grimace of a smile on his face.

	I knew what he was staring at, and I 
tried to put my legs together, but every time I 
did, he threatened to come over and pull my legs 
apart himself.  I played through a two octave C 
major scale, and progressed to a G major scale. 
Then a D major scale.  All the while, tears were 
coursing down my cheeks and the humiliation of it 
all tore me to shreds.  When I got to change into 
my bedclothes and seek refuge underneath the 
covers, I was shaking all over.  I could feel my 
father's eyes penetrating my privacy.  I squirmed 
in bed, the way you shudder when you remember 
cutting yourself with a cleaver, that sudden 
electric ribbon of fear that steals your breath 
away.

	I told this story to Yvonne one time when 
I was recounting instances of sexual abuse.  She 
asked me, "Where was your mother while this was 
going on?"  And I couldn't answer her.  It was a 
small house.  She must have heard the wailing and 
hollering.  I answered Yvonne with the question 
she'd asked me:  "Where was my mother?"

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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net